LITMIR.BIZ

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I’m sorry.”

      “She knows.”

      “I thought the purple teddy was for…”

      “It wasn’t, Jess. It was for you.”

      “I know that now,” he snapped. “I read it in her diary.”

      Once again she met his wide, wild eyes, and her body tightened in reaction. She placed the gun on the counter behind her, then slowly reached inside the useful pocket in the front of her apron where she typically kept squeeze bottles filled with caramel.

      Before she could get her hand free of the pocket, he grabbed her. His fingers wrapped around her upper arms, squeezing them painfully. “You have to tell her something for me. You have to tell her I didn’t mean it.”

      “You can tell her yourself,” she replied calmly, tugging gently to extract her hand from the apron. “You’ve always had the ability. Now, I have to make some calls. I’m very sorry. This isn’t going to hurt. Much.”

      His body jerked abruptly and for a second the grip on her arms tightened even more, causing her to wince. Then he fell lifelessly to the ground.

      Large Latte Light Foam moved to stand over the prostrate man. “What did you do to him?”

      Cass held up a strange-looking weapon. “It’s a stun gun. It gave him a jolt, that’s all. Susie, call 911.”

      “You’re hurt,” the man said, raising his hand with the book in it, probably for the first time realizing he still held it, and pointing at her nose.

      Cass reached for her face, and when she pulled her hand back she saw the blood on her fingers. Inwardly, she cursed. A result of the connection. Jess’s wife had been more intense than Susie’s mom. She dug out a tissue from her apron pocket and held it against her nostrils to stem the flow.

      “It’s just a bloody nose. I get them.”

      Susie was still staring at the body. “Oh, my God, that was so scary and weird and…”

      “911, now!” Cass barked. She didn’t have time for hysterics. There was no way of knowing how long the man would stay down.

      “And tell the dispatcher he’ll need to call Homicide,” she instructed. “There’s been a murder.”

      The couple from the back had joined the group. The girl clung to her boyfriend as they both stared down at Jess, whose right leg twitched uncontrollably.

      “I don’t get it,” the boyfriend said. “What was that all about? What did he want? Who are you?

      “I work here,” Cass said.

      Large Latte Light Foam snorted. “Why did you want her to tell the cops that we needed a homicide detective if he’s not dead?”

      “Because he killed his wife.”

      “You can’t know that,” the girlfriend said, muffled against her boyfriend’s chest. “Right? She’s freaking me out, Ted.”

      “Sorry,” Cass apologized to the girl. But it wasn’t as if she could help it, and she wasn’t one to hold back the truth, no matter how bizarre it was.

      “How?” Large Latte Light Foam wanted to know, his tone clipped, his face a picture of suspicion. It was an expression Cass was used to. “How do you know he did it? He didn’t say he did it.”

      “No, he didn’t,” Cass agreed calmly. “But she did.”

      Chapter 2

      “Cass!”

      Cass glanced up at the sound of her name and scowled.

      “Dougie, you better have a really good reason for this,” she warned.

      She’d been summoned down to police headquarters, located in Center City, Philadelphia, about a half hour ago. It was past one in the morning, and after the night she’d already had she was beyond exhausted.

      And the lobby’s hardwood bench was killing her ass.

      But Dougie never called unless it was important. When she’d walked into her apartment, the phone in the kitchen had been ringing. Despite the strangeness of the hour, and the likelihood that the call was important, she’d let the machine pick it up. When she’d heard Dougie’s plaintive voice calling to her from the machine, she’d groaned, knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist him.

      Once, she’d thought it was his big brown eyes that were irresistible, but now she knew it was his voice. Half man’s, half boy’s, his voice compelled every woman within earshot to want to either save him or cook for him.

      Since she’d been pumped up from the adrenaline rush of almost being shot, and since the possibility of falling asleep had seemed remote, Cass had buckled and returned his call.

      Now her butt was numb, the adrenaline high was completely over, and all she could think about was how she would have absolutely no problem getting to sleep. Instead, she was at police headquarters, a place, she had learned from experience, where nothing good ever happened.

      Detective Doug Brody stopped and checked over his shoulder for any other cops who might be lingering in the area, then shook his finger at her, accompanied by a stern look. “How many times have I told you not to call me Dougie?”

      “I can’t help it. It’s your name.”

      “Doug. Doug is my name. Dougie is what my mother calls me.”

      Cass smiled, knowing he truly didn’t mind because Dougie was also what his wife used to call him. Then she turned her smile into a grimace.

      “Don’t mess with me tonight, Detective. I’m crabby and tired. Did you hear about what happened at the coffeehouse?”

      “Yep.”

      “Then you know we were all stuck there for almost two hours giving our statements.”

      “Yep.”

      “I had just gotten home when the phone rang,” she elaborated. Dougie should understand the nuances of a guilt trip when it was being given. His mother was a professional at it.

      “I know that, too,” he said.

      “What are you? Psychic?”

      “Cute.” He smirked. “Real cute. No, I heard about the husband and what happened, which was what made me think of you for this in the first place. I called one of the officers, hoping he would bring you here directly, but you had already left.”

      “Did he make a statement?” Cass wanted to know. “Jess. Did he tell you where he…put her?”

      “Yeah. I wasn’t in the room, but I got it from Steve. He broke down and confessed to the whole thing before Steve even started questioning him. They sent a team out to the house. Turns out he buried her in the basement.”

      Cass wrapped her hands around either arm. How sad for both of them. Maggie—that had been her name—had loved her husband. But he’d been too wrapped up in jealousy, pride and ego. He claimed he’d come to Cass for help, but she believed he wanted to be caught. Maggie’s message had been very clear about stopping him, and the dead didn’t lie in her room.

      The room itself was nothing more than a mental image she constructed and projected to help her deal with her gift.

      As a child Cass had been assaulted by images and voices that accompanied a strange burst of pain that she couldn’t predict. The inability at first to understand what was happening to her, then to control it, had nearly driven her mad.

      Over time, with the help of others who understood her mental anguish, she learned to recognize the precursors of contact: the tingling sensation on the back of her neck, sometimes a subtle change in the feel of the air around her. Once Cass was able to determine when contact was about to happen, she could set the imaginary room as a stage for the dead, with them

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