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  Praise for

  Unfinished Business;

  An Angela Panther MYSTERY

  "I laughed and I cried...and laughed...and cried...throughout the entire book! This book was so real (yes even with the heroine seeing her mother's ghost) and the emotion in it will stay with me for a long, long time!"

  —Joe Cool Review

  "It definitely touched a chord with anyone who has ever lost a loved one. The writing was strong and the dialogue -- which many people simply cannot write—was terrific."

  —Christie Giraud, editor, Editingpro.com

  "What a fantastic read! I couldn't put it down! I had to keep reading just to see what twist life was going throw out at Angela next!"

  —Chicklit Plus

  "The author has a great sense of humor, even about death, but when the story called for it, she was reverent and empathetic in the way her characters handled each other."

  —Caroline Fardig, Bestselling Author of It's Just a Little Crush

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  UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES

  An Angela Panther mystery

  Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  SEPTEMBER 2017

  Copyright 2017 CAROLYN RIDDER ASPENSON

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Cover Design by Tatiana Vila

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  PRINT ISBN-13: 978-1976011795

  ISBN-10: 1976011795

  EPUB ASIN B074CCC3B2

  Library of Congress Control Number: N/A

  For my mother and father

  Rita D. (Palanca) Ridder

  &

  Richard L. Ridder

  Yes, I know it’s you.

  Chapter One

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m gonna die. Please, no. Why are you shooting at us?”

  I pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet raced through the air, smacking my best friend in the center of her chest.

  I bolted upright; sweat dripping from my forehead, tears streaming down my cheeks, my heart beating faster than ever. I’d just dreamed I’d shot my best friend, my best friend. I mumbled under my breath. It’s just a dream, just a dream.

  My husband Jake rolled over and rubbed my leg. “You okay, babe?”

  I lay down and snuggled into him. “Another nightmare. I shot Mel.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. “We both know that would never happen. It was just a dream. Don’t let it upset you.”

  I glanced at the clock. It was four AM, and I knew I wouldn’t fall back asleep, so I kissed Jake and got up for the day, resigned to the fact that I’d be exhausted before nightfall. I shuffled to the bathroom, closed the double doors, and flipped on the light. My eyes sunk like anchors in the blue and black pits swelling below them. Sleep eluded me most nights, and the nights I did catch a few z’s contained restless and fitful slumber, and it showed.

  Downstairs, I made a fresh pot of coffee, and while waiting for it to finish, replayed the dream in my head. Nothing was clear except Mel. Fuzzy images of gravel and trees flashed briefly in my head, but their pictures remained too blurred and indistinct to identify with any clarity. My gift allowed me to communicate with the dead, not predict the future, and half of me thought the dream meant nothing. The other half though, threw red flags up all over the kitchen, practically screaming “Danger, Will Robinson”, like that old TV show. That half knew the Universe didn’t have a rulebook, and the fear of what it could mean crushed my heart like a ton of bricks. Six months ago I couldn’t feel what a ghost felt, but that had changed, so I knew endless possibilities existed, and that scared the bejesus out of me. I powered on my phone and pounded out a text to Mel.

  “I had a bad dream,” I wrote.

  It didn’t take long for her to respond. That’s how best friends worked. No matter what time it was, they were there when we needed them. “Wow, me too. It was so strange. I shot you.”

  My heart raced into the anaerobic zone. I snatched my keys from the key box, slipped on my tennis shoes and bolted out the door and into my car in the garage. Both of us having the same dream wasn’t a coincidence. It meant something, and I didn’t need my spidey sense to tell me that.

  I sped fifteen miles over the speed limit and made it to Mel’s house in record time. I killed the lights as I drove into her driveway and sent her a text. “Don’t freak when the garage door opens; it’s just me.” I’d had the code for years, just like she had mine because best friends shared that kind of stuff.

  She met me in her kitchen, her long black hair pulled into a bun, and her feet snuggled into the fuzzy teddy bear slippers I’d bought her for Christmas last year. “It’s a little early for coffee, doncha think?”

  I couldn’t speak. I just flung myself at her and wrapped my arms around her neck, holding on for dear life.

  “I…I…you’re cutting off my oxygen.”

  I softened my vice-hold but didn’t let go.

  She broke free and raised her eyebrows my direction. “I’m sorry I killed you, but it was just a dream.” She shuffled over to her coffee maker and grabbed the pot. “Flavored or regular?” Clearly, ending my life didn’t impact her as much as her death did me. Then again, she didn’t know I’d bumped her off, too. The double sucker punch would surely knock her out, or at least I’d hoped it would.

  I sat at the counter feeling a bit embarrassed for freaking out, but based on the changes in my life over the past few years, I was justified. “Either is fine.”

  She rinsed the pot and asked again why I’d showed up at such an ungodly hour.

