“I’ll only make an appearance. I have to prepare for back-to-back tarot readings tomorrow. But you girls have fun,” Curtis said.
“You haven’t slowed down any since Halloween is over?” Casey said, unnerved by the way he was staring through her.
“Tarot readings have nothing to do with Halloween. Customers appreciate the gift I have.”
“Curtis has a loyal following. A few of them have him go to their houses to try and contact their dead husbands, right, honey?” Raven said.
“Husbands and one of them wants me to connect with her deceased son,” he replied, his expression never changing.
I bet you charge them a fortune for that service.Casey smiled weakly and walked toward the door. “I’ll see you at the party, Raven.” She opened the door.
“Can you drop me off at the shop?” Curtis asked.
Casey stopped in her tracks. “Why?” she blurted.
“I have to get my car. I walked from the shop to the theatre tonight.”
Raven’s brow creased. “I can take you, Curtis.” Annoyance pricked her voice.
“I thought you wanted to get to the party as soon as possible,” he replied.
“The shop’s only a few blocks away.” Raven glanced at Casey. “I’ll see you soon.”
“See you,” Casey said, relieved to be out of Curtis’s presence. If it wasn’t for Raven and the other cast members, she would forgo the party altogether, especially now that her friend’s strange husband was going to be there.
Casey breathed in the crisp air, relieved to be away from the awkwardness that had descended over the dressing room when Curtis showed up. The night sat heavy by ten o’clock, dark and thick. As she made her way to the parking lot, her high heels clicked on the pavement, dying with no echo. She fished out the car fob from her purse then halted, a tiny frisson of fear niggling at her neck.
“Who’s there?” she asked, her voice hushed.
No noise answered her: no branches clacking, no wind stirring through pine trees, no distant coyote howls. The only thing she heard was the rush and pulsing sound in her ears.
Casey stepped up her pace, entering the nearly empty parking lot. She hit the fob. Her car’s headlights flared to life, carving a circle of light out of the dark. Then she heard it. Footsteps.No. This is crazy.She forced herself to look over her shoulder as she stumbled on the asphalt.
No one was behind her, but shefeltsomeone was watching her.
She ran to her car, flung open the door, and slipped inside, locking the door. Relief flooded through her as she gripped the steering wheel, trying to calm down her erratic breathing.
She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw nothing but darkness. Chiding herself for letting her fears take hold of her, she slowly drove out of the parking lot. As she turned the corner, she glanced again in the rearview mirror and dread inched up her spine when she saw the outline of a man standing next to the oak tree, watching her. Pressing down on the accelerator pedal, she sped away.
I’m scaring the crap out of myself by reading that damn book about the 1903 murders. The guy was probably out walking, or he saw the play and was leaving.
“Or he’s the serial killer,” she muttered.
Shaking her head, Casey turned on the radio and let the fast, melodic riffs of Van Halen drown out the ceaseless chatter and fear in her head as she drove to the party.
Chapter Eighteen
Casey shut herlaptop and leaned back in her chair, rubbing the tightness in her neck. The words for a half-finished grant proposal had started blurring an hour ago. She picked up the opened Diet Coke and took a sip of the now-flat soda. With a grimace, she pushed the can away, and stared at the trees swaying in the gentle breeze which was unseasonably warm for the second week of November.
Then Rags invaded her thoughts, as always.
It’d been over a week since they’d gone out for dinner. The day before, during her shift at the nursery, she kept waiting to hear the rumble of his motorcycle or look up and see him standing at her counter. Instead, the only thing remotely exciting had been Scott falling off the ladder as he craned his neck to check out her bust. She’d feigned concern as he howled in pain, as if he’d fallen from the top rung instead of the second.
Satisfaction coursed through her when he limped to the back room to call Jillian to pick him up. The rest of her shift was blissfully Scott-free, which delighted her almost as much as it would have if Rags had shown up. The last contact she had with him was the text she’d sent a few days earlier, a weak attempt to bridge the discomfort of how their date had ended. His terse responses still scraped at her pride and her heart. She’d sworn she wouldn’t reach out again, yet a sliver of hope lingered that he’d come by the nursery.
“Just as well,” she muttered, pushing up from the chair. “It’s better to find out now than later, when it’d be too late.”
But it is too late, her mind screamed, and she shoved the thought aside.