Free A Watery Death (A Missing Pieces Mystery Book 7) by Joyce Lavene, Jim Lavene Page A

and grabbed my bag. “Goodnight, Kevin. I’ll see you at the parade tomorrow.”
    Mary Catherine wanted to hear all about it, of course, so we were up talking until well after midnight. She finally said goodnight and went up to her room, leaving Gramps and me in the kitchen.
    “I hope you’ll feel better about this later.” He put the coffee cups into the dishwasher. “Give your grandfather a little credit here, honey. You know I’m as good as my word. Nothing is going to happen to me.”
    I hugged him, closing my eyes, and prayed he was right. If I lost him, all my family would be gone. “I love you, Gramps. Please be careful.”
    “When have I ever not been careful?” he asked with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “Let’s get to sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
    I carefully took the cardboard with the gold and blue scales out of my pocket. They didn’t look as impressive after being in there all day—more like dried fish scales. I got undressed and got into bed with Treasure sleeping beside me. I thought about Chief Michaels, Gramps, and the naked man I’d left behind in the Duck Shoppes parking lot.
    Once in a while, a few party people came to Duck and odd things of that nature happened. It didn’t really worry me about the naked man.
    And Chief Michaels would be fine, I promised myself. Gramps would be too.
    But the possible threat against him made me open the drawer to my bedside table and pull out my grandmother’s old watch.
    I’d experimented with it before, finding that my gift for seeing people and their history behind the items I touched could extend to actually being in that past moment.
    I wasn’t a real person when I was there—more a ghost-like figure—but it had been a way that I could meet my grandmother who’d died before I was born. She’d warned me at one of those meetings that, while it was possible to visit with loved ones in the past, I had to be careful, or I would become trapped in that past too.
    That’s what had happened to her. All those years I’d thought she was dead, but instead she just never came back. I’d told Gramps about my meeting with Grandma Eleanore. He knew about the gift we shared and the consequences it could have. He’d asked me to promise him that I wouldn’t do it again.
    I’d agreed—at that time.
    It was different now. I’d tried various objects that had belonged to her, believing that I might be able to bring her back with me to my time. Nothing had worked. Her watch was still my best anchor to her, but our visits were always the same.
    The watch was pretty and lightweight. I held it in my hands and closed my eyes to feel her presence. In a thought I was there, sitting at the same kitchen table that I’d just left, only forty years earlier.
    “Oh my goodness, Dae. You startled the daylights out of me,” Grandma Eleanore said. “But it’s good to see you again. I have news. Can you stay for tea?”
     

Chapter Seven
     
    I could tell the differences in the kitchen, things that had changed since I was a child. There was an old green stove with a percolator instead of a coffeemaker on the cabinet and wood paneling on the walls instead of the wallpaper with roses that my mother had put in.
    “This is a good time for you to visit.” She made us both a cup of tea.
    There were times when I went back that I was nothing more than a ghost and other times when it was like I was really there. I could feel, smell, and taste things. I didn’t know what the difference was. This was still new to me.
    “I’m so happy to be here. It’s been a rough day in Duck.”
    “I don’t know how long you’ll be here so I’d better get right to the point.” She put a cup of tea in front of me—fragrant jasmine.
    I inhaled and closed my eyes. Grandma Eleanore was so like my mother, but my grandmother and I shared the gift that had bypassed her. If it hadn’t, I might have been able to visit her too. Wanting to see my mother again was a terrible yearning that lived in