Black-Eyed Moon (A Guinan Jones Paranormal Mystery #1)

by Callista Foley

  About Black-Eyed Moon

  Death is as natural as life. That's what 16-year-old Guinan Jones tells herself every time her grandfather, a small town police chief, wants her to "read" the dead. On a hot summer night, things change. The clairvoyant Guinan dreams of murder. When a teenage girl is found dead in the woods the next day, Guinan knows her life has changed for good.

  Details don't add up, and Guinan begins to wonder if she's seen a different death. A death to come. As she struggles to put the pieces together before someone else is killed, play referee to her bickering family, and deal with her growing attraction to her best friend's boyfriend, she hopes she can change the future. Or is it already written?

  Black-Eyed Moon (A Guinan Jones Paranormal Mystery)

  By Callista Foley

  Contents

  I. Waxing Crescent

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  II. Waxing Gibbous

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  III. Full Moon

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Waxing Crescent

  Chapter One

  Friday, July 12

  I wanted to be home in my bed, nestled beneath several layers of quilts under a roaring air conditioner and dreaming about the person I usually dream about on a hot night.

  Instead, I stood in an unfamiliar and brightly lit kitchen on a Friday night looking at a dead body. Not just any dead body. The corpse of my former seventh-grade teacher. In her boyfriend's apartment. My former teacher was married.

  Lesley Lucas lay face-up on the shiny white linoleum, her eyes wide and mouth open as if she were surprised to see me, little Guinan Jones with the "witchy" widow's peak, peering down at her corpse. She wore a full black slip. The contrast against her skin gave new meaning to deathly pale.

  Spilled red wine had soaked into strands of her bottle-blonde hair. I'd heard that the retired, sixty-something Mrs. Lucas, slightly overweight, had stopped smoking a few years ago, but she always smelled like cigarettes to me.

  Before I looked into her eyes, I glanced at my grandfather. He leaned against the kitchen doorframe with his arms folded. He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. I took a deep breath and grudgingly did what I'd come here to do.

  I tuned my mind to what only I could see. Her final thoughts were like a tangle of weeds, with different textures and lengths. I grabbed onto something coherent and useful, and the words began to form in my mind.

  Damn. Should have grabbed that robe.

  My eyes traveled over the slip. I shivered.

  Heart attack?

  She cursed in her head when she saw the glass shatter and the wine splash across the floor.

  No, no, no. Can't be happening. Not now. Kevin, help me. Roy...

  As she was dying, words flashed. Her long-dead mother. Her husband. Her boyfriend. Former students. Then, like wisps of smoke, her thoughts vanished.

  I returned to the present, rubbing my chest. I blinked in the garish light and realized my cheeks were wet. Tears or sweat?

  "She believed she was having a heart attack," I said to my grandfather. "The coroner was right. You didn't need me."

  "Just in case," he said. "Big Roy's got a bad temper. And he does have motive."

  Officer Tim Hicks, sitting on the living room couch scribbling on a small notepad, mumbled under his breath.

  "Say something, Tim?"

  He looked up at his boss, a nerve twitching in his cheek. He didn't want me here, but Isaac Jepson, Ridge Grove, South Carolina, chief of police and my grandfather, outranked and overruled him. As chief, Granddad didn't have to be here, either. Tim and another officer could have handled a natural death. But as usual, he was eager for me to "read" the body.

  Tim shook his head. "The coroner already told us it's probably a heart attack." He rose from the couch and flipped the notepad closed. "Besides, why would Roy want to kill her now?"

  According to the Ridge Grove Rumor Mill, the mayor and her husband separated months ago.

  "You never know," Granddad said. "Guinan might see something that leads us in a completely different direction."

  Tim exhaled heavily. "More like you hope she sees something. Isaac, if you want to work murder cases, you need to move to Chelsea."

  I suppressed a grin and glanced at my grandfather. Chelsea was a mid-sized city twenty miles away in North Carolina. It seemed somebody was murdered just over the border every week.

  The last murder in Ridge Grove, population 2,000, was fifteen years ago. But there had been a homicide eight summers ago. Keegan Miller's son-in-law, Skeeter Watson, accidentally shot him in the stomach while cleaning his rifle. Granddad had wanted me to go to the morgue to "read" Keegan. I was only eight, and my grandmother, Tilda, pitched a fit and refused to let him take me.

  Granddad ran a hand over his head. His silver buzz-cut used to be brown with a slight wave like mine. Grandma called our color "chestnut," and his changed in the year after she died.

  "This town suits me just fine."

  Tim snorted. "Could have fooled me."

  "It can't hurt having a psychic working with us, can it?"

  My grandfather turned in my direction, and I lowered my gaze. He knew I didn't like being called a psychic. The word had an air of cheap carnival about it.

  "Actually, it can," Tim said. I looked at him. He seemed to sense me watching him and avoided eye contact. "One of these days, some relative is going to sue our butts for bringing a so-called psychic to the scene of death."

