She’d already set up her laptop. I stopped at the counter and ordered a triple-shot grande raspberry mocha, no whip. Drink in hand, I joined her, taking a long sip before leaning back and relaxing.
“You look wiped,” she said.
“Wiped ain’t the word for it.” I told her what had happened. “What I want to do is look up this dude who was bothering her last autumn at the station and see if I can find a picture of him. I’ll never forget that face from my vision.”
She opened a browser. “What’s his name and where is he located?”
“His name is Rusty Jones and he lived here in Chiqetaw until he was fired. Bonner told Murray that Rusty was supposed to have moved to Seattle to live with his brother.”
She tapped away on her keyboard and sat back, waiting for the results to tabulate on the page. “So, how’s your dress hunt?”
I snorted. “At this rate, I’ll be walking up the garden path naked. Joe might not object, but I don’t think that’s the best way to start a marriage. At least not ours. I don’t know, Harl . . . I can’t help but wonder if I’m being given a sign.”
Narrowing her eyes, she typed rapidly. “What are you talking about?”
The whir of the coffee grinder interrupted us and I waited until it fell silent, rubbing my temples. I had barely let myself think about my fears, let alone say anything aloud, but now that she’d asked me I found myself spilling my guts.
“Am I supposed to marry Joe? Things keep happening, so many that I wonder if this isn’t a sign warning us to wait. Maybe getting married again is a mistake. Maybe things won’t work out. Maybe . . .”
“Maybe you’re just getting cold feet. Or maybe you’ve been spooked so many times that you can’t help but looks for signs and omens in everything that happens.” She grabbed my hand. “Remember when I found out I was pregnant? How I was afraid I’d never be able to raise a child? You convinced me that everything would work out, and it has. Yeah, James and I are snippy lately over his latest assignment, but that will blow over. You and Joe are meant for each other. I’ve never seen you so happy, Em, nor so confident. Joe adores you, he worships the ground you walk on. Don’t break his heart over a little bad luck.”
I stared at the table, at her hand holding mine. Maybe I’d gotten so used to things not being what they seemed that I was borrowing trouble. Letting out a long sigh, I gave her an affirmative nod.
“You’re right. A lot of people go through far worse than me and they don’t break their engagements over it. I guess I’m just scared. I know I love Joe, and I know he loves me. We mesh so well and he adores the kids. What more could I want?” And as I spoke, I knew it was true.
She pushed my drink toward me. “Good! Get some caffeine in your system and let’s see what we have here.”
We peered at the list of sites on the screen. Harlow had a top-of-the-line laptop, and it occurred to me that she’d become quite a computer whiz over the past two years. Her fingers flew over the keys with a dexterity that I couldn’t possibly ever match.
“Here we go . . .” She clicked on the first link and a group photo came up. The caption said it had been taken a couple years ago, and it was a picture of the men and women of Chiqetaw’s police department. An alarm started going off in my head as Harlow pushed the laptop toward me. “See anybody that looks familiar?”
I leaned in and glanced over the rows of men and women, some in uniform, others in civilian garb. A flash of brilliant red hair caught my eye and I gasped. “Is there any way to enlarge this?”
She frowned. “It’s not a thumbnail so unless I save it and work on it in a photo program, no. I can do that, if you want, but the quality won’t be very good. Let’s try another site.”
The second revealed nothing of use, nor did the third, but the fourth was a college alumni site and under Rusty’s name was a photo and biography. Bingo. The same man I’d met on the astral. As I stared into those glacial eyes, I could almost swear he knew what I was up to. I glanced at the bio and read that he’d gone on to join the Chiqetaw Police Department, but it hadn’t been updated since he’d been fired.
“That’s him, Harlow. That’s the man who’s chasing Murray. And he’s far more dangerous than we thought.”
Harlow took a close look at him. “Hmm . . . he does have a freaky look about him. Let me bookmark this and then we’ll see if we can find out anything else.” She added the link to her bookmarks and then went back to the search. After a handful of fruitless leads, a sly smile spread across her face. “Oh Lordy, looky here, Em. Rusty’s been a busy man since he got fired.”
