Authors: Maggie Toussaint
“Mama already spilled the beans. She said you read my thoughts and knew I was coming.”
“That I did.” He grinned, bright color flagging his pale cheeks. “I’m proud of you.”
“I haven’t done anything noteworthy, and I was nearly arrested.”
“But you weren’t arrested. You’re going to show Wayne Thompson you can still think circles around him.”
“If you say so.” I hadn’t actually come to that realization until he said it, but after hearing the words, I knew they were true.
He tapped the side of his head. “You said so.”
I sighed. “I don’t understand nearly enough about all of this. I know I need to ease your dreamwalker burden, only I don’t have any idea how to proceed. I will do whatever you need me to do.” I gestured toward the heavens. “But I need it not to interfere with my work or care of Larissa.”
“You’re willing to be the dreamwalker now?”
“Yeah, I’m willing. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“It’s going to be all right.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. Energy filled me. “You’re going to do just fine.”
“How does this work? How will people know to come to me for dreamwalking?”
“We’ll have a gradual transition. I’ll walk you through the first couple of times. Once word gets around, people will seek you out.”
“Couldn’t they just come here?” I wasn’t so keen on strangers showing up at my house at all hours of the day and night. “Couldn’t you give me a call when a client arrives, and I could come over?”
“We could do it that way, but the source of your power is your home. Your home isn’t here. Mine is. To maximize your success, you must utilize every aid possible.”
Mama served mugs of steaming tea all around. I pocketed the amethyst. Grateful for the distraction, I sipped my tea. The idea of strangers in my home wasn’t to my liking, but Mama and Daddy never had a problem. Neither had I as a kid in their home. We talked a bit more about how we’d work through the transition, and I agreed I wouldn’t dreamwalk without my father until I was ready.
“Let’s do a practice dreamwalk now,” he said.
The idea staggered me. I was theoretically ready, but I wasn’t ready-ready. “We don’t have any particular information we’re searching for. There’s no person here requesting we contact their ancestor or loved one.”
“What about your case? Why don’t we contact your homicide victim from Mallow?”
“I don’t know anything about her.”
“You know where she was buried.”
What did I have to lose? “All right. Let’s give it a shot.”
I followed Daddy’s lead, altering my breathing, slipping through the psychic gateway. We met on the spiritual plane. Shady shapes surrounded us. I ignored them. “Now what?”
“Think about the woman out at Mallow.”
All I had was a hand and a location. I tried. And tried some more. “I got nothing.”
“That happens sometimes. What else is on your mind?”
We weren’t actually conversing out loud, but it felt like a conversation with his thoughts seeming to ring in my ears. Not any weirder or less believable than the rest of the dreamwalker world, when I stopped and thought about it. I concentrated until something occurred to me. “There was this dream a few nights ago. I saw a woman crying.”
“Bring the image to your mind. Show it to me.”
The dream unfolded as before. The violet-eyed woman sobbed amidst rumpled bedding. Her straight hair was so black it was almost blue. Her pain resonated throughout the airy bedroom, piercing the gauzy bed canopy, bouncing back off the pale walls. Light streamed in the sheers covering the windows, but the woman wasn’t aware of the light. She was in a very dark place.
I glanced over at my father. He nodded perceptively, so he saw her, too. “Who are you?” I asked. “Where are you?”
The woman startled visibly, drawing the mossy green linens up to her chin. She wiped tears from her high cheekbones with the back of her slender hands and stared in our direction.
“Ma’am, I want to help. Tell me your name.”
She fought for her voice. It came out in a thready whisper. “He called me Angel.”
My heart leapt. I had a name. “What’s wrong, Angel?”
Big gulping sobs erupted from Angel. “He’s gone.”
I drifted farther into the room. My hand glided over her silky hair. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t live without him. He was everything to me. Everything. Now he’s gone.” She folded her head down on her knees and wailed.
I exchanged a glance with my father, hoping he would step in and give me a few pointers. His lips pressed close. I was on my own.
“Losing a love is difficult. I know what you’re going through. My husband isn’t with me anymore. It hit me really hard.”
“I don’t want to live. I want to die. I would, too, if it weren’t for . . .” Her voice trailed off into another sob. “Why is life so complicated? Why can’t people live how they want to?”
