31

Soft lights lit expensive artwork. Beautiful carpeting lined the hallway of the exquisite five-star hotel. I knocked on the door to room 223.

“What am I going to say to him?” I asked Sean.

Down the hall, a uniformed man with a housekeeping cart tried to blend in with the woodwork.

“Are you getting cold feet?”

“A little.” I didn’t really know Mac, but in a way I did. I could almost understand why he’d run away from home if the changes I’d seen in Jemima over the last couple of days were any indication. Maybe by disappearing he was teaching his daughter one last life lesson—that she was strong enough to stand on her own. “I miss Rufus. I’ll be glad to see him.”

I knocked again.

The man with the cart approached us. “Are you looking for the dark-haired gentleman? The one with the dog?”

“You’ve seen him?” I asked.

“Nice man, nice man. Good tipper.” He smiled.

If he only knew just how free Mac was with his money.

“I was sad to see him go,” the man added.

“Go?” Sean asked.

“Checked out about an hour ago. He was in quite a rush.”

So close. “Do you happen to know where he went?”

“Sorry, no. You might want to check with the front desk.”

Sean slipped him a folded bill and the man trotted off.

“Interesting that Mac would suddenly check out an hour ago,” Sean said. “Coincidence?”

“Not coincidence. Christa.”

*   *   *

I thought it was high time we had a talk with Christa Hayes. But as we approached Mac’s estate, the street out front was crammed with TV crews and reporters standing around. There was no sign of Preston, which meant she was probably still in Roxbury.

“This can’t be good.” There were three police cars that I could see from here.

“No,” Sean agreed.

A Cohasset patrolman manning the gate stopped me as I tried to head up to the house. “I’m sorry, ma’am, no visitors.”

I flashed him my state police credentials—I didn’t have a badge, but my ID was still impressive. I asked, “What happened?”

Looking unimpressed, he handed my ID back to me. “Some sort of domestic dispute. The captain has more details up at the house.” He waved us through.

We found a place to park at the bottom of the drive. It was a long way up to the house, but I held back any suggestions about Sean staying put. I found I was getting quite good at faking the whole I-was-okay-with-his-health thing.

As we passed the police cars, my mind flew through theories. One of which was that Mac had come home and Rick had gone ballistic and killed him. I shared these thoughts with Sean.

“You have quite the overactive imagination.”

It was a cool afternoon with a hint of spring in the air. The snow would soon be gone, and tiny crocuses would pop up through the frozen ground. I was looking forward to not being cold all the time.

The image of Sean and me in Hawaii came to mind, and I could practically feel the sway of the hammock.

“You’re overlooking the obvious,” he said.

I stumbled a bit, righting myself. It was the same thing Orlinda had said to me this morning.

Sometimes from the ashes a gift rises.

Who was Orlinda Batista? She was a psychic healer—that much I knew for certain. My stomach had never felt better.

Had it been fate our paths crossed? Destiny?

I think, Lucy, there is more to your abilities than you’re aware.

I had the feeling she could help me understand my gift. Help me to learn why I saw visions of the future when I touched Sean’s hand. And maybe, if I was really lucky, she could see my aura and I would know for certain if Sean and I were meant to be.

She was right—I would see her again.

“What’s so obvious?” I asked, trying to pretend I didn’t already know. That I hadn’t been thinking about it since I saw the police cars and heard the words “domestic dispute.” That my telling Jemima about Esmeralda hadn’t been the fuel for a situation that needed a response from so many cops.

Sean glanced at me. His color was a bit better, though that could have been from the exertion of climbing the steep driveway. I didn’t want to think about how his heart was working extra hard right now. Mine was, too, which reminded me I should take better care of it. Exercise more. Maybe I’d take up running. Or one of those cycling classes at the local gym. Or even Zumba.

Sean must have heard something in my tone, because he put his arm around my shoulder and kissed my temple. “That Mac and Rufus came back and Rufus tore the place apart looking for his rubber chicken, which sent Jemima over the edge, and she threw her book of Tao out the glass window, which shattered into a million pieces, and—”

“You’re humoring me.”

“Yes.”

“I’m okay with that.” It was better than the image I had of Jemima taking a steak knife to Rick.

We crested the drive and suddenly my feet wouldn’t budge. “Oh.”

