A Touch of Gold Read online

  “You got this truck at an auction. Before you had it, a man in Virginia used it to haul tobacco and, occasionally, moonshine.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I knew he was a farmer. I didn’t know about the other part.”

  Sensations like those I felt from the truck were already becoming almost second nature. How something was manufactured—even how it was used—was easy to absorb and ignore.

  But the coffee card and the gold coin, the pink wheelchair at the hospital were so excruciatingly different. It had to be the emotional quality to the items. I could feel the strong emotions like they were my own. A second aspect to this new and scary ability.

  The coffee card emotions felt new, as though the argument between Max and Sam had happened yesterday. “I’ve been completely crazed by all of this,” I said as he started the truck. “I tell you and it’s no big deal. Why aren’t you upset about it? Why don’t you think it’s crazy?”

  “I told you I knew people like you when I was with the FBI.” He pulled the truck out into traffic. “One of them was a psychic who was able to track down kidnapped children. She found them in half the time we could with conventional means.”

  “And she was blown up?”

  “No. She was shot by a kidnapper and almost died. It changed her. She started hearing the children’s voices as well as being able to tell where they were. She could hear their cries for help when they were being tortured. It made her even more effective at her job. It also drove her crazy.”

  We’d reached the parking lot for the Duck Shoppes on the boardwalk, where Missing Pieces was located conveniently close to town hall. Everything looked so normal, as if, a quarter mile down the road, the museum was still there and Max was still busy sorting artifacts.

  “I don’t know why, but I sense a lesson here.” I turned to him as he parked the truck. “What happened to your friend?”

  He shrugged as though it didn’t matter, but I didn’t have to be a psychic to see it did. “She lost herself. When I finally quit last year, she was being transferred to a psychiatric facility. She couldn’t cope with all of it. It was too much.”

  “She was your partner, wasn’t she?”

  “Is that from your new ability?”

  “Nope. A lucky guess. I’m sorry. Is that what made you quit the FBI?”

  “It was the end of twelve years of events that made me realize it was time to leave,” he admitted. “Sometimes, it’s just time to go.”

  I unbuckled my seat belt and urged my sore knee out of the truck. I hoped this was a cautionary tale because it didn’t make me feel any better. On the other hand, I knew a little more about Kevin. It seemed to come in small bursts. He obviously didn’t like talking about his time in the FBI. “So this is where you get your insight into what’s wrong with me?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Dae. At least nothing that a little rest won’t help. Besides being too close to the explosion, your abilities are natural to you. My friend refused to give herself time to adjust to her new abilities. She couldn’t control it, so it controlled her.”

  I looked across the parking lot at the Coffee House and Bookstore. I had a powerful urge to go in and question Phil, the owner, about Sam Meacham’s recent visit there. The energy left in the coffee card was like the demanding energy left in the gold coin—pushing me to act. I had no way of knowing whether the feeling was something important or not.

  But like so many businesses in Duck, the coffee house was closed until mid-March. I couldn’t find out any information about the card until Phil came back.

  People hailed me then rushed over as Kevin and I walked by the shops on the boardwalk overlooking Currituck Sound. Everyone wanted to make sure I was okay—and find out the latest gossip about the museum. Everyone in Duck would’ve heard about it by now. It had probably made the news last night and this morning. Not a lot happened here that made it to TV.

  My friend Trudy Devereaux, the owner of Curves and Curls Beauty Spa, which was right next door to Missing Pieces, stopped talking and cutting Ellis Walters’s hair when she saw us.

  She hugged me tight and cried. “Oh, Dae! I was so worried about you. Don’t you ever do that to me again! Sometimes trouble seems to find you like a lure attracts fish.”

  We commiserated for a few minutes, her green smock feeling familiar even to my heightened senses. Trudy and I had grown up together—there wasn’t much we didn’t know about each other. We were wiping away tears by the time Ms. Walters came out to ask questions about the museum.