  I knew Mel’s dream increased the probability of the Universe giving me a message I didn’t want to hear. Was Mel going to die? Was I? If one of us did have a death date sooner rather than later, would it be by the respective best friend? I couldn’t imagine any situation where I’d kill my best friend, but then again, a few years ago I couldn’t imagine talking to dead people, and that was a daily occurrence.

  She placed a fresh cup of coffee next to me. I held it to my nose and took in the spicy, fruity smell, stalling to answer her question.

  “So, you gonna spill it, or are we gonna sit here and pretend you’re just here to hang out at butt-early o’clock?”

  “How did you kill me?”

  “Why? You do something that would cause me to carry through?” She giggled, but I didn’t think it was funny, and my expression told her so. Her smile flipped over. “Come on, what’s going on?”

  “I dreamed I killed you, too.”

  She dropped into the seat next to me. “Well, that’s alarming.”

  I nodded.

  “I shot you twice in the chest. Some place outside, but I’m not sure where. It was a quick dream.”

  “Mine too, and it was the same.” I sipped my drink. “Did I say anything to you?”

  She tightened her bun. “I think so, but I can’t remember.”

  “I can’t believe I’m gonna die. Why are you shooting at us?”


  She pointed at me. “That’s really freaky.”

  It was.

  “But,” she rubbed my shoulder. “We didn’t shoot each other, and we’re not going to, so it’s all good. Now can you go home so I can go back to sleep? I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Deadlines.”

  “It means something. I know it does.”

  She stared into her cup. “I know you’re right, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that we can’t rush the powers that be into telling us what we don’t know. If you’re supposed to find out, you will. If you’re not, you won’t. But I don’t think one of us is gonna bite the bullet anytime soon.” She grimaced. “No pun intended.”

  “I would never shoot you.”

  “Of course not. You don’t have a gun.”

  “There is that.”

  “But I do.” She smirked. “And I know how to use it.”

  “So, in other words, don’t tick you off.”

  “If I didn’t shoot my cheating ex-husband, there sure as heck ain’t any reason I’d shoot you.”

  “You didn’t have a gun then.”

  “Good point.”

  I guzzled the last bit of my coffee, and when I stood, I hugged her again. “I love you.”

  “Who doesn’t?” she joked and squeezed me back as hard as I’d squeezed her. “Love you too.”

  I drove home thinking about the dream. Even though talking to Mel made things better, something still wasn’t right, and everything told me so, even the air in the car was different. Instead of light and soft, it had been replaced by an impending doom so thick, if I’d had a knife, I could have sliced it into pieces.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe I’m gonna die. Please, no. Why are you shooting at us?”

  I jumped high enough out of my seat I nearly smacked my head on the ceiling of Detective Aaron Banner’s office. “Oh, my gosh, last night Mel and I dreamed we said the same things to each other.”

  He smacked his hand down on the stop button of the recorder, and we locked eyes. “Care to explain?”

  I did.

  He rewound the tape and played it again from start to finish. The boom of a gunshot echoed through the recorder. Something heavy dropped onto the ground with a thud. A woman screamed. “No, why? Oh my God, no.”

  A man’s voice mumbled something I couldn’t make out. Then another man muttered something else, but I couldn’t understand him either. Whatever happened, happened in real time, and it was abominable.

  “Why? Please God, don’t kill me. My babies. They need me. I can’t believe I’m gonna die. Please, no. Why are you shooting at us?”

  The line went dead.

  I rubbed my neck. The call had come into the dispatch center earlier that morning, and Aaron called me in to help.

  “It’s hard to listen to. Sounds like maybe two men and a woman, but I’m not sure. Thought you might be able to help us with her identity or maybe the location. We don’t know if it’s a robbery or an assault or if the woman is dead—nothing.”

  The woman on the line never spoke to the operator directly, and never said her name. It appeared she was just trying to give clues to what was happening. Because of the shots, time was important, and we didn’t have much of it.

  “The operator called back once the line went dead. Got a voicemail for a girl named Sarah.”

  “Can you trace the call or find out the billing address for the owner?”

  He shook his head. “Track phone. They’re not traceable. We’ve been calling the number back since we received the call, but it just goes straight to voicemail.” He paused and played the recording one more time. “Usually the phone company doesn’t keep the information on the purchaser, but the carrier gave us the number for the last call. Belongs to a man by the name of Stu Walker.” He tapped a pencil on his desk.

  “Have you called him or sent anyone out there?”

  “Got voicemail on his line, too. Sent a squad out twice already, but no one’s been home. Thought I’d call you and have you come out with me.”

  I stood. “Let’s go.”

  Aaron and I met a few years back when a little boy’s spirit asked me to give his parents a message. I’d been able to communicate with spirits for some time, though according to my mother Fran Richter, I’d done it as a child too, but as I aged, the gift lessened until it disappeared completely. It resurfaced when my mother died and decided to test the psychic waters. When her ghost appeared to me, I thought I’d flipped my lid. It was even harder when other ghosts came around asking for help with their earthly business. I wasn’t thrilled at first but eventually realized the curse was truly a gift. Ever since Aaron saw my gift up close and personal, I’d been his psychic medium consultant, off the record and free of charge. We’d also become friends, and I was grateful for all of it, but for the friendship most of all.

