Mind Tricks (27 page)

She said into the phone, “I’m kind
of busy right now. What about Cynthia?…Uh-huh…Okay. No, it’s not a big problem.
Be there in a half hour.” She snapped the phone shut. “Ian’s car died on Route
One, and he’s been towed to a service station. But he needs me to pick him up
because no one else can—or will—do it. I think Cynthia is punishing him for all
the time he’s been spending helping me look for Brutus.” Raising a hand to
silence any comment, she added, “And he’s not in love with me, so stop thinking
that.”

If that was the truth, that made
one of them.

Wait—back up. Was he saying that he
was in love with Emma? He’d met her only a week ago, but she was fantastic,
funny, scary smart, and singed his nerve endings every time they touched. But
love? He’d never been in love before. Was that what made his stomach swoop down
like a kamikaze pilot and his mouth swing up in a smile every time he saw her?

She unwrapped her fingers from his
with a self-conscious laugh. “If you ever figure out the answer to that
question, Jake, let me know. But I don’t think I should be listening in while
you debate it.”

No kidding. He felt himself flush
and tried to turn the subject. “Can you stop listening in?”

“Yes, but it’s very difficult when
someone’s concentrating really hard, the way you were.”

Of course he’d been concentrating
hard! It was an important question. “Got it.”

“Anyway,” she said briskly but not
looking at him, “I need to go get Ian. Call me as soon as you find out what’s
in the briefcase, okay?”

“Sure. And thanks again for getting
it.”

“Any time.” Then she laughed.
“Though I trust this will be the last time.”

“Absolutely,” he promised.

She hesitated and then rose up on
her toes and kissed him on the mouth—a brief contact that made him want to grab
her and give her a real kiss. “Talk to you later.” And she headed for her car,
leaving him in the middle of the parking lot, the asphalt shimmering and
dancing in the heat.

Jake took a deep breath, held it,
and then blew it out. Okay. He had to get his mind back on the briefcase. Where
could he go to look at it?

Mickey’s house. Of course. Jake
grabbed his cell phone off his belt and autodialed his uncle. “Mickey, it’s
Jake. Can I come over? I found Ginny’s briefcase.”

There was a queer silence on the
other end. Then Mickey said, “Bring it over. Now.”

“It was the alternator,” Ian was
saying just as a familiar tickle started in Emma’s head. “I could feel the
car’s power start to go, but I wasn’t sure what— Hey!”

She yanked the steering wheel
sideways and swerved onto the shoulder of the road. A car honked
enthusiastically, and the busy afternoon traffic on Route 1 continued on
without them.

“Quiet,” she ordered Ian, who was
staring at her, bug-eyed. She squeezed her lids shut and focused on the thin
stream of doggy thought that danced across her consciousness like a waterbug
skimming across a pond.

Brutus. She’d know that
mischievous, escape-from-Alcatraz brain anywhere.

She opened her eyes. She and Ian
were stopped in front of the pair of rundown houses from which she’d gotten a
whiff of Brutus two days ago. The same German shepherd barked soundlessly
behind the window at her.

Delicately, she pushed her mind out
toward the German shepherd. It was difficult to make contact with a dog she’d
never physically touched before, and she merely glided across the German
shepherd’s mind. That connection was enough. The Brutus-like thoughts weren’t
coming from that dog.

Brutus himself was here somewhere.
He had to be.

She stared at the two houses. But
which one was he in?

“Cynthia’s not at home,” Ian
offered. “She’s working right now; otherwise she would’ve come to get me.”

Emma blinked and turned her
attention to him. “What?”

Nodding at the house on the
left—the one without the German shepherd—Ian said, “That’s Cynthia’s new place.
Well, not really new, obviously. New to her, I mean.”

Cynthia?

Of course. Cynthia.

Emma shoved her car door open, and
a wave of wind from the passing cars tossed her hair in front of her eyes.
Clawing her vision clear, she sprinted across the scraggly lawn.

“Emma, wait up!”

She heard another car door slam,
and Ian, with his long legs, caught up with her before she reached the front
door. “I told you, she’s not here. What’s going on?”

She hated to do this, but…

She slid her hand around the back
of Ian’s neck like a woman who wanted a kiss. But she wanted the truth. Now.

“Did you know that Brutus is inside
here?” she demanded.

