Stealing Shadows

by Kay Hooper

  “Not a word to any of us.” Mike polished the counter in front of Cassie industriously. “Not that I talked to her much since her job was back in the office, but Mrs. Selby says Becky never told her either. And none of us ever noticed her being watched or followed, nothing like that.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “And now there’s Mrs. Jameson and Miss Kirkwood too. It’s just horrible, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Cassie said. “Horrible.” Before he could prolong the conversation, she retreated to a booth with the day’s newspaper and her coffee.

  The newspaper articles were fairly restrained given the unusual violence of the crimes. The latest murders had made the front page, and the story was the headline, but the tone of the piece was low-key and just reported the facts as they were known. Two women murdered, presumably within hours of each other and less than a mile apart. Assailant unknown. The Sheriff’s Department was investigating, and if anyone had anything to report, they could call the department, number provided.

  Inside the newspaper, on the editorial page, a far more worried voice wondered if there should be a curfew, more deputies patrolling, and more “openness” from the sheriff. The intimation was that he was keeping to himself details of the crimes, and that those details, if known, might enable the good citizens of Ryan’s Bluff to better protect themselves. Perhaps they should not have elected someone with a bare dozen years of police experience, no matter who his father had been….

  “Ouch,” Cassie murmured, wondering if Sheriff Dunbar’s methodical police work was going to prove a political liability to him in the near future.

  She knew from her own research that Dunbar had gained his police experience in Atlanta, rising to detective shortly before he had returned home to Ryan’s Bluff when his father had announced his retirement as sheriff.

  An unkind soul might indeed have said that Matt Dunbar had won the election on his name alone, but that would have been untrue. He was qualified for his job, that was certain. And he had fairly good political instincts, though word had it he had run afoul of the town council at least once since taking office.

  In any case, there was probably no one better qualified for the job of sheriff in the county, certainly not better qualified to investigate a series of murders, so the stinging editorial held a note of spite rather than reason.

  Or a note of panic.

  A few pages later there were articles about both Ivy Jameson and Jill Kirkwood, human-interest pieces about the lives of the two women. Ivy’s history and good works were stiffly presented with an air of pious resolution, while Jill’s life story was told with warmth and genuine regret.

  Two women, one widely despised and the other highly regarded. And one young girl who had, by all accounts, never harmed a soul. All horribly murdered in the same small town within days of one another.

  Cassie thought the newspaper had done a fine job in getting so much information in print in a Monday edition when the two latest murders had taken place the day before, but she didn’t doubt that upcoming editions would sound much less detached. The days ahead promised to be rough.

  She laid the paper aside and sipped her coffee thoughtfully, vaguely aware of the people moving about in the drugstore—she didn’t dare call it a pharmacy, since no one else did—shopping or just visiting with each other. This was a central gathering spot for downtown, a fact Cassie had discovered early on.

  But there were few people in the soda fountain side of the store, so Cassie instantly sensed when someone paused beside her booth. She looked up to see a stunning redhead, too model-gorgeous to belong in this small town.

  In a rather roundabout way Cassie recognized her.

  “Miss Neill? My name is Abby. Abby Montgomery. I knew your aunt. May I talk to you?”

  Green panties. Cassie pushed the knowledge away, reflecting, not for the first time, that psychic abilities could provide certain facts that were nothing but embarrassing.

  She gestured toward the other side of the booth. “Please, have a seat. And I’m Cassie.”

  “Thanks.” Abby sat down with her own coffee. She was smiling, but though her gaze was direct, her green eyes were enigmatic.

  Without even trying, Cassie knew that here was another mind she would find it impossible to tap into, and that certainty made her feel much more sociable than was usual for her.

  It was nice not to have to worry overmuch about keeping her own guard up.

  “So you knew Aunt Alex.”

  “Yes. We met by chance a few months before she died. At least—I thought it was by chance.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  Abby hesitated, then let out a little laugh. “Looking back, I think she wanted to meet me. She had something she wanted to tell me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. My destiny.”

  “I see.” Cassie didn’t ask what the prediction had been. Instead, she said, “I was told Aunt Alex had the gift of prophecy.”

  “You were told?”

  Cassie had little doubt that Matt Dunbar had discussed her abilities with his lover; he was a very open man in virtually every way, and his nature would be to confide in the woman he loved. So she was certain that Abby knew she was—or claimed to be—psychic. She suspected that this meeting was in the nature of a test. Or a confirmation.

  Cassie said, “I was only a little girl when my mother and Aunt Alex quarreled, and I never saw or heard from her again. Until I got word of her death and learned I’d inherited her property here. So all I really know about her are the few things I overheard as a child.”

  “Then you don’t know if she was always right?”

  Abby’s voice was as calm as Cassie’s had been, but there was something in the tension of her posture and the white-knuckled grip on her coffee cup that betrayed strong emotion.

  Careful now, Cassie said, “No psychic is always a hundred percent right. The things we see are often subjective, sometimes symbolic images that we filter through our own knowledge and experiences. If anything, we’re translators, attempting to decipher a language we only partly understand.”

  Abby smiled wryly. “So the answer is no.”

