Birds of a Feather

by Harper Crowley

  “Of course not. Why would he steal Wanda’s diary? He only went in for the paintings, and I think he grabbed some jewelry too. Stuff he can run through his store.”

  My shoulders go slack, and I sink against the hard back of the chair. If Frankie didn’t steal the book, who did? “Are you sure he didn’t take it?” If Frankie didn’t take the book, someone else did. Someone who came in after Frankie, perhaps.

  “Positive,” Stan snaps. “Stop stalling.” He stomps toward me with the paperwork and a pen, still holding the gun in his free hand.

  “I’m not signing this,” I say, staring at the paper.

  “Yes, you are,” he says. “I’ve got friends who are going stop by in a little bit, and they’re going to help me make you disappear. You’re good at that, you know, which really helps me out. How they make you disappear and whether it’s slow or quick is up to you.”

  As his words sink in, a coldness spreads from my chest to my arms and legs. I’m not getting out this time. This is it for me.

  Stan tucks the gun in his belt then unties the rope holding my wrists. Once they’re free, he hands me a pen and the piece of paper.

  Hands shaking, I click the pen and pretend to read the paragraph. It’s the same one now lying on the floor in my aunt’s apartment.

  “Hurry up,” Stan says, glancing at the window.

  A plan forms in my head, a stupid, weak, tenuous plan, but it’s better than nothing. I click the pen to retract the ink and pretend to write my name. When that doesn’t work, obviously, I do it again, with the same results.

  “What’s taking so long?” Stan asks, glancing from me to the windows. There must be something out there that’s worrying him.

  Hope springs to life inside my chest. “The pen’s not working.” I wave the offending writing utensil at him. “Do you have another one?”

  “For God’s sake.” He snatches the pen from me and reaches for the paper. In that split second of irritated distraction, I rear back my head and butt him as hard as I can, right in the nose. Stars burst along the edges of my vision. Stan crashes to the ground, clutching his face, blood gushing from his nose.

  Still tied to the chair, I lurch on top of him and scramble for the gun. His blood soaks the front of my hoodie, and an odd rushing sensation fills my head. Adrenaline. Yeah, that’s it.

  We wrestle for the gun, but I’m stronger and uninjured. After elbowing him in the groin, I bring the gun down on his head, much like he did to me, but this time, his eyes roll back in his head, and he goes limp. I stare at the bloody, unmoving form for a few seconds, unable to move until Stan’s earlier comment about his associates rings in my head.

  I’ve got to get out of here well before his goons show up. I scramble off of Stan and make quick work of the ropes holding my feet to the chair legs. In case I run in to any trouble, I tuck my long hair into my hoodie and pull the hood over my head. That way the bad guys can’t grab it if they try to catch me, and it’s easier to blend in if they can’t see my bright red hair. It’s worth a shot.

  After one last quick glance at the unconscious man, I turn and hurry for the door, Stan’s gun still clenched in my hand. There’s no way I’m leaving that behind. Not that I know how to use it, but it’s better than being unarmed.

  The room Stan took me to is at the end of a long, dim hallway. Flickering florescent lights illuminate closed doors with their numbers long worn off. I know this place. I waver back and forth, terror rooting me to the spot. I can’t move. I’ve been here before.

  The rushing sensation in my head grows stronger, like I’m in this tremendous whirlpool and everything’s rushing, rushing all around me. This is it. The vision. Oh God, no.

  A familiar shape races through the doorway at the other end and skids to a stop. It’s him. Nick. And this time, I’m not him. I’m not yelling at the person on the other end of the hall to drop the gun. I am the other person at the other end of the hall. Nick raises his hand. I don’t have to see his gun to know it’s there. I know he’s holding it. I felt it. I held it. I was pointing the gun at me.

  “Drop it!” Nick’s voice echoes down the empty hallway. “Drop your weapon, or I’ll shoot.”

  A sense of peace—of destiny—rushes over me, filling my body and my soul. No matter what else happened to me, I was always supposed to end up here, at the end of this hallway and quite possibly at the end of my life. Destiny. Whatever’s going to happen will happen, and the only thing I can control is myself. In the back of my mind, a mirror image of myself lifts the gun, in fear, in self-preservation, or for some other reason I don’t know, because I’m not her. Not quite. I don’t have to do what she does, because I know better. I’ve seen how this ends, and I refuse to let it happen to me.

  One by one, my fingers unfurl around the weapon, and I drop it to the ground, the sound of the impact sounding an awful lot like a door slamming.

  Chapter 16

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Nick kicks the gun away and grabs my arms. “Are you hurt? Who did this to you? What happened?” He plucks at the blood on my shirt. He’s babbling, and in the dim lights, his eyes are wide and scared, furious and confused. I don’t know what to say, because I never got to this part in the vision. In the vision, I died. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I wrap my hands around his. He stops and stares at our linked fingers. “The blood’s not mine. It’s Stan Erickson’s.” I force the corner of my lip to curl into a smile. “I headbutted him in the room back there. Pretty sure I broke his nose. Then I knocked him out.”

  He swears and pulls me away from the door. “Where is he?”

  “Behind me, but he’s not going anywhere for a while.” I jerk my head at the room behind me just as several more uniformed police officers reach the top of the stairwell.

  “The suspect is in there,” Nick says, gesturing at the room. “And he probably needs medical attention.”

  “Got it,” the police officer says.

  Nick wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me aside as the two officers pass me to enter the apartment. “Come on. Let’s get you looked at, and then you can tell us what happened.”

  I don’t know what changed since the time he stormed out of my aunt’s apartment, but I’m not complaining, I just hope it lasts. “Sounds good to me.”

