Page 44 of The Psychic

He drove away from the sheriff’s department, intent on checking with Hugh McNulty himself. Townsend may not like him digging where the sheriff had already dug, but Sloan didn’t like the feeling that secrets were still buried.

He hadn’t had a chance to tell Townsend that Clint’s face had gone white and he’d staggered a bit, throwing out a hand to hold on to the porch post as he stared at Sloan’s plastic bag full of leaves, grass and seeds that Sloan had retrieved from his truck bed.

Clearly he’d called Townsend and complained, so Sloan had been dressed down without relaying that information.

So now he was on his own. Mercer knew something about Melissa McNulty’s death.

He just hoped to God Clint wasn’t responsible.

His cell rang. Townsend. He answered cautiously, but the sheriff barked, “Hart?” before he could even say hello.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t tell me your next move.”

Sloan didn’t like already being checked on. And he’d be damned if he told the sheriff he was rechecking with Hugh Mc-Nulty. “I’ll let you deal with Mercer. There’re rumors that his wife was seeing other men besides Clint. I’ll check with her friends. See what I can find out.”

“Be careful with that,” warned Townsend.

“I’ll check with Brandy first. I imagine she’ll be happy to widen the investigation away from her brother.”

Townsend said, a smile in his voice, all friends again, “You’re on her shit list.”

Brandy had also called the department and complained loudly. It felt like her fierce protection of her brother might be rooted in something more than sisterly love. Desperation or fear was his guess.

“I’ve got this,” Sloan assured him.

“Okay.”

Sloan’s cell rang as soon as he clicked off. He didn’t recognize the number, debated about answering. Decided to, just before the call went to voice mail. “Sloan Hart.”

“Sloan? It’s Shana … I heard you were looking for me …” He recognized the voice as she burst into tears.

At home, Harley was on one foot and then the other, waiting for Cooper to get back from dropping Mary Jo off at her home.

Harley thought leaving the woman was a bad idea.

Didn’t trust that Mary Jo wouldn’t just race right back to that sicko priest, or whatever he thought he was, and join the cult again.

Because Mary Jo was a cultist. That was a fact.

Leaving her with her husband and kids was not a good plan.

In fact, it was just plain stupid. Which was a word Harley would not normally ascribe to her stepdad.

Except for today. Cooper had said something about Mary Jo being a free person, and there was such a thing as being sued for kidnapping, and all that, but hey, facts were facts, and that woman was not okay.

A flight risk. Right back to the harem, as the psychic lady had said. Veronica Quick.

“Heart of Sunshine, my ass,” Harley muttered beneath her breath.

Emma was staring down Twink, who was gathering herself for a leap to the counter. Harley moved into the cat’s way and Twink regarded her balefully before sauntering off, tail in the air, as if she’d never had any intention of stealing any of the frozen shrimp thawing for tonight’s pasta dish.

“I’ve seen that bus,” said Emma in her flat tone.

“What bus?” asked Harley.

“The Heart of Sunshine. With the handprints. From the kids.”

Harley wasn’t sure where this was going. Emma could be kind of obscure at times. “Yeah? They have a bus.”

“They pick up people and take them away. They asked me if I wanted to come and meet the Lord.”

Harley froze. “Seriously? Where’d this happen?”

“At the thrift shop. Theo told them there was no soliciting. They told her to ‘go with the Lord’ and she said the Lord didn’t want her and shooed them away. They said she was in their prayers.”

Emma worked part-time at Theo’s Thrift Shop.

”They wanted you to get in the bus,” Harley said again, just to be certain.

“They said I was special.” Emma frowned. “I know what that means.”

“I don’t like them,” Harley said fiercely.

“I don’t think you’ll be in their prayers.”

Harley eyed her aunt closely. “Was that a joke, Emma? Are you making jokes?”

“I don’t make jokes.”

“Yeah … but I think you’re joking.”

Emma, whose face rarely changed expression, seemed to faintly smile.

Movement out the living room window caught Harley’s eye and she saw Cooper’s Explorer bounce into the driveway.

He was driving faster than normal. She ran to the back door to greet him, Emma at her heels.

Their sudden movement caused Duchess to bound to her feet.

As the dog raced by Twink, the cat arched her back and hissed, but no one paid her any attention.

“What happened?” Harley demanded, holding open the door for Cooper as he came up the back steps.

“She’s with Stephen and the kids. They were all glad to see her and she got kind of emotional seeing them.”

“That’s good, right?” Harley asked.

“I’d say so.”

“She should stay home,” said Emma.

