Page 33 of The Psychic

Brandy called almost the moment that Ronnie got home from work. “I’m off. I had to beg, borrow and steal, but I got someone to come in. It was all I could do to stay focused. I feel too terrible.”

“I know what you mean,” admitted Ronnie. “I just got back and I’m drained.”

“Any chance you could go with me over to Clint’s? He’s a mess. Broken up about Mel. He needs me, and I want you there, too. He asked me how you found her and I told him … you just knew.”

“I thought Sloan was meeting up with him.”

“Trying to. Clint’s avoiding him. Sloan makes you feel like a criminal. Did you talk to him?”

Ronnie asked, “He hasn’t called?”

“He will. He’s going to talk to everybody.” Brandy sounded certain.

“Well, we’ll just be going over what’s already been said.”

“Maybe he’s better than Townsend. I don’t know. Why isn’t Abel doing the investigation?”

“You’d have to ask him, or Sloan,” Ronnie suggested.

“Will you come with me to Clint’s?”

“Where does he live?” Ronnie asked, letting her doubts draw out her words. She was ready to call it a day. She needed time to just think things through.

And maybe hope you get some illuminating message?

“It’s not far. I’ll drive. I’ll pick you up. You don’t have to do anything but go with me.”

“All right,” she said against her better judgment.

She made herself a tuna and melted Gruyère cheese sandwich and ate half of it, thinking while she chewed. She had a lot to process about Mel … and Sloan. And her father, Albert Tormelle and the business; and Mrs. Langdorf and Carlton; and Cooper Haynes and his missing surrogate …

“Rebekkah,” she muttered aloud.

Her cell buzzed and she picked it up with a certain amount of trepidation.

Marian Langdorf’s number appeared. “Fabulous,” Ronnie muttered, grimacing. She needed to talk to the woman, find a way to convince her that she wasn’t going to take up residence with her and become her personal psychic. But not right now.

You should’ve been firmer.

“How many ways can you say no?” she asked the empty room, letting the call go to voice mail.

She changed from her work slacks and blouse into jeans and a heavy sweater. At least it had stopped raining, for the moment.

Don’t go in the water …

She stopped short in the process of wrapping up the other half of her sandwich.

She’d had a lot of psychic moments, messages, the last few days, and it had been raining almost constantly.

Could there be a connection? She’d always considered the warning she’d heard when she was ten had something to do with The Pond, and well, that had proved true. But …

She put the wrapped sandwich in the refrigerator and swept up her cell phone, pressing the Favorites button for Aunt Kat.

“Hi, hon,” her aunt greeted her, though her voice was a bit more subdued than usual. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m operating at a surface level, but anytime I think about Mel … I just can’t go there. But, I have a question for you.”

“Oh?”

“I have a lot of questions, actually. I want to know about how you knew I was going to call. And please don’t put me off. You knew. You’ve got this, too, don’t you?”

“By ‘this’ you mean, the gift … that you inherited from your mother?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Veronica, I don’t really have the same thing.”

“But you’ve got something. How do we have this? Is it genetic? That’s what it sounds like.”

Aunt Kat heaved a long sigh. “Who knows? Your mother was supremely gifted. She knew things before they happened. She hid it, too. Like you. I don’t know if you’re the same … you’ve shown that you might be.”

“When did it come on with Mom?” Ronnie demanded.

“She seemed to always have it.”

“Did Jonas know?”

“You’d have to ask him. As I said, your mother was careful, like you are.”

Ronnie had told Aunt Kat about seeing the figures when she was unconscious in The Pond, hearing their voices and their warning. Now she said, “Don’t go in the water. I feel like I’ve been channeling more, with all this rain.”

“Never heard that before.”

“Maybe not. It just feels like it. And who is it that’s trying to tell me something about Mel? Is it Mel herself? Or my mother?”

“I wish I knew, honey. I really do.” She sounded sincere.

Ronnie had never gotten so much out of her aunt before. But then she’d never seen an actual death before. Up till now, what she’d seen had been possible futures, warnings of danger, sometimes a possible incident, or random information.

“How did Mom die?”

“Her body just gave out.” Aunt Kate heaved a heavy sigh.

“She was at the ocean?”

“That’s right. She and your father were staying at a small motel. Winnie hadn’t been well for a while.”

The ocean … Don’t go in the water. “She walked into the water.”

