Her brown eyes twinkled. "I barely remember yesterday," she said, digging into her purse. She pulled out her compact of cornstarch powder. "Remind me to get more of this, will you?" Tamzen flipped down the visor and dabbed powder on her nose. "Shining like Rudolph. Hate this heat."
She and her boyfriend, Zeke Hicks, were going out tonight. She hadn't wanted to wait for him to pick her up at seven, so she caught a ride with me. Zeke was Tim's son. Awkward on two levels. Zeke and I used to be friends. We barely spoke these days.
"He's probably not even home from baseball practice yet," I said, brushing a sweaty palm against my shorts.
The high school team didn't play in the summer, but it was tradition for some of the guys to get together in the off-season.
"He's there. I talked to him before you picked me up."
I grimaced and pushed an air vent toward my face. I glanced at her and watched as she ran her tongue over her teeth. It was like an oven outside, and she was fully made up. She caught me looking and winked.
"Too bad you're babysitting. You and Dean could double with us."
I kept my eyes on the road and resisted the urge to roll them.
She tossed her compact back in her purse. "Hey, listen." She turned her entire body to face me. "Let's schedule something for Sunday. Don't call it a date. Call it…a group outing."
"I'll think about it," I lied. Once she was with Zeke, she'd forget all about me and Dean and a group outing. I could count on her for that.
I pulled into the driveway and silently groaned when I saw Zeke's ten-year-old black Jeep. Tamzen squealed and hopped out of the car before I put the gear in park.
I took my time stepping out of the car. Before I reached the glass storm door, I paused to admire the rows of marigolds in Tessa's garden, with their deep golden and orange petals that reminded me of her hair. She appeared at the door holding Jacob, one of her fourteen-month-old twins.
"Good to see you," she said, holding the door open and pecking me on the cheek. Her auburn hair hung in thick ringlets. I used to sit and watch her brush and style them when I was kid. I followed her to the kitchen.
Last year, Tim bought her one of those retro stoves and remodeled the kitchen. The room looked like it belonged in a home décor magazine.
Jacob's fraternal twin, Jude, toddled down the hall and wrapped his chubby arms around my legs as I rounded the corner. I picked him up, and he gave me a wide, four-teeth grin. I kissed his wet cheek.
"Thank God the sitter's here."
Zeke leaned through the doorway of his bedroom. He wore a faded blue Carolina Panthers T-shirt. He smirked, went back inside his room, and closed the door.
I watched the door for a few seconds and stepped into the kitchen. Tessa had put Jacob in his high-chair. I placed Jude in his and joined her at the stove.
"Gumbo, again," I said, smiling. Shrimp, mussels, and crawfish mingled in a large, black pot. I leaned over and inhaled, opening up my sinuses.
"Least I could do," Tessa said. "Since you won't take any money."
I'd babysat for them since the twins were born, and I never took the money they offered, mainly because I didn't need it. My parents deposited money into my checking account every month, and Granddad bought the five-year-old, dark-blue Honda Civic parked outside. Tessa paid me with her cooking, which I gladly accepted.
"Your grandfather doing okay?"
A memory flickered across my mind. "Yep. Where are you two going tonight?"
She smiled and wiped her hands on a dishtowel. "The anniversary place."
"Whoa," I said, impressed. The anniversary place was Branson's, an expensive restaurant just over the border in Chelsea, North Carolina, and the place where Tim proposed. "What's the occasion?"
"Tim said he wanted to do something special, you know…" She trailed off and swept her gaze over the kids, who were occupied with sippy cups and bits of food on their trays. I imagined how romantic the dinner would be, but when I looked into her eyes, she quickly looked away. I wondered if she thought I was trying to read her. I couldn't help feeling a bit hurt, since she knew my rule about not reading family.
Tessa was my mother's second cousin, which meant Zeke was my third. When he tried to kiss me when we were eleven, I said cousins don't kiss.
"My Mom says Queen Elizabeth and her husband are third cousins, like us," he'd said.
At the time I didn't know who they were, but I figured they did a lot more than kiss. A pot lid clanked, jarring me out of the past.
Jude began to whine and wiggle his pudgy fingers at me, sign language for "Get me out of this chair, now." I obliged.
