Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery)

by Baron, Marilyn

  Juliette’s brows narrowed, and she looked like turning Miss Frost into a toad would have been a pleasure, if only she were capable.

  “The young lady’s status is that she and her fiancé are deeply in love and they don’t need a ring to prove their commitment to uptight shopkeepers such as yourself. So if we don’t meet your manufactured qualifications, we can take our business elsewhere, can we not, Katherine?”

  Katherine smothered a smile. This outing was proving more fun than she’d expected.

  Miss Frost choked and ignored the remark. “Let me show you our selection.” She led the way farther into the store, where she showed Katherine and Juliette dozens of dresses, each of which they summarily rejected. Miss Frost was growing more and more impatient.

  “These are very luxurious,” Katherine began, “wonderfully designed. But I had something else in mind.”

  Juliette located a diaphanous pink gown on the rack and exclaimed, “Oh, my. What about this one?”

  Miss Frost shuddered. “Oh, no. That won’t do at all. That would make you look like Tinkerbelle or Glinda, the Good Witch of the East.”

  “I love Glinda,” Katherine said.

  Katherine took another dress off the rack and held it up against her body. She twirled over to the mirror. “What about this one?”

  “The strapless Vera Wang taffeta gown with asymmetrically draped bodice, a scoop neckline, and a full ball-gown tulle skirt.” Miss Frost recited the description in a monotone as if she were reading it from an advertisement.

  “I love it,” Katherine stated. “What colors does this come in?”

  “Champagne/ivory and blush/ivory,” Miss Frost said.

  “I like the blush bodice with the ivory skirt, the one I’m holding. And I love this floral sash and the cathedral-length train.”

  “The floral sash is removable,” Miss Frost pointed out.

  “No, we’ll keep it. It’s exactly what I’m looking for. Juliette, what do you think?” Katherine twirled around one more time with the gown pressed against her body and turned to Juliette.

  “I think it’s magnificent. It looks like spun sugar. You’ll look like a princess in it, like you’re floating on a cloud.”

  “Jack will love this. He always says I remind him of a fairy. Juliette, I think we have the same taste.”

  “Isn’t it a little...flamboyant?” Miss Frost remarked coldly.

  “No, I think it’s just right. My mother would have hated it,” Katherine smothered a laugh and looked up. “Sorry, Mother.” To Miss Frost she said, “I’ll take this one into the dressing room and try it on. It’s my size, and I’m betting it will be a perfect fit. It was meant to be.”

  “Let me have my seamstress come into the fitting room. I think it’s a little tight in the—”

  “It’s all that fried chicken I’ve been eating lately,” Katherine explained.

  “I was referring to your, I mean, are you sure you want to wear strapless?”

  “Why not?”

  Miss Frost’s eyes focused on Katherine’s breasts like a laser. “Perhaps it would make you appear a bit... top heavy—”

  “Are you saying my boobs are too big? Well, I always thought so, too, but my fiancé really likes them the way they are, and he would want me to celebrate them.” Katherine snuck a private look at Juliette.

  Miss Frost turned pale and looked like she’d swallowed an egg.

  “Big breasts run in the family,” said Juliette, whose breasts were fairly obvious in her tight bargain-basement T-shirt.

  “Very well, then. Let’s see what you look like in it. If it suits you, I will have the gown cleaned and pressed and delivered to your house.”

  “Wonderful. Now my— Juliette needs a gown, as well. Something on the order of a mother-of-the-bride dress.”

  “Do you have anything in purple?” Juliette asked. “Purple is my color.”

  Miss Frost shuddered. “Purple is yesterday’s color,” she said. “We don’t have much call for it. Perhaps we may have one or two on the sale rack.” Miss Frost frowned on the last words.

  “I never buy anything unless it’s on sale,” said Juliette. “Lead the way.”

  Katherine laughed. “My mother never bought anything if it was on sale. She went to great lengths to pay full price.”

