Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery) (23 page)

“I sure as hell do. I believe in us. Now, let’s pay our respects to this lovely family, pick some of these lovely wildflowers to put on their graves, and be on our way. I don’t think I can wait to be with you one moment longer. And I don’t think you want to make love in this graveyard, do you? Although that would make a nice memory.”

“Jack, you’re crazy.”

“Crazy in love with you, Kate. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll move up the timetable.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was going to be a surprise, but I think the occasion calls for a little change in plans. Never let it be said that Jack Hale cannot be flexible.”

Katherine smiled.

He turned to Kate, took her hand and bent down on one knee.

“I never did this properly before. Katherine Crystal, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

Katherine flushed.

“Yes, oh, yes, Jack.”

“Now close your eyes.”

Katherine complied.

Jack massaged her ring finger and brought it to his lips. He kissed her finger and slid a ring on it. Katherine’s heart skipped a beat.

“You can open your eyes now.”

Katherine’s eyes fluttered open, and on her ring finger sat the most beautiful emerald-cut diamond, in an exquisite platinum setting.

“Oh, my, Jack. It’s absolutely beautiful! You didn’t have to. This must have cost a fortune. I don’t want you to spend that kind of money on me.”

“Kate, a special woman deserves a special ring. I hoped you’d like it.”

“Like it? I love it.” The sun broke through the clouds, and when Katherine held up the ring to admire it, it sparkled and flashed in the sunlight. The biggest grin spread across Jack’s face, and she jumped into his arms.

Spirits lifted, they walked back to the car, arm in arm, back into the light.

Katherine buckled her seat belt and looked over at Jack. He was understanding now, but how tolerant would he be if he had to face her quirky outbursts on a regular basis and put up with her premonitions day in and day out? Night after night? Would it start to wear thin like it did with Justin? Would he regret his decision to marry her? She wished she could take a quick peek into their future to see if they got their happy ending.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jack looked over Katherine’s shoulder at the proofs of the wedding invitations spread out on the coffee table in Katherine’s living room. He had just started a fire to take the chill off the room.

“Are these okay with you?” Katherine held up the proofs so Jack could get a closer look.

He picked up the invitation with its response card and envelope. “Sure. I don’t know anything about invitations. If you like them, then they’re fine with me.”

“You’re certainly agreeable.”

“I try to be.”

Katherine gathered up the proofs and placed them in the envelope from the printer. “Well, while you’re in such a generous mood, I’d like to ask you something.”

“Ask away,” Jack said, ruffling Kate’s hair.

“I’d like to ask you about the day your father died.”

“I don’t talk about that,” he stated emphatically, moving away from her chair to stoke the fire in the grate.

Katherine rose from the chair and turned to face Jack. “Not even with me?”

“Not with anyone.”

“I’m not just anyone, Jack. We’re going to be married.”

“It happened a long time ago.”

“And it’s still affecting you. I think we need to talk it out. If I’m going to marry you, I want to understand you.”

“If?” Jack frowned.

“When,” Katherine corrected. “I’m not going to leave you, Jack, like you think your father did.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Losing my father suddenly, the way I did, was traumatic, but for a ten-year-old boy, it must have been devastating.”

Jack paced to the green leather recliner and sank into it, sulking, like a little boy. She could see what a young, rebellious Beauregard Lee Jackson Hale might have looked like. She waited patiently for him to speak.

“It was getting dark, and Dad wasn’t home yet,” Jack began, his head pressed against the back of the chair, his eyes lost in the past. “It was my parents’ anniversary, so Mom knew he wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world. My mom was all dressed up. They were going to go out to their favorite restaurant—a steakhouse—for a special dinner, but he was late and she was worried. She didn’t want to upset me, but I could tell she was getting frantic.

“She called the precinct, and they said Dad had left an hour ago. Mom and Dad were, like, connected. She could tell something was wrong. Sort of like you can.”

Kate nodded.

