Mind tricks, p.1
Mind Tricks, page 1
Mind Tricks
Adrianne Wood
Mind Tricks © 2012 by Adrian Wood Liang
All rights reserved.
www.adriannewood.com
Chapter One
“This is your doctor?” Jake demanded. He stabbed a finger at Emma Draper, who had her mouth hanging open like a nutcracker’s.
No way. He’d just gone through the worst night of his life. He was not going to add this morning to it.
“She’s not a doctor,” Jake continued, sidling toward the back door. He’d been so zonked when his uncle Mickey had driven him over here that he’d entered Emma’s kitchen before realizing where they were. And, more important, where they weren’t. Not a doctor’s office, anyway. “She’s not even a vet. She’s a…a pet psychic.” A fraud—but he wouldn’t say that to Mickey. He’d tried once, but Mickey had become uncharacteristically stern and told him he never wanted to hear Emma referred to that way again.
Jake had avoided referring to Emma at all since then.
She finally got her mouth closed. Turning away, she punched the coffeemaker’s ON button. “I don’t take human patients,” she said to Mickey over her shoulder. “You know that.”
Patients? Ha. Like she did anything other than swing crystals over the pets she saw. Mickey swore that Emma had eased the pain in his old cocker spaniel, Lindy, but how could he know that? It wasn’t like Lindy did much more than sleep underneath Mickey’s desk.
“I hoped you could make an exception to your no-people rule,” Mickey said to Emma.
Sure, Emma had that warm calm that all the vets Jake had met also possessed—he’d admit that. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a fraud. It just meant she was good with animals.
That famous calm seemed to be deserting her now. As she spooned sugar into her coffee cup, her hand trembled and she spilled some on the counter. “No.”
“This is an emergency.”
She faced Jake and looked him up and down. He tried not to cringe. What she saw couldn’t be good: a dirty, wrinkled suit but no tie, bloodshot eyes, and neon orange flip-flops on his feet instead of shoes. He’d lost his shoes somewhere last night. The police had found him wandering the Camden streets barefoot at dawn.
“He seems fine to me,” she told Mickey. “A little worse for wear, but healthy enough.”
Mickey tried again. “Emma, Jake has a serious problem—”
A serious problem. That was an understatement. Mickey should have said, “Jake is going to be arrested for murder.”
He still couldn’t believe that Ginny had been killed last night. One of the last hazy memories he had was of her laughing, the volume of her exuberance making their fellow diners’ heads turn. Then…nothing. No memories of the next eight hours. The Rohypnol seeping through his veins had taken care of that.
But he hadn’t killed her. He couldn’t have. He’d been considering firing her, and for good reasons. But that was miles away from killing her.
“No,” Emma said again. “I don’t work with people.” She pasted a hostess’s smile on her mouth. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked Jake, addressing him directly for the first time since he’d entered her kitchen.
Maybe coffee would zap some of the drugged fog from his head and infuse strength into his legs. “I’d kill for coffee.”
His mouth opening to plead with Emma again, his uncle stopped and blinked at Jake.
Ah. Perhaps “kill for” wasn’t the best phrase to use, under the circumstances.
Without asking him how he liked it, Emma tossed two spoonfuls of sugar and a slug of cream in his coffee and then plunked it down in front of him. Curling her hands around her own mug as if it were January instead of July, she settled against the counter edge.
Sunlight streaming though the east window caught in her hair, turning the blond into a deep gold. He could barely see her lashes, they were so light, but he remembered being struck by her eyes when they’d been introduced at Mickey’s Christmas Eve party. Blue and clear and direct.
She looked like she’d jumped out of bed and into the nearest clothes. She probably had, since Mickey had pounded on her door like a madman until she’d appeared.
“Sorry to have awakened you,” Jake muttered. Even a fraud didn’t deserve to be rousted out of her bed by his uncle. In fact, a fraud probably needed her sleep more than most. Keeping up a charade all the time must use a lot of energy.
