Black-Eyed Moon (A Guinan Jones Paranormal Mystery #1) (4 page)

Tamzen wanted to come to the police station with me, but my grandfather convinced her to leave with Zeke and Dean. He and I sat in his office with the door closed. My insides felt like jelly.

"It was about twenty-five years ago," he said. "Your grandmother told
her friend, Patsy Kroger, about a dream she'd had." He leaned forward on the hard, faux-leather couch, elbows on his knees. I sat beside him, my back pressed against the cool seat. "Patsy's uncle had a farm over in Hudson. One night, Tilda had a dream. She saw part of the barn's roof collapse on Patsy, killing her instantly."

I furrowed my brow.
I'd spoken to Miss Patsy last month at the grocery store.

"Now most people in town had heard about your grandmother's clairvoyance. Most thought it was phony. A few considered it satanic.
Anyway, Patsy didn't judge her. Tilda had been reluctant to tell her about the dream at first, but she felt she had to. That's when Patsy said the family had planned to help out on the farm that weekend."

As he spoke, I considered the implications of telling someone
you knew when she'd die.

"Well, Pa
tsy, bless her heart, believed her friend and canceled the family's plans."

"So Grandma saw the future. And changed it."

We were both silent. The commotion outside the office was an unrelenting buzz. Every now and then, someone shouted above the noise to get someone else's attention. A couple of sheriff's deputies took up space as well. The Ridge Grove Police Department was required by state law to work with the county sheriff in cases as major as homicide.

"She never told me," I said.

My grandfather looked at this hands and rubbed them together. "She'd been having precog dreams her whole life."

"Precog dreams?
That's what she called them?"

He nodded. "She didn't have them often. Every now and then, but often enough to drive her crazy. She didn't tell you a lot of things, and I'm sorry about that. You should also know that
—"

Someone knocked on the door.

He groaned. "Yeah?"

The door
opened a crack, and Rory peered in, his normally neatly cut blond hair slightly tousled. "Sam said he needs to see you, chief."

"Can't it wait?"

"Doubt it. He wants to pick your brain before talking to the media."

"The media?" My grandfather stood abruptly. "Oh, good Lord." He turned to me. "I don't want you to say anything to anybody, including Tamzen, about what happened out there."

I couldn't see myself telling Tim's wife, son, or his son's girlfriend that he might have killed Kate.

"We'll talk more at home," he said.

Before I could utter another word, he shut the door. I stood and walked to the lone window in the small office, which faced the parking lot. People milled around between cars and a Channel 7 News van. The police had yet to say if Kate Mansfield had been murdered. They hadn't said much of anything. But I'd seen the blood pooled at the back of her head and saw her thoughts.

Her death
was no accident.

And I saw it happen before it happened.

***

Granddad asked Rory to drive me home. We left the building from the rear entrance. When I'd first arrived
at the station, a reporter asked me if I was "some kind of medium." My grandfather wanted to avoid such questions on the way out.

"Isaac told me not
to say anything," Rory said as he pulled up in front of my house. "So I won't. Unless you want to volunteer information." I looked at him. He had the decency to look sheepish. "Sorry."

"No problem," I said, climbing out. Before I reached the front door, my cell phone vibrated. Tamzen had called several times already, so when I looked at the number, I expected to see her image on the screen. But
I saw only a number, one I didn't recognize it. Was it a reporter? I answered, anyway.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

It was Dean. My face relaxed into a smile. I plopped down on the front steps and a ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah. I'm home now."

"Want some company?"

I realized I was gripping the phone. I cleared my throat. "Um...sure. Where are you?"

"At home. Zeke just dropped me off."

While I waited for Dean, I went inside, washed my face, changed my shirt, brushed my hair, and brought two cold bottles of iced tea outside. I sat on the swing-bench, batted away flies, and thought about the best friends. Zeke and Dean were an odd pair. A few inches shorter than Zeke, Dean was more personable and tended to put me at ease. His laid-back style contrasted with Zeke's rigidity.

