Final Call

  © 2012 Nunes Entertainment, LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicatin Data

  Nunes, Rachel Ann, 1966– author.

  Final call / Rachel Ann Nunes

  pages cm

  Summary: Autumn Rain’s unique ability to read imprints—emotions left on certain objects—is put to the test as she attempts to find a missing actress.

  ISBN 978-1-60908-899-6 (paperbound)

  1. Women mystics—Fiction. 2. Missing persons—Investigation—Fiction. 3. Actresses—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3564.U468F56 2012

  813'.54—dc23 2011044043

  Printed in the United States of America

  Malloy Lithographing Incorporated, Ann Arbor, MI

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my new baby daughter, Lisbon, who is the reason I wrote this entire book from bed—and who has brought to our family more blessings than I can count

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  About the Author

  Books by Rachel Ann Nunes

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to early readers Cátia, Julie, and Gretchen, who encouraged me even while pointing out inconsistencies. You’re good, ladies!

  To Brent Rowley, who accepted my invitation to a concealed-weapons class and who then ended up being the one to teach me about guns.

  Appreciation also goes to my long-suffering editor, Suzanne Brady, who keeps faithfully correcting certain mistakes I keep faithfully making. I love the editing process, and you make it even more fun.

  To Jana Erickson, my product director, who kept me in the loop and took care of a myriad of details.

  Thanks also to the Deseret Book publishing staff for the design and marketing of my books, and to the retail people who help get my books to readers.

  I couldn’t do it without all of you!

  Chapter 1

  I lifted the Ruger LCP .380, racked it quickly, and fired. Three shots in rapid succession—boom, boom, boom. Three more shots emptied the magazine. My target jerked repeatedly. Not unlike the jolting of my heart.

  “Not bad.” Detective Shannon Martin looked over my shoulder at the man-shaped paper target. Four of the rounds had hit the chest. Another went through the head. Only one was missing. “You sure you haven’t done this before?”

  “No,” I snapped. Truth was, I didn’t want to be doing this now. My consulting position with the Portland police had led to my being imprisoned in an underground cellar, shot, and injured in numerous other ways, but a gun was going too far. I’d never shoot anyone, even if my life depended on it. That was the way I’d been raised.

  “What’s wrong?” Shannon’s eyes went from my face to the Ruger and back again. “You aren’t picking up any imprints, are you?”

  We were alone inside the range, so I pushed off the earmuffs he’d insisted I wear to protect my ears from the sounds—great idea, it turned out. “No imprints,” I said. Well, one faint imprint of satisfaction that Shannon had left when he’d shot the gun a week earlier, and even now I was probably leaving a few of resentment and maybe a little pride. Fortunately, these less vivid imprints didn’t bother me.

  “The older lady I bought it from said she’d shot it only a few times,” he added.

  “You know that if I ever actually used this on someone, I’d never be able to use it again. I’d have to relive the memory every time I touched it.”

  He shrugged. “I’d just find you another one.”

  I guess as a police detective that didn’t bother him—shopping for guns, the possibility of shooting someone. All of it bothered me. I mean, I know people have the right to defend themselves, but it was quite another thing to be the one actually pulling the trigger.

  “Can we quit now?” I started to hand him the gun, barrel down, the way he’d drilled me to these past few weeks.

  “Not yet. You have to shoot at least a hundred rounds a month to stay in practice—and that’s assuming you’re hitting anything, which you are, fortunately. Now load her up again.”

  “A hundred? Please tell me rounds are individual bullets and not a whole clip.” I’d gone shooting with him only once before and couldn’t remember the terminology. My faulty memory might have a remote—a very remote—connection to his unusual eyes. There’s something about them, something, perhaps, in the green-blue color that illuminates his face. Or maybe it’s the framing of his light brown lashes that make them so compelling. It’s hard to think about anything else if I get caught in his gaze, so mostly I try not to look.

  “Magazine,” he corrected. “It’s a not a clip. I know people call them that, but that’s not what they are. The magazine is what holds the rounds—in this case, six rounds. And yes, rounds are individual bullets.”

  So six bullets went into the magazine, which in turn slid into the bottom of the gun grip, or handle as we rookies called it. Not rocket science by any stretch. Sighing internally, I pushed the magazine release button, placed the gun on the small stand in front of me, and began pushing bullets into the magazine.

  Shannon stopped me when I went to put the magazine back in. “Visually check the chamber first, just to make sure nothing’s caught.”

  I did as he asked before proceeding to shred more of my target.

  Shannon seemed more puzzled than pleased at my success. I didn’t see what was so hard. You aimed and you shot. It was, well, rather easy. Kind of fun, too, which I would never confess to Shannon. I derived a strange sort of contentment from irritating him, a trait he definitely shared when it came to me.

  I shrugged. “I have good eyesight.” Once again I had to raise my voice to near yelling because of our earmuffs.

