скачать книгу бесплатно
Dating Can Be Deadly
Wendy Roberts
Some gifts are easy to return–like parrot earrings from Aunt Ruth–but when your gift is clairvoyance, Tabitha Emery finds there is a definite No Refund Policy. She has visions of black magic rituals and dismembered bodies, and she's not sure what to do. She didn't ask for this talent, but it clings to her like a thong and is just as uncomfortable.Her goals are simple: A) to rise above law office receptionist B) to spend Friday nights uncovering the mysteries of butterscotch schnapps with her comrades, and C) to get more than a passing glance from Clay Sanderson (Greek-god-type lawyer).But her sight has turned life upside down–and she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation where the only clues are in her premonitions–making her not only key to solving the mystery but a suspect. (On the plus side: she could use legal advice, so she and Clay have something to talk about.)And somewhere is the real culprit, who wants this clairvoyant dead…
WENDY ROBERTS
was born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada, where she alternated between fending off frostbite in winter and mosquito bites in summer. Her earliest childhood memories are the musky, dusty scent of the local library bookmobile and losing herself in the adventures of Nancy Drew.
At the tender age of eight, Wendy’s writing career sprouted when she penned the poignant tale of a cup of flour’s journey to become a birthday cake. After a writing hiatus that lasted a few decades, she rediscovered her muse, her sanity and a sated harmony in putting pen to paper once again.
Wendy now resides on the west coast of Canada with her five biggest fans—her husband and their four beautiful children. This is her debut novel.
Dating Can Be Deadly
Wendy Roberts
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Deepest thanks to my mom and dad
for showing me laughter through all things.
For my husband, Brent, for saying I could,
and for my children, Sarah, Daniel, Donovan
and Devin, for making it all worthwhile.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter One
I charged through Seattle’s Memorial Cemetery with my arms pumping and heart pounding. My mouth wheezed in great mouthfuls of dreary afternoon drizzle while I ruined a perfectly good pair of black leather sling-backs. To top that off, the purse snatcher, who was at least double my twenty-six years and probably a heroin addict as well, had easily outrun me.
I had a choice, I could either A) continue to run with the hope that I’d eventually wear the thief down with my persistence or B) give up on ever seeing my shoulder bag, a suede Prada knockoff, ever again.
Exhaustion won. I gave up and staggered to a stop. I apologized to Samuel Harvey, 1910-1973, whose tombstone I leaned against while recovering from the impromptu workout.
“He got away?” Stumbling in my direction, with high heels sinking in the sodden grass and with ample bosom rising and falling in deep gasps, was my good friend Jenny. She propped herself up at the opposite corner of Samuel Harvey’s resting place. “Damn! I thought you had him.”
“This is what happens when you can no longer afford to go to the gym.” I panted. “A senior citizen junky makes off with your bag and leaves you whimpering in a graveyard.”
“This is what happens when your car dies and you’re forced to stand around on Baldwin Street,” corrected Jenny. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the red hair color, Claret Classic, was courtesy of this week’s sale at Neuman Drugs. Next, Jenny dug in her purse and pulled out a cigarette. She lit up then nodded her head in the direction the thief had taken. “Let’s go after him.”
“I’d rather—” stick a pen in my eye, have a pap test, visit my mother… “—not.”
“Well, we should check. Maybe he ditched your bag somewhere?”
“What’s the point?” I asked, sulkily digging up sod with the toe of one of my wrecked shoes.
“Maybe he just snatched the cash and dumped the rest.” Jenny took a deep drag on the cigarette and blew the smoke out in a long stream. “Of course I’d be able to catch him myself, if I wasn’t retaining all this water.”
I knew Jenny was retaining twenty-five years of fried food, not water, but she was my best friend so I supported her delusions of water retention, just like she supported my fantasy that being able to type seventy words a minute meant I was physically fit.
“Replacing your ID and credit card is going to be a real pain,” Jenny added.
I hit my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Damn! My Visa!”
My credit card was the only thing preventing me from having to beg dinners off my mother until next payday. I had a sudden and nauseating vision of endless meals sitting across from Mom explaining why I haven’t married and have no prospects, why I haven’t a better job and no prospects and why I haven’t cut my hair, lowered my hemlines, taken a class….
I hurled myself down the stone pathway.
“Wait up, Tab! I’ll come with ya!” Jenny flicked her smoke into a nearby puddle and followed in my wake up a narrow walkway.
The path led us between tombstones and grave markers. When we began to climb a slight incline nearing a clump of tall blue spruce, I suddenly stopped walking and Jenny slammed right into me.
“What is it? Do you see your bag?” Jenny flicked her gaze left and right then sidestepped around me to look at me full in the face. Her eyes widened. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“That thing you do with your eyes when you blink a lot.”
“I do not blink a lot.”
“Uh-huh.” Jenny planted thick fingers on wide hips. “Yeah, well, tell your eyelids that ’cause right now they’re doing the mambo.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers and squeezed my eyes shut.
