Yasmine Galenorn - Chintz 'n China 02

by Legend of the Jade Dragon

  He relaxed a little and gave me a faint smile. “I guess you’re right. Maybe I’m just worried because of everything that’s happened to you over the past few days. Too many upsets in a short period of time.”

  I patted him on the arm. “Murray’s on top of the investigation. The insurance check is coming next week, and I’ll be able to replace the stock at my store. Safety-Tech installed the security system there. And as far as my window, well, the cops know who did it and are after him right now. Murray won’t let anybody hurt me. Now how about I followed Joe into the living room as he headed back outside. A flicker of light from the 6tagere caught my eye. The dragon had changed positions. It had been facing the kitchen wall. Now it faced the front of the house, looking straight at the broken window, and I could swear the eyes were glowing.

  What the hell? Not again. Maybe I hadn’t been imagining things at the shop when I first thought the statue was staring at me. I checked the door handle. Yep, the door was locked. Fumbling with the key, I reached in to flip the dragon back around. As I did, my bracelet caught on the crystal unicorn that the kids had bought me for my birthday two years ago and, startled, I jerked. Tangled in the gold chain, the figurine tipped over, and the horn broke. Swearing, I cautiously removed the unicorn and the broken horn, hoping I could fix it before the kids found out.

  Seven

  I MANAGED TO glue the unicorn back together before the kids got home from school. After I replaced the horned horse in the etagere, I reached for the dragon. Could I have been mistaken? Had it really moved, or was my memory off? The more I thought about it, the more uncertain I was. But no, I knew that I’d placed it in there facing the door to the kitchen. Of course, with everything that had happened the past week, I wouldn’t be surprised to find my concentration skewed. I hesitated, staring at the figurine. There was a strange aura around this piece, though I couldn’t pinpoint why it unsettled me. And the eyes really had been glowing.

  If the dragon had moved, what could have caused it? Poltergeists were volatile spirits that tossed objects around and moved furniture, but I didn’t think that was what I was dealing with. And a spirit directly attached to the dragon would manifest in other ways. I carried it into the kitchen, away from the noise of Joe’s handwork, and tried to tune in to the energy again.

  At first, all I got was static, not even the rainbow swirl of colors and energies. Great. We’re sorry, but your astral radar appears to be experiencing technical difficulties. I inhaled deeply and slowly let out my breath, once again lowering myself into the depths of trance. The static washed over me and set my nerves tingling with pinpricks of fire. I was about to give up when I caught the faintest glimpse of an image and abruptly found myself thrust into the middle of an astral adventure movie.

  A rider was spurring his mount forward. Long strands of blond hair whipped out from beneath a tufted fur hat, and he wore what looked like an aging leather robe and trousers. He raced out of a wide, snow-covered grassland, across the steppes, urging his horse ever faster toward a path that led up into a range of mountains. Behind him, clouds swirled around the mountain peaks; a storm was brewing.

  The image shifted, ever so slightly, and the rider was walking now, leading his horse behind him as he forged a path through the knee-deep snow that covered the ground and turned the trees into a picture-postcard Christmas forest. As the visions marched on in silence, snowflakes, as large as my thumbnail, began to fall, heavy and thick. Stopping in front of the entrance to a large cave, the rider led his horse inside, and I followed, as if in a dream, watching as the man hauled a pack off the back of the animal and shook out two heavy blankets. He gathered together a few branches from the floor of the cavern and tried to light a fire, but the spark wouldn’t take. Finally, looking exhausted, he huddled under the blankets.

  As he sat there in the fading daylight that filtered in from the storm, he took out something and began to play

  with it. The dragon. The jade dragon, as beautiful as it was when sitting in my hand. The man tucked it back into a pouch on his belt and once again drew the blankets close around him, leaning against the wall of the cave. As he closed his eyes, the image faded from my sight.

