The Sign of Seven Trilogy by Nora Roberts Page A

that.”
    â€œKnown the boy since before he was born, haven’t I?”
    Amused, Quinn propped an elbow back on the bar as she toyed with the rest of her cereal. Apparently a serious scare in the night and mild irritation with a man in the morning was a more effective diet aid than any bathroom scale. Meg struck her as a comfortable woman, wide-hipped in her brown cords and flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up at the elbows. Her hair curled tight as a poodle’s fur in a brown ball around a soft and lined face. And there was a quick spark in her hazel eyes that told Quinn she’d be inclined to talk.
    â€œSo, Meg, what else do you know? Say about the Pagan Stone.”
    â€œBuncha nonsense, you ask me.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œPeople just get a little”—she circled her finger at her ear—“now and again. Tip too much at the bottle, get all het up. One thing leads to another. Good for business though, the speculation, if you follow me. Get plenty of flatlanders in here wondering about it, asking about it, taking pictures, buying souvenirs.”
    â€œYou never had any experiences?”
    â€œSaw some people usually have good sense acting like fools, and some who got a mean streak in them acting meaner for a spell of time.” She shrugged. “People are what people are, and sometimes they’re more so.”
    â€œI guess that’s true.”
    â€œIf you want more about it, you should go on out to the library. There’s some books there written about the town, the history and whatnot. And Sally Keefafer—”
    â€œBowling Sally?”
    Meg snorted a laugh. “She does like to bowl. Library director. She’ll bend your ear plenty if you ask her questions. She loves to talk, and never found a subject she couldn’t expound on till you wanted to slap some duct tape over her mouth.”
    â€œI’ll do that. You sell duct tape here?”
    Meg hooted out another laugh, shook her head. “If you really want to talk, and get some sense out of it, you want Mrs. Abbott. She ran the old library, and she’s at the new one for a spell most every day.”
    Then scooping up the bills Cal left, she went to refill waiting cups at the other end of the counter.
    Â 
    C AL HEADED STRAIGHT TO HIS OFFICE. HE HAD the usual morning’s paperwork, phone calls, e-mails. And he had a morning meeting scheduled with his father and the arcade guy before the center opened for the afternoon leagues.
    He thought of the wall of fire across Main Street the night before. Add that to two sightings by Quinn—an outsider—and it sure as hell seemed the entity that plagued the town was starting its jollies early.
    Her dream troubled him as well. The details—he’d recognized where she’d been, what she’d seen. For her to have dreamed so lucidly about the pond, about the clearing, to have bruises from it, meant, in his opinion, she had to be connected in some way.
    A distant relation wasn’t out of the question, and there should be a way to do a search. But he had other relations, and none but his immediate family had ever spoken of any effects, even during the Seven.
    As he passed through the bowling center, he sent a wave toward Bill Turner, who was buffing the lanes. The big, burly machine’s throaty hum echoed through the empty building.
    The first thing he checked in his office was his e-mail, and he let out a breath of relief when he saw one from Gage.
    Prague. Got some business to clear up. Should be back in the U.S. of A. inside a couple weeks. Don’t do anything stupider than usual without me.
    No salutation, no signature. Very Gage, Cal thought. And it would have to do, for now.
    Contact me as soon as you’re Stateside , Cal wrote back. Things are already rumbling. Will always wait for you to do the stupid, because you’re better at it.
    After clicking Send, he dashed another off to Fox.
    Need to talk. My place, six