“What is it?” she demanded impatiently.
“Nothing.” I nibbled my lower lip and glanced nervously at a nearby tree. “Let’s go.” I whirled on my heel to beat a fast retreat.
“Whoa!” Jenny clamped her fingers on my elbow. “You had one of those premonitions, right?”
I sighed, “I don’t have premonitions. It’s more like a deep feeling of foreboding.” With the occasional bleary snapshot thrown in for good measure.
Jenny nodded vigorously. “Yeah, like the time you knew something was wrong at home and you found out your dad had just had a heart attack, or that time you knew Martha was preggers even before she did.”
I pulled my elbow from her grasp and crossed my arms over my chest. “Actually, it’s more like that feeling I got when you fixed me up with your cousin Ted and his leg-humping dog, or the time you told me the shrimp in your fridge were fresh.”
“Well, maybe this time your bad feeling is telling you that your purse is over there behind that tree and the bad part is that only the cash is missing.”
The feeling in my gut wasn’t exactly saying purse, it was saying something darker. Evil. I shuddered and wished I hadn’t quit smoking last month.
Then again, I reasoned, I’d had the same feeling when I was sixteen and Mom found me out behind the garden shed with Todd Verbicki’s hands down my pants. I relented and Jenny and I made our way across the mossy grass to the spruce that had garnered my attention. We walked around it.
“Huh. Nothing,” I said, then Jenny was suddenly doing deep breathing exercises behind me.
“Aw, man,” she whispered hoarsely. “I think I’m gonna puke.”
I reluctantly turned and scanned the source of her nausea. My gaze landed on a grisly scene. At the foot of the next tree, a cat—or whatever was left of one—had been brutally eviscerated. Its corpse lay in the center of a blood-soaked pentagram that had been dug into the dirt.
“Let’s bolt,” I choked out.
“And it was just totally and completely gross!” Jenny announced, concluding her description of our escapade. The three of us—me, Jenny and her roommate—were huddled in their small apartment at the kitchen table over a plate of brownies.
“You really predicted it, Tabitha?” Lara asked, eyes wide from behind thick black-rimmed glasses.
“No.” I sighed, because now I’d have to correct all of Jenny’s exaggerations. “To start with, my car was not carjacked, it merely died over on Baldwin Street. Jen and I were waiting for a bus when the purse snatcher grabbed my bag. He was at least fifty and most likely a druggy, not a green beret set on revenge.” I rolled my eyes at Jen, who was biting into her fourth brownie. “But, yes, there was a cat that was cut up and it was humongously gross. I only had a bad feeling about what was behind the tree, I didn’t drop into a trancelike state and predict the second coming.”
Jenny harrumphed. “Nothing wrong with adding a bit of color to a story.”
Why would you need to make a horrible event sound even worse?
“Did you call the cops?” Lara asked.
Jenny and I looked at each other then back at Lara and shrugged.
“You should call someone, shouldn’t you?” She pushed. “The ASPCA? The groundskeeper for the cemetery?”
We shook our heads.
“What for?” Jenny asked. “They never catch purse snatchers and the cat’s dead—nothing will change that.”
“And it’s not like the Seattle PD is going to launch a door-to-door search for either my forty dollars or for some sicko who likes to hurt animals,” I put in.
“Yeah, but the pentagram.” Lara shook her head slowly from side to side. “That says bad shit, like satanic stuff or something.”
“Actually I think pentagrams are usually linked more to Wicca and witches, right?” Jenny asked.
Both turned and stared expectantly at me.
“What?” I demanded. “I don’t follow that stuff anymore, you know that! Anyway, mutilated animals…” I shuddered. “That sounds satanic to me.”
“If it’s the devil, then we’ll say a prayer,” Jenny commented sarcastically. “That doesn’t mean we need to get in his face.”
There was a pause while we each considered our own thoughts on the matter.
“So, where’s your car?” Lara asked, brushing brownie crumbs from her sweater.
“We towed it to Doug’s garage,” I replied.
“Your cousin, Doug?” Lara asked Jenny. “The one with no neck?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Jenny agreed.
Then, as if thinking of my 1995 Ford Escort summoned it to respond, my cell phone rang. It was the mechanic. The conversation was short and afterward I laid my head down on the table and moaned.
“Is she having another one of her visions?” Lara asked Jenny.
“Nah.” Jenny chewed another brownie. “Just an emotional meltdown.”
“My car,” I murmured against the cool pine table. “It’s going to cost almost eight hundred bucks to fix it.”
“Wow,” Jenny sympathized. “You could probably just buy another Escort for that price, right?”
I lifted my head to glare at her.
“Okay, maybe not one as nice as yours,” she conceded. “Guess you’ll be taking the bus for a while.”
“I hate the bus,” I whined. “Where am I going to get that kind of cash?”
Half an hour later we concluded that I could save up enough to pay for the repair if I gave up a few necessities like Starbucks, Vogue magazine and food for the next six months.