  My grandfather's luck might run out, although I didn't see any harm in confirming a person's cause of death. I'd seen a total of twelve dead bodies in three years. I'd be content if I never saw another corpse for the rest of my life.

  "Who called 911?" I said, taking in the apartment's gaudy decor. Tacky would have been the word Grandma would use.

  Granddad pointed at a living room window. "A neighbor stopped by to return a dish or something. She said she knew Lucas was home. When she didn't answer the door or her phone, she called 911."

  "Where's her boyfriend?"

  "In Georgia visiting his kids. He's been there all week."

  I bit my lip. "Are you sure?"

  Granddad raised his eyebrows. He looked impressed.

  "Runs in the family," Tim said, shaking his head.

  I didn't usually ask questions at the scene. I just did as I was told: look into the eyes of the dead and report their final thoughts.

  "Yeah, he was there," my grandfather said, trying not to smile. "His ex-wife and the friend he's staying with vouched for him."

  I was too sleepy to theorize about false alibis and motives. "Can I go now?"

  He nodded. Without thinking about it, I looked at Lesley Lucas's face again. I wanted to reach down and close her eyes and mouth and cover her up. But that wasn't my job. Reading
the scene wasn't my job, either, nor was it something I liked doing. My grandfather could be persuasive.

  I felt a faint throb in my chest and rubbed it, wondering if I were about to have a heart attack. I knew it didn't work that way. Sometimes I felt twinges when I read a dead person. Otherwise, I was fine. The exception was Keegan.

  My grandfather snuck me into the morgue without telling my grandmother. As soon as I looked into the man's eyes, I felt a sharp, burning pain in my stomach that lasted maybe two seconds. I vomited all over myself. The coroner figured it was the smell of the morgue, a mix of antiseptic and decay. That visit had been our secret. But my grandmother knew, and she didn't have to read our emotions to figure it out. I came home flushed and shaky and wearing a T-shirt she'd never seen before.

  I jumped when my grandfather placed a hand on my back. We headed for the door, and I hesitated. "Bye, Tim."

  He grunted and walked toward the body. It had been a few weeks since Tim looked me in the eye. Not only could I "see" dead people's thoughts, I also inherited my grandmother's ability to read people's emotions once we made eye contact. Tim's were a combination of tortured guilt, shame, and lust.

  Granddad and I stepped outside, and the midsummer night humidity hit my face like a wet blanket. I exhaled loudly and leaned against the railing in front of the second-floor apartment. The moon was a pale sliver against the black sky. A police car and an ambulance sat haphazardly in the parking lot below, lights off.

  "Tim's right," I said. "You might get in trouble having me at scenes of death. Is it worth it just to confirm the obvious, like somebody dying in his sleep or in a car acci..." I trailed off, covering my mouth as if I'd said something wrong.

  Granddad put a hand on my shoulder, then I let him hug me like I was a little kid. I was sixteen, but sometimes I still felt like a child.

  "Don't let Tim bother you," he said. "He's a skeptic."

  No, he wasn't. He was a believer. He was also one of my grandfather's closest friends.

  Granddad steered me toward the stairs. "I'll be home soon. Don't wait up. And be careful."

  I focused on his face and unwittingly sensed the jumble of emotions behind his hazel eyes. I blinked and visualized what always blocked me from people's emotions—a red-brick wall. For reasons I had yet to discover, it had to be red and made of brick. I made it a rule not to read members of my family, even if they wanted me to, or people who didn't want me to. That included just about everybody I knew. But sometimes, whether I wanted to sense them or not, the emotions came through.

  Inside my car, I locked the doors, started the engine, and turned the air conditioner on high. My eyes swept across the apartment building and rested on a small group of people standing outside their apartments. A few inched closer to the scene of so much activity and tried to peer through the door. Paramedics went inside carrying a stretcher with a black body bag on top of it.

  Tim and my grandfather stepped out of the apartment and walked through the curious group without stopping to answer questions. Instead of rushing past like celebrities through paparazzi, they strolled as if they had all night. I pulled off before they saw me. I didn't want Tim catching a glimpse, turning red, and avoiding eye contact again.

  It was too late, anyway. I dreaded telling my grandfather what I suspected about him.

  Chapter Two

  Even before I opened my eyes to see the sun streaming through the blinds I forgot to close last night, I knew I'd slept late. I pulled the pile of quilts over my head and shivered.

  My grandfather kept the air conditioner roaring in the summer. He'd grown up in this old Victorian suffering without it. His father made him scrub the attic and the basement in the stifling heat. He'd promised himself that when the house was his, he'd install central air and run it all summer, no matter how much it cost. He'd kept that promise.

  I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Almost eleven-thirty. I had trouble falling asleep after I returned home close to midnight. I tossed and turned, then I had fitful dreams of my mother committing me to a mental institution while my father stood by and watched.

  From birth to shortly after I turned ten in the spring, I lived with my parents in the nation's capital and came down South every summer to visit my grandparents. That summer visit became permanent. My grandparents enrolled me at Pinecrest Elementary, and I've been here ever since.

