Fate Interrupted: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Moonstone Cove Book 3) Read online

  “Adam.” She lowered her voice. “I’m trusting that you are being honest with me and you’re fine. But you better know—in the bottom of your soul—that if you call me, if you need me, I will drop whatever nonsense I’m doing and be with you in two shakes of a baby lamb’s tail. Do you understand that?”

  Adam cleared his throat, and she could hear a little bit of a smile in his voice. “It’s just a lamb. Baby lamb is redundant.”

  “I know you’ve been hanging out with Katherine and Baxter now.” She smiled. “Okay, y’all have fun with your burritos and movie. Nothing that’s gonna give Cami nightmares, you hear me?”

  “I promise.”

  “I probably won’t see you until the morning,” she said. “This is likely to go pretty late.”

  “Have fun with your friends, Mom.”

  “Love you, buddy.”

  At Megan’s suggestion, Toni had invited Drew Bisset and his wife to her house for dinner that night. Drew’s wife couldn’t come because she was coaching their girls’ softball practice, but Drew said he’d stop by for a while.

  Megan had always found that prying happened more easily when food and wine were applied.

  Ostensibly, the party was simply to introduce Val and Sully to their friends in Moonstone Cove. Really, they were hoping to get Drew on board with Val examining the truck where they’d found all the blood.

  Sully was being… well, sullen. “I am not making up a crime.”

  “What if it wasn’t a murder?” Megan wandered back down the hall and into the tiny sitting room just as Katherine and Baxter arrived. “Say you’re investigating a theft using a truck with similar features.” Megan walked over and gave Katherine a hug.

  “Are you all right?” Katherine asked softly.

  “Teenagers being teenagers,” Megan said. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Okay.” Katherine rubbed her back. “Why are we talking about pickup trucks?”

  Toni said, “We’re trying to think of a similar crime that Sully can say that he’s investigating so Val can look at the truck Drew found.”

  Baxter frowned. “That seems ethically dubious.”

  “And not all that effective,” Sully added. “Didn’t you say the vehicle was a white half-ton pickup with four-wheel drive and a toolbox in the back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s pretty much every other pickup truck in our neck of the woods,” Sully said. “It’s a very thin connection.”

  Megan threw up her hands. “Why are the men in California so damn unimaginative? They all have the same truck.”

  “Why don’t you simply tell Drew about your abilities?” Baxter asked. “If I can be convinced, I believe he would be as well. Then it would be a moot point and you could simply all work together.”

  Sully pointed at Baxter. “I like that guy. I agree with him.”

  Katherine squeezed Baxter’s hand. “I also think that Drew would be understanding. He’s a very logical person, and we could simply explain the parapsychological basis for our various abilities.”

  “I could float a pistachio in front of his nose like I did with Baxter,” Megan offered.

  Nico turned to her. “I got thrown against a wall and he got a pistachio floated in front of his face?”

  “We were in a life-threatening situation when you found out, so I didn’t really think about it. Sorry.”

  Nico frowned. “Just saying I think a pistachio would have been less jarring.”

  “We already think Drew suspects we have… intuition,” Toni said. “Val, what do you think?”

  “I think if you believe he’ll be understanding and not brush you off, you should just tell him. I wish I could say that weird shit is going to stop happening to you three, but it hasn’t stopped in Glimmer Lake. For some reason, that lake is a magnet for paranormal activity now.”

  “Really?” Katherine said. “We really need to go visit.”

  Sully was looking at Toni. “I could really use someone with your gift around sometimes. Questioning suspects would go a lot faster.”

  “Well, I’m a little busy right now.” Toni patted her belly. “but in the future, you can feel free to give me a call.”

  Henry’s large mutt, Earl, started barking on the porch, so Megan knew their time was running out and Drew was likely arriving.

  “Okay,” she said. “To tell or not to tell, that is the question. All in favor of telling Drew about our weird magic stuff?”

  Toni, Val, Katherine, and Baxter all raised their hands.

