A Deep and Dark December

by Beth Yarnall

  “Deidre’s purse was on the floor next to the chair on the other side of the table. The divorce papers were on table, facing the chair. Why would she put them there like that if she didn’t sit down at the table?”

  Pax eyed the chair in question. “It’s pushed in.”

  “Right. Someone pushed the chair in. Could’ve been Deidre.”

  “Could’ve.”

  “Could’ve been Greg or someone else.”

  “No one touched that chair since I got here. If not Deidre or Greg then someone else did it. Maybe a third person? The real killer? This is looking less like murder/suicide, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe. Too soon to tell. We’ll need to talk to everyone the Lasiters knew. Who are Greg and Deidre’s next of kin?”

  Pax flipped through his notebook. “Greg’s brother’s in prison, as I’m sure you know.”

  He didn’t know. He should’ve known. Would everyone assume he’d kept in contact with Greg and the others after all these years?

  “He has an uncle on his mother’s side in Sacramento,” Pax continued. “Deidre has a sister, Denise, who lives in San Luis Obispo and a brother, Darrin, who lives in North Carolina. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Day, also live in San Luis Obispo. I guess they’d be the next of kin.”

  “You’d better call Vera and let her know you won’t be home for dinner.”

  Pax closed his notebook with a sad sigh. “I’ve never done a death notification.”

  “I have.” And he could remember every single detail about every single one. Right down to the noise in the background as he informed parents, siblings and friends that their loved one had died. And now he’d have to tell the family of his old friend that Greg had killed himself and possibly murdered his wife.

  5

  “What is happening?” Erin asked her aunt, whispering into the phone so Keith couldn’t overhear from the other room.

  “I don’t know. Your father thinks… bah! I can’t even say it.”

  “What?”

  “He had to pay full price for his lunch today at the Do or Dine and now he’s convinced someone is purposely manipulating our abilities.”

  “He never pays full price. For anything.” The only time her father used his ability of suggestion was when money was involved.

  “I know! And Tera was his waitress. Her mind’s so open to suggestion that her name badge should read: Suggestion Box. Then he went down to Fine’s to pick up a few things for his woodworking club and paid full price again! He’s so discombobulated he’s sure there’s some great universal conspiracy cooking.”

  That would explain why all of their abilities had been affected. But… “By who and how?”

  Aunt Cerie sighed into the phone. “I don’t know. This whole business has me twisting and turning like a wind chime in a tornado. How are you doing, chicken?”

  “I’m okay… I guess.”

  “You’ve had a heck of a day. I’m sorry.”

  “The premonitions are always the worst for me. I hate not being able to change anything.”

  “If you change even one little thing, you could change everything. You know that.”

  Erin had heard this lecture before. At least a thousand times. “I know.”

  “We were given our abilities for a reason. It’s a great responsibility. I don’t like that your father uses his to get discounts, but at least he doesn’t give people the suggestion to give things to him for free. That would be irresponsible. It’s like if I told Paul Webster that his wife is having an affair with her best friend Gina, I’d be changing the natural order of events. Either Paul will find out or he won’t. Although—between you and me—if Paul did find out, he’d want to turn the whole thing into a threesome. That guy is into some seriously kinky stuff.”

  “Aunt Cerie,” Erin warned.

  She hated it when her aunt told her more than she ever wanted to know about the people around her. Cerie saw nothing wrong with using her ability and wasn’t shy about sharing what she learned. She’d supported herself for years off her ‘readings’, which were really just Cerie telling people what they wanted to hear. Cerie’s antics and Donald’s uncanny knack for never paying full price fueled the rumors that there was something strange about the Decembers.

  “You know I don’t want to hear about that kind of stuff.” Wait. What if her aunt heard one or both of the Lasiters’ thoughts. She might know whom Deidre was having an affair with. Goodness knew Cerie knew about every other affair in town. “Did you ever overhear anything about Greg or his wife?”

  “Hmm. Well, there was this one time—”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know I can’t delve into people’s brains. I can only overhear what they’re thinking at the time.”

  “I know.”

  “Well… about a week ago I was in Goldman’s Drugs buying some cream for this rash on my side that the doctor can’t seem to find the cause of, and two aisles over in personal products I caught the threads of some very interesting thoughts. So I moseyed on over an aisle and listened in, which was quite difficult because I found myself in the incontinence aisle. That is not an aisle you want to be seen in.”

  “No. Of course not. Who was it?”

  “Greg Lasiter. He was buying condoms. Only he hadn’t bought them in awhile so he was debating what kind to buy. As if there’s a choice,” Aunt Cerie scoffed. “You buy the lubricated, ribbed for her pleasure ones. Everybody knows that.”

  Erin dropped her head into her hand and suppressed a groan.

  “Anyhoo,” Cerie continued, “there he was, wondering if he should buy the magnum size to impress even though he worried they were too big and would slide off, you know… in the act. And then in the middle of his debate, he gets angry that he has to buy them at all.

