Past Tense

by Samantha Hunter

  The ghosts. She looked around in fright, but the spirits were gone. Were they ever really there? Her vision was still blurred, but slowly things cleared and she heard. . .humming. That was strange, she thought. Trying to push herself upright again, it didn’t work, but only caused fiery pain to travel through her limbs. Had she fallen again? Was it worse this time?

  “Don’t bother. The physical affects aren’t going to let up for a while. Far longer than you have left.”

  Stewart.

  “Wha-what did you do to me?” she asked, unsure if words actually came from her lips. She watched him moving around the shop, working on something, though Sophie couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing.

  “A little something to make you behave. It turns out your friend Claire has a very impressive collection of poisonous plants in her upstairs, and I borrowed some of her Belladonna. It was easy to distract the twit and take what I needed.”

  Sophie scanned the floor, searching for Gabe, but her head kept spinning.

  “Claire?” Sophie asked, still unable to form more than one word at a time, but her heart beat faster with fear.

  “Don’t worry, she’s fine. Not the brightest bulb in the pack, that one,” Stewart said with a smile. “I think she has a thing for you, if you know what I mean.”

  “You can’t do this,” she managed between clenched teeth, her stomach revolting.

  “What? Kill you? I’m not. At least, that’s not what anyone else will think. Poor Sophie Turner, deluding herself into thinking she was some kind of psychic, her family dead, her friend dead, dumped by her lover, sought by the police. . .what does she do? It’s finally too much. She died in the fire that she set in her own store,” Stewart said sadly, shaking his head. “Taking her new lover with her. It’s absurdly dramatic. I love it.”

  “Fire?”

  “Now you’re catching on. Ha,” Stewart laughed. “See that? A pun. You’re catching on… as in catching on fire? Get it?”

  Sophie tried to shake off some of the fog, but the motion made swirling colors form in front of her face and her stomach revolted again.

  “Oh, that is disgusting, sheesh,” Stewart objected, taking her by one arm and dragging her a few feet across the floor. Gabe lay on the floor next to her, very still.

  Dead? Or drugged, like her?

  “Why?” she managed.

  “Because there is money to be made, and you are in the way. I tried to get you out of the way without killing you, but you had to push, didn’t you?”

  “You won’t get away with it,” Sophie managed, fighting for lucidity.

  She could smell the gas now. She didn’t have much time.

  “Oh, yes. I will. And we’ll make sure to mourn appropriately for you, don’t worry. It’s better this way. I don’t think anyone will find it hard to imagine you killed yourself and took him with you. Maybe I’ll be the one to suggest you were both so taken with the other side, you wanted to go there,” he said with an over-exaggerated sigh.

  “I’ll feel terrible of course, and wish I could have seen the signs, or helped you sooner. There are so many ways to spin your sick, demented motives. . . .but obviously your mind has not been right since your own family was murdered.”

  “Roger won’t believe-”

  “He’ll believe what I want him to believe. Believe me, he’s halfway to thinking you’re fooling around behind his back already, and he’s not entirely wrong, is he? I have to give you credit, though. The new guy is – was – pretty hot.”

  Stewart stood over her. “Time for me to go. See ya,” he said.

  She objected as she watched Stewart drop lit matches to something that seemed to catch very quickly. Flames roared up in front of her eyes, and primal fear took hold.

  “Don’t. . .you can’t. . .”

  “Oh, I can, and I am,” he said nonchalantly, heading for the door as the flames danced and leapt, the smoke starting to fill the room as he paused, waving, and then closed the door behind him. She had no idea what time it was, but if it was late, no one might notice until it was too late, and they would certainly assume the store was empty in the middle of the night.

  Framed for suicide and murder, she thought, just like Percy. And here she had thought the story was over. People would think she’d killed herself, burned the store, and worse, that she’d murdered Gabe, too.

  Sophie tried to scream, to move, but her legs would not cooperate. She was going to die, she thought miserably, choking on the smoke that seemed to be thickening with frightening speed.

