“Thanks, hon. Backatchya.”
The phone rang and she grabbed it, mumbled a few words, then handed it to me, mouthing “Murray.” As she disappeared into the living room, I wondered what life would be like in four years, when she’d be vanishing out the door to college. I didn’t even want to think about it.
“ ’Lo?” I eyed the espresso maker, longing for a pick-me-up. Just a couple shots to see me through the evening. I maneuvered over to the counter while balancing the receiver between my ear and my shoulder. My neck twinged, but caffeine was worth a few strained muscles.
Murray’s voice was a welcome embrace. “Hey, Em, how’s your grandma?”
I told her what had gone down, while trickling beans into the grinder. “Hold on, if I don’t get caffeine, I’m going to collapse.”
“Go ahead, you caffeine freak,” she said, laughing.
I put the phone down, quickly ground the beans, and tapped the grounds into the mesh cup, fitting it firmly in place under the nozzle. As the water began heating, I grabbed the milk, the cocoa, a bottle of raspberry syrup, and a tall glass, then fetched a tray of ice cubes. I turned the knob and watched the black liquid drizzle into the shot glass. Two . . . three . . . yep, that should do it.
“Let me just finish this and I’ll be right with you,” I shouted at the receiver as I poured the espresso into the glass, added three spoonfuls of cocoa, a shot of syrup, then milk and ice, stirring with the straw. Carrying the phone and mocha over to the table, I settled into a chair, relaxing for the first time since morning.
“Back,” I said.
“Good. I’m sorry about your grandma. Keep me posted, okay? Listen, Jimmy and I were thinking we might come over for dinner, if you haven’t eaten yet. We’ll bring the pizza this time. What do you say?”
I could tell she wanted to keep my mind off my grandmother and my dress, and the offer was just what I needed. I glanced at the clock. Six-thirty.
“Sounds good,” I said. The thought of Rose’s wan expression at the hotel haunted me. It was as if her own mother, not her grandmother, was speeding toward Seattle in that ambulance.
“I’m at work. Jimmy’s meeting me here in a few minutes. We’ll stop by the house to check on the animals, then pick up the pizza and be over in about forty-five minutes.” She signed off and I wearily set the phone on the table, staring at it. Suddenly fearing that I might have missed a message from my family, I grabbed it and listened for the beep-beep of the dial tone announcing a voice message, but nada. With a sigh, I held up my mocha, toasted nothing in particular, and tried to chill out.
Joe wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later. “I forgot to tell you something. Well, I didn’t forget but it didn’t seem the right moment when you first got home.”
Oh God, now what? My expression must have mirrored my fear because Joe held up his hand. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. Remember that photo shoot I mentioned a couple months back? The calendar featuring the heroes of Whatcom County?”
I stared at him. “You were serious?” Joe had come home one morning from the station with the news that his picture might end up in a hunk-filled, eye-candy, hot-to-trot calendar. Sponsored by the Chiqetaw Women’s Auxiliary Group, the sales would benefit various local charities. I’d thought the idea fizzled since he hadn’t mentioned it again. Apparently, I’d been wrong.
Joe ducked his head, blushing. “Yeah, I’m serious. The shoot’s been moved up to tomorrow. That’s the only day the photographer will donate his time. Want to go?”
Uncertain whether to congratulate him or laugh, I chugged down the remainder of my mocha. “So, you gonna have pants on, or does every woman in town get to see why I walk around with such a big smile on my face?”
One thing was for certain, if this was a full frontal, I’d make damned sure that DON’T TOUCH was tattooed on his thigh. Joe was more than adequately endowed, and he knew exactly what to do with every inch of what he’d been blessed with. What I’d been blessed with, now that I thought of it. And thinking about that particular blessing brought a wide smile to my face.
He grinned. “I’m glad you’re smiling again. I hate seeing you sad. As far as showing my goodies, pants yes, shirt no. They’ll shoot with the bruise. They said it would make me look more heroic. I told them I wasn’t wounded while on duty, but they don’t care. So, you want to go along or you going to leave me at the mercy of a bunch of horny women?”
I coughed. “I’ll go, I’ll go.” I wanted to be the only horny woman there with an actual claim to the stake.
