78 Keys by Kristin Marra Page B

next car.
    Show no emotion, I thought. Don’t let her see you scared. I fell back into my car seat and thought about the trip to the Theater I’d just experienced. A crumbling tower, just like the tarot card called the Tower. It was often interpreted as the destruction of the world or lifestyle we’ve become familiar with.
    “Oh shit,” I murmured, “three people dead.” The murders were in the Smith Tower. The Smith Tower housed Laura Bishop’s office.
    I turned on my phone and tried to call Fitch. No answer, so I left a terse message for her to call me about the Smith Tower incident.
    I activated the Internet browser on my phone to see what the press was saying about the murders. Very little. Three people brutally murdered the previous evening at the Smith Tower. No names released pending notification of the next of kin. The investigation was open and ongoing. In short, they knew nothing. There wasn’t even a mention of the man having been seen on a ferry or the identity of the witness who helped authorities devise a drawing of the suspect.
    I needed Fitch to dig around, and Fitch was incommunicado, probably swaggering around her dungeon delivering punishment to a devoted and willing slave.
    My anxiety escalated, and heartburn sizzled inside my esophagus. I would have begged one of the security officers for some Maalox, but they looked just as pained as I did. I pressed the acupressure point on my stomach that sometimes worked to relieve my chronic heartburn.
    I burrowed into my car seat and settled in for the wait to exit the ferry. To escape the torture of my own mind and fears for Laura, I thought about what I had learned while at Tranquility and what I hadn’t learned. Surely, Laura Bishop and Elizabeth Stratton were connected in a way that made Stratton vulnerable, probably politically. Bishop was an attorney, so maybe she had represented Stratton at one time and learned sensitive information. Maybe they were related by family? Hopefully, Fitch would uncover some of that information.
    The thought of Fitch reminded me of the vandalism done to her car. Nothing had been stolen, so it was either random mischief by some losers or a warning. I wasn’t hopeful of the former motive. Fitch’s description of the stalkers’ car appeared to match the description of the black SUV that was waiting for Stratton when she left my house. The car vandalism was probably a warning. But why? Why would Stratton feel like she needed to warn Fitch or, more likely, me? I was a paragon of discretion.
    Laura Bishop. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and groaned, “Oy, yoy, yoy.” The thought of her sent my heart into schoolgirl palpitations. I hadn’t seen her in years, and the palpitations were caused by the Laura in my visions. I barely knew her. Why such distress? No, it wasn’t distress. It was need, desire. I hadn’t felt that strongly for any woman since Dossie Goldberg when I was seventeen. At least I got to touch Dossie Goldberg. But Laura Bishop was a whole different situation. She was a vision and a grown woman, beautiful in her blond allure. She was an out lesbian but somehow connected to Stratton. When she had looked at me in that trance-induced press conference, I could see her want for me matched mine for her. I was frightened and confused. I realized my thoughts were becoming jumbled and unfocused.
    Tap, tap. I lifted my head from the steering wheel and looked to my left. The same female federal agent was watching me, her brows pinched together with concern. The gun on her belt somehow made me feel safe instead of evoking my usual horror fit over firearms.
    “Are you okay, ma’am?” she asked.
    I nodded and pointed to my belly. “Just a little sensitive stomach. I’ll be better when I get on the road.”
    “Sorry about the delay. It was necessary, but you’re free to leave now. Hope you feel better.” She waved me forward. For a few crazy seconds, I didn’t want to leave the ferry and the safety