Free Fatal Charm by Linda Joy Singleton

was one of the witnesses. Since I was a minor, my name wasn’t revealed in police reports.
    Lucky colors. Lucky numbers. Anything lucky at all?
    I meditated, mentally opened up to the universe, and hoped for answers.
    Oh, all right already , I heard Opal’s snippy voice.
    Then information flooded my brain—and I started typing.
    Lucky color—pink. (Ooh! That wasn’t going to be popular with Manny’s male readers!)
    No lucky number. Instead, an unlucky number: eight.
    A girl with black hair whose named begins with “A” was warned to stay home and not run away to her best friend’s house.
    I also wrote the “Ten Years in the Future” profile on a random student. A sophomore named Erika Flanders would go into nursing, fall for a guy who wouldn’t respect her, have twins, and move to Hawaii. I also saw divorce and some spousal abuse, but I had to be cautious about what I revealed. You couldn’t rescue people from their life path … although a subtle warning couldn’t hurt.
    One minute before the bell, I ran off the column, then triumphantly handed it to Manny. Shutting off the computer and grabbing my stuff, I hurried to meet Josh as he exited his last class. It was nice to watch his eyes light up when he saw me. He slipped his arm around my shoulder and we left campus together.
    On the short drive to his house, I gave Nona a quick call to check on her. I’d told her I wasn’t coming directly home, but as her illness worsened, I was never sure what she’d remember. Fortunately she was having a “good” day. And she wouldn’t be alone long since Penny-Love was coming over to work a few hours.
    “Come on into the backyard,” Josh said when we arrived at his home.
    “Why?” I stepped out of his car, glancing down to step over a puddle left from the automatic sprinklers. The newly mowed dark green lawn glistened with shimmering water drops.
    He crooked his finger at me. “Come this way and find out.”
    I smiled at his “stage” tone of mystery. He had such compelling charisma that if he went pro with his magic, he’d be famous. “Did you learn a new magic trick from your mentor?”
    “Nothing to do with Arturo. I worked with Evan on this.”
    “Evan?” I grimaced as I said the name like I’d swallowed poison. And Evan Marshall was poisonous to me. At school he was Josh’s best friend and my worst enemy. A conceited jock, Evan arrogantly wanted to handpick Josh’s girlfriend and hadn’t approved when Josh started dating me, so he tried to break us up by digging up the scandal of my being kicked out of my last school. Fortunately Josh didn’t believe it. His loyalty was so sweet; I didn’t deserve him.
    The wood gate to the backyard creaked as Josh held it open for me. Overgrown oleander bushes brushed against my jeans as I followed Josh down the narrow bricked path to the backyard. It wasn’t a huge yard, but it had ample room for a flower garden, a brick barbeque with built-in sink, and mini-basketball court.
    A gruff bark made me jump. I braced myself as a whirlwind of padding feet and barking rushed forward.
    “Horse! Down!” Josh ordered before his dog could knock me over.
    Horse was a giant of a dog who deserved his name. Fortunately he was well-trained and sat politely at Josh’s command. Still his tongue flopped out and his tail thumped happily against the ground.
    While I scratched Horse on his head, Josh grabbed a basketball and I guessed he wanted to show me a new basketball shot. Definitely Super-Jock Evan’s influence, I thought sourly. I understood that Josh would want to hang out with his best friend, especially since I’d been gone the last few weeks, but I didn’t have to like it. Josh needed a better best friend, someone who wasn’t a stuck-up ass. His new pal, Grey, sounded okay. But then a mass murderer with the plague would have been an improvement over Evan.
    “Watch this!” Josh announced with the ball poised between his palms.
    Snapped out of my thoughts, I