The site was a forum board, and as I glanced at the topic of discussion, I shuddered. I’d seen some freaky things, but this was a group touting not only survivalist mentality, but also misogyny. And Rusty had been a busy bee, posting all over the boards. I skimmed until I came to a thread of rants about being spurned by one’s object of affection.
“Holy hell, look at this.” As we read, both Harl and I instinctively pulled back from the laptop. The post was full of obscenities, describing a woman Rusty accused of teasing him. He called her a cock-tease and had posted a vivid and explicit description of what he’d like to do to her. Though he never mentioned her by name, I knew he was talking about Mur.
Harlow paled beneath her exquisitely airbrushed tan. “We need to show this to Murray. She can take it to her boss and maybe they can pull him in for questioning.”
“If they can find him. He was supposedly staying with his brother, but that could have been a smoke screen. If he’s into survivalist mentality, he could easily exist on very little out in the woods.” I chewed on one nail until Harlow slapped my hand.
“Stop biting—you’ll regret it on your wedding day. If he is living out in the woods, he’s got to be getting Inter-net access from somewhere. These posts are recent.” She contemplated the screen.
“A friend in town . . . library access. Tad Bonner can take Rusty’s picture to the library and ask if they recognize him.” I glanced at the clock and swallowed the last of my mocha. “I’m calling Mur. We need to go over there right now and show her all of this. Rusty’s twisted, Harl. Very twisted. He’s strong and he’s crazy and he’s after Murray. And anybody who stands in his way is toast.”
Twelve
I STOPPED IN at home on the way so I could get my necklace. By the time I got to Murray’s, Harlow had already arrived but she hadn’t said anything about what we’d found out. Murray ushered us into the kitchen.
“Jimmy’s upstairs asleep. What’s going on?”
“Do you have wireless service, or is there someplace I can plug into the Net with this baby?” Harl asked, holding up her laptop.
Murray pointed to a small writing desk that already had a laptop sitting on it. “I have DSL. You can sit over there,” she said. “Go ahead and use my computer if you want, though yours looks top-of-the-line.”
While Murray booted up her laptop, I asked her if White Deer had given her the rundown on what had happened out at Jimbo’s.
“No, actually, she’s not home yet. She called to say she was stopping by the Crystal Pyramid for a new smudge stick.” The Crystal Pyramid was a new metaphysical shop in Chiqetaw. They sold the usual array of crystals, smudge sticks, candles, and books. The owner seemed very nice, not at all flaky. His name was Ryan Neilson and he seemed both down-to-earth and to possess no small amount of talent himself.
“Mur, did Tad ever find out if Rusty is actually in Seattle?”
“Yeah, he found out, all right.” She shook her head, turning the laptop over to Harlow. “Apparently, Rusty’s brother knows nothing about Rusty’s whereabouts. He stayed there a little while, then disappeared after his brother threw him out for being rude to his wife. We haven’t been able to pinpoint him through a DMV search, so I guess he really is a potential suspect. But would he come back after all this time? Yeah, I got him fired but . . .”
“Brace yourself, Mur. We found some pretty damning evidence against him.” I
poked through the cupboard where I knew Murray kept her goodies. Sure enough, three packages of Oreos and—What did we have here? A box of Thin Mints. “Can I open these?” I asked, holding them up.
Mur shrugged, smiling faintly. “Sure. Now, what happened out there?”
I broke open the cookies and slid them onto the table. “I met your stalker on the astral,” I said.
“What?” She was out of the chair, leaning across the table before I could open the fridge to find milk for the cookies. “And keep your voice down. If Jimmy wakes up, I don’t want him hearing any of this. The last thing I need is to worry that he’s going to run off hunting some elusive pervert.”
“He might not be that elusive,” I said, and proceeded to give her the rundown on what had happened. When I described the man I’d seen, she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.
“It’s Rusty, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Sounds like it,” she said, shaking her head. “How do you know?”
