20

“How do you know it was Tristan?” Preston asked as Scarlett, my GPS, directed us from Medford to Roxbury. I’d lived in Boston and the South Shore my whole life, yet still couldn’t find my way around.

“I just do.”

“But how?” she pressed, tapping her fingernail on the console.

“I’m psychic, remember?”

“Not that kind. I’ve been reading up on psychics, you know.”

I slid a look her way. Where was she going with this? She was leading me somewhere. “You have?”

“I’m just fascinated, especially now that I know your powers are real. Did you know a lot of psychic ability is hereditary?”

“Really?” I asked. “Because it was the lightning strike and the surge of electricity that gave me my abilities to find lost objects.” I wasn’t technically lying. I just left out the part where the surge had robbed me of seeing auras. The auras I’d inherited from my father.

“Was anyone else there when the surge happened?” she asked as she changed the radio station.

Though there was nothing overt in her tone, I heard the investigator at work. “My mother,” I answered. “And I was on the phone with Marisol, who rushed right over from her house when the phone went dead.”

I remembered it all too clearly. How the surge had knocked me clear off my bed. Mum had rushed into the room to check on me, and I hadn’t been able to see her red aura. My colorful world had gone dark.

“I’m sure either of them would love to tell you all about that day.”

She stared out the window, a frown tugging on her lips. Mine hadn’t been the answer she had hoped for. It was obvious she suspected my father had powers. It was only a matter of time before she figured out he could see auras. Cutter, too. What would she do with the information?

When she didn’t respond, I gratefully let it drop. “Did your shady contacts have any other information about Tristan?”

“Most were reluctant to talk about him at all.”

“Yet they all knew who he was.”

“Without a doubt.” She shifted slightly to face me. “If it was Tristan who left your doors open, why would he do that? I don’t understand.”

I checked my rearview mirror. As far as I could tell, there was no one following us. I didn’t feel relief. I felt duped. This was twice now Tristan had caught me off-guard. “I don’t know.”

He had every opportunity to be malicious. It would have taken only seconds to slash my seats. Minutes to steal the radio or the GPS unit. Instead, he had simply unlocked the doors and left them open wide.

In a way, it was more violating. As if he was declaring that not only could he find me, but also locks wouldn’t keep him out. If it was a subtle threat, it worked. I was skeeved out.

I glanced in the mirror again. Still nothing.

Scarlett demanded I turn left in one hundred feet. She was bossy and demanding, that Scarlett, and woe to the driver who didn’t do as she said. We were on our way to the location Preston’s tipster had given her—the address for Tristan Rourke’s underground headquarters. We were scoping the place out, doing a quick drive-by to see if the tip held any merit.

“Do you know if this is a house or a warehouse?”

“Not a clue. Two hundred bucks will only buy so much.”

I suddenly thought of the homeless man on the bench on the Common and the money he’d slipped into his glove. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of days and made a mental note to check on him, make sure he had enough to eat.

I knew I couldn’t save the whole world. And maybe I couldn’t even help the homeless man, but I could try. I certainly had more than enough money sitting in my trust fund to be a benefactor. But first, I should ask if he wanted my help. Some people wouldn’t—and I could respect that.

“About my expense report,” Preston said.

“Were we talking about your expense report?”

Scarlett told me to turn right in twenty feet.

Preston ignored my question. “I think I should be able to write off a new pair of boots. I was on the job when these broke.”

The superglue wasn’t holding. “But you weren’t on the job for Valentine, Inc. The Lone Ranger has nothing to do with Lost Loves.”

Raising an eyebrow, she said, “But if I weren’t working the Lost Love cases, I never would have been downtown, ergo I never would have known about the Lone Ranger in the first place.”

“Ergo? Did you go to law school when I wasn’t looking?”

“Journalism law and ethics class.”

She made a compelling argument. “We’ll stop at DSW on the way back to the office.”

Smiling, she said, “Now I remember why I like you.”

“Because I have a company credit card?”

“Exactly.”

Scarlett announced we had reached our destination. I drove past the storefront, banged a U-ey that had Scarlett pitching such a fit I had to turn off the GPS, and parallel-parked across the street.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I stared at the front of A Clean Start, the Laundromat owned by Tristan’s grandmother, as a woman came out with a laundry basket full of something other than clothes. I squinted but couldn’t identify the items. “What’s in her basket? Can you tell?”

Preston pulled binoculars from her bag and trained them on the unsuspecting woman. “Groceries. Milk. Cereal. Soup. No clothes. You’d think with that being a Laundromat and that being a clothes basket there would be clothes. There’s not even a sock to be seen.”

I stared at the binoculars.

