Death Omen Read online

  Her shoulders hiking up and her eyes bright, Posey clutched her hands together at her heart and wriggled. It was an excited child’s gesture and made her look more than ever like a middle-aged woman playing the role of a little girl. “I’ll be thinking about Rex.”

  Kate closed her eyes for a moment to quiet her mind, and then cupped her hands around the wooden stand that held the ball and gazed into the crystal’s depths. Its interior grew smoky and then slowly cleared. Instead of playing at being a child, in the vision Posey seemed to be playing Ophelia. Not onstage, but floating on her back in a river with her hair spreading out, her dress sodden, and flowers drifting around her. On the banks grew scraggly trees and weedy grasses, a narrow band of green between the water and the dry earth around it. A few dead trees stood silhouetted against a red and pink-brown desert on the far shore, a scene dominated by a mountain with a rock formation that resembled a sleeping turtle at its crest.

  Kate waited for more of the image to emerge, but instead it began to dissolve back into smoke. What did it mean? Was Posey going off the deep end? How was she like Ophelia?

  Kate looked up from the ball. “I don’t fully understand what I saw. But usually the client knows what the imagery means or can help me piece it together. You were playing Ophelia.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl in Hamlet.”

  Posey frowned. “Is that the play with ‘to be or not to be’ in it?”

  She didn’t know? Kate caught herself being judgmental. It was possible Posey had only a high school education and her cosmetology degree. “Yes, that’s one of Hamlet’s speeches. One of the other famous lines is ‘Get thee to a nunnery.’ ”

  “I think I’ve heard that. I never knew what it meant, though. Telling someone to go to a convent.”

  Kate kept her voice soft. Posey wasn’t going to like the explanation. “In the same scene, Hamlet tells Ophelia there will be no more marriages. Later, he kills her father. She goes crazy and starts handing out flowers. And then she drowns. In the ball, you looked like a lot of the famous paintings of Ophelia. It was a place on what I think was the Rio Grande where there’s a mountain with a turtle shape in the rocks. I’ve heard of Turtleback Mountain, but I can’t think where it is.”

  “Truth or Consequences. Where Rex lives.” The petite woman moved even further to the edge of her chair, her eyes alight. A fragile fifty-something Ophelia, all mad floral innocence. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it? Floating with flowers in the place where we’ll have our first date?”

  “I just told you she drowns. If Rex plays Hamlet to your Ophelia, the image may mean you’ll be disappointed in love. Or you’re about to lose a parental figure. Rex may even be responsible.”

  Posey appeared ready to fall off her chair or take flight. “It could mean a spiritual death. Washing away my karma, the seeds of my samskaras. And the petals of my chakras flowering.”

  “You do know Hamlet is a tragedy, don’t you?”

  “But floating with flowers is too pretty to mean anything negative.”

  Kate took her time putting the cloth back over the ball, arranging it to drape symmetrically. She liked to think her visions helped people prepare for the future, but Posey had disregarded the most likely meaning. “A lot of things are beautiful. Coral snakes. Poison arrow frogs. They can still be bad news.”

  “You really need to come back to the support group, Kate.”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “You see the dark side of everything. We could bring you into love and light.”

  “How? First you tell me I resisted digging into my dirt, which I assume means seeing my shadow side and my bad karma, and now you say this group will bring me into the light.”

  To Kate’s confusion and surprise, Posey held her arms out and began to sing off-key, a song from the seventies about reaching out in the darkness to find a friend. Trying not to cringe at the display, Kate cut in and summed up what she’d learned from the reading. It seemed to go past Posey unheard, so she wrapped up the session as quickly as she could without being rude.

  When Posey left, Kate let Lobo out of his harness to play and then called Bernadette.

  “I just talked with one of Sierra Mu’s support group members. I found out she tells people with money or influence that they’re members of her soul group, and they’re giving substantial donations toward starting a retreat center.”

  “But she’s still not charging money?”

  “No.” Kate rolled to a window and opened the curtains, letting the late afternoon sunlight flood the room. “But Yeshi must be. They’re starting the retreat center together.”

