Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(64)

“Anyway, I first picked up on a Mexico connection when I tried to read Henry Owens that day he came here, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I wasn’t getting any dead wife—or even the sense that he was widowed—but I did keep seeing a margarita glass.”

“Margaritas . . . Mexico.” Calla grins. “Psychic shorthand, right?”

“Right. Only I didn’t get the connection. When my guides show me a martini glass it usually symbolizes a drinking problem, so when I saw the margarita glass I figured maybe Spirit was changing it up a little. I kept asking him if he had problems with alcohol, and he kept insisting he didn’t. I figured he was just in denial. I should have just told him I was seeing that glass. See? I’m still learning even at my age.”

“Yeah, but if you had told him you were seeing a margarita glass, he would have figured you knew he was planning to go to Mexico, and he probably would have changed his plans.”

“I like to think I’d have found him, anyway. I just wish I had listened to my instinct that there was something off about him. And usually, when someone has a physical ailment, I feel it. He was trying to pass himself off as a feeble old man, with that cane, and I should have realized it wasn’t ringing true.”

“Yeah, but he was pretty convincing.” Calla shakes her head, remembering how stunned she was when he shed the cane and ran out of the diner.

“It looks like he’s made a career out of fooling people. From what the police told me, Betty isn’t the first lonely widow he’s conned. But all’s well that ends well. That’s what matters. Betty’s going to be fine, and that con man is going to jail.”

“You’re like a superhero, Gammy.”

“Maybe I should start wearing a cape.”

“Um, no.”

Her grandmother laughs, then kisses her on the cheek.

“It’s late. Go get some sleep. Your worries are over.”

If only, Calla thinks wistfully as she goes upstairs to her room and checks under the bed and in the closet.





NINETEEN

Thursday, October 4

11:34 a.m.

On her way to social studies after third period, Calla rounds a corner and finds herself face-to-face with Evangeline.

For the first time since their Sunday-morning falling out, it’s impossible for them not to acknowledge each other.

Or is it?

Evangeline quickly breaks eye contact and starts to move around her.

All right, this is ridiculous.

“Evangeline!” Calla grabs her arm. “Come on. Don’t be this way.”

She expects her friend’s hazel eyes to flash with anger but sees only unhappiness.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Calla blurts. “Really.”

Evangeline shrugs. “Okay.”

“Okay? What do you mean?”

“I mean okay.”

Just okay. Not I forgive you.

Calla repeats, “I’m sorry. Really.”

“I’m sure I’ll get over Jacy,” Evangeline tells her stoically. But she doesn’t look sure. Not at all. In fact, she looks as though she’s about to cry.

“Why don’t we hang out later, after school?” Calla suggests, wanting to hug her, but sensing that Evangeline is determined to keep her at arm’s length.

“Can’t.” She adds, a little less tersely, “I have Crystal Healing class on Thursdays.”

“How about tomorrow?” Calla asks, then remembers. “Oh, wait. I’m going to Florida tomorrow. Next week, though, when I get back. Okay?”

Evangeline shrugs, murmurs something Calla can’t hear above the noise in the hall, and they go their separate ways.

In the classroom, she takes her social studies notebook and text from her backpack. As she sets them on her desk, she hears Maggie, this girl who sits behind her, saying to her friend Gwen, across the aisle, “Oh my God, that is the funniest thing ever!”

A finger taps Calla on the shoulder. “Hey, Calla, did you hear?”

“Did I hear what?” she asks, surprised to be drawn into conversation with two of the more popular girls in the senior class.

“About Jill and Donald.”

“Jill who?” Calla asks, pretty sure who Donald is. There’s only one in school, as far as she knows.

“Jill Eggerton.”

Oops, there must be more than one Donald after all, because there’s no way a gorgeous brunette like Jill Eggerton would be connected in any possible way to Donald Reamer.

“Donald who?”

“Reamer!” Maggie exclaims as the bell rings, signifying the start of class. “What other Donald is there?”

“But—”

“All right, everyone in your seats, let’s get busy,” the teacher, Mrs. Atwell, calls as she shuts the door to the hall, then strides across the room.

“Jill challenged him to a chess game at lunch today. And he totally said yes!” Gwen tells Calla, lowering her voice.

“Like Jill even knows how to play chess,” Maggie puts in, grinning.

“So, what’s the point?” Calla asks uneasily.

“This morning she got him to give her that clunky old chessboard he’s always lugging around. She told him she’ll set it up since she gets to the cafeteria way before he does—you know how slow he is, lumbering around like a big old hippo.”