LITMIR.BIZ

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bet this woman and Annie were friends. Maybe that’s why he was staying here instead of at a real hotel where they didn’t wake you up at the crack of dawn unless you personally asked for a wake-up call.

      The old house had been renovated so that each bedroom had its own bath, thank goodness. Lucky slammed his door and headed in the direction of the small bath that might’ve once been a closet—judging by the size. Shower, breakfast, Internet. And after he proved that Annie Lockhart was full of crap, he could brush her off with a clean conscience.

      Training a bunch of green recruits and testing Murphy’s newest toys was beginning to look damn good.

      Annie spent Tuesday morning at the Mercerville location of Annie’s Closet, delivering two hats, taking inventory and talking to the store manager about adding on new personnel for the busy holiday season. She didn’t let on that her life had been turned upside down in the past few days. With any luck, no one would ever have to know.

      She hadn’t had disturbing dreams last night, but whatever was happening to her hadn’t abated. As she looked around, she was all but assaulted with words and pictures that did not come from her own mind. If she concentrated, it all began to make sense. June, the manager, was preoccupied with her love life. A customer, someone Annie didn’t know, was thinking of lifting a small purse and walking out with it, but she was being too closely watched so she didn’t. She’d lift a different purse from a department store in Sevierville later this afternoon. Michelle, the newest employee, had dreams of owning a shop of her own one day, though she was really more interested in designing jewelry than hats and handbags. A woman picking up an order was thinking of her grocery list as she paid for her purchase. She was going to forget the milk.

      Annie did her best to dismiss the intrusive thoughts of others and concentrate on small, ordinary things, like paying the bills and deciding what should go in the new window display. Eventually the nagging little voices faded, and then they stopped. Still, she was afraid they’d start again, so she took care of her business and very gratefully left the store—and all those jarring thoughts—behind. Home had never felt so good as it did when she closed the door behind her and experienced a moment of pure, total silence.

      In the safety and silence of her own home, she had to ask herself the questions she most dreaded. What if this time the voices didn’t stop? It was possible that Grams had been wrong, and, practice or not, the ability was here to stay. She was so certain that catching the killer would end this, but what if Lucky couldn’t find the killer, or even worse, what if as soon as this murderer was caught, another round of violent dreams began?

      What if the dreams stopped, but the newly rejuvenated psychic ability remained? Would she have to hide away for the rest of her life, keeping a distance between herself and others because she never knew when she might be assaulted by images and thoughts and secrets that were not her own?

      As she had at the store, Annie buried herself in minute details that seemed to wipe away the thoughts she didn’t need or want. She designed a new bag, organized the supplies that were crowding her out of her own great room, and balanced the checkbook. It was a pleasant and ordinary day. She really, really liked ordinary.

      She expected Lucky to arrive at the cabin by two, and at 1:50 she heard his car pull into the driveway. As the car door slammed with excessive force, she held her breath and listened to the crisp steps on her front porch grow closer and louder.

      He wasn’t happy.

      Annie waited for him to knock, and she wasn’t surprised by the force of his knuckles on her front door. He would want explanations, logical explanations, and she didn’t have any. She knew what she knew. There was no logic in it.

      The confrontation was inevitable. She garnered her courage and opened the door to reveal an angry, tense, confused Lucky Santana.

      He walked past her, shaking a notebook, which was now filled with loose sheets of paper that stuck out at all angles.

      “How did you do it? How did you know this case stunk to high heaven?”

      “Hello?” she said with a touch of sarcasm as she closed the door. “How are you? Lovely weather we’re having.”

      He turned and glared at her, and looking into those vibrant eyes caused what felt like an electrical jolt to pass through her body.

      “This isn’t a social call,” Lucky said with a decided lack of patience. “This is business. If you want chitchat, walk down the hill and visit with your perky friend Kristie.”

      He said “perky” as if it were an insult.

      “There’s no reason to make this unpleasant,” Annie argued, even though there was nothing pleasant about this situation. Her knees wobbled a little, and that made her glad she was wearing a long, loose skirt. Maybe Lucky couldn’t see her reaction. She crossed the room to take a chair before her knees gave out entirely. “Okay, everything about this is unpleasant. You know, I was half hoping that you’d come by and tell me I was wrong about everything. I’d be very happy to write this off as a nervous breakdown brought on by stress, but that’s not the case, is it?” She lifted her head to look him in the eye.

      “I don’t have access to case files—not yet—but I did talk to an overly chatty deputy, and just checking the stories on the Internet and looking through newspapers at the library gave me a very clear picture of a piss-poor investigation and a lot of angry relatives who want answers they haven’t gotten.” A muscle in his taut jaw twitched. “There was no reason for Huff to murder his wife and then himself. None. From everything I’ve found, it looks like Jenna Huff was a dedicated, loving wife. Trey Huff was a simple enough guy who was well on his way to starting his own furniture refinishing business. He’d put a deposit down on a building, and had bought most of the supplies he needed to get started. The only explanation for a violent and unexpected murder/suicide is that Trey had a nervous breakdown, and that’s extremely unlikely.”

      “I told you he didn’t do it,” she said. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

      Again, that muscle in Lucky’s jaw twitched. The man needed to relax in the worst way. “All of this hinges on a dream. That’s not the way it works.” He was desperate for logical answers. “I work for you, so you can tell me anything and everything without fear of reprisal. Did you talk to someone who saw something they shouldn’t? Do you know who did this, and you’re afraid to tell me or anyone else how you know? Give me something I can work with, Annie. Tell me the truth.”

      “I’ve never told you anything but the truth.”

      Frustration shone through, even though he tried to appear calm and reasonable. “At the very least, let me take this to the sheriff.”

      Ignoring the lurch of her heart, Annie gestured for Lucky to sit down, and after a moment of hesitation he did. He tossed his notebook to an end table and gripped the bridge of his nose between two fingers as he closed his eyes and reached for the calm and patience he wished to possess. Neither came naturally to him.

      He wasn’t going to like what she had to say, but he needed to hear it.

      “Five years ago, when I lived in Nashville, I had a dream about a murder. The dream was very much like the ones I’ve been having lately. Violent, vivid, all too real.” She told him the details, as quickly and painlessly as she could. She spared him the gory details of the dreams themselves. “A woman was killed, supposedly during a break-in at her apartment. It was her boyfriend. Thanks to the dreams I knew it was him, without a single doubt, so I went to the police. They didn’t believe me, of course, but when it turned out I was right about some of the details…” She shrugged her shoulders, trying to make it appear that the details didn’t matter, when in fact they mattered very much. “I don’t want to relive that time, not even to tell you how they treated me, how I was questioned, what it felt like to believe that I was going to end up in prison for a crime I didn’t commit because I tried to help. I can’t go to the sheriff with this, and neither can you. They won’t believe either of us.”

      Lucky took a deep breath. He wanted to get out of here so badly. She hated

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