A Haunting Dream (A Missing Pieces Mystery) Read Free

seemed to be pouring into the coffee shop to celebrate Phil’s decision to stay in Duck.
    Normally, I would’ve taken Old Man Sweeney to Missing Pieces, which was on the Duck Shoppes boardwalk only a short walk away. But this would do. I was starting to get a headache from trying
not
to think about Kevin and Ann.
    “Well, it’s the damndest thing,” he started. “I found a medallion of some kind over at the Harris Teeter last week. I just needed some bread and pickles, you know. Nothing much. But here was this medallion out in the parking lot. Good quality too. Probably gold. The manager went on the intercom and asked everybody in the store if it belonged to them. No one came forward.”
    I nodded, listening. I’d heard stories like this before, stories that rambled more than the clouds on a hot summer day. It would be impolite to ask him to come to the point. But I could
wish
he would.
    “So, I had the manager put up a little sign on the bulletin board about me finding the medallion, and I took it home.”
    When he didn’t say anything else, I assumed he was finished. “And you’d like me to find the owner?”
    That last was something new for me. I had been able to find lost things since I was a kid. I could look into the person’s mind, and if they held an image of what they were looking for, I could locate it.
    A life-and-death situation had changed the gift I was born with. Now I could hold possessions that belonged to other people and discern information about them. The information wasn’t always what I needed or even wanted to know, but the ability to gather those sometimes disjointed facts had come in handy more than once.
    “Well, I hadn’t thought of that,” Old Man Sweeney said. “In fact, I didn’t even know you could do
that. When did it happen?”
    I kind of explained the basics to him. Everyone in Duck knew about the gift I’d been born with. Only a few people knew about the gift I’d acquired. “Do you have the medallion with you?”
    “See, that’s the problem, I guess. I can’t find the medallion. And I had a phone call from the owner wanting it back. I was thinking you could do your thing and find it for me.”
    “I’m sure we can do that.” I sat back a little to reach my hands across the table to him. “Give me your hands and think about the medallion.”
    “Are you sure this is necessary?” He looked around, uncomfortable, as though he was worried what others might think of us holding hands. “I didn’t know it worked that way. Horace didn’t say anything about
that.
”
    “Gramps probably didn’t want to throw you off.” I tried not to be impatient.
    A few people were beginning to leave after the ribbon cutting for the reopening of the coffee shop. One or two saw us and waved or said hello from a distance. No one interrupted us.
    No doubt everyone already knew Kevin had left with Ann, and they were wondering why. No one would ask outright—that would be rude. Instead, they’d wait a few hours until Shayla told someone who told someone else. By morning, everyone would assume Kevin and I were over.
    Don’t think about it. You don’t know anything—until you hear from Kevin.
    “What do you want me to think about the medallion?” Old Man Sweeney asked.
    I took a deep breath and shut out all the people around us. The only way I was going to be able to go home and end this difficult day was by finding what Old Man Sweeney was looking for. I had to get it over with.
    “Think about what it looked like,” I told him. “Think about how heavy it was and what it was made out of.”
    “It was plenty heavy. I’ll tell you that. It looked like one of those trophy things, like they give kids in school. I don’t know what kind. Does that help?”
    “You have to think about it,” I said encouragingly. “It won’t do any good to describe it to me.”
    Finally I got him to close his eyes, settle down and pretend he was looking at the medallion. It took a lot to keep him