A Haunting Dream (A Missing Pieces Mystery) (2 page)

Chapter 1

“A
nn? Is that really you?” Kevin Brickman gasped
as he stood in the middle of the laughing crowd at the newly dedicated coffee shop. “When did you get here?”

“Just now,” Ann Porter, his ex-partner at the FBI, answered. Her pale face was devoid of emotion, though her voice trembled when she spoke. She was a tall, gaunt woman with string-straight, straw-colored hair. “I hope you’re happy to see me. I’ve missed you, Kevin.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, obviously shocked, not sure what to say. He hadn’t seen her for years. “They have wonderful lattes here.”

She took his hand and kissed it, oblivious to the people around them. “I’ve come a long way to find you. Can we please go somewhere and talk?”

Kevin’s gray-blue eyes found mine, as though asking for understanding.

What could I say?

Ann had not only been Kevin’s partner in the FBI, she’d also been his fiancée—until she’d lost it one day when another child they’d been looking for was found dead. There was no way to know if she would ever recover after she was institutionalized.

Kevin and I had known each other a little over a year, since he’d moved to Duck, North Carolina, where I happen to be the mayor and owner of Missing Pieces, a local thrift store. We’d been through so much during that time—with him opening the old Blue Whale Inn, and us working together on various problems that had come up in town—it seemed like longer.

I admit it. I’d come to think of him as mine. I thought I’d finally found the right person for me, without having to leave the Outer Banks. Kevin was one of the few outsiders, people who weren’t from Duck, who just seemed to fit right in.

Everyone gathered in the coffee shop seemed to be staring at us. Duck was a small town, barely more than five hundred residents during the winter. Just about all of them knew there was something going on between Kevin and me—one of the bad things about living in a small town—so those gathered around us now could tell Ann’s arrival was . . . unexpected. The festive moment we were all celebrating—Phil’s deciding to keep the Coffee House and Bookstore open—faded quickly for me. I had to decide what to do.

Of course Kevin and Ann needed time to talk. They’d been planning their wedding when she’d had her breakdown. I knew he never expected to see her again. What could he be going through?

I wanted him to know that I understood. I didn’t know what to expect from her, but I wanted him to know that I cared about him. “It’s okay,” I whispered, smiling at him. “Do what you have to do. We’ll talk later.”

“Dae, this is Ann Porter, my partner when I was with the FBI. Ann, this is Mayor Dae O’Donnell.”

“Hello, Dae.” Ann stared at me with ragged anger in her cold blue eyes. “I’m Ann—Kevin’s fiancée.”

I acted like her words, her arrival were nothing to be troubled by. Like I hadn’t specially picked out the blue sweater Kevin was wearing. Like I hadn’t just kissed him a few minutes before when everything seemed so wonderful and life was falling into place.

“It’s very nice to meet you. Welcome to Duck. If there is anything I can do to make your stay better, please let me know.”

“Can we go now?” She tugged on Kevin’s arm.

I wished I was telepathic and could just say,
Go.
But my gifts didn’t work that way. Instead, I said, “I’m going over there to get a piece of cheesecake. I’ll talk to you both later.”

I watched them walk outside, then got in the long line for coffee and cheesecake, though my heart wasn’t in it.

“Dae, who is that she-zombie Kevin’s leaving with?” My friend Shayla Lily stood next to me in the line. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before, and from the look on
your
face, I’d say you never want to see her again.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “She’s Kevin’s ex-partner.”

Shayla sucked in a sharp breath. She knew about Kevin’s history before he came to Duck. “No way! You mean the crazy psychic girl who he thought was put away for good?”

“I don’t think that’s the way he feels about her.”

“Dae?” Trudy Devereaux, another friend, stared at the door as she watched Kevin and Ann walk away from the coffee shop. “I think that girl wants your man.”

I explained to Trudy about Ann, still smiling. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

“Fine?”
Shayla tossed her shiny black hair, irritation causing her pretty cocoa brown face to pucker up. “That’s the understatement of the year! You might as well kiss your hunky boyfriend good-bye.”

“Shayla.” Trudy intervened in her calm, no-hassle fashion. “Dae is in a tough spot here. Let’s show a little sympathy.”

Despite her good intentions, Trudy didn’t make me feel any better. I knew Kevin would have married Ann if she hadn’t had her breakdown. I wasn’t sure where that left me now.

And that was the part I had to remember. I
didn’t
know where that left me now. Kevin had changed a lot since he’d left Ann and the FBI behind. I was sure Ann had changed as well. They might not be able to pick up their relationship again like nothing had happened.

I didn’t mean to wish Ann bad luck in coming here to find Kevin—well maybe I did. I had a vested interest in their relationship not working. Kevin and I were good for each other. What we had was special. I had a whole future planned around him.

I was going to have to bide my time.
Be patient.

Duck residents shook my hand and thanked me for convincing Phil De Angelo, who owned the Coffee House and Bookstore, to stay in town. In truth, I had only facilitated. It was his sister, Jamie, who’d done all the heavy lifting.

But I took the credit. I was running for reelection as mayor. I needed all the goodwill I could get.

I decided against eating anything. Getting in line had only been a diversion for Kevin to get away without feeling guilty. I really just wanted to go home. Food didn’t figure into it right now.

“I’m sorry. I changed my mind,” I told Phil when I reached the front of the line. “Thanks.”

“That’s okay. It’s nice to see everyone is so happy that I decided to stay here.”

