Suddenly Psychic (Glimmer Lake #1)(64)

“Just Billy and Clara, and there’s a little girl I saw once at the edge of the lake. I think she drowned, but I’ve never spoken to her. And a nurse who was murdered at the hospital.”

His eyes were wide. “Wow.”

“Oh, and Car Lot Man.” Robin nodded. “I forgot about him.”

Mark frowned. “There’s a ghost at the car lot?”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think sometimes people just stay in places that made them happy. Like Clara? She’s happy. She misses not having the children around, but she doesn’t seem all that troubled. And the ghost at the car lot was really happy. Big smiley guy with a round face and a droopy nose, wearing the most horrible dated suit, but he was happy as a clam, walking around—”

“Wait, what kind of suit?”

Robin frowned. “Just… dated. Like it was from the seventies, you know, with the big wide collar?” She grabbed a pencil and sketched his face in the margin of her book. “He looked like this. He was happy; he just wandered up and down the rows of cars and—”

“Holy shit!” Mark stood up from the table and started pacing.

“What?” Robin put the pencil down.

Mark pointed to Car Lot Man. “That’s the founder of the dealership. The old man. His picture was up in a giant frame inside the building.”

“Oh.” Robin blinked. “I didn’t go in the building. I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t go in the building!” His voice was oddly high. “But you just sketched his face.”

“Because I saw his ghost at the car lot. I told you.”

“I know.” He paced. “I know. You told me.”

“Wait, so you’re just now believing me?” Robin rolled her eyes. “Because of Car Lot Man?”

“His name is Jerry O’Donald. O’Donald Motors?”

“I don’t know, Mark. I just saw him, I didn’t talk to him.”

“Oh my God.” He was still pacing, looking slightly ill. “You can see ghosts.”

“Yep.

“You can see ghosts?”

“Yeah, I…” She sighed and just watched him pace. “I just said that.”

“You can see ghosts.” He stopped and let out a long breath. “Is there a ghost on the third floor of this house?”

Robin’s eyes went wide. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because there has always been something about this house and especially that floor that just creeps me out so bad.” He rolled his shoulders. “Emma and Austin flat refused to go up to the third floor after that Easter when Emma was ten.”

“Is that what that was about? I could never figure out—”

“It was Austin who finally said something. Emma kept crawling in his bed, and he was embarrassed because he was twelve, almost thirteen I think? Anyway, she told him she was having bad dreams about the man in the attic and he got completely creeped out.” Mark stopped. “I went up there to check it out because I was worried someone had broken into the house, but it was completely covered in dust so I— Wait.” He pointed at her. “Why don’t you look surprised?”

Robin felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach. “Let’s just say that you’re not the first person who might have mentioned it.”





They were lying in bed after another hour of trying to piece together everything they knew about Grandma Helen, Billy Grimmer, and the destruction of the town. Mark had offered some insight that Robin wouldn’t have thought of, and he’d volunteered to go with her to the cabin the next day.

She was lying in the curve of his arm, feeling more at peace than she had in months. Maybe years. “I think Grandma Helen needs to know what happened. I think that’s why she’s still here.”

Mark twisted a piece of her hair around his finger. “I think whoever killed Billy sent that postcard from Reno. The handwriting is close, but it could have been forged. All that was on there were initials. And it was dated after Helen married your grandfather, so Billy was already dead.”

“You think whoever sent it wanted her to think Billy had run off to Reno?”

“Why else? She kept it with her letters and sketches of him. She must have thought he was the one who sent it.”

Robin turned to him and burrowed her face into his shoulder. “Thank you for believing me.”

“I can’t lie—your wife suddenly developing psychic powers is not the change that men are warned to expect when their wife hits the midforties.”

She playfully slapped his stomach. “Ha ha. It wasn’t exactly in my plan either.”

“Hey.”

Robin looked up.

Mark winked at her. “Kind of fun though.”

She couldn’t stop the smile. “You’re into this?”

“I mean…” He shrugged. “It’s like my wife developed sudden mysterious superpowers. That’s pretty cool. You’re like one of the X-Men. X-Women. Whatever.”

“Don’t forget Monica and Val. Visions and telepathy. If anything, I have the most boring superpower of the three of us.”

“Not to me.” Mark slowly took her mouth in a kiss that spun out and deepened, heating Robin from her toes to her belly. “You will never be boring to me.”