  “All those herbs?” he mouthed a bit derisively, pushing the box of bullets at me.

  I didn’t take offense. Everyone was entitled to his opinion—even the annoying Detective Martin. My adoptive parents had been self-proclaimed hippies who owned an herb store, so naturally I’d consumed more than my share of herbs. Growing up with them had been unusual, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything—well, except maybe the opportunity to grow up with my twin, but that couldn’t be changed now.

  “Satisfied?” I asked when the man-shaped target finally tore in two at the chest and fell to the ground.

  Shannon allowed himself a grin. “I’ve seen longtime police officers do worse.”

  Not exactly a compliment, but Shannon was careful that way. Maybe it was because he liked me far more than he wanted to. Or maybe because he’d finally started to trust me and my weird gift of reading imprints and begun to realize that there was nothing to hold him back from his attraction to me now.

  Nothing except my maybe-boyfriend, Jake, and my own reluctance to trust a man who until a few months ago thought I was mostly nuts.

  Shannon was staring at me with those eyes t
hat probably were responsible for more convictions than any detective work he’d ever done. I looked instead into his hairline. His hair, usually somewhere between brown and blond, was on the darker side now that we were in November. He needed a haircut, and the ends were beginning to curl with the length.

  For a long time he didn’t speak, though the air was suddenly heavy with whatever he’d left unspoken. Carefully, he began packing things away. He handed me the Ruger, zipped in a lightly padded cover. “Keep it in your purse until I get you an ankle holster. There’s an extra magazine in there, too. I’ve filled them both with hollow points for a bigger impact.”

  “No way.” I pushed the weapon back at him. “I don’t even use a purse half the time.”

  “Well, you can’t carry it on you without a holster.”

  “I’m not going to carry it at all.”

  “What do you think that class and all that fingerprinting was about? Your concealed-carry permit arrived in the mail, didn’t it? You should have it on you at all times, whether you’re carrying or not, in case you end up with a gun while working a case.”

  Okay, I had taken a class on gun safety and found it interesting. Since I’d been shot in the leg during our last adventure and had somehow ended up with the gun, albeit unloaded, I’d wanted to feel more comfortable with handguns in case such a thing ever happened again. But I wouldn’t have taken the class at all if I’d known Shannon was going to insist that I actually carry a weapon.

  “I’ve got the permit in my wallet, but I read that women who own guns are more likely to be shot than those who don’t,” I told him.

  He snorted. “That’s only women who aren’t trained and who aren’t going to practice every few weeks.” He scrubbed a hand over his hair, and I followed the motion. “Speaking of which, there is a more intensive training I’d like you to attend. It’s only three days. You get great target practice in a lifelike town. Popups and stuff.”

  “No, no, and no! Look, I have a niece now, and I can’t have a gun around my apartment or at my store. If you make me take it, I’m just going to put it in my glove compartment.”

  “You don’t even lock your car.” The way he said car left me no doubt that he didn’t believe my rusty Toyota hatchback was worthy of the name. He might have a point. It was always breaking down.

  “Oh, right. Guess that sets me up for all kinds of liability.”

  “Yeah, the jail kind.” He was kind of cute when he was upset, though that was certainly not why I was arguing with him. “Look,” he continued, “your niece is only, what, three months old? It’s going to be a while before she can rack and shoot a gun. By then you’ll have a safe installed.”

  “At the department’s expense?” They’d agreed to start paying me a consulting fee for reading imprints, but it wasn’t a lot.

  “Sure.” At this point, he’d say whatever it took to get me to take the gun, but I doubted the safe would come from the department. They didn’t care if I carried a gun. They’d probably rather I didn’t. But Shannon was president of the Autumn Needs to Be More Careful Club, which meant he cared about me. I wished he didn’t. It made my life more complicated.

  More exciting.

  I took the gun and put it in my coat pocket. “There’s not a bullet in the chamber, is there?”

  “No. You’d have to rack it before you could shoot. But you should have checked yourself if that’s the way you plan to carry it. Remember the class?”

  “Oh, right.” I wouldn’t carry the gun with a bullet in the chamber like he did, though my permit gave me license to do so. I didn’t trust it not to go off accidentally, but an unracked gun couldn’t fire, so I was safe.

  Outside it was raining—again. The wind was doing its thing, too, which made Portland bitterly cold this time of year. Shannon glanced instinctively at my feet, perhaps forgetting that during the most bitter winter months, even I usually wore something to cover my feet when I went outside. Instead of my customary winter moccasins, today I wore the boots my sister, Tawnia, had given me—without a heel, fur-lined, and advertised as footwear that made you feel as if you were barefoot. They were almost like wearing thick socks, but unlike the socks I occasionally resorted to, they were waterproof. I hated not feeling a connection with the earth as I normally did in bare feet, but cold weather like this usually convinced me to use the boots or my moccasins.

