Pall in the Family

by Dawn Eastman

  “You said the will had been changed. To whom had she left her things before?”

  “Well, that’s really privileged information, but if you’re worried that she’ll have outraged relatives coming to contest it, don’t. She had no family. She left most everything to various charities in the past.” He flipped the file closed. “I heard you’ve just recently returned to Crystal Haven?”

  “Yes, about a month ago.” I nodded and continued to stare at the closed file.

  “Mmm, Ms. Twining was very pleased about that.” He opened a drawer and removed a set of keys.

  “I don’t plan to stay. What am I going to do with a house?”

  “You’ll have to decide whether you want to live in it or not.”

  He dropped the keys into my palm.

  * * *

  I walked from Worthington’s office to the marina. I needed to clear my head and make a plan. Why had she left everything to me? What had she been thinking? She knew I wasn’t staying in town.

  The letter from Tish was folded and stuffed in my bag. I sat on a bench facing the water and pulled it out.

  The envelope was light purple and had my name scribbled on it. On the back flap she had scrawled “I’m sorry.” I ripped open the top and pulled out a piece of yellowed, folded notebook paper, and as I opened it, another, smaller purple note fell out onto my lap. But I wasn’t paying attention to the purple note. The notebook paper wasn’t from Tish; it was from Mac.

  Dear Clyde,

  I have to get away from Crystal Haven. I can’t keep living my life based on messages and dreams. I don’t think it’s what you want, either. I’m not going to pressure you and I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m going to Saginaw to take the job there. If you want to try a life together without all that mumbo-jumbo, meet me there.

  Mac

  There was no date, but I didn’t need one. It wasn’t his most romantic missive, but it would have changed everything. For weeks and then months after he left, I waited to hear from him. I had eventually accepted that our final argument about Dean Roberts had been Mac’s last straw. He must have thought I had chosen Crystal Haven over him. Mac was not the kind of guy to track anyone down. He assumed I had made my choice and left it at that. But why did Tish have the letter?

  The purple note explained everything. Tish wrote that she had promised Mac I would get the letter. He’d hidden it in our special tree at her house. Tish had taken the letter and “saved it for another day” because her guides told her it was not the right time for Mac and me. His aura was muddy; my aura was cloudy; all the signs said it wouldn’t work.

  I wished she were still alive so that I could scream at her. She’d never meddled in my life, and hardly gave an opinion unless it was dragged out of her. But, when she was entrusted with the most important letter of my life, she had not only read it, she’d kept it from me. The anger and sorrow at how different life would have been blended together into a dark mess in the pit of my stomach. I crumpled her note and stuffed it in my pocket, promising myself I would burn it later, maybe even let Diana do some sort of spell on it. This was something I would have expected from Vi, or my mother. Not Tish.

  26

  I snuck home, grabbed my Browning pistol, and headed out to Dad’s cabin. I borrowed Mom’s smart car, since mine was still in the shop. It was like driving a roller skate compared to my Jeep, and the bright orange exterior didn’t help my desire for stealth. I texted Alex to say I would be delayed, and then shut off my phone. I needed to think.

  The quiet before I pulled the trigger worked its magic. I lined up the target, sighting along my arm to the end of the barrel. Standing thirty feet away from the poor tree that served as target holder, feet apart, weight balanced, I held my breath and squeezed.

  Still reeling from Tish’s will and, more, from her letter, I tried to make sense of it all. Originally, I’d had no intention of staying in Crystal Haven. The summer was supposed to be a brief break from Ann Arbor and the mess I had left there. But now, I imagined what it would be like to leave Ann Arbor for good. I had entered the academy thinking I would help people, but the reality of the job was very different from my fantasy. There was less helping and more paperwork than I had imagined. The hierarchy grated on my independent nature, and I was frequently at odds with those further up the chain of command. And then Jadyn happened.

  I had been so sure that night. My partner and I had answered a call for an attempted break-in. We’d chased the suspect through backyards and then to a cemetery. There had been no moon, and the graveyard had lain dim and sinister. When I heard a noise ahead of me and turned to see the tall, bulky suspect facing us, I knew he had a gun in his hand. I can’t remember now if I saw it or felt it, but I was sure it was there. The guy was a threat. Standing in the dark among the headstones, I stopped listening to my normal senses and tuned in to something else entirely. Something I had spent many years trying to ignore.

  But, the suspect didn’t have a gun. He had a knife, in his pocket. I don’t know what I thought was in his hand, but it wasn’t there later when the other officers arrived with their lights and their questions. My intuition had betrayed me. My partner stood by me and claimed he had seen a gun as well, a trick of the light, perhaps. He risked his own job and probably lied, although every time I brought it up, he refused to talk about it. We had been in pursuit of a suspect who then turned on us with what I thought was a gun. Lethal force was warranted. That was the story we told, but the truth was, I felt the threat with senses that were rusty and apparently not very reliable.

  I am an excellent shot. Police training doesn’t include shooting to injure. If an officer fires her weapon, she should do so with lethal intent. But I shot his knee. Jadyn was only seventeen and he’d probably always need a cane.

