Page 10 of The Little Shop of Curiosities, The Music Box Part 2

Danny’s gaze sharpens. “Do you think her killer knows about Tristan? That he can see ghosts?”

I scratch my thumbnail absently over a tiny chip in my whiskey glass. “Too soon to tell, but I think it pays to be cautious. If the killer was watching her for a while before he killed her—or worse, if it’s someone we know—they could be aware that all three of us, me, Tristan, and Harrison, are capable of communicating with Viv after her death.”

“Fuck.” Danny takes another large gulp of his drink.

“Look, right now we don’t have enough information, but you can rest assured that Tristan has one kick-ass dead drag queen plus one live and viciously protective ex-drag queen to guard him. Do you really think either Chan or Dusty would allow anything to happen to him?”

“No”—Danny’s mouth twitches—“and I feel sorry for anyone who tries to get past those two.” Then he sighs. “You’re right. Dusty was sent back specifically to protect Tristan, and I guess it does slightly ease my mind, but that still leaves you and Harrison.”

“I can take care of myself. It’s Harrison I’m worried about.”

Danny blinks slowly. “Because he’s a witch and the killer used magic? I would’ve have thought Harrison could take care of himself on that score.”

“I know,” I murmur, not wanting to explain to Danny how I feel about Harrison, especially when I’m not sure I understand it myself. Yet. “I’m not saying he can’t protect himself, but it could make him a target, especially if…”

“If what?”

I shake my head again. “Nothing. It’ll sound stupid.”

“Stupid is relative right now, so you may as well say what you’re thinking. I mean, our lives aren’t exactly normal, are they?”

I pause, trying to come up with the words to describe the strange feeling deep in my gut. “I feel like this might only be the beginning, a small piece of the whole.”

“What do you mean?”

I can tell by the look on Danny’s face that he’s confused, and he’s not the only one. I can’t seem to make my thoughts align, but I try anyway.

“I haven’t had this psychic ability that long, a year or so at most. It’s not like I grew up with it like Harrison did, so it’s not always reliable. Just remember that. But for months before I left London to go back home, I got this feeling. Kinda like precognition, maybe? I don’t think that’s entirely the right word. There was just this gut-deep feeling that something was changing. Then with the cases I was investigating, I began seeing a pattern.”

“A pattern?”

“Maybe pattern isn’t quite the right word. Escalation? At first, the cases were just your run-of-the-mill kind of things. Cheating spouses, untrustworthy business partners, all pretty mundane, but slowly the ones that started coming my way turned out to be…of a supernatural inclination. If you know what I mean.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“One of the cases I investigated turned out to be a telepath who was using his gift to win at high stakes poker games and another case ended up being a guy who was kind of a reverse psychic. Instead of reading people, he was able to push suggestions into their minds…”

Danny leans forward in his chair in interest. “Mind control? Really?” His eyes widen, then narrow curiously. “What was this person making them do?”

“He was getting them to purchase really expensive insurance policies they didn’t need. He became the top sales rep overnight and cleaned up with a massive bonus.”

Danny’s mouth falls open. “Seriously?”

I chuckle. “Seriously.”

“Of all the things you can do with an ability like that and he was…selling insurance?”

“He did have a bit of a limited imagination.”

“That’s really weird.”

“You’re telling me. It didn’t stop there. As word spread, more and more people were coming to me with cases that they couldn’t go to the police about, things that were…I don’t know, otherworldly? And you know what was really strange?”

“Does it get stranger than someone with the power of suggestion selling insurance?”

I huff a quiet laugh. “No, what’s weird is that the people using these paranormal gifts weren’t born with them. Like me, they’d only had them for about a year or so. It’s like somewhere someone flipped a switch and all of a sudden regular people started developing preternatural abilities.”

“Like someone’s turned up the supernatural dial on London?”