  I shook myself out of the trance, still feeling the pull of the dreamy half-conscious state that always came with working on the astral realms. Jeez, I hadn’t expected a full-scale journey! Though I meditated a lot and had the occasional premonition or psychometric flash, I wasn’t used to being dropped right into the middle of the action. What could the vision be telling me? How had the man come to possess the statue? Had he ever escaped from the cave, or did his bones rest there still, high on some mountain, forgotten by time?

  “You have so many secrets locked away inside, don’t you?” I asked the statue. “What’s your history? How did you get here, from so long ago and such a faraway land?” The dragon remained silent, noncommittal, and with a last look into its milky jade eyes, I replaced it in the cabinet and got out my steno book and-jotted down both the position I left it in, along with the vision I’d seen. Next time, I would know for certain if it had moved. If there was a next time.

  BY THE TIME Oliver and Joe finished up the last touches on the window, the kids were hauling camping gear out of the shed by the armload. They’d discovered an extra sleeping bag and a number of accoutrements that I didn’t even know we owned. Though we didn’t belong to the Winnebago set, it looked like we’d be roughing it in style.

  Roy, on the other hand, had bought an RV for his new wife, but he never asked to take his children along on his camping trips. Come to think of it, I doubted if that RV saw much use at all. His ditz, Tyra, defined “roughing it” to mean staying anywhere except in five-star hotels.

  By the time I strolled out front to see what the guys were up to, the window was installed and looked great. All I had to do was give it a good polish. Joe glanced at his watch; he went on duty in an hour and had to get to the firehouse. Oliver had planned to spend the evening exploring Chiqetaw, so I promised to repay them with dinner another night.

  As I dug through the cupboards for the Windex and paper towels, it occurred to me that Jimbo had to have been pretty far up in the yard in order to toss the brick over the porch wall. No way could anybody lob a rock from the sidewalk over the fence, across the front yard, into our window. There were simply too many tree branches and hedges and banisters and balusters in the way. No, he had to come in close to get a good shot.

  I shivered. The last thing I needed was some psycho near my kids. I finished cleaning the window as the kids came in, covered in dust balls and cobwebs.

  “The garage is a mess.” Kip had developed a habit for overstating the obvious.

  Miranda shuddered. “There were spiders in there. A lot of them. Can we call an exterminator?”

  “The poison’s bad for the environment and for us,” I said automatically, regardless of the fact that I was thinking the same thing the minute I saw the cobwebs. Miranda and I shared a phobia of spiders, and I hoped that this weekend out of doors wouldn’t bring too many crises of the eight-legged variety.

  Kip let out a snort of disgust. “They’re only spiders. I’ll clean out the garage if you pay me, Morn.”

  Pay him? I should pay him for what I could assign as a chore? He was getting more materialistic every day. Nine years old and a budding Bill Gates, or—hopefully only in Bizarro World—D. B. Cooper. “A buck an hour, and you be careful.”

  Shortly before dinnertime, with no desire to cook, I called ahead and made reservations at the Forest’s End Diner. We’d been eating out a lot lately, but I wasn’t going to kid myself. I’d never make it into the Apple Pie Queen of the Year set. I pinned my hair up and headed for the shower, advising the kids to do the same. “No going to dinner looking like dust moppets.”

  Soaking wet, I dashed into my bedroom where I finished toweling dry and then sat down for the one truly feminine ritual I never skipped.

  I powdered under my breasts, behind my knees, and in the
crook of my elbows with Opium dusting powder, enjoying the silky touch of the puff as I examined my body with a critical eye. My skin was smooth and even, not bad for thirty-six going on thirty-seven. Even my face only showed a few laugh lines. I was a little plump, but I’d grown to love my curves and no longer minded the fact that I didn’t have six-pack abs and that my butt was nicely padded, except for when I hung out with Harlow too long. But Harl could even make Cindy Crawford feel self-conscious.