  “He’s ticked off good that his wife’s dumped him. Only he’s not just mad, he’s sad, too. He really loved her and she threw him over all of a sudden. Out of the blue. And he’s thinking she’s got someone else. He knows she’s got someone else. Then he picks up two packs of magnum condoms because he’s going to burn through them like he’s at a college frat party. He’s thinking he’s going to nail every woman in sight. Every woman who will have him. He runs through several images in his mind. He wasn’t very imaginative, but he did have some very complementary thoughts about your cleavage.”

  “Ugh. You could’ve left that last part out.” But it did confirm what she’d seen in her visions. So her ability wasn’t totally on the fritz. She had a hard time figuring out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “That’s about it, really,” Aunt Cerie finished.

  “What about Deidre Lasiter?”

  “Hmm, well, she was a tricky one. I didn’t see her all that often, but when I did, her thoughts ran to household things. Grocery lists and the like. If she thought anything about anyone, she never did it around me.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, chicken. Ask me anything.”

  “When your ability went on the blink as you put it, what did it feel like?”

  “Here’s the strange thing,” Aunt Cerie said. “At first it just felt like someone flipping a light switch off and on. Then my ability stayed off for longer periods of time, but it came with a sharp pain in my head, like a hammer to the temples.”

  “How long has it been happening?”

  “The off and on thing continued for most of the day, but there was no pattern to it. I didn’t think anything of it at first. But it got progressively worse. Then right before you called me, Donald told me he’d been having issues, too. I naturally assumed you might be, as well. I was worried.”

  “Is that why you told Graham about my ability?” She wasn’t sure if she should be angry or relieved about her aunt’s meddling. There was something frightening yet freeing about sharing her secret with Graham.

  “Yes. And no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I didn’t want to worry anyone. Especially you.”


  “I know you.” While her aunt collected gossip, she never started it. Something was off here. “What’s the real reason?”

  Aunt Cerie huffed out a breath. “My mother, your grandmother had some… issues with her ability shortly before she died.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  “I never told you because I didn’t want to worry you. A few months before her death her abilities started shorting out. Very much like what’s been happening to us today. She was never the same after that. I always worried I might fall into the same kind of madness that eventually took her life.”

  “Do you think what happened to your mother might be happening to us?

  “I don’t know. Tell me exactly what’s been happening to you.”

  “Normally I have to concentrate to put my ability in action, but today, all of a sudden, the visions starting coming to me without me calling them up. That hasn’t happened since I first came into my ability, before I learned to control them. And there was that pain you described.”

  “This is going to sound strange, but does it feel deliberate to you?”

  “What do you mean, deliberate?”

  “Like someone is actively messing with your abilities, trying to control them.”

  It felt exactly like that. Like someone or something shoving the visions at her. But that was impossible. Outside of the December family, she didn’t know anyone else in San Rey who had abilities.

  “Auntie, could there be—” Keith knocked on Erin’s bedroom door. She never discussed her and her family’s abilities with Keith or anyone else who wasn’t a December. Never. “I’ve got to go,” she told her aunt. “But I think there’s a possibility here we haven’t discussed.”

  “Come over tomorrow. Your father wants to see you.”

  Keith opened the bedroom door. “Dinner’s ready.”

  Erin held up a finger for Keith to wait. “I’ll stop by after work,” she told her aunt.

  “Bye, chicken. Take care of yourself.”

  “You, too, Auntie. Bye.”

  Erin ended the call and got up from the edge of her bed, smiling at Keith through her new worries. “I’m starving. What are we having?”

  “Meatloaf sandwiches. I thought you could use some comfort food.”

  “Sounds good.” She walked into his arms, needing more comfort than food could give her.

  He smoothed a hand down her hair. “I have some vacation time coming. Why don’t we take a few days and go somewhere? We could go up to Santa Cruz or down to Los Angeles.”

  She pulled back to look up at him. “I just started my job. I can’t take time off right now.” He had nice hazel eyes with no wicked dark ring like Graham’s. Where did that thought come from?

  “We could leave on a Friday after work and come back Sunday,” he continued to press. “I’d really like to take some time, just the two of us. What do you say?”

  She knew what he was getting at, what he wanted. He wanted to take things to a level she wasn’t sure she was ready for. The panic started as a low hum, a tightening in her chest. She pressed her face to his shirt and closed her eyes. She could do this. She should do this. It was normal for girlfriends to want to have sex with their boyfriends. They’d been dating long enough that his suggestion wasn’t out of the norm. Except she couldn’t seem to drum up any excitement for it. He was handsome, attractive. Everyone thought so. What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she sexually attracted to him?

  Maybe if she just gave it a try, the attraction would come. His heart beat as steady as he was and she found herself agreeing.

  “Yes. Okay.”

  He tightened his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll make the arrangements. Would you like me to surprise you?”

  “I’d like that. I like surprises.” She needed someone like him and his normal.

  He turned them and guided her toward the kitchen. “Then it’s all set. Come and eat your dinner. Later we’ll watch some TV or a movie.”