  Not only did I shoot a suspect that was not actively threatening, I had broken the unwritten rule. I should have aimed to kill. Now, to my colleagues on the force, I had become an unreliable back-up; too weak to be trusted in the heat of battle. But, I was thankful for that weakness. Thankful I hadn’t killed him. Still, the experience left me filled with doubt. I doubted my actions and judgment. Most of all, I doubted my “gift.” Like always, my psychic talent had caused nothing but grief.

  I walked back from the tree after putting up another target. The first had been shredded. I held my breath and squeezed.

  * * *

  After four targets, I decided it was time to head to Alex’s house and tell them the news about Tish’s will. My arm throbbed where the cut had been stitched. I lined up for one final shot. Then I heard it again—that click-click sound. I looked around the clearing. Nothing. I lined up again and felt the recoil travel up my arm. I would be sore later.

  “Whoa, so it’s you making all this noise.”

  I spun around, gun still ready and aimed at the intruder.

  Milo put his hands up, but his smile showed he wasn’t afraid.

  “Milo, what are you doing out here?” I put the safety on and released the clip.

  He held a metal detector and a shovel. That was the clicking I’d heard; I knew it had sounded familiar.

  “I like to come out and visit the building site, even if nothing’s being built yet. It’s only about half a mile that way.” He pointed east.

  “Are you searching for buried treasure as well?” I gestured at his equipment.

  “This? Just having some fun. You never know what you might find.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that.” My heart raced, and I held my hand at my side to stop the shaking. I didn’t know if it was fatigue or fear.

  He shrugged. “I guess you didn’t hear me coming with all the noise you were making.” He took a few steps closer.

  “No, I didn’t hear you.” I bent and quickly packed my things. I had to get out of there. Thinking about how wrong I had been about Jadyn started me thinking that I
could be wrong about Milo.

  “Are you alone out here?”

  I stopped and looked up slowly, wishing I had left my gun loaded. Had he seen me release the clip, or could I bluff?

  “Why do you ask?” I felt the reassuring bulk of the Browning in my hand.

  “You should be careful.” He nodded toward my hand. “Accidents can happen with guns.”

  I watched him head off into the woods, and then I jogged to the car, got in, and locked the door.

  * * *

  My hands were steady by the time I got to Alex’s house. I told myself that Milo was harmless. It was just coincidence that he kept turning up in the woods when I was alone. He’d helped me when my car flipped over. I had never been wrong when the feeling resulted from physical touch. I even picked up things from objects sometimes. Something still nagged at me, though.

  Alex and Josh lived in a cozy ranch-style house that sat back from the street, up on a small hill. They had landscaped it to the point that I felt I needed a wilderness guide to find the door. I think the front was a combination of stone and siding, but the ferns, bushes, and hanging plants obscured most of the facade.

  I found Diana and Alex sitting in his small, welcoming living room. A bottle of Glenfiddich sat open on the table. Alex had broken into his favorite. They seemed to be fully involved in a game of “remember when” and drew me in immediately with the story of Tish convincing my mother that a U2 concert in Chicago was not only a good idea, it would be educational as well. She had volunteered to chaperone, but Alex, Diana, and I had to restrain her from throwing herself on the stage. She then freaked out a security guard with her psychic knowledge, so he let us backstage to meet the band. They were less impressed by her predictions, but she managed to snag a towel that Bono had used to mop his face. She claimed she’d never wash it. I guess that was mine now, too.

  “I’ll really miss her.” Diana rubbed her nose and scrubbed her eyes viciously with a tissue.

  I decided I needed some of that whiskey.

  “What did the lawyer have to say?” Alex asked after pouring a shot into my glass.

  “He read Tish’s will.”

  “Was it just the two of you?” Diana asked.

  “Yeah. She left everything to me. There was no need for anyone else to be there.” I took a sip and grimaced at the burn in my throat.

  Alex whistled. “Whoa, Vi isn’t going to like that. She probably thought she’d get rid of your parents if they got the house back.”

  “I know. I don’t know what promises Tish made to my mother, but she did own the house. She had a right to do what she wanted with it.”

  “You don’t want the house, do you?” Diana reached over to touch my hand.

  I pulled away. “No, it’s not that. She left a clause in the will. I have to live in the house for a year before selling it. If I don’t, everything goes to charity.”

  “What about your job?” Alex asked.

  I hadn’t talked to either of them about my job and the way I had left it. They thought I was on “sabbatical.” As if the police force gave sabbaticals. Even if I didn’t return to the force, I had been planning on returning to Ann Arbor. I wasn’t sure I could live in Crystal Haven full-time. I knew I couldn’t live with my family for the long term, but maybe if I had my own place . . .

  “I’m not sure I want to go back to my job,” I said.

  “It was that bad?” Diana’s green eyes held mine, and I knew that she had figured out that there was trouble in Ann Arbor.

  “Yeah, it was pretty bad.” I downed the rest of the whiskey.

  “What are you two talking about?” Alex looked from Diana to me.

  I finally told them the whole story. It felt good, in the end, to let them know what I had been spending so much time avoiding.