Ian physically froze but mentally
reeled. “What? No, he’s not.”

She released him and stepped back.
Whatever Cynthia had done, Ian was not a knowing party to it.

Brutus’s thoughts fluttered through
her mind. He was hungry—as usual.

“Do you have a key?” she asked,
trying to sound calm. “I’m going in.”

Ian shook his head, his expression
uncertain. “I don’t have a key. And even if I did, it’d be weird, Emma. Cynthia
wouldn’t like it.”

“Okay.” She patted him on the arm.
“Don’t worry about it.” Then she picked up a brick that bordered the empty
flower bed by the front stoop and tossed it through a small windowpane set in
the door. The crash of exploding glass momentarily overcame the whoosh of
traffic behind them.

Ian leaped back. “Jesus! What’re
you doing?”

“Breaking in,” she said coolly, but
inside her heart was galloping like a panicked three-legged mule. She used
another brick to clean away the shards that would try to catch her skin like
teeth, and then reached through the gaping pane and unlocked the door from the
inside.

“Emma…” Her name was half protest,
half groan. But Ian followed her inside and even flicked on the hall light for
her.

If she was a kind person, she’d
insist that Ian wait outside and not get drawn in to this mess. She was
burglarizing his girlfriend’s house, after all. But she needed a witness to
what she expected to find.

A bark echoed up from below them,
and Ian stopped dead, going pale.

Poor guy. He was too good for
Cynthia. “Where are the stairs to the basement?”

Silently he led her to a dim little
kitchen and pulled open a door. Another bark shot up the stairs. At least Brutus
sounded healthy.

She turned on the lights and
started downstairs, but Ian lingered at the top. “I think I just heard a car
pull in.” He vanished, presumably to check it out.

Unable to wait, Emma clattered down
the rest of the squeaky wooden steps. Bare bulbs lit the grimy basement, an old
shag rug in the corner the only decoration. On the rug stood the loveliest dog,
silly dog smile, drool and all, that she’d ever seen.

“Brutus,” she breathed.

He barked again, nearly tearing her
eardrums out in the small space, and then dashed over to her. Cynthia hadn’t
chained him up, giving him the run of the basement.

Food
food food food…

“You got it, bub.” Gripping his
collar, she started up the stairs.

When she was only halfway up,
Cynthia stepped into the doorway at the top. “Put him back,” she shrieked, her
lips pulling back to show her teeth.

Emma hesitated. If Cynthia shoved
her, she’d fall down the flight of stairs. And the cement floor of the basement
didn’t look too cushy.

Ian joined Cynthia. “C’mon, Cynth,
let her up.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “Why did you take him?”

Emma got her feet moving again and
climbed. Pretending confidence, she pushed past Cynthia and into the kitchen,
where she wheeled to face the girl. Someone who kidnapped dogs wasn’t a person
to turn your back on.

Cynthia began to sniff. “I didn’t!
I found him last night, wandering on the side of the road. So I brought him
inside. I was going to bring him back today, but I forgot he was there. I just
forgot!”

It was possibly the dumbest story
in the world. But Ian’s shoulders began to relax and he nodded.

Oh, for God’s sake. Save her from
all such stupidity that love engendered. Minus briefcase stealing.

Ian gave his girlfriend a buck-up
smile. “I wish you’d called me last night to come get him, Cynth. This doesn’t
look good, you know. But I’m sure Emma—”

Emma released her hold on Brutus.
The big black dog thundered across the floor and butted his head against
Cynthia, whom he’d always regarded as his best friend. Seizing advantage of the
girl’s distraction, Emma stepped forward, grabbed Cynthia’s bare forearm, and
mentally shoved herself into Cynthia’s mind.

Ugh. It was like clawing her way
through a bunch of snakes. The anger, bitterness, and sense of vicious entitlement
nearly suffocated her. But she kept moving, finally finding the thoughts she
was looking for.

She was tired of letting the
monsters, even baby monsters like Cynthia, get away with doing bad things. And
no one messed with her dogs.

“No, you didn’t ‘find’ Brutus. You
were the one who came into my house and took Brutus,” Emma told Cynthia, her
voice flat. “Brutus likes you—he’d go with you anywhere. It wasn’t difficult.
You even came in through the front door, which was unlocked.”