  She sat down at her small kitchen table. Keith sat across from her. He seemed a little lighter, a little happier. If only she could feel the same. Maybe this vacation would be good for them. She tried to concentrate on the meal and the company, but by the time Keith looked up from his empty plate she’d only eaten half her food and couldn’t remember what it tasted like or what they’d been talking about.

  “Maybe we should skip that movie,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company tonight.”

  He reached across the table and grabbed her hand, squeezed. “I’ve been trying to distract you, but I can see it’s not working.”

  “I know you have and I appreciate it.”

  “I really like you, Erin.”

  “I like you, too.”

  “Do you?”

  She put her other hand over his and tried for a smile. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t be going away with you if I didn’t.”

  He smiled, his shoulders sagging a little in relief.

  “I haven’t been a very good girlfriend lately, have I?”

  “You’ve been busy with your new job. I understand. And then with what happened today… You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Thanks again for coming to get me. That was very thoughtful of you.”

  “I’m always thinking of you.” He leaned in and gave her a kiss.

  “Tell me about your day.”

  “Nothing to tell.” He pulled his hand from hers and stood. “How about dessert? I got the last piece of butter cake from the Do or Dine.”

  She watched him walk to the refrigerator. He moved with a confident, long-legged grace that had attracted her from the start. He bent over to look into the refrigerator and she was hurled out of her kitchen and dropped into another kitchen. The walls were painted a sunny yellow with a sunflower border. Erin blinked in the sudden brightness. A blueberry pie cooled on the counter, so fresh out of the oven she could smell it.

  An older woman Erin recognized as Keith’s mother sat at the kitchen table, shucking peas. “I still don’t see why it matters. You should just go along as you have been.”

  Keith pulled his head out of the refrigerator with a can of soda in his hand. He was wearing his Lucky’s Bag N Save apron, white button-up shirt and black slacks. His hair was a little longer than it was now. “It’ll matter to Erin, so it matters to me.”

  “Your father isn’t going to like this.”

  “I know.”

  His mother sighed, took the bowl from her lap, and set it on the table with a thunk. “You’re going to be stubborn about this, I can see.”

  “As stubborn as you.”

  “Yes, well. You didn’t get all my best traits.” Keith’s mother wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, keeping her gaze on her task. “You’re sure you’re the responsible party?”

  Keith straightened from where he’d been slouching against the refrigerator. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

  “The smart thing.”

  He sat his soda on the counter. “I’m not listening to this.” He turned to leave, but his mother’s next words stopped him in the doorway.

  “I have proof.”

  He kept his feet planted and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “But you need to. Don’t be a fool.”

  “A fool?” He turned partially. “It’s too late for that.”

  “Betty saw her meeting another man.”

  “Mom, don’t.”

  “She didn’t see who, but the timing is right enough to give me doubts.”

  “I’m going to work,” Keith blurted. He started for the front door.

  His mother got up and followed. “I raised you to be smart, but since you weren’t smart enough stay away from that whore, I’m going to make sure you don’t make an even worse mistake.”

  “Don’t call her a whore!”

  “Women who sleep around and get pregnant by God knows who are whores. Before you throw away
your life on her and her bastard child you’re going to ask for a paternity test.”

  Keith opened the front door and ran down the steps to his car.

  “You hear me?” his mother called after him.

  Keith jumped into his car, started it and peeled away from the curb, leaving his mother fuming on the porch, hands on her hips.

  “Can’t keep it in his pants, just like his father,” she grumbled under her breath. She went back into the house, picked up the phone, and dialed. “Hello? This is Nancy Collins. I’m calling on behalf of my son. There’s something I think you should know—”

  Erin sucked in a sharp breath suddenly back in her kitchen. Keith was pulling a pink bakery box out of her refrigerator. Her heart beat so hard the sound filled her head. Past or future? She couldn’t tell. There’d been nothing in the vision to indicate if what she saw was something that had happened or something that was going to happen. No calendar on the wall, no reference to events she could place. Keith’s hair had been longer like it was when they first started dating. She’d been after him to grow it out again. She gripped the edge of the table, trying to get her bearings.

  Keith got a couple of forks from a drawer and sat in his seat. Struggling to make sense of what she’d just experienced, she pasted on a smile and tried to look normal.

  He opened the cake box flat. “Should I get some plates?”

  “That’s… o-okay.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.” Her voice was higher than usual. She tried to pitch it lower. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  He frowned, tilting his head to the side. “Are you sure?”

  She grabbed a fork and pulled the cake toward her. “Mmm, this looks good.” She worked on being normal as she scooped up a bite and pushed it into her mouth.

  Keith watched her for a moment, then dug into the cake on his side. “Maybe I should spend the night and look after you.”

  “No,” she answered, too quickly. At his raised brows, she back-pedaled. “I’m just so tired, I don’t know what kind of company I’d be.”

  “I like your company any way I can get it. I’ll stop by first thing in the morning then.”

  “I have to finish giving my statement at the police station and go to work. I wouldn’t have any time.”