Dead Eye Page 3

  The origin of the name Dead End was lost in the murky swamp waters of the past, but mostly people just assumed that our quirky little town was the dead end for anybody who had no place else to go. And right now, that apparently included an ex-soldier named Jack.

  When I turned onto the short dirt road that also served as my extended driveway, since mine was the only occupied house on it, I glanced in my rearview mirror to be sure Jack was still behind me. He was. I realized that I was oddly nervous about having him in my house. He seemed to take up so much space, almost as if he owned a room just by walking into it. Maybe it was the soldier thing. Or the tiger thing. But this twinge of butterflies in my stomach was ridiculous. I wasn’t sixteen years old anymore, and I wasn’t bringing a boy home to meet Aunt Ruby. Jack was my new business partner, whether either one of us liked it or not, and if he was sticking around Dead End to look into Jeremiah’s death, I was determined to be part of it.

  I parked the car neatly in the small gravel-covered space that served as my parking lot, instead of carelessly angling the car in as I usually did, so he had room for his bike. I was pretty good at lots of things, but parking had never been one of them. I didn’t have the right spatial sense or idea of distance, people told me. I blamed it on faulty rearview mirrors, personally, but that excuse had worn thin with my family and friends after I’d used it for every car and truck I’d ever driven.

  By the time I grabbed my bag and climbed out of the car, Jack was parking his bike next to me.

  “Nice house,” he said.

  My little house was small, and nearly a hundred years old, but it was all mine, and I tried to take care of it. I’d had it repainted a fresh white just two summers before, which nicely set off the deep blue storm shutters. I’d always thought it was crazy to live in Florida—hurricane central—without storm shutters, unless you wanted to end up buying plywood and bleach every fall like some kind of tourist.

  “Thank you. It’s mine,” I said, feeling that little rush of pride I had every time I thought about it. “Well, mine and the bank’s, but you know how that goes.”

  Jack shook his head. “No, actually, I don’t know. I’ve never owned a home. Never had a house payment or a car payment. Nothing to tie me down to one place.”

  “That sounds…lonely.”

  His eyes widened. “Usually people say that it sounds great. Or that it sounds like freedom.”

  I shrugged. “What do I know? Maybe it’s all three. I’ve lived here all my life. I like it. I like knowing my neighbors and being part of the community.”

  It hadn’t always been true, but it was now, and I wasn’t going to go into the childish yearnings of my teen years anyway.

  “Jeremiah was the same way,” Jack said. “He was always trying to get me to come home and stay for a while.”

  I led the way up my front steps to the porch and unlocked my door. “Why didn’t you? If that’s not too personal.”

  He sighed. “There was always too much to do. I was caught up in one battle after another after another. We fought back against the vampires who were trying to turn the country into some kind of vampirocracy. We fought back a demon invasion. I was there when Atlantis was attacked, and I helped out a little bit with that. I almost died.” He laughed, but not like he found something funny. More like he had a whole bunch of bitterness built up inside.

  “Atlantis. That’s so crazy. I still can hardly believe it’s real.” The lost continent wasn’t lost anymore. Apparently it had been hidden under the waters of the Bermuda Triangle for eleven thousand years under some kind of dome, and now there was an actual kingdom of Atlantis in the world. I’d seen news images of the Atlantean king, who’d married a woman from the US he’d met on his travels, apparently. From social worker to queen, as the tabloids liked to say. It had a nice ring to it.

  And my mind was wandering, again, to try to avoid thinking about Chantal. I took a deep breath and tried to focus.

  “Well. If it helps, Jeremiah was very proud of you. We knew you were some kind of rebel leader, fighting to keep people safe,” I said, almost reaching out to touch his hand before jerking mine back in horror.

  He noticed. Of course he noticed. He was polite enough not to mention it, though. Instead, he turned to sweep his gaze over my living room.

  “This is a great house inside too. Cozy. Why don’t you touch people?”

