Afterthoughts (14 page)

Junna’s heart was pounding in her
throat.

“
Junna, you have something
to tell me,” his icy voice whispered over her shoulder. “Junna, you
have been a very bad … bad … girl.”

She felt the ice from his voice trail
up and down her spine as she tried to swallow her thumping heart,
but was unable. She felt his hand touch her neck and felt the cold
steel of a handgun on her throat. “Pull over, little Junna. Be a
good girl and pull over quietly.”

She pulled the car to the side of the
road and realized she was on a country road where no one would find
her if he left her there. Panic took over so that she could barely
move a muscle.

“
Now, slowly get out of
the car,” he whispered sweetly in her ear.

His voice was calm and slow which only
heightened the fear in Junna.

She opened her door as he opened his
behind her and slowly got out.

He pushed her face first
against the car. “Put your hands behind your back …
Now
!” he screamed when
she didn’t respond immediately.

Shaking badly, Junna did what she was
told. She felt him tie her hands together and could taste the tears
as they fell across her lips but she didn’t make a sound. She only
felt and tasted and listened to his voice. “How did you learn to
block a reader, dear Junna? For that matter, how long have you
known you were one?” He traced the barrel along her cheek bone.
“Speak to me or I’ll pull this trigger and leave your pretty little
brain all over this pretty little car!”

“
Since I was very young.
Like you,” she whispered breathlessly through the tears that now
drenched her mouth. She tried to look around to see if maybe, just
maybe, someone was near. There was not a house in sight and no
traffic on the road. Her plan had failed. She had given him the
perfect place to take care of her. He could leave her here and no
one would ever be able to find her.

“
Why didn’t you say
anything?” He continued to trace the gun along her face and pushed
her harder against the car. She could feel him tighten the rope
around her hands.

“
I wasn’t sure. Not for
quite a while.” As soon as Junna tried to turn and look at him, he
slammed her head into the car. “What are you going to do to me?”
she managed to mutter after the stars cleared from her
sight.

“
I’ll ask the questions,”
he pulled her away from the car and pushed her into the back
seat.

As he started to drive away he asked,
“How many people have you read?”

“
Not, not a lot. It didn’t
feel right to me, nosing into other people’s personal thoughts,”
she sniffed.

“
That’s just it. They are
not personal. Not if you know where to look. Nothing is personal.
Nothing is sacred anymore,” his voice hissed through the
car.

“
What are you going to
do?” she begged.

He snapped. “I told you! I’ll ask the
questions!” Junna’s heart leaped back into her throat. “How much do
you know?”

“
A … about
what?”

“
Don’t be coy with me! I
know you’ve told Paige about me,” his voice becoming more
agitated.

“
You seem to know
everything. Why should I have to tell you?”

“
You’re right. And there’s
not a damn thing you can do about anything now, is there?” Junna
felt helpless. She had hurt Paige more than she helped.

Chapter 24

Paige broke her promise. She didn’t
tell Jay about everything. She left out all of the details about
Junna. She wasn’t ready for that yet. They had dinner last night
talking about baseball and the upcoming World Series. They avoided
all of the awkward glances they were casting each other. Jay
finally suggested they go shopping. Paige agreed. That would be the
perfect way to have fun and keep her mind off of things.

When they pulled up to the mall, Jay
made her wait in the car for a moment while he ran around to open
her door. This made Paige smile.

No one had done that for her in quite
a while. Even David with all of his manners never opened the car
door for her when she got out of the car, only to let her
in.

“
My lady,” Jay smiled
sweetly and held out his arm for Paige to take as she stepped out
of the car.

“
Why, thank you ever so
much!” Paige added a heavy southern drawl and sweetly placed her
arm through his.

“
It’s really getting
chilly,” he added as he pulled her closer to him to block the brisk
breeze that was blowing across the parking lot. “It will be snowing
soon!”

“
Don’t remind me. I hate
snow!” The thought sent chills down her spine.

They hurried on into the mall and
started browsing from store to store. They looked at printed
t-shirts and made fun of all the quotes and pictures on
them.

“
I think I’ll get this one
for my mother!” Jay exclaimed as he held up a shirt that had a
picture of a lady in a bikini and read
I’m
one Sexy Momma
.

“
I’m sure she would
appreciate it.” Paige laughed. “How is she anyway?”

“
She’s doing very well.
She’s back to pestering me about getting married. She says she’s
getting too old to become a grandmother; like anyone is too old to
be a grandmother!” Jay shuffled his feet on the floor.

“
Maybe someday all of
those kids you’ve fathered through the years will crawl out of the
woodwork and hunt you down. You could really surprise her!” Paige
chuckled and punched him on the arm.

“
They’d have to catch me
first,” he cast a handsome smile her way.

As Paige took a step back, she bumped
into someone. As she turned to apologize, she realized it was
Ian.

“
Ian,” she said
curtly.

“
Ms. Aldridge,” he
replied, nodded and continued with his shopping.

Paige looked at Jay and shrugged her
shoulders.

Paige and Jay shopped around for a
while as she kept an eye on Ian.

He shuffled around the racks, picking
out something occasionally just to put it right back on the rack
again.

She picked up a couple of things as a
head start on Christmas gifts before deciding to go home to get
some rest.

Paige didn’t sleep at all well. She
considered everything Junna had said to her. Trying not to think
about it was impossible. She tried to only say things out loud like
Junna had suggested but she was afraid Jay would overhear her and
think she had fallen off her rocker. Harry lay on the foot of the
bed, watching her toss and turn. He let out a groan of
disapproval.

