“No,” I said as we got to the landing. “Really, I just need some air.”
Duffy and I got outside and I took some shaky steps down the driveway. As we walked he held my arm as I took deep breaths, trying not to hyperventilate. When we got to the road I sat down and put my hands to my face. “Abster, come on, girl. Talk to me,” Duffy said, hunkering down next to me.
“I have this talent,” I said through my fingers.
“You’re psychic,” he offered when I paused.
I raised my head. “Yes, but it’s more than that. I can look at a photo and know when someone is dead. And when I look at Gina’s photo…”
“She’s dead?” Duffy asked me, his face registering real alarm.
I nodded, “Yes. I’m sorry but it’s the same for every photo she’s in. I know it sounds crazy, but Duff, I just know she’s gone.”
“Jesus.” He rubbed his fingers through his hair, then looked toward the house. “Ellie’s gonna come apart. She and Gina were tight.”
“Listen,” I said, grabbing his arm. “You can’t tell her until we’re sure. We need to check with her boyfriend. Maybe there was a car accident in California or something and we just haven’t heard about it yet.”
“Is that what you’re getting?”
“I haven’t even tuned in on it beyond the fact that she’s dead. Let’s check with her boyfriend and get some answers, okay?”
Duffy looked at me with such intenseness that I felt a moment of supreme self-consciousness. “You’re sure?” he finally asked me.
“Am I sure about waiting to tell Ellie or that Gina’s dead?”
“Both.”
I sighed heavily. “In my gut I know Gina’s dead. But on the off chance that the altitude is throwing off my antennae, I think we should wait until we’ve had a chance to confirm it before we say anything. I mean, this is Ellie’s wedding week, after all.”
“Christ,” he said, and squeezed my hand. “Okay. Come on. I’m gonna take you to Viv’s tonight myself. If Ellie sees you right now she’ll know something’s up.” He stood up, taking me with him. We began walking toward a shiny red Mustang when a light cut through the darkness in the driveway. We both stopped as a car pulled in and parked behind Ellie’s.
A tall, good-looking man got out and waved to Duffy. “Hey, stranger, is the party over?”
Duffy squeezed my hand and gave me a quick glance that said, “Hang in there,” as he answered. “Hey, Eddie. Nope, the party’s still goin’. You’re just in time for dessert—I think Ellie made her famous peach cobbler.”
“My favorite,” Eddie said as he came over to us. “Hi,” he said to me as he extended his hand. “You must be Abby. Ellie and Duff have told me all about you.”
“Nice to meet you, Eddie.” I shook his hand and did my best not to look shaken.
“You two coming in?” he asked as he turned toward the door.
“Uh, Abby’s not feeling so good, so I’m going to get her to Viv’s for the night.”
“You want me to take a look at her?” Eddie asked, swiveling back. It was then that I took in his surgical scrubs and remembered that he was a surgical resident at the hospital.
“No!” I said, then immediately offered, “I think I’m just really tired.”
“Uh…okay,” Eddie said, slightly startled by my initial reaction. “Listen, I’ll tell Ellie that you guys are headed off to Viv’s.”
“While I get her settled in the car, would you mind bringing out her bag from near the stairs?” Duffy asked as he wheeled me to the passenger-side door.
A few minutes later we were safely away from Ellie’s, and I turned to him and said, “I forgot how kind you could be.”
“Say what?” Duffy asked as he looked sideways at me.
“Kind. I remember one summer afternoon when Chris Newburgh pushed me down and I skinned my knees, and you came running and beat him to a pulp. Then you picked me up and carried me home and put Bactine and a Band-Aid on each knee.”
“You always were a skinny little kid. You hardly weighed more than my cat,” Duffy said with a grin.
“So what’s the plan?” I said, changing the subject again.
“I met Gina’s boyfriend a couple of times. His name is Mark Weaver, and I know he went to work for Microsoft. I’ll run a search tomorrow, see if I can’t track him down, and ask him if something’s happened to Gina…that is, as long as nothing’s happened to him too.”