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug beneath the overlarge sweatshirt. “No problem. I was getting up soon anyway.”
“Emma,” Mickey started again, “this is important. I know you don’t want to work with people, but Jake is, um, in a special situation. He can’t remember what he did last night.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Were you at the Wild Rover?” she asked Jake, referring to the local pub.
“No. At least, I don’t think so.” Who knew what had happened after he’d left the Waterview restaurant with Ginny? He rubbed his forehead, but it didn’t ease away the headache there, banging pots and pans and hollering.
He hadn’t killed Ginny, but he didn’t know what else he’d done or hadn’t done last night. A wiped memory. It sounded cool in movies or sci fi books, but the reality was scary as shit. He’d come to his senses in the hospital, where they told him they’d found Rohypnol in his system. No wonder it was sometimes called the “forget it” drug.
“Look,” Emma said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you. I don’t work with people.” Her blue eyes held his. “Ever. I can’t use it that way.”
That was convenient. Be psychic only with animals. Humans, of course, could point out mistakes in her psychic readings. Mute animals could not.
Jake took a final swallow of the lovely, lovely coffee, then stood. His knees valiantly held him upright, though his head felt so heavy he wouldn’t be surprised if it just dropped off his neck. God, he needed some sleep. “Thanks for your help, and—”
“Brutus!” she suddenly cried. She rushed forward, flung the back door open, and ran outside.
What the—? Jake staggered to the doorway and stared out into Emma’s backyard. Emma stood still, bare feet planted in the dew-bowed grass, and gazed at the corner of the house as if expecting something to appear there.
A jingling noise tickled his eardrums, growing louder. A huge black-furred dog, tongue flopping with every stride, tore around the house and into view. The dog tried to wheel around as soon as he saw Emma, but she took three running steps and grabbed his collar. “Brutus, bad!” she scolded. Dragging the massive animal with her, she headed for the kennels at the back of the house, where she boarded a dozen dogs while their families were away. At least she had a legitimate occupation in addition to the pet psychic scam.
He turned to Mickey. “What the hell was that about?”
“Brutus must have escaped from his cage. That dog can wiggle out of almost anything.”
“I didn’t hear any alarm. What kind of security system—”
Mickey tapped his skull. “Remember? She’s psychic.”
Riiiiight.
As they walked out to Mickey’s car, Jake glanced over his shoulder at Emma’s little house. However she’d done it, that catching-the-escaping-dog move was a good trick. A smart trick.
But he’d believe he was a murderer before he’d believe Emma Draper was a real psychic.
• •
Emma held her hands over the little bichon frise’s white furry body. Mandy wiggled a little, but she’d gone through this almost once a week for the past year, and she knew that if she behaved well, she’d get a biscuit.
Biscuits. It was the only thought in the dog’s head.
Emma dropped her hands to her sides. “Mrs. James, Mandy wants biscuits.”
Mrs. James—or Mandy’s mom, as Emma thought of her—wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure? She seemed very excitable as we drove over here. Maybe she misses Charlie, the dog next door who’s gone away on a camping trip with his family.”
“No, I saw nothing about Charlie. Just biscuits.” Good thing the dog was so single-minded, because Emma had had trouble focusing her concentration on Mandy.
When she’d heard the pounding on her door this morning, she’d expected to find an owner with a wounded animal. She’d braced herself for what she might see: a torn-off ear, a missing leg, crushed hips…
She hadn’t expected to see Jake Vant.
Emma stroked Mandy’s silken curly fur. “This girl now associates biscuits with her trips over here. Do you have a biscuit with you now?” Emma asked.
“No, I keep them at home. Mandy knows that she has to be in the car twice—driving here and driving back—before she gets a treat.”
“Let’s try this next time: Give Mandy a biscuit as soon as you arrive here. That way she won’t be cluttering her thoughts with the biscuit. And then give her a second biscuit when you return home.”
“Two biscuits…?”
