Excerpt

From Tiny Finds a Secret

I didn't expect to find a mystery when I found the little black cat in the barn, but mysteries seem to follow me. I'm Ash Jericho and I'm an acupuncturist. I also seem to be a mystery magnet. Fortunately, this one didn't involve any bodies.

The little black cat had been around the barn for several weeks, usually watching us from corners where he hid in the hay, his black fur a deeper shadow outside the stalls. He was clearly full-grown, but he was still a tiny little cat, looking more like a half-grown male than an adult. Molly Jo, our head groom had seen him around the barn, drinking water from the troughs and playing stray bits of straw. She'd been setting out a bit of food for him because he seemed so friendly.

Several of our horses seemed to like him and when the tiny cat was playing outside their stalls, heads would hang over so they could get a better look. Sometimes I'd hear a snort from inside a stall, and there would be the little black cat, digging into the fresh hay in a corner and the horse would be looking over, laughing at him.

Erin DuPres, one of our horse boarders, had brought her eight year old daughter, Franny, to the barn that day. It was early May and the weather was clear and the sky was blue. Our barn isn't huge but it's not a small one either. We have sixteen boarders at any one given time, which is why we have a head groom. We don't breed or anything like that, though my grandfather had dabbled.

Franny and Erin both had inky black hair that was silky fine. Franny's skin had a golden cast to it that contrasted beautifully with her tiny white teeth which were always showing in her smile. Erin smiled easily, too, though she wasn't quite as quick to laugh.

I was talking to Molly Jo who had just finished up a class for beginning riders. Franny was one of her students. Erin had timed her own ride so that she finished about the same time as Franny's lesson. That left Franny at loose ends while her mom took care of their horse. It wasn't a problem as Franny loved the barn and being around the horses.

I have to admit to loving the barn myself. I loved the smell of fresh hay and the heavy musk of the horses, though I could have done without the smell of their waste. The barn was roomy with a large main doorway that you could drive a tractor through and then stalls on either side. Towards one end was an office and the tack room as well as a restroom. Upstairs was storage and an apartment for Molly Jo.

While the inside was all hay and concrete and pale wood, the outside was peach and cream colors with a deep brown roof and a cupola on the top. Only one for us. The barn wasn't that big.

Franny was investigating one of the empty stalls and easily found the little black cat. He was a friendly boy, and I wasn't surprised to see Franny carrying him out of the stall.

"Can I keep him?" Franny asked. It wasn't clear if she was asking me, Molly Jo, or her mom. "Look he gave me a present!"

Franny held a tarnished old bracelet, shaking it in the hand under the cat so we could see.

"I doubt the bracelet belongs to him," I said. "And he's just one of our little barn cats." I didn't want to say she could take him in case Erin had no desire to have a cat. I also didn't want to say no. A home with a loving little girl was a better home than the barn.

I suppose I could have taken him in. I had recently moved into the carriage house that was out behind the house my grandmother had lived in until she died and left the property to me. I desperately missed having a cat, having become used to my grandmother's cats, Hellspark and Babs. Gram had eclectic taste in names.

Franny started to give a bit of a pout but then thought better of it, quickly handing me the bracelet. It looked antique, the silver tarnished and worn. The cuff was fairly heavy looking and at first I thought it was a rather ornate watch but where the watch face would have been was a locket. I opened it.

Inside was a picture of Gram and another young woman. The image was in black and white and Gram looked younger than I am today. Clearly the bracelet had been buried for some time. I stepped into the stall and looked down.

The tiny cat had been digging into the hard dirt in a corner and must have found the thing buried. I suspected that he'd been trying to find a mouse or a rat but hadn't had any luck.

"Whose is it?" Molly Jo asked.

"I think it's been there for a long time," I said. "It has a picture of my Gram when she was young."

Molly Jo looked at the bracelet. Franny let the tiny cat go and she peered at the image, too. "Is that your grandma?"

"It is," I said.

"I wonder when she lost this." Franny said.

"Maybe the other woman lost it," I said. I looked into the stall it had been in. I wondered if Gram had kept a horse there. Gram had had her own horse, usually a calm mare, when my grandfather had bred horses.

"Franny?" Erin called.

Franny went running. I heard her chattering about the cat, who had disappeared. It was too bad. The little guy was a friendly little thing and he seemed like he'd make a good pet.

"Thanks for finding this!" I called after her.

Franny turned and smiled and then went back to talking about the little black cat that she was clearly smitten with.

I took the bracelet and said good-bye to Molly Jo. I wanted to examine it more carefully. For me, examining it, meant I'd be opening myself up to psychic impressions. Both my grandmother and I could do that. As my Gram had died over a year ago, which was hard to believe, I was the only one in the family who could. I was eager to find out how the bracelet, which looked fairly expensive, had come to be in the barn.

My carriage house was painted cream now and had dark blue shutters and a matching door. Inside, I had a hardwood floor in a deep cherrywood stain with pale blue rugs. The sofa I'd picked out was a light gray.

I had debated putting in gray colored cabinets along the wall but instead chose antique white. I chose a darker brown for the little island and the color blended well with the cinnamon-colored wash on my antique white cabinets. The granite counter tops were cream and brown. I had cream subway tiles as a backsplash with brass tile accents. It wasn't a trendy look but I liked it and it had passed my sister-in-law's judgement, although she really thought black, white, and gray were more in.

Instead of the computer desk in the kitchen nook, I now had a larger desk in the back of the house, in what had once been a bedroom and was now an alcove off the living area.

I settled on the sofa, liking the way it hugged my body. I had gotten it because I loved sitting on it and could sit there all day if I wasn't busy. Unfortunately, I was always busy, or so it seemed. But at that moment, I had nothing better to do than let my psychic sense open as I examined the bracelet.

The bracelet had been loved. The energy didn't feel like Gram. It felt like someone else. This woman was adventurous and had adored my Gram. If the owner had lived today, she'd probably have said best friends forever or something. She loved horses as much as Gram did. I felt a sudden shock or fright and then nothing.

Coming out of the trance, I bit my lip. I hoped I wasn't seeing someone who had been murdered. I did not want to have to dig up a body beneath our stables.