The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

  After dinner that evening, while Leo, Josh and the boys played Gabe’s new video game, I sat with Olivia to tell her about my visit to the maze and my unearthly meeting with Sister Chiara.

  When I’d finished, she nodded, as though agreeing with something I’d said.

  “It makes sense. You had to puzzle your way through the maze to get to the revelation at the center.”

  “I spoke to a dead nun, Olivia.”

  “I don’t think you did, actually. You received her message, of that there’s no doubt.”

  “You mean she wasn’t there? I imagined sitting on that bench with her and talking?”

  “Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean that what she told you isn’t real. That’s what you have to focus on. It’s what Leo’s been telling you too, if you think about it, that you have to let all that guilt go. Get on with your life. Put it all behind you. It doesn’t mean you have to forget those you’ve lost, just that you have to accept they’ve gone and that it wasn’t your fault.”

  She gave me a mischievous grin. “Josh is lovely. Be happy, enjoy being with him. Don’t let him slip away.”

  “And the auras? What do I do about those?”

  She leaned over and took my hands in hers. “You’re going to be all right, Kate, I’m sure of it. One day these auras will make sense to you. Meanwhile, I have a plan. I’m going to keep you totally engrossed in wedding planning. I have a zillion ideas, but I need your organizational skills to execute them. We’ll have fun, don’t you think?”

  She stood up, went to the dining table, and came back with a white three-ring binder and a bottle of wine.

  “Let’s get started.”

  THE END

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  We’ll give you your money back if you find as many as five errors. (That’s five verified errors— punctuation or spelling that leaves no room for judgment calls or alternatives.) Or if you just don’t like the book—for any reason! If you find more than five errors, we’ll give you a dollar for every one you catch up to twenty. Just tell us where they are. More than that and we reproof and remake the book. Email mittie.bbn@gmail.com and it shall be done!

  The next Kate Benedict paranormal mystery is

  DOUBLE BLIND

  Also by Carrie Bedford:

  NOBILISSIMA: A NOVEL OF IMPERIAL ROME

  The Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery Series

  THE AURA

  DOUBLE BLIND

  THE FLORENTINE CYPHER

  THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION

  About the Author

  Born and raised in England, Carrie Bedford is the author of the award-winning Aura series of mysteries, along with the Nobilissima historical novels set in Ancient Rome. After a long career in Silicon Valley in California, she is now fully dedicated to writing fiction. She lives in Italy with her husband and their aging yellow Labrador.

  Praise for DOUBLE BLIND, the sequel to THE AURA by Carrie Bedford

  “Double Blind is a cozy mystery with intense characters who struggle in a world of pharmaceutical intrigue with political twists. Author Carrie Bedford writes with a high suspenseful flair and creates an engaging protagonist, Kate Benedict. Paranormal elements mix with murders, kidnappings, and a dash of romance, all racing through an unusual and satisfying plot. A fast read, well-written, and thoroughly enjoyable.”

  —Paula Cappa, author of The Dazzling Darkness

  “This book draws you in and once it takes hold, doesn’t let go. Carrie has set the bar even higher with Double Blind, which is great for readers, and keeps us authors on our toes. A cracking read.”

  —Andrea Drew, author of the Gypsy Medium Series

  booksBnimble Publishing

  New Orleans, La.

  Double Blind

  Copyright © 2015 by Carrie Bedford

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9861783-6-8

  www.booksbnimble.com

  First booksBnimble electronic publication: July 2015

  1

  The morning was going so well until I saw the auras. A glimpse of that halo of trembling air over someone’s head usually casts a dark cloud over my day. These particular auras, it turned out, were going to unleash a storm, much like the one rumbling across London’s Hyde Park. A ceiling of dense grey clouds hung low over the city and thunder growled in the distance, keeping away the usual crowds of joggers and mothers with toddlers and strollers.

  My friend Anita and I were enjoying our run, although I was starting to tire. My calf muscles burned, yet Anita didn’t look the slightest bit fatigued. Her glossy black hair swung in a high ponytail and her golden skin was sweat-free. Even the kohl around her eyes had stayed perfectly intact. She was unusually quiet though. Normally, she’d talk the whole time we were running, but not today.

  We settled into a slower pace, taking the path that ran alongside the Serpentine, the slate-colored water choppy in the strengthening wind. When several joggers came around a bend towards us, Anita and I moved into single file to let them pass. The first of them looked like a soldier, young, muscled, his broad chest encased in a tight green T-shirt. Behind him, two men ran together, both in their early fifties, I guessed, one tall and quite striking with fair hair, the other shorter and darker. As they loped past us, the fair-haired man raised a hand to thank us for moving out of their way.

  I stopped running, turning my head to watch them go, sure I was wrong about what I’d seen. But I wasn’t. The two older men each had a distinct aura swirling around his head and shoulders, like waves of air coming off hot asphalt.

  “That was Simon Scott!” Anita had stopped too, watching the men disappear around a curve in the path.

  “Who?” The name meant something, but my brain was preoccupied with processing the presence of that ominous swirly air.

