by Sharon Sala
She glanced over her shoulder at Brenda, her eyes wide with shock. But Brenda hadn’t moved.
“Jessie…” Stone’s voice was calm, his warning less than urgent. It was more a tone one would take with a child who wouldn’t listen.
She took a deep breath, telling herself that it would be all right, and looked up. Stone was watching her. Waiting.
“I’m all right.” She stepped backward out of his grasp. “Sorry. For a moment there, I guess I just panicked.”
A car turned the corner of the block. The headlights swept across them, then it continued up the block to a house at the end of the street. Stone held out his hand.
“Let’s go inside.”
Jessica started up the steps, with Stone and Brenda right behind her. Her hand was on the doorknob when she remembered that it was locked. Muttering beneath her breath, she began to dig in her purse when Stone appeared at her side, the trusty lock pick in his hands.
“Allow me,” he said with a grin.
Once more, the lock gave to his skillful intrusion, and he stepped aside for the women to proceed. Brenda eyed him thoughtfully as she passed by. Stone managed a smile, but couldn’t bring himself to fully meet her questioning gaze. When he’d been learning about police protocol, they had left out the part about wooing women of the same family. Now he knew why.
Jessica flipped on the lights as she entered. Stone shut the door behind him. They were inside. Together. And it seemed that no one knew what to say or where to start.
Finally it was Jessica who broke the ice, and her question ended the odd stalemate by bringing the true problem to the fore.
“Am I in any danger?”
“I don’t think so,” Stone said. “However, there’s a possibility that the word has already been leaked about someone having a premonition about Olivia being murdered instead of dying from a heart attack.”
Jessica glanced at Brenda.
“Don’t look at me,” Brenda said quickly.
“It wasn’t your sister,” Stone said. “It was one of ours.”
“That detective,” Jessica said. “The one who laughed in my face.”
“He didn’t exactly laugh,” Stone reminded her.
“Well, he did everything but laugh,” she said, and then sighed. “It doesn’t really matter, I guess. What does matter is finding out who killed Mrs. Stuart. I always liked her.”
“Everyone liked her,” Brenda said.
“Someone didn’t,” Stone said.
Jessica blanched. That panicked feeling was coming back, and she needed to change the subject. She glanced at Brenda and tried to smile. “Who wants coffee?”
“I’ll make it,” Brenda offered.
“That’s a relief,” Stone said, and was rewarded by Jessie’s offended glare. He grinned. Right now he would have done anything to get her mind off the business at hand.
Brenda disappeared down the hall, leaving Stone and Jessica alone.
“So, what are you thinking?”
In her typical straightforward manner, Jessica gave him an answer he wasn’t ready to hear.
“That you could have called to give me this information.”
He looked startled. “Well, yes, I suppose I—”
“Then, why didn’t you?” she asked.
Stone froze. Why didn’t he call? His gaze swept her face, then her body, trying to find an answer she would believe.
There was a smudge on the leg of her slacks, and her hair was as flyaway as the expression in her eyes. Along with the stitches just visible beneath her bangs, the small, bare spot surrounding them made him ache to hold her. She was so small, and looked so fragile and afraid. And as he stood, caught within the power of a blue, megawatt stare, he knew.
“Because I wanted to see you.”
He’d shocked her. He could see it in her eyes.
Startled, Jessica took a small step back.
His voice lowered and he followed her retreat. “Because I wanted to hold you.”
Her heart started to pound. How dare he tell her these things now?
“You’ve said all this before. Besides, you know it’s easy to say when my sister is just down the hall.”
He paused in midstep. At that moment, he realized he’d completely forgotten Brenda was even in the house. But it didn’t stop him long. He started after her.
“I don’t care if the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is in the next room, and if you’ll stand still long enough, I’ll prove it.”
She froze.
A wry smile spread across his face. “That’s what I like best about you, honey. You always know when to call a man’s bluff.”