  “No, you are not. Get that out of your head right this minute, young lady!”

  Sophie looked in shock as her aunt stood near the register, about ten feet away. Aunt Doris looked fresh, lovely and very alive.

  “You can do this, sweetheart. You just have to try,” Aunt Doris said, just the way she always used to whenever Sophie had doubts.

  Her cell phone was in her jacket on the chair. If Sophie could reach it. . . .

  “Come on, that’s a good girl. Just try hard,” Aunt Doris encouraged as Sophie wiggled and crawled, pushing through the smoke, unsure if it was really her aunt or some Belladonna-induced hallucination talking to her. Her body felt like lead, the movement causing pain that kept her from blacking out, and she choked on smoke.

  “I d-didn’t think you were h-here,” she said to her Aunt as she inched toward the chair.

  “I’m always watching out for you, Sophie. Your father, too. C’mon, just a little farther,” she urged.

  Sophie groaned, thinking she might be sick again, but fought it down. She would not let Stewart win.

  “Atta girl!” she heard her father’s voice and saw him standing by Aunt Doris, waving her on like he used to do for a player coming in for a run.

  “Dad,” Sophie wailed, feeling like a small child, her eyes burning with tears and smoke, desperation grabbing her in its teeth as she got closer, then closer.

  Finally, she could reach and pulled the phone from her pocket, dragging the chair over in the process. The room was filled with smoke and flames, and she couldn’t see Gabe any more.

  She couldn’t see the numbers on the phone, either, and her fingers were numb. She could remember that #1 was Emergency, and felt for it, pushing and hoping it worked.

  “I knew you could do it,” her father said proudly, and she saw her aunt and father looking happily down at her, as if they were standing right there with her. “Home run, baby.”

  “I-I don’t think so,” she disagreed. How could they be so cheerful?

  “Sophie, everything is going to be all right,” they reassured her, and she shook her head, finding it hard to believe anything would ever be right again.

  * * *

  When Roger got to Tarot Alley, intent on not letting Sophie’s birthday go by without them being together, even if they fought the whole time, fire trucks were screaming behind him and the corner was blocked by traffic. His heart sank as he ran toward the shop.

  Smoke infiltrated the alley as they got closer to Talismans and his stomach dropped as he saw the flames leaping from the windows of the store.

  “Oh, fuck,” he said, sick to his bones. “Oh no. No, no,no.” He muttered half-curses and half-prayers as he run up to the shop, now a wall of flames.

  “Sophie!” Roger yelled, until he heard someone call to him from behind, and saw them on the other side of the street, through the smoke. Two of them lay on the sidewalk, as a woman leaned over Sophie, dirty and crying, with bad burns on one hand.

  “She won’t wake up,” the woman sobbed, clearly in shock herself, looking up at Roger.

  Roger fell to the pavement, setting the young woman gently back from Sophie while reaching down with shaking hands to feel for a pulse.

  Faint, but there.

  “Over here!” he shouted over the roar of the fire and engines as the EMTs and fire trucks screamed to the end of the alley, making their way carefully down the alley as far as they could. Two EMTs rushed to their side, one pulled t
he young woman, who told the rescue worker her name was Claire, to the side, and the other checked Sophie and the other man, strapping oxygen immediately to their faces and signaling for stretchers.

  “Is it just the smoke inhalation?” he asked hopefully, flashing his badge, and searching her skin for burns, though it was hard to tell in the dark, covered in soot as she was.

  The EMT shook his head, checking her eyes. “She’s high as a kite. She never would have made it out on her own.”

  Roger frowned. Sophie? High? “You have to be mistaken. Sophie doesn’t touch drugs.”

  The EMT looked up at Roger. “Believe me, I know when someone’s under the influence of narcotics, detective,” he said. “They both are.”

