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Just as four-thirty rolled around and I was puttering around the crystal specimens, carefully cleaning them up with a feather duster I kept for precisely this task, Archie came into the shop.
I opened my mouth to offer him a hello, but then I took a second look at his furrowed brow and realized this probably wasn’t merely a casual visit.
He spoke first, thrusting a plain white envelope toward me. “I just got this.”
Judging by the expression of consternation he wore, I guessed the contents of the envelope weren’t exactly benign. I took it gingerly, noted that it only had the address of Archie’s dance studio on the front and no return information, then pulled out the sheet of white paper it held.
A single sentence, in plain black blocky text. Hazel could probably have told me what the font was…not that it really mattered.
I know you’re not who you pretend to be.
Cold shivered its way down my spine. “When did you get this?”
“Just now,” Archie replied. His jaw was tight, although I could tell he was trying his best to keep his anger and worry in check. As always, he was dressed in khakis and a button-down shirt, although he had the sleeves rolled up as a concession to the warm early autumn day. He had dark blond hair and clear blue eyes, and the chiseled features of a bygone star of the silver screen — appropriate, I supposed, since he’d been born all the way back in the 1920s. “You know the mail always comes here at the end of the day.”
True enough. One would have thought that Hank, our local mailman, would deliver the mail downtown first and go on to the residential areas later on, but he didn’t work that way. And when I’d once made a comment about his schedule to Josie Woodrow, one of my closest friends in Globe and the town’s current mayor, she’d shot me a look of horror and told me that was always how it had been delivered and that I shouldn’t rock the boat.
Considering I’d already rocked the boat plenty in Globe, what with my various murder investigations, I figured I’d better let the matter go.
I stared down at those ominous words again. They definitely didn’t improve on a second reading.
“Any idea who might have sent you this?” I asked.
Archie’s mouth tightened. “Of course not,” he snapped. “There’s no return address. The letter looks like it was printed on a laser printer, but how many people in the world have one of those?”
Millions, I guessed.
I turned the envelope over. There was no return address, but it had been sent through the U.S. mail, so it at least had a postmark.
“This looks like it was sent from somewhere in Phoenix,” I said.
One eyebrow lifted, with Archie appearing singularly unimpressed by that observation. “Yes, I already noticed that,” he told me, his tone dripping with annoyance. “Do you have any other valuable insights you’d like to share with me?”
Since I’d known my friend for going on two and a half years by this point, his curt tone didn’t rankle the way it might have if I’d been speaking with someone else. “Not really,” I said.
His blue eyes narrowed. “You can’t sense anything from it?” he asked, now sounding almost desperate. “Any feelings, any flashes?”
“No,” I said, but gently. While Archie was a very down-to-earth person — all the Virgo placements in his chart practically guaranteed a no-nonsense outlook on life, despite the way he’d been cursed into a cat body way back when — he’d known me long enough to realize I wasn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill person off the street. “I never really had powers like that.”
Which was mostly true. Oh, once or twice, I’d picked up on something when I handled an item that was particularly psychically charged, but that dubious talent wasn’t anything I could rely on, was even more unpredictable and uncertain than my auras had been.
Rather than become even more irritated at my reply, he let out a breath and seemed to deflate a little. “Then what am I supposed to do about this?”
“Maybe nothing,” I said, and once again, his eyebrow cocked.
“Just ignore it?”
“Possibly,” I responded. “I mean, it sounds threatening, but it’s pretty vague. It’s not like they came out and said they know you used to be a cursed cat or anything close to it. This sounds like the kind of crappy blackmail someone would try if they were just fishing.”
For a moment, Archie was silent, considering my words. I could only hope I was right in my assessment of the letter, since I was only going on gut feelings and certainly didn’t have any actual evidence to back up that reassuring theory.
“If they wanted to blackmail me, why leave it there and not give any details?”
“Because this is probably just the first letter,” I said. “Something to get you worried and worked up.”
And if that had been the intention of the person who’d sent the letter, then they’d already done a pretty good job.
“So…the next one will be asking for money?” he inquired, jaw tight.