Despite my two years’ practice as mayor of Duck, North Carolina, I couldn’t summon up a happy face for him. I turned away before I embarrassed myself, and walked right into Old Man Sweeney, my next-door neighbor.

“Just the girl I wanted to see!” He hitched up his red and white checkered pants and grinned at me. “I’ve lost something. Horace said you’d help. I drove my golf cart all the way down here to find you. Can you help or not?”

Old Man Sweeney had lived next door to my grandfather and me forever. His real name was Mac Sweeney—I’d just never gotten used to thinking of him as someone other than “Old Man Sweeney.”

I had a lot of angst leftover from him telling Gramps every time I came home late when I was a kid. He’d even lately reported every time I kissed Kevin. The man had no life besides spying on me.

“I’m sure I can try to help, Ol—Mr. Sweeney,” I said, hoping he’d not noticed me correcting myself. “You’ll have to tell me what’s wrong.”

Not that
all the way down here
from his house to the coffee shop was more than a few minutes. But I was glad to have something to distract me from trying to guess what was going on with Kevin and Ann.

The gift of being able to find lost objects had jumped from my grandmother to me, bypassing my mother. Since I was a little girl, I’d been able to find missing items by touching the person looking for them, usually by holding their hands. My mother had encouraged me, telling me I was gifted and that it was all part of giving back to my community. The idea of giving back had certainly stuck—it was the reason I’d agreed to be the first mayor after the town had incorporated.

“It’s something special that’s gonna make me enough money to get one of those big-screen TVs everyone raves about.” Old Man Sweeney was still talking. “Yes, sir, there’s money to be made.”

“Let’s step outside,” I said to him. “What are you looking for?”

We sat at one of the outdoor café tables behind the coffee shop, with the yellow and green striped umbrella protecting us from the sun. It was the beginning of November, but still warm. Out here we’d be a little more alone. The whole town seemed to be pouring into the coffee shop to celebrate Phil’s decision to stay in Duck.

Normally, I would’ve taken Old Man Sweeney to Missing Pieces, which was on the Duck Shoppes boardwalk only a short walk away. But this would do. I was starting to get a headache from trying
not
to think about Kevin and Ann.

“Well, it’s the damndest thing,” he started. “I found a medallion of some kind over at the Harris Teeter last week. I just needed some bread and pickles, you know. Nothing much. But here was this medallion out in the parking lot. Good quality too. Probably gold. The manager went on the intercom and asked everybody in the store if it belonged to them. No one came forward.”

I nodded, listening. I’d heard stories like this before, stories that rambled more than the clouds on a hot summer day. It would be impolite to ask him to come to the point. But I could
wish
he would.

“So, I had the manager put up a little sign on the bulletin board about me finding the medallion, and I took it home.”

When he didn’t say anything else, I assumed he was finished. “And you’d like me to find the owner?”

That last was something new for me. I had been able to find lost things since I was a kid. I could look into the person’s mind, and if they held an image of what they were looking for, I could locate it.

A life-and-death situation had changed the gift I was born with. Now I could hold possessions that belonged to other people and discern information about them. The information wasn’t always what I needed or even wanted to know, but the ability to gather those sometimes disjointed facts had come in handy more than once.

“Well, I hadn’t thought of that,” Old Man Sweeney said. “In fact, I didn’t even know you could do
that. When did it happen?”

I kind of explained the basics to him. Everyone in Duck knew about the gift I’d been born with. Only a few people knew about the gift I’d acquired. “Do you have the medallion with you?”

“See, that’s the problem, I guess. I can’t find the medallion. And I had a phone call from the owner wanting it back. I was thinking you could do your thing and find it for me.”

“I’m sure we can do that.” I sat back a little to reach my hands across the table to him. “Give me your hands and think about the medallion.”

“Are you sure this is necessary?” He looked around, uncomfortable, as though he was worried what others might think of us holding hands. “I didn’t know it worked that way. Horace didn’t say anything about
that.
”

“Gramps probably didn’t want to throw you off.” I tried not to be impatient.

A few people were beginning to leave after the ribbon cutting for the reopening of the coffee shop. One or two saw us and waved or said hello from a distance. No one interrupted us.

No doubt everyone already knew Kevin had left with Ann, and they were wondering why. No one would ask outright—that would be rude. Instead, they’d wait a few hours until Shayla told someone who told someone else. By morning, everyone would assume Kevin and I were over.

Don’t think about it. You don’t know anything—until you hear from Kevin.

“What do you want me to think about the medallion?” Old Man Sweeney asked.

I took a deep breath and shut out all the people around us. The only way I was going to be able to go home and end this difficult day was by finding what Old Man Sweeney was looking for. I had to get it over with.

“Think about what it looked like,” I told him. “Think about how heavy it was and what it was made out of.”

“It was plenty heavy. I’ll tell you that. It looked like one of those trophy things, like they give kids in school. I don’t know what kind. Does that help?”

“You have to think about it,” I said encouragingly. “It won’t do any good to describe it to me.”

Finally I got him to close his eyes, settle down and pretend he was looking at the medallion. It took a lot to keep him from talking about it as I held his worn, callused hands. He’d been a carpenter all of his life. There was no way to know how many things those hands had built. Gramps told me once that when Mrs. Sweeney was alive, Old Man Sweeney had spent all of his free time building beautiful furniture for her. He’d stopped when she died.