Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate) Read Free Page A

startling significance.
    The walk to the graveyard was only a few blocks, but there was no sidewalk leading to the rusty metal gate at the entrance to the small graveyard and Chris’s feet were damp with dew and freezing by the time they made their way to the tree. Pale gray light cast delicate shadows and the skeletal brown remains of enormous weeds created a susurrus as the wind shivered through them.
    They made their way to the old oak, following the same path they always did, joining hands when they reached it.
    A moldering wooden cross made from survey stakes and decorated with beads, glitter, and ribbons sat beneath an oak in the back corner, with the name SUMMER HAVEN written in permanent marker, but the ground beneath was empty, had been empty for nearly twenty-seven years. Tavey bowed her head and the three of them prayed—for Summer, wherever she might be; and for each other, to find the strength to keep searching.
    They made a picture, gathered beneath a spreading oak in the chilly damp, all lovely, all silently missing their friend. Any of the tourists walking through town might stop at the scene and snap a quick photograph of the three beautiful women in the graveyard. Others might take them for witches, since their town was known for them, but the townies—those who had lived there for years—would simply shrug. Those girls had been gathering every Sunday for years.
    “Come on.” Tavey wrapped an arm around each of her friends and tugged them toward the path. “I’m starving.”
    The walk to the Alcove—their usual café—was conducted in unusual silence. Chris thought her friends felt the lightning-charged mood of the day as well. The sun, slowly seeping through the clouds, brightened the air, and the redbrick buildings of the town bled with color.

    AT THE RESTAURANT they were seated immediately, though the church crowd had gathered.
    “Three sweet teas, Charles, but no bread,” Tavey said, ordering for all of them.
    “I want bread,” Chris protested.
    “We don’t need it,” Tavey argued, as always.
    Chris wasn’t even sure she wanted bread, felt certain she would regret eating it, but she made a point of arguing with Tavey whenever possible, since no one else dared.
    “Raquel?” Chris attempted the majority vote, but Raquel, well used to such antics, held up a delicate hand in refusal. Raquel was tiny, with a small frame and features finely drawn enough to belong on a Disney princess, with large brown oval eyes, hot chocolate skin, and lush old-fashioned rose lips. She looked perpetually young, and was often mistaken for a teenager—a characteristic that had landed her in Atlanta PD’s Sex Crimes Task Force. She spent most of her day pretending to be a young girl online and writing to sleazy losers who liked to send pictures of their dicks to little girls.
    Chris pouted and fiddled with a sugar packet while Tavey opened her laptop and waited for it to power up. She used it to record the meeting minutes. Because their organization was a nonprofit, all board meetings had to be recorded. Chris had brought her iPad and a keypad, but Tavey couldn’t handle waiting while someone else typed. Hello, control freak.
    The sun, finally completely freed from the bank of clouds, streamed in through the restaurant windows and sparkled on a small crystal bud vase holding three mums, one red, one purple, one orange. They danced in the light, seeming to shiver and sparkle. Chris blinked, wondering if perhaps she needed to start getting more than three hours of sleep.
    “Chris,” Tavey prompted, one of her authoritative eyebrows pulled up and fixed in an I’m-waiting-darling expression, which held both affection and exasperation. Tavey often wore that expression in Chris’s company.
    “What?”
    “You said you found something on the missing girls. Will we need the dogs?”
    An image flashed through Chris’s mind, of Tavey in a lip lock with Tyler Downs, overlayed with an image of Tavey’s best