  “We have a Calvin Klein pleated taffeta in cerise,” offered Miss Frost.

  “I knew a psychic once named Madame Cherie,” Juliette said.

  “Or an Adrianna Papell in deep mulberry,” Miss Frost added, her eyes rolling.

  “Is that purple?” Juliette asked.

  “I think it would be best if I showed you. Smoke might be a nice color on you, or an elegant gray hue for a touch of glamour, or a Nicole Miller metallic, which would look great on a full-figured woman such as yourself.”

  “I don’t know who Nicole Miller is, but I think I’ve just been insulted.” Juliette laughed. “And I’ve never had such fun in my life.”

  “If we can’t find the perfect dress here, I’m sure Nordstrom’s Bridal Shoppe could accommodate us,” Katherine said.

  Miss Frost stiffened. “Ladies, I think we can work together.”

  “Wonderful,” said Katherine, taking Juliette’s hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Jack, this was a great idea you had, this little getaway to North Carolina,” Kate said, leaning back on the headrest in Jack’s car as she watched the world fly by.

  “I know how stressed you’ve been lately, honey, with your parents’ funeral, discovering your birth parents, planning the wedding, and all. I know I haven’t been much help. I thought a nice drive to the mountains would lift your spirits.”

  “And you were right. I feel like I don’t have a care in the world. No voices in my head, no premonitions. It’s great.”

  “We’re almost there. You’re going to love the little place I’ve booked. We’ll be all alone, no Mama, no Juliette. Those two are driving me crazy, and I’m sure they’re doing the same to you.”

  “Well, just a little, but I kind of like it. And the wedding’s almost here.”

  Jack reached over and touched Katherine’s face. “I can’t wait, which is why I’ve booked this little romantic getaway, because I can’t wait.”

  Katherine blushed. Since she and Jack had made love in Casa Spirito, she couldn’t get enough of him. They couldn’t get enough of each other. Each day was a revelation, each night a wonder. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have Jack in her life.

  “I’m so lucky I found you,” Jack said, as if reading her thoughts. Strange how they were bonding, connecting, getting closer every minute.

  “I love you, Jack,” Katherine mused dreamily, eyes half-closed. “Love you, love you, love you. I must have love on the brain. I keep seeing love everywhere.”

  Katherine squinted up through the moon roof. The tops of the trees flitted by, closer than the blue sky and puffy clouds, and she relaxed, possibly for the first time since Jack had proposed.

  Suddenly, the sky darkened and the canopy of trees felt like they were closing in on her. Her thoughts darkened with them.

  “Jack, stop the car,” Katherine cried out. “Stop the car right now.”

  “Honey, we’re on a small country road in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing out here but woods.”

  “Stop it. I have to get out.” Katherine was becoming more agitated by the second.

  “Okay, okay, let me pull over. Are you feeling all right? What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Katherine jerked open the car door and stumbled out. Jack followed. She had walked only a few feet when she found herself in a small overgrown family cemetery, just a fenced-in area with some old family plots, not a house or a living creature in sight except for two giant ravens perched on a gravestone.

  “I think those are the same birds we saw in Casa Spirito, Kate.”

  Katherine frowned. “Don’t you see? It’s a sign. I’m cursed.”

 
And what she saw inscribed on the crumbling gravestones shook her to her core.

  “What the hell?” Jack stared at a cemetery no one had tended in decades.

  “Jack, do you see?” she shrieked. “Do you see this? This is what I was visualizing in my mind. Every stone engraved with the word LOVE. This is the Love family plot. Love, Love, Love. This is what I was thinking in the car. My god, will I ever get away from it? I can’t stop the voices. I think I am going insane!”

  “Kate, this is freaky,” he admitted. “You are one scary woman.”

  She massaged her forehead. “See what you’re going to have to live with? This is what your life is going to be like. You’re about to marry a woman with serious issues.”

  “And I can’t wait.” Jack enveloped her in his arms. “Whatever you’re going through, whatever happens, I am going to be with you, loving you. Celebrating our love.”

