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expression I wanted in my head right then, but it was the only onethat seemed at all appropriate as I met his eyes and saw they’d gone hard and sad.
    â€œThe cops say it was an accident,” he told me. “They say Aunt Dot must have lost her balance and fell, or maybe tripped over the cat.”
    â€œMeow!” Alistair head butted Frank. Frank kept ignoring him.
    â€œWhat’s this Vibe of yours say? Was she pushed?”
    â€œIt doesn’t work like that,” I told him. “It’s not like a vision. It’s . . . emotional.” I waited for him to make some wisecrack about female intuition, but Frank Hawthorne was, thankfully, way smarter than that.
    â€œSo what did you feel?”
    I rubbed my hands together. I’d had a few people ask me about what my Vibe meant before, but not like this. Not when it was important, and deeply personal. I swallowed and made up my mind.
    I also sat back down on the wicker bench, because I had no idea what was going to happen next. Alistair wound around between my ankles in that snaky way cats do and jumped back into my empty lap. I took a deep breath, and slowly, carefully, I reached for the fading echoes of my Vibe.
    It turned out it was a good thing I’d sat down, because I was shaking again. Alistair meowed once and pressed close against my tummy. I put both hands on him, and the trembling eased.
    â€œI got . . . sadness. Worry. She hurt.” Frank looked away. “Not for long. I think . . . there was a sense that everything was
going
to be okay.” I frowned. There had been thoughts, words, but they were all jangled up with the sadness and the falling. “Help was coming. It . . . something . . . would be made right.”
Won’t win.
Those were Dorothy Hawthorne’s thoughts, Vibed into my mind.
Won’t win. Can’t win.
    But was that about herself? Was Dorothy thinking,
I can’t win
? Or was it about somebody else? As in,
They can’t win
? I wrapped my arms around Alistair, and the cat purred,warm and reassuring, anchoring me in place. I didn’t want to say what came next. I didn’t want Frank to have to hear it, because it would be painful. But he’d asked, and some deep part of me knew it would be wrong to leave this out.
    â€œHate,” I whispered. “There was hate and anger, and . . . and . . . waiting. For things to be over, for this to be done and gone.”
    A muscle in Frank’s cheek twitched. “Who did she hate?”
    â€œShe?” I started. “I, no, I’m sorry. I’m not used to this. I don’t, I never . . . but it wasn’t her . . .” I stopped and played my own words back again, this time really hearing what I’d said and understanding it. “It wasn’t her. There were two sets of . . . of feelings. Two people.”
    Frank was staring at me, anger and tears shining in his eyes. I closed my own eyes. It didn’t help, because it was in me now. I didn’t want it, but it was not going away. Dorothy Hawthorne hadn’t just died in her home.
    She’d been murdered there.

9
    THE CERTAINTY OF murder leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. It also puts a major damper on the conversation. Fortunately, we were both saved from having to try to come up with any kind of small talk by another voice filtering out from the house.
    â€œHello? Frank? You in there?”
    Frank’s face twisted up in disbelief. “Oh, this is perfect,” he muttered as he got to his feet. “Just . . . perfect.”
    Before I could ask any questions, a trim older man in a tan business suit pushed open the kitchen door.
    â€œHey, Frank, I was heading past and I saw the door open and—” He stopped as if he’d just noticed me. “Oh. I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”
    Alistair hissed, jumped off my lap, and vanished into