Miss Fortune

Chapter Two

One hour earlier

'Dear Miss Fortune,

'Is my boyfriend cheating on me, cuz I found some strange things in his wallet when I was riffling through it. What's really bothering me is that I found a condom. I have an IUD!!! Thanx, Needs to Know'

Alex Prescott frowned at the laptop, shaking her head as she sat back in her chair. "Oh, for fuck's sake. What do you think he's doing? I mean, I'm pretty sure you know exactly what he's doing, but what else do you think he might be doing? I'm not answering this."

A click of the touchpad and she was back to the Miss Fortune's Crystal blog's main screen. What started out as a simple way to interact with their customers had taken on a life of its own as its popularity spread. It began with answering simple questions about the Prescotts and their abilities, and then someone outside of Cranford Falls happened upon it, commented, passed it on to a friend. Before any of them knew it, they were inundated with people reading and asking questions about their future. If the question seemed serious enough, she'd call Gram or one of her sisters, but mostly she just answered as she saw fit, or deleted it altogether if it was obviously a troll question.

"Aren't you going to answer the clueless wonder?"

"I don't know. Should I bother?" Alex smiled at the ghostly reflection in her laptop's screen. "I mean, she knows. You know she knows. And while I feel sorry for her, I also want to just tell her to get a clue and to accept what she already knows. He's fucking around on her."

She spun her chair about to face Terri Morrison, her best friend since grammar school who'd lived with them since they were in junior high. Terri leaned back against the arm of the sofa, dressed for work in jeans and a black tee shirt, with the words Hilltop Tavern in elegant script over her left breast. It must've been humid outside, as her dark curly hair seemed bigger than usual, and her contacts must've been bothering her as well. Her hazel eyes were on the red, weepy-looking side.

"Yeah, it would, but at the same time..." She reached over Alex's shoulder to tap on the screen with a fingernail desperately in need of a manicurist's touch. "Without people like this, your shop wouldn't be doing nearly as well as it is."

"Oh, I know. But, I just hate having to be the one to break it to these women that their men are cheating on them. They don't want to hear that, even if it they know it's true and I hate smashing illusions as well. However..." Alex clicked back to the comments section and sighed as she reread it. "You know, I had that dream again last night."

"The one with the guy?"

She nodded. "The one with the guy. Only it was different this time."

Terri drew up another chair, turning it as she sank into it so she could rest her arm on the back and her chin on her arm. "How?"

"I almost saw his face."

"Almost?"

"Yeah. You know how he's kind of in the shadows and I can hear him, but I can't really see him?" She waited for Terri's nod before continuing with, "Well, he sort of started to come out of the shadows last night."

"And?"

"And nothing. I woke up."

"You did not!"

Alex nodded, tapping her forefinger against the touchpad again. She had to be careful, because it was sensitive and more than once, she ended up accidentally posting something she shouldn't have and had to scramble to get it taken down before anyone could read it. "Yeah. I did. Trust me, I wasn't happy about it either."