I nodded soberly and said, “I hadn’t considered that maybe they’ve both been involved in something terrible.”
“I can start with him and see where that leads. Gina’s parents live somewhere in Europe—Switzerland, I think—so finding them could be a little tricky. But if we can’t track Mark down, then we’ll need to figure out how we can get her parents’ whereabouts from Ellie without causing too much panic, just to see if maybe they’ve heard from their daughter in the past few days.”
“Do you know the last time Ellie heard from Gina?”
“The day before she took off to California, which was last Tuesday. Ellie’s been calling her every day and leaving messages, but Gina hasn’t returned her calls. From what I know about Gina, that’s not atypical. She’s known for not returning calls. Kind of into herself.”
I sighed heavily and sat back in my seat, thinking that sometimes it just sucked being psychic. I was always the first to get the bad news. The first to know that something wasn’t going to turn out well. Granted, I got the good news too, but still, every once in a while it would be nice to be surprised like everyone else.
“Here we are,” Duffy said, shaking me from my thoughts as we pulled into the circular driveway of a lovely Tudor-style home. “And I see Aunt Viv’s let the birds out,” he added, indicating a flock of six pink plastic flamingos on Vivian’s front lawn, all posing with one leg curled up under their bodies.
“Tropical,” I said as we came to a stop and opened the door.
“Stone-cold crazy is more like it,” Duffy mumbled just as the front door opened and a small, bent figure hovered in the doorway.
“Is that you, Duffy?” came a warbling voice.
“Hi, Viv,” Duffy called back as he went round to the trunk and extracted my bag. “I brought little Abby Cooper over,” he said, giving me a wink.
Vivian squinted in my direction, “She’s hardly little anymore, Duffy. Perhaps you need an eye test.”
I hid the urge to smile as I headed up the walkway. “So good to see you again, Vivian. How’ve you been?”
She smiled at me and said, “Well enough. Although my grand-nephew thinks I’m off my nutty,” she added, looking reproachfully at Duffy.
“Aww, Viv, you’re giving yourself too much credit,” he joked.
“And you need a haircut,” she said, poking him good-naturedly in the ribs. “Are you staying?” she asked when he’d set my bag down in the front hall.
“Wish I could, but that would only give you an opportunity to nag at me about living the good life of a bachelor, so I’m gonna have to take a rain check.”
“You’re too old to be single,” Viv chastised, undaunted by Duffy’s sarcasm.
“I appreciate the expert advice on things too old,” Duffy said, and I let out a giggle in spite of myself.
“Don’t encourage him,” Viv said, rounding on me.
“Sorry,” I said, and cleared my throat.
“What about that nice girl you were dating; what was her name?”
“Time to go,” Duffy said, and bent to kiss his great-aunt.
“You wait too long and your swimmers won’t be able to paddle water,” Vivian said as she swatted him on the bottom. “Then what will you do? No one’s going to want to marry a man who can’t get his swimmers to paddle water. Women want men who can hang in the deep end, you know.”
“Good luck,” Duffy said, and gave my cheek a kiss; then he turned and without a backward glance headed to his car.
Vivian closed the door as he backed out of the driveway, an
d gave an irritated growl. “That one will never learn. Now let’s have a look at you,” she said, pulling herself up as much as her small, bent frame would allow.
In spite of myself, I stood up straighter under her scrutiny. “How do I look?” I asked.
“Like hell. What’s happened?”
My shoulders slumped. “You name it,” I said without elaborating.
“Man trouble,” Viv said, her head nodding in her own affirmation. “I’d recommend Duffy but I know him, and I like you,” she said, giving me a wink.
I chuckled. “Same old Viv.”
Waving me into the living room, she asked, “You still got the sight?”
“Last time I checked,” I said, pulling my suitcase behind me.
“Good for you. We always knew you were special. Now, there are two rooms for you to pick from. My bedroom’s that way, but I gotta be honest; I’m a hell of a snorer. You’d probably get more sleep in the bedroom at the other end of the house.”