I didn’t have an answer. Daddy nodded toward the ceiling where we’d entered. I got the message. “You’ll be all right, Angel. I know it doesn’t feel that way now, but time will ease the pain. We have to go.”
We floated through the ceiling, back to the shadowy plain. I glanced over at my father. His face was gray, too gray. “Let’s go home,” I said.
We awoke to the sounds of dishes rattling in the kitchen, Mama’s bean soup, and bright sunshine. Daddy’s color was still off.
Energy flowed back into my numb limbs, warming me. Mama guided Daddy to the sofa in the living room. He leaned heavily on her. When he reclined, she lifted his T-shirt and placed crystals on his abdomen. She placed a dark stone on his forehead. Then she cupped his head between her hands and chanted in a near whisper.
Before my eyes, Daddy’s color came back. It was as if I were watching time-lapse photography. As his breathing deepened, Mama and I slipped into the kitchen.
“How’d you do that? What did you do?” I asked.
Mama avoided my gaze, busying herself with setting the table. “Your father’s chakras are weakened by going through the veil. Dreamwalking always takes a lot from him, but lately the effects have been much worse.”
“No wonder he wants me to take over the family business. I had no idea he had such an aftereffect.” I hugged my arms tightly around my middle. “Will that happen to me? Will dream-walking take me to the verge of death?”
Mama’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Each dreamwalk is a mini-death, but each dreamwalker responds differently. Your grandmother used to clean her house from top to bottom after she dreamed for someone. Dreamwalking energized her.”
“I don’t want Daddy risking his life anymore. This has to stop. He can’t survive many more of those rugged transitions.”
“He will do as he does, dear.” “We’ll see about that.”
Back at my kitchen table I thumbed through a stack of bills. The money I’d get for watching Hobo wouldn’t cover everything. I’d thought I was in good shape with the Mallow job, but I didn’t know when I could get back out there to finish that job. The Mallow timing was out of my hands.
I could make up those business cards to give Buster Glass-man, but I’d have to obtain the card templates from a store or online first. Was it even worth the effort? Since I wouldn’t help Buster with his gambling scheme, chances were good he wouldn’t help me.
A sigh slipped out. Man, I was chasing my tail here. I had enough groceries to see us through for now. But the utility bills, my home equity loan, and the property tax bill. How would I pay them?
Assets. They were always talking about assets on financial shows. I had my truck and this house. That was it. And I’d already taken out a loan on the house to get this far.
I paced the house, wishing for a secret wall safe full of valuables or a chunk of real gold saved for a rainy day. No such luck. Just me, Muffin, and Grandmother Janie’s old furniture.
Wait. The furniture. I could sell some furniture. Antiques held up their value. The marble-topped pieces throughout the house were in mint condition. With that thought, I dialed Prudence at the Antique Palace. Prudence’s aunt and my grandmother had been friends for sixty years.
“Baxley, how lovely to hear from you.” Prudence had a tremor in her voice. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m hoping there’s a market for some of the furniture here in the house.”
“Your grandmother’s antiques? Oh my goodness, I’d kill to have them in my shop.” Prudence’s thin voice gushed and trilled. “But you can’t. Those pieces are heirloom quality. You should hang onto them.”
“This wasn’t an easy decision. The pet and plant business is slow this time of year. I don’t have other employment options.”
“Even if I took a few of them, it would be on a consignment basis. There’s no way I can pay you what they are worth.”
“Why don’t you come out here and tell me which items are more sales worthy? That would be a start.”
“I don’t want to do this, but I will. Janie would skin us alive if she knew we were breaking up her collection.”
“She’s been dead for five years. She won’t care.”
Prudence snorted. “Shows what you know. She’ll care. But I’m curious as to what all’s in that house. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”
After I hung up, I felt oddly drained. I hadn’t brought any of Roland’s and my furniture home with us. It cost too much to ship it across the country. If I sold furniture from the house, there’d be gaps. I stood in the living room and tried to imagine the room without the three marble-topped pieces. It would be empty. And wrong.
This wouldn’t be easy.
