by JB Lynn
I’d taken a quick inventory of the possible weapons in my home. My choices seemed limited to kitchen knives and copious amounts of pain relievers. And of course I had my car . . . maybe I could just run him over. Sure, I probably wouldn’t get away with it, but how much time could someone with no criminal record get for vehicular manslaughter? At least I’d be alive and I’d have gotten the money for Katie. Prison couldn’t be that much worse than Insuring the Future.
“Have lunch with me,” Armani ordered as soon as our lunch hour rolled around. Something was definitely wrong. She had no sparkle, no edge.
We walked over to our favorite picnic table in silence, a first for us, since my work-friend usually chattered incessantly. I noticed that her limp seemed more pronounced than usual.
I was the one that broke the oppressive quiet. “Are you okay? Are you sick or something?”
Lowering her butt onto the bench with more care than usual, Armani shook her head. I wasn’t sure if she was signaling that she wasn’t okay, or that she wasn’t sick.
“You’re freaking me out. What’s going on?”
“You don’t believe.”
“Believe what?” I sat on the seat opposite her.
“That I’m psychic.”
“Is that what this is about? You’re pissed at me?”
“I’m not pissed. I’m worried about you.”
This conversation wasn’t making any sense. I tried to get a look at her face, but her expression was hidden behind the sheet of her dark, glossy hair. “You’ve lost me.”
“The Scrabble tiles, all that crap, it’s a gimmick, but you have to believe me that I have a gift.”
“A gift?”
“An ability. Sometimes I sense things before they happen.” She pushed her hair off her face so that she could stare at me intently, as though that would make me believe her. “The problem is that I usually interpret things incorrectly. Actually always. I always misinterpret what I’ve seen. It isn’t until afterwards that things make sense, but by then it’s too late.”
I stared at the woman before me. I didn’t know this stranger. It was like all the badass bravado that made her unique had been sucked right out of her; only her meek, mousy shell was left. No doubt if she’d had two hands she would have been wringing them. Instead she was compulsively shredding a leaf that had the misfortune of ending up on the tabletop.
“I’m sorry, Armani, but I’m having trouble following you.”
“I had a dream.”
“Seriously? You’re this bummed out over a dream?”
“But before I tell you about last night’s dream, I have to tell you about the one I had the day before . . . before your accident.” She looked away as though she felt guilty.
My spine stiffened. Had she known what was going to happen and failed to warn me? Was Theresa dead and Katie in a coma because of her?
My logical self dismissed the notion, but the part of me that needed to make sense of the horror was quick to latch onto the idea that Armani was somehow to blame for all my problems. It would be a hell of a lot easier to hold her responsible for my misfortune than to just accept that it was a cruel twist of fate.
“The dream was about a spider web,” she said.
I exhaled. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath. I almost laughed out loud at my foolishness. Had I really expected her to reveal some sort of psychic vision that had foretold of a drunk running a red light and colliding with us?
“Does that make any sense to you? A spider web?”
I shook my head automatically, but something tickled the back of my consciousness.
“There was music, singing, I think, and the web was silver, but then it turned green, and then red. The music stopped, and it broke apart, all those strands, they just snapped.”
I was starting to think that Armani had just snapped. I could see no other reason why she’d be so upset by a dream. I told her as much. “It was just a dream, Armani. Maybe you’re suffering from arachnophobia or something, but it was just a dream.”
“Iraq-what?”
“Arachnophobia. A fear of spiders.”
“You think I’m afraid of bugs?” She said it like it was the craziest thing she’d ever heard.
I refrained from pointing out that getting upset about a dream about a cobweb was one of the nuttiest things I’d heard in a while . . . and I was conversing with a lizard on a regular basis.
“I’m not scared of bugs. You need to listen to my story.” She pounded her good hand on the table for emphasis.
“Okay, okay, I’m listening.” I was already on the bad side of Gary the Gun and on the verge of pissing off Tony/Anthony Delveccio. I wasn’t in any position to cross Armani Vasquez.
“Okay, so the web breaks apart, but then the weirdest thing happens, it re-spins itself.”
I found myself asking, “With or without a spider?”
“Without. It re-forms into a crystal version. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. I would have told you if I did. I should have told you.”
I could tell by the intensity of her gaze and the uncharacteristic pleading note in her voice that she was looking for some kind of absolution from me. “It’s okay,” I told her. And it was. After all it was just a dream. A dream that didn’t make any sense.
She pulled paper out of the pocket of her pants. “When I woke up, I drew it. The crystal spider web.” She tried to smooth out the sheet, a tough task with one hand and a steady breeze blowing.
Reaching across the table I helped her. “Hey, this is pretty good.” I hadn’t known that my favorite Chiquita was an artist, but her sketch, done in pen, proved she was.
“You don’t recognize it?’
I couldn’t name it, but something niggled at me like an itch demanding to be scratched. It did look familiar. “Don’t all spider webs look pretty much the same?”
“No two webs are exactly alike.”
“I’m pretty sure that goes for snowflakes, not webs.”
“Webs too.”
I shrugged, conceding her point.