  “Will it be for his work or for hers? That could make a difference in whether or not it’s shady.”

  “How?”

  “Tibetan medicine isn’t licensed here yet—”

  “You’re kidding. He can’t be a DOM?” Doctors of Oriental Medicine were licensed providers under New Mexico law.

  “No. Tibetan practices are similar to both Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, but all the accredited programs are in Chinese medicine. I wasn’t saying that would make him shady, though. It just means he can’t do something like join an integrative medical group. He’s had good training. I looked him up. He studied at the Tibetan medical school in India, and he’s licensed in massage here, which is a big part of their healing system. There are four Tibetan centers in Santa Fe, but they’re spiritual or cultural. A Tibetan health retreat could be an asset to the community. Something based on Sierra’s concepts wouldn’t be. That would be shady.”

  “I don’t know what they plan to do exactly. He’s supposedly in Sierra’s soul group. He doesn’t fit in, though. They have chronic illnesses, but he didn’t participate in the support group, and he looks ...” Kate sought the word to best describe the man, “... robust.”

  “I wonder if they work together. And what she does, if they do. Are you going back to the group to find out more?”

  Kate tensed at the prospect of another session with Sierra and Posey. There was also the hassle of getting into the house and past Mitzi the pit bull. “I don’t want to.”

  “You should think about it.”

  Kate was already thinking. If Posey was fishing for a rich man and caught one, she could bring him into Sierra’s group, even if he might eventually tell her, Get thee to a nunnery. Did Rex have money? Apparently Leon and Magda did. Previously, Kate and Bernadette had dismissed Sierra’s capacity to raise funds, but depending on who fell for her ideas, a few followers might be all she needed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mae closed the door to one of the private study carrels in the library and turned on her laptop. She had to get to the fitness center in fifteen minutes to meet a personal training client, but three thirty in New Mexico was five thirty in North Carolina, and Hubert had set up a Skype date, her first with the girls since the one Jen had canceled with such unfortunate results. It had been only three days, but it felt like forever. Mae kept thinking about the children during classes or while she was trying to fall asleep, worrying about them and about Hubert.

  Had the twins been right when they’d asked if he’d remarried too fast? Hubert was smart and stable, but he could make romantic mistakes. It was his weak point, for sure, the same as Mae’s. They both had a pattern of going from relationship to relationship. Not that their marriage qualified as a mistake—she would never regret it—but they’d made the commitment without taking time to recover from their prior marriages.

  When the call came in, she saw Hubert alone on the screen. He hadn’t changed out of his mechanic’s coveralls, and his long, wavy brown hair was still in the ponytail he stuffed under a ball cap at work. He sat on the couch in the living room of the old bungalow in Tylerton, his dark eyes serious, his strong jaw set.

  “Hey.” He forced half a smile. “I wanted a minute with you. Jen’s working late and the girls are out in the yard. I’ll call ’em in once we’ve had a chance to talk.”

  �
��Thanks. I’ve been worried how y’all are doing.”

  “Not good. My folks haven’t gotten over Yolanda bringing the girls to their place Saturday night. Jen thinks she should have brought them back to her, but Yolanda was doing her job. Kids run away for a reason. A cop wouldn’t take them back to where they ran from without the whole story. I’ll spare you what was in that can of worms, but we’ve all been fighting since that night.”

  “All of you? Your parents, too?”

  “They’re mad at me for leaving the girls with Jen, and mad at Jen for not getting the hang of being a stepmother. Yolanda was checking to see if she’d abused them. I mean, she had to, and of course Jen hadn’t, but that was bad all ’round. My folks aren’t mad at Brook and Stream, but they’re still stunned by what they did.”

  “Is the counseling helping at all?”

  “Yes and no. I’m seeing more problems and things we need to work on, but it’s like ... sorry. Never mind. I shouldn’t be telling you, of all people.”