"Bite?" He held up a mushy piece of cooked carrot.
I pretended to take a bite as he watched intently, his blue eyes wide. He was the only one who'd inherited his mother's eye color. "Yum. Your turn."
He shoved the whole piece into his mouth and pointed at more on his yellow plastic plate. As I reached for the food without looking, my hand touched flesh. I flinched and stifled a shriek. I looked down and saw Zeke's hand grabbing the carrot.
"Mine," he said to Jude, who whined some more and reached for it.
"Zeke," Tessa said, her eyebrows raised.
He rolled his eyes. "Right. Don't want to traumatize him."
Jacob clamored to be picked up, too, and Zeke lifted him out of the chair. "I'm the only kid in school with toddlers for siblings. What fun."
I watched him bounce his brother. Zeke had a cleft in his chin like his father. My eyes traveled from his square jaw to his full lips to his brown eyes and rested on his mop of brown hair. He caught me looking, and I pretended I was making faces at Jacob. Zeke's teasing smile waned, replaced with an irritable frown.
Tamzen bounced over to Tessa and looped an arm through hers. "I want to be like you when I grow up, Mrs. Hicks. Great cook, earth mother, creator of Zeke."
I laughed along with everybody else. Tamzen was kidding. Everybody knew she didn't want to be anything like Tessa. She wanted to leave this "hick town," leave the South entirely and live in a big city. "Any big city," she always said. I'm the one who wanted to be like Tessa.
"Gotta shower," Zeke said to his girlfriend. "Be ready in a few."
She winked at him and began spooning gumbo into a small bowl.
An hour later, Tim and Tessa were ready to leave, and I tried to soothe Jude while he cried. I'd stolen a couple of glances at Tim when he arrived home, but the truth was, I didn't want to sense anything else. I didn't want to think about him cheating on a woman like Tessa.
I'd gotten Jude settled when Jacob started up as he watched Zeke and Tamzen heading for the door. He looked up at me with watery eyes, and I peered into them. I sensed a half-formed ball of fear at his apparent abandonment.
Zeke had changed into a pair of dark jeans and a dark-green T-shirt. Tamzen kissed him on the cheek and wiped off lipstick with her thumb.
"I told him about the group outing idea," she said. "If you're down for tomorrow, we can hang out."
I shrugged. "I'll think about it."
She squealed again. "Awesome. Call you tomorrow." She lingered as if to make sure I wasn't joking. She shoved her hand into Zeke's back pocket, and I avoided looking either of them in the eye. I definitely didn't want to sense what they might be feeling after being closed up in his bedroom.
"You two kids don't stay out too late," I said, trying to sound casual. I grinned at Zeke, not exactly expecting him to squeal. But he was frowning and looking at a point somewhere above my head.
Chapter Three
Walking in the woods on a balmy, midsummer's night felt good. The air tasted sweet. I was deep enough that nobody could spot me from the road.
I turned left and tuned my ear to the sound of the babbling creek, hidden behind a copse of trees. As I moved toward it, I looked at the moon, a heavy, floating white ball. As soon as I focused on it, it seemed to brighten, illuminating my surroundings.
I stood in a rarely trodden part of the woods, the place where I'
d once spotted a snake. Paranoid, I looked at my feet. They touched the ground, but I sensed I was floating.
Am I alone? I heard movement in the dry grass, and adrenaline rushed through my limbs. A quicker movement, like a small animal darting away, pulled my attention to the right. I stopped and went pin-drop quiet. I looked up at the stars hanging in the black sky. I breathed deeply and tried to stay calm and get this right.
Get what right?
From the corner of my eye, something pale flashed in the air. As I turned my head toward it, there was a whoosh sound. Before I had a chance to duck, a long, slender object connected with the side of my head. The sound it made against my skull was nauseating. A nasty, throbbing pain reverberated inside my head and down my spine. Motes of light exploded in front of me, and I crumpled to the ground. I blinked rapidly to clear my vision.
I touched the side of my head, wet and pounding. I moaned as my fingers tangled in soggy hair. A sob escaped, and I saw flashes of red and black. I tried to see who hurt me. I heard feet shuffle in the dry grass.
"Why?" I said.
