Crowbones

CHAPTER 76

Vicki

Moonsday, Novembros 5

I was at my desk, busily organizing the bills to be paid so that I could tell myself I’d done something toward paying them without actually doing anything that required too many brain cells. After putting the bills in the Bills to Pay folder, I was debating if I should organize my one sheet of postage stamps when I was saved from that intellectual gymnastic by the phone ringing.

“Good morning. The Jumble. Vicki speaking.”

“This is Meg.”

I couldn’t tell if the woman was usually quiet or trying not to be overheard. “Meg?” Something about the name made my stomach flutter. Who did I know named Meg?

“From the Lakeside Courtyard.”

Oh golly. Now I knew why I knew that name.

“There isn’t much time,” Meg said. “You have to listen and write it down.”

Oh gosh golly. “Did you see something in your prophecy cards?” She was the one who read cards, wasn’t she?

“The cards said I need to do this. I won’t remember what I’ve said, so you have to listen and write it down.”

Gosh golly with whiskers. I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m ready.”

Ready? Really? Not a chance.

I heard her let out a shuddering breath, and then she spoke. Her voice changed, sounded dreamy, like some part of her wasn’t really there anymore, was someplace else.

Word images. Phrases. I could feel her effort to tell me something vital in the only way she could.

Then she made a sound I could imagine a woman made after a very intense orgasm.

“Meg?” I asked, unsure what I should do now.

“Meg!” The word was a roar, a snarl, a violence of sound that made me bobble the phone. Then that voice was right in my ear, saying, “Who is this?”

Couldn’t let him find me. Couldn’t let him know . . .

My stomach got that awful foamy-milk feeling, and I knew I was about to have a full-blown panic attack and throw up. I dropped the receiver back in the cradle, shaking so hard I was close to having convulsions. Bad panic attack starting. Bad, bad, bad. Had to get over it, had to tell someone that Meg needed help, needed to be rescued from that roaring, snarling voice.

cops. fangs. betrayal.

problem solver. ally.

feathers and bones.

a no sign over pity.

lakeside. peace.

I pushed myself to my feet and stared at the words written on the paper—and realized that, because of the first warning, I didn’t know who I could trust with this information if I couldn’t tell a cop or someone with fangs. Had to think. Had to throw up first—and get to a toilet really fast before I inconvenienced everyone—then had to think.

I saw the last line of the prophecy or vision or message or whatever this was.

rubbings. pencil on paper, revealing secrets.

I remembered a cop in a show lightly rubbing the side of a pencil over what looked like a blank sheet of paper, revealing an address that was an important clue. I looked at the pad of paper in front of me.

I tore off the top sheet of paper, folded it, and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I tore off several more sheets and shoved those in the Bills to Pay folder, which I put back in the drawer with the other hanging files. Then I wrote a list, pressing a little harder on the paper than I usually did.

Peanut butter. Jelly. Crackers. Cheese. Milk.

I tore off that page, left the pad on the desk, and was about to drop the pen into the cup that served as a holder for writing implements when I thought of one more thing.

On the back of the next piece of paper on the pad—a piece that carried a faint impression of words—I made a small mark in one corner.

Then I dropped the pen and ran for the downstairs powder room, reaching it moments before my stomach gave its last blurp of warning and I donated my breakfast to the porcelain bowl.

An hour later, after a meal of ginger ale and crackers—and not answering questions lobbed at me by Julian, Grimshaw, and Ilya because Michael Stern had called Julian and blabbed about seeing me run to the powder room, obviously ill, and each male had called to find out why—I returned to my office.

Hoping that I was alone, I took the prophecy message out of my pocket and stared at the words, trying to make sense of them.

A no sign over pity. What did that mean? The only sign I could think of that meant “no” was a circle with a diagonal line through the center. On the pad of paper, I wrote the word “pity,” then around it drew a circle with a diagonal line through it.

Oh. No pity.

I was sure that Meg from Lakeside had done more than read a few cards in order to tell me these things, so I couldn’t dismiss a single word even if I didn’t understand most of what she’d said. Maybe I just needed to remember so that I would understand at the right time.

I read the last line. rubbings. pencil on paper, revealing secrets. Then I studied my desk and the pad of paper.

Nothing looked like it had been touched. But someone had been in my office, because the piece of paper that had the slight impression of my shopping list on the front and the mark on the back was gone.