“No! No, no, I’d rather have my own car. In fact, maybe I should just stay here and get some things taken care of. Kendall?”
Rowenna realized she’d been talking to the ether. Kendall had hung up.
Great. Just great.
What to do now? Behave normally, that would help.
The phone rang again. She hoped against hope it was Kendall calling back, but of course it wasn’t.
It was Jeremy.
“I hear I’m picking you up. Would an hour be all right?”
“It would be fine, but I’m not sure I should go.”
“You have to go. You picked up the lunch check. I owe you a meal, but since my sister-in-law is taking care of that, I’ll have to settle for playing chauffeur. By the way, I’m sorry my call took so long you decided to ditch me.”
She winced. She would have loved for him to speak to her so pleasantly a few weeks ago.
“So…an hour?” he asked.
“Sure, fine, thanks.”
When she hung up, Rowenna hesitated, then put through a call to Joe Brentwood.
“Hey,” he said, picking up his cell phone. “You still coming home tomorrow? I’d like your take on something that happened here.”
“Joe, you’re supposed to say you’ve missed me and you’re delighted I’m coming home soon.”
“I miss you and I’m delighted you’re coming home soon. And have I got an interesting case for you.”
“It’s about a man named Brad Johnstone and his missing wife, Mary, right?” she said with a sense of fatality.
“Damn. You are psychic.”
She wasn’t psychic. She couldn’t meet people and hear the spirits of their loved ones talking to her, passing on messages. But there were times when she opened her mind, let herself think and feel and add in some good common sense, and could figure things out. Maybe there was something different in her subconscious, something her research had honed to a fine and useful edge. But though she wrote about other people’s encounters with the supernatural, and though she admitted to a knack for sensing things when others didn’t, she would never call herself a psychic, not when—no matter how much Jeremy Flynn apparently doubted the truth of this—she didn’t believe in the reality of the paranormal, only the possibility. No matter what others sometimes called her, as far as she was concerned, all she did was use her senses, all of them, along with her brain, to see possibilities and draw conclusions based on the available evidence. And she made very, very certain that no hint of her involvement ever reached the media.
“No, Joe, nothing psychic. I read it in the paper. And I have a…friend who is involved in a strange way.”
“What?”
“The guy I’ve been working with down here used to work with Brad Johnstone.”
“That investigator?” Joe asked. Like most cops, he didn’t like private investigators. He thought they were pains in the ass who messed up the official investigation into any case they got involved with.
“Yes.”
Joe’s silence clearly transmitted his opinion.
“He’s a decent guy, Joe.”
“Yeah, yeah. Great. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Wait, you called me. What’s up?”
“The Johnstone case,” she said dryly.
“If you read the paper, you know what I know.”
“But—”
“You’re coming home. Give me a call as soon as you’re back and we’ll talk.”
“Sure.”
She hung up. Since her own parents were dead and she had no siblings, Joe was the closest thing she had left to family. He’d lost his wife to cancer a decade ago, and their only son, Rowenna’s late fiancé, had been killed overseas, serving in the military.
Even though he was Jonathan’s father, he was always the first one to tell her she needed to move on with her life. He’d told her once that he was grateful she hadn’t forgotten him and started over again too soon, but his son was dead and buried, and there was even moss growing on the tombstone when he didn’t keep up with it. Time for her to build a new life.
He was also a detective with the county. Her “career” with him had begun over coffee one cold winter’s night when he had been talking to her about a recent murder. She’d asked him to show her the scene, and on the way, he’d told her what he knew about the victim. Sunny Shoemaker, thirty-four, depressed because she’d been let go at the real estate agency where she’d worked, had gone out to a bar with a few sympathetic co-workers. After a few drinks she’d left to go home, telling her friends that she was fine. She’d been discovered with a knife in her back beside the high fence of the old prison. Her handbag was gone; the presumed motive was robbery. The M.E. had found a hair, but that wouldn’t do them any good without a suspect with whom to compare it, and so far, they hadn’t found one.
When Rowenna stood there and closed her eyes, she could imagine what it might have been like to be Sunny. She hadn’t heard the footsteps of her attacker, so she hadn’t turned around. And she hadn’t fought to keep her purse. But wouldn’t a random thief have tried to wrest the purse from her first? Purse snatchers didn’t usually stab their victims in the back, then steal their purses.
Rowenna had noted the proximity of the bar, a place where the locals hung out after work, and, on a hunch, gone in the next evening.
She chose the same stool the bartender said Sunny had used, and sitting there, sipping a glass of wine, she watched the people around her, listening, trying to picture herself as Sunny once again. In her mind, she allowed a part of herself to become Sunny. An executive type, who’d been sitting with another man at a table, came up to the bar, taking the stool next to her. As the bartender mixed his drink, they joked about the fact that he just couldn’t stay away from his customary stool, and that he would have to reclaim it as soon as his client left. The man left an empty glass on the bar. When the bartender turned, Rowenna confiscated the glass. She gave the glass to Joe that evening, and one thing led to another, until Joe had a suspect.