  “You call me or come by when you can,” Trudy said, urging Ms. Walters back into her shop. “And be careful. You could’ve died yesterday.”

  I promised that we’d talk and Kevin and I went next door to Missing Pieces. I played with the key in the lock like I always did to get the door open. Visions of a few former tenants rushed through my mind at the touch of the key to the lock. But they were like ghosts—no substance or emotion. Maybe I’d been there long enough that their energy was starting to fade.

  I didn’t open the blinds or turn on the lights, as I usually did. Normally I would’ve been hoping for a few winter visitors who wanted to buy my treasures. Today I felt like skulking around, hoping that no one would wander in.

  Kevin locked the door behind us, and I sank down with a grateful sigh onto my burgundy brocade sofa. I closed my eyes and let the familiar energies from my shop lap around my disturbed senses like a warm bubble bath.

  “Tea?” Kevin held out a box of orange spice chai. “Or coffee?”

  I grimaced. “I’ve had your coffee, thanks. Tea, please.”

  “What’s wrong with my coffee?” He busied himself putting water in the little pot on the hot plate. “It kept me awake plenty of nights when I was on a stakeout.”

  “That’s what’s wrong with it!” I smiled, very happy that he was here with me. Since we’d met a few months ago, we’d developed a nice friendship. I felt like I’d known him forever. There was nothing more to it than that. Not for my lack of imagining more, however.

  Kevin had proven to be an easygoing, steadfast kind of person. He was good-looking, hardworking, and every woman in Duck was interested in gossiping about him. And those were just the married ones.

  “When did you first notice the change?” he asked as the water in the pot began to get hot.

  “At the hospital last night. It started with the gold coin I picked up at the museum.”

  “What gold coin?”

  I explained about finding the gold coin before the museum blew up and then told him about its effect on me. “I thought I was going crazy. I’m still not too sure.”

  “Maybe not crazy,” he remarked. “It’s not that much of a stretch from your natural abilities.”

  “Maybe not to you, but it’s a big stretch for me. Seeing where everything was made is one thing, but feeling what the people who owned it or touched it felt, is another.”

  “Such as?”

  “Just now, opening the front door, it was like a mild reaction. But the coin and the coffee card were like emotional hurricanes blowing through me.”

  “What else?” He put the tea bag in the pot and took out a cup and spoon.

  “It’s mostly shipping and manufacturing.”

  He looked up at that. “Come again?”

  “Where and how things are made, the people who made them, and seeing them shipped out to places. It’s kind of crazy.”

  “That’s why you wouldn’t take Spitzer’s hand.”

  “That’s why I didn’t hug you when I first saw you.” The words tumbled out, then hung there like yesterday’s laundry.

  “Sugar or honey?” he asked in a suddenly polite tone.

  We were obviously both embarrassed by my revelation. “Honey. Thanks.”

  He finished making the tea for me, then grabbed a Cheerwine out of the fridge for himself. I smiled as he got it and sat down beside me. Kevin, new to the South, was obsessed with drinking Cheerwine. I wondered what would happen if he
ever tried Moon Pies.

  “You should start a journal,” he said, snapping the top from the bottle. “It might help if you can compare things that happen to you.”

  “How long do you think it will last?” I held my tea and tried to sound as if it didn’t really matter. But it did. It was frightening, too different from my usual ability to help find things.

  “It might not go away. This new ability might take the place of the old one, or it might add to it. That’s why it’s important to get on top of it.”

  That idea was a slap of cold water. I put my tea on the little side table I’d acquired at an auction over the summer. I looked around my shop, all my carefully gathered treasures. I had feelings for most of them, but I never expected to know what they were feeling in return.

  “I guess you haven’t tried to find anything yet,” he said. “Maybe you should. It would tell you if you’ve traded abilities or if you’ve enhanced the original.”

  That sounded like a good idea. It was something positive and concrete to do. I still felt kind of shaky, but I was curious to find out what was going on. “Are you volunteering?”

