a Touch of Ice (8 page)

When she pulled in her driveway, I got out of the car, mumbled, “Shower,” and went upstairs to do exactly that. I stayed under the hot water until it ran cold, wrapped up in my fleece robe, and then padded downstairs to face the reality of verbally painting the images of Tony’s death for Violet.

She was curled into a corner of my sofa with a pot of herbal tea on the coffee table and an iPad on her lap, and was busy typing in a page of notes as I reached to pour myself a cup of tea. Something to hold on to as I talked.

Violet stopped typing, fingers poised over the keyboard. “Ready when you are.”

I settled into the opposite corner of the sofa and began to recount what I had seen, letting the words flow as I pulled the first picture into conscious awareness. “My mental slide show started with an image of Tony standing at his front door, welcoming Shaved Head and Pudgy Pick-lock. It didn’t seem like he knew them, but he was expecting them.”

Violet interrupted. “No Messy?”

I shook my head, setting the half-empty teacup on the table. “No, just Shaved Head and Pudgy. Tony wasn’t afraid. I’m still not getting clear facial features on these guys. Why would the universe give me these pictures, Violet, without enough evidence to do some real good?”

She ignored the question. Must have thought it rhetorical, but I was seriously hoping for an answer.

“Next,” I continued, “all three of them were sitting around drinking beer. It felt tense, and I had the impression they were asking Tony for something, still without malice, like a bunch of beer-drinking buddies having a boy’s night. There were several images that followed, showing an escalation of tension between the men. Tony kept shaking his head and the bad guys didn’t like it.”

I pulled my feet onto the sofa and circled my arms around my knees. Talk about fetal. I deliberately changed my body language, uncurled my legs and tucked them under me yoga style. My breathing slowed, evened out some. Better. “After that, the situation became physical. Shaved Head stood over Tony, his whole attitude filled with menace. Big hands. Hairy.”

A shudder rippled through my muscles. “Anyway, Shaved Head pinned Tony to the sofa—by his neck I think, because along with the picture I had a distinct feeling I couldn’t breathe.” Another involuntary shudder wracked my body, and my I gave some serious thought to spewing the tea churning in my belly.

“Spooky.” Violet tucked her hair behind her ear. “You don’t usually get sensations like that.”

It took me a minute to realize the “spooky” was in reference to me, not the crime scene. “No. Not like that. But this murder thing is…” Tears filled my eyes. Even my best friend thought I was spooky. I stiffened my resolve and focused my thoughts.

“I knew Shaved Head wasn’t going to actually kill him. Not then. It was more like a bad-guy persuasion tactic that served to distract Tony so Pudgy Pick-lock could drug him.”

“Huh?” She stared at me, eyes focused. “How do you know?”

“The next image. Pudgy put something in Tony’s beer. He drank it, of course, and he didn’t fight back, Violet. Tony wasn’t afraid. It was almost as though he thought they were playing with him, that they didn’t intend to harm him. I don’t understand, but it fits with what happened next.”

She leveled her gaze on me. “I know you’re having a hard time with this, and I’m sorry for it.”

“Thanks. That helps.” I pressed my fingers hard into my temples, trying to hold back the ache that had blossomed behind my eyes. “They sat down again, drank more beer, seemed to be coming to an agreement, working out details, maybe some sort of plan. And then Tony slipped to the floor.”

“Dead?”

“No. Not quite yet.”

Violet wagged her fingers at me to keep talking.

“In the next image Pudgy injected Tony, between his fingers, with who knows what. It’s so real I can almost taste the drug.”

“Take a break.” Violet collected our teacups and brought them to the kitchen along with the empty pot of tea. She came back with a glass of ice water, handed it to me. “Drink all of it. Your body needs to know you’re here, not back in Tony’s house.”

I gulped the whole glass in three swallows. It helped. “The injection. That’s what killed him. The needle was so fine I could barely make it out. Wonder if the medical examiner will spot the injection site?”

“You’re sure that’s what killed him?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. No doubt about that one.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“Shaved Head and Pudgy put on gloves and started searching Tony’s house. They were neat about it, very neat, even cleaned up the beer bottles, except Tony’s of course. I guess they didn’t find what they were looking for because in the next image they were angry with each other. That’s it. That’s all I saw.”

Violet sat down, tucked her hair behind her ear, and read over her notes while I rested, eyes open and focused on my favorite watercolor—an abstract of vibrant, happy primary colors. Anything to keep the images of Tony’s murder and talking walls at bay.

Her voice broke into my temporary escape. “That’s enough for tonight.”

I sat up, dragging my eyes from the painting. “What are we going to do with this information?”