BY THE TIME Murray and Jimbo rang the doorbell, my mother had called from Seattle. Grandma M. was holding on, and that was a good sign. Every hour that passed with her still alive increased her chances. I felt better as I hung up the phone.
As Murray entered the living room, however, that good feeling dissipated. She looked like Bambi in headlights, and Jimbo’s scowl set me back a few steps. I motioned toward the kitchen. Jimbo deposited the pizzas on the counter, then pulled me aside.
“We need to talk. Do you think the kiddos could eat outside? I don’t want them to overhear what’s going on.”
“No problem,” I said, calling the kids down to the kitchen. I fixed their plates and asked them to eat on the porch. Unusually cooperative—maybe it was because of Grandma M. or maybe they were just mellow from the summer heat—they complied without an argument. I made sure they had everything they needed before Jimbo, Murray, Joe, and I gathered around the table.
“So, what the hell happened? You both looked ready to pitch a fit when you came in.” I bit into a Hawaiian special, closing my eyes at the delicious merger of melted cheese, pineapple, and ham.
Murray shuddered and Jimbo put his arm around her shoulder. “The perv’s been at it again,” he said. “I find him and he’s dead. That simple.”
I glanced at Mur. She gave me a surreptitious look that told me she was a lot more frightened than she was letting on. “What did he do?”
She pulled out a box from the bag she’d been carrying. “This was on the porch when we got home.” Shoving it across the table, she seemed reluctant to even touch it.
I reached for it. A spark leaped from the lid to my hand, a bright flash illuminating the table. “Damn! It happened again!” I yanked my hand back and examined my fingers. Nothing. No marks, no burns. “I sure am tuning into whoever is bothering you.”
Jimbo jerked his head up. “You saying hoodoo’s involved?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s deliberate or if his intent is just so strong that it’s manifesting its own little power source.” Taking a deep breath, I tried again, this time managing to pick up the box without getting jolted. I cautiously lifted the lid, peering in. Joe looked over my shoulder.
Not good. I reached in, then stopped. “You dusted these for prints?”
Mur shook her head. “No, I touched everything before I realized what I was doing, and Jimmy was all over it the minute he saw what it contained. But I doubt if there were any to begin with. Whoever this is, he’s being careful. So far nothing else has had prints, including the bug in the lamp. Go ahead. Maybe you’ll be able to pick up something. I’m too nervous to try and White Deer’s back in Bellingham for the evening.”
I lifted a sleazy red teddy out of the box. Lingerie could be sexy, gorgeous, titillating. Or it could be a hooker’s nightmare, soulless and devoid of passion. As I fingered the Lycra teddy, my stomach twisted. I dropped it on the table and hesitantly looked back in the box. A pair of handcuffs—metal, not the soft ones meant for lovers. A bottle of cheap perfume. And a picture of Jimbo that had been slashed.
A swirl of anger and lust coiled around the items, a vortex of sick need. I could almost hear a woman’s voice echoing through the room. Don’t touch. Don’t look. Don’t ask. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Good little boys don’t.
“Mur, this isn’t just some kid’s game. You’re dealing with someone who’s severely unhinged, and I’m afraid it’s going to escalate un
til you can catch him.” The whole energy of the room shifted, as if a bright neon sign had plastered itself on my best friend’s chest, a bull’s-eye of the most dangerous kind. “Set up a video camera to watch your porch—both back and front. Are you sure none of the neighbors saw the person who left this?”
She shook her head. “Already checked. I live at the end of the street. The park was almost empty—tonight’s baseball game is over at the high school. I did call Bonner, but there’s only so much that Tad can do. I hate to ask him to assign someone to watch my house. The budget’s already overtaxed and we’ve had to cut down on a lot of the downtown beats.”
I chewed on my lip, thinking. “What about the security system? Did they install it yet?”
“Yeah,” Jimbo said. “But it won’t tell us if somebody’s on the porch or in the yard. Good idea on the camera, O’Brien. I’ll get one set up tonight. Meanwhile, can you take a peek with your crystal ball? Is there anything you can tell us about this creep?”
