“I’ll help you figure it out, but first, I need you to tell me everything you saw. Everything. Even if you think it’s stupid.”
Grace tried to think back, was there anything she’d missed? The exact glint of the water, the way it spread over the stage. “There was something about the girl—she looked down, like she saw the water. I don’t know if it means anything, but…”
Bryant made a mental note. “What else?”
She hesitated, then blurted, “It felt deliberate. Like the water wasn’t just leaking. It was directed. Like it had a purpose.”
“That’s good. That’s useful.” He pulled out a small notepad, scribbling fast. “We’ll follow up with everyone who had access to the stage, and everyone on the stage. That’s a good place to start.”
Grace risked a look at the crowd. Police tape had appeared around the stage, and a cluster of parents tried to keep their kids from approaching the water. Tessa Monroe already had her cameraman rolling, dramatic as ever, focused on the empty platform. Even the children’s choir, huddled in a knot with their chaperone, were wide-eyed, whispering.
She turned back to Bryant. “Is the whole town going to know I’m a psychic now?”
His smile softened, just for her. “Maybe, but it won’t really matter though. We’re all pretty… unique here.”
“I guess that’s true.” She attempted a smile.
Caroline reappeared, flanked by Anna and Olivia, who had decided she and Bryant had enough time to speak privately. “Well, well, well,” Caroline purred, linking her arm through Grace’s. “Nothing like nearly electrocuting the mayor to get a little local fame.”
“I guess so,” Grace muttered.
Caroline nudged Bryant. “You taking her home tonight, or should we draw straws?”
Bryant held out a hand for Grace. “She’s with me.”
It was the most possessive thing he’d ever said, and it lit a weird, embarrassing heat in Grace’s chest.
They walked together through the square of people still shopping, no longer focused on the tree lighting. Grace wondered if the town would talk about the disaster or the rescue. Probably both. Probably forever.
At the edge of the lot, Bryant stopped. He faced her, earnest as a schoolboy, but with a shadow in his eyes. “This might notbe over. Whoever did this—” He shook his head. “They could try again.”
Grace nodded. As upsetting as that thought was, it made sense.
As they walked toward her car, headed for the Lantern House, Bryant kept pace at her side, his hand brushing hers in the dark, every so often, as if to check that she was still real.
But shewasreal. And so was the threat of murder still lingering in the air.
6
The only thing more comforting than the Lantern House’s fireplace was the company of women who wouldn’t let Grace collapse into a puddle of her own panic. The four of them, Grace, Caroline, Anna, and Olivia, clustered on the sofa, knees almost touching, mugs of cocoa and a bottle of cheap red wine splitting the difference on the low wooden coffee table.
Grace pressed her toes closer to the fire, soaking in its heat through two layers of thick socks, and wished her heart would stop feeling like it was about to punch its way through her ribs. It wasn’t just the visions, though that played its part. The electrocution scare at the tree lighting had taken something out of her, like a car battery run down by headlights left on overnight. She tugged her blanket tighter, the plush tartan swallowing her like a burrito.
“I’ve never seen you so pale,” Olivia said, voice low but not unkind. She set her mug down with a practiced elegance. “It suits your coloring, if that’s any comfort.”
“I guess I should be thankful for the small things,” Grace said, followed by a humorless laugh.
Caroline refilled her own glass, sloshed a little into Grace’s abandoned mug, and grinned over the rim. “I’ll trade you my hangover for your psychic trauma. At least the wine wears off.”
Anna’s hand, cool and oddly strong, found Grace’s. “I think you’re heroic,” she said. “I would’ve frozen. Or worse, made a scene.”
Grace pictured herself on the news—Local Woman Saves Tree Lighting, Ruins Christmas—and groaned. “I did make a scene. I was a shrieking banshee.”
“Nobody remembers the shrieking,” Olivia said. “They only remember the saving everyone part.”
Caroline and Anna both laughed, and Grace let herself smile, a stitch at the edge of her panic unraveling.
The doorbell cut through the cozy din. All four women looked up, then at each other, then back to the door. Caroline finally rolled her eyes, and smiled as she muttered, “I’ll get it, even though it’s not my house,” and padded across the thick woven rug in slippers shaped like unicorns.
