A Spirited Gift

What Bunk had said made sense to me. He was also the one who told me my father was still alive after years of Gramps, and even my mother, lying to me. I guess I felt like I could trust Bunk to tell the truth about Johnny, since he’d been honest with me about my dad.

Now the gun that had killed Johnny was involved in two more deaths—deaths that had no connection to Johnny or Bunk Whitley.

“We’ll keep bringing it up until we have an answer!” Sheriff Riley banged his fist on the table. “You couldn’t solve this case when you were sheriff, Horace. Now, when this comes out, it’s gonna make us all look like monkeys. We have to figure it out before that happens. Any suggestions?”

I finished the coffee and saw a look pass between Chief Michaels and Gramps. I knew that look. They were thinking about having me hold the gun and see what I could find from it.

It would be an easy answer—if what I saw made sense—and if they could convince Sheriff Riley to go along with the experiment. It wouldn’t be an answer they could take to court, but it might be something that could put them on the right track.

Am I willing to hold something knowing it was used to kill three people? I considered the difficult question even before they asked me. I wanted to help. But the emotional strain would be terrible. Just handling Mary’s perfume bottle had been enough to make me feel the agony she went through for Rafe.

What would it be like handling a weapon that had committed murder? How would I deal with that emotional pain when it was over? It was a terrifying thought.

And I never knew exactly whose emotion I’d be feeling. In this case, it could be the killer’s—or the victim’s.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” I smiled at all of them and acted as though I didn’t know what the discussion would be about after I’d left the room. I just didn’t want to hear them discuss it—“Dae won’t mind, will you, honey? She’d be glad to help.” Or, “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, Horace. We need real facts.”

And I didn’t want to feel pushed into making a decision right away, which I might be if I stayed in the kitchen.

“I’m turning in for the night,” I told them with a calm demeanor I was far from feeling. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gramps.”

Chapter 39

I wished I hadn’t argued with Kevin. He was the one person I could turn to—the one person whose advice I trusted about these things.

But I couldn’t call him and tell him I wasn’t angry anymore—Oh and by the way I have a problem I need to discuss.

I went up to the widow’s walk and sat there looking out at the perfect night sky. When I was young, I would’ve gone to Gramps and we could’ve talked about this. But not anymore.

Not that my innocent gift of helping people find things ever had such serious consequences when I was young. I used to help Miss Elizabeth Simpson find her car keys, which she managed to misplace every week. Or I helped Cailey Fargo find her missing earrings. People in Duck loved my gift and enjoyed using it as much as I did. It was one of the perks of living here, I thought.

But now life was more complicated. The adult me understood that though Gramps loved me, he’d expect me to use my gift for the betterment of the community—even if there were personal costs. People sacrificed for the greater good sometimes—like his suggestion that I should give up my relationship with Kevin to be mayor again.

I understood his point of view, although I didn’t necessarily agree with it. Every police officer was willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Many times those sacrifices included their families, marriages, even their lives. Why would Gramps even hesitate to volunteer my services, when it might only make me uncomfortable?

I knew I couldn’t talk to Shayla or Trudy about this either. Shayla would balance my chakras and tell me to make my own choices. And though Trudy had been my friend since childhood, she’d never been comfortable with my gift. I couldn’t ask her to help me with this.

“Feels like standing on the bow of my ship,” Rafe said, appearing on the cast-iron rails that surrounded the widow’s walk on the roof. “Aye, you could look out and see forever. That was true freedom—true happiness.”

“That you lost when the British destroyed your ship.” I was glad to be diverted from worrying about Gramps asking me in the morning to hold the gun.

“Damn fools!” he yelled, causing some bats to change course. “They thought they’d killed me. They thought they could find my treasure. But I was too smart for them.”

“So the story I dreamed about you was true. You buried your treasure, killed your sailors and sent that poor cabin boy to swim away from the island. No wonder they called you a scourge.”

“That was me,” he admitted. “But allow that a man may change. Death and destruction—even plunder—gets old as the bones ache in the night and the body wears. I made my peace with what I’d done. God blessed me with a woman who loved me, despite my sins, and two fine sons. I was happy for a time—at least until the magistrate hanged me.”

“Rafe—I’m so sorry about Mary and your sons.” I hoped he wasn’t going to break down again as he had during the day. I didn’t think I could hold it together if he did.

He frowned and took out his cutlass, making some stabs at the night sky. “ ’Twas what I deserved, no doubt. But she deserved better.”

We didn’t speak for a few long minutes as he walked along the edge of the metal rail around me. Then he said, “You know, you remind me of her.”

“Me?”

“Aye. Pluck to the backbone. She never took nothing off of me. Told me what she thought, she did. But with a loving heart and a beautiful smile.”

“Thank you.” I thought again about the beautiful, sad woman in the mirror who’d tolerated the magistrate’s hand at her breast for the sake of her husband and sons. I didn’t mind the comparison.

“Don’t let them make you do anything ye don’t want to do,” he spat out. “They need you, my girl. You don’t need them. Make them pay—or tell them to go away.”

I was amazed at his understanding of the situation without one word of explanation. “How do you know?”

“Bah! I’m not an imbecile. I know what you can do. I saw the greedy looks on their faces. It doesn’t matter if you’re a pirate or a king. Those looks are on everyone’s faces who want their way. They need yer aid in this investigation. They don’t care about what happens as long as they win the plunder. It’s all the same—my time and yours.”

He had summed it up remarkably well. I wasn’t sure I could be as fast to turn down what would surely be presented as my duty, but I was glad he comprehended. The two of us up on this lonely rooftop had found a way of understanding each other despite the centuries (and so many other things) between us.

“I appreciate that. I know you’re right. I don’t know if I can just say no. I want Sandi Foxx’s killer to be found. That might not happen without me.”

“The hell with that,” he roared. “That girl is dead. Finding her killer won’t bring her back. You think on that, girl. Think about what ye will give up to do this thing. You can only lose so many pieces of yourself before there’s nothing left.”

And with those pirate words of wisdom, I was alone again.

He was right about losing myself. It was what I feared most from this part of my gift that took me into other people’s emotions. I could handle most of the day-to-day things—towels manufactured at a sweat shop in China, cars that had been used for smuggling. But things like the perfume bottle, and probably the gun that had killed Sandi, were more difficult. The effects from objects like those were hard to recover from. The strong emotional