Karma (Karma Series) (13 page)

And yet, for days now, I'd been plagued by a foreboding so powerful I woke in fear every night. Knowing it was irrational had done nothing to quell it. Standing here
, on a beautiful spring day, I couldn't shake the feeling that a dark shadow chased me.

“
Honey, please don't worry, everything is going to be fine.”

When he used to smile at me like that, it would make me feel like everything was right in the world. But not today, or for the last week. If I could just understand why I felt like this, maybe I could get myself out of this funk.

“I don't know what's wrong. It's just this feeling I can't get rid of.”

“
Everything will be fine.”

His hands brushed
my hair back from my face as he looked at me with concern. “Fine.” I hated that word. I didn't want fine. I wanted great and fantastic. But Charlie was a “fine” person. Never swung too much in either direction and that was what I loved about him. He grounded me, so I overlooked the choice of words, knowing it was petty.

“
I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm acting like this.” I smiled back at him but it was forced and he knew it. “Let's eat.”

I tugged him along after me into the luncheonette.

“What are you doing here?”

I looked over to see Fate sitting next to me on the bench across from the luncheonette I used to go to with Charlie.

I didn't know myself how I'd ended up here. Once I'd started thinking about my life, I'd also started losing some of my control. I’d picked up my Honda this morning and the next thing I knew, I was driving to all my old haunts until I was sitting there, a stalking dead girl.

Charlie and I used to meet here at least once a week for a long lunch. Small tables lined the front sidewalk
, where we'd sit when the weather was nice. If I squinted my eyes, I could see the menu board above the counter we used to order from.

“
How did you find me?” I was resentful of the company. This was my place. And Charlie's. This was my life and nothing to do with Fate, or the office and the craziness surrounding it.

He leaned against
the wrought iron back and rested an ankle upon the opposite knee. I'd never met someone who could make themselves so comfortable no matter where they were.

“
Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“
Doing what? Sitting on a bench?”

“
Him.” Fate was staring at Charlie, who was sitting by himself at our favorite table.

I looked at Fate's slightly squinted eyes, like he'd rather not see Charlie there.

“Why do you dislike him?”

His face relaxed instantly.
“I don't like or dislike him. He's simply there.”

I looked at him for another minute and then back to Charlie, eating by himself. I didn't want him to be alone.

“
What are you accomplishing by doing this? No matter what happens, he's not slated to die for another sixty years.”

“
You know when he's going to die?” A week ago, I would’ve been surprised by that statement. Now I asked just for confirmation.

“
Yes.”

“
Do you always know?”

“
No, but he's got a strong destiny. He’ll start up a chain of medical clinics for the under-privileged.”

I smiled.
He was really going to do it. Charlie had talked about plans for a clinic since the day I’d met him. “Do you know if he'll be alone?”

“
He'll get married.”

“
I'm glad.”

I broke my gaze from Charlie to look at Fate. His eyes, face, everything, was the polar opposite of Charlie's warmth.

“
Let's go,” he said.

I wasn't ready to leave.
“Why do you care what I do? This has nothing to do with you or our arrangement.”

“
You're creating useless emotions. What logical purpose does it serve?”

“
Of course you don't understand. You'd have to understand love, be able to feel it. Logic has nothing to do with this.”

He stood up abruptly and I got the distinct impression I might have hit a nerve I didn't know existed. I was hoping he'd leave but he didn't. He stood in front of me as if resigned to some course of action I wasn't aware of yet.

“I got a flash. If you want to check it out, we have to go now.” He looked down at his watch.

“
Where?”

“
Florida. We've got to leave now if we want to make it.”

I stood and took one last look back at Charlie. His eyes caught mine and he gave me an awkward smile.
It was the kind people give when they catch a stranger staring and they are trying to be polite. I smiled politely back and then went to follow Fate.

“
I want to drop my car off first,” he said.

“
What about my car?”

He looked down the street where my Honda was parked and dismissed it quickly.
“We'll tell someone at the office to come back for it.”

I settled into the passenger seat and did a double check on my seatbelt. Fate drove like a demon.

“You were never meant to be with him.”

I'd thought we had come to a
n unspoken agreement that we wouldn't talk about Charlie, but he seemed to want to change the rules again today.

“
You have no idea what you're talking about. Please keep your opinions to yourself.” I watched the road whiz by and wondered how many times I was going to have to tell him the Charlie subject wasn't open for discussion.

“
Did you forget who you're talking to?”

“
You don't know everything about him. You're just like the rest of us. You get flashes. The universe hasn't seen fit to make you all-knowing.”

“
Maybe not, but I know his fate.”

“
And that means you know every detail of his life? I don't think so.”

“
No. But I've seen souls who were fated to be together. Lifespan after lifespan, there is still a connection. I saw him look at you. Nothing. You're relationship with him was purely luck. I might not know love, but I know fate. You two were never supposed to end up together.”

“
Why are you doing this? Why can't you mind your own business?” I watched him across the small expanse of car and wondered why he couldn't just leave it be.

“
I'm not saying this to be hurtful. I just want you to understand you didn't lose anything. You were never meant to be with him. When you move on from this and get reborn, as he will, you still won't be together. You are clinging to a life that was never going to be.”

