Chapter Two

My partner, Zane, arrived at our house an hour after I returned from my psychic reading.

The front door slammed shut and his heavy footfalls stomped down the hall. He was complaining about how the world was full of criminals and that the city was getting unsafe.

He approached me with a wan smile, thumbing through the day’s mail. “Junk. Junk. And more junk.”

“There’s a telephone bill in there somewhere,” I said, rearranging the damp dishtowel I had slung over my right shoulder.

His kisses were hard on my neck, and I smiled against the scruffy texture of his scratchy beard. He smelled like hay and sweat.

I kissed him. “Have you been rolling around with horses?” I asked.

“Only the young male stallion who started work today. I mounted him in the station’s restroom at lunch break.”

I slapped him with the end of the dishtowel. “You’re an idiot.”

He let out a loud guffaw and ambled to the fridge for a beer.

“Don’t fill up on liquid. Dinner will be ready soon.”

“Yes, dear.” There was a pop as he uncapped his Heineken. He wrapped an arm around my waist and mapped the length of my neck with gentle kisses. “Whattcha cookin’?”

I bent forward to turn down the heat and closed my eyes at the achingly soft plea in his voice.

“You not feeling up to a little tumble between the sheets tonight?” The moist peck of his lips on my skin stirred a pleasant response between my legs, awakening a familiar hardness.

“It’s not that,” I said, mixing the spaghetti sauce I picked up from Pick N Save on my way home tonight.

“Then what?” he whispered, pressing his growing erection against my backside.

My body stiffened at the soft sounds of his shallow breathing in my ear. He brushed his nose in the crook of my neck, and I dropped the spatula into the pan, the end of it sinking beneath the simmering sauce. “Do you know how much I love you?”

I bit my bottom lip and let out a soft, contented groan. He set his beer bottle on the table, and I gripped the edge of the counter, leaning my head against his shoulder.

“You’re tense,” he said, massaging my neck.

“Something strange happened today,” I said, killing the heated moment.

The tomato sauce bubbled and splattered across the stovetop.

Zane stopped massaging my neck, his hands falling to my waist. He had lost his erection.

“I’m sorry for being a buzzkill,” I said.

“I’m horny as hell, David.”

I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I promise we’ll fool around after dinner, but—”

“I thought I could get dessert first.”

I stared at him, grim-faced.

He reached behind us on the counter for his beer, gulped it down. “I don’t like that strange look in your eyes.”

Madame Petri’s ghostly face flickered across my mind. I shook my head and quivered.

“What is it?” he asked. “You’re shaking.”

I pulled my hands away from him and walked over to the kitchen table by the window, then sat down.

“Did something happen at the gallery today?” he asked, pulling a chair out next to me and giving me his undivided attention. His piercing dark eyes studied me.

I shook my head, kneading my hands in my lap. How was I going to tell Zane about my visit to Madame Petri’s Spiritual Crossings? I heard my friends’ encouraging recommendations of the mysterious fortune-teller. But I knew not everyone was open-minded to tarot cards and crystal balls, especially Zane.

“I stopped at Madame Petri’s shop this evening after work,” I said, staring at him for a reaction.

He finished his Heineken and got up to get another one.

“Zane?” I said.

He grabbed his beer and shut the fridge. “I thought I asked you to stay away from her.”

“Something happened during my reading tonight.”

He took his seat, set his beer can on the table, and folded his arms across his burly chest. “Whatever she told you, I don’t believe her. And neither should you. She’s a phony.”

“Will you just listen, please?”

He rolled his eyes and gestured with a quick nod for me to continue.

I leaned closer to him. “I think somebody is going to die tonight.”

He looked bewildered. “Is that what Madame Pretentious said to you?”

“Madame Petri.”

Zane stood. “You need to stop getting your future told by that crazy woman. She’s cuckoo, as my grandmother would say.” He grabbed his beer and headed out of the room in the direction of the hallway.

He came back into the room and stood under the archway that divided the kitchen and living room. “I’m dead serious,” he said. “You should listen to yourself. You sound—” He stopped in midsentence and raised the bottle of beer to his mouth.

“Sound like what?” I yelled. “Huh? Crazy? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Babe, these people are in business to make money. They’ve got bills to pay just like us. It’s their job.”

I turned my back to him. The room grew quiet except for the sounds of his breathing. We didn’t say anything to each other for a while.

Eventually, he grumbled and shuffled out of the room, his work boots padding down the hall and clomping up the stairs.

Then the sound of water turned on in the upstairs shower, and pipes in the building rattled to life as if he’d awakened long dead spirits.