  “Hubert. You can talk to me.” She paused. It was odd to have him share so much, but she could see why he was turning to her, since he was in conflict with his usual confidantes. “After all, who knows you better? You and the girls.”

  “Going to counseling ...” He leaned forward, met her eyes, and then looked down. “It’s like when you open the kitchen curtains in the morning and see what a lousy job you did cleaning up the night before. All that stuff you missed when you thought you’d been paying attention. I feel like me and Jen got married in bad lighting, and now the sun’s up and ... I love her, but ... it’s tough.”

  Why did people think that if you loved someone you had to marry them? Mae had believed that for most of her life, but now she doubted it. Deeply.

  “I’m sorry y’all have had such a hard time,” she said. “I guess Jen thinks I told the kids to reject her.”

  “Yeah, she does. I know you wouldn’t, though.”

  “Seems you believed her not too long ago.”

  “Sorry. I was stressed out. The whole mess had me blindsided. You’re too good a mother to mess with them like that.”

  “Thank you. It means a lot to hear you say that. I tried to get them to accept her more. As soon as I knew it was an issue, I gave them a chance to talk with Jim and Sallie about it, too. Your folks appreciated it.”

  Hubert gave a heavy sigh. “I’m sure they did. They’ve been skeptical about Jen from the get-go. About my marrying again so soon. And to someone I’d broken up with before, too.”

  Ouch. That had to hurt. Hubert was close with his parents. They normally thought alike on everything, from politics to personal issues. “You never told me that. And neither did they.”

  “You think any of us would?”

  Mae blushed. “No. Of course not. I just didn’t realize ...” She trailed off.

  “We’ll work it out. Everybody’s honeymoon ends sooner or later.” Hubert sat back. “How are you and Jamie doing?”

  “He’s on tour for a couple more weeks. I miss him, but the long-distance thing is going okay. He sounds burned out lately, though. I don’t know if he’s getting depressed or if this was just too long a tour for his stamina.”

  “What do you think of him singing at Olympia’s wedding?”

  Mae didn’t like it, but Jen and Hubert had done so much for Jamie on his previous tour, he’d made it clear he didn’t think he was doing too much for her. However, by getting Jamie to perform, Jen was doing too much for Olympia, in Mae’s opinion. She sought a tactful way around saying so. “It does make him take some time to rest before he drives back, and that’s good.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got some reservations.”

  “I met Olympia a couple of times when she visited Jen, and I thought she was kind of a princess.”

  “Nothing’s changed. It’ll be the royal wedding.” Hubert chuckled, but his humor faded quickly. “I like the idea of going to Maine, at least, and taking the girls. They love flying. Jen thinks the wedding will re-romanticize us. I’m not into big weddings and all that hoopla, but our counselor says if you always fight in the same room, go somewhere else to talk. It won’t trigger the same stuff. Since we fight all over the house, I’m kinda hoping a family trip somewhere new will do us good.” He looked away, thoughtful, then brought his attention back to Mae, giving her a melancholy smile. “And it’ll be nice to see Jamie. And the Maine coast and all that. You ready for the girls?”

  “Always.”

  “I’ll trust your judgment if you need to talk about their running off. They may not want to, but you can give it a try.”

  He called to Brook and Stream, and they ran into the room to fling themselves onto the couch on either side of him. The knees of their jeans were grass-stained and there were bits of autumn leaves in their hair. Hubert began pulling the leaf scraps out.

  “Mama!” Brook shouted.

  Stream reached out in an air-hug. Mae returned the gesture. “Hey, sweeties. I miss you. What were y’all doing?”

  “Digging for dinosaurs.”

  Hubert plucked one last bit of vegetation from Stream’s head, asking, “You remember the word for that?”

  She said, “Paleontology.”

  Brook added, “And archaeology.”

  Hubert praised their vocabulary and left the room. The girls scooted together, hip to hip. Stream swung her legs back and forth a few times and looked expectantly at Brook. Brook spoke softly. “Did you find us, Mama?”

  “I hope that’s not why you did what you did. You’re lucky Miss Yolanda found you and not somebody who would do bad things to you.”

