by J A Whiting
Several of Teddy’s supposed friends and a good number of his higher-up employees and business associates maneuvered to takeover the companies and holdings and many made scathing and almost threatening comments to Claire to intimidate her to back down. Overwhelmed and exhausted, Claire nearly did give in, but when she told her lawyers to stop fighting the claims, they held lengthy discussions with her and advised her to hold on and honor the wishes of her late husband who wanted Claire at the helm of all he’d accomplished.
A cold finger of fear traced down Claire’s back as she pondered the possibility that someone from Teddy’s past might be targeting her and that one of those past business associates might be behind last night’s gunshots.
“He asked you that? The detective asked you if someone might be trying to kill you?” A look of horror washed over Robby’s face as he turned, wide-eyed, from Claire to Nicole. “Is there someone who wants you dead?”
“That question … it unnerved me.” Nicole shuddered slightly. “Almost more than getting shot at.”
Claire rubbed her arms. “I got so light-headed when Detective Fuller asked me if someone I knew might be trying to kill me that I was afraid I was going to pass out right there in the chair.”
Robby asked again, a bit of panic at the edges of his tone, “Is there someone who wants you dead?” He glanced to the front door as if he wanted to rush over and lock it.
Even though both young women couldn’t be sure if someone was out to harm them or not, they looked at Robby at the same time and answered in unison, “No.”
An audible sigh of relief escaped Robby’s throat just as a flash of lightning lit up the room and a booming crack of thunder shook the building. The few customers sitting near the windows almost jumped from their seats from the sudden thunderbolt and just as suddenly, rain poured from the sky and pelted the glass.
A young woman with long black hair burst through the door of the chocolate shop dripping wet. Pushing her damp hair back from her face with both hands, she reached for some napkins from one of the tables to wipe the drops of rain from her arms.
Claire hurried over with two clean dish towels. “Here, use these. They’ll work better than napkins.”
“Thanks.” The woman rubbed the towels against her arms and legs and then used them to press the dampness from the ends of her hair. Shaking her head and giving Claire a smile she said, “A minute ago it was sunny.”
Claire shrugged. “You know the saying … if you don’t like New England weather….”
With a chuckle, the dark-haired woman finished the sentence. “Then wait a minute.”
Taking the dish towels from the woman’s hands, Claire noticed a white gauze bandage wrapped around her upper arm. “Would you like something to drink?”
“I would, but I’d also like to talk to you … and the other woman who works here.”
Claire stood frozen for a few moments staring into the dark brown eyes of the young woman standing before her. She had the feeling that the conversation they were about to have would plunge them all into something that made her stomach clench like a tight fist. “Okay, sure. Have a seat. I’ll get Nicole.”
Hurrying to the back room, Claire noticed that the woman chose a table away from the other patrons. Robby scurried behind Claire and was about to follow her into the prep area. “What does the mystery woman want?”
Claire said, “I don’t know. Yet. Would you go and take her order?”
A worried look washed over Nicole’s face when Claire came to fetch her and it was still there when they settled in chairs at the woman’s table.
“I’m Merritt Handley.” The woman introduced herself as she set down her latte cup. Claire estimated that the young woman was about thirty years old and her posture and manner implied intelligence and good manners. She was dressed in a white, starched, sleeveless shirt and a navy blue fitted skirt, her glossy hair framed her flawless skin, and her makeup was subtle yet expertly done. “I know you don’t recognize me because it’s always so busy here, but I’ve been in a few mornings to get take-out. I work nearby in the financial district.”
Nicole and Claire introduced themselves, both puzzling over what Merritt might want to speak with them about. While Nicole wondered if the woman might want to hire them to provide desserts for some upcoming company function, Claire’s sixth sense was buzzing and alert.
“I want to thank you.” Merritt’s words surprised Claire and Nicole and they both stared at her. “I was on the sidewalk near the Old South Meeting House last night.”
Claire’s eyes widened and she glanced quickly at the bandage on Merritt’s arm.
Merritt lifted her right arm a couple of inches from her side to indicate the gauze wrapped around the upper part of her limb. “I was grazed by one of the bullets.”
Nicole sucked in a breath of air and her voice quavered slightly when she asked, “Are you okay?”
The corners of Merritt’s mouth turned up. “I am. It’s really just a superficial wound, although that’s not how it felt when it happened. There was a lot of blood and I sort of panicked, but someone came over and helped me.” Merritt cleared her throat and it was obvious to Claire and Nicole that talking about the incident was as difficult for Merritt as it was for them.
“Anyway,” Merritt continued. “I want to thank you.” She looked at Claire. “I was coming up the sidewalk on your left and I noticed that you seemed nervous and that you were glancing around.”
Claire didn’t realize that she’d been giving off such signals.
“I don’t know why I noticed.” A serious expression tugged at Merritt’s face. “I’d worked late and I was walking home. I was really tired and I felt sort of out of it, distracted by what I’d been working on and still thinking it over in my head so I’m surprised that I noticed you at all, but somehow I picked up on your unease.”