Tamzen used to have a crush on Dean, but when she found out I was crushing on Zeke, she decided she liked Zeke. I was convinced he went out with her to spite me. Or maybe that's
what I wanted to believe.

I watched Dean pull up in his father's
blue sedan, climb out, and take lanky strides up the walkway. He smiled, eased himself down on the swing beside me, and opened one of the bottles.

"I heard that reporter shouting at you," he said, taking a long swig of the tea. "
We followed you to the station, thought about coming in, for support."

"That's sweet, but Granddad wasn't letting anybody see me."

He wiped his mouth with his thumb. "So, do the dead speak to you?"

Startled by the question, I picked up my tea and squeezed the cool bottle between my hands. "Zek
e hasn't filled in the details?"

"I don't really ask him questions about you."

He turned his head so I could look at his eyes. I sensed the honesty and determination behind them.

"I don't communicate wi
th the dead, not the way I think you mean."

He chuckled.
"In a way, you do. It's like they're speaking to you."

I hadn't thought about it that way.

"What about the living," he said. "Have you tried to read minds?"

"
No," I said quickly. "And I don't want to. Being able to tell when someone is deceptive is bad enough. I mean, could you handle knowing what somebody really thinks about your new haircut or your favorite outfit? Or maybe they think your head's shaped funny, and you hear things that hurt your feelings."

I was rambling. Dean was smiling. We sat si
lently for a while, drinking tea and rocking on the swing-bench.

"What about your mother?" he said. "Is she psy...I mean, like you?"

I shook my head.

"You shouldn't
be embarrassed about what you can do. I know Zeke can be a jerk, but it's just fear based on ignorance."

"I guess." As long as people didn't call me a witch, I believed I could help people.

Dean chugged the rest of his tea. "I've heard stories about how the government has these secret paranormal programs. Have you ever heard of the Ranch?"

I snorted. "I've heard rumors. A place where they train and 'protect' people with psychic powers."

"You don't believe it exists?"

I shook my head. Truthfully, I hadn't given it much thought. It
certainly didn't sound like somewhere I'd want to be.

Dean
cleared his throat. "Listen, I wanted to ask you—"

We
both looked toward the street. A news van and two cars pulled up at the curb in front of the house. The van had barely stopped when a woman with dark-red hair got out. She wore a light-blue sleeveless blouse, brown slacks, and matching sandals.

"Guinan Jones?"
she called out. "Sara Sparks from Inside Edge. Do you have a minute to answer some questions? You knew the victim, Kate Mansfield, didn't you? Young man, you knew her as well?"

Dean groaned. "Get lost."

The woman gave a tittering laugh and flipped her hair. She snapped her fingers at the cameraman emerging from the van, a short guy who wore his Carolina Panthers baseball cap backward. He hoisted a camera on his shoulder and pointed it at us.

"Ready for your close-up?" Dean said, chuckling.

Actually, I was ready to throw up.

"No comment," I said loud enough for her to hear.

"The rumor is you can communicate with the dead," she said, ignoring my remark and inching up the walkway. "Is that what you claim?"

"I don't claim anything. And you're trespassing."

She stopped short, took a few steps back to the sidewalk, and continued with her questions. "Kate Mansfield was bludgeoned to death. Did she tell you who killed her?"

I felt Dean watching me. I scoffed. "You really believe people can communicate with the dead? You sure you don't work for the
Interrogator
?"

Dean let out a bark of a laugh, and I managed a smile that probably looked forced. But the woman appeared unaffected. She maintained an inquiring-minds expression.

"Was Kate meeting someone out there? Did she say who she'd been waiting for?"

"You'll have to ask the police. I have no idea
—"

"Could your grandmother, the late Tilda Jepson, communicate with the dead?"

Was this woman for real? I intended to tell her loudly that she was a nut. But all that came out was, "I...we..."

Dean rescued me. "Come on." He took my arm, led me into the house, a
nd closed the door. We watched from the window as people in the cars got out and started taking pictures and videos of the house. So far, Guinan "the witch" Jones had been a contained local rumor. I imagined I'd be all over the web now. I felt queasy.

