by Lena Gregory
Cass frowned. No wonder the police couldn’t help this guy. “Can you narrow it down any?”
“Nope.” He lifted a wooden stirrer from the tray and stuck it between his teeth. He clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze on her the whole time.
It was past time to get this guy out of her shop. It didn’t take any kind of psychic powers to feel the negative energy pouring off him in waves. “Okay, then. Why don’t we get started?” She lit a white candle and pushed it to the side of the table, then set the paper and pencils in front of her.
Color readings tended to be calming, and her clients usually left with a sense of peace. Hopefully, it would soothe what she perceived as an undercurrent of violence in the big man. Maybe that’s why Beast took such an instant dislike to him. Couldn’t dogs sense stuff like that?
Without looking, she grabbed a handful of pencils from the basket and placed them beside her. She rolled her hand back and forth over them, coaxing them into a straight line.
“If your daughter is still alive, and you have no idea where she could be, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do for you.” Holding her breath, she waited for another outburst. When none came, she lifted a pencil and pressed it to the paper. Black. Hmmm . . .
She’d never started a reading with the color black before, and she had to wonder if it was her own opinion of the man guiding her choice of color. She always tried to let her subconscious—or whatever—guide her hand, but this time she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she was transferring her intense dislike and lack of trust for him to the reading. She shook off the concern and tried to focus.
Black was a color of mystery. While it didn’t always have a negative connotation—it could also represent power and strength, which this man obviously possessed—more often than not, it did.
She began to scribble, just a random blotch of color toward the top of the page. Black could also symbolize death. Was that the message she was supposed to pass on? That his daughter had died? No way could she tell him that, even if she was certain of it, which she wasn’t. Actually, she was getting surprisingly few impressions from this man, other than an overwhelming sense of anger.
She continued to scribble, the rhythmic scratch, scratch, scratch of the pencil against the paper the only sound as her blob of black began to take on a definite shape. She frowned. That had never happened before. Her color readings usually left her with a random palette of colors that could tell her something about her client. This was different, surreal.
A faceless silhouette began to form . . . Blackness lifted off the page, surrounded her, embraced her in shadow. The shape of a woman emerged from the darkness, the same woman who’d haunted her every nightmare for over a week now, robbing her of the sleep she so desperately needed. Was it Kelly? The age difference between the woman and the picture Artie had provided made it impossible to tell.
“She needs help.” The words shot out before she could censor them.
“Who? Kelly?”
“No . . . I’m sorry . . .” Her thoughts drifted away with the image of the woman, her high collar, pearl buttons done up to her chin, hair pulled severely back, all giving the appearance of someone from another time, someone who’d lived and passed over a long time ago, and yet, something about her youth tugged at Cass. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Artie cleared his throat, dragging her back to reality with a jolt, and she tossed the pencil into the basket.
“Uh . . .” How long had she been silent, gripped by the vision of death? “I’m sorry. I . . . umm . . .” She couldn’t tell him what she’d seen, she wasn’t even sure it had anything to do with his daughter. She inhaled deeply. “Black is a color of mystery. It could be the mystery surrounding your daughter’s disappearance . . .” Or it could be something more, some secret he’s keeping. She kept that to herself.
“Let’s see.” She rolled the pencils back and forth beneath her hand, searching for calm, then lifted a red one from the middle of the line. “Red. Another color of power.” That was true enough. But it was also the color of blood—a warning of danger or violence. “You need to be careful.” She shook her head as she continued to add red in a halo around the large area of shadow she’d already created. “But I’m not sure why yet.”
She returned the red to the line and picked up a gold pencil, a color that could be associated with wealth and extravagance. While Artie’s flannel shirt, thick build, and ruddy complexion screamed lumberjack more than luxury, you never could tell. Yet she was suddenly very sure she’d chosen gold to symbolize achievement. “You are going to accomplish something you’ve set out to do.” Or maybe he already had. But did that success have anything to do with his missing daughter?
2
Cass pulled the door shut behind her, turned the key in the lock of Mystical Musings, and tightened her hold on Beast’s leash. When she’d walked along the beach to work that morning, she hadn’t expected to be at the shop so late. She should have left earlier, but once she’d gotten rid of Artie, she’d lit several candles and scrubbed the shop clean. Her need for organization wouldn’t allow her to leave a mess, even under normal circumstances, but having Artie there had left a sense of foreboding hanging over everything, and the need for cleansing had overwhelmed her.
She shivered at the thought that Artie could still be lurking somewhere in the cloudy, moonless night, and glanced around the deserted boardwalk. On a Friday night during the summer, in the height of tourist season, there would still be shops open and people milling around, couples would still be walking on the beach, and groups of teenagers would have a bonfire going, but on a cool, rainy spring night, not so much. No way was she leaving out the back door of the shop and walking home down the beach in the pitch black. “Come on, boy. We’ll walk down the boardwalk.” It would take her a little longer to get home, but at least the boardwalk and road were well lit.
