Nina nodded slowly, and Gretchen blinked. Nina’s psychic thing was getting scary.
“Most of it is simply intuition,” Nina said, explaining what Gretchen referred to as her psychic abilities. The police officers had departed, and Nina had returned the cheeky Chihuahua to his owner. “Nothing magical about it. And it usually runs in families, so you probably have it, too, but you haven’t figured out how to channel your powers.”
“Did you hear what I was thinking when that officer suggested that my mother had broken into her own house?” Gretchen asked, dishing up food concoctions for Tutu, Nimrod, and Wobbles. All thoughts of finding a flight to Boston vanished from her mind.
“Not exactly. I caught the gist of it, though.”
“Well that isn’t so hard. You probably could tell from my expression that I didn’t have any faith in their ability to solve the burglary.”
“That could be true.” Nina placed two bowls on the floor and watched Wobbles jump onto the counter to eat his.
“Cats on the countertop are disgusting,” she said, making a face.
“Wobbles knows he can only go on this section,” Gretchen said, gesturing to the countertop farthest from the food preparation area. “Right here on the corner.”
“Anyway, you should work on your own psychic abilities.”
“If you’re so good, why haven’t you solved Martha’s murder and found my mother?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Nina watched Tutu lick every last crumb from her bowl. “Sometimes I have a clear mental image of fragments of the past or future, but mostly I analyze my feelings through auras. An image of Martha’s murderer won’t pop into my head, but I might see an evil aura emanating from the killer if I encounter him.”
“And have you seen any malevolent auras lately?” Gretchen picked up the canine’s bowls and soaped them in the sink. Wobbles jumped to the ground, challenging the two dogs to rush him. They kept their distance, although Nimrod wagged his short tail ferociously.
“To tell you the truth, my energy connection seems to be on the fritz lately,” Nina said. “To make it work I have to clear my mind and concentrate, and there’s too much turmoil right now to see through the haze. That hanging doll, for example.” Nina shivered visibly. “I don’t have to be a psychic to read that message.”
“I agree,” Gretchen said. “Steve’s going to be away from Boston for a few days, and it doesn’t make sense for me to go home now. I can’t leave you here alone with some psychopath running loose.”
She hoped Nina wouldn’t pursue a discussion of Steve. She wasn’t anxious to share her confused feelings with her aunt. Her emotions were too close to the surface, and she needed time to think about what she wanted to do next.
Nina was too delighted when she learned of Gretchen’s change of plans to follow up with any comments about Steve. “Let’s get started then. The key, obviously, is important. Important enough to risk breaking and entering.”
“But the thief wants us to know he’s angry.”
“Or she,” Nina said. “I still think we need to watch April more carefully. My aura might be off, but every time I’m around her, I get mixed signals and a confusing blend of colors.”
“And how about Bonnie?” Gretchen said. “She was lying about the Rescue Mission.”
Nina held up her copy of Martha’s hidden key. “Let’s start with April and Bonnie and see if this fits in either one of their door locks.”
A flash of lightning struck nearby, and Nimrod’s ears flattened to his head. His tiny poodle body shook violently, and Gretchen picked him up. “It’s storming outside. Can’t we wait until it passes?”
“During monsoon season in Phoenix?” Nina said. “It’ll continue to storm at least until midnight. Besides, we can use the rain and darkness as cover.”
“Great. Just what I want to do. Stand in the rain.”
“Slink around in the rain,” Nina corrected her, ignoring the sarcasm. “We are going to slink like an Arizona rattlesnake.”
They drove toward Tempe, taking one detour after another to escape entrapment in flooded washes. On the left side of the road, coyotes appeared in the Impala’s headlights, gaunt, running loosely in a pack, eyes red and glaring. Their heads swung in unison to look at the car, but they continued moving on through the spears of rain.
The windshield wipers slapped against the window in high gear. Occasionally, Nina pulled over to the side of the road until visibility returned. At times, all they could see ahead of them were taillights and streams of water rushing down the windshield.
April’s modest home came into view through the descending gloom. Nina parked across the street and killed the lights, and Gretchen saw April’s car parked in the carport. Through the rapidly fogging windshield of the Impala they watched an undulating glow behind April’s front curtain.
“She’s watching television in the dark,” Nina said, rubbing her palm in a circle on the driver’s window to clear her view. “This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”
Gretchen clutched the key. “Only one of us needs to go,” she said, watching April’s window for movement.
“You can,” Nina said, looking away.
“Who’s idea was this in the first place?”
Rain hammered on the roof of the car, reminding Gretchen of one Boston hailstorm so intense that it pounded circular dents into the hood of Steve’s Porche.
“I have an umbrella,” Nina said, reaching onto the backseat floor and pulling out a long white umbrella with pink polka dots. She handed it to Gretchen.
“Pink and white? How can I hide with this?” Gretchen cast a dubious expression Nina’s way. She tossed the umbrella into the backseat and quickly jumped out into the rain. Sometimes, she thought, you have to take a deep breath and plunge in, like a dive into frigid water. The longer you wait, the harder it is to go through with it.
Her flip-flops splashed through sheets of water, and her hair hung from her face in dripping strands even before she made it to the first porch step. She clomped under an overhang and flattened against the brick wall, wiping water from her face and listening to the sound of the television, muted by the pounding rain. The light through the window flickered.
She edged over and risked a peak between the curtains. April’s enormous frame covered her sagging sofa, and in the glow from the screen, Gretchen could tell that she was fast asleep, eyes closed, mouth hanging wide open.
She wiggled back to the front door, careful to stay under the protection of the eave, although she wasn’t sure why she bothered, since she was soaked to the skin. She tried to slide the key into the lock.
It didn’t fit.
In one mad rush, she lunged back to the car. Nina, encased in fogged windows, searched Gretchen’s face. “Well?” she said.
“It isn’t April’s key.”
“You didn’t try the back door.”
“The back door?”
“We have to be thorough,” Nina said.
“We?” Gretchen was annoyed by Nina’s use of a plural noun to describe a singular act. It wasn’t as though Nina was making a significant contribution. “We?” she said again. “Remember what you said? We are going to slink around in the rain like a rattlesnake. Your turn.”
“Don’t be silly,” Nina said, crossing her arms in protest. “You’re already wet. And rattlesnakes know better than to slink around in the rain.”
Gretchen climbed up on the seat and reached into the back for the umbrella. “April’s sleeping. I’m through slinking.”
She made her way carefully over the AstroTurf in April’s yard and circled around the back. Lightning struck nearby, too close for comfort, and Gretchen hoped her umbrella wasn’t the tallest structure in the vicinity. Not a single tree or large shrub grew near April’s yard. Aside from an antenna on top of the house, she held the only other lightning rod around. With her recent streak of bad luck, electrocution was a distinct possibility.