  He turned away as they loaded Sophie onto a gurney and put Gabe into another one. Roger curled his hands into fists, wondering what Sophie’s new ghost-chasing friend had gotten her into this time, and he would damned-sure find out.

  “I’m going with her,” he said, crawling into the ambulance. No one argued.

  As he crawled in beside Sophie, her eyes popped open, and she sucked in a choking breath, grabbing at the oxygen mask. His heart slammed against his chest as he helped her.

  “Hey. We have you. You’re going to be okay, sweetheart,” he reassured. “What happened?”

  She sucked in a breath, a tear sliding down her cheek, which killed him.

  She whispered, “Pocket. Evidence. . .Patrice. . .was. . .Stewart.”

  Roger frowned. Patrice was Stewart?

  That was all before she closed down again. Roger reached into her pockets, finally finding one crumpled piece of paper. A note. He stared at it all the way to the ER before he realized what she’d found, and what it meant.

  Sophie had found Patrice’s killer.

  ***

  Sophie stared down at green Jell-O and glowered. The Belladonna had done a job on her digestive system, true, but artificially-colored gelatin couldn’t possibly be a cure. Regardless of what her doctors said her system could handle, she wanted a cheeseburger. In fact, she wanted one so bad she could actually smell it, she thought, closing her eyes, her stomach rumbling.

  “Hey, you awake?”

  Her eyes popped open to see Roger standing in the doorway with a paper bag. A paper bag with grease stains on the bottom.

  “Is that a burger?”

  “Yep.

  “Quick, close the door before they see.”

  He grinned and did as he was told, handing her the bag. Sophie knew she should make some kind of polite conversation, but first things first, she thought, devouring the burger.

  “Thank you so much,” she said with a sigh, looking at the Jell-O. “You can have that if you want.”

  “No thanks. I already ate. Feel better?”

  “Yes. I’m supposed to be out in the morning, but they made me stay another day. I want to get back to the store.”

  She closed her eyes, fighting back tears that seemed to come far too easily in the last day since she’d been dragged out of the fire. “Is it as bad as they said?”

  “Yeah, sorry, babe. The bottom floor anyway. Some of the top floor is intact, but there’s lots of smoke and water damage and they had to cut through a lot of it fighting the fire.”

  “Dammit,” she cursed on a soft sigh.

  “Yeah. I got your Dad’s baseball stuff out, though. Some of it was damaged, but I know a good restoration place.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Sophie said, brightening. “You got. . .him?” she asked, unable to say Stewart’s name just yet. She needed to know he was locked up somewhere.

  “Oh, yeah. He’ll be gone for a very long time. He has a long record of scams and there are a few questionable disappearances of people he knew. The feds will be opening a number of dead case files, and this won’t be the end of his list of crimes, I think.”

  “It’s hard to get my mind around. He was right in front of me, all the time.”

  Roger sat on the side of the bed, took her hand and squeezed it. “Usually goes that way.”

  Sophie frowned. “He was a scam artist?”

  “Identity theft. He used names and identities of dead people to get by. His real name is Leon Harlow.”

  “Why me?”

  “He had a past scamming in New Age venues, usually small time stuff like psychic fairs, but he did some online and telephone jobs as well. He saw Talismans as an all-you-can-eat buffet of marks, with a lot of wealthy women as customers,” he said.

  “He thought you were leaving, and he had Margaret completely fooled, so he could have free run of the place. When you started getting involved in the investigation, I guess you were getting too close. Besides, with you gone, he probably could have taken a much larger chunk. Margaret isn’t exactly the suspicious type.”

  “She was suspicious of you,” Sophie said with a half-smile. But she knew it was also true. Margaret loved Stewart, and never would have thought badly of him. He would have taken her for everything.

  “So why?”

  “While he was working with Patrice, he must have figured she was too smart to be fooled, and he took another approach. Stewart got involved with Alan, thinking to blackmail him, which would have worked, but they didn’t count on her asking for a divorce, which would mean she would be selling off assets.”