“Anywhere you’d like to put me would be fine,” I said as I took a gander at her furnishings and tried not to gape. Viv’s living room was jam-packed with furniture. It was like a two-pound box stuffed with five pounds’ worth of things.
“I’ve had to trim down lately,” Viv said, indicating the living room. “Just got rid of all sorts of crap. You into that feng shui? I’m trying to get this place more in line with some good energy flow. See that?” She pointed to a very narrow path that wound around the couches, chairs and tables squished together within the room. “That’s my energy river. See how it twists and turns around the furniture? That’s how you get good chi.”
“Ah,” I said, desperately trying to hold in a chuckle. The room was an energy disaster, but hell if I was going to be the one to point it out to her.
“Yeah, I read a book on it. Well, not the whole book. Maybe just one chapter, but I think I got the hang of it. Anyway, your room is down this way.” She headed out of the living room and down a corridor.
We stopped at the end of the hall just off the laundry room, and Viv opened the door. “Here we are. You should be comfortable in here.”
I looked over her head at the room with slight trepidation. There was no telling what Viv had done with the excess furniture from her living room. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the room contained only a double bed, two nightstands, a bookshelf, an armoire and a dresser. Every wall was occupied with something up against it, but if I was careful I could probably navigate the room in the dark without stubbing my toe more than once or twice. “This is great, thanks, Viv.”
“I wake early,” she said in answer as she turned to head back down the hall. “Bathroom’s off the kitchen down this way if you need it.”
I smiled at her back, shaking my head, and only hoped I was half as eccentric when I reached my golden years. With a sigh I pulled my luggage into the room and began to unpack. After I’d hung the clothes that didn’t look too wrinkled, I grabbed my cell phone out of my purse and stared at the readout. No calls. I scowled, then punched in a number and waited while it rang.
“Hello?” my sister, Cat, said.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said.
“Hey, me,” Cat chuckled. “You made it to Denver safe and sound?”
“Yeah. What day are you and Tommy coming in again?”
“Tuesday. Ellie said I could bring the boys as well.”
“That’s great. I miss them, and I’d love to see them.” There was a pause on Cat’s end of the line, and for a moment I thought I’d lost her. “Cat? You still there?”
“Yes. Uh, Abby, there’s something that I need to tell you, but I don’t want you to get mad at me.”
Uh-oh. Sentences that started out that way never ended well, especially where Cat was concerned. “I’m sufficiently braced. What did you do?”
I heard Cat take a big breath and say, “I may have let it slip to Claire and Sam that Ellie was getting married this week.”
“You what?!” Claire and Sam were my parents…at least biologically speaking. We’d had a rather contentious relationship from the get-go, and things hadn’t improved with age. If they knew that Ellie was getting married, they’d find some way to crash the party.
“Abby, I had to!” Cat insisted. “They’ve been living in my guesthouse for two months and they’ve been sucking me dry! I’ve got to get them out of here!”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and rubbed my face with my hand in frustration. After I’d counted to ten I lifted the phone back to my ear and said, “Catherine Cooper-Masters I am so annoyed with you I could thump you on the head! You know they’ve probably already booked a flight! They’ll be out here in, like, a day!”
“More like two,” she said timidly.
“I’m gonna kill you,” I said.
“Abby, there was no other way! I had to get them on a plane. And this way, once the wedding is over they can head back to South Carolina and I can get back to normal.”
“How do you know they won’t fly right back to Boston?” I demanded.
“Because I booked their flights. Again, it was the only way I could ensure that at the end of the trip they’d have a one-way ticket back to their house. And you know they’re too cheap to pay for another ticket.”
“I’m gonna kill you…slow, Catherine.”
“Abby, come on! Be reasonable….”
“Over and out,” I snapped, and slammed the lid to the cell phone closed. This was a disaster. The last time I’d been in close proximity to my parents, I’d actually considered taking up drinking as a recreational sport. They drove me crazy with their fake affection in public and their frosty demeanor in private. Just knowing they were going to be here brought up every disenfranchised feeling I’d had with them as a child. Cat knew better, and because she couldn’t grow a backbone, I had to suffer. I groused on the bed for a while and finally got undressed, slipping into a T-shirt and shorts and getting under the covers. As exhausted as I was, sleep was a long time coming.
