According to Milo, Tish said she had lost the ability to do readings after the fake one. Either it was guilt or some cosmic consequence, but her practice fell off. She was desperate to fix things.
“It makes sense now,” Mom said. “Tish had been irritable and stressed for months. She went to tons of conferences to try to improve her skills. Whenever I tried to talk to her about it, we ended up arguing.”
Sara’s séance accusing someone of being a murderer pushed them all over the edge. Tish thought it could have been the Starks Sara was referring to, Milo thought it was his stepfather, and Cecile thought Sara actually had knowledge about Mike’s death. I secretly wondered how much the newspaper stories had to do with Sara’s séance. She may have been playing a very dangerous game of trying to draw out the murderer. I wasn’t sure we’d ever know what really happened that night, except that it triggered everything that had come after.
I left it to Mac and Tom to sort out all the conflicting stories. I barely had time to thank Mac for coming to the rescue before he headed back to the station to begin the long process of building a case against Cecile and Joe. Alex offered to take Seth and me to the vet clinic, and we gratefully accepted.
29
I opened my eyes the next morning and squinted at the brightness. Every muscle ached from having been dragged around the woods by Baxter the night before.
Baxter. I tried not to think about him. He had been so brave. I wished I could take back even one of those times I had pushed away his wet nose. I would have placed a large bet that Baxter would have run for cover before ever protecting me, and I was thankful I had been wrong. He’d been my very own secret service dog and now he was . . .
I got out of bed, pushing all thoughts of Baxter out of my head. It would be even worse dealing with Seth if I was teary-eyed. I went downstairs in search of coffee and news.
In the kitchen, Mom came up to me with tears in her eyes and hugged me.
“It’s okay, Mom.” I patted her back and tried to pull away.
“No, it’s not. You could have been killed.” She squeezed once more and released me, but gripped my hand. “It was bad enough when you were in Ann Arbor and I imagined you to be in danger all the time, but for it to happen here, right under my nose.” Her lower lip quivered as she fought for control.
“Mom, it just got out of hand is all.” I sat at the table and focused on the coffee she slid in front of me.
“It wouldn’t have gotten ‘out of hand’ if you had known what to expect going in.” She stood in front of me, arms crossed. “Clyde, you wouldn’t go into a building on a police call without assistance, would you? If you were expecting trouble?”
My mind flashed again to Jadyn. I remembered the adrenaline racing through my system as we caught sight of him and chased him through the alleys behind the apartment building. I knew I wouldn’t have done that if my partner hadn’t been with me. I would have called for backup; the kid would have gotten away.
“No,” I said.
“Then why do you go through life without using the support that has been given to you?” She had her hands out, pleading. “Why do you insist on ignoring your gift when it could save your life?”
“It wouldn’t help, it never helps. In fact, I did know something about last night. I had a dream about it. It didn’t help in the least, except I thought it was Mac who was going to be shot.”
“Is that why you started avoiding him?” She sat across from me.
“What?”
“He told me. He said things were going just fine between the two of you, and then you withdrew for no reason. He didn’t understand it.”
“I thought I could protect him if we stayed apart,” I said without meeting her eyes.
“The thing about your gift, Clyde, is it will never be of any use until you learn how to understand it. You can’t pay attention to some of it and not all of it. You have to know what you’re doing, or you’re going to end up getting hurt.”
“Mom, when was Mac here?”
“He came by looking for you after Tish’s funeral. He spent some time with Vi and then left.”
“Who spent some time with me?” Vi clumped into the kitchen using Mac’s cane. She clearly hadn’t slept much and was covered in scratches from her brawl with Cecile.
“Mac,” we said in unison.
“Yeah, he had it all figured out.” She flicked her hand and made her way to the table to sit with us.
“What are you talking about?” Mom said.
“He said he needed me to keep everyone interested in Milo so no one would get hurt.” She gestured around the table. “You can see how well that worked out.”
“Start at the beginning, Vi,” I said.
“He came here after Tish’s funeral and said he’d been looking into old cases. He suspected that Joe or Cecile or both of them had . . . killed Mike all those years ago.” Her voice trailed off, and she stared past me out the kitchen window.