“Don’t know yet.” She scrolled through her notes. “I need to think about it, and we both need to recuperate from the past few days. Get a clearer perspective.”

I thought back to Saturday morning when I met Mitch. Four days ago. My whole life had changed.

“Violet?”

“Humm?” She mumbled at me without taking her eyes off her notes.

“There’s one more thing.”

Her head came up, gaze riveted on me.

“I didn’t touch, um, anything but…” No. I couldn’t tell her about the wall and the emotions. She already thought I’d gone spooky oh her. “All those images came without me touching anything in the living room. It’s…strange, weird that the images just came to me.”

She shook her head, considering. “Not so strange. The room was full of vibes from the intensity of the interaction between Tony and his killers as well as the murder itself. Even my intuition was humming. Anyone’s would be, and you’re considerably more sensitive than most people.

She had a point and some of the tension eased from my muscles. But the weight of only telling her half the truth gnawed at me. I must have looked doubtful because she kept talking.

“Under the circumstances, I think it would have been unusual if you’d needed to physically touch something. It’s probably a good thing. There sure as hell wasn’t anything there I wanted to touch. Take some aspirin and get some sleep.”

It wasn’t likely a simple combo of aspirin and sleep would erase the creepies, but they would get rid of the headache.

Violet gathered her things and stood, her lithe frame uncoiling with an economy of movement.

“What if I made it all up?” I heard the doubt in my words, could feel my heart pick up speed and thud against my chest. Sentient walls. For sure I’d made it up. Imagined the whole murder scene. And all those damn emotions.

“That’s why I’m the PI. So we can check everything out and present it to Detective Stone in a way that’s organized and acceptable.”

I scrunched up my face, trying to find something organized and acceptable about this mess.

My confusion must have been readily apparent because Violet kept talking. “You’ve given me leads to follow. Before we act on this, we’ll have our ducks cued and prepared to quack at a moment’s notice. Think of what you’ve discovered tonight as a jumpstart to the investigation rather than the final word. We’re a team and no single person carries all the responsibility for the outcome.”

A team. I was part of a team. Oh, yeah, that worked. Except nobody else on the team was “spooky.”

“Okay. A team with obedient ducks. Got it. See you tomorrow.” I followed her downstairs, double-checked the locks on the door, and then headed for the bottle of aspirin that had been calling my name for the last few hours.

I chased the aspirin with two fingers of brandy.

And then I dumped the episode with the walls into the darkest hideie-hole in my brain and slammed the door. No. Time. For. Crazy. Not. Now.

Nine

I was humming. In the shower.

The Everly version of an anxiety attack maybe? My life had been turned upside-down and inside-out, no doubt about it. But humming? I pulled on clothes absent-mindedly, then checked the mirror for serious errors, like indecent exposure or static cling.

It scared the humming right out of me.

The woman looking back at me had on designer jeans, white tank with beading around the edge, and a jacket that nipped in at the waist. My gaze traveled down to the strappy high-heels I’d slipped on my feet. I admit to a sexy shoe weakness, but to have slipped into my favorite pair of designer sandals? Boy, was I in trouble.

Turning my back on the mirror, I faced the obvious. I planned to visit Mitch today. As I tangled it around in my mind, it began to make sense—our first date had been interrupted by “the call,” and apparently my subconscious femininity wanted to look spiffy.

I raided my jewelry box for a ring that had been my grandmother’s, a pink gold circlet of plumeria that always gave my confidence an extra boost. A touch of eye shadow, mascara, lip gloss, and a hint of blush—I stood back to examine the finished product. Passable. A little better than.

A quick cup of coffee later, I headed downstairs to check my schedule. Two regular clients, but they weren’t until this afternoon. I did a little dance over to the file cabinet, selected the files I’d need for the appointments, and danced back to my desk. Yep, that was me, dancing around my office. I absolutely, positively had to get this under control before I left for the hospital. Like that was gonna happen.

I slung my handbag over my shoulder, grin plastered on my face, and opened the front door.

There stood Shelly Summers.

Blue jeans, flannel shirt, boots, tears streaming down her cheeks, and solid brown hair. No hot pink streaks in sight.

So much for my plans to visit Mitch.

I lowered my shoulder, letting my handbag slide to the floor, and wrapped her in a fingertips-included hug. Images splashed across my mind of a speed-dating gig—only all of Shelly’s partners were women. Well, hell. She’d been dabbling with the lesbian idea.

“Oh, Everly…” Shelly grabbed me, clung, and dissolved into jagged sobs.

“We’ll figure it out, Shelly. Give me a minute to grab us some water.”

She curled up on the client chair, pushing herself deep into the cushions, pulled the lap blanket over her head, and snuggled in.