  AFTER WE’RE ALLOWED to leave, I still don’t want to go back to the bookstore. Nick takes me to his apartment and runs to my car to get me clean clothes so I can shower. “I’m sorry I don’t have much,” he says, referencing the one-hundred-percent-bachelor state of his bathroom. It’s sparse, white, mostly clean, and utilitarian. In other words, it’s perfect.

  I run my fingers through the tangles in my wet hair. “It’s fine, honest.” I sink into one of his dining room chairs next to Marge, who’s happily picking peanut butter off of a piece of toast. If I’d only known from the beginning how food would soothe the savage beast, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.

  “I know you’re tired,” he says, “but I have to ask. The hallway in your vision, the one where I shot someone... That was you, wasn’t it? In your vision, I killed you.” There’s real anguish in his voice.

  I swallow a lump in my throat. “Yeah. I didn’t know it was me when I had the vision, but it was the same, mostly. I mean, I wasn’t covered in blood when I first saw it, but the rest was pretty spot on.”

  “Except for the part where I killed you. Only, I didn’t shoot you in real life. Why did I do it in the vision?”

  “Because the person you pointed the gun at in the vision didn’t drop the gun. I did.”

  “And that changed everything.”

  I take a long sip, letting the heat of the coffee sear my throat. “Yup. That changed everything.”

  He lets out a deep breath. “I still don’t know if I believe that you can see the future.”

  I lift a shoulder then drop it. “Sometimes I don’t believe it, either. It’s okay. Let’s just forget about it.”

  The
look he gives me tells me in no uncertain terms he won’t be forgetting about it any time soon. That’s okay. He’s not the only one, but I’d at least like to pretend it didn’t happen, even if it’s just for a little while.

  “Did the cops pick up Frankie?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Nick says. “Landry called while you were in the shower. He had those ugly paintings too.” He sinks into a chair opposite Marge. It looks like the truce between them is tenuous at best. I guess the same can be said for Nick and I, as well.

  “What about the book?”

  Nick stares into the depths of his coffee. “That’s the weird thing. He claims not to know anything about it or what happened to his ex-wife, though he didn’t seem too beat up over not having to pay alimony anymore.”

  “So there was a third person involved.” A third person watching me, waiting for the perfect opportunity to break into the store.

  “Or Frankie could be lying,” he says. “Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. Things don’t always have to be all mysterious, you know.” He smirks.

  I take another drink, savoring the hot, bitter taste. Nick’s not one for cream or sugar, even though he offered to run to the store and get me some. Right now, I’m just going to enjoy what I have.

  “Maybe.” I don’t believe that, and I’m pretty sure Nick doesn’t either. Someone killed Sandra and stole the book, and that someone wasn’t Stan or Frankie.

  Marge tosses her crust to the floor and stares at my cup longingly.

  “Not a chance, bird. I am not letting you get hyped up on caffeine.” I hand her another piece of toast. She gives me a dirty look before throwing that one on the ground too.

  “Suit yourself.”

  She fluffs up her feathers in indignation.

  “I don’t think it was Frankie or Stan,” I say. “I really do believe there is someone else involved.”

  “That could be true,” Nick says, watching me carefully. “But if there is, you need to let the cops figure it out. They’re good guys, I’m telling you. They’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  His eyebrows arch at my noncommittal response. “What do you care anyway? I’m sure you’re just itching to get the hell out of Dodge?”

  I finish the coffee and set the cup on the table, letting the silence give me time to form words out of the thoughts in my head. For some reason, sticking around doesn’t terrify me so much anymore. Not after what I’ve been through. I’ll have to deal with the reporter eventually, and the whole adoption thing, but maybe I should follow Nick’s advice and stop running, at least for a little while.

  “I don’t know, Tranquility Falls is kind of growing on me. I think I might stay for a while longer. Not forever, but for a few more days. I still need to figure out what to do with my aunt’s store.” And find a home for Marge, but even that is less appealing than it once was. The goofy bird is starting to grow on me. “Yeah, I think I’m going to stick around for a little while.”

  Nick grins and raises his mug to me in a toast. He doesn’t truly trust me—not that I blame him for that—and we haven’t resolved the psychic elephant in the room, but at least we’re on speaking terms. That’s more than I deserve, given all the lies I’ve told. “To not running away from your past.”

  My lips twitch in my own semblance of a weary smile, pushing the darkness away, at least for the time being. I clink my empty glass to his. “Sure. I have a feeling I’m going to regret staying here.”

  “You never know,” he muses. “Tranquility Falls might just be the peace and quiet you’ve been looking for.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “I find that hard to believe.”

  Can’t wait to read Willa and Marge’s next adventure? Click HERE to pre-order your copy of Dead as a Dodo today for only $2.99!

  Acknowledgments

  Starting a new series is always an adventure. I love being in Meredith’s world, but Willa’s been whispering in my ear for some time now. Yelling even, sometimes. Marge, too. I share my home with several rescued parrots, and even though my experiences are my own, Marge could be any parrot who has been separated from their long term home, and so I want to thank Paco, Louie, Meeko, Veda, and Joey for their raucous input. My editor, Kate, also deserves my undying gratitude. She’s amazing and awesome and this book wouldn’t be what it is without her. I’d also like to thank both my wonderful beta readers who gave me early feedback and helped me point out where I was on the right track and where I was woefully going off the trail. Thank you all so much!

  About the Author

  Harper Crowley lives in Michigan, where it’s too cold for nine months of the year, punctuated by a brief summer respite. When she’s not writing about kooky characters in crazy situations, she’s teaching middle and high school students and dreaming up her next adventure. You can find her on Facebook at /harpercrowleyauthor and her website www.harpercrowley.com.