Mind Tricks

Mind Tricks © 2012 by Adrian Wood
Liang

All rights reserved.

www.adriannewood.com

“This is your doctor?” Jake
demanded. He stabbed a finger at Emma Draper, who had her mouth hanging open
like a nutcracker’s.

No way. He’d just gone through the
worst night of his life. He was not going to add this morning to it.

“She’s not a doctor,” Jake
continued, sidling toward the back door. He’d been so zonked when his uncle
Mickey had driven him over here that he’d entered Emma’s kitchen before
realizing where they were. And, more important, where they weren’t. Not a
doctor’s office, anyway. “She’s not even a vet. She’s a…a pet psychic.”
A fraud
—but he wouldn’t say that to
Mickey. He’d tried once, but Mickey had become uncharacteristically stern and told
him he never wanted to hear Emma referred to that way again.

Jake had avoided referring to Emma
at all since then.

She finally got her mouth closed.
Turning away, she punched the coffeemaker’s ON button. “I don’t take human
patients,” she said to Mickey over her shoulder. “You know that.”

Patients? Ha. Like she did anything
other than swing crystals over the pets she saw. Mickey swore that Emma had
eased the pain in his old cocker spaniel, Lindy, but how could he know that? It
wasn’t like Lindy did much more than sleep underneath Mickey’s desk.

“I hoped you could make an
exception to your no-people rule,” Mickey said to Emma.

Sure, Emma had that warm calm that
all the vets Jake had met also possessed—he’d admit that. But that didn’t mean
she wasn’t a fraud. It just meant she was good with animals.

That famous calm seemed to be
deserting her now. As she spooned sugar into her coffee cup, her hand trembled
and she spilled some on the counter. “No.”

“This is an emergency.”

She faced Jake and looked him up
and down. He tried not to cringe. What she saw couldn’t be good: a dirty,
wrinkled suit but no tie, bloodshot eyes, and neon orange flip-flops on his
feet instead of shoes. He’d lost his shoes somewhere last night. The police had
found him wandering the Camden streets barefoot at dawn.

“He seems fine to me,” she told
Mickey. “A little worse for wear, but healthy enough.”

Mickey tried again. “Emma, Jake has
a serious problem—”

A serious problem. That was an
understatement. Mickey should have said, “Jake is going to be arrested for
murder.”

He still couldn’t believe that
Ginny had been killed last night. One of the last hazy memories he had was of
her laughing, the volume of her exuberance making their fellow diners’ heads
turn. Then…nothing. No memories of the next eight hours. The Rohypnol seeping
through his veins had taken care of that.

But he hadn’t killed her. He
couldn’t have. He’d been considering firing her, and for good reasons. But that
was miles away from killing her.

“No,” Emma said again. “I don’t
work with people.” She pasted a hostess’s smile on her mouth. “Would you like
some coffee?” she asked Jake, addressing him directly for the first time since
he’d entered her kitchen.

Maybe coffee would zap some of the
drugged fog from his head and infuse strength into his legs. “I’d kill for
coffee.”

His mouth opening to plead with
Emma again, his uncle stopped and blinked at Jake.

Ah. Perhaps “kill for” wasn’t the
best phrase to use, under the circumstances.

Without asking him how he liked it,
Emma tossed two spoonfuls of sugar and a slug of cream in his coffee and then
plunked it down in front of him. Curling her hands around her own mug as if it
were January instead of July, she settled against the counter edge.

Sunlight streaming though the east
window caught in her hair, turning the blond into a deep gold. He could barely
see her lashes, they were so light, but he remembered being struck by her eyes
when they’d been introduced at Mickey’s Christmas Eve party. Blue and clear and
direct.

She looked like she’d jumped out of
bed and into the nearest clothes. She probably had, since Mickey had pounded on
her door like a madman until she’d appeared.

