“So that’s your answer, then,” I said, taking two steps back. “Those extremely specific, detailed and accurate things you said were just a coincidence.”
“Yeah. You done talking? I’m gonna be late for a job.”
“Sure. Not much left to say I guess.”
He tugged open his car door and got in, closing it, not offering me another glance. When his engine started, I turned and walked back to my truck. “Fucking weirdo,” I muttered as I got in and started it up.
I watched through the windshield as the gold Mustang pulled out of its parking spot and started toward the exit. As he drove by my truck, the car slowed and his window went down. I lowered my own. Orion offered me a wave, shouting, “Goodnight, Kurt!”
Then he spun his tires for five seconds before gunning it out of the parking lot, a thick cloud of dust rising in his wake.
Coughing, I rolled up my window. “Shady son of a bitch.”
I never told him my name.
Chapter Three
My cellphone was missing. Again. It was the third time recently I’d woken in the morning wondering where the fuck I’d left it. Which was why I didn’t immediately panic, or suspect I lost it last night at the restaurant or the amusement park.
Also, like the previous times this happened, I distinctly remembered plugging it into the charger on my bedside table before I went to sleep—which was unsettling. The two times prior, I ended up finding the phone in odd locations in my house, which led me to fear I’d been sleep walking. I didn’t like that explanation. It chilled me. My nanna got sick with Alzheimer’s when I was a kid, and I recall her sleepwalking when she eventually came to live with us, that white nightgown drifting by my bedroom door in the dark as she wandered up and down the hall. It used to scare the shit out of me.
With this in mind, after the second lost phone incident, I’d seen my doctor. Stress, she said, considering the recent death of my mom, and of course my divorce and the subsequent fallout. Big life changes often led to sleep disturbances and a distracted state of mind. She asked about my schedule, and I explained about working nonstop the past few months renovating the garage into an apartment, should my father need to move in. The doc opined that I was probably being overcautious because of my mother’s sudden death from a stroke a year ago, suggesting I was attacking the project so hard because it made me feel like I had some control over my father’s health, where I’d had none regarding my mother’s. I was advised to dial it back and learn to relax more.
I thought that was a load of crap, but didn’t say so to the doctor. I’d attacked the renovation so hard and fast because I’d been conditioned, as a builder living in the northeast, to take advantage of the spring and summer while the weather was cooperative and the ground was soft. Some digging had been required to connect plumbing, along with foundation work for a new sunroom off the back. I knew my father liked to have a place to sit in the sun and drink his coffee in the morning. It was no ocean view, but I was doing my best to make it nice.
I’d chosen this house after my divorce because it was one of the vacation rentals I already owned, and the only one set far back off the road. I’d been licking my wounds and tired of running into people who asked, with that little head tilt and pity-smile, how I was doing. Having to explain, over and over again about the divorce, and relive all that pain. I’d needed a reprieve, a little hermit time. I tried to explain this to friends who were shocked I didn’t choose the cottage I owned on the water for my permanent home instead.
But that place was a lot smaller, plus waterfront property in Hillock was far too coveted to ever be private. I had no desire to live in a house like my father’s, edging the seawall with nosy neighbors on either side. My nice little house with the big back yard and shadowy trees suited me just fine. It had privacy, and enough bedrooms to accommodate the kids when they came to visit. That was about all I cared about.
My dad, if he ever did agree to move in, would definitely complain about the loss of ocean view. But I had a swimming pool, and I’d put in an array of flowering shrubs and bird feeders and all that aesthetic shit. Didn’t much matter, I was doubtful it would happen any time soon. Because despite sisters pushing this agenda, my father was still very sound of mind, despite some reckless behavior as of late. And sound of body—he’d literally thrown a rotten tomato at me from his garden one day when we got in a fight, and the thing had some turbo splat-power behind it.
Bottom line, if Jasper Varley didn’t want to do something, no force in nature could make him. I was convinced he’d rather die in that beach house stark raving mad and covered in cobwebs than ever concede to me. But at the very least I was increasing my property value, should I ever want to sell the place.
I flicked the coffee maker on, grateful I’d set it all up the night before. At least I hadn’t misremembered doing that last night. Maybe I’d misplaced my phone because I’d had a couple of whiskies when I got home. When I bought the bottle down at the seaside, I thought I’d be salving my ego over the failed date with Bonnie. But I ended up in my back yard at the patio table, gazing up at the stars as I sipped the liquor, and thinking not of Bonnie, but of Orion. That shady fucking clown.
I refused to think of him as a psychic, because psychic my ass. I’d been a builder in Hillock Beach for years, which meant I knew dozens of people all over this town. There were a thousand ways I could have come into contact with someone connected to Orion in the past, a thousand ways he might know my name. He clearly liked to play games though, so I’m sure he thought that little ‘Goodnight Kurt’ stunt before he tore out of the parking lot was clever. But after the way I went back and hunted him down, I couldn’t really blame him for branding me as an easy mark.
But he didn’t know me. I didn’t succumb to games. I was practical and would not be conned by his magic act. He was just a damn liar. I might not know how he knew I had a table for three or any other damn thing, but I did know there was a logical explanation. But at this point, I was no longer curious enough to go chasing after it.
I was curious about him, however, and spent most of last night sipping my whisky and thinking about him. Just me and the crickets, buzzing and wondering why I couldn’t get him out of my head. I was relieved as hell that no one could actually read my mind, because after I fed it two snifters of Glenlivet, it started to get unruly. I’d caught myself thinking about the way his hair smelled when he stood too close, the beads that rested on the bare skin below his neck, and the relaxed, almost seductive way he leaned against the car while we spoke.
In the light of day, I assured myself there was nothing prurient about these thoughts. He was a fascination, that’s all, someone so extraordinarily different from the people I was used to dealing with that my mind simply lingered on his eccentricity.
He’d admitted he was a good conman, and I had no doubt his gifts in that arena were skilled and varied. I imagined him sitting across from wide-eyed, gullible women at one of his psychic reading parties, hypnotizing them with his charm while he fed them benign, random suggestions, and yet leaving them convinced they’d had a profound spiritual experience. He’d probably tell them just about anything and they’d find a way to connect it to their own lives, if only to validate and please him. Dude was probably drowning in pussy.