Claire and Nicole waited for Merritt to go on with her story.
“It all happened so fast. You lunged for your friend.” Merritt gestured to Nicole. “I was stunned for a second, but your actions combined with maybe me seeing the car tearing up the street caused me to follow your lead and I dropped to the ground.” Picking up her cup, Merritt took a quick sip and then set it down. Claire could see the woman’s fingers shaking. “One of the bullets grazed my arm as I fell.” Merritt paused and swallowed. “It was a stroke of good fortune that you were on that sidewalk. I’m sure that I would have caught that bullet in the chest if you two weren’t there last night.” Merritt blinked fast a few times. “So, thank you. You saved my life.”
5
The three young women continued their conversation while Robby, pretending to sweep or clean, came by their table every chance he got to eavesdrop until Nicole gave him the evil eye and he scurried away. The rain and thunder carried on for another twenty minutes giving the girls the chance to talk without many customers in the shop.
“Did a detective come by to talk to you today?” Nicole lifted the glass of iced tea that Robby had dropped off on one of the snooping passes he’d made past their table.
Merritt nodded. “Yes. A Boston detective came to my office this morning to go over some details of the report I gave to the officers last night.”
“Was it Detective Fuller?” Nicole asked.
“No, it was a Detective Mason. Valerie Mason. She asked me some unsettling questions.” Merritt sighed. “I’ve been thinking about some of the questions for most of the day.”
“Did one of the questions have to do with whether someone you know might want you dead?” Claire shifted in her seat.
Merritt looked from Claire to Nicole. “Yes. Obviously the same question was posed to you.”
“How did you answer?” Claire leaned forward to hear the reply.
Merritt bit her lower lip. “It’s possible, I guess. I work for a law firm down on Castle Street in the Jasper Building and I’m at the State House a lot. The work I do is considered controversial by some … victim advocacy, representing indi
viduals in cases against big corporations. It can anger some people.”
“I bet it can.” Nicole made a face. “There must be big money involved in some of those court decisions. You rub some bigwigs the wrong way and, well … who knows what someone might do?”
Merritt’s jaw muscles tensed. “Before I joined this law firm, I worked for the state prosecutor’s office. We tried some tough cases. We made some defendants plenty angry at us.”
“Someone might be out for revenge?” Claire imagined that Merritt must have made more than a few enemies as a prosecutor and one of those enemies may have it in for her.
“It’s certainly possible.” Merritt fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug and then looked up with worried eyes. “What about either of you? Are any enemies lurking in your past?”
Nicole’s forehead was lined with concern. “My boyfriend and I broke off our relationship of five years, but that happened over a year ago.”
Claire turned to her friend. “But, he was the one who broke it off, not you.”
“He did initiate the break up.” Nicole seemed to be deciding whether or not to bring something up.
“But, what?” Claire asked. “Is there more to the story?”
“Brian got weird. He was so angry that I was working hard, trying to make a go of the café. Previously, he’d been supportive, but just before the shop opened, his personality took a turn. At first, I chalked it up to him feeling a little jealous over all the time I was devoting to the store, but he started acting oddly. He wouldn’t go into work for days on end, he was reading all kinds of conspiracy things on the internet. He started to scare me.”
Claire put a hand on her friend’s arm.
“I asked Brian to go see his doctor. Needless to say, that did not go over well. I made an appointment for him and tried to take him to the doctor’s office … he had a fit and wouldn’t go.” Nicole brushed her hand over her eyes. “I was worried, I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Brian’s parents and they drove up. By this time, he’d broken off with me and I’d moved out of our apartment, but I felt I had to try and help. He went nuts when his parents arrived. His mom and dad had to call the police and an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital for observation.”
“Good grief.” Merritt shook her head.
“His mom called me. She said Brian couldn’t be held without his consent. Brian left the hospital and they didn’t know where he was. She told me to be careful.”
“Have you seen him?” Claire’s voice was full of concern.
“I haven’t seen him for two months.” Nicole lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “But … who knows?”
“He doesn’t know where you live now, does he?” Claire was afraid that Nicole would go home some night and Brian would be waiting for her outside her apartment.
“He doesn’t.”
Merritt let out a long breath and turned her attention to Claire. “What about you? Is anyone lurking in the shadows waiting for you to pass by?”
Claire told her companions about Teddy’s business associates and their attempts to contest his will, being very careful to downplay the amount of money and holdings that were actually involved. “I doubt that anyone is so angry that they’d be looking to shoot me.” Claire hoped so, anyway.
Merritt pushed her dark hair over her shoulder. “Well, it seems that any of us could have been the target of the shooting.”
An idea popped into Claire’s head. “Or none of us was the target. It could have been random. Some guys were drunk or high and they decided to go scare some people. Maybe they didn’t intend to shoot anyone at all. Maybe they shot high in the air, over everyone’s heads, just to panic everybody. Maybe they got a kick out of it.”
Nicole and Merritt stared at Claire, pondering her suggestion.
“It’s possible.” Merritt nodded.