Emma pressed her lips together to stop a smile. Mrs. James gave Emma fifty dollars per visit. The extra dog biscuit per week wasn’t going to break the bank. “You could snap the biscuit in two, and give Mandy half when she arrives here and half when you get home,” Emma suggested.
“Yes, all right. We’ll do that.” Mrs. James patted her knee, and Mandy leaped off the table, tail pumping madly.
Emma wasn’t trying to read the dog any longer, but Mandy’s thoughts crowded the room, impossible to ignore. …biscuit biscuit biscuit biscuit biscuit…
Emma laughed. “Get Mandy out of here before she makes me so hungry that I eat my lunch early.”
“See you next week.” Mrs. James exited through the front door just as Emma heard Ian, her twenty-five-year-old assistant, coming into the house through the back.
Friends used the back door, and that was the door Mickey often used when he visited. He lived in the neighboring house, and he’d become her first friend upon moving to Maine. He’d never brought Jake with him, though, probably because Jake hadn’t made any attempt to conceal his disdain for her profession during the one time she’d met him face-to-face. Though she’d been Mickey’s neighbor for eighteen months, this morning was only the second time she’d spoken to Jake.
He’d looked like three-day-old road kill, but he was still ridiculously attractive. Seeing him around town, she’d had a crush on him for almost a year. Then she’d actually met him at Mickey’s Christmas party and decided that no matter how mouthwatering he looked when those chocolate-brown eyes crinkled as he smiled, she didn’t appreciate being the one he was laughing at. Or sneering at. His sneer hadn’t made an appearance this morning, but he hadn’t been in top form.
On the other hand, his past sneers had made it much easier for her to say no to Mickey’s odd request that she poke into Jake’s brain. So perhaps she should be grateful he’d acted like a jerk when they’d met. The less temptation, the better.
Ian’s footsteps coursed through the kitchen, approaching her. “What’s Mandy’s problem today?” he asked, slouching in the dining room doorway. Well, what once was the dining room. She’d turned it into an animal reading room a year ago, after Mrs. James’s praise for her help with reducing Mandy’s nervous behavior had directed a steady flow of patients her way.
Picking up the squirt bottle full of disinfectant, Emma sprayed the table and wiped it down. “No idea,” she told Ian. “All the poor thing could think about was the dog treat she’d get when she got home. So, how did Brutus get out this morning?”
Ian came farther into the room and dropped into the chair Mandy’s mom had been sitting in. “Dug underneath the fence.”
What? “That fence is sunk ten inches into the ground.”
Ian shrugged. “A dog on a mission, I guess.”
Ugh. Brutus had so far escaped from a normal kennel, a kennel with a high fence, and now a kennel with a wire roof and a sunken fence. Where could they put him so that he wouldn’t take off again? Not in a crate—Brutus positively refused to enter one, and she’d gotten the impression that a previous owner had left Brutus crated for days on end. Evil bastard.
Emma sighed. “There are two options now. One is that we put him on the leash run full-time. The other is that he stays in the house with me.”
“When do his folks get back?”
“Three weeks.” Brutus’ parents were on a forty-day trek in Nepal.
Ian made a face. “Too long. How about we put him on the leash run during the day and in the house at night? If he’s in here all day, he’ll disturb your clients.”
“Good idea.”
Ian nodded impassively, but she could tell that he was pleased with the praise. Emma grinned at him, and, reluctantly, he grinned back.
Ian was young, sure, but he was her right-hand man and smart to boot. And if her plans for business expansion unfolded as she hoped, six months from now Ian would run her second kennel in the town next door.
“Heard the news?” Ian asked, standing and following her into the kitchen.
She refilled her mug from the coffeemaker. “No. What?”
“A woman was murdered over in Camden last night.”
Camden was two towns away. A tourist destination right on the water, it was more upscale than most of the surrounding towns, and it suffered from some thievery, but Emma couldn’t remember anyone being killed there since she’d moved to Maine. “That’s terrible. Did they catch the guy?”