His arms slid around her shoulders, and then he was pulling her close—and closer still.
She wound her arms around his neck. “I’m not your honey,” she whispered. “You didn’t want me, remember?”
He kissed her slowly. He tasted the edge of her lower lip, then moved past the gasp she’d just made to the sweet curve of her upper lip where it dipped downward in the center like the bud of a rose. He felt a shudder rip through her, and answered with a sigh of his own as he took her in his arms, lifting her off her feet until she was dangling in his grasp, several inches off the ground.
His whisper was soft near her ear. “You know what, Jessie Leigh?”
She opened her eyes and got lost in that dark, gray gaze. Only after he’d kissed her again then set her back on the floor did she remember he’d asked her a question.
“What?” she said with a sigh.
“I never said I didn’t want you.”
“But you let me go. It’s all the same thing.”
“I tried marriage and failed…miserably. I’m not stupid. I don’t intend to make the same mistake twice.”
She blinked through tears.
“But I’m not Naomi.”
He looked down at her tousled hair and tear-filled eyes and pulled her close, pressing her face against the center of his chest. For a moment, he neither moved nor breathed as a longing for something more than they’d had before hit him deep.
“I know who you are, Jessie Leigh. I remember the feel of your skin beneath my fingers. I—”
Brenda’s shout echoed down the hall.
“Coffee’s done!”
Startled by her sister’s untimely intrusion, she made a face and then sighed. “Rusty nails. Why wasn’t I born an only child?”
Stone stepped back, grateful that he’d been saved from making another serious mistake. It didn’t matter—couldn’t matter—how much he wanted Jessie, or how much he cared for her. He’d been down that road before, and there was nothing at the end of it but trouble.
* * *
Long after Stone and Brenda were gone, Jessica lay in her bed, imagining she could still feel the imprint of Stone’s mouth upon her lips and his breath upon her face. She closed her eyes, cuddling a pillow against her breast because she needed to be held and it was the closest thing to comfort she was going to receive.
Chapter Six
It Was Murder!
The glaring headlines of the Grand Springs Herald on Friday morning were causing an uproar all over the city. Gossip abounded as the news of Olivia Stuart’s death was given a new and macabre twist.
It was common knowledge that the mayor had been publicly and vocally opposed to a strip mining consortium that was trying to establish backing within the community so they could renew their lease. Fingers of suspicion could be pointed in any number of directions, but there was no proof linking the naysayers to Olivia Stuart’s death.
Other than the autopsy report, the detectives assigned to the case had few clues, and none that would stand up in court.
And, to Stone’s dismay, although it had yet to appear in the paper, he’d already heard whispers on the street about a secret witness having a psychic vision about the murder.
If Jessica Hanson was to be believed, and Stone had no reason to doubt her now, then the killer was a woman who preferred red fingernail polish and th
e scent of gardenias. For a man trained to deal in physical facts, it was one hell of a pitiful lead with which to start a case.
* * *
Jessica Hanson was one of the few people in the city who should not have been shocked by the morning headlines, yet when she picked the paper up off her front lawn and opened it on the way to the house, she saw the headline and stumbled, stubbing her toe on a crack in the concrete.
Ignoring the pain, she stood barefoot on her walkway, with the tail of her robe trailing in dew-damp grass, and read—from the headline, to the byline, to the last period that ended the piece.
“Isn’t it awful?”
Startled that she was no longer alone, Jessica looked up in surprise. Tinee Bloom, who lived in the next-to-the-last house at the end of the block, was standing at the edge of the path with her dog, Barney, on a leash. True to her name, Tinee Bloom favored clothing with vivid floral designs, and the green-and-purple, knee-length float dress she was wearing this morning was no exception.
Jessica eyed the oversize beagle who was sniffing beneath her best oleander bush and stifled a glare. Now she knew why that bush’s flowers had such an unusual scent. It wasn’t the flowers she’d been smelling, it was Barney the beagle’s daily duty.
“What did you say?” Jessica asked.
Tinee pointed to the paper Jessica was holding. “The headlines. I saw you reading the headlines. I said…isn’t it awful?”
Jessica nodded, then winced as Tinee’s dog began to dig. When Tinee Bloom showed no signs of regret for what the stupid pooch was doing, she pointed.
“Miss Bloom, please…your dog!”
Tinee glanced down at the dog who was now taking the proverbial “dump” at the edge of Jessica’s shrubs. She grinned widely and clapped her hands, totally missing the point of Jessica’s remarks.
“Oh! Good Barney. Good doggie. That’s my boy.” Tightening her hold on the dog’s leash and fluffing her henna-rinsed hair, she smiled.
“Well now. I suppose we’ll just be going. You have a nice day,” she said, and waved over her shoulder as she started down the walk.
Jessica was fuming as she glared at the woman’s flower-bedecked backside. For two cents, she’d…
The thought faded as another slipped into place. The paper fell from Jessica’s hands. A sensation of urgency swept over her and she felt an overwhelming urge to cry, then she shuddered and blinked as the world moved back into focus.
Tinee Bloom and Barney the beagle were almost at the corner. Jessica knew that, within moments, they would be crossing the street to make the return journey toward home. And she also knew that unless someone stopped them, it would be the last walk either one of them would take. Jessica grabbed the hem of her robe and started to run, screaming Tinee’s name as she went.
* * *
Barney stopped to sniff at a lizard at the edge of the grass. Tinee smiled to herself. Silly old puppy, still playing with critters. She tugged at his leash, and he obliged by ambling on ahead. Tinee’s stomach grumbled. There was coffee and Danish awaiting her arrival back home.
Four steps. Three steps. Two steps. One. At the stop sign, turn.
Tinee knew the corner by heart. With her head in the clouds and her hand on the leash, she started to step out into the street when a bloodcurdling scream sounded behind her. Startled, she yanked on Barney’s leash and spun around. Jessica Hanson was running toward her at an all-out sprint and screaming something she couldn’t understand.
“What’s that you say?” she called out.
“The car! The car! You’re going to get hit by that—”
It came out of nowhere. A sleek, gray bullet of a car that shot out of an alley, aiming at the curb on which Tinee Bloom and her dog were standing.
“Run!” Jessica screamed.
A look of pure horror spread over Tinee’s face as she pivoted. The car was nearly upon them, making no attempt to swerve. In a move that would have made an Olympian proud, Tinee leaped toward a nearby tree, taking Barney with her. Seconds later, the car hit the curb, taking out the stop sign, as well as a section of a nearby hedge, before swerving back onto the street.
Jessica spun as the car sailed past. She had a brief glimpse of what appeared to be an underage driver behind the wheel before the car sped away.
Moments later, Tinee Bloom came out from behind the tree on tottering legs, clutching Barney to her breasts and gasping for breath.
“We would have been killed,” she cried, and plopped Barney down at Jessica’s feet. “If you hadn’t called out, we would have been killed!”
People began coming out of their houses just as she threw her arms around Jessica’s neck in thanksgiving.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she said, hugging Jessica over and over in wild abandon. “You’re a true heroine, that’s what you are.”
Several of Jessica’s neighbors began to clap. It was a scattered sound that echoed within the small area in which they were standing, and it pierced Jessica’s heart with sudden fear. This was serious. She had to find a way to stop this before it was too late.
“Of course I’m not,” she said, and tried to lighten the moment by laughing lightly. It went nowhere. And to her dismay, Tinee Bloom was just winding up.
“Did you see that?” Tinee cried, pointing toward the broken stop sign and the damaged portion of hedge. “If Jessica hadn’t warned us, we would have been killed.”
Jessica felt the blood draining from her face. I’ve got to get away. I’ve got to leave before it dawns on her that—
Tinee suddenly clasped her hands to her mouth and turned back to Jessica, staring and pointing at her in a disbelieving manner.