“Harlow will show you,” I said, poking through her fridge. A gallon of chocolate milk rested on the top shelf and I poured two glasses—I knew Harlow wouldn’t want any. But Diet Coke would catch her eye. I snagged a can and carried it over to the desk, where she was engrossed in working her magic on the keyboard.
She glanced up at me. “Here it is. The first site.”
Murray leaned over her shoulder. Rusty’s picture came up and she frowned. “That’s him all right. You sure that’s who you saw?”
“Plain as day. I know that’s not proof that you can use in court, but it gives you a direction in which to look. Plus . . . Harl, show her that message board.” I took a step back. I might not be the most diplomatic person in the world but when Murray got angry, she blew. And I didn’t want to be in the way.
Harlow vacated the chair, allowing Murray to sit down. As she scanned the page, I could see her shoulders tense up. “I’ll kill him. I swear, I’m going to hunt the dog down and tear him apart.” She whirled. “I have to show this to Tad. Maybe he can trace the IP address to get an idea of where that little worm’s been hiding out.”
I bit into a second cookie. Murray could bring a grown man to the ground in a whimpering mess. She was a warrior, in the truest sense of the word, and had found law enforcement a good channel for her talents.
Harlow raised one eyebrow. “So, call him. Or shoot him an email with the URLs. We’ll wait.”
Mur forced herself back into the chair and tersely typed out a message, copying and pasting the URLs of the two sites. She didn’t divulge what she told Bonner about why she thought it was Rusty following her, and I didn’t ask. After a few minutes she cleared the screen, cleaned out the cache and history.
“I don’t want Jimmy stumbling onto those sites. He’d figure it out right away.” She grimaced as she joined me at the table and absently bit into a cookie. “Damn, I hate this. That little perv is out there somewhere, and he’s got his eyes on me. And if what you say is right, he’s dangerous enough to cause serious damage.”
“Yeah, and you can bet he’s not going to hesitate. My guess is that his psychosis has been building for years,” I said, thinking about what I’d felt from him on the astral. “He’s probably hiding out in the mountains near here, or with a friend. Do you remember anybody he might have palled around with?”
She shook her head. “Not right off hand, but let me think for a while. I do remember a couple of guys hanging around his desk, but it will take a moment for me to put names to the faces. Most of the time, I barely noticed him. I was polite, I said hello when I saw him in the halls, and I said good-bye at the end of the day. Apparently that wasn’t enough. And you can bet that he blames me for his getting fired, even though he was the one caught sneaking into my computer and hacking my password.”
A thought stopped me. “Computer? Murray, have you checked your computer for something called spyware? Kip was talking about it the other day.”
Harlow smacked her head. “Why didn’t I think of that? I’m not an expert at it, by any means, but Em’s right. You need to make sure he’s not tapping into your computer files. Since he was in your house long enough to both plant a bug and trash the place, he might have been able to break into your computer and set up some Trojan program.”
Murray groaned. “Oh great. Are you sure? I mean, I know it’s possible . . .”
“There are kids Kip’s age who could break into your machine,” I said. “Do you have your computer password protected?”
Again, a groan. “Yeah, but it’s so simple I bet he could figure it out within a few minutes.”
I closed my eyes. What mattered to Murray more than anything in the world? Jimbo? Too simple. “I’ll bet it’s either Sid or Nancy,” I said, naming her snakes. She flashed me a nasty look and I knew I’d hit it right.
Just then, my cell phone rang. It was the booking agent for the Barry Boys.
“Ms. O’Brien? I’m sorry to drop this on you so suddenly, but the Barry Boys won’t be able to play at your wedding. There’s been a change of circumstances and the band won’t be playing any more gigs for the rest of the year. Of course, we’ll refund your deposit. I’ll cut a check and get it sent off to you today.” Click.
I stared at the phone and flipped it shut. “I’m about ready to scream. The Barry Boys can’t make it for my wedding, so not only am I out a dress and my family, I’m also out a band.” Suddenly angry, I smacked my hand on Murray’s hundred-year-old oak table. “Jeezus, what the hell is going on?”