It turned out that the man was a broker from Sunny’s firm and had been skimming profits from his partners. Sunny hadn’t known anything, but he was afraid she did and had been the one to fire her. Angry, she had threatened him at the bar, convincing him that she really did know what he was up to, and he had panicked, following her, picking up a knife on his way past the bar, where the bartender had left it after slicing lemons.
After that, Joe had decided that she had psychic abilities. It wasn’t true, but she hadn’t been able to convince him of that. It was a talent to get into the head of another person, she admitted, but there was nothing mysterious about it. After that, he often came to her for help on puzzling cases, but she made him swear that he wouldn’t mention her name to the press. Some of the other guys at the station knew that he consulted her, but he kept any mention of psychic ability out of it, so no one really worried about it and they all liked her.
She hoped she would be able to help them find Jeremy’s friend, even though she knew how he would react if she were brought into the investigation.
She felt pathetic, like a lapdog hoping for a sign of approval.
Rowenna stood up and brushed her hair, trying to imagine being Mary Johnstone. A woman with a husband who loved her but had cheated on her. A husband who was trying to rebuild their marriage. Someone she really loved.
She hadn’t walked out on him. And this wasn’t a practical joke; she wasn’t pretending to disappear to get even with him for his transgressions.
She closed her eyes. She knew the cemetery, and she could see it plainly in her mind’s eye. She felt the sea breeze that came in from the water, cool now, with the touch of fall. She could see the fallen leaves in their brilliant colors.
As she stood there, “becoming” Mary, soaking in the atmosphere of the cemetery and the beauty of the day, she was startled by a wall of sheer black settling over her vision.
And once again she saw the cornfields that had so terrified her in her dream.
>
Crows shrieked, as she ran through the corn. She wasn’t a child, and she wasn’t Mary. She was herself, an adult, running and running, seeing the scarecrows towering above the fields, running toward the one scarecrow that terrified her the most.
And there was something beyond. No, someone. A figure in the distance, clad in a dark cape, nothing more than darkness amid shadow…
The Harvest Man.
There was a sharp knock at her door. It was as startling as an alarm bell.
Her eyes flew open, and the cornfields vanished. She realized that she was shaking, that her hands were clenched at her sides, her palms damp.
“Rowenna?”
Jeremy Flynn was here to pick her up. And she was glad, and not only because she was going to have one more chance to spend time with him.
She’d been afraid to reach the scarecrow in the cornfield.
No, not afraid. She had been terrified.
3
He could tell immediately that Rowenna was tense when she opened the door. He might not have a psychic bone in his body, but he could read the strain in her features and the tic that pulsed rapidly at her throat. And he noted the change in her expression, from something white and frightened to a false, tight smile when she greeted him.
“Hi. Hey, I’m sorry you had to come for me. I could have driven out myself,” she said. “I just need, um…to get my purse. And a jacket.”
She turned away from him and hurried to get her things. She had a nice room. His eye was drawn directly to the huge canopy bed, and he quickly reined in his wayward thoughts. He’d picked her up at the hotel once before, for a promotional appearance, but he hadn’t gone up to her door; he wondered why he had done so tonight.
With her purse and jacket in hand, she paused, staring at him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked her.
She didn’t deny that something was wrong. “I know the detective on your friend’s case,” she told him bluntly.
Her words startled him. “Pardon?”
“I…I just didn’t want it to be a surprise when you found out. The lead detective on the case is a man named Joe Brentwood. I know him. He’s a…friend of mine.”
It was the last thing he had expected. He felt a new wall of distrust going up between them. Not her fault. His.
“And you know he’s on the case…how?” he asked.
“I called him.”
“I see.” He hesitated for a moment. “But how did you know to call him?” His tone sounded suspicious, even to himself.
She looked away from him. “I knew you were concerned for your friend. I thought I’d ask him if he knew what was going on, so I gave him a call. Shall we go?” She strode past him, hurrying toward the elevators.
Was she behaving in a guilty manner, or was it his imagination?
She didn’t say anything more as they rode down in the elevator. The valet was waiting with his car, and he seated Rowenna and took the wheel before he spoke again. “And what did your friend say?”
“Honestly?” She looked at him.
He hiked up a brow. “Yeah?”
She looked forward again. “He isn’t fond of private investigators.”
He laughed. “The guy likes psychics and he looks down his nose at P.I.s?” He groaned. “This is going to be bad,” he said grimly. “Small town, witches, hostile police department—just great.”
She didn’t look at him, but he saw her lips tighten. He could have bitten his tongue. He hadn’t meant to be so offensive; he had just spoken without thinking, filled with a sense of dread. Brad had sounded crazy on the phone. He was coming undone, and he badly needed help. The only person up there who seemed to believe him was a beat cop named O’Reilly. The detectives—presumably including Rowenna’s friend—were all treating him with suspicion, even hostility.
