Chapter Sixteen

JUDGEMENT

 

When I wake up, my head feels like a bucket of sand and my mouth tastes like someone stomped through that sand all night long. The night’s rest relieved most of the bone-crushing exhaustion, but a few remnants linger in the corners of my mind like Seattle fog.

The sharp, rich aroma of coffee drifts in, cutting through the mist. Thank God for automatic coffee makers. I swing my foot out of bed, and it touches the silky bag of tarot cards.

A moment of hesitation, but no. It’s going back into the box of Jennie’s things, and I’m never going to read them again. Ever. Today I’m going to dig into that file cabinet in the office and get caught up on laundry and bills.

No readings, no auras, only the standard vision protocol—gloves at all times, and if something starts to form, let go and step back, the way I always have. Protect myself at all costs.

I fumble my way into some shorts and a clean T-shirt. Yesterday’s clothes are on the floor in a heap. Scooping them up to toss into the laundry basket, I remember Ian’s piece of turquoise in my jeans.

I feel around for it in the left pocket, then the right. I check the back pockets. Gone. Great, now I lost that too.

Frustration grabs me and I kick the shirt and jeans toward the closet. Oh great, now I’m kicking my mom’s clothes around.

A dart of guilt pokes me between the shoulder blades, so I bend down to pick them up. As I do, the little stone drops out of the change pocket and hits the floor with a tap.

I snatch it with a sigh of relief. Protection, Ian said. The stone feels smooth in my hand, almost soothing. It’s like a chip of mountains and sky that fits in my pocket, and after yesterday, I can use all the protection the universe wants to throw my way.

I scoot my feet into a pair of scuffed sneakers. On my way out the door I reach for the bracelets on the top of the dresser, but what I see freezes my hand in midair.

There’s only one.

The braided one I wear all the time sits gleaming on the antique oak, next to Jennie’s urn. But the silver rope, the one Joanna took, the one I practically tore off of her arm last night, the one I left sitting with its twin when I went to take a shower, is gone.

Disbelief boils into fury, a hot tide that rolls up from my stomach and floods my face. She took it again. She came into my room when I was sleeping and took it! How stupid does she think I am?

Ready to march into her room and explode, I pop the silver braid onto my wrist and yank the door all the way open.

The hall is cool and quiet. Joanna’s door is open and there’s no sound from the room. She’s probably in the library already. I should calm down, take a deep breath and get my thoughts together. I slip into the bathroom and close the door, then brush my teeth while trying to figure out what to say to my aunt.

Last night is mostly clear, but as I scrutinize my face in the mirror, I have to admit there are some gaps in my memory. I was so tired I could barely stand up in the shower. In fact, I can barely remember showering, other than the fact that it happened.

Self-doubt trickles into my brain, eroding my confidence, and now I’m not so sure I left the bracelet on the dresser after all.

I can’t accuse Joanna again. I might be wrong. Star and Cam will think I’m crazy, especially after last night. My eyes sweep across the old-fashioned sink, the low chest of drawers and the huge claw-footed tub. I peek behind the shower curtain and double-check inside the drawers. Nothing but soap and towels. I’d better go back and look in every corner of my room.

Ten minutes later I’m completely deflated. I haven’t found the bracelet, but it’s not just that. While I’m looking in drawers and on the closet shelf, I notice some things in my room are different.

My hair scrunchie from yesterday is nowhere to be seen. My shoes might be lined up differently. I’m not sure, but they just seem…wrong.

Then there’s my underwear drawer. When I got dressed ten minutes ago, I opened the top drawer on the left, but found socks, so I tried the drawer on the right, and there was the underwear. It’s supposed to be on the left. That’s where I’ve always kept it, my entire life.

I suddenly remember those last few days in Seattle and the uneasy feeling that someone had been in my things, including my underwear. But that was Seattle, and if anyone had been in the apartment it would have been Pervy Devlin.

It sounds crazy and feels worse. But this is my underwear. Who the hell would prank me like that? The only prankster around here is Star, and this really isn’t her style.

So now what? I can’t tell anyone I lost the bracelet. I can’t even answer the obvious question—Where’s the last place you remember having it?—because I don’t. I put it on and went upstairs, and that’s where things get fuzzy.

For now, at least, I’m going to have to keep quiet. But I can at least see if someone’s been coming in here when I’m gone. I peel off a tiny strip of paper from a roll of mints, and out in the hallway I place it under the closed door. If the paper’s moved when I come back, I’ll know I’m not losing my mind. Then I’ll know someone has been going into my room.

~ * ~

Joanna’s in the library as usual, with a clipboard and gloves, pulling books off the shelves one at a time to write down all the important information.