“That wasn’t what killed her. Her organs were shutting down.” Aunt Kat was firm but her voice trembled a little. “I hate talking about it. It was such a tragedy.” She sounded like she was about to cry.

“I get that. I just … need to know the truth. It’s just always been so brushed over, and now I feel like my life is …” Ronnie couldn’t quite explain it. Like everything was moving faster, maybe to some ultimate end.

Your own death?

She shuddered.

“Veronica.” Aunt Kat sounded alarmed.

“I’m okay. I just … I’m fighting with Jonas.

He wants me to become a lawyer and take over the firm …

and he won’t talk to me about any of this.

Acts like it’s not happening. And he’s getting worse about telling me what to do.

One of the clients, Mrs. Langdorf, asked me to become her personal psychic, and Dad lost it.

I wasn’t going to take the job, but he forbade me from taking it, which pissed me off. ”

“Maybe you should,” Aunt Kat said tentatively.

“What? Take the psychic job? No.”

“Maybe you should get away from your father so he stops trying to shoehorn you into the life he’s chosen for you.”

“Thank you,” Ronnie said, a bit surprised. For all her dislike of Jonas, Aunt Kat had never openly defied his wishes, as far as Ronnie could recall.

“All I want for you is your happiness, Veronica. A happiness that eluded your mother. She … was failing, before the accident. She had too many … visions.”

Ronnie’s heart galumphed. “What?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not the same as you,” she said hurriedly.

“How is it not the same?” demanded Ronnie.

“Winnie started to believe in every message. She had trouble differentiating. To the therapist we sent her to, they were all hallucinations. She didn’t like taking the anti-psychotics and …”

“She didn’t kill herself,” Ronnie declared.

“No. Who told you that?” Aunt Kat sounded aghast.

“No one. I just wanted to make sure.”

“She did not kill herself,” Aunt Kat reiterated.

Ronnie tested the truth of Aunt Kat’s words and decided to believe her. “When Mom was okay, though, do you remember what she predicted?”

“I don’t,” she said quickly. Too quickly. Then added, “I’m sorry, honey.”

Now that was a lie. Ronnie would bet money on it.

But she’d gotten more from her aunt than she ever had before and that was something.

She tried to ask more questions, but Aunt Kat didn’t seem to have any more answers.

Or maybe she was just putting her off. In any case, they ended the call a few minutes later and Ronnie went to the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out the scrapbook she had of her mother.

Mostly it was pictures of Mom with her father or Aunt Kat. Only a few with her mother and herself.

She stared at the picture of them together long and hard and conjured up the scene at their home. She vaguely remembered the scents of jasmine and lavender, and remembered some of the books lining the bookshelf, just out of the camera’s range. She could almost hear Mom singing to her.

A pang of longing cut through her heart and she closed the scrapbook.

Her mind slipped from that memory to one of Mel. In high school. Melissa had been wearing a pink sweater, her hand clasped within a guy’s grasp. They were walking away from Ronnie and she focused on her memory of the guy. Not Clint, though Mel had never quite gotten over that crush.

So who—?

Ronnie was still thinking about Mel in that pink sweater, wondering about the boy she couldn’t recall, when Brandy came to the door to pick her up.

Clint Mercer’s houselights illuminated the front yard of a small bungalow with what looked like ongoing repairs.

There were new fascia boards around the eaves and fresh wood being erected over a scarred and pitted concrete porch.

The paint was peeling on the front door and the doorbell didn’t respond when Brandy pressed it.

“It was working last week,” Brandy muttered.

“Maybe it’s part of the remodel.”

“Let’s hope,” she said in a tone that doubted it was. She pounded on the door panels and yelled, “Clint! I’m here. Open the door.”

There was a delay and Ronnie looked toward the driveway, which was basically two cracked ribbons of asphalt that led to a detached garage.

A large silver GMC truck with a company logo—River Glen Heating and Cooling—painted in black script across the driver’s door gleamed in the slanting light from the house.

The truck, its tires thick with mud, was parked in front of garage doors that looked like they swung from the center out.

Dark shadows covered up its truck bed and even with the momentary lull from the rain, it still was wet.

A male voice called from inside the house. “It’s open.”

Brandy tried the handle and pushed. “Oh,” she said as the door gave.

Ronnie followed her inside where an enormous TV took up one wall. Football players were fighting it out at the scrimmage line. The sound was turned off and there was no one in the room.

“Where are you?” Brandy demanded.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Clint called back in a voice that sounded weary beyond words.