The house was bathed in bright lights as a construction crew set about hammering plywood over the missing windows. Windows that had been shot out if the bullet holes in the remaining windows were any indication. I was suddenly worried sick about Christa and Jemima.

I nudged Sean. Rick Hayes was sitting in the back of a cruiser with a smug look on his face. Ha. See if I ever told him where his pink guitar pick was.

Looking around, I noticed the yard was a mess. Clothes everywhere. Books. A few guitars—all broken. My eyes widened when I spotted a Grammy award that had been sawed in half.

“Domestic dispute” might have been an understatement.

I tapped on the shoulder of another patrolman. “Where’s Jemima Hayes?”

His jaw thrust toward the door. “Inside.”

I let out a breath of relief. She was alive. Sean and I carefully picked our way over broken glass. We didn’t have to look far for Jemima. She was sitting on the bottom step of the marble staircase. When she spotted us, she said wryly, “Come on in.”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Outwardly, she looked great. Her hair had been blown out and flowed over her shoulders. Her makeup was picture perfect, and she was dressed in dark jeans and a silky top. Her feet were bare, which I thought to be a little dangerous with all the glass around, but she didn’t seem worried. In fact, she didn’t even look like she’d broken a sweat over all this, but after that little showdown with Rick two days ago I knew better. She was just good at hiding her true feelings.

“I’m good.”

“Where’s Christa?” Sean asked.

“Staying the night at a friend’s house. I didn’t want her to be part of this circus.”

This probably wasn’t the best time to get into Christa’s role in Mac’s disappearance—or tell Jemima that Mac was alive. I hoped he’d make that pronouncement himself. “Do you need me to call anyone?” Like a lawyer.

“No. Everything’s been taken care of, but thanks for asking.”

I sat next to her on the step. “What happened, Jemima?”

She was silent for so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer. But finally she said, “I was blind. For so many years, I was so damn blind.” A muscle in her jaw pulsed as she clenched her teeth.

“Rick?” I asked.

“Do you think he ever loved me?”

“I—” I glanced at Sean for help, but he’d wandered off. I saw him talking with a police officer near the door. “I’m sure he did.”

She stared straight ahead, not really looking at anything in particular. “I want to believe that, but ever since Mac disappeared I’ve been seeing things a lot more clearly. The only things Rick really loves are money, fame, and himself. I was blind. A fool in love.”

“What about Christa? He must love her.”

Jemima picked at a fingernail. “I wish I could say that was true—for Christa’s sake—but the only thing Rick sees when he looks at his daughter is dollar signs. I’m convinced now he only married me because I came from a wealthy family. And he got me pregnant to make sure he always had a meal ticket. My parents knew it, but I couldn’t see it back then. I couldn’t see it for a long time.”

“It’s hard to think those kinds of things about someone you love.”

Her jaw clenched, unclenched. “After I spoke with you this morning, I went into his office and snooped around. Turns out Esme is one of the producers on Rick’s reality show. I found notes about a future episode where it would be revealed to me the housekeeper was actually one of my husband’s ex-wives. It was all for the ratings, Lucy. So I did what I needed to do. I tossed everything he owned outside and changed the locks.”

“The Grammy?”

A hint of a smile ghosted across her lips. “A nice touch, don’t you think?”

“Hit him where it hurts?”

“Exactly.”

“Where was Esme?”

“Supposedly out shopping, but I doubt it was a coincidence she and Rick came home within minutes of each other. Neither could get in, of course. When he called me and I confronted him, he didn’t deny any of it. Do you know what he did?”

“What?”

He went back to his car, called a camera crew, and waited for them to arrive. Then he took out the gun he keeps in his glove compartment and started shooting up the house, ranting and raving like a lunatic, screaming about how much he loves me and how heartless I was being. Thankfully I was upstairs, or I could have been hurt. Not that he’d care.”

“It’s all on tape?”

“The police confiscated the camera, but I suspect there will be footage on every entertainment news program tonight. Rick has been arrested, but he’ll be out in a day or two. His popularity will soar. He’ll be famous again.”

“And you?” I asked, hearing the sadness in her voice.

As she looked at me, I saw her eyes filled with hurt, anger, and grief. “Me? Well, I’ll still be in love with an asshole, won’t I?”