Not looking forward to delving into the gutter, I sighed, leaned back in my chair, and picked up the teddy again. “Let me try a little psychometry first.”
Closing my eyes, I let my mind drift, let the sounds of quiet breathing from the others lift me up, spiral me out onto the astral. My abilities had grown, or perhaps using them so much simply gave me better control over them, but in either case, trance work had become easier over the months. Slipping into the etheric realm was as simple as stepping into the next room, unless I was tired or sick, or too worried.
As the astral winds buoyed my spirit farther away from the physical realm, I could sense the cord that kept me connected to my body. The others came into view, their energy shimmering around the table. Murray was frightened, her aura danced with sparkles of doubt and worry, throwing off her balance. Jimbo was fierce—a tiger pacing, wanting to protect his mate, but not knowing where the enemy was hiding.
And my sweet Joe was weary and in pain. He should sleep, I thought, but then the thought drifted past and I found myself moving beyond the immediate, following the signature of the lingerie, hunting the source from where it originated.
As I sought my quarry I found myself on a narrow, wooded path, wandering toward the core of a dark forest. The trees echoed with a quiet susurration as a light breeze tickled through their branches, but no breath of fresh air lingered in the wake. The breeze contained voices. Whispers from the past, whispers from the present, whispers of insults long-ago fired without care, of jeers and jabs and taunts from angry women and scornful men.
Wanting to run, to cover my ears, I stumbled as the voices became louder, the laughs more obnoxious. I turned, hoping to backtrack, but the path behind me was blocked with fallen trees. A deep bog appeared, stinking mud and quicksand. Frightened, I whirled to my left, thinking I heard a creature in the undergrowth, but there was nothing there save for a pair of red eyes.
Watching. Glowing. Burning. Desiring.
I tried to pull away, to run and hide, but the steady cacophony of taunts and insults confused me, throwing my sense of direction off. They weren’t aimed at me, however, but at someone else, and yet I felt them in my heart as if I were the target. I tried to ignore them, taunts of stupid and sinner and if you touch it one more time, I’ll cut it off, but they grew louder, beating a cadence that surrounded me. In the end—there was no place to hide. A whimper startled me, and with growing alarm I realized that it had emerged from my own throat. I dropped to my knees, hands over my ears.
And then, the branches of a huckleberry brush began to part, and I knew some horrendous creature waited on the other side. I scrambled back, but apparently the bog had expanded, because the next thing I knew, I was waist-deep in mud and slime, sinking. I grabbed at the nearest vines, trying to pull myself out, but then the ground shook and I let go, sinking. Chill liquid earth welcomed me, swallowing me down, dragging me under. I opened my mouth to scream and—
“Em! Em! Snap out of it!” An abrupt shake tore me from the scene and I found myself spiraling into my body, slamming with a force that sent me reeling backward in my chair. As I hit the kitchen floor, I blinked. Murray was kneeling over me, with Joe on the other side. Jimbo was crowding them.
“Huh? What happened?” I asked, trying to make sense of where I was.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Murray said. “You’ve been gone for over ten minutes.”
As they helped me to my feet, I stared at the red teddy, now sitting in the middle of the floor. The energy seemed familiar, I’d sensed it briefly once before, but couldn’t remember where. Whoever was doing this lived in his own little world. And I’d just been privy to some of the paths on which his spirit walked. I wasn’t anxious to make a return visit.
Nine
“SO, TELL US, what happened?” Mur said again, once I was sitting up with a cup of tea and another slice of pizza.
What indeed? I knew right away that I hadn’t been remote viewing—seeing through my mind’s eye into another actual physical place. Whoever I’d been spying on didn’t live in the middle of a forest next to a bog. No, in my gut, I knew that what I’d witnessed was a manifestation of the confusion within his mind. I tried to explain.
“Whoever it is, he’s hearing voices. Memories that keep repeating themselves over and over, rather than actual beings talking to him. It’s pretty apparent to me that—at least in his mind—his parents thought he was worthless. Ten to one he was the kid most picked on in high school. Or most ignored. I don’t think he’s had any luck with relationships and quite frankly, conjecturing on what I heard and felt, I’m betting that he’s a virgin. Or . . .” I didn’t want to explore the possibility I was thinking about, but Murray wanted to know my impressions and I didn’t want to hold anything back that might help, if even in a small way. “If he’s had sex, I doubt if it’s been consensual on his partner’s part.”