Cool drizzle dampened her long blond hair, sticking strands to the sides of her face. A perfect night to go home and curl up with a cup of tea and a good book . . . if not for the risk of falling asleep.
She pulled her cell phone from her jacket pocket and dialed Bee’s number, then switched the call to her Bluetooth. If Beast decided to run after anything, she might well need both hands to restrain him. She’d already lost one phone that way.
“Hello, dear.”
Cass smiled. “Are you at the shop yet?” Bee’s dress shop, Dreamweaver Designs, which was only a few doors down from Mystical Musings, appeared dark, but that didn’t mean anything. Bee hated interruptions when he was working on a design— “in the zone,” as he called it—so he often worked in the back room of the shop through the night.
“Nah, not yet. I was just thinking about getting dinner and heading in. Why, what’s up?”
“Oh, that’s great.” She continued on her way past Dreamweaver. “Want to meet at the diner?”
“Sure. Did you call Stephanie?”
“Not yet. I’m walking home, and I was passing the shop, so I figured I’d give you a try in case you were already there.”
“Oh, so you were going to interrupt my work?”
“Uh . . .”
Bee laughed. “No worries. I’ll call her and meet you at the diner in about a half hour.”
“Okay, I just have to—”
An image of the woman from her dreams appeared in the new art gallery window, stopping Cass dead in her tracks.
Her heart pounded wildly as she turned to face the large display window. The vision of the woman’s head and shoulders hovered dead center. Blackness surrounded her.
“Cass?”
“I . . . uhh . . .” She pressed her palm against the cool glass.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to dispel the vision. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. When she opened h
er eyes, the woman was still there. “I gotta go, though. See you in a few.” She disconnected the call.
An easel stood in the center of the display with a painting of the woman exactly as she’d been appearing in Cass’s dreams. No frame surrounded the vision. It just appeared to be a canvas with the woman’s head and shoulders surrounded by black. A lamp above the painting created an aura of light around the woman.
Cass used her sleeve to wipe streaks of rain from the window. Cupping her hand above her eyes, she leaned closer and strained to see into the shop.
Paintings were carefully displayed throughout the window, mostly portraits, but an occasional landscape or beach scene as well. And, of course, the obligatory lighthouse paintings, many with angry seas. Powerful, yet a little dark for a display window—or maybe that was just Cass’s mood. A black backdrop kept her from seeing any farther into the shop.
She returned her gaze to the woman in the painting. The severely pulled-back hair tightened her expression, a stark contrast to the pouty full lips. Cass tilted her head. It seemed to her the woman’s mouth should be pressed into a firm line . . . but why? She couldn’t remember the woman’s mouth from her dreams. The same or different? She squinted—
A peal of thunder rattled the window.
Cass jumped back.
Beast yelped.
Heavy, cold raindrops pelted her, dripping down the back of her jacket, returning her to the reality that she was standing with her back to a deserted street. Pulling her hood up, she briefly considered running back to the shop and calling Stephanie to pick her up, but she was already pretty creeped out and didn’t feel like hanging around the boardwalk any longer. She turned and started briskly toward home.
Beast trotted happily at her side. Rain never seemed to bother him. Who knew? With all that thick hair, it probably felt nice and cool.
She moved closer to Beast, the giant dog making her feel safer as she splashed through the growing puddles with visions of the two women—Artie’s daughter and the woman from her dreams—battling for a place in her mind. She had to figure out if there was a connection. There didn’t seem to be, and yet . . .
Even with Beast at her side, she breathed a sigh of relief when she rounded the last curve in the road, and her lit yard finally came into view. Ignoring the urge to get inside as quickly as possible, she took the time to open the gate and follow the driveway around to the back door. If she brought him in the front door and he shook himself off as he bolted for the kitchen, she’d spend the next hour cleaning up the mess.
She unlocked the door and braced herself. “Okay, Beast. I won’t leave you out in the rain, but please don’t shake before I can get to a towel.” She pushed the door open and ran for the laundry room off the kitchen.
Beast almost plowed her over as he ran in beside her, his wet paws slipping and sliding on the tile floor.
She fumbled but reached the laundry room without going down and grabbed a towel from the dryer.
The jangle of Beast’s collar told her she was too late.
With a sigh, and the acceptance of the knowledge that she was going to be delayed meeting Bee, she toweled Beast off and wiped up the mess from the cabinets, the wall, the door, and the floor. When she finished, she grabbed her keys from the hook by the back door and slung her big bag over her shoulder. Then she turned to Beast. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You don’t eat the kitchen while I’m gone, and I’ll bring you a hamburger when I come back.”
He licked his chops, and she took that for agreement.
“Good enough.”
• • •
The bright lights washed over the car as Cass pulled into a spot close to the diner, hoping to avoid another drenching. She turned off the car but sat watching the sheets of rain run down the front window. Thirty percent chance of rain, huh? What difference would it make, anyway? Since she hadn’t had time to change, she was still damp from her walk home. She sighed then jumped out and ran for the diner door.
