Suddenly Psychic (Glimmer Lake #1)(51)

Robin cringed. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” Monica said. “I think you definitely got the worst power.”

“Thanks?” Val said. “Maybe I just need to wear gloves all the time. And I mean all the time.”

“Robin, have you thought about telling Mark what we’re doing?”

Val yelped, “Wait, what?”

Robin shook her head. “You know, Monica, you say these things in your cute little voice, and they sound so reasonable, but then I think about what you actually said and realize that you are, in fact, nuts.”

“Mark might not think we’re crazy!” Monica said. “I decided not to tell Sylvia, but she’s my daughter. Mark is Robin’s husband. It’s different.”

“How?” Val asked.

Robin had the same thought. “Monica—”

“Plus he and Robin are going through things, and he’s going to eventually realize that something is different. Let him help. He might want to help.”

“Robin doesn’t even trust the man to pick out a car for her,” Val said. “She’s not going to tell him about seeing ghosts.”

“I do not…” Robin glared at her phone. “You act like I’m a control freak.”

“You kind of are,” Val said.

“I can’t disagree,” Monica said. “But I want to add that you’re partly a control freak because you’re very good at managing things. I mean, it’s not all negative.”

“Thank you?” Robin sighed. “This was not why I called.”

“Oh?” Val sounded like she was eating something. “Why did you call?”

“I got confirmation from my Uncle Raymond that he definitely is not Gordon Russell’s son. Guess who he’s related to.”

Monica said, “Billy Grimmer?”

“Yep.” Robin took the exit at Bridger City and turned east. “My grandma Helen and Billy Grimmer must have had an affair. Or a relationship of some kind. Raymond is pretty sure Grandma was pregnant with him when she married my grandfather.”

“Wow! Grandma Helen, woman of mystery.”

“That’s so sad,” Monica said. “Billy left her pregnant?”

“Did he?” Robin asked. “Remember when I saw him at the lake the second time? He kept saying he was supposed to be somewhere, but he didn’t remember where. And according to Raymond, Billy’s family thought he was staying in Grimmer for a girl. Maybe he was trying to get to Helen when he was killed.”

Val said, “Oh, that’s awful.”

“If that’s true,” Monica said, “then your grandmother never knew what happened to him. She probably thought he abandoned her.”

“That could definitely explain why Grandma barely acknowledges she knew him.”

“…I suppose he went with them to Sacramento. I suppose he did. They went to Sacramento, and he was going to join them. I imagine he went there.”

“Were you friends?”

“No.”

Helen and Billy weren’t friends. But they were lovers. And Helen thought he’d left her. Had he? Or had something or someone stood in the way?

“We need to find out why Billy is still here,” Robin said. “What does he need? What does he want? Why hasn’t he moved on?”

“Can we ask him?”

“If I can find him, I can ask him. But so far I’m super crappy at actually summoning ghosts. I don’t seem to control it at all.”

“Okay,” Monica said. “So maybe that’s job one. We need to figure out how you can summon ghosts. Then you can ask Billy questions.”

“Do you think it has to do with solving his murder?” Val asked. “Do you think he needs to remember who killed him?”

“He may not know,” Monica said. “Didn’t Robin say he doesn’t remember what happened before he ended up in the mine?”

“If he doesn’t know, how do we find out?” Val asked. “It’s not like we’re police. We can’t exactly question people, especially when this murder happened seventy years ago.”

“First things first,” Robin said. “We have to figure out how I’m supposed to summon ghosts.”





The next morning they were back at the shop, and Robin was sitting in the children’s area, thinking about the memory of the ghost she’d seen the week before. Robin sat on the ground, her eyes closed, facing the rocking chair and trying to meditate.

Val and Monica watched her silently. Neither of them had been surprised to hear a ghost lived in the antique shop. Val said she was pretty sure one was living at the café too. Monica suspected two at the library. Apparently Glimmer Lake was chock-full of ghosts if you kept an open mind.

Robin opened her eyes and sighed. “This is no use. Have you ever tried to empty your mind? It’s impossible.”

Monica tapped a finger on her chin. “Maybe if you think about her really hard. Picture her in your mind. Maybe you can focus just on her?”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why not? Just try to focus—”

“My brain is never that focused!” Robin nearly yelled. “I have to juggle too many things. Emma’s schedule. She still hasn’t decided where she wants to go next year, which means we haven’t even started on financial aid stuff. Work, running the house, dealing with my mom, visiting Grandma. I still need to find someone to live with her and also a new cleaning crew. I have to get inventory up and the store decorated for the holiday season. We need to update the insulation around our outside plumbing before the snow comes, and Mark keeps forgetting. There’s a leak upstairs at Russell House. Added to that, Austin has been trying to call me, and I’ve been putting it off because I know he wants to talk about switching majors and I just do not feel like I’m going to be able to have that conversation with him without yelling. And my knee is acting up again, and I’m sexually frustrated.”