Page 50 of A Seer and Present Danger

“I know.”

“She thinks Marty and I should be dating faster. What do you think?”

“She likes you and she likes her nephew. She wants you both happy. But if dating Marty doesn’t make you happy, you should absolutely not see him.”

“The thing is, I am seeing him, we are seeing each other. We’re just doing it very slowly, taking our time.”

For no reason I could think of, the image of Vandre flashed through my mind. Not a possible future, just a memory of him sitting at the table, of his crooked smile.

“I think if you told Jules you were taking it at your own pace, she would stop teasing you about it,” I said.

“I don’t mind a little teasing.” Dusi’s phone rang and she answered it. From her side of the conversation, I knew it was someone inquiring about her art.

She stood, and with a last look at me (I waved her off and gave her a thumb’s up), she headed down to her gallery to finish the call.

Which left me with a couple more boxes of yarn to unpack and a lot of questions swirling through my head.

Could I improve my powers?

Did I want to learn how to use them more?

And then the ever-present: Who killed Hugo?

I didn’t want to believe it was Jean, so that left the suspects I’d talked to: his ex-business partner Kenny who was stepping out with his almost ex-wife, Gail, or Gail, who didn’t seem very fond of him, either. Both of them seemed like good possibilities. Out of the two, Kenny seemed angrier, more…motivated to take drastic action.

That business he and Hugo were running together wasn’t thriving—even I could see that.

He’d mentioned a going out of business sale, hadn’t he? When he was talking to Gail at the diner?

I unboxed more yarn, letting my mind wander. The more I thought about it, the more I thought Kenny had to be involved. If the business was failing, or if Hugo had stolen from Kenny or the shop (he’d mentioned he was doing inventory. Was he looking for something?) that might be enough to make Kenny take some stabbing matters into his own hands.

What I really needed was to confront Kenny again. Try to get him to slip up, confess what was stolen. Or that he’d stabbed Hugo.

Once he confessed, Jean would be off the hook.

I could record him on my phone. (Thank you, Shelly for the idea.) I grinned. I might be wrong about Kenny, but I might be right. Plus, I loved having a plan.

I finished the yarn and checked my watch to make sure I still had time to stop by his shop before my shift tonight.

But as soon as I put my hand on my car door, my phone rang.

The caller ID said it was Bertie. I wasn’t foolish enough to send a Valkyrie to voice mail.

“Hello?”

“Piper. Boast of the Coast needs one more person to sort for the next hour. When can you be here?”

Just like Bertie not to ask but to assume I could make it.

“Unless you have other commitments?” she added as an afterthought.

“Um...” I didn’t think my excuse of trying to get Kenny to confess he had stabbed his thieving business partner would get me off the hook.

Little futures flashed:

Me sorting boxes

Me sorting boxes