But I knew I wouldn't be around to hear the answer. The pain, the awful pain, rattled inside my broken head, and I rested it on the ground. Dirt, embedded in my left cheek, was gritty on my tongue. I thought I heard the object whistling through the air again, and I flinched. Then the darkness receded, and a gauzy film of light bloomed behind my eyelids. I flailed my arms, expecting to feel dirt and leaves, but I hit something soft.
I called out to my grandmother. I felt frantically at the side of my head. No blood, no pain. I sat up and looked around. I wasn't at home or in my bed. I was on Tessa's couch. I looked at the blood-red digital read-out on the clock on the fireplace mantle: 11:23 p.m. Several hours earlier, I'd given the twins the bottled milk Tessa had expressed. They'd fallen asleep quickly. I checked the baby monitors on the coffee table to make sure the volume was turned up but decided to go upstairs to see for myself that the children were okay.
I peered at each of them in their cribs. Nothing quite as peaceful as sleeping babies.
I stopped in front of Zeke's bedroom. I flipped on the light switch. Dark blue, and neat for a boy. It smelled like old leather and stale socks. It also held Zeke's smell, which, oddly, reminded me of cinnamon. I hadn't been inside his room since the day he'd shouted at me to get out of his house. I rubbed my temples and went back to the family room.
I sat on the couch, wrapped myself in a throw blanket, and thought about the dream. I hadn't had one like it since my mother had been pregnant with my baby brother. I'd been afraid to tell her I dreamed she had a miscarriage. After she lost the baby about a week later, I told her. Could I have saved him if I'd said something sooner? Maybe. That's when my parents got rid of me.
I buried my face in my hands and hoped like crazy I'd had a stupid, ordinary dream.
***
I wanted to do something normal, to pretend I was like everybody else, so I gave in to the group outing thing.
Dean Harris and I sat side by side in a booth at Busby's across from Tamzen and Zeke. I fiddled with my fries and glanced at Dean every now and then. He grinned like he'd won the lottery. His brown hair fell to his shoulders, and his sleepy light-blue eyes made him appear relaxed at all times. He came to my door to "escort" me to Zeke's car. Several inches taller than my five-five, he made eye contact. I held it, tempted to read him, but I backed off. Although I was curious, I didn't want to sense anything embarrassing.
Busby's was buzzing and always crowded on Sunday afternoons. Families arrived after church and competed for tables with roaming bands of teenagers who'd slept in and decided to grab a late lunch. Dean and Zeke were on their second hamburgers, and Tamzen wolfed down hers like she hadn't eaten in days. She was one of the few girls I knew who didn't get embarrassed eating in front of their boyfriends.
"I don't see what the big deal is," she said. "Mrs. Lucas and her husband were getting a divorce."
"Just because they were separated doesn't mean they were getting a divorce," Zeke said. His eyes darted in my direction.
She took another bite and gestured. "Duh, that's usually the first step."
Zeke wiped his hands on a napkin and inclined his head at Dean. "Sometimes things work out."
We all looked at Dean, who flushed slightly. "My dad moved out for a few months last year. They worked things out."
"I didn't know that," I said, surprised. In Ridge Grove, everybody usually knew everybody's business. I glared at Zeke.
"It's okay," Dean said. "It's private, but it's not some big secret."
The four of us sat in silence for a moment. That morning we'd spent a couple hours hanging out in Chelsea. But we had to come back to Busby's to eat. Best hamburgers this side of the Mississippi. Or so my grandfather said.
"Hey, Guinan," Tamzen said, shifting in her seat. "Did you pick up on any weird vibes at the boyfriend's place?"
I shook my head. Most people in town knew about my presence at death scenes.
Zeke snorted, and I cut my eyes at him. He stared at his empty plate and sipped his Mountain Dew.
"I think that's so cool," Dean said. "You could make a lot of money doing that, you know."
"I don't really like doing it. Besides, it's not like I can read the future. I think that's where the money is."
"Have you tried?" Tamzen looked at me with wide eyes.
I waited for everyone to laugh like it was a big joke, but the table was quiet. From the corner of my eye, I saw Dean staring at me. Zeke watched Tamzen like she'd lost her mind.
