“If an old dog like me can change, I’m sure there’s hope for two people who love each other as much as you and Erasmus do,” he added with a knowing glint in his eyes as if he knew something she didn’t.
She studied her father’s expression. “How do you know that I love Erasmus Cress?”
“You’re your mother’s daughter, Libby. You radiate love. You always have. I can hear the affection in your voice when you say his name. Don’t write him off yet,” her father added as a taxi pulled up.
A strange vibration passed between them.
Something else was going on with her dad, but she shook it off.
“Let me know when you get to Kansas City,” she said, giving him another hug. “We can plan a time for me to visit.”
“I’d like that. And Libby?”
“Yes.”
“I might be seeing you a little sooner than later,” he added and pressed a kiss to her cheek before getting into the taxi.
That was an odd thing to say.
Her emotions seesawed between being grateful that her father had a real chance to turn his life around and hardly being able to believe that she had Raz to thank for it.
She sank onto a bench next to the petting zoo’s entrance and watched the yellow taxi disappear down the road. She removed her mother’s aquamarine stone from her pocket. Brushing her thumb over the smooth surface, a word came to mind.
Transformation.
Could Raz change? Was her father on to something? Could there be a path forward for her and that beefcake of a man?
A crow swooped in and perched on the back of the bench.
She glanced at the bird. “Namaste, crow, you keep popping up, don’t you?”
The crow didn’t reply, most likely because it was just a crow—or was it?
She sat back and pictured her mother, remembering how they used to cozy up on the couch and talk for hours.
“I think Dad’s going to be okay. No, I know it. I saw it in his aura. His energy is…transformed.”
She glanced at the crow, currently focused on the aquamarine stone glinting in the light. She sighed, understanding Ida’s fondness for chilling out with butterflies. She quite liked hanging with this crow.
“Can you believe that Raz got Dad a job, and he never mentioned it?” she continued, gabbing away with the bird. “What does that mean? I know Raz is a good man, and I know he loves me. He does.”
She observed the crow, still listening or whatever crows do when they remain motionless.
It hadn’t flown away. That had to mean something.
“Should I call him? I can thank him. Maybe I should yell at him for keeping this from me, then thank him. I can’t do anything,” she said, frustration taking over.
The crow didn’t answer, but it seemed oddly interested.
“He’s got the fight tonight. His make-or-break must-win moment.” She rubbed her temples and peered at the bird. “What do you think, Mom? Maybe I should text the girls and ask about him. Rowen, Landon, and Mitch were supposed to go to the weigh-in yesterday. Or I could message his sisters, but that might be weird. What do you think I should do?”
The crow lunged forward, then snapped the stone into its beak.
She shot up and scowled at the bird. “Hey, Mom, I get that was your stone, but come on? What are you going to do with it now that you’re a crow?”
“Miss, are you having an altercation with a bird?”
Libby gasped at the sight of two police officers, one male and one female, walking toward her.
When did they get here?
“There’s no altercation here. I’m talking to the crow, but the crow isn’t talking back, obviously. As you can see, it has my stone.”
“The bird stole something from you?” the policewoman asked.
“Yes, well, sort of. The stone belonged to my mom years ago. You see, I’m speaking to the crow now because the bird might be channeling the spirit of my mother.”
The officers shared a cagey look—not that dissimilar from the way the officers had looked at her the night her rage yoga session had taken a turn toward the psychotic.
If she didn’t stop talking, she’d earn herself a one-way ticket to a padded cell.
“You believe your mother is the bird?” the male officer pressed.
How was she supposed to answer that honestly?
Libby gestured to the crow with a flat stone in its beak, who seemed quite enthralled with the human hubbub. “I know this bird isn’t my actual mother. My mom passed away when I was younger. But there’s a chance the bird is acting on her energy, and therefore, I’m chatting with a version of my mother’s energy—her essence, her psychic ripple.”
“Psychic ripple?” the male officer repeated with a crinkle to his brow.
Libby chewed her lip. “It’s not illegal to talk to birds, is it?”
“What’s your name, ma’am?” the woman asked.
This was not good.
“Libby Lamb.”
The cops shared another ominous look.
“This is her,” the male officer said as the woman nodded.
This encounter just went from not good to downright bananas.
“What do you mean, this is her?” she blathered, her pulse hammering.
“You’ve got a charge for lewd behavior. We need to bring you in. We heard you’d be here,” the male officer explained.
Libby’s stomach dropped. “That charge was dropped, thanks to the donkeys.”
The female cop raised an eyebrow. “A donkey told you the charges were dropped, ma’am?”
Gah!
“No,” she shrieked. “The chief of police.”
“Are you saying the chief of police is a donkey?” the woman shot back.
Hello, padded cell.
The male officer opened the police cruiser’s back door. “Come with us, ma’am. We’ll figure this out downtown.”
“You’re not going to handcuff me, are you?” she asked, staring into the back seat.
“Do we need to handcuff you?” the woman asked, again raising an eyebrow.
What?
Libby didn’t answer. She slid her ass in the back of the car faster than you can say holy busted karma. The door slammed, and she stared out the window and raised her hand. “Bye, Mom. It’s still pretty uncool that you took the stone, but I guess it was yours,” she said flatly. What did it matter now? She could start talking to the seat belt or tell them that a birch tree was her great-great-uncle. These cops already thought she was a few slices short of a loaf.
The bird spread its wings, and with the aquamarine secure in its beak, sailed into the sky as the cruiser merged into traffic. As stealthily as she could, she slipped her phone out of her purse and hit the power button.
And…she only had a one percent charge.
Who do you call with one percent? That would give her ten seconds before the power drained.
Think, think, think.
She’d call Penny, and then Penny could ask Rowen to hack into the police mainframe and erase her charge. That was a thing, right? It happened in the movies. She peered at the officers in the front seat, chatting in hushed voices, but they didn’t seem too concerned with her. She tapped Penny’s name, and the phone rang once, then twice, then—
“Hi, Libby, it’s Phoebe! I’ve got Penny’s phone because she’s doing the Chicken Dance.”