Free Thirty-Five and a Half Conspiracies by Denise Grover Swank

media.”
    What could I tell him? Then it hit me. “Jonah and all his ties to the criminal element.” Jonah ran a support group for rehabilitating criminals at his church, which meant Jonah was more tapped into the criminal world than most people in town.
    Mason was quiet for a long moment, and I had worked myself into a lather of worry by the time he spoke again. But he only said, “We need to figure out the significance of the key and get into that safe. They’re our best leads.”
    I wasn’t sure if the change of topic was a good thing or a bad one. But now I worried about the ramifications of Mason getting caught doing something illegal. “Mason, when we get this all sorted out, do you want your job back?”
    He shot me a quizzical glance. “Rose, the last thing I’m worried about right now is my old job.”
    “Think about it, Mason. If you want your job back, you can’t risk getting caught trespassing and breakin’ into a safe. So do you?”
    “Honestly, Rose, I’m not sure. For the most part I loved my job, but I love you a hell of a lot more. Now that I have you, I don’t want to pour all of my time into some office. I’ve been thinking about pursuing real estate law.”
    I narrowed my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    He shrugged. “I would rarely have to go to court, and it’s good money with more regular hours.”
    “And you’d be bored to tears in ten minutes, and only because you’d spend the first five getting a cup of coffee.”
    He didn’t answer, so I leaned closer and rested my hand on his arm. “You love what you do, crappy hours or not. And our relationship is only going to work if you’re happy with your career. I say we get this mess cleaned up, and then we work on getting your job back.” I sat up straighter. “Which means little or no criminal activity for you.”
    “And no criminal activity for you, either. If you get caught doing something illegal, Joe won’t waste a second before tossing you back in jail.”
    I purposely didn’t agree. There was no way I was going back there, but I’d do whatever I had to do to fix this mess.
    “I have another idea for how we can get the key figured out.” He sounded hopeful.
    “Oh?”
    “I’ll go talk to Henry’s widow.”
    “I’m not sure she’ll talk to you. She’s a grumpy old woman who makes Miss Mildred look like Mother Teresa. Besides, her daughter Beverly’s funeral is tomorrow. You might want to wait.”
    “Dammit,” he grumbled. “So we’re back to square one.”
    “No. Just delayed a few days.”
    “We don’t have time to waste,” Mason said. I was surprised when he pulled up to the farmhouse—the drive had passed in a blur. “Your trial is in three weeks.” He cursed under his breath, then said, “You think they’d make some attempt to make this case look like it hasn’t been railroaded.”
    He was right. Three weeks hardly seemed like any time at all. The situation suddenly felt hopeless.
    Mason turned the car off and started to get out, but I grabbed his arm and held him in place. “Mason. Wait.”
    He turned to me with an expectant look.
    “I want to have a vision of you.”
    He looked surprised. “What brought this on?”
    “I’m scared. I want to have a vision telling us that everything’s gonna be okay.”
    He smiled softly. “That’s actually a good idea.”
    “Okay.” I grabbed his hand, lacing our fingers together and squeezing.
    “Your hand is shaking.”
    I looked into his worried eyes. “I’m scared of what I’ll see.”
    “You don’t have to do this.”
    “But I do.” I took a deep breath, then closed my eyes, thinking about where Mason would be in three weeks. A dark shadow swept in, and I saw … nothing. Icy blackness sunk its hooks deep into my head. The cold seeped into my veins, pulling me down into a pit of nothingness, and I started to panic.
    Calm down . You can get out of this .
    I needed to try thinking about something more generic. Like what Mason