Read Online A Timely Vision by Joyce and Jim Lavene - Free Book Online

exhale, a brisk breeze blew up off of the water behind us and snuffed out the tiny fires. There were murmurs of ghostly visitation as the crowd began to break up. In Duck, there were always rumors of ghostly visitation. It was part of our culture, like pirate f olklore.
    “That was spooky.” Shayla sidled up to me, then looked at the sky. “I feel like she was here, Dae. What do you think?”
    “I think breezes come up off the water all the time.”
    “I can’t believe you of all people don’t find that kind of spooky. I mean, you’re psychic and all. You and I can see into that other world that most people miss every day.”
    “I don’t have powers beyond the grave or anything. My ability is like teleportation or telekinesis. It’s a science of the mind.”
    “Whatever,” she argued. “You found Miss Elizabeth’s body. Her spirit cried out to you. You can’t deny that.”
    “Her watch cried out to me. That’s it. It had nothing to do with her being dead.”
    “Dae is right,” Kevin chimed in. “There’s a lot of exploration into the field of psychometry for security reasons.”
    I didn’t need decent lighting to see Shayla’s big brown eyes focus on him. “And who are you? I think I’d remember if you were Dae’s beau.”
    I introduced him to Shayla. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
    “Hallelujah! You’re the new man from the Blue Whale, aren’t you? I’ve been hoping to meet you.” Shayla wrapped her arm around his. “You have to buy me a drink after all this grief and spooky stuff. I think Curbside should still be open. You got anything against buying a girl a drink?”
    I thought Shayla’s considerable powers of seduction and persuasion (part of her stock-in-trade as a palm reader) might be wasted on Kevin, who seemed too worldly and hardened by his time in the FBI. I found myself holding my breath and hoping it would be so. But I was disappointed. He drew her closer and smiled down at her like a sailor on leave for the first time in weeks.
    “You two go on ahead,” I said right away. “I’m tired and I’m going home. I thought Gramps would be out here, but I don’t see him. He might not be feeling good. I better check on him.”
    “That’s good, honey,” Shayla said without bothering to look at me. “We’ll get on fine without you.”
    “After we walk her home,” Kevin intervened.
    Shayla giggled. “ Of course we should walk her home. Even with Dae’s command of the supernatural, she could be in danger with a killer stalking the streets of Duck.”
    “You must be an actress,” Kevin said. “You have such a command of the language.”
    And of course Shayla was too smitten by him to realize that he was subtly insulting her. At least I thought that’s what he was doing. I sure wasn’t going to tell her, though. She’d wanted to meet him, and she’d practically thrown herself at him. She’d have to take what she got.
    “I’ll be fine.” I started to walk away. “You two go on. I’m not worried about anyone stalking the streets except a stray dog or two.”
    “I insist.” Kevin derailed my best efforts to get away gracefully. “It’s the least we can do.”
    The three of us set off down Duck Road toward my house. We passed several large groups of people walking to the open restaurants and bars. Walking was a common form of transportation here. It was better than waiting in summer traffic.
    “Are we one hundred percent sure Miss Elizabeth was murdered?” Shayla asked as we ambled awkwardly down the road. I say “awkwardly” because it’s never synchronous for two people to walk together as a couple and have a third person tag along.
    “Someone had to bury her in the sand,” Kevin responded.
    I looked at one of the hundreds of horse statues that are spread out across the Outer Banks in honor of the wild horses in Corolla. This one was blue with butterflies on it, but there are pink horses with wings and black horses with gold stars. I doubted that the wild