  I layered my arms and legs with matching body lotion and then spritzed myself with a quick spray of eau de toilette. Smelling like a spice emporium from the Orient, I dug through my dresser and shimmied into my favorite purple satin bra and matching panties. Pretty but comfortable, I loved this bra, though I’d removed the padding. My boobs were big enough without any need for artificial help.

  I pulled a black floral sundress with a flouncy hem over my head, slipped on a pair of fuchsia espadrilles with ties that wound up my leg, and twirled in the mirror. Not bad, not bad at all. The silver glints that streaked my hair set off the black of my dress and, once again, I decided I could live without a dye job. Ceremoniously, I plunked a wide-brimmed straw hat on my head and went downstairs.

  The kids were waiting, and off to dinner we went. By the time we reached the restaurant, we were all starving. Kip ordered a deluxe burger and fries, Miranda asked for chicken parmesan, and I ordered a steak, New York cut, medium rare, good and thick. As we ate our appetizer of mozzarella sticks, I brought up the subject of summer break, which wasn’t that far off.

  “What do you want to do this summer?” Before Miranda could chime in, I added, “I know you’re going to Space Camp. I mean other than that.” As each of the kids finished first grade, I encouraged them to set summer goals, and it had become a tradition at the end of every school year. It gave them a sense of accomplishment and direction, and kept them from getting bored during the weeks away from school.

  “Have you made your lists yet?” I toyed with my salad, briefly thinking of my dwindling bank account. Hopefully, we wouldn’t have too many more unexpected expenses, or we’d soon be eating spaghetti every night until things evened out.

  Miranda wiped a string of cheese off her chin. “I’m going to write a paper about the orbits of the planets around the sun. I’ll read it to my astronomy club. Mom, have you thought about what I asked? I know I didn’t get the information to you about it yet, but the window broke, and I didn’t have time to get everything together yet.”

  “What’s she want now?” Kip’s mouth was full of salad; and he spewed little droplets of dressing all over the table. I reached over and tapped his chin, “Don’t talk with your mouth full, and it’s none of your business.” I turned back to Miranda as Kip took his napkin

  and began to wipe up his mess. “Get the info to me as soon as you can if you want me to think it over for this year.”

  The waitress brought our dinners then, and we dug in, my mind drifting back to the vision I’d seen while holding the dragon. Were the images the product of my imagination? Were they real? Had I tuned in on the death of a man that happened centuries ago as he took refuge from a storm, trapped in a cave by the swirling snows? And if he did die, alone and forgotten, then when did the dragon next surface, and how? So many questions, and no way of knowing the answers.

  A PERSISTENT RINGING in my ears woke me up at five in the morning. “Oh cripes, who the heck is that?” I squinted around, looking for the phone. Maybe one of these days I’d win the Lotto. Grand prize: an entire night’s sleep.

  It was Murray, sounding a little panicky. “Em, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?” I blinked, forcing my eyes open. Dawn had broken, and the sky was growing lighter in the east, pale rays of light beginning to flicker through the curtains in my bedroom.

  “Where were you last night around eight? I tried to call you. Jimbo didn’t show up again, did he?”

  I pushed myself up on one elbow, then shifted a pillow behind my back and leaned against the headboard. What could have chased Murray into such a panic? “The kids and I went out; we had dinner at the FED,” I said, using the town nickname for the Forest’s End Diner. “What’s going on?”

  “There was an incident last night. The manager of the Brown Bear Bar & Grill went home late…. He found his wife on the floor. She left choir practice early to go home and interrupted somebody ransacking the house. Whoever it was knocked her out, hit her over the head with a blunt instrument. She’s in the hospital now. Doesn’t remember a thing except some man was in there, but she couldn’t describe him because he was wearing a ski mask.”

  Hello, this was an eye-opener, all right. I downed the glass of water sitting on my nightstand. Suddenly cold, I pulled the blanket up around my shoulders. “Jimbo? You think Jimbo did it?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s our prime suspect at this point. He was in the restaurant last night, ranting at the manager about getting thrown out the other day. He left earlier than usual, drunk. The minute I heard, I called Greg and got the scoop. I’m heading in to work now.”