  “No, I don’t know if Aunt Alex was always right—but I doubt very much if she was.”

  “She said… she told me there was a difference between a prediction and a prophecy. Is that right?”

  “Precognition isn’t really my bailiwick, but my mother always said they were different. That a prediction is a fluid thing, a vision of an event that might sometimes be influenced by people and their choices, so that the outcome couldn’t be clearly seen. A prophecy, she said, is far more concrete. It’s a true vision of the future, impossible to alter unless someone with certain knowledge interfered.”

  “Certain knowledge?”

  Cassie nodded. “Suppose a psychic had a prophetic vision of a newspaper headline that stated a hundred people died in a hotel fire. She knows she won’t be believed if she tries to warn them, so she does the only thing she can. Goes to the hotel and sets off a fire alarm before the actual fire is discovered. The people get out. But the hotel burns just the same. The headline she saw will never exist. But the event that generated it will happen.”

  Abby was listening so intently that she was actually leaning forward over the table. “Then a prophecy can be changed, but only partly.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told. The problem for the psychic is knowing whether her interference will alter the prophecy—or bring it about just as she saw it.”

  “How can she know that?”

  “According to some, she can’t. I’d lean that way myself. Interpreting what you see is difficult enough. Trying to figure out if your own warning or interference is the catalyst that will bring about the very outcome you’re trying to avoid… I just don’t see how it’s possible to do anything but guess. And if the stakes are high enough, a wrong guess could have a very costly price tag.”

  “Yes.” Abby dropped her gaze to her coffee. “Yes, I see that.”<
br />
  Cassie hesitated, then said, “If you don’t mind my asking, what did Aunt Alex tell you? A prediction of your destiny? Or a prophecy?”

  Abby drew a breath and met Cassie’s gaze, a little smile wavering on her lips. “A prophecy. She said—she told me I would die at the hands of a madman.”

  EIGHT

  After he dropped off Cassie at the garage, Ben had a brief meeting at his office with the public defender about an upcoming case, then fielded several calls from concerned citizens regarding the murders.

  Or, more specifically, what he was going to do about them.

  His job demanded tact and patience, and he used both. But as he hung up the phone after the third call, he was uneasily aware that the mood of the town was already beginning to shift from panic to anger.

  And there were too damned many guns in too many angry hands.

  Knowing that Eric Stephens would be calling him soon to find out what he should print in the newspaper in response to citizen demands for official advice on how to be safer, he began jotting down a list on a legal pad. Matt would be asked first, of course, and he would offer these same practical suggestions before getting impatient and telling Eric to “ask Ben” so he could get back to his investigation.

  Matt usually knew the right answers but seldom trusted his own instincts. Sometimes it worried Ben.

  Janice buzzed from her office. “A call, Judge. It’s your mother.”

  “Thanks, Janice.” He picked up the receiver. “Hi, Mary. What’s up?” He had called his mother by her name—at her request—from the time he was a boy. The habit was so ingrained now, he seldom even thought about it.

  “Ben, these awful murders…” The little-girl, breathless voice that his father had at first found charming and then, as the years passed, utterly exasperating, was filled with worry and horror. “And Jill! The poor, poor thing!”

  “I know, Mary. We’ll catch him, don’t worry.”

  “Is it true Ivy Jameson was killed in her own kitchen?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “And Jill in her shop! Ben, what kind of monster could be doing this?”

  Avoiding the obvious retort that if they knew that, the monster would be more easily captured, Ben said patiently, “I don’t want you to upset yourself, Mary. You’ve got a good security system and the dogs—keep them with you when you’re out in the garden.”

  “It’s just that I’m so far from town,” she said.

  Ben started to repeat that she would be fine, but then remembered his missed opportunity to warn Jill. Could he live with himself if something like that happened again? “I’ll tell you what. I should be finished here by five at the latest. I’ll come out to the house and check all the locks, make sure the security system is working properly, all right?”

  “And stay to supper? I’ll fix that chicken dish you like so much.”

  He thought fleetingly of his half-formed intention to call Cassie and offer to bring Chinese takeout to her place that evening, and bit back a sigh. “Sure. That sounds great, Mary. I should be there between five-thirty and six.”

  “Bring some wine,” she chirped merrily. “See you then.”

  “Right.” Ben hung up the phone and rubbed the back of his neck wearily. He didn’t feel a bit disloyal to his father in wishing his mother would find a kind widower and remarry. She needed a man around, and failing a romantic interest, she naturally turned to her son. For everything.

  It wasn’t a role Ben enjoyed.

  Growing up the only child of a young, emotionally volatile mother and a much older, coldly distant, manipulative father, he had, more often than not, felt like a punching bag. It hadn’t helped that his own personality was an uneasy mixture of his genetic heritage; every bit as emotionally sensitive and impulsive as his mother, he had also inherited his father’s intellectual detachment, innate wariness, and ability to cloak his feelings behind either charm or coldness.

  The mix made him a good lawyer.

  He wasn’t at all sure it made him a good man.

  He was certain it made him a lousy lover.

  Jill had deserved better. All she had wanted from him had been emotional closeness, an intimacy beyond the physical, and since they had been seeing each other for several months by that point, she had certainly been entitled to ask.

