"What then?" I muttered.
I slowly circled the kitchen and living room. When I walked into the bedroom, I felt a twinge, as if a sixth sense was telling me I was getting warm.
I walked to the dresser. Cold ... To the closet ... Cold. To the nightstand ... Warmer. I turned to the bed, and felt that now-familiar prickle.
Bingo.
One of the pillowcase openings faced inward. I always make sure mine face out. I could say it's because it looks neater, but the truth is that it's another superstition--if the pillowcase opening isn't facing out, bad dreams will get trapped and disturb your sleep. Crazy, but I knew damned well I hadn't left it like this.
I yanked off the bedsheets and looked under the bed. Nothing. I grabbed the mattress with both hands and heaved it up. A line of dark powder formed a semicircle on the box spring. No, not a circle. Some kind of symbol. The sight of it made the back of my head ache.
Get rid of it.
Get rid of it now.
I shook off the impulse, retrieved my cell phone, and took pictures. Then I scooped some powder onto a piece of paper and folded it up. I put that aside and examined the remaining powder. It looked like ashes, and smelled ... like wood, I think, but not quite. Maybe something mixed with wood.
Just get rid of it.
I did. Then washed my box spring, replaced the mattress, and remade my bed.
Had someone really broken into my apartment? What if the symbol had been there when I moved in? A good luck charm placed under the mattress by the former tenant. I knew Grace hadn't cleaned between occupants.
It took only about twenty minutes for me to convince myself that the symbol had already been there. I didn't delete the photos, though. Or throw out the powder carefully folded in paper. I just pushed it aside for now. Moved on to something more concrete and less unsettling. Something mundane and distracting. Like getting Grace's scone and a coffee.
When I returned with my coffee, my brain was still buzzing, so I decided to tackle another dull task--sending a thank-you note to the reporter who'd interviewed me.
Lores's card only bore a phone number and e-mail address. My mother had taught me that a proper thank-you card went through the mail. Gabriel might know Lores's mailing address.
As I went to grab my cell phone, I noticed my shoes in the middle of the floor. They were upside-down. I detoured to fix them. Upside-down shoes were bad luck, and I was usually careful not to just drop them like that, but I'd kicked them off when I'd come back, still distracted by that symbol.
I got the phone and returned to the
main room. I started dialing Gabriel's number, then stopped, my gaze slipping toward the hall, thinking about the shoes.
A bad omen is a warning. A sign to stop and reconsider. Proceed with caution.
Oh, hell. I'd been doing so well since embarrassing myself over the hawthorn.
I looked down at the phone.
Stop and reconsider.
Reconsider what? Calling Gabriel? Was he going to answer the phone while on the Chicago Skyway, knock over his coffee, scorching himself, then lose control and go through the guardrail?
And yet that pause did make me reconsider. Not the safety of making the call, but the need for it. Shouldn't I take two minutes to see if I could find Lores's address online instead of running to Gabriel for help?
One search and the screen filled with results. News articles with Lores's byline. I scrolled down past the search engine results. As I was zipping past, a familiar name jumped out. Gabriel Walsh. I scrolled back to it. Not my interview but one with another client of Gabriel's. Lores had said he'd done pieces on Gabriel's clients before.
I started scrolling again, then stopped.
No, Lores said he'd covered Gabriel's cases before.
Close enough.
And yet...
I opened the article. It was an exclusive interview with a woman accused of disfiguring her daughter's beauty pageant rival. A case so newsworthy that even I remembered it.