  I’d begun using gloves, too, something I’d done before every now and again in winter, though not for the same reason I used them now. I’d realized only in the past month that gloves protected me from accidentally finding random imprints and reliving experiences that weren’t mine.

  Of course I wasn’t prepared to wear gloves all the time. My shoe-hating, herb-loving, spirit-connected-to-the-universe upbringing wouldn’t let me go that far. But sometimes after stumbling on a particularly virulent imprint, I was tempted.

  Zipping my coat, I ran to Shannon’s truck. Yes, a truck. I knew his house was built on an acre of land, so it made sense he might need a truck for something related to that, but I’d been so accustomed to seeing him in his white, unmarked police Mustang that when he’d come to pick me up, I’d felt a little taken aback. For some reason the blue truck made him seem more real—normal, maybe. Almost as though I’d seen a part of him that was too private to share.

  It’s just a truck, I told myself.

  The weight of the Ruger felt heavy in my coat pocket. At least it could sit in a drawer at my antiques shop while I was working. My niece wasn’t old enough even to crawl yet, much less open a drawer. Before much longer, though, it’d have to be in a safe or in a holster.

  The idea of needing a gun was enough to make me seriously consider getting out of the imprint business. Except I didn’t choose to read imprints. That just happened. Psychometry was the official name, the ability to pick up scenes and emotions left on certain beloved objects or on objects involved in extremely emotional situations. I used my talent to find missing people, and the police used it through me. Some scientists believed that people like me developed part of our brains that ordinarily remained inactive. For all I knew, they were right. I believed it was also hereditary, though because I was adopted, I wasn’t sure where the ability had come from.

  “Who’s that?” Shannon asked.

  We’d arrived outside my shop, where a bundled figure was pacing in front of my store. My employee, Thera Brinker, should have been inside, but even if she weren’t and the door was still locked, all my customers knew they could reach Autumn’s Antiques from the Herb Shoppe next door, owned by my friend and maybe-boyfriend, Jake Ryan.

  The person outside was not a customer, then, but someone else waiting to see me.

  “I don’t know.” I peered at the tall figure. Besides the fact that the person was likely male, I couldn’t see much beyond the coat and the beanie he wore. I started to open the truck door.

  “Wait. I’m coming with you.”

  I sighed. Shannon had been annoying before he’d stopped being so suspicious of me, but this was ridiculous. Ignoring him, I jumped from the truck and hurried toward my store.

  The figure stopped pacing when he saw me. “Autumn,” he said, giving me a tentative smile. “Hey, are your eyes two different colors or is it just the light?”

  I’d know that smile anywhere—and the familiar greeting. My eyes were a different color, but only those who really saw me ever actually noticed. “Is that you, Bean Pole? Did you grow another three inches? Long time no see.” It’d been months, in fact, since I’d seen Liam Taylor. At least seven.

  Liam nodded. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.” Before I could respond, his eyes went beyond me to Shannon, who’d finally caught up to us. “Is he a cop?” Liam asked in an undertone.

  If Liam hadn’t been so serious, I might have laughed. He’d made Shannon as a cop dressed in civilian clothes on a Satu
rday afternoon. In the rain. That said a lot about Shannon—or about Liam. I hoped it was about Shannon and not Liam because I’d thought he’d come a long way since I first caught him shoplifting in my store.

  “Why? You got something to hide?” Trust Shannon to make a comeback like that.

  “Shannon’s a friend,” I said to Liam, throwing Shannon a glare. “What do you need to see me about?”

  Liam shivered. “Can we go inside? I brought you something to, uh, see.”

  He meant something to read, as in imprints. A knot formed inside me. I hoped he wasn’t in trouble. Either way, I had to get Shannon out of the picture.

  “Okay, let’s go inside.” I turned to Shannon. “Thanks for the lesson.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to stay?” He was using those incredible eyes to full advantage. I wondered if he knew how powerful they were. Probably.

  “I’m fine. Jake’s next door if I need help.”

  Shannon stiffened. Wrong thing to say, but he knew my feelings for Jake, and I wasn’t going to start hiding them now simply because I was also attracted to Shannon.

  “Liam’s harmless,” I added. “He used to work for me.”

  Only a little bit of a stretch. I’d put Liam to work after I’d caught him shoplifting one of my antique music boxes last year. He’d seemed sincere when he said it was to send to his sister for her birthday. I hadn’t simply given it to him like my father would have done—or invited him to dinner and ask if he needed a place to stay. I was too poor to go that far. But I had let him work off the music box in exchange for helping to move and arrange my displays. I even gave him the music box wholesale so he wouldn’t have to work more than a few days. After that I’d given him several more odd jobs I could barely afford whenever he was desperate, just enough to keep him honest. Then he’d graduated from high school and found a real job for the summer. He was supposed to be in college now, living on a merit scholarship and a bit of help from his parents.