Page 32 of For the Birds

“I guess.” It still felt wrong.

“You had a vision,” she said. “Who was itfor?”

I gave her a sheepish look. “You.”

She was silent for a moment. Although it had been Neely Kate’s idea for me to try more forced visions to reduce my spontaneous ones, we’d had an unspoken agreement over the past few weeks: I wouldn’t force any visions of her until she stopped getting letters from her sisterKate.

“What did yousee?”

I was silent for a moment. “You were at the farmhouse with Jed. You told him I knew about you two, and he said it was still too dangerous to let other people know. Then he said you needed to go to Little Rock with him and you could have the entire day together.”

“What was the stringin’ her along line about?” she asked in a warytone.

“Jed said Kate doesn’t know what you found out in Ardmore. He suggested you could turn the tables and string her along.”

She was silent for a moment. “So he was definitelygoin’?”

“It sounded like it. He wanted you to come so he could spend time withyou.”

“Hmm . . .” She didn’t look happy, which confused me. She’d seemed plenty happy with him in her vision.

“Never mind all that.” She did a little shimmy in her seat, then turned to face me. “We need to focus on finding Squawker.”

“We have to figure out what to do next. We can’t very well question Anita’s other neighbors while she’s home. She’ll catchon.”

“Yeah, the logo on the side of the truck’s gonna be an issue. How about we just drive around and scope thingsout?”

“Okay.”

I turned right and then turned again to drive down the street behind Mr. Whipple’s house. It was quiet, although that wasn’t too surprising on a hot summer’s late afternoon. All the houses looked the same—old bungalows of various styles and upkeep—and nothing looked out of the ordinary. There was definitely no sign of a green parrot.

Since we were in my old neighborhood, I realized I could kill two birds with one stone, pun not intended. “Say, do you mind if we stop by my old house? Mike said something to me about selling it, and I thought it might be a good idea to stop by and take a peek. I haven’t been around to check on it in a few weeks.”

“Violet’s selling the house? Doesn’t she want to see if things work out with her and Mike first?”

“I don’t know, but Mike asked me to help sellit.”

“I thought Violet ownedit.”

“Shedoes.”

“That’s weird . . .”

“Iknow.”

“Hey,” she said. “You only moved out of your momma’s house last November, and Mr. Whipple’s lived in his house for decades. How is it you didn’t know him? Or Anita, for that matter?”

I frowned. “I told you I didn’t socialize very much before lastyear.”

“Even with your neighbors?”

“Especially with the neighbors,” I said as I pulled into the driveway. “Momma didn’t want to risk any of them finding out about my visions.”

As I got out of the car, I appraised the house with a buyer’s eye . The yard was freshly mowed, thanks to Bruce Wayne and his new yard care crew, and the bushes had been trimmed. The annuals I’d always planted were absent, but the few perennials like the black-eyed Susans and the rose bushes were blooming. The house was in need of repainting, but the roof had been replaced about five years ago after a bad hail storm.

I unlocked the side door that led into the kitchen, and as soon as I stepped inside, old memories washed over me—good and bad—just as the wash of heat flushed my face. I glanced over my shoulder at the house Joe had lived in. It was hard to believe it had all only happened a yearago.

“Mercy, it’s hot in here,” Neely Kate said, fanning herself.

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