  “Really? You can’t tell me you don’t know who Scott is. He’s the leader of the Labor party and there’s an election in less than a month. He could be our new Prime Minister.”

  “Of course. I knew that. He’s on the television all the time.” I bent over to retie a shoelace. My heart rate was soaring and it wasn’t because of the running. “But you know I don’t do politics.”

  “You should. Don’t you worry about the environment or education or health care?”

  “Who was that with him?” I asked, changing the subject. Once Anita got started on talking about her causes, it would take a lightning strike to stop her. I stayed on one knee, waiting for my heart to slow down. An aura over a public figure. That was a first for me.

  “Kevin Lewis,” said Anita. “He’s a City guy, a finance genius. If Scott’s party wins the election, Lewis will be Chancellor of the Exchequer. I can’t believe I saw them in the flesh like that. The third guy must have been a bodyguard. He was rather cute.”

  I straightened up. In the center of the lake, a rowboat bobbed up and down, its sole occupant a man who was looking through binoculars at the ducks and other water birds. Just watching the boat rock made me feel seasick. Or maybe it was the sight of the auras that was making me nauseous.

  Anita grabbed my arm. “I have an idea. I’ve just started volunteering on Scott’s campaign. You should do it with me. I usually go a few evenings a week to a campaign office in Shepherd’s Bush. There’s plenty to do, especially now, calling voters, handing out brochures, making banners, that kind of thing.”

  “How do you have time to do that?” Anita was a doctor in the pediatric department at London General hospital. She worked very long hours.

  “It’s easy to make space for the important things,” she said, bending down to pull one of her socks straight. “But if you want to know the truth, it’s also an evasion tactic. Every time my parents ask me home for dinner, I tell them I’m volunteering.”

  “How’s that working out?
” I hoped Anita would attribute the shake in my voice to exercise. I couldn’t tell her about the auras, not yet anyway. “Is your dad still trying to find you the perfect husband?”

  “Oh God, don’t even ask. We had a massive fight about it last time I ran out of excuses and went over there to eat. He just doesn’t get it. I don’t want an arranged marriage.” She sighed. So that was what was bothering her. Leaning over, she touched her toes, which she could do easily. She was a natural athlete, while I had to work a little harder at it.

  “Anyway,” she continued, straightening up. “What do you think? Will you come help out at the campaign office? I’m going tonight. The other volunteers are good people, very committed to what they’re doing to support Scott. You’d like them.”

  Sitting in a political campaign office in Shepherd’s Bush would normally be at the very bottom of my list of favorite-things-to-do-on-a-Monday-night, but auras had changed my priorities in the past. It seemed that they were about to do so again.

  “Sounds like a lot of fun.” I tried to inject enthusiasm into my words.

  Anita rolled her eyes. “You’ll be glad you came, you’ll see. I have to go. Oh, I didn’t think to ask. Josh isn’t back is he? Is he still just coming home on weekends?”

  “Yeah, just weekends.” My boyfriend was often away on business nowadays. “We’ve got Saturday tickets for that new play with Kevin Spacey.”

  Anita gave me a hug. “See you tonight. I’ll text you the address.”

  After watching her jog away, I walked to a nearby bench and sat down. The green wooden slats pressed cold and damp against my back as I looked out over the granite-grey lake. It was April, but England was still in the grip of winter. I rubbed a sore spot in my calf muscle and took a few deep breaths. The auras over Scott and Lewis had left me feeling rattled.

  It had been almost a year since I saw my first aura. Since then, I’d become quite good at looking past them, the way we sometimes pretend we don’t see a conspicuous birthmark or a missing limb. Often I could get through a week or two without acknowledging that I’d seen one.

  But now this. Two of them, which meant that both men were in danger. That probably ruled out health issues, but left open a world of other possibilities: an accident in a car, a train or a plane, or perhaps a terrorist attack. That was what the auras meant. That the person would die very soon. Trying to calm down, I clenched my fists, digging my nails into the palms of my hands. It wasn’t my responsibility to save everyone who faced a premature death. At least that was the argument I had with myself whenever I saw an aura. But I hadn’t seen one over the head of a leading politician before.

  The clouds opened, releasing fat drops of water that quickly coalesced into a downpour. Through the deluge, I saw that the birdwatcher was rowing his boat towards a dock on the other side of the lake. I knew I should go home, dry off and get warm, but I was so preoccupied with the auras that I didn’t have the energy to stand up. So I just sat on the cold clammy bench, feeling the rain soak my running clothes.

  Finally, drenched and shivering, I jogged back to my fourth-floor flat in an old Victorian house in Bayswater. After what had happened last year, I sometimes thought about moving. I still had nightmares about the front door being broken down, a man with a knife stalking through the hallway. But I loved my flat, with its soothing olive green walls and whitewashed pine floors, the evening light that poured through the dormer windows, and the views towards the park. Josh had fitted an extra high-tech lock on the front door and, when he wasn’t traveling, he usually stayed over. We’d eat by candlelight at the kitchen window that overlooked the slate rooftops.

  Josh knew all about my aura-sighting ability. We’d started dating around the time that I had seen my first aura. My strange behavior as I struggled to understand what was happening to me might have been enough to derail our nascent romance. But it didn’t. Once he’d had time to think about it, Josh had come to terms with the auras, and the way they made me act.