“I got on my bike and rode the route he would normally take to get home. I stopped when I saw his police cruiser at a jewelry store. I figured he’d stopped by to pick up an anniversary gift for my mother. We both knew she’d been looking at a necklace there. So I parked my bike in front of the store and waited for him to come out. No one was going in or out of the store, so I looked through the window. My dad was standing there holding a gun on two men. I guess they were robbing the store. I ran to my dad’s car and used his radio to call for backup.”

“How did you know what to do?” Katherine interrupted.

“My dad taught me. He taught me a lot about being a cop. He wanted me to grow up to be just like him.”

Katherine’s heart broke when she looked at Jack and heard his voice crack as he continued the story.

“What happened then?” she prompted.

“I couldn’t just leave my dad there. He needed my help, so I walked into the store. Everyone—the customers, the salespeople, the robbers, and my dad—looked up when the bell over the door rang. After that, everything happened so fast. One of the robbers grabbed me and picked up a gun from the floor and held it to my head. He told my dad to drop his gun or he would blow my brains all over the plate glass window. Those were his exact words.

“I looked at my dad. And in that moment I knew what he was going to do. ‘Don’t do it, Dad. Don’t surrender your weapon!’ That was one of the first things they teach you in the Academy. Don’t give up your gun. But he didn’t hear me—or he didn’t want to hear me. I saw it in his eyes. I saw him hesitate, and so did the gunman.

“I tried so hard not to cry, I tried to be brave in front of my dad, but I did cry. ‘Jack, it’s okay,’ he said calmly. ‘I love you, son. Tell your mother I’m sorry I missed our anniversary.’ And then he dropped his gun, and the second robber picked it up and shot him in the head, just like that. I was sure he was going to shoot me, too, but he didn’t. I wish he had.”

“You don’t mean that. What happened next?”

“The police arrived, and they arrested the robbers and took my father away in an ambulance, but I knew he was already dead. I rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital, and then my father’s fellow officers drove me home and we told my mother. She was still in her fancy dress, waiting for me and my father.

“A few days later, after the funeral, a package arrived. It was from the jewelry store, a gift from my father with a love note, all wrapped up in white paper and a blue bow. My dad had bought my mother the necklace she wanted. That’s why he was in the store when the robbery happened. He died on their anniversary. She hasn’t taken it off since.”

Katherine perched on the arm of Jack’s chair and enfolded him in her arms. “You had to watch your father die,” she choked. “I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been for you. I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

“And it was all my fault,” Jack said. “If I hadn’t come into the store, my father would still be alive.”

Katherine sat on the arm of the chair and massaged Jack’s elbow. “Jack, you can’t know that. And you called for police backup. If you hadn’t been brave enough to walk into that store to help your father, other innocent people in the store might have been harmed.”

“Why did he drop his weapon, Kate?”

Katherine didn’t hesitate. “To save your life, because he loved you. That’s what parents do.”

Jack barely managed a bittersweet smile. “They said my dad was a hero, but there’s not much comfort in a dead hero.”

Katherine blew out a breath and slid down to sit in Jack’s lap. “Thank you for telling me, honey. You know, at the reverend’s house, you had your gun, and when I came back into the living room, you were tied up. You’re twice as big as he was. You could have overpowered him. Obviously, you gave up your weapon for me, Jack, when he threatened to harm me. I know you did, because you loved me. You went against your training and all your instincts, you broke the rules—to keep me alive, even for a moment longer.”

“He surprised me,” Jack objected.

“Do you deny it?”

He sighed.

“Feel a little better, now?” she said softly.

Jack nodded. “I guess I needed to get that out.”

“What about that psychic you told me about, Madame Hydrangea?” Katherine wanted to know. “What ever happened to her?”

“After a couple of years of holding hands around the table, the psycho bitch tried to put the moves on me, a twelve-year-old kid. I had lost my father, and then she made it worse.”

Katherine pursed her lips in clear disapproval. “She didn’t—”

“No.”

“Did you ever tell your mother?”

“No. She believed in Madame Hydrangea. It would have broken her heart.”

Katherine hesitated, but had to ask again, “And she never got through even once? She was never able to contact your father on the other side?”