  “Do you really think Jimbo would attack a woman?”

  Murray fumbled with the phone, and I could hear a zipper being pulled up. She was still dressing. “Jimbo’s a big man, Em. He’s a loner, and his rap sheet’s filled to the brim with assault charges. Remember, he almost killed that transient who murdered his little brother. I’ve seen a couple of the men he’s beaten to a bloody pulp during bar brawls. They were big men, his size, and they were sporting broken noses and jaws and bruises up the wazoo.”

  Not good news. “Well, hell. How’s the manager taking it? He was really nice.”

  “As well as you could expect him to. He’s on a rampage, wants to go find Jimbo himself. Hold on, another call.” Nerve-racked and suddenly wishing I was still safely asleep, I waited until she came back on my line. “Okay, that was Greg again. Jimbo’s disappeared. Somebody’s probably hiding him; my guess is that he might be up in Klickavail Valley. Be careful, please.”

  “Thanks,” I stammered. “Things are getting out of hand. First there’s Daniel, then my shop, then the window, then this. And last night I had one hell of a vision while I was scoping out the dragon.”

  Murray didn’t answer for a moment, then she slowly said, “You’re right. Something’s up. I don’t know what it is, but we should get together and talk. Are you positive you still want to go on the camping trip?”

  I thought about it. Was it safe to take off, leave the house and go wandering out in the wilds? Maybe, maybe not. But I’d already promised the kids, and I really didn’t want to go back on my word. We were only going to be gone for the weekend, and the resort couldn’t be any more dangerous than our own home at this point.

  I really needed to get away, to destress, and for me, one of the best places to do so was the mountains. There was nothing like the solitude of the wilderness to calm me down and clear my head, and if Jimbo came back for a second breakin, better the kids and I were out of town. Maybe they’d catch him by the time we returned on Sunday.

  “Uh-huh,” I said with a sigh. “Yeah, the trip’s still on. I promised the kids, and I refuse to knuckle under to fear. Now that I think of it, though, I’m going to drop the cats off at a kennel for the weekend. I’d feel better if I knew for sure that they’re safe. Can you still go, or is this case going to keep you here?” I selfishly prayed she’d be able to join us. The thought of heading out into the woods without protection scared me. Murray always brought her gun along on road trips.

  She snorted. “You don’t think I’ll actually get assigned to Norma’s case, do you? No such luck. So yes, I can still go. I’ll meet you tomorrow night at your place, around four? If we head out by five at the latest, we’ll get to the resort in an hour or so. Have everything ready to go, and I’ll pile my stuff in the car tonight before bed.”

  I yawned and promised that I’d keep alert. What I wanted to do was to crawl back under the covers and hide,
but that wasn’t going to happen. I dragged myself out of bed and hit the shower, wincing as the needle like spray caught my face. Ever since the spirit I’d dubbed Mr. B & U had attacked me in my bathroom, I’d made a few changes. I now had a clear shower curtain so that I could see anybody or anything that decided to invade the room, and a rack on the wall next to the tub so that I need never be more than a hand’s grab away from a robe or towel.

  A blush of light hit the rose window and spread through the room, splashing the walls with tangerine, a sight that never failed to make me smile. I slathered a dollop of moisturizer on my face, debated on whether or not to bother with makeup, and finally compromised, dusting a thin layer of powder over my cheeks and nose, and swiping my lips with a sheen of bronze lipstick. On final examination, I stopped for a coat of mascara. Harl would be the ruin of me yet, the way she kept pushing me to nurture my inner sophisticate.

  I slipped into the sundress I’d worn the night before and raced down the stairs, checking to make certain that the living room window was still in one piece. When I went outside to get the paper, a light breeze ruffled my hair. Looked like it was going to be warm today. We might even reach sixty degrees.