  I wished he were here with me right now, but he was working on a project in Bristol for a few weeks, coming home to London most weekends. It wasn’t easy, being apart, but we were managing. He’d recently been promoted at the architectural firm where we both worked. Where I had worked, I reminded myself. Following the tragic events of the previous year, when one of my bosses had been convicted of murder, the company was going through a rocky period. The loss of a major client had created a major financial shortfall, so I’d volunteered to take a few months off until things stabilized. I’m an architect, but I was doing something different for the moment — filling in time and making some money using my skills as a photographer and graphics designer on a variety of freelance projects.

  After slipping off my soggy running shoes just inside the door, I walked slowly up the hallway towards the bathroom, pausing to straighten one of the framed black and white photos that I’d taken in Tuscany where my father lived. It reminded me that I should call him later to see how he was doing.

  Poor Dad. Our phone calls were difficult for both of us, stilted and superficial. We’d chat about the weather or gardening, anything to avoid talking about what really mattered. My mother had been killed by a speeding car the previous spring, leaving him alone and bereft in the rambling eighteenth-century villa that they had restored together. And, at the time when he’d needed me the most, we’d had a falling out. The auras were to blame. While he was mourning my mother, I was telling him stories of swirling air that predicted death.

  I think that my sudden ability to see auras was a way of dealing with my terrifying realization that we live in a world of risk and unpredictability. Seeing auras gave me a sense of control, however illusory. I could tell when someone was about to die. In theory, I could do something to stop it happening. In practice, of course, it didn’t always work that way.

  In the bathroom, I turned on the shower, savoring the heat of the water, which warmed my chilled skin and helped to clear my head, but I still had no idea what to do about the auras over Simon Scott and Kevin Lewis. The last time I’d tried to intervene, things hadn’t turned out too well. I scrubbed my skin until it turned pink. I’d saved my nephew Aidan, I reminded myself, and a homeless man. Maybe I could save Scott and Lewis too. But I couldn’t exactly call and tell them I knew they were going to die.

  2

  That evening, I took the Central Line from Lancaster Gate to Shepherd’s Bush, just a few stops on the tube. Most days, I took the escalators down to the tracks without a second thought. Sometimes, and this was one of them, I found myself wondering what possessed us to descend so far underground, to hurtle through dark tunnels deep beneath the gas lines, electrical cables, and tarmac streets of the city above.

  Despite my apprehensions, however, I reached my destination without incident, and emerged through the windblown concourse into cold rain that quickly soaked my woolen jacket. Avoiding puddles on the potholed pavement, I walked past rows of small shops, closed at this time in the evening. A hair salon stood next to a hardware store that displayed an ambitious pyramid of galvanized buckets in its darkened window. Further on, rap music spilled from an all-night convenience shop where the owner stood in the doorway, keeping an eye on the racks of exotic fruits and vegetables that sheltered under a green awning.

  The campaign office next door to it had also been a shop at one time. Now its windows were plastered with poster-sized photos of a beaming Simon Scott and placards exhorting passersby to get out and vote.

  When I pushed the door open, a bell chimed but was barely audible above the racket inside. The large space was warm, smelling of burned coffee and wet wool with an undertone of glue and permanent marker. A dozen people talked on phones at long tables down one side, while a group of young men with stubbled chins huddled around a laptop, loudly debating with each other. They were probably political science students. At the back, bent over a trestle table, were Anita and four other women, all with paintbrushes in hand.

  Anita looked up and waved me
over. “You came! Here, let me introduce you.” As she reeled off a list of names, the volunteers nodded, smiled or held out a hand to shake mine.

  “Will you help us with this banner?” Anita asked. “You have a good eye for graphics.”

  “Okay.” I dumped my bag under the table. The poster was horrible. Wrong colors, wrong everything. I made some tactful suggestions, which the volunteers seemed happy to implement, and my assistance earned me a cup of tea, freshly brewed by Anita. The mugs were thick and chipped, but the tea was good, and hot. I needed the heat. My skin was still chilled from my run in the rain that morning, but the cold went deeper than that. I had an icy feeling in my stomach, a sense of dread. I hadn’t been able to put those auras out of my mind.

  “Come and sit over here,” Anita said, indicating a small formica table that leaned against the wall. I took a seat on a wobbly wooden stool.

  “I wasn’t sure that you’d come,” Anita said. “Did I prick your conscience?”

  “Something like that.” I couldn’t tell her I was there because of the auras over Scott and Lewis. She didn’t know anything about my aura-seeing gift. The previous year, when I’d first started seeing auras, she’d been working at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Although we’d promised to stay in touch, to talk on the phone every weekend, it hadn’t happened. We’d ended up communicating through short texts. There’d never been a good opportunity to tell her about my newfound ability to see portents in moving air.

  She’d been back in London for several months now, and I still hadn’t told her. She was my best friend and I loved her dearly, but my bizarre ability would make no sense to her. It didn’t follow the scientific rules she lived by. She wouldn’t understand and I didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship.