Текст книги "Ghost Seer"

Автор книги: Robin D. Owens

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Flipping through the books, she saw accounts of ghosts of Capitol Hill and Cheesman Park. The ones on Capitol Hill were on the far side of the governmental buildings, and not close in distance.

There were no good maps, and the circuit she traced quickly would take hours to walk, and the way things were, she still didn’t want to drive.

The docent delivered her books and made a couple of comments about Clare’s area of study changing from legends of the West to ghosts of the West. Clare’s reply felt strained.

Again she scanned the contents of the fattest book. No maps at all, more of a history of Denver than a lot of ghost stories. She made a note of it, then set it aside.

When she opened the second book to a flyleaf that had a map of LoDo, she whispered, “I’ve struck gold!”

She really should have anticipated that LoDo would have a lot of ghosts, since it was logical that Denver’s earliest settlements—Auraria and Denver—would have the most ghosts or hauntings or supernatural activity or whatever in the city, just for being around so long.

Finally she pulled out a chair and sat. She grimaced as she made notes. Yes, most of the “confirmed sightings” were smack-dab in what she sensed was her primary time period for feeling them, 1850 to 1900.

If one believed in ghosts.

But walking LoDo was a definite place to start. She could put her plan into immediate action, take the free mall bus down to the terminus and walk. As soon as she had a list of several hideous places that should give her the most “evidence,” she copied the map twice and annotated one copy, stuck it in the outside pocket of her purse, then rose and stepped back and took a pic of it in its entirety with her phone, then in sections.

Done! She glanced at her watch. And in good time, too!

She was down and stepping out of the building before she remembered to call Mrs. Flinton and tell her she’d be taking the bus from one end of the mall to the other—nearly slower than walking, but apparitions didn’t inflict themselves on her nearly as much when on the bus.

Forcing herself to pat Enzo on the head, keeping her head up and shoulders straight, she strode away, hopefully not to her doom, but if it was, she didn’t think she’d survive anyway, and that might just be a relief.

SEVENTEEN

ZACH PULLED BACK into the drive and Clare’s car was still there, which puzzled him. Maybe the old ladies had asked her to dinner.

Her and the ghost dog, Enzo. Crazy.

He’d avoid all of them.

The interview hadn’t gone well. Mrs. Flinton had been right about the housekeeper living to a very ripe old age . . . but her memory hadn’t been great, and the young woman relative—who’d flirted with him and irritated him more since she was blond, blue-eyed, perky, and obvious—hadn’t had any leads for him, either. She stated she’d e-mail her middle-aged parents, who might be able to give him more information about people who might have worked in the household when it dissolved.

Meanwhile, thinking of Clare had gotten him thinking about money, whether Mrs. Flinton had any sort of financial records about her old home. Too bad Zach couldn’t trust Clare to look at something like that. He hated messing with financial records himself, and if Rickman Security had a financial guy, Zach thought that person would be busy with more pressing cases.

This time he made little noise pulling up the circular drive close to his side door, opening his car door, nearly sneaking in. He changed into T-shirt and jeans, settled on the couch with the new laptop that was the property of Rickman Security, and began typing up his notes.

No more than a couple of minutes later, a hard rapping came at the door of his apartment to the rest of the house. Muttering a curse, Zach stood, took his cane, and walked slowly to the door. He opened it to see Mrs. Flinton staring at him with an expression that told him in no uncertain terms that he’d disappointed her.

“Clare Cermak has decided to face her fears and is going to walk in LoDo . . . where there are quite a massive number of unhappy ghosts,” Mrs. Flinton stated. “Ghosts of the Chinese who lost their lives in the race riot of Hop Alley in 1880, ghosts of despairing and desperate women who were prostitutes in the red-light district, including three who were strangled by a serial killer in 1894.”

Zach stared at her. “You know a lot,” he muttered.

Her lips compressed into a thin line before she said, “I know the ghosts of Denver, Zach.” A heavy silence. “Since I believe in them.”

He raised his brows. “And you think I should.”

“I think you have a gift—”

“No.”

She inclined her head.

“Are you going to throw me out?” he asked, a pang zipping to his gut. He liked this place. He liked her and Mrs. Magee. He loved the food.

Her head tilted and expression softened. “Not right now. Especially not if you help Clare.”

Zach rubbed his face. “What do you want me to do?”

“Whether you believe in ghosts or not,” Mrs. Flinton said crisply, “you can see that Clare is unwell and should not be left alone to wander by herself.”

“I guess.”

Mrs. Flinton’s phone trilled in her pocket. She pulled it out, glanced at the caller, and answered. “Clare, dear. Thank you for calling like I asked.” The warmth that had been lacking in her voice as she’d talked with him infused her tones. “You’re still continuing with your plan?” Mrs. Flinton thumbed the volume up and held it out so Zach could listen.

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Flinton,” Clare said.

Something tightened inside him—the ache of lost dreams, of a potential that would never be fulfilled.

“I still strongly advise against this, Clare,” Mrs. Flinton said with that steel she’d used on Zach.

“I’m sorry you disagree with my plan, Mrs. Flinton, but I am determined to figure this all out. I’m either seeing ghosts or going crazy.” An unamused chuckle. “Or both.”

“My dear—”

“I’m leaving the library now. The only map I found was for ghosts of LoDo, so I’ll be going there, taking the mall shuttle down to the LoDo terminal at Market.”

“Market Street is a main thoroughfare of ghosts,” Mrs. Flinton said.

“I know that, now.” Another, higher chuckle from Clare roused Zach’s cop instincts that something definitely wasn’t right.

“I’m sending Zach after you. Why don’t you find a place to wait for him?” Mrs. Flinton pointed to his outside door and made pushing motions.

Zach hesitated.

“That’s completely unnecessary, Mrs. Flinton; please, don’t,” Clare said.

“Clare needs your help. Are you going to let her, and me, down?” Mrs. Flinton demanded of Zach in a low voice.

“What did you say?” Clare asked.

Mrs. Flinton glared and pointed to the door again. Stepping high with his left leg, with minimal use of his cane, Zach crossed to the door and opened it. Mrs. Flinton followed.

The old woman had stabbed him right in one of his most tender and sore spots. It hadn’t been so very long ago that he’d sworn to serve and protect. He believed in that, and the alarm buzzing in the back of his brain told him Clare needed the protection . . . and Mrs. Flinton the service.

He marched to his car door, got in, and set his cane in the passenger seat footwell, listening to Mrs. Flinton soothe.

“The ghosts crowd around one on Market,” Mrs. Flinton said. “It’s better if you walk slowly.” She rolled her hand for him to get a move on, but, hell, he didn’t know where the damn bus terminal was, wait, Market and Sixteenth—but he didn’t know the best, the fastest way to get there, so he had to jab at the GPS unit.

“Promise me you will walk very slowly and listen to Enzo!” Mrs. Flinton said.

“Oh, all right. I promise.”

And Zach drove off, clenching his jaw and telling himself he was a damn fool. As he turned between the stone pillars of the drive he saw the shadows, and then the birds: nine. Nine for hell.

The hair rose all along his body, his neck, his arms. And, damn it, Zach had so rarely seen nine that he didn’t know what that meant. Except Clare was in trouble.

Too many damn crows in Denver.

 • • •

Mrs. Flinton was correct about the ghosts crowding. The instant Clare stepped off the bus under the Denver International Airport–like tent covering, specters pressed around her—visions?—but she felt the tension of them near.

They weren’t the kind of images she’d become accustomed to—shadowy people in old-fashioned dress. No. Not at all.

Images of tattered, ragged, sometimes decomposing bodies. People charred with burns, with fatal wounds, crushed skulls and broken limbs . . . Some looked like decomposing bodies. She put her hand to her throat and swallowed hard.

Was fear, or something else, making them look the way they did? Had her mind really, truly, finally cracked?

CLARE! shouted Enzo. COME WITH ME! She could swear she could feel the pull of his teeth on her skirt, drawing her . . . through the crowd of ghosts muttering that sounded like stormy ocean surf in her ears, rushing so loud she couldn’t even hear the fast throb of her heart.

She wove in and out of real and imaginary people, managed to cross behind another bus, found herself panting on the other side of the street, walking a full block as she coped with the gruesome and fantastic. She thought she cried, felt wetness on her cheeks but it wasn’t cloudy or raining.

Gasping, she stopped, fumbled her sweater buttons undone, tied the thing around her waist. Didn’t care how she looked. Except she hoped she didn’t seem like someone on drugs or mentally ill.

Even. If. She. Was. Crazy.

Clare, Clare, are you all right? Enzo demanded.

Her dried lips cracked. “No.”

BREATHE. Count with me. Breathe in to seven and out to seven, the Peaceful Breath! ONE! Two!

And she did, and the too-bright glare outlining the shadow people disappeared a little, and the . . . the . . . images . . . turned more . . . normal. And she got a grip on herself and realized she’d gone straight in the opposite direction than what she’d anticipated.

Slowly, slowly, she looked around—with double vision. Old building faces replaced those more modern, brick with wooden porches and narrower fronts. The street sign didn’t read Market, or the name before that, Holladay—a man who’d been a main person in Jack Slade’s life—but the very first name, McGaa. She continued to steady her breathing.

Her first normal thought was it was a good thing she hadn’t driven.

The second was to wonder if that was really Zach Slade coming toward her.

Sure it was. Mrs. Flinton had betrayed Clare.

Now she’d be seen to be completely bonkers by a man she admired and whom she’d wanted as a lover. No matter the fortune, this terrible “gift”—more like a curse—had already cost her more than she’d have been willing to pay for the damn money. Cost her her former life. Cost her a man she might have been able to have a relationship with.

“Clare!” He was there and had an arm around her waist, and she couldn’t stop trembling. Goddammit.

At least the people looking at her askance, a couple holding their cell phones like they were about to call 911, appeared steadied by Zach’s presence, his handling of her. Obviously a man in charge.

“Okay, Clare, let’s just move out of the pedestrian traffic, all right?”

She looked at him with those hazel eyes that now seemed to have little gold glints he hadn’t noticed before. Once more she seemed too pale under the tan of her skin, but when he eased her away from the street, she followed docilely.

“Ghosts,” she murmured, so low that he could barely hear, though he bent his head. “All around. Even the buildings look different.” She continued to shiver within the circle of his arm.

They stopped in the cubbyhole doorway of a café, just outside the swing of the red door.

He stepped back, ready to drop his arm, but paused as he felt a tug on his pant leg. He glanced down . . . and saw a touch of see-through white something. If he squinted it might look like a dog. A Lab. A wave of cold crashed through him.

“Clare?” he asked.

She followed his gaze down. “That’s Enzo.”

Zach heard a bark. “I’m not believing this.”

Clare shrugged despairingly. “Welcome to my world.”

His eyes focused over her shoulder at the EZ Loan Check Cashing place across the street. A white haze hung around it. He noted the car with the motor running parked in a loading zone outside the tinted-glass storefront. A nervous guy sat in the driver’s seat.

Zach’s vision sharpened and all his instincts alarmed. He’d heard on the news that there’d been a series of robberies targeting check cashing services . . . and the vehicle looked right.

A white haze overshadowed the front window, appearing like an old-fashioned brick building with a LAND OFFICE sign. Zach blinked. The white figure of a cowboy coalesced and waved his hat in long swoops. Robbery! Going on now! The hollow words echoed in Zach’s head.

Zach dropped his arm from Clare’s waist. The phantom cowpoke vanished. So did the white mist in front of the building. The car and twitchy driver remained, all too vivid. Real.

He opened the café door and pushed Clare into the little place. “Go to the back of the building. Call 911. Tell them there’s an incident at the EZ Loan.”

Her gaze flew to his. She turned to look and he grabbed her. She blinked. “A cowboy,” she said faintly. “He’s yelling that there’s a robbery in progress.”

Zach’s teeth gritted. “Maybe. Do as I say.”

“All right.” She fumbled at her purse, took out her cell, punched in a number. “Yes, the EZ Loan.” She gave the address. Glancing at him, her eyes still wide, she said, “They’re on their way.” She stared across the street. “But robbers have been targeting check cashing stores in the suburbs,” she whispered.

“Yeah, they’ve gotten away,” Zach said, “but they’re downtown today; their mistake.” He opened the door and strode with what he hoped was casual, limping quickness . . . a man in a hurry . . . across the street to the EZ Loan.

Heart pounding, Clare continued to watch Zach through the full-length windows as she faded back past the tables to the doorway leading to the restroom.

No longer than a minute after Zach had gone into the EZ Loan did sirens wail, and then shots erupted along with screams. The car in front of the building gunned and jerked into traffic, the front end promptly hit by an SUV in a tearing crash of torn metal.

“Hey!” The driver of the SUV slammed out of his vehicle. But the other driver was out and running.

Café patrons pressed to the glass windows, but Clare hung back. More shots, and police cars coming down the one-way street both ways; officers poured out of the cars and proceeded carefully to the building.

Clare gasped and gasped.

Zach is all right, Enzo said, as he zoomed into the café through the red street door. She hadn’t seen him leave. Dropping into an empty seat at a tiny table, she had to have confirmation. “He’s all right?”

Enzo nodded. Zach had already taken two down but the third got really scared, especially when he heard sirens, and shot, BANG. Then Zach got him, too. No one is hurt. Zach really uses his cane well.

“Oh.”

“Some cops are going in,” reported one of the diners near the windows. “And the rest are handling traffic and stuff. Looks like whatever happened is over with.”

Clare stood up and slipped from the café, though she dearly wanted some coffee, and she’d entered the establishment and stayed safe and had purchased nothing; that wasn’t fair. Well, she’d come back some other time.

She moved among the crowd on the sidewalk just enough to get a good view. A few minutes later, policemen came out hauling the suspects, and Zach and another officer exited.

He looked . . . right. Where he should be, doing what he should do, his lean face interested and animated. Back at work at his old job.

And Clare felt separated from him by more than people and cars and the street. He was back in his element and for better or worse—no doubt worse—she’d stepped over into the crazy and illogical side of life.

A ghost from the past had warned of something going on in the present. In real life. She couldn’t ignore that anymore.

Thinking of which, the ghost materialized right before her, right now! Then collapsed at her feet. She squatted down, forgetting and putting her hand on his icy chest.

He gave her a lopsided smile. I didn’t die here, not really. But I was bound here by Those Who Be, bound ’cuz of my bad nature.

She shouldn’t be looking at those eyes, eyes already dead, black eyes fading, fading to light brown as the whole world turned to sepia tones. The rest of him thinned; his chest went in with a sigh, then vanished as he said, I’m glad to be going on along, now. Thankee.

And he was gone, completely. She blinked and the browns and beiges vanished. Had she seen him well enough to lock him in her memory, maybe be able to discover who he might have been? No. She shook her head. Her hand dropped to the warm sidewalk, and slowly she stood, almost hearing her bones creak as she rose.

Waiting for you. Enzo’s mind-voice sounded scary and deep and she didn’t dare look at him, though she felt him beside her.

She didn’t want to ask the question, but the words formed on her lips anyway, dropped quietly under the noise around her to ghost dog ears. “Waiting for me?”

There are always incidents to prod the reluctant. Not the robbery. That was not fated. But an energetic, perhaps violent incident that would trigger a bound and waiting ghost, yes.

A little too much weird-ghost-logic-rules for Clare to wrap her head around, though she strained to grasp at wispy concepts while Enzo paused.

You could do as your great-great-uncle Orun did: Ignore this incident. When Enzo “spoke” next, his tone sounded as clinical as one of the doctors she’d visited. Though I don’t know that you will last long enough for another incident or two. Your gift must be very strong for you to deteriorate so fast.

Clare flattened herself against the building, one of the tall wooden beams that separated the windows. Wonderfully warm on her back.

Her ears rang and colors whirled about her in bright smears, and she knew that despite thinking she’d been forced into believing in ghosts and accepting her gift, this was truly the moment of truth. She had to consciously accept the logic-illogic of her psychic gift and ghosts. She had to give in, surrender to her new “reality.”

She had to decide that she had a gift, turn her back on the past when she wasn’t so cursed, and face the future as a . . . psychic. Or die.

Now her eyes were too dry to produce tears.

Choose, Clare. Enzo’s words boomed in her mind as if a bell tolled, being amplified and funneled down all the streets of Denver to her.

EIGHTEEN

HER BREATH CAME raggedly and she thought her heart just might give out in the next minute.

Lips numb, she said, “I believe in ghosts. I have a psychic gift.”

Would she have to clap her hands?

Enzo snorted as if he heard her, sat on her feet with a coolness like a breeze instead of like a melting ice cube, and looked up with a wrinkled doggie face. We will be FINE.

Clare hoped so.

Then the crowd parted again and she looked up to see Zach across the street, the man next to him gesturing to the open door of the back of a police car. Zach stared at her with an inscrutable expression.

Definitely on opposite sides of the reality line now.

He shook his head a little at her.

So he hadn’t mixed her up in this, mentioned her name to the police. Such a good man. She dipped her chin in response and turned back to walk to the mall bus terminal. She’d take it to one of the stops close to a hotel with taxi service straight home. She didn’t have the energy to deal with Mrs. Flinton. She’d call and have someone pick up her car and drive it to her place.

She didn’t look back but knew it was over between her and Zach.

The ghosts she met along the way—fully dressed and looking normal again—acknowledged her, murmuring in her mind.

She murmured back.

 • • •

By the time Clare returned home, the news feeds had picked up the EZ Loan Check Cashing robbery “thwarted by an ex–deputy sheriff from Montana, currently on staff of Rickman Security and Investigations.”

She listened to the television, but the sound bites didn’t have any information she didn’t know except the names of those apprehended, including the man who’d tried to escape on foot.

Her focus now was entirely on herself and her still-felt-problematic future.

One good thing—her real estate agent had called and set up a viewing of the house Clare wanted for the next morning. Just the thought of a new house, one with air-conditioning unlike this small rectangular hot box, had Clare sniffling. For the first time in a week she felt the temperature.

She opened both doors and windows for cross-ventilation and turned on the window and ceiling fans.

Maybe she could move on the other house rapidly, buy the thing.

She settled in her one comfortable chair and pulled out her tablet computer, looked again at the pics she’d taken just hours ago when she was . . . dying? . . . and yet trying to finesse having the money without the gift? With a sigh she thought for the umpteenth time that if she’d been given a choice, she would have chosen no money and no gift.

Instead she got the option of money and gift or death. Craziness might still loom large; hadn’t her great-aunt Sandra said something about that? Not that Clare wanted to contemplate the fact—facts! rules! with regard to this weird stuff? Ha, ha, ha—she didn’t want to consider the fact that she might still be in danger of losing her mind. Much nicer to stare at photos of a two-point-five-million-dollar home.

Enzo came over and put his head on her thigh. The ghost dog was still cold, but tolerable. The chill didn’t go straight to her bones and make them ache like just that morning.

His eyes were dark but didn’t hold that more-than-dog otherworldliness that creeped her out. I am glad you are staying here with me, Clare, and that you are not dying like your great-great-uncle Orun.

That had her stirring a little, but did she dare attract the notice of the . . . spirit, the Scary Specter . . . that sometimes inhabited Enzo. Maybe. “What do you know about Orun? He must have been long gone before you were a live puppy.”

Enzo rubbed his chin on her leg, rucking her dress up a little. Sandra spoke about him, and she played with the box toy like you have—he tried to swipe his phantom nose on her tablet and she jerked it aside—that showed people’s names and lines. The dog trotted over to the box that held the video disks and nosed in it . . . and one levitated upward.

Clare yelped, shoved her tablet off her lap, and lunged toward the box, grabbing a disk. “Don’t do that. No moving solid objects! How can you do that, anyway?”

You have a lot of psi power, Clare. I can borrow it when you aren’t using it.

She stared, mouth down, panting breaths. “But . . . but you are a ghost, not material.”

Power is power.

Clare raised her hands to run her fingers through her hair and maybe massage her scalp, since her poor head hurt inside and out, and clunked the disk against her face. When she looked at it, she saw it was a genealogical program.

Her heart bumped in her chest. Yes, of course, for research—both on her family and with the ghosts—the software could be invaluable, and something she could understand. Facts.

Abandoning her tablet, she went to the closet in her small office, where her secondary laptop sat with a thin layer of dust on a shelf. It was old and sturdy enough to have a video player.

There are papers, Enzo said, hopping up and down by one of the boxes.

She returned to the box and saw a brown paper portfolio nearly the same color as the cardboard. Opening it up, she saw two pockets; in one was handwritten notes, and the other had printouts.

A family tree!

Back at her desk, she looked at the family tree, all the way back to Bohemia and the generations there, then returned to the later generations, tracing the chart with her right index finger. Someone had emphasized certain names in deep purple: Orun, Amos, Sandra, Clare; at the next colorful name her breath just squeezed out in a whoosh.

“Ah, ah, ah.” She tried, but breathing was hard. Darkness edged her vision; pinpricks of black floated before her eyes.

She felt a thump against her back, hissed out the last of her air as Enzo leapt through her, head and shoulders appearing above the desk, then sinking.

“Eeeee!” She sucked in a breath on a long, shocked squeak.

Her chair and desk began a slow room-spin as if she were drunk.

BREATHE! Enzo shouted. Count with me to seven.

She did. Her breathing and pulse steadied; her chair stopped midswoop, then righted.

“Dora,” she squeaked when she had breath. “My niece Dora—” She couldn’t say the words.

But Enzo was there nodding at her. Yes, if you had not believed, the gift would have gone to her.

“She’s only nine!”

A ripple of a shrug went down Enzo’s back. It’s a family gift, it stays in the family. His head tilted. I’m going in the backyard to play. You and Sandra are no fun when you are on the big toys. Not even anything to see but words, words, words. His tail slapped against her arm and he took off for the back door and the enclosed yard.

Clare didn’t call him back.

Now she could stab her fingers in her hair, and, of course, the more she did, the more she ruined the smooth sleekness, and it stood out from her head and the locks curled against her face and neck.

“Dora lives in Williamsburg, Virginia,” Clare said aloud, not even pretending now that she was talking to anyone—Enzo, any ghost that might traipse through her house; she was talking to herself. She’d never approved of that—it showed a disordered mind—but she continued to whisper, “Dora likes living in Williamsburg, likes colonial history.”

Clare had been tired but wired—body sagging with weariness, mind zipping around at a million miles a minute. Now she propped her elbows on the desk and sank her head in her hands, staring down.

Another reason she couldn’t opt out. She loved energetic, optimistic, slightly nerdy little Dora. A girl who’d grow into a strong, vibrant woman.

If she didn’t have some stupid family psychic gift thrust upon her at the tender age of nine.

Sweat coated Clare’s body. Her light sundress stuck to her, the ceiling fan drying it with cool sweeps that she still didn’t appreciate. She’d been so cold for this entire week that she’d fought her gift that she didn’t think she’d ever like winter again—and Denver had cold winters; perhaps she should move . . . Hawaii?

Enzo growled. He was back. You should stay here. Your gift is formed by your location. THIS CITY, this STATE is where you belong. We belong.

More damned rules.

“Wha—what happens if I don’t stay?”

His expression became disapproving. You’ll still encounter ghosts, but they will be easier to control if they are ghosts you understand. He smiled and she thought it was genuine; she didn’t like the often shifting from cute dog to Scary Specter. Like cowboys, and gunfighters and miners and ranchers and railway men and pioneer women . . .

“Uh.” She rubbed her head, feeling as if each strand of her hair were bursting out of the coating of taming conditioner, turning into the uncontrolled curls she’d fought all her life. Again she felt tears rising under her eyes, prickling. Tears and pity for herself. Wah, wah, wah. Too much wallowing now, get over it.

Granted, she wasn’t in the best physical or emotional shape, so it was easy to cry self-pitying tears, but she would not give in again. She had more spine than that. She straightened said spine.

Enzo licked her hand. When she stared down at him, he had his own soulful doggie eyes. I love you, Clare.

Swallowing, she stroked him; it still seemed like plunging her hand into ice cubes. One scritch of the ears and she lifted her hand. “Yes, I love you, too. So, um, is Colorado my limit?” Maybe she could handle this . . . though . . . she frowned. “Didn’t Aunt Sandra spend some time in New York City and other big cities back east?” Had to be mobsters from the twenties and the thirties everywhere; even Denver had its gangster factions. And what had been Aunt Sandra’s time range? A grudging feeling coated Clare; did Aunt Sandra only have about three decades? And what were Clare’s limits? She’d thought about 1850 to 1900. She glanced at the tower of journals.

But Enzo rubbed against her, answering the question she’d forgotten she’d asked. You can go to Montana or Utah or Nebraska or Wyoming or California or Idaho or—

“I get it. Ghosts of the Old West.”

Another chill lick of her fingers. You are SO smart, Clare.

Smart enough to try to figure out the parameters of this weird infliction plaguing her. She stood and stalked to the box of disks, pulled out the ones for her brother and his family and her niece and turned them over in her hands. She had a sneaking suspicion that Aunt Sandra had a whole other set—and other instructions for her attorney—if Clare died fairly quickly, before probate was all tied up.

Which reminded her that she should make a will, should have done so before now. Thank heavens she was thinking clearly. It seemed as if her brain had de-iced.

She would not use the Chicago attorney; better to keep her business affairs local. She’d call her old boss for recommendations regarding a law firm and interview a few.

Setting the videos aside carefully, she understood she was also compassionate enough not to want Dora to have this terrible gift foisted upon her. Somehow Clare would have to try to prepare her niece . . . dimly she recalled Aunt Sandra talking to her about “special gifts” when she was a child . . . but whatever help Aunt Sandra might have given her over Clare’s youth had been lost since she’d lumped Aunt Sandra in with her feckless and partying and traveling parents.

Though she knew right now that Aunt Sandra must have worked hard and shown a knowledge and dedication to her work that Clare had never given her credit for.

More tears came and these she let flow unchecked, tears for Sandra, tears for Dora. Groping for the remote, she set Aunt Sandra’s video to play once again from the start, then plucked a tissue from the box on the coffee table and blew her nose. She wandered into the kitchen wondering if she had any lemonade; she could really use some iced and tart lemonade.