  “Sure. Why not?” He put his Cheerwine down and stuck his hands out toward me. “I’ve been trying to find a missing case of wine at the hotel. Maybe you can help me with it.”

  To say I was nervous about touching him was like comparing a dingy to a sloop. I was terrified of what I might see or feel. I wished I’d brought the evidence gloves with me to protect me from something I couldn’t even name.

  “Okay.” I had started to reach toward him when someone began pounding on the shop door.

  I could see my friend Shayla Lily trying to sneak peeks inside the shop. “I know you’re in there, Dae!”

  I gave Kevin an apologetic look, not sure if I should murder Shayla for wrecking the moment or be happy it hadn’t gone any further. There had been something in Kevin’s tone when he’d told me about his FBI partner, the psychic. I’d gotten the feeling that they’d had more than just a working relationship. I might have been on the verge of finding out why Kevin had resisted the advances of all of the women in Duck.

  Not me, of course. I’d been careful not to put myself in that position with him. If all he wanted from me was friendship, I was happy to give it. Well, maybe not happy exactly, but I thought he might come around in time.

  When I opened the shop door, Shayla burst into the room as she always did. Her black hair was drawn back from her cocoa-colored face, showing off her finely drawn brows. She always dressed in black, probably part of her mystique as a tarot card reader.

  “What the hell is going on here?” she demanded.

  Another reason I hadn’t pushed hard to have a romantic relationship with Kevin is that he’d dated Shayla for a short while. She has a long memory.

  “Nothing.” I glanced at Kevin, hoping he would back me up.

  “Thirsty!” He drained his bottle of Cheerwine.

  “Dae—Oh my God! What have you done to yourself? Your aura is all over the place! Girl, you have either been cursed or you’ve had a near-death experience. I’m thinking it must be a curse because I’d know if you almost died, right? My tarot cards have been telling me something was up with you. I didn’t think it was this bad.”

  Shayla sat down on the burgundy sofa, wedging herself between me and Kevin. She was probably the only person in Duck who didn’t know about the museum. She knew everything about the spirit world but hardly anything about the real world. “Okay. I’m here now. Tell me all about it.”

  Shayla was also known as Mrs. Roberts, Spiritual Advisor. She’d inherited the shop next door from a previous palm and tarot reader and kept the name. We’d been friends since she’d come to Duck from New Orleans a few years back. I’d gone to her, hoping she could help me contact my dead mother since she was also a medium. There was no luck on that front, but she’d been a good listener.

  “I’m going to get back to the museum and see if I can help them finish up.” Kevin got to his feet.

  My heart said, No! Please stay! But my mouth said, “Thanks for giving me a ride over here. I’ll see you later.”

  He smiled, hesitated as though wanting to say something else, but then said good-bye and left the shop. As usual, there seemed to be more left unsaid between us.

  “I’m glad he’s gone.” Shayla let out a deep sigh. “The air was so thick in here. It’s that tension between him and me when we get together. There are too many unresolved issues between us, but until he takes a better look at it, there’s no helping him.”

  Shayla was a wonderful medium, but sometimes she could be a little thick.

  “I’m glad you’re here. A lot has happened.” I swallowed my disappointment that Kevin was gone. It was probably for the best anyway, like Gramps always said.

  “Let me make some tea,” she interrupted before I got started. “Do you want something?”

  I told her everything, and she listened while she buffed her nails and drank her tea. When I was finished, she shook her head. “No wonder you’re such a mess! You should’ve come to me right away. You need your energies balanced. It’s a good thing I stopped by.”

  She took my hands before I could stop her. There was nothing to it. She closed her eyes and advised me to do the same. I drifted into that special spot where I could see if someone has lost something. I saw Shayla’s gold charm bracelet behind her desk and smiled.

  My ability to find missing items through simple human contact was still part of me. My new gift seemed confined to my getting information from inanimate objects when I touched them. How these things could have such exacting specifications was beyond me. Maybe later when I understood the new ability better, it would make more sense.

