“I’m right here.”
“I have to talk to you,” he said, the gun shaking in his unsteady hand. He wore a pair of jeans topped with a white, long-sleeved shirt and nothing else, but she doubted he felt the late October freeze that had recently descended upon the city.
“Okay,” Cass said calmly. “We can talk.”
Susie burst into tears, but everyone else in the coffeeshop was deathly silent.
“You have to tell her how much I miss her. I know you can do that. I heard from someone…about you. About what you do. I need you to talk to her.”
Surreptitiously, Cass reached under the coffee bar for her oversize handbag even as she answered him. “Yes, I can tell her.”
“Prove it!” He moved closer to her, the gun in line with her face.
“I’m just going to come out from around the bar.”
Adjusting her apron carefully over her black trousers and black sweater, Cass emerged from behind the bar, ducking under the opening rather than lifting the partition. She moved slowly so as not to alarm him until she was standing directly in front of him.
“How do you want me to prove it?”
“Tell me her name.”
“I don’t know her name.”
“You’re supposed to. You’re supposed to know her name or the first letter or something. Like they do on TV.”
Cass shook her head. “Maybe if you put the gun down. You’re scaring these people.”
“I don’t care,” he whispered. He ran his free hand over his scruffy face, then rubbed one of his eyes with his fist. “I need to talk to her, and he told me that you could make that happen, but I want proof.”
Cass closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. The white room started to take shape in her mind, and as soon as it did, the door flew open, slamming back against the white wall. A stinging sensation lanced her brain as the rush of energy hit her. When she opened her eyes, a woman stood on the other side of the door. She was younger. Dark and pretty and dressed in a silk purple teddy. She cried as she spoke.
Cass focused her attention on the desperate man in front of her as she listened to the voice in her head.
“She bought a purple teddy,” Cass relayed. “Your birthday was last month, wasn’t it? The tenth?”
His hand clenched more tightly around the gun and he wet his lips. He nodded. “Yes. It was a Monday.”
“She wanted to surprise you. Shock you a little, I think. But every time she put it on, she always took it off right after. She thought it made her hips look fat. She was very self-conscious.”
His lips wobbled into a distracted smile. “She hated her hips.”
“I know,” Cass said gently. “She wants you to put the gun down, Jess.”
“How do you know my name?”
“She told me.”
“She can’t,” he whimpered. “She can’t talk anymore.”
“Yes, she can,” Cass countered softly as she moved a step closer toward him. The gun practically touched her nose. “And she wants you to give me the gun. She says it’s for the best.”
“Don’t…” Jess muttered.
The man in the chair started to move again, and his actions startled Jess. Predictably, Jess panicked at the sudden movement and in retaliation pushed the end of the revolver against the center of Cass’s forehead.
“Don’t move, man-I’ll kill her. You don’t know. I’ll do it. I have nothing to live for. Nothing.”
Cass shuddered at the feel of the cold steel pressed between her eyes. Trembling slightly, she still managed to lift her hand to signal to Large Latte Light Foam to stay back.
“It’s okay. Sit down.” She turned her head and felt the tip of the gun graze her brow as she made eye contact with the wannabe hero. He was shaking, and she could see that he wanted to act. Not that it would have been an easy task considering he still held a book in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.
Mentally, she commended him for the effort. However, if he moved, she had no doubt she would be dead before he overtook Jess. Cass wasn’t overly concerned about the prospect, but she knew it didn’t have to end this way.
“You’re not going to kill me, Jess,” she told him, turning back slowly so that she once again made eye contact. “You’re going to give me the gun. She wants me to remind you about what you said on your wedding day. You said you would never hurt her. You said you wouldn’t hurt a bug if that’s what she wanted. That’s how much you loved her. She doesn’t want you to hurt me.”
With that, he dropped his head and wept deep, gut-wrenching sobs. His arms fell to his side, and the.38 revolver hung loosely in his hand. She reached out and took it. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I need to talk to her,” he gasped. “I have to let her know I’m sorry.”
“She knows.”
“I thought the purple teddy was for…”
“It wasn’t, Jess. It was for you.”
“I know that now,” he snapped. “I read it in her diary.”
Once again she met his wide, wild eyes, and her body tightened in reaction. She placed the gun on the counter behind her, then slowly reached inside the useful pocket in the front of her apron where she typically kept squeeze bottles filled with caramel.
Before she could get her hand free of the pocket, he grabbed her. His fingers wrapped around her upper arms, squeezing them painfully. “You have to tell her something for me. You have to tell her I didn’t mean it.”
“You can tell her yourself,” she replied calmly, tugging gently to extract her hand from the apron. “You’ve always had the ability. Now, I have to make some calls. I’m very sorry. This isn’t going to hurt. Much.”
His body jerked abruptly and for a second the grip on her arms tightened even more, causing her to wince. Then he fell lifelessly to the ground.
Large Latte Light Foam moved to stand over the prostrate man. “What did you do to him?”
Cass held up a strange-looking weapon. “It’s a stun gun. It gave him a jolt, that’s all. Susie, call 911.”
“You’re hurt,” the man said, raising his hand with the book in it, probably for the first time realizing he still held it, and pointing at her nose.
Cass reached for her face, and when she pulled her hand back she saw the blood on her fingers. Inwardly, she cursed. A result of the connection. Jess’s wife had been more intense than Susie’s mom. She dug out a tissue from her apron pocket and held it against her nostrils to stem the flow.
“It’s just a bloody nose. I get them.”
Susie was still staring at the body. “Oh, my God, that was so scary and weird and…”
“911, now!” Cass barked. She didn’t have time for hysterics. There was no way of knowing how long the man would stay down.
“And tell the dispatcher he’ll need to call Homicide,” she instructed. “There’s been a murder.”
The couple from the back had joined the group. The girl clung to her boyfriend as they both stared down at Jess, whose right leg twitched uncontrollably.
“I don’t get it,” the boyfriend said. “What was that all about? What did he want? Who are you?
“I work here,” Cass said.
Large Latte Light Foam snorted. “Why did you want her to tell the cops that we needed a homicide detective if he’s not dead?”
“Because he killed his wife.”
“You can’t know that,” the girlfriend said, muffled against her boyfriend’s chest. “Right? She’s freaking me out, Ted.”
“Sorry,” Cass apologized to the girl. But it wasn’t as if she could help it, and she wasn’t one to hold back the truth, no matter how bizarre it was.
“How?” Large Latte Light Foam wanted to know, his tone clipped, his face a picture of suspicion. It was an expression Cass was used to. “How do you know he did it? He didn’t say he did it.”
“No, he didn’t,” Cass agreed calmly. “But she did.”