“Sorry to have awakened you,” Jake
muttered. Even a fraud didn’t deserve to be rousted out of her bed by his
uncle. In fact, a fraud probably needed her sleep more than most. Keeping up a
charade all the time must use a lot of energy.

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug
beneath the overlarge sweatshirt. “No problem. I was getting up soon anyway.”

“Emma,” Mickey started again, “this
is important. I know you don’t want to work with people, but Jake is, um, in a
special situation. He can’t remember what he did last night.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Were you at the
Wild Rover?” she asked Jake, referring to the local pub.

“No. At least, I don’t think so.” Who
knew what had happened after he’d left the Waterview restaurant with Ginny? He
rubbed his forehead, but it didn’t ease away the headache there, banging pots
and pans and hollering.

He hadn’t killed Ginny, but he
didn’t know what else he’d done or hadn’t done last night. A wiped memory. It
sounded cool in movies or sci fi books, but the reality was scary as shit. He’d
come to his senses in the hospital, where they told him they’d found Rohypnol
in his system. No wonder it was sometimes called the “forget it” drug.

“Look,” Emma said, “I’m sorry I
can’t help you. I don’t work with people.” Her blue eyes held his. “Ever. I
can’t use it that way.”

That was convenient. Be psychic
only with animals. Humans, of course, could point out mistakes in her psychic
readings. Mute animals could not.

Jake took a final swallow of the
lovely, lovely coffee, then stood. His knees valiantly held him upright, though
his head felt so heavy he wouldn’t be surprised if it just dropped off his neck.
God, he needed some sleep. “Thanks for your help, and—”

“Brutus!” she suddenly cried. She rushed
forward, flung the back door open, and ran outside.

What the—? Jake staggered to the
doorway and stared out into Emma’s backyard. Emma stood still, bare feet
planted in the dew-bowed grass, and gazed at the corner of the house as if
expecting something to appear there.

A jingling noise tickled his eardrums,
growing louder. A huge black-furred dog, tongue flopping with every stride,
tore around the house and into view. The dog tried to wheel around as soon as
he saw Emma, but she took three running steps and grabbed his collar. “Brutus,
bad!” she scolded. Dragging the massive animal with her, she headed for the
kennels at the back of the house, where she boarded a dozen dogs while their
families were away. At least she had a legitimate occupation in addition to the
pet psychic scam.

He turned to Mickey. “What the hell
was that about?”

“Brutus must have escaped from his
cage. That dog can wiggle out of almost anything.”

“I didn’t hear any alarm. What kind
of security system—”

Mickey tapped his skull. “Remember?
She’s psychic.”

Riiiiight.

As they walked out to Mickey’s car,
Jake glanced over his shoulder at Emma’s little house. However she’d done it,
that catching-the-escaping-dog move was a good trick. A smart trick.

But he’d believe he was a murderer
before he’d believe Emma Draper was a real psychic.

• •

Emma held her hands over the little
bichon frise’s white furry body. Mandy wiggled a little, but she’d gone through
this almost once a week for the past year, and she knew that if she behaved
well, she’d get a biscuit.

Biscuits. It was the only thought
in the dog’s head.

Emma dropped her hands to her
sides. “Mrs. James, Mandy wants biscuits.”

Mrs. James—or Mandy’s mom, as Emma
thought of her—wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure? She seemed very excitable as
we drove over here. Maybe she misses Charlie, the dog next door who’s gone away
on a camping trip with his family.”

“No, I saw nothing about Charlie.
Just biscuits.” Good thing the dog was so single-minded, because Emma had had
trouble focusing her concentration on Mandy.

When she’d heard the pounding on
her door this morning, she’d expected to find an owner with a wounded animal.
She’d braced herself for what she might see: a torn-off ear, a missing leg,
crushed hips…

She hadn’t expected to see Jake Vant.

Emma stroked Mandy’s silken curly
fur. “This girl now associates biscuits with her trips over here. Do you have a
biscuit with you now?” Emma asked.

