“Oh my God! Sophie, are you all right?”
Claire was across the room and by her side, and Sophie pulled away, suspicious and still half-dazed from the dream, her eyes searching the floor for blood.
“How did you get in here?”
“I-I was out for a run. I couldn’t sleep. I heard the screams and found your door open. I thought someone had broken in, that you were being hurt. . .are you okay?”
Concerned, guileless brown eyes searched hers, and Sophie nodded. It was a dream. She’d dreamed her mystery man, and her ghost.
“Yes, I think so. I guess I was sleepwalking, had a nightmare. Wait—you said the store was open? How can that be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you came in late and forgot to lock up behind you?”
Sophie had come in from her apartment entry. Margaret must have forgotten to lock up, which was so unlike her.
“Let me help you,” Claire offered, slipping a surprisingly strong arm around Sophie as she pushed up from the floor, feeling increasingly foolish, but leaning on Claire anyway. She couldn’t take her eyes off the spot where the ghost had stood as they walked out. It had been one hell of a dream.
As she and Claire went back up to the apartment, she became more of the world again. “Can I get you something? Tea or water, or. . .something?”
“Let me do that for you. You’re the one who’s had the nightmare,” Claire said, but Sophie waved her concerns off. She didn’t like how things were playing out, and all of this reminded her far too keenly of other times when she’d had to let others take care of her. As much as she appreciated their kindness, she liked taking care of herself.
“It was just a bad dream. I guess with everything in my head, and I made the mistake of reading a bunch of books about ghosts before I went to sleep, I just had a particularly bad nightmare. I’m fine, though.”
“Ghosts? Why would you be reading about ghosts?”
Sophie put on the tea kettle, grabbing a box of unused teabags from the cupboard.
“Just for kicks. This is all I have – okay?”
Claire nodded. “I could make you some custom blends, if you want.”
“I’m more of a coffee person, really. Margaret brought me these when I had the flu.”
“Margaret?”
“My assistant manager. She’s also buying the store.”
“You’re selling your store?”
Sophie kept her hands busy and as she did, they eventually steadied. The talk of normal things chasing away the horrors.
“Yeah. I’m getting married, and my fiancé isn’t crazy about me running the business. It’s time to move on, anyway.”
“He’s old fashioned?” Claire asked.
“No, I’ll work, he just doesn’t get into all of. . .you know. The new age stuff.”
Claire frowned. “How did you end up together?”
“We met years ago. He’s a cop. A good man. And I want a different career anyway. I’ve been studying to be a computer engineer.”
“Wow. That’s impressive. A big change.”
“Yeah. It will be a good one, though, I think.” Sophie poured tea, wondering how it could feel so easy with Claire, like they’d been friends for years. “Oh, and I have your key, too.”
“You can keep it for a while if you want.”
“You know, not to be rude, but I really feel kind of awful. I’d like to just go lie down. Can I take a rain check on the tea? Do you mind? You can take that mug with you, if you want”
Claire stood immediately. “I’m fine. You get some sleep, and we’ll get together when you feel better. I’m just glad I wandered by.”
As Claire reached the back stairs, Sophie paused. “Claire, did you see anyone come out of the store, or anyone on the sidewalk? A man with black hair, very pale?”
Claire frowned. “No. There were a few people back and forth, coming home from the bars or whatnot, but no one came out of the store. That I saw, anyway.”
Sophie nodded. “Thanks. I guess I was really deep in that dream,” she said, trying to smile. They said goodnights and Sophie made sure the door was tightly closed and locked. Then she picked up her phone and called Gabe.
“Hey. Sorry I’m calling so late. It was a rough night. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Listen. . . if you’re still offering to help, and to hypnotize me, I’m in.”
Chapter Nine
It was after noon when a knock at the door had Sophie bolting from the couch, a cushion seam having pressed a straight red line diagonally across her face. She gasped when she caught sight of herself in the mirror by the door before answering it.
It was Mags, looking fresh and dressed in a funky turquoise pants suit that only she could pull off.
“Wow – are you okay?” were the first words out of her friend’s mouth, taking in Sophie’s disheveled appearance.
“I was just up late. Strange night. I don’t even remember going to sleep. What’s up?” she asked covering a yawn.
“I was downstairs puttering and decided to check in on you. Good thing, you look like you need a friend. Wanna talk about it over lunch? My treat.”
“Lunch? What time is it?”
“Lunch time,” Margaret said with a grin.
Sophie slid a look to the two slabs of cold, congealed pizza that remained in the box on the table, but were hardly appealing.
“I’d love it. Let me get myself together.”
“Sure. I’ll just make some phone calls while you’re in there. No hurry.”
“Thanks. Hey, do you mind if I borrow your car for one more day? I’m leery about taking the train right now.”
“Places to go, people to meet?”
“I need to meet Gabe later. I can tell you everything over breakfast, er, lunch.”
“It’s Gabe now, huh?” Margaret grabbed his book from the table and looked at his picture on the back. “He is hot, in that geeky professor kind of way.”
Sophie waved Margaret’s quirked eyebrow back to its original resting place. “Please. It’s not like that at all. Half the students I know call their profs by their first name.”
