Page 6 of Rotten Apple

Chapter 3

My six sisters didn’t work at FDG, even though each one was giftedlike me. They had their ownunique abilities. We were as different as flavored ice cream, but each of us had the same unique ingredients. A splash of crazy mixed into our DNA.

I pulled up outside Faith’s picturesquecottage surrounded by a white picket fence. The only thing missing was the doting husband and two kids with the dog playing in the yard. The flashing bright pink neon sign, reading Psychic Is In, was the only thing her neighbors might view as out of place.

Faith had it worse than most of us. It wasn’t her talent to see and talk to the dead that made her unique. It was the fact that she spoke out loud to the apparitions while in public that made others think she was weird. For years we’d tried to break her of the habit, and for years, she ignored our attempts.

Faith’s beat-up pickup truckwas in the driveway with another car I didn’t recognize behind it. She had a client, and judging by the plates, this one had traveled from North Carolina to meet with her.

I jogged around to the back door and let myself in. We each had spare keys to each other’s homes. Getting locked out and without a way back in would never be our problem. Not again, anyway. But Faith was the onlysister who left her doors unlocked. Her innocent faith in humanity wasskewed. If she didn’t change, then one day she’d be the victim.

I grabbed a water bottle from her fridge and peered out the kitchen door as I uncapped the bottle. Taking a swig,I made eye contact with Faith as she sat at the dining room table. She gave a little nod, and Iclosed the door once she knew I was here.

I stared at the new magnets on her fridge and grinned.Every time she’d go somewhere, she’d bring back a token of the place she’d visited. She called it collecting the energy from the locations.A quirk, but a harmless one. I stepped back over to the door and listened as the voices rose. Voices I vaguely recognized.

“We came to warn you that trouble is brewing,” a male said.

I eased the door open again to get a look at my sister’s clients, only to realize that they weren’tclients; they were family, although distant. I pushed the door open and stepped into the room, “Faith, how come you didn’t tell me our cousins were in town?”

Abby Bennett rose from her seat with a great big smile on her face and moved around the chairs to grab me and pull me into a hug. I wasn’t a hugger, most the time, but Abby was one of my favorite Bennett relatives. Between her and her son, John, they were the most like me. She was a forensic investigator, and John was a cop. We once traced our lineage back to a Bennett long ago who had three sons. Eachwent in their own directions when they’d turned eighteen. Abby was from the great-great ancestor Jonathan, who settled in Southall, North Carolina, while our ancestor George had gone farther north and still there was one unaccounted for. A Bennett that had never made an appearance and had fallen off the grid.

Abby was closer in age to what my mother’s age would be had she not died, but John was closer in age to my sisters and me.

“My God you’ve grown up, Gwen.” Abby squeezed me tight. “Are you still working for FDG?”

“She is, Mom. I already told you that,” John interjected, rising from his seat. He pulled me into his embrace after his mother let me go.

Even though family came first,they were making me claustrophobic with all their touchy-feely-ness. “So, how long are you in town?”

Abby and John exchanged a look with each other. A look I knew well. There was more to their visit than just catching up with family.

“Actually, this will be just a short visit,” John said.

“John, if you’re here to tell me that somebody swindled my Grams’ money, I already know. And I’m about to go find him.”

“What do you mean somebody took Grams’ money?” Faith asked.

I had wanted to tell my sisters all together so they knew what was going on, but withAbby and John’s presence, the butterflies in my stomach turned to lead. In Abby’s line of work, telepathy let her look at crime scenes and helped her to discover clues that helped solve her cases. John was different. He got premonitions, kind of like my other sister, Nina.

“Someone swindled Grams’ money, but I’ll tell you all about it later. I already plan to get it back,” I answered Faith.

“I don’t believe this is about your grandmother,” Abby said.

“Mom, you can’t be so sure about that. The man I saw could be the swindler.” John met my gaze. “Do you have a picture of the guy?”

I slipped my phone out of my pocket and pulled up the picture that the police officer had shown us. I handed my phone to John so he could get a better look.

“Nope, that’s not him. That’s not the man I saw.” John went to hand me back the phone, but Faith intercepted. Disappointment registered in John’s eyes.

Faith handed me the phone back. “If somebody swindled Grams’ money, and you guys aren’t here about that but another man we’re in danger from, then you’re telling me we have two issues we have to deal with?”

John slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded. “He’s a faceless man of my dreams but he definitely has a bigger build then the guy in that picture. The only constant is the invitations.”

“I haven’t gotten an invitation, have you?” I asked Faith.

“No, I haven’t checked the mail today, but no. I haven’t gotten an invitation to anything,” Faith answered.

“The invitation is just the beginning,” John said. The remnants of the ghost from his dreams showed in his determined gaze.

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