"You okay?" Dean said.

I nodded. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. I heard him tell Granddad about the media. Ten minutes later, Granddad pulled up in his gray Chevy Suburban. Dean and I heard him tell the news crew and the others they were acting like vultures. They found this amusing but got back into their cars and left.

"Thank you for calling me, son," Granddad said.

"No problem, sir." Dean looked at me. "Call you later?"

I nodded and watched him walk back to his car. I closed the door and double-locked it.

My grandfather cursed under his breath. "I can't believe this. Coming to a private residence to ask questions they've got no business asking."

"If they believe rumors that I communicate with the dead, I suppose it's newsworthy," I conceded. "They saw me go behind the crime scene tape."

Granddad grunted. "Vultures. The whole lot of them. I'm gonna make some phone calls."

"
What about Tim? He and Kate were probably sleeping together." I explained what I'd sensed weeks ago.

He winced and rubbed his chin. "
To tell the truth, I suspected something like that. He might have been cheating on his wife, but I don't think he killed Kate."

All he had to do was say he'd been home in bed with his wife. As far as I knew, it was the truth. They'd
arrived home around midnight. I couldn't see him leaving after his wife fell asleep and going to Jepson's Point to kill somebody.

"
Even with an alibi," Granddad said, "it doesn't look good that he was sleeping with the murder victim."

"So it definitely is murder?" I said. It was a stupid question, and the back of my head throbbed slightly as
if to agree. I told him about the head wound discrepancy.

He frowned and stared into space. "That is odd." He relaxed his face. "Don't worry about it.
Precog dreams might not match reality in every detail."

I raised an eyebrow. "Did Grandma tell you that?"

He winked. "Nope. Just a theory."

I thought about calling Tessa, but I knew it would be awkward. I wanted to tell her about the affair, but I also didn't want her to know. As it turned out, it d
idn't matter. The next morning I read a story on the local paper's web site about the affair between the cop and the barely legal dead girl. Theodore "Skeeter" Watson, local meth dealer and user, claimed to have found the body Sunday morning around eight o'clock. The TV news coverage was pretty much the same.

I googled myself and was grateful beyond words nothing about Guinan "the medium" Jones came up.

I'd read the news story three times, and it got worse each time. Tim, the dead girl's former lover, was a "person of interest" in the investigation. Tim, Kate, and I weren't the only ones who'd known about the affair. Other people suspected. This was a small town, and people talk. If that news woman
heard about my grandmother's clairvoyance, she and everyone else naturally heard about Tim's affair.

I bet
Kate told her best friend about it. I'd certainly tell Tamzen something like that.

I re-read the part about
Skeeter Watson finding the body. He might have killed Kate and claimed he found her to throw off suspicion.

I was sitting on my bedroom floor, having just hung up from talking to Tamzen, when my cell vibrated again. It was my mother.
I reluctantly answered. I didn't have to be clairvoyant to know what she was going to say. She and my father were going to accelerate their bring-Guinan-home plan.

"You don't understand," I said once I could get a word in. "I can't leave right now. With this murder
—"

"That's precisely why you have to leave," she said. I could see her in my mind. The last time I'd visited
—Christmas—she'd cut her shoulder-length brown hair into a chin-length bob. She had my grandmother's looks, including her brown eyes, and my grandfather's temperament.

"A girl is dead, and the killer is still out there. If anything happens to you, I'll never forgive my father."

Indignation flared inside me, and I struggled to control my tone. "How would it be his fault?"

"Would you stop defending him? All I'm saying is whoever killed her might be a serial killer on the hunt for teenage girls. Everybody in Ridge Grove knows about the chief of police's psychic granddaughter." I winced. "The killer might get rid of you before
they catch him."

She had a
point. I tried to imagine if I were in another state and my child's schoolmate had been killed.

"Nobody is going to kill me."

I eyed the shotgun leaning against the wall. Granddad taught me how to use it when I was thirteen. Usually locked in his closet, he took it out, loaded it, and told me to keep it in my room. I didn't plan on telling my mother this.

"You father and I have already decided."