  I felt hung over, but I had to start the day. I was scheduled to babysit for Tim Hicks and his wife, Tessa, for their every-other-Saturday-night date. Things had been a little weird last time. It was like Tim and I shared a secret I didn't want to be privy to.

  I swung my legs to the floor and pushed myself off the bed. I felt a million years old. Reading dead people's minds was draining. I put on my robe and ran a hand through my tangled hair. Granddad and I no longer shared the same hair color, but we still had hazel eyes.

  I inherited a widow's peak from my grandmother. Whenever I thought of her, I could smell the delicate scent of lilac perfume and peppermint. I swallowed the lump in my throat and headed downstairs.

  My stomach growled when I caught the aroma of bacon. My grandfather was on the phone, and he glanced at me when I opened the fridge. I grabbed the last apple and lingered near the table, already set for breakfast. I frowned. The only time we ate breakfast at the kitchen table, as opposed to in front of the TV in the den, was when he wanted to talk about a case.

  I considered going back upstairs, but at that moment, he hung up and turned in my direction, smiling.

  "You look like I feel after a night out with the fellas."

  He cracked several eggs into a frying pan, broke the yolks, and sprinkled pepper. He pulled out the chair for me, and I reluctantly sat. My coffee mug was already on the table. He poured himself some. I pushed my mug toward him, and he filled it.

  I stifled a yawn. "How long have you been up?"

  "Half an hour or so. I got home shortly after you did. I just finished reading the story about Lucas's death on my laptop."

  "Let me guess. The lurid details are all over the Ridge Grove Herald's web site."

  "What a mess," he said. "Cheating spouses and love nests."

  I cleared my throat. "They were separated, you know."

  He raised his eyebrows. "Married is married, young lady. They weren't divorced yet." He turned to the stove and flipped over the eggs.

  "Did you talk to her husband?"

  He shook his head. "I'll let Tim deal with that."

  I tried not to grin. "Not exciting enough for you?"

  He laughed and scraped some eggs onto his plate and mine. He set the bacon plate in the middle of the table. "Just routine stuff, since it doesn't matter where Roy was when his wife died. Unless he somehow caused the heart attack." Before I could remind him what I'd seen, he added, "I know, I know. I watch too many murder mysteries."

  We went on like this for another twenty minutes, talking and eating and pretending I wasn't going to ask the question I usually asked whenever we ate together in the kitchen.

  "Talk to Mom?"

  His cheerful expression faltered. "Yep."

  "Well?"

  He gulped the rest of his coffee, set down the cup, and fiddled with the handle. "She knows you don't want to leave, hon, but what can I do? Your parents want you there with them."

  I stared at the bits of bacon on my plate.

  "It's not definite," he said. "It's just…discussions."

  The refrigerator cycled off. Silence lingered for several seconds.

  "I don't understand," I said. "It's been six years. In two years I'll be an adult. What is the point of moving back in with them now?"

  He shook his head. "You and your mother need to talk about this. You both avoid things."

  I exhaled loudly and folded my arms, sulking.

  After Grandma's funeral four years ago, my parents asked if I wanted to return with them. I said no. I couldn't leave Granddad all by himself. The three of them—my grandfather, my mother, and my father—ha
dn't put up much of a fight to change my mind. Now, all of a sudden, they wanted me back.

  "I guess she needed six years to get over what I did." I let out a humorless laugh.

  "That's ancient history, Guinan. You didn't ask for this gift." Before I could object, he continued. "That's what it is whether you call it that or not."

  "Grandma called hers a curse." Saying her name out loud made my eyes sting. Silence filled the room again. Granddad leaned back in the chair, then got up and braced himself against the stove with his back to me.

  As usual, I felt like crap.

  "Your grandmother was different. It was a different time."

  "How so?"

  "What's on the schedule today?" he said, ignoring the question.

  I shrugged, even though he couldn't see it. "Babysitting tonight. Tessa said I could come early. I'm picking up Tamzen, too." I pushed myself away from the table and loaded the dishwasher. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound ungrateful or—"

  I didn't get a chance to finish. He pulled me into an embrace.

  "I'm the one who should be grateful," he said. "You mean the world to us…to me. I just want you to be happy."

  He patted me on the back. He seemed to be the only one who cared about my happiness.

  ***

  It's hot as balls."

  My best friend, Tamzen Parker, fanned herself with both hands. My car's air conditioner was blasting, but days like this, it didn't matter much. The late afternoon sun, a fiery orange ball, dipped lower in the sky.

  "I think you need more of that stuff…what's it called?"

  "Freon," I said.

  "Yeah, that. Is it my imagination, or do the summers get hotter and hotter? That global warming thing, right?"

  "It's your imagination. It was hotter than this last summer. Don't you remember?"

  I certainly did. Tamzen and I had gone swimming at the pond in our underwear on a whim, and Zeke Hicks and Dean Harris caught us just as we were coming out of the water. I screamed and ran for cover, but Tamzen laughed and posed, shaking her wet hair—long, black, and gleaming in the sun.