“Hey. It could have been a woman who killed her. An equal opportunity feminist.”
Emma made a face at him. “Well, was it?”
“I don’t know. Last I heard, the police hadn’t arrested anyone.”
“It was probably her husband or boyfriend.”
“Ha. The reason why you don’t date is finally revealed: You’re afraid of being murdered.”
“I don’t date because I haven’t found anyone I want to date.” She managed to keep a sober face while delivering that whopper. She’d met a handful of men whom she would have dated in a heartbeat. Jake Vant had been at the top of that very short list until he’d revealed himself to be so narrow-minded about her job.
Not that he was the only one. In fact, all the men she liked weren’t interested in getting close to a pet psychic. She didn’t have to enter the minds of any of them to know that they considered her a scam artist.
Her job was only the first stumbling block, though. Even if she managed to convince a guy that she was legit, she wasn’t sure she could sleep with him. So much skin on skin, feelings and sensations rushing through her like a riptide—
She shook herself back to the present. “So who was killed?”
“Ginny Lamberton.”
The name tickled her brain, but nothing popped free. “The name is familiar, but I don’t think I know her.”
“Yeah, I never met her either, but she worked for Jake Vant’s boat building company, Woodhaven. I heard Jake was the last one seen with her before she was killed. Whoa, Emma. Are you all right?”
Somehow she’d ended up sitting in a kitchen chair. Good thing—otherwise she would’ve landed on the floor.
She had met Ginny. The memory that had been dodging her had finally surfaced. Ginny Lamberton was the statuesque woman Jake had brought to Mickey’s Christmas Eve party.
Emma wrapped her arms around herself. An emergency, Mickey had said. Jake couldn’t remember what he’d done the night before.
God. Had she shared her morning coffee with Ginny Lamberton’s killer?
Chapter Two
“It doesn’t look good,” Jake said bluntly as soon as Mickey opened the door.
Grimacing, Mickey stood aside to let him in. “We should have expected the police to get a search warrant for your house. That you’re not in handcuffs is a good sign, though. What did Halliburt say?” Shutting the door behind Jake, Mickey led the way to his library.
Not that Jake needed leading. He and his brothers had been running in and out of this house for most of their lives, and he knew every warped floorboard and the contents of every cupboard better than those of his own town house in Camden.
But…that painting in the hall was new. And it looked like Mickey had reupholstered the sofa and chairs in the library. How long had it been since Jake’s last visit? Weeks? Guilt steamrolled over him, and he scowled. No, months. He had turned down a few dinner invites from his uncle, telling himself that he’d make it up to Mickey when he had more free time. Well, if the police had their way, he would soon have plenty of free time, just no freedom to use it.
He shoved that thought away. Mickey was right: If the police hadn’t arrested him after searching his house, then they hadn’t found anything immediately incriminating. And that was good.
A few other things weren’t so good, though. “I know Halliburt’s a friend of yours,” he said to Mickey, “and he has a great reputation in legal circles, but he’s not the right guy for this. For me.”
“Why not?” Mickey asked as they both settled into seats, Mickey at his desk and Jake on the newly recovered couch.
Jake rubbed the bridge of his nose. Damn, he needed sleep. “He hasn’t made any backup plans. Halliburt’s whole defense argument is that if I was drugged, then clearly I didn’t do it. Would I kill Ginny—” His throat closed up, chopping off his words.
Ginny was dead. In the craziness of his near-arrest by the police, the blood tests at the hospital, the bizarre early morning encounter with Mickey’s pet psychic, the police’s search of his home, and his discouraging meeting with Halliburt, the reality of Ginny’s murder hadn’t had a chance to sink in.
He shuddered. The police had shown him a picture of her body, crumpled and lifeless as a discarded newspaper. He and Ginny had left the restaurant together—several witnesses had said so, though he couldn’t remember it. But where had they gone? Where had he been when she’d been murdered? Had he tried to defend her? If he had, he’d done a terrible job. Her shredded white blouse had been soaked with blood.
