Whispers of Fate: The Mistresses of Fate, Book Two (20 page)

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ON TUESDAY MORNINGS,
Tavey always refreshed the window display in Dog with Two Bones, checked the stock on the shelves, answered emails, and then worked on paperwork till late afternoon. Occasionally she’d have a late lunch with Chris, who held yoga classes on the second floor, or join Sylvia and Bessie for a manicure. She normally didn’t spend all morning writhing in the sheets with Tyler Downs.

She felt a stupid grin float over her face. She was almost glad Bessie had called to say that they weren’t coming into town for their manicure. Raquel’s grandma had sounded worried, mentioning that she wanted to talk to Tavey that evening about something important, but Tavey couldn’t quite manage concern, not right now, not when her body was still tingling from his hands.

Tavey blinked at the time on her computer. It was three o’clock and she hadn’t been able to concentrate all day. She wanted to see him again, wanted to touch him with her lips, her tongue, her hands.

He’d already called her, asking her if she wanted him to come back and stay the night after he took Christie home. She’d forgotten he’d intended to bring Christie back for a training lesson, but she’d said yes so fast it was almost embarrassing. She didn’t care how awkward it was or how much driving that meant for him. She wanted him to come back and stay with her. He’d also mentioned that he hadn’t been able to get a hold of his uncle.

She chewed on her lip, wondering why the thought of him stopping to see his uncle bothered her. She was afraid, she realized, afraid that something would happen to take him away from her.

She usually wasn’t so irrational. There was no reason for her to think that anything would be wrong. But still . . .

Too restless to sit at her desk in her tiny closet of an office, Tavey shut down and closed her laptop, packing it away in her bag and setting it on the small desk that she’d wedged in the corner. A two-drawer filing cabinet below held her employee documents and her most important paperwork. The rest of the room was filled with boxes full of additional stock, bags of premium dog food, a lost-and-found basket with leashes, blankets, and toys, and pictures of some of the rescue dogs that had been adopted out. Sometimes their adoptive parents sent pictures and cards, thanking her.

Grabbing her keys, she locked the office door and stepped into a small hall that separated the grooming salon from the store and turned left into the main retail space.

There were a few customers browsing the dog clothes, one of her regulars, Julie Parsons, was reading the ingredients on a bag of dog food. Since Betty was busy helping someone, Tavey walked over to help Julie; her dog Curtsy had a sensitive stomach. Julie had a hard time finding food that didn’t make the dog sick.

“Good afternoon, Julie. The last dog food didn’t work out?”

Julie, a short woman with curly brown hair and a stout frame, looked up, surprised, when Tavey approached. Her round face creased with surprised relief.

“Oh, Tavey. I’m so glad you’re here. No, it didn’t work out. She just kept throwing it up.”

“Did you bring back the bag?”

“I did. It’s in my car.”

“We’ll exchange that for you. I’ll bring it in if you need some help.”

“That would be wonderful.” There were tears in her eyes as she handed Tavey her keys.

Tavey touched Julie’s arm in sympathy. The woman’s daughter was stationed in Afghanistan and Julie took care of Curtsy, her daughter’s enormous Great Dane, while the girl was gone. Julie was also going through a divorce, so distraught seemed to be her default emotional state for the past year.

“We’ll find something that’ll work, Julie. Have you taken her to the vet?”

She nodded. “Over and over again. Doc Clive, she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong.”

Rebecca Clive, the old veterinarian’s daughter, had taken over the practice in Fate nearly five years before. The citizens of Fate called her “Doc Clive,” too, and would likely continue to do so even if she eventually married and changed her name.

Julie continued to explain. “I was talking to Circe about it, and she recommended an herbal supplement and a calming charm for Curtsy’s collar, but she hasn’t been there for a few days. I heard someone tell Mrs. Carlyle that her husband came back after all these years.”

Tavey didn’t want to get into Circe’s husband or the possible reasons why she hadn’t opened the store, nor did she feel the need to discuss the merits of calming charms. Quite frankly, if one of Jane’s charms made Julie feel better, the dog would probably calm down as well.

“I’m sure she’ll be open soon,” she reassured the woman. She held up the keys. “I’ll be right back with the food.”

Tavey waved at Betty, indicating with a quick gesture that she would be right back.

Tavey left through the side entrance that opened into the main lobby of the building. There were black-and-white tiles on the floor and three metal mailboxes set into the opposite wall. Switchback metal stairs led up to the second and third floors, where Chris held her yoga classes and had lived until recently. The third floor was vacant now, but Tavey hadn’t yet found anyone she wanted to rent to.

Tavey left through the door at the back of the building. It led to an alley and a small parking area.

She pressed the button on the keys to unlock Julie’s silver Camry and was walking to the car when she heard someone shout, “Get ’em. Get ’em.”

Tavey heard the sound of running steps and turned to look to her right. Yarrow, Schisandra, and Datura were running down the alley as fast as they could, their yoga mats—which they’d strapped to their backpacks—bouncing behind their heads.

They were being chased by a group of older students, mostly girls with a few boys thrown in.

“Tavey,” Ro shouted. “Help!”

Tavey waited till the girls had passed her and stepped between them and the oncoming mob.

“You will stop,” she ordered the children as if they were a herd of recalcitrant puppies, bracing her legs a little and keeping her arms at her sides.