  “But did you find us?”

  “Yes, but from so far away that all I could have done was call someone to go get you. Either Jen, or your grandparents, or the police.”

  Stream bounced a couple of times. “So if we were really lost, you could find us and tell the police where we were.”

  “No. I’ve explained this before. Only if you were in a place I recognized. You scared me and Jen a lot, you know.”

  “Nuh-uh. We didn’t scare Jen.” Brook gave Mae a dark look. “I bet she was glad we were gone.”

  “Sweetie, I was talking to her while she hunted for you. She was worried.” Worried what people would think. The girls didn’t need to know that, though. “Are you trying to get along with her better?”

  “Why do we have to try?” Stream asked.

  “I know you like her. You used to have fun with her, like that dance you made up for Jamie’s song.”

  “She forgot how to have fun. She’s just bossy now. Or else she cries.”

  “You make it sound like crying is bad. It means she’s unhappy.”

  “She’s making a fuss,” Brook said. “Like, when we were dancing with Sekani, Noah kept falling down on purpose and crying. But he wasn’t really crying. He just didn’t like sharing his big brother with us.”

  Was Jen that immature? Mae didn’t like to think so, but she shouldn’t underestimate the twins’ perceptiveness. They had known when she and Hubert were having problems, despite their efforts to hide it.

  While Mae sought the right thing to say, the children moved on to other topics. Sekani had sent them a card from Santa Fe and they were working on a picture to send him. He had a pet iguana and he was still their boyfriend. “Can we visit him next time we come to see you?”

  “I think so. Jamie’s good friends with Sekani’s parents. You’ll have to be nice to Noah, of course.”

  “Of course. He’s a little kid. It’s different when he gets fussy.”

  Mae didn’t want to get back on the Jen track. Talking about her only seemed to dig the rut deeper. “You excited about going to Maine?”

  Both girls nodded, and then met each other’s eyes in their silent twin-talk communication. “We’ll get to see Jamie,” Brook said. “But we have to wear these stupid dresses Jen bought us.”

  “That’s enough of that. Now y’all are the ones making a fuss. Every single thing she does ca
n’t be wrong.”

  After another twin-talk moment, the girls glowered at Mae accusingly. Stream got up, stomped out, and came back with a white frilly dress decorated with lavender ribbons and tiny blue flowers. She shoved it at the screen. Mae swallowed a laugh. The twins’ taste in clothes was like Jamie’s. The louder the prints and colors, the better, and they hated anything formal. What had Jen been thinking? The purchase of the dresses struck Mae as vain, maybe even selfish. Jen had spent money trying to turn the twins into sweet little angels to impress Olympia. And sweet little angels they were not.

  “Maybe,” Mae said carefully, “she can take them back to the store.”

  “Fat chance.” Stream pitched the dress onto the arm of the couch. “She made us hairbands that go with them.”

  Mae let this complaint land unanswered. If she was honest, she would have to agree with the girls and that would only reinforce their resentment. Instead, she asked about school. Brook and Stream loved the fact that their mama was going to school, too, and happily changed the subject, showing off their math skills and random facts they had learned. This was something else they shared with Jamie. Not math, but a fondness for knowing interesting yet useless things. Mae shared a few fun facts from her classes, and then her time was up. She told them to get their daddy. Hubert came back and she asked him when she should call the girls again. He usually had a schedule planned for the week.

  “I don’t know.” He patted the girls’ shoulders, urging them to go wash up for dinner. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Mae said goodbye and packed up her laptop. The bright blue sky above the desert-garden landscape of the campus lifted her spirits a little as she rushed past the art department’s outdoor sculpture lab and then the parking lots and dormitories to reach the fitness facility. She had to refocus her mind on work. A new client. A chance to use her education. But she kept wondering what Hubert’s indecision had meant. Was there something he didn’t want to say in front of his daughters? Did Jen want to limit Mae’s contact with the children? She probably did. He’d arranged today’s call while she wasn’t at home.