She pulled another piece of paper from her pocket. This one was a folded-up newspaper article. “I should have told you. Warned you. I hope you can forgive me.” She extended the clipping across the table.
A chill skittered down my spine as I took it from her. Slowly, with a sense of foreboding I unfolded the paper.
I gasped when I saw the spider web.
Of course it wasn’t really a spider web, rather it was glass that had cracked, its splintering crystalline lines spinning out in a web-like pattern. It also happened to be a photograph of the windshield of Theresa’s car.
The newspaper clipping consisted of the picture of the wreck and the headline: DEADLY ACCIDENT CLAIMS THREE – TWO OTHERS GRAVELY INJURED.
The remembered terror of the accident welled up within me like a black cloud of smoke, blurring my vision and cutting off my air supply.
“Are you okay?” Reaching across the table, Armani shook my arm as though she was an on-stage-hypnotist bringing me out of a trance.
Blinking, I forced myself to take a breath. The darkness dissipated but the scent of fear still hung in the air.
“You there, Chiquita?” She knocked on the table three times. Maybe she thought that would allow her entry to my psyche.
“I was unconscious at the scene,” I whispered. “I never saw . . .”
“I shoulda warned you.”
“You think?” I would have glared at her, but she looked pathetically miserable huddled on the opposite side of the table.
“Now do you believe I’m psychic?”
I looked from her sketch to the photo of the cracked windshield. They were remarkably similar. “I’m willing to admit there might be a possibility,” I said carefully. After all, I believed I was able to converse with a lizard, not to mention I’d killed a man. Something I would have thought impossible not that long before. The idea that a coworker was psychic wasn’t that far-fetched in my new reality.
/> Armani perked up a bit. “Good, because I need you to pay attention to what I have to say.” She paused to make sure I was listening.
“Which is . . . ?”
“You need to meet the guy.”
“Meet a guy?”
“No. Meet the guy. It’s important. I’m not sure why, but it sort of feels like a life-or-death kind of thing.”
“Meeting a guy is a matter of life-or-death?” Even in my new warped world that made no sense.
She shrugged. “I suck at interpreting them. That’s why I don’t usually act on the premonitions.” She lifted her handless arm. “Do you know what the sign for this was?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Hearing Vanilla Ice crooning, ‘Ice, ice, baby,’ every time I closed my eyes for two weeks straight!”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The idea of Vanilla Ice delivering a psychic warning was just too much. “I’m sorry!” I wheezed through a gale of laughter. It wasn’t right to laugh at Armani’s gift, or her disfigurement. It wasn’t right, but it was damn funny.
She chuckled along with me. “It’s funny now, but when I was lying on the ice at the arena with that damn Zamboni coming at me, I was pretty pissed.”
“I bet.”
She grew serious. “But I mean it, Chiquita. You’ve got to meet the guy. Have you met anyone lately?”
I nodded. The image of Paul Kowalski, half-naked in my kitchen, sprang to mind. I hadn’t heard from him since I’d abruptly kicked him out of my place, when God had reminded me that I had a gun stuck under my mattress.
“Tell me about him.”
“He’s a cop.” And a hell of a kisser.
“That funny-looking redhead?”
The memory of Patrick staring at me with undisguised desire had every muscle in my body tensing.
“The hero cop? What’s his name? I’ll do his number for you.”
I shook my head. Even I wasn’t dumb enough to get involved with a guy with two wives and a sideline assassination business, no matter how much I found myself attracted to him. “A different cop.”
“You think he’s the one?”
“The one, what?”
“The one you have to meet.”
I considered that for a moment. “When did you have your dream?”
“Last night.”
“Then I don’t think so, seeing as I’d already met him.”
She thought about that for a second. “Maybe you’ve got to meet him for a date.”
“I doubt it. He hasn’t called.”
“Well, keep an open mind and just keep telling yourself that you have to meet the man. Work on your . . . what’s the word for it? It starts with man?”
“Man-catching?”
“That’s not a word!”
“Manhunting?”
She cocked her head to the side and eyed me like I’d lost what little mind I might have had.
“What?” I asked defensively. “You’re the one who can’t think of the word.”
“Manifestation skills.”
“What?”
“Manifesting. Believing in a wish strongly enough that it comes true. Oprah did a show about it a few years ago.”
I tried to manifest that this conversation had never occurred. My wish didn’t come true.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’D HAVE THOUGHT that while Armani was busy showing me pictures of cracks in glass and telling me my life depended on meeting “the” guy, that she could have at least given me a heads-up that Aunt Susan would be visiting Katie when I got to her room that night.
In true Aunt Susan fashion she wasn’t reading to or talking to the little girl in the giant bed; she was working on her laptop. The only sound in the room was the steady beeping of Katie’s monitors. I guess it would have killed her to show some kindness to the silent, helpless child.
Swallowing my anger toward my heartless aunt, I focused on doing what I’d come here for, visiting my niece. It was important that she knew she was loved, even if I was the only one to tell her.
I walked into the room and planted a kiss on my niece’s cheek. “Hi there.”
“Hello.” Aunt Susan didn’t look up as she spoke.
“I was saying hi to Katie.”