  I opened my mouth to thank him and then the second part of his comment struck me, and I blinked. “Oh, so you put people off guard with a compliment, and then go in with a zinger? Nice. Do they teach that to all the rebels?”

  I dropped my keys in the bowl next to the door and avoided looking at him.

  “No. Mostly we taught people which end of the stake was pointy,” he said dryly.

  I laughed, and it eased some of the tension between us. “Can I offer you a cold drink? Or some coffee?”

  “I don’t suppose you have any beer?” He followed me into the kitchen, which was one of my favorite rooms in the house. It was bright and sunny in the daytime, with big windows that looked out over my tiny lawn and, beyond that, a field of wild grasses. At this time of night, the back porch light cast the yard into shadows that would have taken on a far more ominous cast if Jack hadn’t been in the kitchen with me. There was something solid and safe about him—maybe he was just too big to mess with—that offered a measure of reassurance, and I didn’t mind it at all after what had happened.

  He sat down at my sturdy old wooden farm table, and I rummaged around in the back of the fridge until I found one of the two bottles of beer in there from the last time Uncle Mike had stopped by for a visit.

  “It’s Corona, is that okay?”

  “That’s fine, thanks.”

  My cell phone started to ring. Aunt Ruby. I declined the call. I wasn’t up to talking about Chantal yet, and I knew Belle would have spread the news all around town by now. Instead, I sent her a quick text so she wouldn’t worry.

  So terrible about Chantal. I’m okay, just need to sleep. Will stop by in the morning. Please tell everyone not to call me or stop by.

  Feeling vaguely guilty about being even mildly deceitful with my family wasn’t enough to make me want to deal with them tonight.

  “Aunt Ruby. Everybody wants to know all about it,” I told Jack.

  “They worry about you. It’s nice.”

  “Yeah, but it can get stifling sometimes,” I admitted, both to him and to myself. I’d never said that out loud before.

  I handed him the beer and excused myself to go clean up, but once I got to my room I didn’t exactly know what to do. I didn’t want to take a shower with a guest in the house, and it’s not like I’d gotten dirty or sweaty in the shop that day. I hadn’t touched Chantal, so I didn’t have any blood on myself. I stood in front of my sink for a long time, staring at my reflection in the mirror, trying not to let my mind roll the image of her dead body over and over again.

  In the end, I brushed my hair and put it back in its ponytail, washed my face and reapplied a little mascara and lip balm. Not that I was trying to dress up—I certainly wasn’t changing out of my jeans and my Dead End Pawn polo shirt—but maybe as a kind of shield to keep Jack from noticing how pale I was. I looked like the ghost I’d once seen in an antique shop, except without the hoop skirt, but there was no help for that. And this wasn’t a date, anyway.

  When I got back to the kitchen, Jack was still there, and he was petting the gray and white bundle of fur curled up in his lap.

  “Lou, get down and leave our guest alone,” I scolded.

  My cat opened one eye and stared at me, not moving a muscle.

  Jack grinned. “She seems to like it where she is. Her name is Lou?”

  “Short for Lieutenant Uhura,” I admitted, feeling like a giant dork. “I’m kind of a Trekkie.”

  Lou started to purr loudly, arching her back under Jack’s hand, and I stared at her in disbelief. She usually didn’t like people. I’d found her on my porch one rainy nig
ht, and we’d kept each other. But whatever had happened to her when she was a kitten, including whatever had mangled the tip of her tail, had made her aloof and wary of strangers.

  “Maybe it’s a cat thing,” I speculated, startling a laugh out of Jack.

  “So first I’m a bloodhound, and then I’m a cat whisperer? You don’t actually know much about tigers, do you?”

  “Orange and white stripes, long tails, and an excessive love for frosted cereal.” I pulled out the steaks that I’d been planning to grill the next night for me and Molly on our weekly “pig out and dish about our lack of a love life” Friday. “Are you up for grilling?”