Harl and Mur stared at me. I avoided their eyes. Seldom given to temper tantrums, I felt like my entire wedding was falling apart before my eyes. Of course, I considered, compared to being stalked by a psychic wacko, perhaps it wasn’t quite so bad. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, but everything still seemed so bleak.
Shrugging, I said, “Sorry, just feeling the pressure.”
“Pressure from what?” White Deer came popping through the back door.
We made room for her at the table and filled her in on what we’d been talking about. “So, we know who’s after Murray. And, on the side, my wedding is more and more resembling something from a minimalist painting.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Emerald, your aura is flaring up in a most peculiar way. What’s different about you than this morning?”
I frowned, then snapped my fingers and dug into my purse. “Here, this is the necklace. Maybe just carrying it around causes havoc?”
She took the necklace in hand and closed her eyes, running the faceted crystals through her hands. “Em, I think these are . . . if I had to give it a word, I’d say they were hexed.” Her voice was soft, and she had an odd, faraway look in her eyes.
“Hexed? You mean cursed?” Oh God, I thought I was done with curses. But as the events of the past few days ran through my mind, the idea seemed less far-fetched.
“No,” she said. “I’m trying to puzzle out the energy here. It’s not like the dragon—not that sort of curse. I’m picking up a sense of sorrow . . . almost despair. And chaos.” She laid the necklace out on the table. “You said this is an antique?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Rose bought it at a shop in Seattle. She said . . . what did she call it?” I thought for a moment. “Oh, yes. The dealer called it the Bride’s Circlet.”
Harlow immediately returned to Murray’s computer and started tapping away at the keys. “Let’s see if we can find out anything about it. If it’s an antique, maybe there’s something on the Web about it.”
I picked up the string of crystals and ran it through my fingers. Rose would never deliberately give me anything to hurt me; that much I knew. So, if there was some hex associated with the necklace, I was betting that the shop-keeper hadn’t mentioned it to her. Chances were if some spell or charm was attached to the necklace, the shop-keeper wouldn’t even know about it.
White Deer poured herself a glass of lemonade from the fridge and pulled out a loaf of bread. “Anybody want to share a sandwich with me? I d
idn’t eat lunch and I’m starving.”
I shook my head, having filled up on cookies. Murray glanced at the clock. “I thought I’d toss a few steaks on the grill for dinner after Jimmy wakes up, but I could go for half a sandwich. Turkey and Swiss, please. With mustard.”
While White Deer slathered bread with mustard and mayo, Harlow steadily clicked through several links she’d pulled up on her browser.
“Got it!” she called after a few minutes. I slipped out of my chair and leaned over her shoulder. Sure enough, there in a grainy and faded photograph, was my necklace. Either that or a carbon copy.
Harlow skimmed the article. “This is a site that specializes in paranormal happenings, ghosts, hexes, etc. The entry is written by the descendant of someone named Thomas Carter. Let’s see . . .” She began to read aloud:In 1805, the Bride’s Circlet was commissioned for Sally, the daughter of Thomas Carter, a British subject who settled his family in Jamaica. Sally was engaged to her cousin Niles, who lived in Port Royal at the time. The necklace was handcrafted by a jeweler back in Ireland and shipped to Jamaica for Sally’s wedding. Unbeknownst to the bride-to-be, Niles had been having an affair with one of the family’s slaves, Betsy, but he broke it off shortly before the nuptials.
“Well, that’s a fortuitous start to a marriage.” Mur snorted. “Nothing like a pre-wedding affair to spice up a marriage.”
“Yeah,” Harl said. “And it gets better.” She shook her head. “Em, I don’t think I’d wear that necklace anymore, if I were you.”
I held the necklace up so the light shining through the kitchen window reflected on it, sending little prisms every which way. Rose had been right about one thing—it was definitely an antique. Two hundred years old. “Why? Spill it. What happened?”
When Niles told Betsy that the affair was over, the slave girl flew into a jealous rage. Niles threatened to have her sold. Angry at his betrayal and fearful over being sold away from her family, Betsy poisoned Niles and tried to make it look like an accident.
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