  “And all opposed?”

  Henry and Nico raised their hands.

  Megan looked at Sully. “You didn’t vote.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “’Cause I honestly can’t decide,” Megan said. “If we tell Drew, then I’m going to feel weird not telling my kids, and I don’t really want to tell my kids because that’s a whole massive can of worms, because then do I need to tell my parents? If I tell my kids, are they going to tell anyone else? What if my ex-husband—”

  “Knock, knock!” Drew was on the porch, showering love and head scratches on Earl. “We eating outside or in? Jordyn is sorry she couldn’t make it, but she sent brownies.”

  “Congratulations,” Sully muttered. “You have decided nothing.”

  “You’re not helpful right now!” Megan whispered as Drew opened the door.

  “Guys?” He poked his head in. “Hey? Was there a meeting no one told me about?” He looked a little confused but mostly amused. “How you doing?” He spotted Sully and Val. “I’m Drew Bisset.”

  “Sully,” the sheriff said. “And this is my girlfriend, Val.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Val stood and held her hand out to shake. “You look just like a cop that arrested me one time when I was younger.”

  Drew frowned. “Uh, thanks?”

  “But I’m old, so you were probably still in high school when that happened.”

  Drew smiled. “If it was in Chicago, it might have been my older brother.”

  Val’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God, it was in Chicago! It was a Tool concert! My ex and I totally did a road trip all the way there.” Val cackled. “That’s awesome.”

  Sully was staring at her with narrowed eyes. “You got arrested at a Tool concert?”

  “It was actually after the concert when some girl was hitting on— You know what?” She looked around. “Life moves on. It’s nice to meet you, Drew. I’m a mother and business owner from Glimmer Lake.”

  “Nice. My family and I went up last summer and rented a boat. Really fun.”

  “See?” She looked at Sully. “I can get along with law enforcement now.”

  “Your boyfriend is law enforcement.” Sully turned to Drew. “I’m the sheriff up there. Ignore her. She rarely gets arrested anymore.”

  Val muttered, “I super want to make a handcuff joke here.”

  Katherine and Baxter got busy making sure everyone had drinks while Toni slowly moved from the tiny living room in her cottage to the wide front porch and patio where they would eat.

  Megan wandered into the kitchen after everyone had a drink. Henry and Nico were muttering in the kitchen, talking under their breath and wrapping tri-tip steaks in aluminum foil before they went on the grill.

  “Hey,” she said. “What do you guys think?”

  Nico glanced at the door. “About telling Drew? I don’t know. I don’t know whether my vote even counts. It’s not like it really would affect my life, you know?”

  Was that an ouch? Did something affecting her life affect his life yet? Probably too early for that, and Megan didn’t even know if she wanted that kind of commitment from Nico. Did she want to ride that cowboy? Hell yeah. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to bring him home to meet her kids though.

  “I don’t think we’re going to get Sully to make up an elaborate story in order to get access to the truck though. Telling him may be the only option.”

  Henry said, “Talk to Toni.”

 
“Why?”

  He was shaking his head. “You guys make this all way too complicated. Just let Toni figure it out.”

  Nico and Megan exchanged a look.

  “We know you think she walks on water—” Megan began.

  She didn’t finish because Henry snorted into his arm. “Don’t say stuff like that when I’m preparing food.”

  “What?”

  “She doesn’t walk on water,” Henry said. “She barely swims. She’s cranky and impolite and more than slightly devious when she wants something.”

  Nico nodded. “I love her, but I can’t refute any of that.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Megan was running out of time. She needed to get back outside to steer the conversation toward the truck.

  “I’m saying just let Toni figure it out. Drew respects her a lot. Sometimes less is more.”

  Megan shook her head. “That is such a man thing to say. Less is never more. That’s logically ridiculous. More is more. Less is less. You think the world just organizes itself? You think life just happens? You think the kids magically raise themselves? You think teenagers turn into adults all on their own? You think parties just fall into place or crimes solve themselves?” Megan grabbed two bottles of beer and an opener in her hands. “That’s not how the world works!”