  In response, he had only grown cooler and more distant, burying himself in work and offering her less and less of his time, his attention. Himself.

  Even then Ben had realized what he was doing, yet he’d been powerless to do anything else. He had valued her love, but her conspicuous need of him had made him feel obligated. Not obligated to commit himself to her, but to open himself to her, and it was something he was simply unable to do.

  He didn’t know why that was true. But he did know that Jill had not been the only woman in his life whose attempts to get closer to him had been rebuffed, only the most recent.

  After weeks of distancing himself he had coolly suggested that their relationship was simply not working. Jill hadn’t been very surprised, and she hadn’t subjected him to an emotional scene, but her unhappiness had been obvious.

  She had deserved better.

  Ben felt that he’d abandoned her twice. First because he hadn’t been able to love her, and then before her death, when a warning from him might have made a difference.

  “Judge?”

  He looked up with a start to find his secretary standing in the open doorway. “Yes, Janice?”

  “The sheriff called while you were on with your mother. He wants you to come by his office before six if you can. Says he’s found out something interesting about a piece of evidence in these murders.”

  “Tell Sheriff Dunbar,” Cassie said immediately. A prediction about dying at the hands of a madman would be terrifying enough to live with normally, she thought, but with a serial killer stalking the town, it became more than imperative that Abby take some steps to protect herself. And even though they had just met, Cassie had seen too many scenes of violence recently not to feel a chill of fear for Abby.

  Abby’s smile wavered even more. “What makes you think I haven’t already?”

  “A hunch.”

  “Pretty good one.”

  “Why haven’t you told him?”

  “Because he wouldn’t believe it. He’s an atheist, did you know that?”

  Cassie shook her head.

  “Yes. He goes to church because it’s politically expedient, but he considers religion nothing more than myth and superstition.” She paused, then added, “In other words, on a par with psychic ability.”

  “If there is no God, there can be no magic,” Cassie murmured.

  “Something like that.”

  Cassie sighed. “It’s so difficult for most people to believe that it’s just another sense, like sight or hearing. That they don’t have it because nothing in their genetic makeup or experience triggered that part of their brain to begin working instead of lying dormant. I have black hair and gray eyes and psychic ability. All perfectly normal for me, all handed down in my family for generations. If they could just understand there’s nothing magical about it.”

  “Matt will probably never understand,” Abby said. “It’s just too alien to him. He wouldn’t be listening to you at all if it weren’t for Ben. But even when they were kids, Ben was always the one trying new things and Matt always followed Ben’s lead.” She lowered her voice. “Plus, you knew we were seeing each other, and that shook him up more than he’ll admit. But he’s not at all inclined to put any faith in psychic ability.”

  “Surely he’d heed a threat to you?”

  “He’d think Miss Melton was just trying to scare me—for some undoubtedly mercenary reason. He never knew your aunt, and he’d never believe how upset she was when she told me, how reluctant.”

  Cassie shook her head. “That’s the part I don’t understand.”

  “You mean, why she’d tell me I was doomed?”

  “Exactly. As a rule,
prophecies tend to herald some kind of tragedy, but no responsible psychic would offer such a warning to someone if there was nothing they could do to change a terrible fate.” Cassie kept her voice matter-of-fact.

  Abby frowned. “I hardly knew her, of course, but I got the distinct feeling it was something she didn’t want to tell me. She seemed to force herself to get the words out. And she kept repeating that the future was never static, that human will could influence fate.”

  “Then she thought you could change what she saw.”

  “Or else just wanted to soften the blow.”

  Cassie shook her head. “If that were the case, why tell you at all? I can’t believe she was cruel, and to offer you a bleak and unalterable vision of the future would definitely be cruel. No, my guess is that she told you because she thought if you knew, you could do something to avoid the fate she saw for you.”

  “Such as?”

  “I wish I knew. Sometimes avoiding an event is as simple as turning left instead of right at the next traffic light you encounter.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, I wish there was something more helpful I could tell you, but even if I had my aunt’s gift, I’d still have to interpret what I saw. There are so many possible outcomes for any situation.”

  “That’s what your aunt said.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do in your shoes,” Cassie said. “But telling the sheriff would be a good start. He told me he’d known a few people who were deceived by psychics, but surely he’d pay attention to a warning concerning you, especially when it was given by a woman with nothing to gain.”

  “He’s more likely to get mad at me for taking the warning seriously. To him, it’s always some kind of con.” Abby paused, then added, “He’s convinced you’re conning them.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s a good man. But he can be stubborn as hell.”

  Cassie smiled. “His mistrust doesn’t bother me much. Or hasn’t so far. So far, it hasn’t been costly.”

  “You think it will be?”

  “If I manage to pick up some useful information and he ignores it because he doesn’t trust me… you bet it could be costly.” She shook her head. “But right now I’m more concerned about you. Reading the good sheriff told me more than you’d probably like about your personal life. I know you have a husband you’re separated from, and I know he’s capable of violence. Add to that one maniac who’s killed three women so far, and I’d say it might be a good time for you to take a vacation and go lie on a beach somewhere.”