  “You are going to grow tired of me. You’re going to regret marrying me. You may not think so now, but give it time. It’s just like Justin Bamberger. He—”

  “Please don’t compare me with that snobby blueblood bastard Justin Bamberger. His loss was my gain. I will never grow tired of you, Katherine Crystal. And I love you just the way you are.”

  Then he kissed her, right there in the middle of the cemetery.

  “I love this woman,” Jack shouted. “Anybody listening? I love you, Katherine Crystal.”

  Katherine returned Jack’s kisses and nestled against his warmth.

  “Who says this is a bad thing?” Jack asked quietly.

  “They, the voices, wanted me to stop. For some reason, they wanted me to stop. What does it mean?”

  “Baby, everything doesn’t have to mean something. You felt a presence, you felt the name Love, and we stopped, and this is what we found. Nothing sinister going on here. Why don’t we take it as a good sign? That the world approves of our love.”

  “Jack, you don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “I sure as hell do. I believe in us. Now, let’s pay our respects to this lovely family, pick some of these lovely wildflowers to put on their graves, and be on our way. I don’t think I can wait to be with you one moment longer. And I don’t think you want to make love in this graveyard, do you? Although that would make a nice memory.”

  “Jack, you’re crazy.”

  “Crazy in love with you, Kate. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll move up the timetable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was going to be a surprise, but I think the occasion calls for a little change in plans. Never let it be said that Jack Hale cannot be flexible.”

  Katherine smiled.

  He turned to Kate, took her hand and bent down on one knee.

  “I never did this properly before. Katherine Crystal, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  Katherine flushed.

  “Yes, oh, yes, Jack.”

  “Now close your eyes.”

  Katherine complied.

  Jack massaged her ring finger and brought it to his lips. He kissed her finger and slid a ring on it. Katherine’s heart skipped a beat.

  “You can open your eyes now.”

  Katherine’s eyes fluttered open, and on her ring finger sat the most beautiful emerald-cut diamond, in an exquisite platinum setting.

  “Oh, my, Jack. It’s absolutely beautiful! You didn’t have to. This must have cost a fortune. I don’t want you to spend that kind of money on me.”

  “Kate, a special woman deserves a special ring. I hoped you’d like it.”

  “Like it? I love it.” The sun broke through the clouds, and when Katherine held up the ring to admire it, it sparkled and flashed in the sunlight. The biggest grin spread across Jack’s face, and she jumped into his arms.

  Spirits lifted, they walked back to the car, arm in arm, back into the light.

  Katherine buckled her seat belt and looked over at Jack. He was understanding now, but how tolerant would he be if he had to face her quirky outbursts on a regular basis and put up with her premonitions day in and day out? Night after night? Would it start to wear thin like it did with Justin? Would he regret his decision to marry her? She wished she could take a quick peek into their future to see if they got their happy ending.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jack looked over Katherine’s shoulder at the proofs of the wedding invitations spread out on the coffee table in Katherine’s living room. He had just started a fire to take the chill off the room.

  “Are these okay with you?” Katherine held up the proofs so Jack could get a closer look.

  He picked up the invitation with its response card and envelope. “Sure. I don’t know anything about invitations. If you like them, then they’re fine with me.”

  “You’re certainly agreeable.”

  “I try to be.”

  Katherine gathered up the proofs and placed them in the envelope from the printer. “Well, while you’re in such a generous mood, I’d like to ask you something.”

  “Ask away,” Jack said, ruffling Kate’s hair.

  “I’d like to ask you about the day your father died.”

  “I don’t talk about that,” he stated emphatically, moving away from her chair to stoke the fire in the grate.

  Katherine rose from the chair and turned to face Jack. “Not even with me?”

  “Not with anyone.”

  “I’m not just anyone, Jack. We’re going to be married.”

  “It happened a long time ago.”

  “And it’s still affecting you. I think we need to talk it out. If I’m going to marry you, I want to understand you.”