Joe sucked in a deep breath. “You mean he’s a predator?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I can’t say for sure, of course, but I sense a deep resentment for women, along with a deep desire to touch them. Put two and two together and the picture isn’t pretty.” I glanced at Murray. “Murray, there’s something else. I’ve sensed this energy before, one time. I can’t remember where, but it was last year. If I were you, I’d start checking the whereabouts of any Peeping Toms, rapists, flashers that you might have busted in the past year.”
She looked run ragged. “Jeez, that’s a tall order. I’ve arrested a handful of them in the past year and most are back on the streets. The majority were Peeping Toms or flashers. Gross, but for the most part not terribly dangerous.”
“I didn’t realize we had an epidemic of perverts in Chiqetaw,” I said, thinking about Randa and Kip. I wouldn’t be so cavalier about where they went from now on.
Murray shook her head. “You’d be surprised how many criminals live here, just like any other town, I guess. Chiqetaw isn’t immune.” She picked at a piece of pizza crust. “I don’t mind telling you that I’m scared. I’ll take all this crap into the station and file another report, but there’s not much anybody can do until the guy makes a mistake.”
A thought sprang to mind. “Mur, I asked you this a day or so ago, but what about that creep Rusty? Have you checked to make sure he really moved to Seattle?”
She frowned. Rusty had made her life a living hell for a while. I knew she didn’t like thinking about him, but for some reason, I couldn’t let it drop. There was something too nasty about the attacks . . . too personal. And Rusty had been underhanded and way too personal.
“I forgot to check, but I still think you’re on the wrong wavelength.”
“Just do it, would you?” I paused as a memory surfaced. Snapping my fingers, I said, “Remember when I warned you to watch out for him? That’s when I felt this energy. All of this stuff that’s been happening has the same feel that all the crap he pulled on you did, only worse.”
Jimbo had remained silent, but now he leaned forward and took her
hand in his. “She’s right. Call Tad now. He’d know for sure, wouldn’t he?”
Murray sighed and pulled out her phone. “I hate this.” She retreated into the pantry for privacy.
Jimbo looked at me. “If it’s Rusty, we’ll find him. I have friends who excel in convincing pervs like this to back off. And if they don’t back off . . . I have friends of a different nature.”
By now, I knew that Jimbo had a soft heart inside that gruff exterior. I also knew that he meant exactly what he said about his cohorts, and that he had no compunctions in putting a stop to the dregs who preyed on women and children. When he was fifteen, Jimbo had lost a little brother to a drifter who liked little boys, and he almost killed the man in the process of tracking him down.
I cleared my throat. “You might want to start with the cameras.”
He arched one eyebrow. “Stop your fussing. I’m not going out on a vigilante hunt until I know who I’m looking for. And yeah, I’ll start with the video feeds. If I have to wire the whole goddamned house, we’ll find out who’s doing this.”
“We’d better, or this is just going to get worse. The guy’s a psycho. I’d bet a year’s earnings on it.”
I pushed myself away from the table and foraged in the fridge until I found what I was looking for. Joe had made a blueberry crumble for dinner, but with my family leaving town so suddenly, it remained untouched. I popped it in the microwave to nuke it for a few moments.
Murray returned then, flipping her phone shut. “Rusty hasn’t been heard from in months. Tad says last he heard, he moved away to live with his brother in Seattle. That’s where his last paycheck was sent.”
“Seattle’s not that far away,” I said, wresting a half-gallon container of French vanilla ice cream out of the freezer. Joe removed the now-warm crumble from the microwave.
“Tad’s going to check it out, but I’m not holding my breath. What’s that?” She sniffed. “Yum. Blueberry. Smells good.”
“Joe made it, so you know it’s edible,” I said, going to the door to call the kids in. As Randa helped me serve dessert, Joe turned the conversation toward his photo shoot the next day. Murray hooted at him and Jimbo whistled. I had almost relaxed when both the phone and doorbell chimed. I grabbed the receiver and motioned for Kip to answer the door.