I set the water on the table next to her, and dragged my chair close enough to hold her hand. “Take as long as you need, Shelly. There’s no rush.” Lying. My newest perfected skill.

Her fingers tightened around my hand, and then she pulled away, tossed off the blanket, and reached for the water. “I-I don’t know w-where to s-start.”

“Anywhere is fine. We can work forward or backward, whatever is most comfortable for you.” I kicked off my strappy sandals with a silent sigh, and curled my legs under me. Approachable. Friendly. Shelly needed to feel safe and unthreatened if we were going to make any progress.

She dragged in a breath. “I guess it started with the collage you gave me as an assignment. Every picture, every single one that I ripped out of the magazines was a woman, or…women, depending. You know, sometimes there was more than one person in a picture.”

“Were you thinking about your comment about a potential lesbian relationship before you began the assignment?”

Shelly shook her head, the wild spikes limp without her trademark red streaks. “Nope. I had some wine, several glasses, before I started. My idea was to be a little drunk, so I couldn’t think about it ‘cause I would have picked pictures of cute guys if I had a choice.”

She paused. I filled the gap with silence and a deliberate swallow of water.

“After that, I panicked. I mean really panicked.” Shelly plucked a tissue from the box next to her chair and blew. “I finished the bottle of wine and passed out on the sofa. When I woke up I tried to call you, but there was no answer. I’d slept most of the afternoon away, and it was a Wednesday night. Not a typical date night like a Friday or Saturday, so I decided, now or never. I went to a gay bar, thought I’d see firsthand if anything clicked.”

“And did it?”

“Sort of. They were having an eight-minute dating session and had a couple open spaces, so I signed up. Thought it was, like, a sign or something, that I strolled into that particular bar, on that particular night.”

“How did it go? Meet anyone interesting?”

Silent tears ran down her cheeks. “Yeah. I h-had a date.”

I gave her a minute before I prodded. “And?”

“We, um, talked a lot about being gay, and I told her some of the stuff you said last Friday.” Long pause. “We held hands.”

“Was that comfortable for you? How did your body react? Your mind?”

Shelly uncurled from her fetal position and planted her heavy boots on the floor. “Alison. Her name is Alison, and her hand was kind of rough. Like a guy’s. It was good though, comfortable. She, um, wanted to hug me, like a real hug, not the kind you and I do.”

The only response I could possibly have to that announcement was silence.

“We did that for a while, the hug thing. But it got ruined when I had a panic attack, so we didn’t kiss, I mean there wasn’t any…sex. So I still don’t know for sure if I’m, you know, gay or not. Is it possible to not know, Everly? Can a person hide that so deeply they panic when it’s time to do it? Have sex, I mean.”

“I haven’t worked with many gay clients, so I can’t answer that. But I do think humans are capable of burying things they don’t want to face. And yes, fear can push those things so deeply the mind doesn’t acknowledge them.”

“Okay. I get that. What do I do now?”

I decided to use a one of my most dependable exercises to help Shelly solve her problem. “Write two letters to yourself. The first from the man you’ve been most attracted to, the second from Alison. The letters need to be written in their words, from their perspective. Let them tell you what you need to hear to feel safe in a relationship. The object of this is to help you understand your expectations. After you’ve finished writing, put the letters aside and bring them to our next appointment. They’ll help us figure out how your subconscious wisdom feels about your sexual orientation.”

She jumped up and paced for a few seconds. “Okay. After the picture assignment, I almost don’t want to try anything else, but—” she planted her fists on her hips and blew out a sigh— “I’ll try. What do you think about me seeing her again?”

“On that one, you need to follow your heart.”

I closed the door behind Shelly, flicking the sheers on my front window aside to watch her walk home. She lived just around the cul-de-sac from me and her townhouse was visible if I angled my head just right. It had been a problem at first, with Shelly running across the street to chat when she saw me in the driveway, but after a discussion about personal space and professionalism, she’d learned to schedule her appointments. Today was an exception.

A guard was posted outside Mitch’s room. He took in my appearance and grinned. Apparently, even Shelly hadn’t knocked the humming out of me. A shiver of excitement flashed under my skin. I’d see Mitch in seconds.

“I’ll need to check your handbag, miss.”

I opened my bag, handed it to him. “I didn’t know Mitch was dangerous.”

“No, ma’am. It’s the other way ‘round. I’m here to protect him. Why, it’s just this mornin’ they’re allowin’ visitors.” He handed my bag back. “Y’all have a nice visit now.”

I carefully peeked around the edge of the door. It would be tacky to catch Mitch with his backside in the breeze as is wont to happen with hospital attire. The sight of him sitting up caught my breath, and not in a good way. Mitch’s face was covered in scrapes and bruises. I quickly blinked away a sudden rush of tears.