  “If?” Jack frowned.

  “When,” Katherine corrected. “I’m not going to leave you, Jack, like you think your father did.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Losing my father suddenly, the way I did, was traumatic, but for a ten-year-old boy, it must have been devastating.”

  Jack paced to the green leather recliner and sank into it, sulking, like a little boy. She could see what a young, rebellious Beauregard Lee Jackson Hale might have looked like. She waited patiently for him to speak.

  “It was getting dark, and Dad wasn’t home yet,” Jack began, his head pressed against the back of the chair, his eyes lost in the past. “It was my parents’ anniversary, so Mom knew he wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world. My mom was all dressed up. They were going to go out to their favorite restaurant—a steakhouse—for a special dinner, but he was late and she was worried. She didn’t want to upset me, but I could tell she was getting frantic.

  “She called the precinct, and they said Dad had left an hour ago. Mom and Dad were, like, connected. She could tell something was wrong. Sort of like you can.”

  Kate nodded.

  “I got on my bike and rode the route he would normally take to get home. I stopped when I saw his police cruiser at a jewelry store. I figured he’d stopped by to pick up an anniversary gift for my mother. We both knew she’d been looking at a necklace there. So I parked my bike in front of the store and waited for him to come out. No one was going in or out of the store, so I looked through the window. My dad was standing there holding a gun on two men. I guess they were robbing the store. I ran to my dad’s car and used his radio to call for backup.”

  “How did you know what to do?” Katherine interrupted.

  “My dad taught me. He taught me a lot about being a cop. He wanted me to grow up to be just like him.”

  Katherine’s heart broke when she looked at Jack and heard his voice crack as he continued the story.

  “What happened then?” she prompted.

  “I couldn’t just leave my dad there. He needed my help, so I walked into the store. Everyone—the customers, the salespeople, the robbers, and my dad—looked up when the bell over the door rang. After that, everything happened so fast. One of the robbers grabbed me and picked up a gun from the floor and held it to my head. He told my dad to drop his gun or he w
ould blow my brains all over the plate glass window. Those were his exact words.

  “I looked at my dad. And in that moment I knew what he was going to do. ‘Don’t do it, Dad. Don’t surrender your weapon!’ That was one of the first things they teach you in the Academy. Don’t give up your gun. But he didn’t hear me—or he didn’t want to hear me. I saw it in his eyes. I saw him hesitate, and so did the gunman.

  “I tried so hard not to cry, I tried to be brave in front of my dad, but I did cry. ‘Jack, it’s okay,’ he said calmly. ‘I love you, son. Tell your mother I’m sorry I missed our anniversary.’ And then he dropped his gun, and the second robber picked it up and shot him in the head, just like that. I was sure he was going to shoot me, too, but he didn’t. I wish he had.”

  “You don’t mean that. What happened next?”

  “The police arrived, and they arrested the robbers and took my father away in an ambulance, but I knew he was already dead. I rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital, and then my father’s fellow officers drove me home and we told my mother. She was still in her fancy dress, waiting for me and my father.

  “A few days later, after the funeral, a package arrived. It was from the jewelry store, a gift from my father with a love note, all wrapped up in white paper and a blue bow. My dad had bought my mother the necklace she wanted. That’s why he was in the store when the robbery happened. He died on their anniversary. She hasn’t taken it off since.”

  Katherine perched on the arm of Jack’s chair and enfolded him in her arms. “You had to watch your father die,” she choked. “I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been for you. I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

  “And it was all my fault,” Jack said. “If I hadn’t come into the store, my father would still be alive.”

  Katherine sat on the arm of the chair and massaged Jack’s elbow. “Jack, you can’t know that. And you called for police backup. If you hadn’t been brave enough to walk into that store to help your father, other innocent people in the store might have been harmed.”

  “Why did he drop his weapon, Kate?”

  Katherine didn’t hesitate. “To save your life, because he loved you. That’s what parents do.”