“Crap.” There was only one way she could think of to bring the situation to an immediate and probably safe end.
“Is this a good idea?”Uncle Jimmy wondered as Riley slammed on her brakes in the middle of the road.
“Does it really matter at this point, Uncle Jimmy?” she asked, opening her door and jumping out.
She marched down the double yellow lines toward the limo as it screeched to a halt. A woman wearing enormous sunglasses and clutching an extra-large iced coffee laid on the horn from the minivan behind the limo.
“Stay there in case I get murdered,” Riley called, pointing at her.
“I don’t have time to witness a murder. My kid just puked all over his art teacher,” she yelled back before whipping the minivan into the other lane and speeding away.
Riley sensed nervous energy rising as she approached the limo. It mixed with her own adrenaline, carrying her forward. “Hey! You behind the tint! Wanna tell me why you’re following me like a creep?” she demanded, rapping her knuckles against the driver’s window.
It didn’t lower.
But the back door opened, and a pair of magenta platform wedges hit the asphalt.
“Exactly what good is a psychic vision if it doesn’t make sense until after it happens?” Riley muttered to her spirit guides.
They pulsed out what she assumed was an apology.
Riley wasn’t sure who she’d expected to pop out of the back seat, but it sure wasn’t a curvy blonde in a leopard-print minidress.
The woman’s hair was huge, but it evened out the proportions of her more than well-endowed chest. She wore oversized sunglasses and a gigantic necklace made out of what looked like miniature gold bars, all pointing south toward her impressive cleavage. She looked like a trophy wife on her way to some brunch fundraiser.
The stranger reminded her vaguely of Bella Goodshine, the blond and busty local weatherwoman and female face-blind fiancée of Riley’s idiot ex-husband. It was a mark against the stranger.
Riley felt the way she always did when faced with a woman who took pride in and invested in their appearance: Frumpy AF. Yet another point against her fabulous stalker.
“Why are you following me?” Riley demanded.
The woman beamed at her as if she’d been waiting for that very question. “Well, it’s kind of a long story,” she said apologetically. “How about we go for a drive, and I’ll explain everything? I have a bag ofamazingdark chocolate with antioxidants we could share.”
“Are you seriously trying to lure me into your vehicle with candy?”
The leopard-print stalker pursed her glossy pink lips as if she hadn’t considered the fact that she was committing a felony. Then she let out a bubbly giggle. “Well, now that you mention it, I guess I am. Oops!”
Riley decided to get straight to the truth. She inhaled deeply and zeroed in on the woman’s thoughts. The cotton candy clouds appeared in her mind’s eye. They looked a little dimmer than they had earlier that morning. Dimmer and less puffy.
“Hey, spirit guides.”
It was as far as she got before the clouds began to spin. Slowly at first and then faster and faster. Like a carousel picking up speed. It was making her dizzy.
“Want to slow down the Skittles barf merry-go-round before I…”
The clouds tangled with images spit out too rapidly for her to hold on to them. There was a plane on a tarmac. But before she could focus in on it, it was gone.
She caught a glimpse of a dark room, thick velvet curtains, silk wallpaper, and a huge four-poster bed. She thought there might have been someone else in the bed, but then the wallpaper disappeared, replaced with cheap paneling. The luxurious bed morphed into a mattress and box spring on the floor.
Riley’s stomach lurched as she was sucked back into the darkening cloud tornado.
“Are you okay? You don’t look so good.” The voice sounded like it was very far away, and she couldn’t tell if it was her leopard-print stalker or someone else on the edge of her consciousness.
Riley felt her legs buckle, and then there was pain in her hands and knees. Was it her pain or someone else’s? The nausea cramping her stomach was definitely her own, but everything else was too fuzzy as vertigo tilted the world until she didn’t know which end was up.
“Oh, God. I don’t like this,” she groaned to her spirit guides, who didn’t seem inclined to make it stop.
The bed disappeared, and in its place, she saw a car. A cheap sedan. She couldn’t see the driver, but Riley read a giddy wave of excitement. Happy anticipation.