Raising her penciled-in brows, my aunt didn’t take her eyes off her computer screen. Clearly she thought that my greeting a comatose child instead of her was an insult.
Closing my eyes, I counted to ten. I had enough problems, not to mention a tension headache. I really didn’t need to get into an argument, too.
“Have you heard?” She managed to pack disapproval into those three words like it was gunpowder in a cannon.
“What?”
“About my sister.”
I bit back a groan. If Mom had wandered off from the nuthouse again, my day would be complete. It was selfish of me, but I really hoped that the sister Susan was annoyed with was one of the twins. “No,” I said slowly. “I haven’t heard.”
Aunty Susan banged away on her keyboard, hitting the keys harder than she would have had to if it was a manual typewriter. I felt a twinge of pity for the poor machine.
“She’s gone and done it again.”
I held my breath, waiting to find out if the laptop was being abused because of my mother or aunt. That wasn’t much of a clue. Mom could have made a run for it, Leslie could have gotten nailed with another charge of Driving Under the Influence or Disturbing the Peace, or . . .
“She’s going to marry that slimy bastard.” Susan slammed the screen shut and glared at me.
For my part, I exhaled a shaky sigh of relief. My mother was still wed to my father, a slimy bastard for sure, but it meant she couldn’t be getting married. She had to be talking about Loretta. Aunt Susan stared at me, waiting for me to say something.
“To Templeton the Rat?”
The corners of her mouth quirked. “Of course.”
In most families when someone announces they’re engaged, a round of congratulations is offered. In our family we say, “My condolences.” And then start a betting pool to guess how long it will be until the happy couple files for divorce.
“They’re moving out.”
“At least you won’t have to see him every day.” Personally, I thought this was a huge positive, but my aunt scowled.
“He’s trying to convince Loretta that I should buy her out of her share of the B&B.”
“You’re kidding me.” Aunt Loretta always returned to the B&B every time one of her marriages disintegrated.
“He’s a tricky one. I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t let me. It’s like he’s brainwashed her against me.” Aunt Susan tried to sound outraged, but I heard the undercurrent of sadness flowing through her words.
“Can you afford to buy her out?” I asked as gently as I could. The bed and breakfast was not only part of her livelihood, but her home. I wasn’t sure that even my leather-tough aunt could survive losing that and her sister.
She nodded slowly. “But if I buy her out, I won’t have much left for Katie’s bills. I don’t know what to do.”
And I felt like shit. Lower than shit really. Here I’d been judging her, and she’d been worrying about Katie. I would have given anything to be able to tell her not to worry about it, that I’d earned enough to keep Katie in quality care, but I couldn’t. Not with Gary the Gun out there, ready to swoop in and claim my payday.
“Aunt Loretta’s not going to make you buy her out no matter what The Rat says,” I told her with what I hoped was a reassuring smile.
“I don’t know . . . you didn’t hear her . . .”
She sounded so pitiful I needed to say something to make her feel better. “I have an investment,” I said slowly. “Hopefully it’ll pay off soon, and we won’t have to worry about her bills.”
Susan cocked her head and stared at me like I was some bizarre museum display that she’d never seen before. “You have investments?”
Yeah, she
was right, I wasn’t the type to make investments. But it wasn’t like I could just go and tell her I’d killed a guy for money. “Don’t look so surprised.”
Shaking her head, she considered me thoughtfully, “You’ve surprised me lately.”
Something in her tone annoyed me, and I snapped, “That’s because you set the bar so low for me.”
“Perhaps.”
I waited for her to launch a counterattack, but none came. Instead she got to her feet, put her computer aside, stepped up to Katie’s bedside, and took her hand. “I know you have a lot on your plate right now, Margaret, more than any one person should have to bear, but do you think you could try talking to Loretta?”
It was my turn to tilt my head with surprise. Aunt Susan was asking for my help? That was almost as bizarre as my talking to a lizard and definitely weirder than Armani’s psychic visions.
When I didn’t answer her, she raised her gaze to meet mine. “Please?”
“Of course, of course,” I practically babbled. “I’ll try. I mean I don’t know what I’ll say to her, and I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but of course I’ll talk to her.”
“Thank you.” She bowed her head. “You’re a good girl, Margaret.”
For a moment, I felt like I was seven years old again. That was the first time I’d realized that the reason my Daddy had to go to jail was that he was a bad man. I’d told Aunt Susan that I was afraid that meant I was a bad girl and she’d hugged me tight, saying, “You’re a good girl, Margaret.”
I’d forgotten about that. Probably like I’d forgotten or taken for granted a myriad of other kindnesses that she’d bestowed on me for the past thirty-two years. I wanted to tell her that I was grateful for all she’d done for me and my sisters. I wanted to tell her I was sorry.
But just then my phone rang.
I glanced down at my display. The number was unfamiliar.
“Take it,” my aunt urged. “I’d like a few minutes alone with Katie.”
So I walked out into the hall and took the call. “Hello?”
“Maggie?”
The man’s voice was vaguely familiar, but I was only half-listening, since I was trying to hear what Susan was murmuring to my niece.
“Maggie? Are you there?”