Cynthia’s eyes widened. “How do
you—”

“And you took the DVDs that were on
the table, too. You thought they were music CDs until you looked at them later
in the light. But because they had ‘Woodhaven’ written on them, you figured
your dad might want them, so you gave the disks to him.”

Beside her, Ian’s breath hissed
out.

Cynthia broke Emma’s grip on her
arm and stumbled away. “You’re a witch!”

Emma smiled. She knew it wasn’t a
nice smile. “Yes. Are you afraid yet, Cynthia?”

“I’m calling my dad,” Cynthia
declared, and reached for the phone.

“You do that.” Emma retrieved her
cell phone from her pocket. “But you’d better ask him to meet you at the police
station.”

Ian groaned. “Isn’t there another
way? We found Brutus. Can’t Cynth apologize or something?”

“You know why she did it, Ian,
right? She was jealous of the time you were spending at the kennels. She
thought that if she stole Brutus, she might wreck my business. With no job to
distract you, you’d have more time to spend with her.” That was the simplified
version, leaving out Cynthia’s envy of Ian’s mountain-high respect for Emma.
Cynthia wanted Ian to look up to her, too, and so she’d decided to take Emma
out of the picture.

His expression anguished, Ian
turned to Cynthia, clearly hoping for her denial.

But the girl was on the phone.
“Daddy, Emma found out about the dog and the disks, and she’s going to call the
police….No, I didn’t admit to anything. I didn’t! She can read minds. She
touched me and then she read my mind. She knew everything!”

Emma didn’t catch the rest of the
conversation because Ian began speaking again. “Okay, so she did it.” He sagged
against the wall, looking forty instead of twenty-five. “But the police? That
still seems a little extreme. Plus, we broke in here. Aren’t they going to
arrest us, too?”

Cynthia stabbed a finger at Emma.
“That’s right! I could press charges.”

“No,” Emma said firmly, “we won’t
get arrested.” But who knew? The police thought she could be involved in
Ginny’s death. Maybe they’d try to use this break-in to get her, just like the
FBI had used income tax fraud to get Al Capone because they couldn’t nail him
for his mob crimes.

Okay, that was a wild comparison.
Still—

Cynthia shoved the phone at Emma.
“My dad wants to talk to you.”

Bill had bailed Cynthia out of
hundreds of scrapes—Emma had caught that during her dig through Cynthia’s mind.
Undoubtedly he would try to come to the rescue again.

Emma took the receiver. “Hello,
Bill.”

“Emma, we can resolve this
misunderstanding,” his deep voice said, all traces of his customary joviality gone.
“Cynthia will apologize and work a few hours at the kennels for free. Community
service, but private. How does that sound?”

Like the worst idea in the world.
“I’m not letting her on my property again, much less near any of my dogs.” A
flash of memory hit her—Cynthia handing her father the Woodhaven disks and then
opening the door to the basement and proudly displaying Brutus, panting at the
head of the stairs. “You knew Cynthia had the dog here. Why didn’t you say
anything?”

Silence at the other end. “Excuse
me?”

“Cynthia showed you Brutus when she
gave you the Woodhaven disks. You knew she’d taken him.”

“Your word against mine,” Bill
Monroe said. “And your word isn’t exactly trusted in the police department
these days, is it? The company you’ve been keeping lately is pretty
questionable.”

Jerk. “I know Jake is innocent just
as well as I know that you’re guilty of helping Cynthia conceal a stolen
animal. Whether I can prove that or not, I don’t care. But I can prove Cynthia
took Brutus. The damn dog is right here.”

“All right, all right. Calm down.
Listen…How about a different idea? A trade.”

“Like you working at my kennels
instead of Cynthia?”

“Hardly. Like the name of someone
who can help Jake prove he didn’t kill Ginny.”

Emma nearly crushed the phone.
“What?”

“It’s easy. I tell you who can help
give Jake an alibi for Ginny Lamberton’s murder, and you forget about this
problem with Cynthia.”

It was a no-brainer. “All right.
Who is it?”

Monroe chuckled. “Sorry, but you’ll
have to be patient for a little while longer. I’m going to have my lawyer draw
up a paper that you’ll sign agreeing not to press charges against Cynthia.
He’ll also draw up a formal statement from me stating who can give Jake an
alibi, and I’ll sign that. We exchange papers, and then the deal is done.”