"Kate didn't know who killed her, Mom. She didn't see—"

My mother did something totally uncharacteristic. She cursed. "I knew it. He had you looking at that girl's corpse, didn't he?"

Nice going, Guinan.

"Thank you for telling me that. All the more reason for you to leave Ridge Grove. Check your inbox tomorrow. You'll see an e-ticket for a Saturday morning flight."

I stood so abruptly, I got lightheaded. "What? That's in a week!"

"Less than week," she said, "But plenty time for you to get your things together. I'll enroll you in school here and take care of everything. All you need to do is be on that plane."

"This isn't fair." I said, trying to tamp down my temper. "I've lived here since I was ten, and you're giving me a week to pack up?"

Silence again. I pictured
her on other end, just as defiant. They wanted me to leave my grandfather and my friends.

"Why
are you acting so surprised? You know your father and I have been considering this for some time. With this murder, well, no time like the present. You can visit Thanksgiving and Christmas. In fact, we'll all come down for the holidays, have a nice, long visit."

"But this is my home. I don't want to
visit
my home."

"Guinan, I…we don't know if we did the right thing, letting you stay there so long."

"And now you want to make up for it by taking me away from my friends?"

"You're young. You'll make new friends. And there are other boys in the world besides Zeke Hicks."

***

"This really sucks."

Tamzen was pouting. She hadn't spoken to Zeke for hours, torture for her. On top of this tragedy, his father had had an affair with a murdered girl, and I was leaving Ridge Grove in less than a week. However, I noticed that she hadn't lost her appetite. We sat in the food court of the largest mall in Chelsea, the one with the indoor ice skating rink.

"I never would have guessed Zeke's straight-laced father would be cheating on his wife," she said. "And cheating with a teenager."

And the teenager ends up dead.

"How's Zeke taking it?"

"Based on the only text I got from him, not too well. He said he couldn't talk right now."

I thought about Tessa. I was a coward. I wanted to call her, but saying "I'm sorry" seemed lame. "This is unreal." I stared at my uneaten slice of pizza. "A murder in Ridge Grove, and somebody our age."

"This sucks especially for Tessa," Tamzen said. "Stay-at-home mom with two toddlers, and now she's caught up in a cheating and murder scandal."

I looked at her. "You think Tim killed her?"

"God, I hope not."

I watched her eat. What would it mean for this town if it turned out Tim Hicks killed his girlfriend? What would it mean for Zeke and Tessa? What would it mean for me? I felt like we'd exhausted the conversation. I tried to change the subject to
pleasant things, but Tamzen insisted I tell her what went down at the police station. For added drama, I mentioned the news crew coming to the house.

"Holy crap."

"It was the weirdest thing," I said. "I don't know why they listen to rumors and focus on me."

"Not that," she said. She wiggled her eyebrows. "Dean came over. He's a slick one. He told us he was going to just chill at home and he ends up at your house."

"Oh, right. Well, we just talked about everything that had happened. What?"

She was giving me her don't-disappoint-me look. "Guinan Jones, Dean is crushing on you. He's a cutie. And those baby blues? Come on. Don't you like him at all?"

"I think he's cute," I conceded. "But it feels a little weird thinking about getting with him at a time like this."

Her face tensed in
to a serious expression. "Right. It's a tragedy." She sipped her drink and nodded silently for a moment. "So when are you guys going out?"

I
shook my head and watched passers-by. The food court looked more crowded than usual. I unintentionally made eye contact with a couple of people, both men, and what I read was typical of such casual and brief connections. A spark of attraction, then varying degrees of follow-up feelings. One felt a twinge of guilt. Probably had a girlfriend or wife. The other guy's shyness was almost painful. I let my eyes linger on an older woman's face. Her mouth turned down, she moved as though she had a heavy weight tied to her back. She caught me staring, and I suppressed the instinct to look away. From our brief eye contact, I sensed a sadness so deep, a lump formed in my throat.

"Are you choking? You haven't eaten anything."

I tore my eyes away from the woman and blinked at Tamzen. "I was just thinking."