“But how did you know?” she said.
Jessica started backing down the sidewalk as the gathering neighbors began to stare.
“Well, I saw it, of course,” she said quickly, pulling her robe that much tighter around her. “But I think someone should call the police. I’ll bet that was a stolen car. The driver looked far too young to be—”
Tinee wasn’t about to be swayed from having her say. “You screamed before there was anything on the street. You were running toward me and shouting a warning before there was anything there to see.”
Jessica groaned beneath her breath. This was getting worse by the minute.
“No, Tinee. You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not!” Tinee announced, and pointed to a nearby woman. “Did you hear her scream?” she asked.
“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” the woman said, staring at Jessica in a puzzled manner. “That’s why I came to the window.” And then she added, “But there wasn’t anyone in sight except Tinee and her dog. I know, because I looked, trying to see what would have made her scream.”
Jessica paled. Toe jam. I’ve been made. She could see the words coming out of Tinee’s mouth, yet when she heard them, she still reeled from the sound and the shock.
“You saw my future, yes, you did, Jessica Hanson. You saw into my future and changed my fate.”
“I think someone should call the police,” Jessica said, pointing toward the broken sign and the uprooted hedge. Then she looked down at her robe and bare feet. “I’ll be going now,” she said, and started back to her house, limping as she went while the voices behind her began to buzz like a nest of angry bees.
* * *
By noon, it was all over town. Jessica Hanson had seen into the future and saved Tinee Bloom’s life. By three o’clock, it was being said that ten people owed their lives to Jessica Hanson. By five o’clock, she’d saved an entire busload of senior citizens on their way to a church picnic. By nightfall, someone had heard they were going to make a movie out of Jessica Hanson’s life, beginning with the day she’d started school and peed in her pants because she’d been afraid to tell the teacher she needed to go. And before the next day, it would be all over town that Jessica Hanson must have been the mystery woman who’d alerted the cops to Olivia Stuart’s murder.
But for now,
Jessica was holed up in her house and had quit answering her phone. Except for her first day of school when she’d peed her pants in front of seventeen of her peers, it was the worst day of her life. Brenda had come and gone, filled with dismay for what had occurred, yet agreeing with Jessica that there was nothing else she could have done.
And if Stone hadn’t been too tired to cook when he got off work, and if he hadn’t stopped to pick up a hamburger and fries to take home, it might have been morning before he learned that Jessica Hanson was really the child of an alien who’d been put here on earth for the good of mankind, and was now working full-time with the Grand Springs Police Department to help them solve crimes.
At that point, he had only one thought and it was unprintable. Now the idea of food made him sick. He tossed the sack in the seat beside him and spun out of the drive-through, resisting the urge for an all-out run with lights and siren. If even a fraction of what he’d heard about Jessie was true, then she’d called all the attention to herself that she would ever need.
* * *
Jessica’s phone was off the hook. Her door was locked. The lights were out. And she still felt like a bug on a pin. This morning, when she’d read the headline, she’d had a feeling it was going to be a bad day. Snorting lightly to herself, she rolled over in bed, pulling the covers up over her head. That was a fact she could have taken to the bank. Somehow, she drifted off to sleep, unaware that her day of disasters had yet to come to an end.
* * *
Stone was stuck at a traffic light behind a trucker who didn’t seem to know the meaning of emission control. Coupled with the scent of a cooling hamburger and greasy fries, the diesel fumes were about to do him in. He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to ten. He frowned. What if she was already in bed? He reached for the phone, hesitating briefly as he recalled her number, then made the call.
It was busy. Twice more, he tried to get through, and each time, all he got was that familiar buzz, buzz, buzz.
His frown deepened as he tossed the phone on the seat beside him. A few minutes later, he turned the corner leading onto her block. As he did, his car lights swept across the broken stop sign and the gouged-out portion of someone’s hedge.