When she reached the door, her best friend, Bee, pushed it open for her. “It’s about time.” He cocked an eyebrow and eyed her up and down.
“Yeah. Long day.” She tried to comb her fingers through her hair but gave up quickly. The wet tangled mess wasn’t going to be smoothed without a good brushing. “Is Stephanie here yet?”
Bee hooked a thumb toward the back room of the diner. “She’s in back looking at pictures of Shelly’s new baby.”
“Shelly’s back from maternity leave?”
“Today’s her first day back, but she’s only working part-time,” Bee said.
“I don’t know how she works at all. How many kids does that make now?”
Shrugging, Bee gestured for Cass to precede him to the table. “I don’t know, like four or five I think.”
“Just the two of you tonight?” The hostess, Gabby, grabbed two big, plastic menus.
“Nah, Stephanie’s in back,” Bee said.
She shot Bee a knowing look and picked up a third menu. “Got caught up with baby pictures, huh?”
“Stephanie loves that stuff.” Bee shrugged off his brown leather jacket, hung it on a post behind the table, and slid into the booth.
Cass hung her dripping coat beside Bee’s and sat down across from him.
Gabby left the menus on the table and ran to ring up a customer waiting by the register.
“Beast in the car?” Bee asked.
“No, I brought him home then had to clean the kitchen.”
Amusement flickered in his big brown eyes. “Did you call Herb Cox?”
Cass scowled and lifted the menu in front of her face. She already knew she had to call the trainer.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
“Ugh . . .” She didn’t want to talk about her failure as a pet owner, or her recurring nightmare.
“Cass?”
“Oh, uh . . . sorry.” She dropped the menu onto the table.
Bee frowned. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I just wanted to . . . um . . .” Now she felt bad. He was only trying to help. He loved Beast just as much as she did and didn’t want him to get hurt. “I just wanted to know if you’d like to come to dinner Sunday,” she blurted. “I’m going to cook.”
Bee’s tone turned serious. “You’re dying.”
“What!” Cass stared at him briefly before massaging her temples between her thumb and forefinger. After the past week, she had little patience for Bee’s flare for drama. “I’m not dying.”
He scoffed. “Someone else is dying?”
“Knock it off, Bee. I just want to cook dinner for you guys. No one is dying.”
“Not yet, anyway.” Humor flooded his voice.
Unfortunately, Cass was in no mood for Bee’s teasing, and she couldn’t curb the crankiness in her voice. “Do you want to come or not, Bee?”
“Uh-oh . . . someone sure is snippy. Again.”
Now he had a pout plastered on his face. Great. The last thing she needed right now was Bee in full diva mode. She sighed. “Look, I’m just tired.”
“Fine.”
“Would you like to come to dinner Sunday?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” His laughter assured her all was forgiven. “If I remember correctly, last time you tried to cook, the fire department showed up and hauled your stove right out of the kitchen onto the back deck.” He harrumphed, lifted his chin, and tossed his scarf over his shoulder. “And I had to hear about it in the deli the next morning.” The last statement held a bit of reproach. Bee liked to get anything gossipworthy firsthand.
She bit back a growl, the memory of her last attempt at eating something healthy—something that didn’t come from a can, a frozen tray, or a drive-through—taunting her. “For the last time, that was not my fault. I forgot I turned on the rice and went to do my taxes.” And doing her ta
xes had led to ideas of how to increase her income through the winter months, and then she’d totally lost track of time.
“You set the house on fire, Cass.”
“Watch it, buddy. Besides, it was only a small fire . . . and I didn’t need that dish towel anyway.”
Bee laughed long and hard, melting some of Cass’s stress away.
She finally grinned.
“Well, this time I’m not missing it.” He sobered. “Just do me one favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Cook early enough so we can hit McDonald’s if things don’t work out. I’ve already had fourthmeal at Taco Bell three times this week.”
“Smart aleck.” Ignoring Bee, she opened her menu and studied her options—not that she didn’t already know the menu by heart, but the idea of a salad or a wrap, her usual choices, didn’t really appeal. A chill rattled her, probably from being cold and wet, but she still stole a suspicious glance around the diner, half-expecting the vision of a woman to assail her. She needed comfort food.
“Hey.” Stephanie offered a half smile as she slid into the booth beside Cass. “Why so late?”
She shrugged and closed the menu on the table. “I had a late reading.” The negative energy surrounding Artie Becker was still affecting Cass’s frame of mind. Or maybe she was just exhausted.
“Oh, right. The new guy. How’d it go?” Deep lines furrowed Stephanie’s brow.
Cass sat up a little straighter and studied her friend. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Stephanie, who could also recite the menu forward and backward, opened her menu and flipped through the plastic-coated pages.
Hmmm . . . weird.
“Well, aren’t we all perky tonight?” Bee glanced pointedly at Stephanie’s bent head and cocked an eyebrow at Cass.
With no idea what the problem was, she shrugged and shook her head. Obviously, something was bothering Stephanie, but if she didn’t want to talk about it—