Several of the kids, recognizing her, immediately took off in the opposite direction, not wanting to get in trouble with their parents for messing with Tavey Collins. There was one girl, though, clearly the leader of this vicious little gang, who stayed where she was, glaring at a few of her friends to make sure they stayed as well. Tavey recognized most of the students and made a mental note to speak to their parents.

The only one Tavey didn’t recognize was their leader, a tall, broad-shouldered blond girl wearing a softball jersey. Tavey made the mental connection, remembering someone mentioning that a new family had moved to town and that they had a daughter, Chelsea, who would probably be pitcher on the high school team. Tavey had intended to stop by and greet the family but hadn’t had time yet. Now she wished she’d found some.

“Why should we listen to you?” the girl said nastily, moving a little closer, trying to make Tavey take a step back.

Tavey held her ground and raised an eyebrow. “Because I will make your life miserable if you don’t,” she said simply. It was the truth. Hurt people Tavey loved, and she had no compunction about seeing them suffer in equal measure. It wasn’t very Christian of her, but it was how she was made.

“Now,” Tavey continued before the girl could respond, “I’m Tavey Collins and there is a security camera”—Tavey pointed to her building, where, after last year’s kidnapping of the Triplets, she’d had multiple cameras installed, including one that covered the alley—“right there.”

The girl looked sullenly at the camera. “So? We didn’t do anything.”

Tavey smiled thinly. “You intended to. Why is that?”

Ro walked up to stand beside Tavey. “It’s our fault, Ms. Collins. She called us names, so we told her we put a curse on her, so she can’t throw any strikes.” Ro tried not to sound too pleased with herself, but a hint of it snuck through. “It worked,” Ro finished.

Tavey sighed. Ro had outpsyched the girl, which hadn’t been nice, but the Triplets didn’t deserve to get beaten for it.

“Why don’t you go home, Chelsea,” Tavey said, nodding back the way the children had come, “and I’ll stop by and have a chat with your parents tomorrow evening. Please let them know I’m coming.”

The girl was clearly startled by the use of her name; obviously she’d never enjoyed the culture of a small town and seemed even more unnerved that Tavey intended to talk to her parents.

“Whatever,” she sneered. “My father will handle you. Let’s go, girls.” She waved at the crowd of teenagers behind her.

“Incidentally,” Tavey called behind her, “if anything happens to the Triplets, I will come looking for you.”

The girl looked back over her shoulder briefly, catching Tavey’s eyes.

Tavey nodded. “And trust me, you won’t like it when I find you.”

THE TRIPLETS HELPED
Tavey carry the fifty-pound bag of dog food back into the store.

Julie was waiting, the new food she wanted to try for Curtsy already on the counter.

“What took so long?” Betty asked, her white curls bouncing as she tried to locate the bar code on the enormous bag. They didn’t carry this particular food in small bags, but Tavey would take it back if Curtsy didn’t like it.

“Nothing important.” Tavey waved the question away. “Thank you, ladies,” she told the girls, directing them to set the bag of food down on the floor. “I’ll take it into my office in a bit.”

“We’re sorry about that, Ms. Collins.” Ro looked embarrassed, her face a little red. “We know better than to mess with girls like that.” Her two sisters nodded their agreement, Datura going so far as to give Ro an annoyed look. Tavey guessed at least one sister hadn’t thought messing with Chelsea was a good idea.

“You going to yoga class this evening?” she asked the Triplets, who usually stayed at the library till six, then went to yoga class with their mother.

Ro shrugged. “I don’t really feel like it,” she admitted.

Tavey thought about it. She didn’t really feel like staying until closing, as she normally did, not today, and she wanted to introduce the girls to their new dog, Penny, thinking it might cheer them up. If Tyler still planned on bringing Christie over, there was no reason the girls couldn’t get started on training as well. The only difficulty was Jane being gone. She’d wanted to make sure the girls had permission to get a dog before giving it to them.

“Want to come home with me? I have a surprise for you.”

The three girls looked at each other, their expressions lightening.

“Sure,” they agreed, all of them speaking at once.

Tavey closed her eyes. “Please. Don’t do that. It’s creepy.”

They giggled, reminding Tavey that for all their strange behavior, they were just girls.

“All right,” Tavey said. “Let me finish helping Julie and grab my things. Why don’t you go see if Chris is upstairs? You can tell her why you won’t make class tonight.”

“Okay,” the girls agreed cheerfully, and went back out the side door toward the interior staircase.

“What was that about?” Betty asked as she processed the exchange of the dog food.

“Some girls were bullying them. I took care of it.” Tavey hoped that there wasn’t a repeat of the situation. She’d have to make a note in her calendar to find out the contact information for Chelsea’s parents and speak with them.

Julie shook her head. “Bullying in schools has gotten so bad, hasn’t it?”

Tavey had no idea. She had personally never been bullied, and she’d made sure her friends weren’t bullied, either.

“You’ll have to let me know how Curtsy does with this food, all right, Julie?”

“I will.”

Tavey touched her arm in parting and went to her office to grab her purse and her laptop.

When she left the store, waving goodbye to Betty, the girls and Chris were waiting for her at the bottom of the switchback stairs.

Ro was talking to Chris. “Does it bother you?”

They were looking toward the ground, toward the place where Chris had found the body of a small dog a few months earlier. The girls had been kidnapped while the authorities were distracted by the dead animal. But in a weird way, the dog was the reason they’d all survived.

“No.” Chris shook her head. “Badger saved us. Ryan had the FBI release him to me, and I had him cremated. He’s in the jar in the yoga room with paw prints on it.”