“No, I keep them at home. Mandy
knows that she has to be in the car twice—driving here and driving back—before
she gets a treat.”

“Let’s try this next time: Give
Mandy a biscuit as soon as you arrive here. That way she won’t be cluttering
her thoughts with the biscuit. And then give her a second biscuit when you
return home.”

“
Two
biscuits…?”

Emma pressed her lips together to
stop a smile. Mrs. James gave Emma fifty dollars per visit. The extra dog
biscuit per week wasn’t going to break the bank. “You could snap the biscuit in
two, and give Mandy half when she arrives here and half when you get home,”
Emma suggested.

“Yes, all right. We’ll do that.”
Mrs. James patted her knee, and Mandy leaped off the table, tail pumping madly.

Emma wasn’t trying to read the dog
any longer, but Mandy’s thoughts crowded the room, impossible to ignore.
…biscuit biscuit biscuit biscuit biscuit…

Emma laughed. “Get Mandy out of
here before she makes me so hungry that I eat my lunch early.”

“See you next week.” Mrs. James
exited through the front door just as Emma heard Ian, her twenty-five-year-old
assistant, coming into the house through the back.

Friends used the back door, and
that was the door Mickey often used when he visited. He lived in the
neighboring house, and he’d become her first friend upon moving to Maine. He’d
never brought Jake with him, though, probably because Jake hadn’t made any
attempt to conceal his disdain for her profession during the one time she’d met
him face-to-face. Though she’d been Mickey’s neighbor for eighteen months, this
morning was only the second time she’d spoken to Jake.

He’d looked like three-day-old road
kill, but he was still ridiculously attractive. Seeing him around town, she’d
had a crush on him for almost a year. Then she’d actually met him at Mickey’s
Christmas party and decided that no matter how mouthwatering he looked when
those chocolate-brown eyes crinkled as he smiled, she didn’t appreciate being
the one he was laughing at. Or sneering at. His sneer hadn’t made an appearance
this morning, but he hadn’t been in top form.

On the other hand, his past sneers
had made it much easier for her to say no to Mickey’s odd request that she poke
into Jake’s brain. So perhaps she should be grateful he’d acted like a jerk
when they’d met. The less temptation, the better.

Ian’s footsteps coursed through the
kitchen, approaching her. “What’s Mandy’s problem today?” he asked, slouching
in the dining room doorway. Well, what once was the dining room. She’d turned
it into an animal reading room a year ago, after Mrs. James’s praise for her
help with reducing Mandy’s nervous behavior had directed a steady flow of
patients her way.

Picking up the squirt bottle full
of disinfectant, Emma sprayed the table and wiped it down. “No idea,” she told
Ian. “All the poor thing could think about was the dog treat she’d get when she
got home. So, how did Brutus get out this morning?”

Ian came farther into the room and
dropped into the chair Mandy’s mom had been sitting in. “Dug underneath the
fence.”

What? “That fence is sunk ten
inches into the ground.”

Ian shrugged. “A dog on a mission,
I guess.”

Ugh. Brutus had so far escaped from
a normal kennel, a kennel with a high fence, and now a kennel with a wire roof
and a sunken fence. Where could they put him so that he wouldn’t take off
again? Not in a crate—Brutus positively refused to enter one, and she’d gotten
the impression that a previous owner had left Brutus crated for days on end.
Evil bastard.

Emma sighed. “There are two options
now. One is that we put him on the leash run full-time. The other is that he
stays in the house with me.”

“When do his folks get back?”

“Three weeks.” Brutus’ parents were
on a forty-day trek in Nepal.

Ian made a face. “Too long. How
about we put him on the leash run during the day and in the house at night? If
he’s in here all day, he’ll disturb your clients.”

“Good idea.”

Ian nodded impassively, but she
could tell that he was pleased with the praise. Emma grinned at him, and,
reluctantly, he grinned back.