Read Dead In Red for Free Online

you think.”
    She leaned on the wobbly table, clasping her
hands before her and studied the box. “Hmm. Fancy shoes once lived
in this box.” Her voice, with its slight Polish accent, held
reproach. She rested her fingers on the top of the other box. “Hmm.
This one, too.”
    I sipped my coffee and nodded. I thought of
Sophie as a kind of psychic mentor, although her inner radar was
much different than mine. She saw auras—colors, she called them—and
then she knew things. And it made me feel less of a freak to have a
kindred spirit to confide in.
    Sophie traced a finger along the first
box top. “Not the kind of shoes a nice woman wears.”
    I tried not to smile. “Depends upon your
definition of nice. But in this case, I think you’re right.”
    She raised the lid, setting it aside. Her
gaze fell on the contents and she frowned. “Hmm. Not too
interesting.” She selected the Holiday Valley brochure. She stared
at it for a few moments, then ran her fingers along the long edge.
“A good time was had.”
    “That was my impression, too. But that was
all I got. Take a look at that little scrap and tell me what you
think.”
    Sophie replaced the brochure. Her weary,
red-rimmed eyes widened when she picked up the paper fragment. “Now
this is more interesting.”
    Intrigued, I leaned forward.
    She closed her eyes, concentrating.
“Hmmm.”
    “What is it? What do you see?”
    Sophie opened her eyes and frowned at me.
“You aren’t usually this impatient.”
    I backed off. “Sorry.”
    She rubbed the scrap between her forefinger
and thumb, her head bobbing. “Yes. That’s it.”
    “What?”
    She reached over, grabbed my hand, pressing
the fragment into my palm with her thumb. A negative image burst
upon my mind; trees, a rural mailbox with the numbers 4537 glowing
upon it. Then the pressure was gone and I found myself sitting
there, open-mouthed, staring at Sophie’s self-satisfied
expression.
    “Wow. How’d you do that?”
    She flicked the paper from her thumb and it
drifted back into the box. “It’s a gift.” Her smile faded. “But
knowing it’s a house number doesn’t tell you where to find the
house.”
    “It’s obvious. It’s in Holiday Valley.”
    She picked up a macaroon and inspected it.
“Oh sure. If you know what street it’s on.”
    I thought back to the image she’d shared
with me. The fact that it had been a negative made it harder to
discern details. A mailbox, glowing numbers. Maples and pines in
the background, but nothing else to help me identify the location.
And she had a point. “Can you tell me anything about this
place?”
    “More about the paper the numbers were
written on.”
    I was all ears.
    “The man who wrote it is dead.” She
shuddered. “Died violently.”
    I nodded.
    Sophie concentrated. “He wasn’t well.”
    I nodded again.
    Her gaze strayed to the other box, then to
me. “This one frightens you.”
    “I wouldn’t say ‘frightened.’ More—” Okay,
she was right. But it wasn’t the box; just the damn little pillow
inside it.
    “Yes?” she prompted.
    “Concerned.”
    “Mmm.” She lifted the lid, peered inside and
frowned. “Oh. Yeah. Not nice.”
    We could fence around it all night. “How
so?”
    Her chin rose defiantly. “You tell me.”
    “That would taint your perception. Come
on—give.”
    Her brow again furrowed with concentration.
When she spoke, her voice was pensive—subdued. “Blood. Like a
slaughterhouse.”
    Damn, I hadn’t wanted to hear that. “Yeah.
Walt Kaplan bled to death.”
    She shook her head. “What we see is not his
blood.”
    My heart sank. She’d used the present tense.
“I got that, too.”
    “What will you do about it?”
    “What can I do?”
    “Try to stop it from happening.”
    “Can I?”
    She shrugged. “All you can do is try.”
    “What about fate? If it’s supposed to
happen—”
    “If I had my life to live over, I would
always try harder to do what was right. Always. It’s too easy to
turn