  “Like her necklaces.”

  “Exactly. Alan had sold those already and replaced with fakes when Stewart decided to blackmail him over their affair. Neither one of them could afford anyone to find out that the necklaces were fakes, but Stewart was a man of action.”

  “Oh, so that poor man at the jewelry store. . .” Sophie said, closing her eyes and feeling a little sick.

  “Yeah. Stewart didn’t want to leave any loose ends, but signing the receipt as you was a mistake.”

  “Bledsoe?”

  “He wasn’t directly involved in the killings, but he knew, and he didn’t say anything, that’s for sure, which makes him just as guilty.”

  “I’m a fool,” she said, shaking her head. “I liked Stewart, too. I directed a lot of people to him. I’ll be lucky if they ever trust me again when they find out.”

  Roger sighed. “You can’t blame yourself, Sophie. He was a pro, perfecting this act, these personalities and plans over several years. He fooled and hurt a lot of people. There’s one other weird thing.”

  “Weird is my life,” she joked, but he didn’t smile.

  “The file, on the guy you said was following you? The one who tried to run you guys down that day? It’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yeah. Pereski came to ask me if I took it, and I didn’t have it. They looked high and low, and it’s gone.”

  “That is weird,” she agreed.

  “It might have been misfiled. They’ll keep looking, but Stewart was clear about working alone, except for his collusion with Alan, but he could be protecting a partner.”

  “Great. So someone is still after me, and we don’t know who or why?”

  “I think he’s probably long gone, with Stewart out of commission. These guys tend to protect themselves, but we’ll keep an eye on it, and the investigation is ongoing.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Listen, I have to get back to the station, but you want a ride home in the morning?”

  Sophie shifted awkwardly in the bed, her sprained ankle protesting, and her body generally sore, especially her ribs, which were only bruised, not cracked, thank goodness. She was still eager to get out. She’d had more than enough of hospitals. She’d leave right now if they let her.

  “No thanks. Claire said she’d give me a ride, and she invited me to stay with her while I figure out things with the store. She lives just across the river.”

  “She saved your life. Both of you, actually,” Roger said and Sophie looked down at her hands, knowing it had to come up sooner or later that she and Gabe had been alone, late at night, at the store.

  “We were just working.”


  “Claire’s a real friend, someone willing to walk into flames for you. How come you never mentioned her much?” he said, obviously not willing to address Gabe at the moment.

  “I don’t know her that well, really. I guess that will change if I’m renting a room from her.”

  “You could stay with me, you know,” he said softly, and the hope in his eyes nearly undid her.

  It would be so easy to give in. To leave everything behind and go with Roger where everything would be perfect, safe and easy. He’d protect her, build a comfortable life with her. It could be good – but would she be happy? And what about the next time some needful spirit came to her? What then?

  She kept seeing her aunt and her father, encouraging her, telling her she could do it, and that everything would be okay.

  Taking the easy path probably wasn’t what they meant.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, sitting up and reaching for the drawer at the side of the bed with a wince. “I don’t mean to hurt you, Roger. I know I was a part of building up our plan, our life, but so much has changed. Until we know what we want—and I don’t know that you really want me now, not anymore--maybe you should take this back,” she said kindly, her heart aching more than her injuries, but she didn’t see any way around it, either.

  He looked at the ring, but didn’t take it. “So this is how it is, then?”

  “Unless you feel like changing your mind about having a psychic-medium wife who runs a tarot shop for a living,” she said lightly, but the look on his face told her his response before his words did. “I want to keep the store. I want to find out who I am, and I’m not going to hide it. If you can deal with that, then I’ll keep the ring.”

  He smiled, but looked sad, taking the ring, giving her his answer.

  “I’ll hold on to it. Maybe we can just wait and see. Give it some time. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

  “Sure,” she said, but knew he knew otherwise, too.

  “Okay, then. I gotta go,” he said again, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead. “You let me know if you need anything. I’m always here.”