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me.”
    Interesting that Lou would act so … well, sure of himself with Gemma. I knew he’d been flirting with her, but she’d seemed more interested in Stuart than in the p.a. director.
    But that was up to her. And right now, Frank was the issue.
    â€œI agree it’s time for you to go home, Frank,” Gemma said. “In fact, you should not have come here in the first place. But Lou was right, at least in part of what he said. I’m staying here and running this bookstore, at least for now.” She’d apparently made up her mind, since she hadn’t been certain while we were still at the library.
    Or maybe her decisiveness was all for Frank’s benefit.
    â€œAnd as far as seeing you again?” she continued. “That I don’t know, but it won’t be as anything more than as friends.”
    I didn’t move then. I didn’t have to.
    Justin took a few steps to plant himself beside Gemma. “And in case you have any hesitation about leaving town, Frank, you can be sure I’ll be watching you. And I, as police chief of Destiny, can make sure you have nothing but bad luck if you stay here.”

seven
    Fortunately, Frank left the Broken Mirror right after that. Would he listen and get out of town immediately?
    Judging by the evil stares he leveled on each of us first, I suspected he wouldn’t.
    In case he somehow could impose bad luck on us, as I was sure he hoped to do, I crossed my fingers. In this group I probably should have hidden the gesture. Of all of them, only Justin was likely to question my motive since he didn’t buy into superstitions any more than I did. And these strangers to Destiny might believe in luck even less than we did, despite hoping to make money from it off this store.
    But just in case …“I hope he gets out of town without causing any problems,” I said, showing my crossed fingers as if they would, in fact, ward off any bad karma.
    â€œMe too,” Gemma said fervently. To my delighted surprise, she imitated my gesture.
    So did everyone else, even Justin—all showing different degrees of skepticism and amusement on their faces.
    I laughed at myself and all of them, and that seemed to lighten the atmosphere a bit. “Anyhow,” I said to Gemma, “I’ve got to get back to the Lucky Dog. I’m wishing you all the good luck possible for your first partial day managing this bookstore. And feel free to ask me anything.” At my friend’s smirk and shifting of her eyes from Justin to me, I felt myself flush. “Well, anything retail related,” I amended.
    She laughed. “Thanks. If you’ve got time, let’s have dinner together. Otherwise, I’ll see you back at the B&B later.”
    â€œFine,” I said. I’d ask her then if her decision to stay was final or still pending. And maybe she was mad enough at Frank to tell me at last what had happened between them. Her earlier frightened face had made it clear that there was more than a simple breakup involved.
    The first thing I noticed as Justin and I walked out the door was that it was raining. Not hard, just a drizzle, but my mind shifted back through all the pet-related weather omens I’d spoken about at my superstition talk. For one thing, Pluckie had not acted sleepy at all, nor had she been scratching. She hadn’t warned me.
    On the other hand, as we started toward the Lucky Dog, I saw a black cat near the building. It didn’t cross our path, or at least it didn’t seem to. I saw, though, that I wasn’t the only one around who’d noticed it. As always, despite the rain, there were a lot of tourists on the sidewalk along Destiny Boulevard. A bunch pointed toward the kitty. It was just stalking along now, not grooming itself with any of the motions that would have signified a change in the weather, and there wasn’t a fireplace around for it to turn its back toward.
    Maybe I was, after