  Jack gently pushed Lou off his lap and stood up and stretched. “Well, if you’re out of frosted cereal…”

  My mouth dried out a little bit, watching him stretch. He was just so well-proportioned. All the muscles were exactly where muscles were supposed to be, and those arms, and those shoulders…and I was totally standing there staring at him like an idiot.

  He smiled another one of those long, slow, dangerous smiles, which meant either he knew exactly the effect he had, or worse, he’d done it on purpose. Either one left me at a disadvantage.

  Well. I knew exactly how to nip that in the bud.

  “When I touch people, sometimes I know how they’re going to die,” I said calmly, pulling the salad fixings out of the fridge.

  Behind me, I heard his beer bottle clank against the table as if he’d set it down a little too hard.

  “You what?”

  I turned around and gave him my best calm, bland face. “You heard me. Here’s the lighter to start the grill.”

  He narrowed his eyes, but then my stomach rumbled again, startling both of us.

  “All right. I’ll grill these steaks, and then you’re going to tell me all about your ‘I see dead people’ issue. I have to admit, this is a new one, even for me.”

  “I don’t see dead people. I just—”

  “After dinner,” he said firmly. “You need to get something in your stomach before we talk about more death, in any form.”

  I just nodded and stood there until he went out the back door before I whispered a reply. “If you think it’s a new one for you, imagine how I felt.”

  Chapter Four

  It was a month after my eighteenth birthday when it happened the first time. I’d been working for Jeremiah for more than a year, learning the pawnshop business and becoming fascinated by it almost in spite of myself. There was something about the history that an object held that had called to me, even as a teenager. I’d still been young enough to squirm with embarrassment when a customer who was desperate to sell and in need of money had come into the shop, though. But Jeremiah had always dealt fairly and compassionately with everyone, and without even knowing it, the lessons he’d taught me just by being himself had sunk deep into my bones.

  In fact, it was my first day completely on my own in the shop when it happened. Jeremiah had taken a rare day off to go to Orlando to an antique show. I was working full-time that summer, saving money for college.

  She’d walked in just before lunchtime, and I would never forget anything about her. She was a tiny woman, maybe five feet tall and painfully thin, and on the far side of forty, I’d thought at the time. Later, I’d learned her real age. Her age, and her name, and the story of her far-too-short life—Annabelle Hannah Yorgenson. Her sister had called her Anna Banana Hannah when they were growing up. She was forty-two years old. She’d been married for seven years to a man who’d beaten her, badly, for at least six of them.

  And I’d shaken her hand and told her how she’d die, how her husband would smash her head in with a shovel.

  Annabelle had screamed and run away, which was a totally normal response for a fragile, frightened woman to have upon encountering a crazy teenager who was spouting dire pronouncements of her impending murder. The customer who’d walked in a few seconds later had described to the EMTs how he’d thought I was having an epileptic fit. I’d been on the floor, convulsing, with drool coming out of my mouth and pain pounding like lightning strikes in my brain. I still didn’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t been there—if he hadn’t called for help. I didn’t like to think about it anymore. I’d spent far too much time over the years thinking about it.

  It didn’t hurt as much these days when it happened, and I almost never fell on the floor. Practice made, if not perfect, then at least less painful.

  Jack walked in with the plate of grilled meat, and I realized I’d been standing at the sink washing the vegetables and staring off into space for a long time. I quickly threw together a salad, and then we set the table in a surprisingly comfortable silence, considering the day’s events and my revelations. I was surprised but pleased when he didn’t bring up the subject of my visions again. Jack pulled the pitcher of water and the salad dressing out of the fridge, and I put out the plates and silverware.

  “I only have paper napkins,” I apologized. “I didn’t expect company.”

  Jack gave me a funny look. “I’ve spent the past ten years sleeping in tents, caves, or worse. Do you think I expect cloth napkins? Or a butler, maybe?”

  I relaxed and smiled. “I can’t help it. Generations of southern women are dancing around in my DNA. It’s scary up in here. Any minute now, I’ll start whipping you up a pecan pie.”

  He looked hopeful. “I love pecan pie.”