But that was the way it was. When a woman was dead or missing and there was no obvious suspect, suspicion fell on the husband. It was natural, a matter of statistics. Brad was a cop, and he knew that. He and Jeremy had found the bodies of too many wives and girlfriends who had been weighted and tossed overboard by the men who supposedly loved them. It was simple mathematics that told the cops to suspect the husband when his wife disappeared. Especially when he was the last one to have seen her.
“Are you going up there?” she asked him.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Sorry,” he added, his tone stiff. He owed her that apology, but it was hard to give.
“Joe Brentwood is a good man,” she told him.
“I’m sure he is.”
“I’m serious. If you work with him, he’ll work with you.”
He had a sense she was making a promise she wasn’t sure would be kept—not surprising, given the way most cops responded to what they saw as civilian intervention. But all he said was “I hope so.”
She fell silent. The atmosphere was strained. He fished in his mind for something to say, but nothing came to him. Strange, they had talked nonstop earlier today. He had discussed Brad’s situation at length, and she had been filled with information, which he had been ready to listen to. But now…
Then, she had been leaving. Going home. He hadn’t expected ever to see her again, to have to fight his response to her again.
Now, he was following her. Was that the difference, creating this distance that crouched between them?
The drive to the plantation seemed to be taking forever.
She turned to him. “Joe Brentwood was almost my father-in-law,” she said suddenly, as if she’d made a decision and was going to follow through, no matter what. “I was engaged to his son, Jonathan, who was killed three years ago in a helicopter crash overseas. He was military. Joe and I are still very good friends, so don’t go thinking he’s some weirdo or isn’t everything in the world a good cop should be. He isn’t a wiccan, but he couldn’t care less what religion others choose to practice, as long as they’re law-abiding. He respects his fellow human beings, again, unless they break the law.”
He was startled by her sudden attack, because though the words had been evenly spoken, it had clearly been an attack nonetheless.
“Sorry,” he said again, feeling defensive.
“He respects his fellow human beings—so long as they’re not private investigators?” he found himself asking.
She sighed in aggravation, and he decided maybe silence was better than conversation after all.
At last they reached the Flynn plantation. As he stared up at the big white house, he felt a surge of pleasure and pride. Life was ironic. Aidan had been the one who wanted to sell the place rather than get involved in the heavy responsibility of restoring it. But it was Aidan who lived in it now, with Kendall. They had turned the derelict manor into a masterpiece of beauty.
The house stood proudly now, a fresh coat of paint gracing her fine lines. They had preserved history, and, in the community theater, they had created something new and wonderful, as well.
As they drew closer, he noticed a poster over by the barn, announcing a Thanksgiving show featuring area schoolchildren. He had seen Kendall at work; she managed to involve every child. His elder brother, Aidan, had been known as the skeptical hard-ass of their trio. He’d lost his first wife to a car accident, and it had been as if anything optimistic in him had died as well. Kendall had changed all that. She was energy and faith in motion, and he was grateful for her.
He just wished she’d told him more about Rowenna.
As he parked in the graceful, curving front drive and they got out of the car, Kendall came out the front door, smiling. “Hey!” She gave Rowenna a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then did the same with him. “Thanks for picking up Rowenna,” she said. “Aidan is out in the barn office. He wants a couple of horses now, did he tell you that?” She smiled, shaking her head. “I guess it won’t be hard to add a small stable, since we’re using the old barn for the theater. Rowenna, come on in. We’re just about ready for dinner. Jambalaya for your last New Orleans meal for a while.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Jeremy said, opting not to mention that he’d had jambalaya for lunch and hoping that Rowenna would also keep that quiet. “I’ll go find Aidan and tell him it’s time to eat.”
He headed for the barn, wondering what the two women would be talking about and marveling again at the changes Aidan and Kendall had wrought in little more than a year. The old stables were sparkling clean, with a stage in the back and fold-up chairs stacked to one side, and, like the house itself, it was sparkling with new paint. The office was in the old tack room, and it, too, was entirely refitted with a mahogany desk, chairs, a small sofa and a phone, computer, printer and fax.
“Hey,” Aidan said, looking up at his arrival. “I did like you asked and pulled everything I can find on what else happened in Salem that day.”
“And?”
Aidan shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. A few lewd and lascivious charges, a couple of drunks dragged in and one woman who refused to leave a store at closing time. Nothing major. So when are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow. Brad’s pretty much a basket case.”
His brother was silent, staring at his computer screen.
“What?” Jeremy said, frowning.
“I suggest that you stay open to any possibility. And by any possibility I mean, no matter how strange, if it seems like a clue, follow it up.”
“Hey, you know me. I’m good at what I do.”
“I know you are. But you always want the visual, the bird in the hand, the rock-solid evidence. I’m just advising you to be willing to accept things that look…less than rock-solid. Follow every path, whether it seems absurd or not.”
Aidan had definitely changed, Jeremy thought. Hell, he’d married a one-time tarot reader, though Kendall had always told him that she’d only been a performer. But Kendall did believe that the plantation was haunted by benevolent ghosts. She had said as much many times after her experience last year with a real-life murderer in the hidden chamber under the family tomb. But Aidan…