  She walked out to the front porch and cracked the caps on both bottles as she walked. She handed one to Sully—who’d had about as much wine as he could handle—and then, going on pure instinct and not a little frustration, she floated the second bottle of beer over to Drew, who was talking with Baxter and Katherine on the other side of the table.

  Drew turned when the beer bottle tapped him on the shoulder. “Oh, thanks Meg—” He blinked twice, then scooted back and sprang to his feet. “What the fuck is that?” He looked up, then around, as if searching for strings even as the bottle came to rest on the worn silver oak of the tabletop.

  “So.” Megan stepped forward. “All those weird little things you’ve noticed about us over the years? There’s a reason for them.”

  Drew was on his second beer when he appeared to have everything sorted.

  “Katherine.” He pointed at her with the beer bottle. “Visions. I never forgot the ambulance.”

  “It’s very unpredictable,” she added. “I’m getting better at focusing them, but they’re still very sporadic. I’ve tried shamanistic tools for divination like casting stones, but the imprecise nature leaves too much to interpretation.” She looked around to see everyone staring at her. “I am considering tarot.”

  Drew frowned. “That’s how you saw that guy in the gym when you all were attacked. He hadn’t taken the gun out yet, had he?”

  Katherine shook her head. “I saw him in my vision; then I saw him reach for the gun. He never got a chance to shoot.”

  “Toni.” Drew narrowed his eyes. “That one is still hard for me to understand.”

  “Join the club,” Toni said. “I don’t understand most of it myself. I feel people’s emotions. If I try really hard, I can push a feeling into someone else.”

  “A lot of it with Toni is unconscious,” Henry said. “I can vouch for that.”

  “So when you were questioning that guy last year about Fairfield’s murder—”

  “I want to be clear: that man already wanted to cooperate,” Toni said. “I just… made him a little more cooperative. And I grabbed a lot of his stress so he could open up. I relaxed him.”

  “Right.” Drew turned to Megan. “And you? You can just move shit?”

  She pointed at Katherine. “I saved her life with that car thing.”

  “Are you the reason Ruben was so banged up when he got to the station?”

  “He was threatening my kids, Drew. If I banged him against a couple of walls before we tied him up, can you blame me?”

  Drew shook his head. “My mother warned me about the sweet ones with the pretty accents.”

  “I have never abused my gift,” Megan said. “Except with Rodney’s car alarm, and that’s just amusing.”

  Toni and Katherine had heard about the car alarm, and both of them had to stifle laughter.

  Drew pursed his lips. “You know what? I don’t want to know.” He looked across the table at Val. “So what’s your superpower? I’m assuming this is all going to come around to them asking me for something, and I have a strong suspicion that it has to do with stolen vines and some suspicious blood.”

  Katherine cleared her throat. “About the blood…”

  Drew sighed. “You saw the dead guy, didn’t you?”

  “I can’t tell you where he is though. I’m still working on that part. But I do have a very amateur sketch. I can give you that if it might be helpful.”

  “That would be very helpful. I can at least cross-check it with any missing-persons reports in the area.”

  Baxter said, “We brought a copy in the car.”

  Val raised her hand. “I wear the gloves because I have a form of psychic power called psychometry. I can pick up energy, impressions, sometimes memories from objects.”

  Drew perked up. “Objects?”

  “Yeah,” Sully said. “So let’s say, as fellow law enforcement professionals, you had a case that was stalled and you had some evidence that just wasn’t panning out for more leads…”

  Drew folded his hands. “You want to examine the truck we found parked at Baker’s Creek.”

  “Yes,” Megan said. “That’s what all this was for. We’ve been investigating the vine theft. You’ve been investigating the blood. We need to share information, and Val needs to get her hands on that truck.”

  Drew looked around the assembled guests. Psychics, friends of psychics, relatives of psychics, psychics in utero. Possibly.