Paige laughed at him and patted his
head. “Okay, I’ll think about something else then,” she shut her
eyes and tried to concentrate on the dream she had about the
waterfall and soon fell asleep.

When Paige and Jay went in to work the
next morning, Hannah met them at the door. “I’m glad you two are
finally here. There’s been a break in at the Steckler’s estate.
You’d better get over there now. The chief didn’t want me to radio
you but I thought you would want to know,” Hannah ran out of breath
from talking so fast.

“
We’d better go!” Jay said
as he took Paige’s arm and headed for the car.

“
What was that all about?”
Paige asked as she buckled her seatbelt.

“
I don’t know. That was
kind of strange. Why wouldn’t the chief want us to know? And why
would Hannah tell us anyway?” Puzzled, Jay drove on toward the
estate. Paige tried not to think of what it could be now. So much
had happened in the last few weeks.

“
Maybe this is the break
we’ve been looking for? You know? A return to the scene of the
crime type of thing?” Paige declared.

“
I hope so,” Jay said
optimistically.

When they arrived, police cars were
still in the driveway. The house had been empty since the auction.
Even though it now belonged to Paige, she hadn’t been in it since.
The memories were too hard to face and the house still felt like
death to her. She had thought about selling the house but realized
that it would not sell until some of the press had died
down.

The glass in the front
door was broken where someone had obviously forced their way in
leaving a trail of broken glass through the entranceway. As Paige
made her way across the glass into the parlor, she saw it. Spray
painted in red across the wall was the phrase
“Death to you all
”.

“
Oh my God,” Paige
whispered as she placed her hand over her mouth. As she sank down
onto the floor, Jay stopped in his tracks behind her.

He knelt beside her and took her hand.
“You okay?” he asked.

She could only shake her head. “Oh my
God,” she said again.

Jay looked back up at the letters.
“Are there any witnesses?” he asked Tom, one of the other
detectives, who was standing over them.

“
Yes, Jay, you had better
come with me. Adam, stay with Paige,” he patted the other officer
on the shoulder.

Reluctantly, Jay stood up and walked
outside with Tom. Paige, still sitting in the middle of the broken
glass, began to rock back and forth, tears welling in her
eyes.

Tom whispered to Jay, “One of the
neighbors saw a woman dressed in black running from the estate just
after midnight. They didn’t get a good enough look to be able to
tell more than that. She ran two houses down, that way,” he pointed
down the street, “hopped onto a motorcycle and
disappeared.”

Jay rubbed his chin. “What is going on
around here?”

“
That’s a very good
question. I didn’t want Paige to come over here and see this. I’m
afraid for her, Jay,” Tom looked very concerned. What if she’s
next?”

“
I’ll stay with her …
night and day if I have to,” Jay whispered, looking back in at
Paige. He was determined to protect her. He fought the urge to run
in, hold her in his arms and take her away from all of
this.

“
That’s what I was going
to suggest,” Tom sighed nervously, rubbing his hands together. He
had no idea that Jay was already with Paige day and
night.

Jay turned and walked back to Paige,
who had stood up and was touching the spray paint. Her eyes were
closed as she was concentrating on the writing. She rubbed her hand
across the wall as if feeling the letters would help her understand
what happened.

“
What is it, Paige?” Jay
asked quietly as he walked up behind her.

“
You wouldn’t believe me
if I told you,” she continued sweeping her hands across the
letters.

“
Try me.” He walked closer
to her so she could whisper.

“
Just give me a few
minutes. I’m trying to read who did this. I’m trying to listen to
them,” she opened her eyes and turned toward him, her eyes pleading
for understanding. Confused, Jay nodded and stepped back away from
her.

Paige continued with her
ritualistic behavior. She whispered to herself, “Where are you? Who
are you? Why are you doing this?” She kept repeating this over and
over. She visualized the can of red spray paint in her hand and
hearing the words,
“Yes, that’s it. Yes,
that’s it,”
in her head. “The paint was in
my hands,” she barely whispered. Suddenly, she felt ill and swayed
against the wall.

Jay ran to her and put his arm around
her shoulders. “Okay. Now are you ready to talk?”

Paige shifted her
concentration to Jay. She looked at him and could hear him plead
with her,
“Please talk to me,
Paige!”
His mouth hadn’t moved. Looking
back at the wall she concentrated more and could hear him
say
, “God Paige, I love you. Please talk
to me!”

She turned back to him. “The only way
I can make you believe this is to say one thing,” she took a deep
breath and said, “I just heard you say you love me.” She closed her
eyes drew in another deep breath.

What if she only heard what she wanted
to hear and not what he thought? He would think she was crazy. When
she opened her eyes again and faced him, he had the look of total
astonishment. So much so, that his mouth was wide open. Paige knew
it was true. She had read him.

Chapter 25

After answering questions about who
her enemies might be, telling the officers that she could not
remember her kidnapper, and she knew of no other enemies, Paige led
Jay to the car. He looked as disheveled as she felt. She still had
told no one about Junna or about seeing the can of spray paint in
her hand. “That will come, if he will listen,” she whispered just
out of Jay’s earshot.

“
I’ll explain when we get
home,” she said as she pat his hand.

Jay tried to understand,
although he desperately wanted to know what had just
happened.
“Had he said it out loud? He was
sure he hadn’t. What was Paige doing while looking at the spray
painted words? Why was she behaving so strangely? Why did she seem
to have more composure than he did right now? What the hell is
going on here?”
The questions kept
circling in his mind, over and over again. Every time, sounding
like new questions.