I Spy a Psychic Eye E-Book

J.J. Brass

• Herausgeber: Rainbow Crush
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

When Elise Golden goes in for a cornea transplant, the last thing she expects to come out with is a psychic eye! But, as she recovers from surgery, she begins to realize that she can see things she couldn’t see before. If the eye is the window to the soul, Elise is practically a Peeping Tom!  She can gain insights into people’s actions just by looking them in the eye. Ace Aunt Elise lives in a cozy small-town courtyard with her twenty-something niece Val, a polyamorous pansexual who is currently recovering from an untimely stroke. When Val’s wheelchair is stolen, Elise realizes she’s in a unique position to investigate which of their neighbours played a hand in the theft. The psychic eye is on the case, but the culprit might be the last person anyone would suspect! I Spy a Psychic Eye is the first book in The Courtyard Clairvoyant Mysteries, a small-town paranormal cozy mystery series featuring a great cast of LGBTQIA characters!

Leseprobe

I Spy a Psychic Eye

© 2017 by J.J. Brass

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.

Cover design © 2017

First Edition 2017

I Spy a Psychic Eye

The Courtyard Clairvoyant Mysteries

Book One

By J.J. Brass

One

Elise awoke from a full-blown catnap when the front door slammed shut. Had to be her niece, Val, who insisted upon always kicking the door closed with the sole of her shoe.

Sure enough, Val shouted, “Just me, Aunt Elise!”

“I must have dozed off,” Elise croaked.

She blinked rapidly, trying to clear the cloudy haze from her right eye. All at once, she remembered the cloud in her vision wasn’t likely to go away. Not just yet.

As her niece ambled into the bedroom on crutches, Elise asked, “Where have you been this fine afternoon?”

“Skydiving lessons,” Val said with a smirk.

Elise laughed along. “I wouldn’t put it past you, doll.”

Val had always been the daredevil type, which worried Elise on the one hand, and allowed her to live vicariously through her niece on the other. Elise would never have the gall to cut her hair short like a man’s and then dye it bright purple, but Val took chances in fashion and in life. The girl was unapologetically punk, and she didn’t care what anybody thought of her. She’d even adorned her power chair, which, these days, only got used for outdoor adventures, with a rainbow pride flag, stickers and pins representing various aspects of her identity.

The only thing that ever seemed to get the girl down was people assuming she was a drunk. Even all this time after the stroke, Val’s speech remained somewhat slurred. She sounded perpetually inebriated, or at least somewhat tipsy, which wasn’t at all the case. Elise knew well that her niece hadn’t touched a drop since her release from hospital.

Val tried to act tough, but Aunt Elise could always see when things got to her.

“Where do you think I’ve been?” Val went on. “Across the courtyard, as usual. Knocked on Gloria’s door. She’ll be over in ten minutes to bring you the lunch I made.”

“You made lunch again?” Elise asked, feeling like royalty. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Val snorted. “Are you kidding, Auntie? Fixing a few meals is the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.”

“You’ve done a lot more than fix a few meals,” Elise countered. “Ever since the surgery, you’ve seen to my every need. And anything you can’t do yourself, you’ve arranged for the neighbours to lend a helping hand.”

“What do you expect?” Val said. “We’re family. And even if we weren’t I would still help you out, because you are one groovy chick, Aunt Elise.”

Elise couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m far from groovy, and much too old to be thought of as a chick.”

“You’re groovy in my books,” Val said. Sitting at the edge of Elise’s bed, she leaned her crutches against the mattress. “You were the first one at the hospital after I had my stroke. And you stayed there by my side even after all my friends got bored or bummed out because I couldn’t walk or talk properly. Even after my parents decided work was more important than keeping their queer couch-surfing daughter company. They weren’t there for me, but you always were.”

Reaching for her niece’s hand, Elise said, “Nobody expects a healthy 23-year-old to have a stroke. Your friends, your parents—they couldn’t handle it.”

“But you could,” Val said with a soppy smile. “You’re the best, Aunt Elise. You let me move in here even though you always said you would never live with another human.”

“It just made sense,” Elise replied with a blush. “You needed a ground floor flat for the wheelchair. I had an extra room.”

“And you got me to all my rehab sessions even though you don’t drive,” Val went on. “You took me on the accessible bus to every appointment. Even when I didn’t want to go, even when I screamed at you and fought you and called you names.”

“I’m retired,” Elise said. “What else am I going to do?”

“You still take me to my appointments, even today, and you help me with physio.”

“Now that’s where you’re wrong,” Elise countered. “I haven’t been of any use to you since my surgery last week. Don’t think I didn’t notice you cleared your schedule to stay home with me.”

“Of course I cleared my schedule, Auntie! A cornea transplant is a big deal. You’ve taken good care of me. Now it’s my turn to take care of you.”

Elise smiled fondly. “You’re a sweet girl, Valerie. You might dress tough with your ripped jeans and your leather jacket, but deep down you’re a softie just like your old aunt.”

