Mind Tricks (10 page)

She gestured for them to sit at the
kitchen table. A bit annoyingly, Cooperman settled in one of her worn chairs as
easily as if he were a regular visitor.

“Is this about Jake Vant?” she
asked, leaning against the counter. Her mom’s lessons on hospitality told her
to offer the detectives at least a glass of water, but the last thing she
wanted to be was hospitable.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Detective
Cooperman. “We’re talking to friends of his to see if we can piece together
what happened two nights ago, when Ginny Lamberton was killed. Did you also
know Ms. Lamberton?”

“I briefly met her once at a party
last year—at Mickey Vant’s Christmas Eve party.”

“And how would you describe your
relationship with her?”

“Basically nonexistent. I might
have seen her around town since then, but never spoke to her.”

“Did you send her e-mail messages
or leave her phone messages?”

Huh? “No. I didn’t know her that
well. We met only once and had a super-quick conversation.”

“A conversation about Mr. Vant?”

She chilled. She’d been expecting
the questions to turn this way, but it still shook her. “No, just party
chitchat. ‘Hi, nice to meet you. The cheese is good.’ That kind of thing.”

“But you know Mr. Vant pretty well,
right? You never ran into both of them together somewhere, exchanged talk about
the weather or something?” He smiled, but his hard eyes didn’t soften.
“Everyone talks about the weather, especially in Maine.”

“Aside from at the Christmas Eve
party, I never saw them together. And I never spoke with her after that night.”

“Not at all?” Disbelief echoed in
every syllable.

Okay, this was becoming more and
more unnerving. She’d said she didn’t know Ginny. How many times and ways did
she have to say it to convince them? “No, not at all.”

“This is a small community. Maybe
you saw her at the gas station or video store or something.”

Her hands grew clammy. “Yeah, I’m
sure I saw her around, but I didn’t talk to her. Or phone her. Or e-mail her. I
told you, I didn’t really know her.”

Cooperman glanced down at his
notebook. He hadn’t been taking any notes, but Millhouse had been scribbling
furiously. She hadn’t said enough for him to be writing that much, had she?

Jake had mentioned to Mark today
that the police liked to scare you to make you want to confess
something
just to take the pressure off.
She was starting to understand that. Her pulse was beating in her throat like a
hummingbird’s wings.

How had Jake stood it? She had
spoken to Ginny only once, and here she was worried that the police were trying
to nail
her
for killing Ginny. Jake
had worked with her, had had a relationship with her years ago, and had been
the last person seen with her before her body was found.

Emma wrapped her arms around
herself and then glanced at the clock. The detectives needed to leave before
Jake showed up.

“If that’s it…” she said,
straightening away from the counter.

“Sorry, no,” Cooperman said. He
didn’t sound at all apologetic. “What about Mr. Vant? How would you describe
your relationship with him?”

“Jake Vant, you mean?” Of course
that’s who they meant—they weren’t here about Mickey—but she needed a few
seconds to frame her response.

“Right. Jake Vant.”

“I’d say our relationship is a very
new friendship. I’m much better friends with his uncle, Mickey, who is my
neighbor. Mickey brought Jake over here yesterday morning to see if I could
help Jake get his memories back. I couldn’t—it’s not what I do. Then Jake
stopped by here today to see if I’d go to the Waterview with him, since Mickey
wasn’t available. I assume it’s our lunch at the Waterview that led you over
here, right?”

Neither bothered to answer. Heck,
Millhouse hadn’t even made eye contact with her since he’d entered her house.

“Explain to me why Mickey Vant
thought you could help his nephew,” Cooperman said.

If these guys had done any sort of
homework before coming over here, they already knew why. She raised her chin.
“I’m a kennel owner and an animal healer. Mickey hoped that my healing skills
could somehow spring Jake’s memories free. But I don’t normally treat people,
and it didn’t work.”

“Uh-huh.” Cooperman was making a
credible effort to not act like he believed she was a total con artist. But
what would she discover in his thoughts if she reached out and touched his
hand?