  Megan cleared her throat. “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?”

  “You mean, am I going to tell my colleagues or friends or wife that I know four women with psychic powers who help me solve crimes?” He shook his head. “Yeah, that’s a no.”

  “But are you going to let us look at the truck anyway?” Megan asked.

  Drew looked around the porch, then back at Megan. “That is a yes.”

  Chapter 19

  Since Nico had driven Megan down to Toni’s before dinner, he drove her back up the hill to her car when dinner was finally over. It was well past eleven o’clock by the time everything had been sorted out and plans were made. Wine and good food had made the process easier, but it had also lulled Megan into a happy food coma in Nico’s truck.

  “So Drew’s going to let Val look at the truck tomorrow?” Nico asked. “I wonder if it’ll be as easy as it was at the greenhouse.”

  “Maybe easier.” Megan’s eyes were drooping. “Val was saying that the stronger the emotions around an object are, the more she can see. So things like a stolen vehicle might not normally carry a lot of memories, but when someone is shot in the truck, it’s bound to leave a psychic mark. Make sense?”

  “I mean, as much as any of this makes sense.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Don’t fall asleep.”

  She yawned big. “I think I was so stressed about telling Drew that I wore myself out.”

  “I know it’s only about ten miles to your house, but you’re driving through the hills. You want to stay at my place tonight?”

  She looked at him from the side. “Is this your idea of—”

  “Guest room,” he said. “I have a guest room.”

  Was a little part of her disappointed? Maybe.

  Hell yes!

  Down, Sugar.

  “I’m just saying, it’s safer for you to stay here than drive when you’re sleepy. Head home first thing in the morning to get freshened up and all that. The kids are home, so it’s not like we won’t have chaperones.” His grin should have been illegal.

  “I’ll call Trina.” She texted her daughter instead.

  I’m beat and maybe a little woozy from dinner at Toni’s. Are y’all cool if I stay at the vineya
rd tonight?

  She didn’t need to tell Trina that she was staying at Nico’s and not Toni’s. Vineyard was vague enough.

  Trina texted back in minutes. Are you cuddlin’ with your hot boss?

  Get your mind out of the gutter, young lady.

  That is not a yes or no. There was a kissing emoji. Have fun. We’re fine.

  I’ll see you first thing in the morning.

  Make good choices. Another kissing emoji.

  Good night!

  She turned off her phone. “The guest room is probably a good idea.”

  No, Sugar yelled at her. Bad idea!

  “Okay.”

  He pulled past the parking lot of the offices and nearly passed Megan’s car before she put a hand on his arm and halted him.

  “Wait! Let me get something from my car.” She hopped out of the truck and opened her trunk to grab the small bag she kept packed in case of emergencies. It was just a little larger than a tote bag and held everything she needed. Hairbrush, clean underthings, deodorant. The basics.

  “What is that?” Nico asked, rubbing his eyes. “Do you carry an overnight bag in your trunk all the time?”

  “You don’t?” She looked into his back seat. “I just assumed with all the junk back here, you’d have a clean shirt and socks or something.”

  “Is this something all Southern women do? Is this a cultural thing? Or am I way late to the party because clearly I should have asked you to spend the night weeks ago?”

  “Late to the…?” She huffed. “I keep an overnight bag in the car with a clean shirt, panties, and other essentials. I always have. When the kids were little, I kept a damn suitcase back there because God only knew when they were going to completely ruin their clothes and need a new set.”

  He shifted in his seat and his jaw was clenched. “Okay.”

  “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  He pulled into the driveway but left his truck parked outside the garage. He put it in park and switched off the vehicle, leaving them in the dark. Nico turned to her, put his arm across the back of the bench seat, and leaned closer.

  “Okay,” he said under his breath. “Clearly I have all the self-control of a fucking high schooler, but there is something about your voice in your accent saying panties that just…” He slid his hand along her jaw, cupped her cheek in his palm, and drew her lips to his in a smooth kiss.