I didn't scream but I came really close.
“You don't get it because you have no feelings. You're a robot. Maybe I was human, which makes me a dirty transfer, but I like my humanity. I like having feelings. You have no idea what it's like to lose everything you are but still be there, so close that you could reach out and grab it—except that the second you did, it would fall like water through your fingers. So you might think you
know,
but in truth you have no clue. So please, shut the hell up.”

I turn
ed my head away from him, back to look out the window. He actually did shut up.

He didn't know if we were meant to be together or not. It was nothing but a guess.

The phone ringing through the speakers broke the silence a few minutes later.

“
Fate?” the voice spoke through his car speaker system.

“
Harold, you called my phone. Who else would it be?” Fate’s voice had an edge to it that I hadn’t heard before.

“
I need you to come back to the building.”

“
Can't.”

“
This isn't optional.”

“
Neither is this.”

“
Mother's flipping out.”

Fate groaned then hit the steering wheel.
“Be there in five.”

He hung a hard left that sent me crashing into the car door and had horns blaring.

“What are you doing? We'll miss Bad Guy,” I said.

“
And if I don't get back there and handle this, it could be worse.”

“
I don't care who Mother is, or what's happening back there. I'll go on my own.”

“
Absolutely not.”

“
Who are you to tell me no?”

“
I don't want you to go alone.”

“
Why?”

“
I just don't and Florida is a big state, without having any idea what you’re looking for.”

“
It's in our best interest for me to go. You can't withhold information from me.”

“
Hold me in contempt of court.”

It riled me because there was absolutely nothing I could do.
“If I don't get to kill this guy before I leave, I'll be killing you in his place.”

“
You're perfectly welcome to try.” He smiled at me, practically daring me to do it.

I made a half groan, half scream of frustration as we pulled up to the front door and he got out. On the slim chance that perhaps whatever he needed to handle would be done quickly, I followed Fate to the second floor.

I barely got to read the door plaque—Mother's Landscaping—before we entered. What could be happening at a landscaping business that would cause us to have to run over here and not continue to search out who the murderer was? But nothing was what it seemed here, which meant Mother wasn't really a landscaper.

The reception area was similar to our own office
, but with images of beautifully manicured lawns scattered throughout. A young guy sat behind the desk, giving me a skeptical look.

“
Tommy, let us in,” Fate said when he stopped at the locked inner door

“
Who's she?”

“
Karma.”

“
Why's she seem different?” His head tilted to the side, as if a different perspective would help answer the question.

“
Because I'm a transfer. Okay?” I blurted out before Fate could answer.

Tommy made an
“oh” face, and nodded, as if it all made sense now.

“
Tommy. The door?”

“
Oh yeah, sorry, Fate.”

I heard the waili
ng and screaming as soon as it swung open, so when I walked in behind Fate, I wasn't surprised at the chaos before me.

Clusters of people in jeans and t-shirts were everywhere
, arguing loudly. If I had seen any of them working on a lawn, while driving down a residential street, I wouldn't have taken a second look.

They were all in heated groups, some screaming to let her do it, some screaming no. A little pixie of a woman was at the center of the chaos, being trailed by several brawny young men, as she paced around the room. Thick dark brown curls framed a p
eaches and cream complexion, which the blue of her suit complimented.

Her eyes lit as she saw us
—or more precisely, Fate.

“
Darling! You've come to visit me?” Her voice was so sweet it gave me a sugar high, but the kind that made you nauseous and turned you off chocolate bars for a year.

“
I came as soon as I heard you were upset.” He took her hands in his as he greeted her with a kiss on each cheek.

My head snapped back and forth between the two of them. Where had Fate gone? Who was this
well-mannered guy? And why did it seem like he was nice to everyone but me?

The entire room seemed to cease all other activity as everyone watched their conversation, including me. Fate took one
of her hands and laid it on the crook of his arm and strolled with her through the room.

“
What has you so upset?”

“
I want a blizzard and they all keep arguing with me! I don't care if it's spring. I'm in charge. Why do they all bother me with these ridiculous details?”

“
Now, you know we've talked about this before,” he said as he patted the hand resting on his arm.

My eyes went to Fate's hand as it then moved to rest on her lower back. He steered her toward what looked like an office and I watched the door close on the two of them.

As soon as the door shut, I was the point of focus.

“
Who are you?” the group of fifteen or so landscaper-looking people asked, eying me up from the top of my pony tail, down along my sun dress to my sandals.

“
Who are you?” I asked, throwing the question back at them. Most of them looked like normal men, but there were four who definitely weren’t human. They looked like they could’ve been the original models for the garden gnomes.

“
We're her Gardeners,” one replied.

“
We heard there was a transfer,” the guy on his right said.

They were circling me in an uncomfortable fashion.

“Yes, well I'm it. If you don't mind, I'll just go have a seat over there and wait for Fate.”

I moved away from the crowd. Only one followed me over. I sat down and eyed the office up
, wondering what exactly Fate’s relationship was with Mother.

“
It's not like that,” the guy who followed me said.

“
Like what?” I replied, feigning disinterest.

He let out a chuckle.
“You know what I'm talking about. What, you think you're the only one hot to trot with Fate? He doesn't dabble with coworkers.”

“
I'm not hot for anything.” What was wrong with me? Was I broadcasting every thought in my head these days?

“
I'm not blind. I saw how you watched him with Mother.”