  “Is it still being investigated?” Alex asked.

  “Yes. The kid I shot was definitely part of a gang. We don’t know why he was breaking into that house, but he didn’t have a gun when I shot him. There are a lot of people who want to see me lose my badge.”

  “Wow. I knew something was up with you, but I couldn’t figure out what. I’m sorry, Clyde,” Diana said.

  “So, how are you going to break the news about Tish’s house to your family?” Alex leaned forward in his armchair, setting his glass on the table.

  “I don’t know. I might have to do something drastic.”

  “Drastic?” Diana sat up straighter.

  “I might have to call Grace.”

  27

  Grace had not been back to Crystal Haven in years, but she was still an expert in parental and auntal manipulation. I called her for advice when I was really stuck. Our childhood had been fraught with jealousy on both sides, and our age difference had guaranteed Grace’s aloof demeanor toward me. But the years had mellowed my jealousy, and I realized that I had something she’d never had: the focused attention of Mom. I could see how a little sister in the house who was held up as the next amazing family psychic might grate on a person. Plus, I had been a bossy pest.

  She left town in her early twenties seeking her future in New York as I had described it from my dream. I was fourteen at the time. We’d settled into a cordial relationship that never quite lost the tone of big-sister tolerance of an annoying younger sibling.

  But in this case, I needed Grace’s take on how to handle the family because things were going to get tricky when they found out that Tish had left everything to me and that I didn’t want it. I went out to Alex’s porch among the plants and dialed.

  “Well, you have to decide what you want to do,” Grace said, after I had explained the will and the requirements.

  “I don’t know what I want to do.” I pulled a large cluster off a lilac bush and buried my nose in its petals.

  “Clyde, just make a decision. Would it kill you to live in Crystal Haven for one year?”

  “You won’t even come back for a long weekend, and you want me to drop everything and move here?”

  “What, exactly, will you be dropping? A one-bedroom apartment in Ann Arbor and a job you don’t like?”

  “It’s not that I don’t like my job . . . things just got complicated.” I snapped the small flowers off the bunch one by one.

  “Then why did you run home to Mom the minute things got tough?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “The truth never is, kiddo.”

  “Fine. Tell me how to handle Mom and Vi.” I tossed the remains of the lilacs into the yard.

  “Well, I would spin the staying-in-town-for-a-year part of the deal. They thought they’d only get a month or so to work on getting you back into the business; now they have a year.”

  “Yeah, that’s good. I could point out that I would take Baxter with me. Mom would like that.”

  “Plus, they aren’t really losing anything. They haven’t had that house for years. Nothing is changed, except you’ll be closer.” I wondered how much her own part in losing the house contributed to her cavalier attitude.

  “You know Vi. She’ll make it a big deal.”

  “Not if you play it right.”

  “Okay.” I sighed. She was less helpful than I had hoped. Maybe her distance from the family had blunted her recollection of the way we interacted and the way that Vi could turn any situation into a confrontation.

  “Hey, Mac called.” My stomach dropped.

  I cleared my throat. “He did? Why?”

  “He said you and ‘a ragtag gang’ were stalking private citizens and Seth was involved. He sort of hinted that he might be making arrests and that Seth didn’t need that sort of blemish on his record.”

  “He threatened you?” I smiled as I said this, imagining that conversation. Mac must be really desperate if he had called Grace. He knew she tended to be protective of me. But by threatening Seth, he was risking his li
fe.

  “No, mostly he wanted me to threaten you. Consider yourself threatened. Just stay out of it. Anyway, it sounds like Mac has everything under control.” I heard my niece, Sophie, shouting in the background. The phone was muffled, and then Grace came back on the line. “Plus, Mac said you were stalking Milo. I wouldn’t mess with the Starks if I were you. They’re creepy. Theirs was always the house we avoided on Halloween.”

  “It was?”

  “Don’t you remember? Just a sec.” Grace covered the mouthpiece, but I could hear her shout, “Just a minute, Sophie!” She came back on the line. “Maybe you were too young. Tish always told me to steer clear of them. She had me scared to death when I was little. Then we moved, and I guess it wasn’t an issue after that. But still, I never trusted them.”

  “I remember that Tish never liked them, but I thought it was because Cecile is such a busybody.”

  “Maybe. I have to go. Sophie’s got an ‘emergency’ playdate situation.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “You aren’t going to stay out of it, are you?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  “Where have you been?” Vi dropped her knitting and stood up.

  “I was getting worried.” Mom rushed toward me.

  “I need to talk to you.” Seth put his hand up like he was in class.

  All of this greeted me the moment I entered the house. I hadn’t realized how late it was. I’d missed the post-funeral reception and I was relieved, even if it meant hearing every detail later from my mother. Baxter hung back and didn’t even check my pockets for treats. He could have been more stressed by the changes in his life than I realized.

  Mom gave me a hug and told me again she was worried. Seth caught my eye and tilted his head toward the door—he wanted me to go outside with him.

  “Where were you? With everything that’s been going on, you could have left us a message,” Vi said.