“Yes, she should.” Cooper smiled faintly at Emma. Once upon a time, before Emma’s accident, back when they were both in high school, the two of them had dated. Years later they’d reconnected when Cooper had started dating Mom. Like herself, Cooper was very protective of Emma.

“Do you think she will, though?” Harley asked suspiciously. “She could run right back to that creep or run off somewhere else. She needs to have that baby.”

“The baby will make that decision,” said Emma.

“Unless it’s a C-section. Can we order a C-section?” Harley looked to Cooper.

“Not our purview,” he told her as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a peg near the back door. “I gotta talk to your mom.”

“Maybe the baby will decide to come soon,” Emma said.

“That’s a very real possibility,” muttered Cooper as he headed for the stairs.

Harley wasn’t satisfied and admitted, “I kind of want to go to Heart of Sunshine and make sure she doesn’t show up there.”

“You could catch the bus,” Emma pointed out.

“Nah. The preacher’s already seen me. I wasn’t … discreet when we found Mary Jo.”

Emma blinked and said, “I could catch the bus. They want me to meet the Lord.”

Harley eyed her aunt thoughtfully. A bad idea. A really bad idea. “I think the preacher has sex with the women there. That’s what the psychic lady hinted at. He might try to coerce you.”

Emma considered that carefully. “Is that how I meet the Lord?”

“I don’t know what they mean, but I’d give that a big ‘no’. I don’t like it. Sounds so permanent.”

“Like I’d be dead?” Emma asked flatly.

“Forget I said anything!” Harley waved her hand in the air as if erasing the entire conversation. “Don’t get involved with any of them. I think Cooper’s going to break up that party anyway. Something creepy about them.”

“Like last summer.”

“Exactly like last summer. Okay, maybe not exactly .” Sometimes Emma took things too literally and last summer’s brush with a cultish group wasn’t the same. “But along those lines.” Harley peered closely at her. “Don’t do anything, Emma.”

Emma cocked her head, which gave Harley a bad feeling. But then Emma didn’t drive and she was always with people, so what was there to worry about?

Ronnie flopped into one of Aunt Kat’s kitchen chairs. She was building up a head of steam, tired of feeling out of control. Tired of being pushed around by her own jumbled thoughts. “I think I’m losing my mind,” she stated flatly.

“Let me make you some tea,” said Aunt Kat.

“I could use some anti-psychotics,” Ronnie half joked, but Aunt Kat didn’t smile as she bustled around the cozy room where candles were burning and cheery Christmas lights surrounded the window over the sink.

When the teakettle whistled, Aunt Kat quickly filled two cups with the hot water and added a blend of tea leaves she called Winter Spice, which included cinnamon and other Christmas scents—pumpkin, maybe—that filled the air.

Ronnie wrapped her hands around the cup to ward off the chill that had been with her most of the day.

Aunt Kat sat down opposite her and folded her arms on the table. “Any news about Melissa?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Ronnie told her how Sloan had obviously heard her when she’d mentioned the tire tracks and the plant DNA, forensic evidence that could possibly incriminate Clint Mercer.

She stumbled a bit when she got to Brandy’s reaction, and then stumbled a lot when she explained about her vision of Shana Lloyd, how she’d also convinced Sloan that Shana was in danger, that she couldn’t be found. And then Shana’s call.

Aunt Kat didn’t react aside from a pursing of her lips a time or two. Ronnie had never really laid out her visions to her aunt, but then she hadn’t ever experienced so many, cascading one after the other, some entirely true, some entirely false, apparently.

“I thought about tracking down Patrice, wherever she is,” Ronnie admitted, “but I really don’t want to talk to a therapist again, any therapist. Patrice was patient, but she never got it.

Not really.” She took an experimental sip of her tea, found it hot and somehow calming.

She said, “And Kat, you have some of this … woo-woo, like Mom and me. You just don’t talk about it. ”

She shook her head, her brows tightly drawn as she avoided Ronnie’s gaze and twirled her cup slowly in her hands, as if she were contemplating just how much she should divulge. If anything.

“Tell me about Mom,” urged Ronnie. “Don’t hold back. I need some history. And I need to know what really happened to her.”

“You know what happened. It’s—”

“No, I don’t!” Ronnie cut in and slammed her cup down, sloshing some of the tea onto the table.

She was tired of all the mind games and double-talk and innuendoes with no real answers.

“I don’t know what led up to her death! Dad and Mom loved each other madly, that’s what you said.

But what happened to them? When did it change? Jonas won’t talk about her!”