“But he’s not your teacher, is he?”
“Well, no,” she paused, not really knowing what else to say. Gabe was attractive, but she’d just met him. They seemed to get along well enough, and there was something. . .nice about him. Sophie liked his smile, and his hands. A little pinch of guilt told her that she was only thinking that way because he believed her when no one else seemed to. Except for Mags.
“Let me get ready. Besides, I’m spoken for,” she added belatedly, disappearing into her room.
“What’s the old saying, married but not dead?” Margaret said loudly, and Sophie chuckled at her friend’s perception. It was true. She could hardly expect to go through her life and never acknowledge other men as attractive just because she was with Roger. It didn’t mean she was going to do anything about it, even if she wanted to. The last thing she needed right now was to complicate her life with an affair, not that she would ever have one. She’d never understood why people cheated on their partners, and had had her share of awkward or painful tarot readings with clients on one side or the other of the problem.
Stretching for a few minutes to work the kinks out of her sore muscles Sophie thought that the events of the night before seemed distant and unreal. Like she’d dreamed the whole thing.
That was a disturbing thought.
Giving into a moment of doubt, she grabbed her cell phone and saw on the outgoing calls that she had called Gabe.
“Okay, so I guess I can assume it all really happened,” she muttered to herself, mentally pushing away the creepy images, particularly the dark-haired man who had been standing there, looking at her so intently when she’d awakened in the reading room.
Who was he? If he was the killer, why didn’t he act? Why follow her and do nothing? Hardly what she would have expected if he was out to tie up a loose end, namely her.
Why risk her seeing him at all?
<
br /> Because he wasn’t worried about her seeing him, and that was more worrisome than anything.
* * *
An hour later, Margaret and Sophie sat with piles of whole grain pancakes – or at least Sophie did. Margaret had a fruit bowl and some yogurt. Sophie dug in, her appetite inspired by the sun shining through café windows and the happy chat of other customers gathered in the small Southie restaurant. She’d given Margaret the short version of what happened the night before on the way to the café, and Mags had had the same questions she did. None of it made sense.
“So you think Gabe is going to help you with the hypnosis?”
“I figure it’s the only shot I have to remember anything. Maybe he can dig out something from my past, something I’ve forgotten, and who knows, maybe even something from the night Patrice was killed.”
“Scary stuff, Sophie. Are you sure you should do this, though?”
“Well, yeah. Why not?”
“Maybe you should get to know him better. You really don’t have any idea who this guy is, and it’s your mind and your memories that you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know anyone else except for the police department shrinks, and they have their own agenda.”
“Hmmm. Actually you do know someone else. Stewart.”
Sophie looked up from her food, taking a long drink of orange juice and looking at Margaret over the top of the glass. “Stewart does hypnosis?” she asked after she set her glass back down.
“Yes, he’s gone through quite a bit of training. It was part of his life coach training. He uses it mostly for relaxation, phobias, that kind of thing, but he can do regression as well.”
Sophie thought about it, sticking her fork in her pancakes and holding it there. “I didn’t know that. Still, in a weird way, I think I’m more comfortable with someone who’s a stranger. It makes it easier, more clinical and less emotional, I guess.”
Margaret nodded, delicately popping some melon into her mouth. “I can understand that. How about I go with you, though? You might need emotional support.”
Sophie set down her fork. “Thanks Mags, but I feel like I need to do this alone. I don’t know why. It is scary, but. . .I don’t know. Gabe assured me we wouldn’t do anything that I was uncomfortable with. The real goal is to find out about the ghost, and why I keep seeing him. And what happened over in Charlestown. What is going on in my head, you know?”
“Sometimes when you look too closely at these things, you chase them away,” Margaret said cautiously.
“Well, that might be okay, too. I could easily do without this stuff happening to me. It’s been messing with my head, and with my life.”
“You mean Roger.”
“Yeah, mostly. He definitely disapproves. We are on ‘need to know only’ speaking terms, it seems.”
“Couples all have their challenges, but you guys have had more than most, I’ll admit,” Margaret said kindly. “He came into the shop to see me, you know. I don’t think I told you that before, there was too much going on.”
“When?”
“The night you were in Charlestown. He came in looking for you.”
“Right, he mentioned that.”
“I think. . .he was almost extending an olive branch, in a way. He said that he wants us to be friends, since you two are getting married. But he also was poking around my past.”
Sophie frowned. “That’s weird. He never mentioned it.”
“I think he’s just being protective. He doesn’t want you getting involved with someone unreliable. You have to admit, some of my past is pretty questionable.”
A shadow came over Margaret’s bright features, and Sophie leaned in, squeezing her hand. Margaret had told her about her past, some of it, early in their friendship. Sophie was the last one to hold someone’s difficult history against them, and had kept Margaret’s secret.
“Roger was out of line, if that’s what he was doing. He seems to think protecting me allows him to steamroll over anyone he wants to, and he’s got to get a grip on that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It was okay, and besides, it’s nice to have someone who cares about you so much.”
Sophie’s agitation with Roger mellowed, a little. It was nice to have someone care, but there were still boundaries.