  “There now!” Shayla raised her head, opened her dark eyes and smiled. “How do you feel?”

  “Better. Thanks.” I was able to answer honestly. “And I know where your lost bracelet is.”

  “I guess you can still find things then. I’ve been looking for that since last Sunday.”

  “You should’ve asked me.”

  “I should’ve. It would’ve saved me from tearing my place apart. That bracelet belonged to my grandmother. And you knew where it was all the time.”

  “We always seem to help each other.”

  “I’m glad I could help out.” She stared hard at me. “Your color is a little better, but your chakra still needs some work. Let’s schedule another session at my place tomorrow. I’m gonna have to charge you for this one, Dae. A girl has to pay the rent, you know.”

  That was Shayla. I smiled as she put the appointment into her BlackBerry. She glanced up at me. “So, what exactly did Kevin say about me while you all were talking?”

  “He didn’t mention you,” I answered, hoping it wouldn’t hurt her feelings.

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about. The man can’t stand himself without me. I have to wonder how long he can take the torture.” She sighed, said she’d see me later and click-clacked out of Missing Pieces on her high-heeled sandals.

  When the door closed behind her and I was alone, I was scared. I hadn’t been scared like this in a long time. Everyone in Duck pretty much knew and accepted that I could help them find things by touching them. It wasn’t a secret. I’d been doing it since I was a child.

  This new talent was something else. I knew Kevin was right. I had to conquer it or at least get it under some kind of control. I couldn’t go around the rest of my life almost fainting every time I touched a high-energy item like the coin. The manufacturing and distribution I could handle. Even what I felt in Kevin’s truck was okay. The rest would take some time.

  Since I was so familiar with everything inside Missing Pieces, I decided to try an experiment. I’d already touched the brocade sofa and the teacup. I’d experienced only a residual kind of awareness from them. I didn’t know for sure how old either one of them was, but maybe age wasn’t a factor as much as intent.

  I mean, the gold coin in my pocket w
as much older and had brought me to my knees. On the other hand, the coffee card was much more recent, but its energy was just as strong. It was confusing—and frustrating.

  I tried to focus on other items in the shop. I touched my teapot clock. Nothing much there. The mirror with the delicate carvings I’d found in Cape Cod was barely a buzz. Some clothes held nothing beyond the creators and a little about the people who’d worn them.

  I was about to give up when I saw the miniature portrait I’d been harboring for a few years. It was tucked into a quiet corner of the shop, away from the regular traffic. No discerning customer had ever managed to find it.

  I’d had it appraised after I got it at an estate sale. The appraiser was unsure about its origin. It was definitely by an early 1800s artist who was renowned locally for painting portraits. No one famous, but everyone from around here recognized his name.

  We’d both speculated on who the lady in the portrait was. She was dressed in white with a small white veil on her dark hair. Her eyes were luminous, but her pretty face looked worn.

  I’d shown it to Max once, wondering if it could be a lost painting of Theo Burr. I thought it looked like her. Max didn’t. That was the end of that discussion.

  I approached the portrait carefully, as though I could sneak up on it—like it wouldn’t notice until it was too late. My hands trembled as I reached for it, uncertain of what I’d feel.

  Chapter 5

  Touching the portrait brought a bright flood of light and pictures cascading through my brain. It was like newsreel footage on steroids. I could barely keep them straight.

  The woman in the picture was sad and tired. She was alone on a dark beach, not sure where she was. She met a man who took her home, and she stayed with him, though she knew she didn’t belong there.

  She had another life far away, but she didn’t want to go back. There was too much pain and loss. The man who’d found her was good to her, and they lived together for several years before her death.

  I moved my hand away, tears in my eyes. The portrait was of Theo Burr even though she’d used another name while she lived in the Outer Banks. Max had been right about her. She hadn’t died at the hands of pirates. She’d lived a second life here, but not because she didn’t remember who she was and what she’d left behind.