She snorted. "You were just reading."

I bit into a lukewarm slice of pizza.

"Hey, read me," she said. "See
if you can sense something...new."

I
watched my paper plate while I ate. The last time I read my best friend, we'd almost fallen out. She'd seen me and Zeke talking by my locker last year and had some not-so-nice emotions about me. Never again, I'd said to myself many times since.

"Come on," she said
. "Exercise your abilities."

"If I wanted to do that," I said, my mouth full, "I can sit here and read strangers all day."

She slapped her hand down on the table. "Look, it won't be like last time. I'm not wishing evil things on you. Zeke and I are..." She trailed off, and something in her voice made me stop chewing. Before I knew it, I'd made eye contact with her and didn't conjure the red-brick wall. I let the emotions come through. I really started choking this time.

She jumped up, came to my side of the table, and
slapped me on the back. "Are you okay?"

I looked up at her smirking face. "I'm fine," I said, coughing into my hand. I cleared my throat and sipped my drink. "Went down the wrong way."

She returned to her chair, eyes wide. "That shocking, huh?"

I shrugged in an effort to downplay what I'd sensed:
intense physical and emotional satisfaction. Triumphant smugness.

"Zeke and I...well..."

The Tamzen Parker I knew was rarely shy. The sign was red ears. Right now, hers were glowing. I stared at her and tried to keep a neutral expression. I hoped my jealousy was well hidden. What I felt was more than jealousy, actually. It was disappointment, with a side order of defeat. Whatever happened between them wasn't her first time. Before they started going together at the end of our sophomore year, she'd hooked up with a senior.

She stared at me, apparently waiting for another reaction.

"What do you want me to say? Um...congratulations?"

She pursed her lips. "That sounds vaguely sarcastic."

"You and Zeke did it?"

She
sat back and stared at the table. Her ears still bright red. I guess it was time I accepted that my best friend and the boy I'd always liked were together in every sense of the word.

I softened my expression. "When did this big event happen?"

She leaned forward. "Saturday night."

A flash of deception?

I raised my eyebrows. "The night Kate was killed?"

She gaped
. "You have to remind me?"

"Sorry. W
here did you do it? Not at Jepson's Point—"

"No way," she said,
her face pinched like she'd tasted a lemon. "We didn't do it in the back seat of a car or on the ground in the woods. My parents were out of town overnight."

My mouth fell open. "You didn't tell me they were out of town. You did it in your parents' house?"

"The trip was a last-minute thing. I told Zeke I wanted to take advantage of having the house to myself, and he was down."

"So why now?"

She stared at her purse and fiddled with it. "Why not now? We've been together for a year. I wanted to ages ago, but he wanted to wait."

I wanted
to be married before I had sex. But if Zeke and I were together and had the place to ourselves, I might be tempted to...but we weren't together. We weren't even friends.

"You are happy for me, aren't you?"

Happy that someone else had sex? Rather than verbalize an answer, I smiled. "Let's go."

She
watched me for a second, seemed satisfied, and grabbed her purse and shopping bag. She was about to get into details of her night with Zeke when we both stopped short of the exit.

Eric Rodman, Kate's boyfriend, was pacing near the doors. He stopped when he spotted us. He raked his hand through his
black hair. His jaw clenched, and his blue eyes bore holes into me.

"What the hell is his problem?" Tamzen said.

We headed to a door a few feet from where he stood. He walked over and stopped in front of us, blocking the way. I made eye contact with him. His grief and anger were palpable. I felt his emotions in my chest. Tamzen grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to her.

"What do you want?" she said.

"I want to talk to you," he said, still staring at me.

"Take a number,"
she said, pushing past him. Eric grabbed my other arm. It didn't hurt, but I gasped, anyway.

"Hey!"

"I need to talk to you," he said through gritted teeth.

"Eric, if you don't leave us alone
—"

"I'm not talking to you," he said to Tamzen. With his emphasis on the last word, I sensed more than just irritation. Her grip slackened but she didn't move. His eyes, dark circles under them, slid back to me.

"I want to know what you told the cops about me."