“I guess it is.” Nicole glanced across the shop and out the window. The storm had passed and the sun was shining causing steam to rise from the sidewalks as the rain water evaporated into the air. “It’s odd to say this, but a random drive-by shooting would be better than one of us having some angry nut after us.”
“Right.” Merritt almost sighed with relief. “We wouldn’t have to be looking over our shoulders waiting for something bad to happen.”
A hopeful smile spread over Nicole’s face. “Maybe the police will figure it out and arrest whoever was in that car. There were a lot of people on the sidewalk. Someone might have given the police a good description of the vehicle, someone might have seen the license plate. Maybe it will be solved in a few days and then we can forget about the whole thing.”
Claire smiled at Nicole even though deep down she didn’t think anything would be solved so quickly, and really, she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that last night’s episode was only the beginning of the trouble.
“I’d better get back to work.” Merritt suggested that they share contact information and each one pulled out phones and tapped at the screens to add the names and numbers. Leaning forward, Merritt gave Claire and Nicole a warm smile. “Thank you again for being there last night.” She extended her hand to shake with Nicole and then with Claire. “We’ll keep in touch.” Merritt strode out of the chocolate shop.
Nicole sucked in a breath. “What do you think?”
Claire was staring at the table and didn’t say anything.
“Claire?”
“Huh? What did you say? I was thinking things over.”
Nicole narrowed her eyes and scrutinized her friend’s face. “What’s wrong with you, besides the obvious? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Claire opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. A moment later, she said, “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just thinking about things.” That part was true, but there was something else that had spooked Claire. When Merritt had shaken her hand, Claire’s skin felt prickly, like it was buzzing with energy and she almost wanted to pull away from touching Merritt.
“Claire?” Nicole’s tone demanded a real answer. “Don’t be evasive. I can tell there’s something more to what you’re saying.”
Claire blew out a breath and slumped against her chair back. “I need to tell you something.” Keeping her voice to a near whisper, Claire revealed how odd she’d felt the previous night, on edge, her head buzzing, sensations of anxiety pulsing through her body. “I thought maybe I was getting a migraine or coming down with the flu or something. I felt terrible, nervous, uneasy, like I wasn’t even connected to my body.” She stared at Nicole waiting for her to scoff at the strange things she’d just reported.
“That’s cool.”
Claire blinked, stunned that Nicole accepted what she’d just heard, but also because her friend seemed to think it was interesting.
Nicole’s eyes brightened. “You must have sensed that danger was coming. Wow. That’s why you tackled me on the sidewalk. You had a premonition.”
The color started to drain from Claire’s face. “Oh, I don’t think it was a premonition. No.” She forced a chuckle. “It wasn’t anything like that.”
“Of course it was.” Nicole’s eyes were wide and she leaned close to Claire, her voice bubbling with excitement. “You have some sort of skill. Have you ever sensed something like that before?”
Claire sat up straight and nearly shouted. “No.”
“Come on. Think back. I bet you’ve sensed things before, but maybe they weren’t strong feelings and you dismissed them as déjà vu or a coincidence or something like that.”
Claire’s hands started to shake and a cold sweat formed on her back. She had had feelings like that. Plenty of times. And she had brushed them aside. People often told her that she had strong intuition. Suddenly, Claire’s heart started to race remembering that the woman with the tarot cards had told her to pay close attention to her intuition and not to ignore it. How did she know?
“Have you?” Nicole asked. “Have you ever had strong feelings before?”
“I guess I
have.” Claire’s voice was so quiet that it was almost impossible to hear what she’d said.
“This is super interesting.” Nicole placed her hand on her friend’s arm. “Maybe this skill of yours is going to keep us safe. Heck, it already has.”
“It scares me. I don’t know what’s going on.” Claire fiddled with her paper napkin ripping it into small pieces.
“You know, we should go see that woman who was in here with the tarot cards. She might be able to help you understand this thing of yours, how should we describe it, your skill … ability?” Nicole smiled. “Maybe that woman can at least tell us what word to call it.”
“Okay, maybe that’s a good idea.” Claire swiveled in her seat to face Nicole. “Because, when I shook hands with Merritt … I….”
Nicole’s brow furrowed as she looked at Claire’s pale, worried face. “What happened when you shook her hand?”
Claire shifted her gaze and looked down at the table top. “When I shook hands with Merritt just now… I felt something. I felt something bad, something terrible, but I don’t know what it means.”
6
“Robby, come over here.” Nicole called across the shop.
Robby had a suspicious look on his face when he approached the table where Claire and Nicole were sitting.
“Sit down with us.” Nicole gestured to the seat across from Claire.
“Why?” Robby gave his boss the eye.
“Help us with something.”
“I don’t know what you have planned, but whatever it is, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Claire’s voice was firm.
Robby looked at Claire and thought that what they wanted from him might prove to be interesting if Claire didn’t think it was a good idea, so he sat. “What do you need help with?”
“Nothing.” Claire was about to get up when Nicole reached out and took her arm.