Jack shook his head. “Of course not. I told you before. It was all a con. She was nothing but a scam artist. But my mother believed it. She believes to this day that she can communicate with my father. That love lasts forever, even beyond the grave. I always thought that was bullshit—until I met you. I told Madame Hydrangea if she didn’t leave I would tell some of my father’s friends on the force what she was doing. She got the message, because she just disappeared, along with most of my father’s savings.”

“Then what happened?”

“I was a mess. After that night, I was the biggest juvenile delinquent on the block. I caused my mother a lot of grief for a lot of years. Losing my father like that really messed me up. Eventually, I worked it out myself, but what I really needed was professional help. Finally, one of my father’s friends set me straight and got me back on the right path. And I decided that when I became a cop I was going to follow the rules to the letter. I was convinced that was the only way to stay safe. But I always associated psychics with my father’s death.”

Katherine kissed Jack’s nose and smiled. “Now I understand why you hate psychics. It makes perfect sense.”

“But you’re different. You’re real.” Jack hugged her. “And speaking of psychics, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“What’s that?” She snuggled up against him.

“You know, ever since I met you, my luck has changed. We make a pretty good team. Do you want to make this arrangement permanent?”

Katherine tilted her head in confusion. “I thought you already asked me to marry you?”

“I’m talking about a business arrangement, Kate. I was thinking we could combine our talents and start a psychic detective agency. Hale & Crystal.”

“Crystal & Hale,” Katherine proposed, her eyes sparkling.

“Crystal & Hale, then,” Jack agreed. I’ve given this a lot of thought, Kate. I’m serious about us forming our own agency. I’m quitting the police force.”

Katherine pulled back from Jack’s embrace. “Where did this come from? I don’t want you to give up something you love, something you worked so hard for. Wouldn’t your father have been disappointed?”

“That was my father’s dream. I don’t want you to go through what my mother went through. Being married to a cop is rough. I don’t want you to be a widow like my mother. And I don’t want my child to ever have to go through something like I did.”

“You’re already thinking of children? We haven’t even walked down the aisle.”

“Hell, yes,” Jack answered, his face exploding into a grin. “I can’t wait, Kate. I want us to get started on a family right away. As long as we don’t name him Beauregard, after me.”

Katherine crinkled her nose. “What if Beauregard turns out to be a girl?”

“Hell, we’ll have one of each. I’m turning my resignation in right after the wedding. And we’re going to build a new business and a new life together.”

Katherine twisted a lock of Jack’s hair. “But we don’t know anything about being in business.”

“I’m a hell of a detective, and you’re the most talented psychic I know. We’ll need an office, though.”

Kate pursed her lips in thought. “The Crystal Palace is big enough for us to live in and work there too. We have a huge guest house, with a private entrance, that I could redecorate. It would make a great office space.”

“We’ll need a receptionist.”

“What about Juliette? If you can stand working with two psychics. She can also help us on cases, with her special abilities. She’s been working with me to hone my skills. She really is talented.”

“Perfect.”

“Do you think we’ll get enough business?”

“Kate, your phone is still ringing off the hook with people and agencies wanting your services. Business from the APD alone would be enough to keep us going.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

Katherine placed her hand on Jack’s cheek. “You’re still thinking about your father, aren’t you?”

“I miss him something fierce,” Jack admitted. “It’s like a dull ache that never goes away.”

Kate took Jack’s hand in hers. “You know, Juliette says she really can communicate with the world beyond—the spirit realm.”

“You know how crazy that sounds.”

“Juliette says she can bring back our loved ones, that they’re still around us and are able to communicate with us, that they still care about us. I’m going to get her to try to contact my parents. She can try to reach your father.”

“You don’t really think that’s possible, do you?”

“Yes, I do, Jack. I trust her and I think she can do it. I think we should give it a try. It might give us both some closure.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jack, Mrs. Hale, Juliette, and Katherine held hands around the dining room table in a darkened room at the Hales’ house. Katherine was nervous. She had arranged the séance because she thought she was doing the right thing. But it could easily backfire and send Jack and his mother hurtling back to the worst time in their lives, just when Jack was finally beginning to put the past behind him. If it didn’t go according to plan, it might reignite his hatred of psychics, maybe diminish his feelings for her.