The Piper by Lynn Hightower

been happier the last six months than ever in my life. I can’t help feeling like I deserve a man like this. I can’t imagine not having him in my life. It would be crazy to throw a relationship like this away, over something this, well, vague.
    WORRIED IN PHOENIX: But TORN, when your mother called you, did she actually use his name?
    TORN & IN LOVE: Yes. That was what’s got me so scrambled up inside. She said ‘stay away,’ then there was static, and then she said ‘Clark.’ And I know it was her voice, it was unmistakable. She sounded good, she said she loved me. God, I miss her so much.
    WORRIED IN PHOENIX: How long has your mother been dead?
    TORN & IN LOVE: Two years last Christmas.
    WORRIED IN PHOENIX: You can’t be sure what she meant. With the static and all. Maybe you should just go slow with the relationship, sort of keep a watchful eye.
    TORN & IN LOVE: Yes. That’s good advice. The thing is, he’s asked me to marry him. He got me a ring. He has this whole destination wedding-honeymoon planned, and my God, it’s so cold here, I’d go to Jamaica with him just to get warm.
    WORRIED IN PHOENIX: You should come live here in Phoenix, you’d have all the warm you want. Where are you?
    TORN & IN LOVE: Vermont. It’s still snowing at the end of April.
    Olivia kept scrolling. Nothing else from
TORN & IN LOVE
. She pulled up a new search window and typed in various combinations of
Vermont
,
Clark
and
weddings.
Nothing. Well, women rarely put a wedding notice in the paper for a second marriage later in life. No surprise. On a whim she added
San Francisco
, hoping for some smalltown newsy item that included a daughter coming in for a wedding from out of town. She came up with a notice then – but not a wedding announcement. An obituary from the
Burlington Times
.
    Burlington, May 21st: Juliana Hargreaves Cavannaugh, aged forty-nine, known to friends and family as ‘Jules’, died yesterday of an apparent heart attack in her home. Her body was discovered at 2:00 PM by her husband, Clark Cavannaugh, who returned home from work concerned when Mrs Cavannaugh did not show up for a lunch date the couple had planned. Mr and Mrs Cavannaugh had recently been married at a destination wedding in Ochos Rios, Jamaica, returning from their honeymoon just one week ago. Visitation will be held from four to six tomorrow, at the Grayson Funeral Home, with burial at the Burlington Cemetery on Tuesday, at 3:00 PM. Ms. Cavannaugh is survived by her husband, Clark, a daughter and son in law, Mr & Mrs Vaughn Melrose of San Francisco, and two grandchildren, Cary and Silas, aged six and three.
    Olivia set the laptop on the coffee table, and put her head in her hands, feeling sick to her stomach and sad. There was no doubt in her mind that
TORN & IN LOVE
was dead. She had a name now, Jules, and she was a presence in Olivia’s mind now, whether she liked it or not.
    Juliana Hargreaves Cavannaugh had received a phone call from the dead too – a warning call, told by her mother to
stay away
from
Clark
. Now she was dead, one week after marrying the guy. Had Jules somehow been murdered by this Clark, who had given her a drug or something to fake a heart attack? Olivia would never know. There was nothing she could do for Juliana, who was now dead, no way she would know for sure if it was at the hands of her new and perfect husband, Clark.
    But the lesson was there. And Chris had told her to be careful of the mysterious
Mister Man
. Shit. How exactly was she going to do that?

NINE
    O livia’s work day was a total loss. One canceled appointment, a lot of phone calls that brought her annoyed customers and no sales. Her mind had not been on the job, her thoughts divided between warning phone calls from beyond the grave, and, on the practical side, how she was going to approach Charlotte about Janet telling Teddy scary stories about the house. She considered what she was going to say