"No, I haven't tried," I said. "I guess hearing the dead's final thoughts could lead to something. But reading emotions? It's like I'm invading people's privacy."
"You are," Zeke said. We all looked at him. "Dean, do you want Guinan to sense exactly what you're feeling right now?"
Dean shifted in his seat and gulped down the rest of his Sprite. Tamzen laughed.
"It isn't normal," Zeke said. "I mean, sensing somebody's private feelings? Really, it's none of her business."
"I can control it," I said. Before we'd fallen out, I'd told him exactly how my abilities worked and how I blocked emotions. "And I don't go around just reading people."
Tamzen tossed her napkin on the table and turned toward him. "But let's say someone plans to commit murder." She raised her eyebrows and pointed at me. "She could save someone's life."
"Good point," Dean said.
A warm feeling filled my chest, and I relaxed a little.
"She can make a lot money being a private investigator," Dean said. He stopped for a beat. "And I could be her manager."
Tamzen let out a whoop and clapped. We went back and forth like this for a while, Zeke in the corner brooding and the rest of us coming up with money-making schemes.
"What about this one," I said, getting into it. "I could become a consultant with the FBI or the CIA and charge a huge fee."
"Awesome," Dean said.
I smiled and nibbled on a cold French fry. While the others talked, my mind drifted. Zeke and I were thirteen and sitting on my front porch. Before I realized what I was doing, I was staring at his eyes. I sensed the fear behind them. A fear of loss. Abandonment. He'd told me before that his parents had been arguing a lot, and he thought they'd get a divorce.
He'd seen the look on my face and demanded to know what I sensed. I told him, and he didn't speak to me for a week. We made up, but I "accidentally" read him again. That time, I sensed fear mixed with shame. I told him what I felt, and he told me to get out of his house.
"I see that you still zone out in the middle of conversations." I startled and looked up at his frowning face. "Same old Guinan."
My jaw clenched. "And why would I change?" He pretended not to hear me. "You're still the same old Zeke. Stubborn. Self-righteous."
I heard Tamzen's sharp intake of breath. She looked from me to her boyfriend, as though watching a good fight.
Zeke cut his eyes in my direction. "You don't want to have
this conversation, believe me."
It was true. I didn't. But I wasn't going to be the one to back down. "Your problem is you think you're perfect. I've got news for you. Not even close."
That got him to look me in the face. "I never claimed to be perfect. But I am normal, unlike you. Reading people's emotions, hearing dead people...It's weird. Some say it's evil."
Dean cleared his throat. I felt him tense up. I took a deep breath.
"Well, I am what I am. I'm certainly not going to let someone make me feel ashamed." Big talk, small lie.
Tamzen slapped her hand on the table, making us jump. "Hear, hear! Let's get out of here."
I rose from the table in what I hoped was a dignified manner and allowed her to guide me toward the door.
Just outside the door, Adam Carver, one of Zeke's baseball teammates, stood with his cell phone to his ear. He frowned when he saw us.
"Hey, something's going down at Jepson's Point."
My heart skipped a beat. Jepson's Point and the land surrounding it had been in my family for generations, and a certain part of it was a make-out spot, to my grandfather's consternation.
I dreamed about it last night.
"What's up?" Dean said.
Adam shook his head. "My brother's out there right now. He followed a police car. I think somebody's dead."
I raised a hand to my mouth. Two fatal heart attacks in Ridge Grove in a couple of days? Not unusual, but worth discussing. I turned to Tamzen, opened my mouth to speak, and stopped. She and Dean stared at me. Zeke wore a smirk.
Chapter Four
Zeke slowed the Jeep and pulled up on the side of Monsoon Road. In front of us were a line of twenty or so cars. To our left, several people milled around in the open field. Beyond it was Jepson's Point. A few yards away from the gathering crowd was a group of three—my grandfather, police officer Rory Davis, and county coroner Avery Stinson.
All this for a heart attack?
Tamzen looked back at me as though I knew what was going on, and I shook my head. It had taken us fifteen minutes to get here from Busby's, and every minute I'd grown tenser. Tamzen had been the only one talking, speculating about who the dead person was and how it happened. We found out before we left the car.
Black-Eyed Moon (A Guinan Jones Paranormal Mystery #1) Page 2