“I know you had a tough time growing up, Mags, but it’s made you the wonderful person that you are. I trust you completely with the store, and Roger needs to back off. I’m sorry if he offended you.”
“He didn’t, really. I think he really needed to know I wasn’t a threat.”
Sophie shook her head, pushing her plate back. “He’d put me in a bubble if he could. It’s been driving me crazy, but now he’s questioning my friends? When he does that, he’s questioning my judgment, too. That’s what really gets me. Like I’m a kid or something.”
“It’s okay Sophie. I’m sure he doesn’t mean it like that. He’s just used to taking care of you.”
“I know, but he has to get used to letting me take care of myself.”
“I know, but think of it as his way of coping. Things have been so crazy lately. It will all settle down once this mess is past you.”
“I hope you’re right. I love the guy, but he’s pushing it.”
“He means well,” Margaret said with a smile, and motioned to the server for the bill.
“Thanks for the meal. It was nice to sit and enjoy an hour of peace for a change,” Sophie said as they walked out of the café and stood, waiting for traffic.
“We have to make a habit of it, especially after I take on the store and you get married. I don’t want to lose touch.”
“Me, either,” Sophie said sincerely, suddenly realizing that something was missing. “Oh shit, I left my phone on the table. I’ll be right back.”
She turned back into the café, relieved to find her phone still on the table where she’d sat. Hurrying to catch back up with Mags, she saw Margaret ahead of her, already halfway to the car. “Hey, wait up,” she called, hitching her bag back up on her shoulder.
The increasing loudness of an engine made her slow her step and look around. A white car with tinted windows ripped around the corner and gunned the engine, barreling in their direction. Sophie froze. Unable to move, her heart tripped over itself, her feet planted until she saw him picking up speed, heading directly at Margaret, who was only a few steps from the sidewalk on the other side.
“Mags! Mags!” Sophie shouted, lunging forward and almost tripping, stumbling as she made her way to try to warn Margaret, knowing with a sick certainty that she wouldn’t be able to get to her friend in time. “Margaret, move,” she shouted again.
Mags spun around, her eyes and lips round with alarm as she saw the car. At the very last second she scurried to the side, falling over the curb to the walkway, avoiding the car which zoomed by, missing her within inches. Sophie rushed to her side, helping her up.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” Sophie asked, unsure if the shaking she felt was coming from her or Margaret, who held up skinned palms and who was as white as death.
“I-I think so,” Margaret whispered, her voice choked, her pretty pantsuit ripped and dirty. “I. . .how could they not have seen me?”
People came out of the café, someone shouted to them, and another man was running down the walk in their direction, but Sophie lost track of it all as she heard the wail of sirens in the distance, a too-familiar sound lately.
“Let’s go back to the café. There’s probably an ambulance en route. You need someone to check you over,” she said, stepping away from the curb with Margaret and simultaneously hitting Roger’s number on the speed dial. Margaret nearly flew across the street in spite of her injuries, and Sophie wasn’t far behind though she kept a careful eye on traffic.
The drive-by had been purposeful, intentional. She knew this because he’d looked right at her. When he’d raced by, there was a second, a fleeting, still-life moment when the driver, the dark-haired man who had been following her
for days, looked straight at her. He’d been taunting her, she felt. Daring her to stop him.
If he was Patrice’s killer, wouldn’t he have aimed for her? It made no sense at all.
Roger didn’t pick up, so she left a brief message as a police car pulled to a stop at the curb. At least now maybe they’d believe there really was a madman out there following her around.
* * *
“Hey, you got a minute?” Matt Pereski stood in Roger’s office door, looking harassed.
“Sure. Dead people in these files aren’t getting any deader,” Roger said dryly. Most homicide detectives tried to find a little levity amid the darkness of their work, though it was harder some days than others.
“Ain’t it the truth,” Matt said, sitting in the beat-up leather chair on the other side of the desk.
Roger nodded. “Nothing’s popped on the guy Sophie saw?”
He hadn’t seen Sophie since the funeral and true to form, trouble was still following her like a bad penny. Today, surrounded by cops and all business, he’d barely had a moment alone with her. The idea that she and Margaret were nearly run down was surreal, but Sophie had been able to give a description of the guy this time. When he’d gotten her message, telling him she needed to speak to him right away, he’d thought maybe she missed him or wanted to reconnect. Leave it to Sophie to not mention that she’d just nearly been the target of a hit and run.
“Nada. No one caught plates, and the car was probably stolen anyway. There’s nothing but Sophie’s idea about someone following her to say it wasn’t just a random crazy mad at life, or a Yankees fan having a bad day.” Pereski said lightly, but shook his head. “The sketch came back empty, too. If he’s real, this guy doesn’t have any kind of record that we can find.”
“He’s real. You can count on that.”
“Well, I hope so, since all we got are dead ends. I could use some extra brain cells on this one,” Pereski admitted. “Captain is on my ass, and so is the wife. I’m working double-time on this and both of them want it wrapped up for different reasons. Did I tell you my oldest made honor roll? I missed his ceremony, you know, where they hand out a certificate and have a reception afterwards.”
Past Tense Page 14