No.
She’d already done that once today, with Mark. She’d learned that Mark’s
thoughts had mirrored his words, except that Mark didn’t much care if Jake had
or hadn’t killed Ginny. Jake tipped really well, joked with the waitstaff, and
commiserated with them when the restaurant was crazy busy instead of getting
uptight about his meal coming a little slowly. Ginny, though, was the customer
from hell, demanding items to be set on the side and no ice in her water, and
never tipping well even when the cook and waiter followed her instructions
exactly.

Mark was the second person in two
days whom Emma had touched with the intent of reading his mind. She needed to
get control, rein herself in. If she gave herself away—let slip that she was a
telepath—she could find herself with a vandalized house and a sudden lack of friends.
Again. Or if things got really bad, someone might die, as her high school
friend Trisha had.

Cooperman cleared his throat, and
she jerked her eyes back to his. “Does Mr. Vant have a briefcase? Or have you
ever seen him with one?”

“No. I mean, I’ve never seen him
with a briefcase, so I don’t know if he has one or not. I don’t think he’s the
briefcase type.” Though why she felt compelled to add that last bit, she didn’t
know.

“Ms. Draper, you sound like you in
fact know him quite well. Would you characterize your relationship with Jake Vant
as a romantic one?”

She tried to sound firm. “No.”
Though he had sneakily kissed her. Some people with low standards might
consider that a romantic relationship. It was certainly the most romantic
relationship—such as it was—she’d had in years, sadly enough.

Cooperman gave her another
cool-eyed smile. “You don’t seem entirely sure about that.”

This guy was better at reading
people than she was. And it was seven twenty—time to get these detectives out
of her house. “Listen, yesterday morning—
after
Ginny was killed—was the first time I’d had a conversation with Jake Vant that
lasted more than thirty seconds. Before that, we’d said hi in passing, when we
even bothered to say hi. So even if I did suddenly have a mad crush on him,
it’s pretty much irrelevant to Ginny Lamberton’s murder, isn’t it?” Damn it,
she was giving too much away. She should have kept her mouth shut.

“But it’s not irrelevant to you,
I’d think,” Cooperman said. “You strike me as a woman who has a good head on
her shoulders.”
Aside from believing you
can read animals’ minds,
she could practically see him think. “So why would
you start dating a guy who’s a person of interest in a murder investigation?”

“We’re not dating.”

Cooperman stood, and Millhouse followed
his lead, tucking his notebook in his pocket. “That’s smart. Well, thanks for
your time, Ms. Draper.”

She led them back to the front
door, standing aside to let them out. Cooperman turned on the doorstep and gave
her a nod. “Have a good night.”

She shouldn’t. She absolutely
should
not
.

She stuck her hand out and gave
Cooperman a smile. “You, too. And good luck with your investigation. I’ll feel
safer once you’ve found the guy.”

His big, callused hand closed
around hers. Emma mentally pulled.

…warn
her again? That guy’s bad news. He killed her. Damn drug is giving the DA cold
feet, though…Need to find a witness…

“Keep your doors locked,” Cooperman
said, releasing the handshake. He pulled a card out of his pocket and gave it
to her. “Call us if you think of anything that might help—or even anything that
gives you a weird vibe.” He hesitated. Was he going to make a joke about her
being a pet psychic? But he just nodded again and strode back to his patrol
car.

She shut the door a little more
firmly than she needed to and then wandered back to the kitchen, where she
looked at the clock—7:25—and sighed.

Jake was right. The police weren’t
looking for anyone else. He was their number one suspect—their
only
suspect, as far as she could tell.

The back door swung open, and Ian
tentatively stuck his head into the kitchen. “Can I come in?”

Just another indication of how
skewed her world had become. Ian used to wander in and out of her house without
thinking twice.

“Of course. Want a Coke or
something?”

“Sure.” As he’d always done, Ian
went into the fridge himself, pulled out a can, and popped the tab.

“The police were here,” Emma said.
Her knees suddenly trembled, and she sat down at the kitchen table with a
thump. “Did they come out back first to talk to you?”

Ian shook his head. “I saw them
pull up, so I ducked into the shed. I don’t know Jake or Ginny, so I don’t need
to talk to the police.” He appeared to brace himself. “Cynthia doesn’t think
much of him.”