“We’re two peas in a pod,” Val agreed. “But if you tell another living soul, I’ll melt down your silver and get it made into a new wallet chain.”

“Just what you need,” Elise kidded. “More chains!”

She glanced at her niece, but Val wasn’t wearing her leather jacket at the moment. She had on her favourite ripped jeans, so skin-tight they looked painted on, and a black T-shirt with a funny-looking symbol in yellow, pink and blue. The symbol looked something like a P with an arrow pointing down. Val would tell anyone who’d listen that this symbol denoted pansexuality and she identified as pansexual, meaning she was attracted to people of all genders.

Elise couldn’t rightly imagine being attracted to people of all genders. She couldn’t rightly imagine being attracted to people of any gender. Sure she’d played along when she was younger, perhaps even succeeded a touch in convincing herself that she felt drawn to a boyfriend or two. But that was all so long ago.

As an adult, Elise had settled into a very comfortable state of spinsterhood, as some women do. Her niece, however, had informed her that there’s a word to describe her lifelong absence of attractions: asexuality. A graphic artist by trade, Val had even designed Elise a T-shirt that read: Asexual and Proud of It. Elise never wore it except to sleep in, and sometimes on cleaning day. She told Val T-shirts weren’t really her style, but in truth she wasn’t keen on airing her sexual identity, or lack thereof, to the whole world. Her generation didn’t do that sort of thing.

Val’s generation was completely the opposite. They knew who they were from the day they were born, and they lived their lives with pride. Perhaps that was an enviable quality, but Elise couldn’t imagine being so public about matters so private.

“Oh!” Val said, as she hooked the cuffs of her crutches around her upper arms. “You’ll never guess what I saw outside Gloria’s place.”

“Was that groundhog burrowing into her gardens again?”

“Maybe,” Val said reflectively. “You know how Gloria’s got all those tulips and daffodils and things coming up around the side of her flat?”

“Sure,” Elise replied. “If there’s one thing Gloria goes on about, aside from that pretty daughter of hers, it’s Gloria’s Glorious Courtyard Garden.”

“Well, she’s not too pleased today,” Val went on. “Somebody pulled up a bunch of her bulbs and scattered them all around the Courtyard. She tried replanting them, but a lot were crushed and broken.”

“Poor Gloria. She must be rightly upset.”

“No kidding. She wrote a whole big note saying whoever dug up her bulbs would get what was coming to them!”

“That’s a tad harsh.”

Val rolled her eyes. “You know what Gloria’s like when she gets a bee in her bonnet.”

The front door opened and a voice called out, “Elisa! Valerie! It’s me, Gloria!”

“Speak of the devil,” Elise called out, knowing her voice would carry through the hallway. “Val was just telling me about your gardening woes. Are you sure it wasn’t that pesky groundhog at it again?”

Val moved into the hall, trading places with Gloria. “A groundhog? You think a rodent can toss a tulip with those tiny hands? How would he spread my bulbs all around the courtyard?”

“With his mouth, I should imagine.”

Anyone else would think Gloria was trying to pick a fight, but after living across the courtyard from the woman for nearly twenty years, Elise was accustomed to her fiery nature.

“No,” Gloria said. “This was no animal. A human committed this crime. Someone who hates gardens. Someone who hates me!”

“Who could possibly hate you?” Val asked, tongue in cheek.

Gloria let out a laugh and said, “Oh my darling Valerie, you would be surprised. I’ll have you know I’ve made a great many enemies in my day.”

“You don’t say,” Val replied flatly. “Well, come to the kitchen. Maybe you can help me with something before you bring Aunt Elise her lunch.”

As Gloria left the room regaling Val with tales of her many blood feuds, Elise turned to find another young woman standing in her doorway. She hadn’t realized Gloria’s daughter had tagged along, and she gasped with fright when she caught sight of the girl.

“Goodness, Julieta! We should put a bell on you.” Elise grasped her chest, trying to calm her hammering heart. “You’re quiet as a mouse, you are.”

Looking somewhat panic-stricken, Julieta said, “I’m sorry. Mama told me I had to come visit. Should I go now? I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Don’t go,” Elise said, extending a hand in the girl’s direction. “You didn’t frighten me in the least.”

But that was only half true.

As Elise fixed her gaze on the girl, she found she was seeing double. Her left eye, which hadn’t been surgically altered, saw Julieta as she was: a girl of eighteen with long black hair that did its best to conceal her shy yet pretty face. She wore a long cotton dress which did nothing to flatter her full-figured body as she played nervously with a pendant hanging around her neck.

The vision in Elise’s right eye remained hazy following her cornea transplant, and soon she realized the mist was forming an apparition. She felt as though she were dreaming, although she knew she was wide awake. Her right eye produced a visualization unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

She saw Julieta in her mind’s eye, fearful as anything. Wearing a white satin peignoir that glowed blueish in the moonlight, the girl tossed her mother’s spring flowers around the courtyard, bulbs and all.

“You did it,” Elise whispered to the girl. “You destroyed your mother’s garden.”

Julieta pointed to herself, as if to ask, “Who, me?”