“What?” she asked.

“Do you always carry around an extra set of binoculars?” The other pair was back at the office, still sitting on the windowsill where I left them.

“I was a Girl Scout,” she said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “I like to be prepared.”

“You were a Girl Scout?”

“Don’t look so shocked.” She pointed. “Here comes someone else.”

A young black man, early twenties, was headed into the Laundromat with an empty basket. Five minutes later, he came back out. The basket was full.

“What does he have in it?” I asked.

“Looks like two blankets, a loaf of bread, and a gallon of milk. Skim.”

What was going on in that Laundromat? Was it a general store as well?

“We need to go in,” Preston said. “Scope it out.”

“Maureen Rourke knows what I look like. She’ll never tell me anything.”

“Okay, then. I’ll go in.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Don’t be such a nervous Nelly.”

She was out the door and halfway across the street before I could even think to tease her about the phrase. Preston didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. In fact, as she rushed in, the woman coming out gave Preston a wide berth. I couldn’t blame her—Preston was a little scary herself.

The woman had one hand clamped tightly around a little girl’s hand; the other was holding a paper sack with a loaf of bread sticking out of the top.

The mother looked both ways, held tight to the girl, and crossed the street. They passed my car, headed slowly toward an apartment complex farther up the block. The girl, maybe four or five, was dragging her feet through the slush.

On impulse, I jumped out of the car and jogged after them. I was closing in when the mother suddenly let go of the girl’s hand, turned, and aimed a pepper spray canister my way.

“Stop right there,” she ordered.

I skidded to a halt, nearly falling over with the sudden inertia. I swung my arms, teetered.

“I mean it!” she yelled, thrusting her hand forward. Her thumb was on the button, poised for squirting.

“She means it!” the little girl echoed.

My foot slipped on the slush and my feet slid out underneath me. I fell flat on my ass. The icy slush immediately soaked through my pants.

The little girl giggled.

Her mother still pointed the spray. Right. I was going to jump her now, armed with a snowball. “I come in peace,” I managed to say, trying to find to find an elegant way to stand up.

The woman eyed me suspiciously but reached out her hand (I didn’t see anything). She’d put the pepper spray away. “You scared the shit out of me,” she said.

“Scared,” the girl echoed.

“Shush, Nessie.”

An icy drip slid down the back of my thigh. I didn’t even want to check the damage.

“What are you doing chasing after me?” the woman demanded.

“I, uh—” It had been a completely stupid thing to do.

“Don’t you know this is a bad neighborhood? You’re lucky I didn’t have a gun.”

“Lucky,” Nessie parroted, nodding her head. Jet-black twin pigtails bounced, brushing her shoulders.

It was a bad neighborhood. Yet I saw tiny gems of hope along the neglected street. New fencing, newer windows on some of the houses, and fresh paint covering gang graffiti.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I saw you come out of A Clean Start.” A quick look at the storefront didn’t show any sign of Preston, but I suddenly noticed how the building stood out. Bold paint, big windows, a bright airy feeling around it. The place fairly sparkled, which I supposed was a good image to have for a Laundromat. I wasn’t so sure it was the best idea to stick out like a sore thumb, even if that thumb had just been manicured and painted with a fresh coat of polish.

“So?” she said.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seemed strange you came out with groceries instead of laundry.”

“Why do you care?”

“Yeah, why?” Nessie asked.

She was the spitting image of her mother—her smooth skin a light brown, her dark eyes and lashes slanting slightly, her razor-sharp tone.

I couldn’t very well come out and ask about Tristan Rourke. I stalled for time, but not only did my butt ache; it was now frozen also. I longed for home and a long bubble bath. I was fresh out of ideas of how to beat around the bush. “Do you know Tristan Rourke?”

The woman raised a paper-thin eyebrow.

“Robin Hood, Robin Hood,” the little girl chanted.

I glanced at her, then at her mother. At the bag of groceries and the pair’s thin spring coats. It clicked. “Robin Hood? Robbing the rich to feed the poor?”

“You didn’t hear it from me,” the woman said.

Nessie smiled. A space was missing where a front tooth should have been. “Or me.”

I smiled back. “Does he only provide groceries?”

“Clothes. Food. Blankets. Cash. In some cases, tuition.”

“And what does he get in return?”

“I can’t say I know.” She started forward, stopped, turned. “This may still be a bad neighborhood, but a year ago, two years ago … It was hell on earth.”

“Hell,” Nessie said, nodding.

The woman tsked at her.

As they walked off, Nessie looked over her shoulder and waved at me. As I waved back, I felt a presence behind me. I spun just as the man reached out and grabbed me.