Last week a car title from a 1962 Buick fell out of a copy of The Great Gatsby, so she flips through them all just in case there’s something valuable. So far only a few dollar bills have turned up, but knowing my great grandfather, there could be anything.

“Morning.” I pause by the library door with a huge mug of coffee. Casual and friendly, no accusations, like my brain works just fine. “Find any treasure maps yet?”

She raises a delicate eyebrow. “Not yet, but I’m just getting started.” She hesitates, then, “Rory, are we okay?”

“Sure we are.” Be calm. Chill. Don’t let her think anything’s wrong.

“I’m so sorry for our misunderstanding last night. I just want you to know I’m here if you need anything. Grieving is a rough process, and it can make us more emotional than usual. And sometimes when we’re emotionally flooded like that, we can misremember things. I lost my car keys three days in a row when Steve died.”

Misremembering does sound better than forgetting, the way misplacing something sounds better than losing it, but I can’t let her know just how much misremembering is happening. Not after yelling at her and accusing her of stealing.

“I’m sure that’s true,” I say, hoping my face isn’t as red as it feels. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

“Don’t worry a single minute. We all forget things. Next time you want to know something though, you can just ask.” She smiles kindly, and my flush of embarrassment flips over to guilt. No way. Just asking would make everything worse.

~ * ~

If the file cabinet was one of those metal ones, I’d probably just drag it out and toss the whole thing without opening it. But it’s three drawers of solid oak, as big as a coffin, and probably needs four people to move it when it’s empty.

The top drawer is full of at least twenty extension cords, wrapped tight and frozen in position for so long they’d probably snap into pieces if anyone unwound them. Trash.

Second drawer, more trash. Manilla folders, dozens of them, full of property tax records going back to the 1950s, and twenty years of utility bills. Typical. Thomas saved every electric bill since 1970 but forgot to make sure the property taxes would keep getting paid.

Seems like Jennie’s forgetfulness might have come from her grandfather, just like being an introvert. For him, it was full-on hermit.

Then it strikes me—maybe he kept ordering things because he couldn’t remember what he already had. Worst of all, maybe Jennie passed this family memory disorder on to me, and that’s why I’m forgetting so much.

No. Stop it, Rory. Finish the job, and quit worrying about the past.

The bottom drawer has more manilla folders, but instead of bills, they’re full of hundreds of photographs, each folder labeled with a year. Awesome. I sit cross-legged on the floor and pull out a thick stack. Maybe I can get a look at some of my ancestors.

Most are just pictures of the Winters Ranch going back to the 1930s, like the one I got at the Wind Dancer. There aren’t any identifiable people in any of them, but a whole lot of construction, mostly of the fences.

One file is full of pictures of the guest house as it was being built in 1948. Cam would like to see these, I’m sure, so I put that file aside. Another folder is nothing but aerial shots of the ranch, dozens of them, with the section numbers and the years written in neat block letters.

In the middle of the pile, there’s a thick brown accordion folder, tied with a knotted ribbon and labeled in those same block letters—JENNIE.

There are no pictures inside. Instead, it’s a collection of newspaper articles carefully cut out and pasted on paper. They are all about the same thing—Jennie’s famous case.

Missing Woman Tied to Money Laundering Ring

Where is Mary-Alice Walker?

FBI Probes Offshore Accounts

Seattle Psychic Locates Missing Woman

Money and Murder in the Art World

There are several clippings of stories about my mother from newspapers all over the west, with Jennie’s face looking up at me next to a picture of Mary-Alice Walker, the accountant who’d turned up dead.

I was only seven when it happened, and Jennie kept no scrapbook or file because she wanted the memory to die down as fast as possible, but over the years, she revealed bits and pieces of information, and Liz filled me in on some of the details.

Mary-Alice was an accountant who had done the books and payroll for a dozen small galleries and shops in Seattle, including the shop where Jennie worked. She was also a client, and my mother had read for her almost every month for several years. They’d become friends.

Mary-Alice had confided in her about problems at work. When Mary-Alice went missing, every business she did accounting work for was scrutinized, first by the local detectives, and then the FBI. When they found out she’d come for readings, agents came to One Spirit to talk to Jennie.

Jennie had nothing to tell them, only that during her recent readings Mary-Alice had been nervous about her job. She told me agents sometimes came in posing as clients requesting readings, but they would dress in the most generic clothes possible, wearing no jewelry—which in the normal world might make you blend in, but in a tarot shop sticks out like a sore thumb. It didn’t take any psychic powers to figure out when they were there.

When I was twelve and my own visions started, I asked Jennie how she knew what happened to Mary-Alice. Her face grew somber. She touched the silver heart necklace she always wore.