  We arrived at a shabby brown stucco house on the outskirts of town, where the city had yet to pilfer all the farmland from its owners and stack two hundred plus homes nearly on top of each other in an upscale, amenities-laden subdivisions. The house was in disrepair, with shutters hanging by a hair and a boarded up window in the garage. A Pitbull sat chained to a tree near the gravel driveway. It was thirsty and tired. I wanted to unleash it and take it home with me. The whole scene matched the stereotype image other parts of the country have of the south. I said a silent thank you to the Universe for the blessings in my life.

  Aaron knocked on the door and a young man, maybe in his twenties, with a shaved head and a dark, brown, at least six-inch long beard, opened it. “Yeah?”

  My spidey senses sent a smidgen of a tingle zipping down my spine.

  Aaron flashed his badge. “You Stu Walker?”

  The man’s shoulders curved inward just a bit. “Yes, sir.”

  “We understand you made a call to a woman named Sarah at about nine AM this morning. Can you tell me anything about that woman?”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Uh, yeah. Sarah Rochen. My cousin. Why you asking?”

  “We’re trying to locate her whereabouts. Do you happen to know where she is?”

  I caught his eyes widen for a millisecond. Had I blinked, I would have missed it. It sent my spidey sense shooting back up my spine like a just lit firework.

  He studied the ground near his feet and then shook his head. “I haven’t talked to her since this morning, but you could talk to her ma.”

  Aaron took down the mother’s phone number. “Thank you, Mr. Walker. What was your conversation with Ms. Rochen about?”

  He rubbed his head. “I told her I could get her a new car, and she was supposed to call me back later today to go and see it before she went back to Savannah.”

  “Do you know why she was going to Savannah?”

  “That’s where she lives.”

  “Do you know what she was planning to do today or why she was in town?”

  He shook his head. “Something ‘bout seeing her kids.” He hemmed and hawed and kicked at the ground. “I don’t know anything about it really, but her ma might know.”

  Aaron cut the meeting short. “You got an address for her mother?”

  “I don’t know the address, but I could get you there from here.”

  “It’s okay. I can get it through my department. Thank you for your time. You have a nice day.”

  I smiled at him and followed Aaron back to the car.

  In the car I gave Aaron my two cents. “Something’s not right about that guy.”

  “He’s just a good ol’ country boy.” He got on his car radio and asked to have an address run on Sarah Rochen’s mother’s cell number. “You have time to go there, too?”

  “Sure.”

  Based on the address, her mother was only fifteen minutes from where we were. Dawsonville was growing, but there were still a lot of traditional neighborhoods and farms instead of designated subdivisions like mine. Sarah’s mother, LuAnn Jacobs, lived in one of them. Her house, a blue and white, hardieplank sided r
anch, sat on a small, weed infested hill. Aaron trudged up the gravel and dirt driveway, and the bumping from the holes in it agitated my sciatica. I rubbed my leg to relieve the throbbing.

  LuAnn Jacobs answered the door immediately. “We’re not looking to convert, but thanks.” She slammed the door before Aaron could respond.

  I giggled under my breath. Aaron, however, did not.

  He tapped on the door again, a little harder. “Mrs. Jacobs, I’m Detective Aaron Banner.” He flipped his badge toward where the closed door met the frame.

  She cracked the door open, snuck a peek at the badge, and then swung it open again.

  “G’morning, ma’am. Earlier this morning we received a 911 call from a woman who we now believe to be your daughter, Sarah Rochen.”

  Aaron explained that the call was disturbing, but didn’t go into any detail. “Have you heard from your daughter, Mrs. Jacobs?”

  “Uh, not since breakfast. What’s going on?”

  “Do you know why Sarah was in town?”

  She clasped her arms across her chest, and in a sticky, almost too sweet voice, said, “Yeah. Uh, she and her husband Larry, they came up from Savannah yesterday for a visit and maybe to buy a new car.”

  A man stood in the doorway behind Mrs. Jacobs. His greasy brown hair long enough to be pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck hung in stringy strands instead. We made eye contact, and I shivered. The man creeped me out.

  Mrs. Jacobs chewed a piece of gum the way Emily did, her mouth open, making juicy, chomping sounds while she spoke. “Just for a visit. They came to visit.” She explained that they’d come to see their two daughters, and they’d hoped to take them home if they could get approval for the new car.

  I forced back the anger brewing in the pit of my stomach. My misophonia—generally coined the hatred of human sounds, and particularly those related to eating—fought to get the best of me, but I refused to let it, instead, focusing on the task at hand. I hated listening to people chew anything.