  “Another time, maybe. I do make a mean pecan pie. There’s some apple left in the fridge, and I think I have some ice cream, so you won’t go without dessert.”

  Jack sighed. “This might be the best dinner I’ve had in months, Tess. But you really didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me. I could have found some food and slept in my truck again.”

  I paused in the middle of scooping salad onto my plate. “Why did you sleep in your truck? And when you say found some food…”

  “Like fast food,” he said, a wry look on his face. “Not like pouncing around the yard catching squirrels.”

  “Funny. Lou caught a bird for me once. She left it on the porch for me to discover and was quite proud of herself for days.”

  He forked one of the steaks onto his plate and handed me the platter. “She deserved to be proud. She was catching food for you, which means that she cares about you and wants to take care of you.”

  I glanced at my cat, who was curled up on her cushion underneath my tiny desk. “Really? I thought it was because she didn’t think I was a capable hunter.”

  “Well. That too.” He grinned, and this time the smile reached his eyes, which gleamed forest-green in his tanned face.

  I was caught off-guard again by how incredibly good-looking he was, and that was definitely something I didn’t need to think about, so instead I concentrated on my food for a while. I complimented him on the steaks being perfectly grilled, and he said nice things about the leftover potatoes au gratin I’d warmed in the microwave. Other than that, we didn’t talk much until our plates were clean and he’d topped off his dinner with two pieces of apple pie and the rest of the ice cream.

  I’d have to stock up on more Ben & Jerry’s before Molly came by.

  “That was really good pie, and a great dinner. Thank you,” he said, and I realized I’d been staring at my empty plate in silence for a while.

  “Thanks for grilling. I’ll get Jeremiah’s key for you so you can head over there and get some rest.”

  “Are you still trying to get rid of me?” Jack stood up and carried his dishes to the sink and then rolled up his sleeves. “Where’s the dish soap?”

  I blinked. There was something so completely bizarre about a shapeshifter standing in my kitchen, preparing to wash dishes, that for a minute I couldn’t actually think of how to answer him.

  He turned and looked at me. “Tess? Soap?”

  “No. I mean, yes, I have soap, but no to you doing the dishes. I have a dishwasher, see?” I pointed to the small but perfectly functional appliance under the counter n
ext to the sink. “It’s almost eleven o’clock at night. I think we should just go to bed.”

  Again with that dangerous smile. “Well, you did buy me dinner first,” he drawled.

  I flushed, and he frowned. “Sorry. I’m used to joking around, and bantering—”

  “I like banter,” I interrupted. “I’m just too tired for it right now.”

  He nodded. “Right. Sorry. Thanks again for dinner. If you have Jeremiah’s key handy, I’ll be on my way.”

  I dug around in my junk drawer until I found the key. It wasn’t the only spare key rattling around in there, but it was the only one with a tag on it, and I’d written J.S. on the little pink-and-white plastic oval.

  “J.S. works for you too, if you want to keep it,” I offered, holding it out by the very edge of the plastic. I’d learned through trial and error how to be careful about not accidentally touching anyone.

  “Like I said before, pink is totally my color,” he quipped, and then he took a sudden step forward and wrapped both of his hands completely around mine. “Why don’t we just get this over with?”

  This time, I didn’t fall down. I hadn’t done that in years. But it still hurt, and the jagged pain in my head almost drove me to my knees. Flashes of color; the scents of gunfire and blood. A crashing cacophony of shouting and screaming. Jack, in the middle of battle. The pain. Always the pain. That never changed.

  “Do you see how I’m going to die, Tess?” His eyes were dark pools of green, and I thought crazily that I could lean forward and fall into them.

  “No,” I gasped, wrenching my hands out of his. “I see that you already did.”

  Then I fell down.

  *

  An hour or so later, my cup of tea sat on the coffee table in front of me, ice cold, and I huddled under the faded blue and green afghan my great-grandmother had crocheted seventy or eighty years ago. Sometimes nothing but family-love-infused yarn would do.