Jake, he meant. Emma managed to
refrain from snorting in disdain of Cynthia’s judgment and instead said as
levelly as she could, “Does she know him well?” Jake had told Bill Monroe that
he hadn’t seen Cynthia in years, so Emma wasn’t too surprised when Ian shook
his head.

“But Cynthia’s smart about people,”
he said stubbornly and with touching loyalty.

Right. Since Cynthia didn’t seem to
like Emma either, Emma thought that Cynthia disliking Jake was a sign in his
favor. But while they were on the subject, now might be a good time to tell Ian
that Jake would be arriving in, oh, five minutes.

Ian glanced around. “Where’s
Brutus? He usually runs up whenever I come in the door.”

“He’s not in here. He’s out on the
leash line.” But Ian had just come from outside…

She jumped to her feet and looked
out the window. The leash line was in plain sight. So was the leash, twisting
in the wind without a big black dog on the end of it.

Throwing the door open, she dashed
out into the backyard. “Brutus!”

Good God, this dog was a nightmare.
A sheer nightmare. How the hell had he gotten off the leash line?

“Brutus!”

Coke can still in hand, Ian joined
her. “He was on the line twenty minutes ago. I saw him when I went to hide in
the shed.”

Well, that was good news. Unless he
was running flat-out, the dog was still nearby.

Shutting her eyes, she concentrated
on Brutus.

With most dogs, she had to be
touching them to hear their thoughts. But Brutus had been underfoot for so
long, Emma didn’t have to have her hands on him to know what he could see and
was feeling.

She pushed her thoughts out and
scanned the lightly forested area that wrapped in a half circle around her
house.

Woods.
Freedom!
Plus, he hadn’t been fed dinner yet.

Emma grabbed from the shed a spoon
and a metal dog food dish and handed them to Ian, and then took a set for
herself. “You head into the woods behind the house, and I’ll take the woods
behind Mickey’s house. Clang on the dish—he knows what that means. Wait!” She
snatched a leash from a hook inside the shed door and tossed it to Ian. “If you
find him, you’ll need this. Do you have your cell phone?” He nodded. “Great.
Call me on my cell if you find him, and I’ll call you on yours if I do.”

Leash dangling over his shoulder,
Ian took off at a trot straight back through the yard, disappearing into the
trees.

Emma stopped in the kitchen to grab
her cell phone. The display read 7:29. Shoot—Jake would arrive at any minute.
She scribbled a quick note on a Post-it, slapped it on the front door, and then
ran for the woods separating her house from Mickey’s. When she found that dog,
she was going to strangle him. And if she ever had to board the demon again,
she was going to demand hazard pay.

“Here, Brutus! Come on, Brutus!
Dinner…”

• •

Pressing his finger to the doorbell
again, Jake tried to peer through the glass blocks bordering Emma’s front door.
No movement inside.

He stepped back and looked around.
If she was trying to convince him that she wasn’t home, she should have hid her
car and the two others parked in her driveway. Maybe she wasn’t trying to duck
him but was out back.

Emma wasn’t in the backyard,
either, but he did find Cynthia Monroe there, looking put-out. “What are you
doing here?” she said with the casual rudeness that teenagers seemed to master
effortlessly. She looked older than that, though, so maybe she was just holding
on to bad manners for nostalgia’s sake.

“Looking for Emma. Have you seen
her?”

“No.” And Cynthia placed her hands
on her hips, as if waiting for him to leave.

He made a big production of looking
around. “What about Ian?”

She widened her eyes innocently.
“What about him?”

“Where is he?”

“Out with Emma, I suppose.”

“Their cars are here,” Jake pointed
out. What did this girl have against him, anyway? “They can’t be that far
away.”

“Oh. I didn’t notice.”

Yeah, right.

He almost asked her to give Emma
the message that he was going next door to Mickey’s, then reconsidered. Given
her surliness, the likelihood of that message being delivered seemed small.

Well, he could wait, too. He didn’t
have much desire to do it with Cynthia, though.

Circling the house, he returned to
his car to grab his cell phone. While he was waiting, he could call his parents
and give them an update. He’d found a lawyer he had more faith in, and the
police hadn’t come to the office this afternoon. The day had ended brighter
than it had begun.