Mary-Alice had given it to her for Christmas. After her friend disappeared, Jennie began to see shadowy visions whenever she wore it—visions of her friend deep in a forest. She’d told Liz, who arranged for Jennie to talk off-the-record to a detective.

They went to Mary-Alice’s apartment, and in the presence of so many of the missing woman’s things, Jennie began to see more details. Enough details to lead the detective to the forest and the body of Mary-Alice Walker, but not enough to find the killer. The grim visions faded away and Jennie wore that heart almost every day until she died.

And now, here in my hands, are the answers to all of my questions, and I’m not so sure I want to know any of them. I’m finally getting used to her being gone, most of the time.

I don’t want to start reading all these articles and get dragged back into the dark, numb days after she died. And yet, I can’t toss it all into the trash.

I’ll put it in the dresser drawer with her box, to read a little at a time. When I’m ready.

“Hey!” Star’s voice pops me out of my thoughts. She leans into the room, hanging onto the door frame. “My dad’s going into town for some electrical stuff. Wanna come? We don’t have to hang out in the hardware store. He can drop us off.”

“Sounds good to me. I need some stuff.” I scramble to my feet with the file. “Let me put this away and grab my purse. Check it out. Your dad would like these.” I hand her the guest house file and sprint up the stairs.

I tuck the thick JENNIE folder into the same drawer as her box, and when I crouch to reset the candy wrapper under the door I notice one of her tarot cards is on the floor by the bed. It’s the Judgement card. Reflection and awakening. A reckoning.

I must have missed it when I put the rest away. I scoop it up and yank on the drawer, but it’s sticking after all the rain yesterday. I hold the card with my teeth so I can use both hands to pop it open, and then I see them.

Right under my nose. A string of numbers on the back of the card, blending into the design, so tiny you’d need a magnifying glass to read them all. What the hell?

“You coming or what?” Star calls from the front hall.

“Yeah!”

This will have to wait. I look closely at the numbers before putting the card away and grab my purse. This definitely needs some investigation. The numbers are so small it’s hard to tell, but the writing looks like Jennie’s.

~ * ~

Cam drops us off at the grocery store. The list is short—just a few snacks, tampons and shampoo. We wander around smelling shampoos, choosing cookies and new tea flavors. At first, it’s nice to be out of the house, but anxiety tugs at me from all directions.

I decided to leave the cards alone, and once I decide something, that’s the end of it. But now I’m going to have to investigate those numbers on the back of the Judgement card.

Then there’s the file with all those newspaper stories. God knows what I’m going to find out when I start digging into Jennie’s famous case.

But most of all it’s that bracelet. Star hasn’t said anything, but I told her I wanted her to have it. How can I tell her I can’t find it again?

When we’re waiting in the checkout line, I decide to tell her anyway. Right now. She’ll understand, and I definitely don’t want Joanna or Cam to overhear how scatterbrained I am. How much I’ve been misremembering.

“Star. There’s this thing I have to tell you.”

“What thing? Did something happen?”

“Sort of. It’s about yesterday.”

“You mean with Ian?”

“No, not him. But you can’t tell anyone.”

“Well, yeah.” She shrugs. “I won’t tell my dad if you don’t want me to. I wouldn’t tell Joanna if the house was on fire.”

“It’s really embarrassing, but—” I take a deep breath. “I can’t find that bracelet. She handed it to me. I put it on my arm, right? You saw?”

“Yes. You put it on, slammed your tea like a badass, and went upstairs. By the way, that was totally cool. So what happened?”

“I don’t know. I thought I put it on the dresser when I took a shower, but I was really sleepy, and this morning it wasn’t there. I looked everywhere. I just can’t find it.” Tears sting my eyes. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not crazy.” Star lowers her voice to almost a whisper. “But all that crap she was saying about how you supposedly gave her the bracelet—and now it’s gone? I bet she took it again. Maybe she wants something to remind her of your dad, I don’t know. But I’d bet money Joanna has it.”

Star’s wrong. My aunt was, let’s face it, annoying as hell in the beginning. In fact, those first couple of weeks I wasn’t sure about her at all.

But Star never lived with a drug addict. She doesn’t know how hard it is for me to trust someone, and after talking to Joanna this morning I knew my suspicions were ridiculous. She didn’t take the bracelet.

So that means it’s my memory that’s failing.

Fear chills my heart as I load our stuff on the conveyor belt. I’m not crazy. I’m not turning into a forgetful scatterbrain. I’m not turning into Jennie.

Star loads our cart with the full bags, and I open my fringed bag to pay. My heart jumps to my throat, slicing off my breath.

It can’t be. My purse has been in the closet for days, there’s no way what I’m seeing is right. But there it is, gleaming, sitting right on top of my wallet.

The bracelet.