But I had to generate income. Otherwise, I’d lose the house altogether, which would be the ammunition Roland’s parents needed to prove they could provide a better home for their granddaughter than I could. I couldn’t let it come to that.
The idea of calling Buster Glassman glimmered in my head. I could try his get-rich-quick scheme. If we won, I’d have some breathing space. But I knew it was a dumb idea. Plus, I didn’t want to hang around Buster. For all his handsome looks, he was a user.
A crisp rap sounded at my front door. Muffin jumped down from the sofa and barked his way to the door. I glanced through the sidelight. Duke Quigley. In clean jeans and a pressed shirt. His broad forehead was furrowed, his eyes and mouth drawn severely down. Why was he so troubled? Why was he here?
I scooped up the squirming dog and opened the door. “Yes?”
“You’re a fool for messing with me.” He stormed past me into my house in a haze of alcohol, slipping a bit on my small braided rug in the foyer, and halting in front of the carved mantel. His invasion made me downright uneasy. Anger rolled off him in churning waves, filling the room with ugly emotion. I left the front door wide open and reached for the amethyst in my pocket.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I bolstered my shields, protecting myself with a bubble of light. His voice rang true, but his anger concerned me. He was taller than me, outweighed me by at least fifty pounds, but that paunch on his middle wasn’t all fat. He’d hefted that axe out at Mallow like a champion weight lifter.
Options for protection raced through my head. My Beretta was in my bedside table. Roland’s Glock rested on the top shelf of the pantry. Grandmother’s shotgun was in the hall closet. That was the closest weapon. But I couldn’t retrieve it, load it, and aim it before Duke overpowered me.
That meant I had to rely on my wits and self-defense skills Roland had taught me. I steadied my breathing, assuming a “ready” athletic stance. He wouldn’t be expecting resistance. Guys like Duke thought women were helpless. That was my ace in the hole.
“You screwed everything up,” he said. “Why’d you have to find all those dead people at Mallow?”
My fingers spasmed and accidentally gripped the dog too tight. Muffin yipped. I placed the small dog on the sofa where he paced anxiously. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Liar. You had to plant that woman near the house. There was nothing but fill dirt there when I had my dozer on-site. That Byrd woman owes me a hundred grand, and she won’t pay me a thin dime until she can move in. The cops won’t let me near the house to finish my punch list. I need that money. This is all your fault.”
I allowed myself a half breath. “Carolina withheld my money, too. I need that final payment. I’m selling this furniture to feed my family.”
“It sucks to be you.” He crossed the room to snarl in my face. A vein in his forehead pulsed. “What are you going to do about my problem?”
I retreated toward the hall closet. He was so junked up on adrenaline and booze, a little self-defense maneuver wouldn’t stop him. If he came after me, it would take a shotgun blast to stop him. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m caught in the same bind you are.”
“You got ties with the sheriff. Screw his brains out, and he’ll make this go away.”
My jaw dropped, and I saw red. I marched at Duke, steaming with righteous anger. “Get out of my house. You have no right to barge in here or say such filthy things.”
He seemed surprised that I’d backed him all the way to the doorway. He gripped both sides of the door jamb. “I know all about your murdering ways, woman. You can’t hide what you did.”
Cold fury settled on me. “Get out. Right now.”
“Rumor down at the Fiddler’s Hole is you killed Roland. Now you’re back home to lure another hapless fool into your lair. It won’t work with me. You mess in my business, and I mess right back.”
I reeled as if he’d punched me. People thought I’d killed my husband? “Who said that?”
“Dr. Sugar. He’s spilling his guts at the watering hole. He got fired cuz of you. Well you ain’t getting me fired. I know all about you, and you aren’t getting away with one more thing. Hell, I bet you set up poor old Maisie Ryals. That woman never did anyone any harm before you came to town.”
My blood iced. This fool believed every word he spoke. There was no reasoning with a drunk. “I don’t know what you had for lunch besides booze, but you’re trespassing. Get off my property, or I’ll call the sheriff.”
His crooked teeth flashed in my face. “I’m leaving, but mark my words, I’ll get even. I know your weakness.”
My heart stalled. “You touch a hair on my daughter, and I will hunt you down like a mangy dog.”