Hazy sunlight highlighted the line of stitches running down his left cheek, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses rested on his battered nose—which was buried in the morning newspaper. His gaze flicked to me and held, then he slowly lowered the paper. A momentary grin brought out the dimple in his right cheek, but was quickly replaced by a grimace. “Everly? El?”

“May I come in?” I quickly scanned the room. Jayne was nowhere to be seen.

“Yeah. Sure. Which do you prefer, Everly or El?” he asked, folding the paper and putting it aside.

“Both are fine. My parents called me Everly, but in high school, El was easier. Not so unusual. I like the specs.”

He reached up, slid them down his nose. “Sexy, right?”

“Very.”

I eased into the chair next to his bed. Started to reach for his hand, stopped halfway.
Privacy, El. He deserves some privacy.
“I’ve been worried. How much do you remember about the abduction?”

His face went blank. Damn. Not what I meant to say.

I tried a smile. “Curiosity. It seems to go crazy whenever I’m around you. Things just come out, and…let me start over. Hi, Mitch. How are you feeling this morning?”

He relaxed into the fluffy stack of pillows. “Some bumps, bruises, and a headache. I’m good to go as soon as the doc signs me out. ”

He raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at me. “Jayne said you’ve been wandering around my house.”

I wanted to deny it.

“Umm, yes. Apparently she knew you’d hired Violet to investigate Tony’s death, and piggy-backed on it when you went missing.” My nerves were quivering and I couldn’t sit still. What if he hated that I’d been in his house. Without his express invitation? I stood, paced to the door and back.

“I’m okay with it. You can sit, relax.”

I sat and the words spilled out. “Do you remember what happened? Why did Shaved Head and Pudgy Pick-Lock abduct you? Why were they after you? Where did they take you? And most important, what the heck were you thinking to be hanging out on the deck with bad guys after you?”

Mitch froze. Stared at me. “What? How?” His lips barely moved.

My mind raced back through the questions that had tumbled out. Questions I hadn’t paid any attention to. That surprise session with Shelly must have killed my brain. Damn. Guilt weighed heavy in my chest. I’d followed my fingers where I had no business going, into a place I should never have known about, even if I did have the best of intentions.

He stiffened, picked up the phone, started to dial. “How did you know…?”

“I—”

“Give me Adam Stone.” Mitch’s voice held a wary edge that skittered along my nerves.

I didn’t plan it. Just reached over and unplugged the phone.

“I can explain, really.” I went back to pacing.

There must have been a convincing plea in my tone because he set the phone down without trying to plug it in. “Is this about the psychic thing you have going on?”

“Um, sort of. Yeah, it is.” Not exactly, but who was I to quibble over details? “I have a…quirk. I was born with it, and it’s a part of me, not good or bad.” I stopped, dragging in a breath.

Mitch stared at me, blinked, and then exploded. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The monitor attached to Mitch let out an insistent beep. I glanced at the door, prepared to make a run for it if the entire hospital staff stormed into his room with a crash cart.

I hurried to explain—anything to calm him down and stop the beeping. “When I touch things, I see images. Images of people, of things that have happened or are going to happen, it depends on the situation. It’s why I don’t touch things. With my fingers. Most of the time.” I held my hands out to him, palms up.

The beeping stopped. He slammed his glasses back on his nose, looked me up and down, then stared at my hands, all the usual warmth absent from his luscious brown eyes. I curled my fingers into light fists.

This wasn’t going well. If the red creeping up his neck was any indication, there was going to be more beeping.

I tried again.

“Just calm down and I’ll tell you everything that happened after we arrived at your house on Sunday morning.” My words were crisp and professional. Good to know I can pull it together when my life is in danger. And there was no doubt Mitch looked like he wanted to murder me. At least the red staining his face had faded to a dull pink.

I settled into the chair, clasped my hands to keep them out of trouble, and explained every detail of my part in our unauthorized excursion. I skipped over the illegal visit Violet and I made to Tony’s house, and hoped Mitch didn’t notice the gaps.

By the end of my narration, he’d bent his knees and pushed his body tight against the back of the bed, his hands braced on the mattress. “Are you trying to tell me you touched the railing on my deck and saw that bald bastard beating the crap out of me?”

“Well, yes.”

He leaned forward, pointed a finger at me. “That’s not how psychics typically work. I hung out with them for months, and no one ever mentioned a thing about touching things. Can you give me a reason, any logical reason why I shouldn’t call Adam Stone and have you arrested?”

I bristled, my spine ramrod straight. “No. Apparently the truth doesn’t work for you. And the thing is, I’m not psychic. Just different.”