Chapter Four
“Abby-gabby! Abby-gabby, come to the phone!” I heard a woman’s soft voice call me from my dreams. I knew that voice, and I knew that nickname, but my sleep-fogged brain was slow to make the connection. “Come on, Abigail, wake up and come to the phone!” she called again.
I fought my way up to full consciousness and opened one tired lid, looking around a room I didn’t recognize. I sat up in bed with a start and tried to remember where I was. My eye lit on a photo across the room of Ellie and Duffy when they were little kids, and everything clicked into place…except the voice that had woken me. It sounded like it came from the hallway, and even though I knew it was impossible that the owner of the voice could be there, I got up to check anyway. I opened the door and nearly bumped into Vivian. “Oh!” I said with a start. “Morning, Viv.”
“Phone’s for you,” she said, shoving the phone at me.
“Thanks. Were you the one calling me to come to the phone?” I asked wondering how on earth she knew the special nickname only my deceased grandmother had used for me.
“No. I answered it in the kitchen and brought the phone down the hallway. I was about to knock when you pulled the door open.”
“You sure you didn’t call me?” I asked again, convinced I’d heard my name being called from the hall.
“Positive. Now don’t be rude, girl; talk to Ellie.” She thrust the phone at me and trotted off down the hall.
I blushed and put the phone to my ear as I turned back into my room. “Morning, El.”
“Good morning, Abs. Is your stomach better this morning?”
“Huh?” I asked.
“Eddie said that Duffy took you to Viv’s ’cause your stomach was upset. I hope it wasn’t anything you ate.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, remembering the night before. “I think it was just all the travel and stuff. So what’s going on?”
“Well, Mom and Dad really want to see you, so I thought we’d have breakfast with them this m
orning. How about I pick you up in an hour and we can meet them at the club?”
“I’ll be ready, Freddy.”
Ellie chuckled. “And by the way, don’t tell Viv that we’re eating at the club. She’ll want to come along, and the last time she ate with us she stole most of the food off the buffet table and swiped a couple sets of the silverware. Mom was so embarrassed.”
“No sweat. See you in sixty.”
I disconnected, grabbed some clothes and headed to the bathroom, where I took a luxuriously long shower and spent time curling my long hair. I emerged an hour later wearing an ankle-length chocolate suede skirt with an off-the-shoulder cream sweater loosely belted with a chocolate belt and matching suede boots. As I trotted back to my room for my purse, I caught sight of Viv dressed in her Sunday best, a huge handbag on her arm and her nose poking through the curtain as she kept a watch on the driveway.
“You headed out?” I asked casually.
“Yep. I figure Ellie’s taking you to the club with her folks, and I don’t want to miss a good spread. They have the best prime rib in town.”
Uh-oh. “What makes you think we’re going to the club?” I asked.
Viv pulled her nose out of the curtain and twisted her head in my direction. “Cut the crap, Abigail. I know damn well where you’re headed, and I’m not gonna be left behind. Besides, I could use some silverware. Did you know they use real sterling flatware? I only managed to sneak two sets out the last time. I figure I need at least two more to round out my collection.” Before I had a chance to protest we both heard gravel crunching. “There’s our taxi!” Viv announced, and out the door she flew faster than I would have expected a ninety-one-year-old could move.
I darted into my bedroom, grabbed my coat and purse, then chased after Viv. When I got outside, Viv was tugging on the door handle of Ellie’s car and shouting, “Eleanor McGinnis, you open this door!”
Ellie was inside the car, and through a small crack in the window I heard her shout, “Aunt Viv, please! I can’t take you with me! There’s no room!”
Viv stopped pulling on the handle long enough to peer through the glass at the teensy-weensy backseat of the Lexus. “I can fit back there!” she shouted, and started tugging on the handle again.