Shattered: A Psychic Visions Novel (27 page)

She ignored it and moved to the others. There was a request from her financial advisor to confirm the request for information that Trevor had submitted and a confirmation on Monday’s meeting as well. That was a given.

By the time she’d made it to the bottom of the heap, she was done mentally too. There was nothing in there about her business. The lack of her business. Nothing. So what happened to it now?

And yet…she could barely remember it.

And she should.

She glanced over at Trevor who had been on and off the phone since she’d arrived.

She checked out her social media sites unsurprised to see there was nothing going on in her world – it was after all infinitely small. She groaned and went to Tasha’s page only to find there wasn’t one. She frowned. Hadn’t it ever existed? Her world was a mess of assumptions but lacking in facts.

She couldn’t even trust her memories.

Although there was more there now than before. It wasn’t the time or place to work on the remaining blocks, but she had to wonder at what information could be so important as to place blocks in a child’s mind to begin with. Sure, trauma was one thing, but that block should have disappeared or been removed over time. Time was a warm cozy blanket that eased the load for many things. But maybe not a personal loss like that. If she thought about it, losing her mother still felt like it had happened only yesterday. And she could only imagine if she’d lost a child or a husband and not a mother.

The losses would be so personal.

And devastating. Her mother had lost her sister and the children. But her grandparents. They’d lost two daughters and two grandchildren. She was the only one left. That had to have been terrible for them.

She also had no idea how much contact she’d had with them after her mother’s passing. Had she had any? Or had she been sequestered away and they’d essentially lost her too?

All painful questions.

And she needed answers.

“Okay, I think I can leave.” Trevor said in a distracted voice. “I’m going to bring work home with me…”

She stood up. “Can I use this laptop?”

“You can. Or we can go and buy you one on the way home.”

“I’m not up for that.”

“Good. Neither am I.” He smiled at her. “We might need to do more shopping on the way home too if your appetite doesn’t ease back.”

“It’s not bad right now. But I think the energy work boosted it.”

“It does do that. In your case we have a lot more to do.”

“So we are stopping on the way home,” she said with spirit. Then she paused. “Could we drive past my store too please?”

“We can do that.”

She sensed the intensity of his gaze as she walked out of the room but knew the other employees had been studying her furtively as well. Hell, by the time they walked out she knew they’d be discussing her and the new situation. Couldn’t really blame them. Their boss got married unexpectedly to someone they didn’t know and of course they were going to talk.

Everyone talked. All the time.

*

He parked outside
the Chinese food restaurant beside the burned out shell of her store and motioned toward it. “Shall we do take out?”

“Yes, please.” But her voice was faint. Sad. She stared at the remains of her business and looked about to cry. He hated to cause her more pain, but she was disassociated from so much it made him realize he was even doubting that she’d cared about the business in the first place. The whole rich kid syndrome. But she did.

“I want to get out.”

But she sat immobile.

“Then let’s go.” He turned off the engine and hopped out, coming around to her side to open the passenger door. She stared at him. Then took a deep breath and accepted his help to get out.

“It’s like a grave,” she admitted. “It’s so shocking to see it like this.”

“How was business?” he asked curiously.

“Not great. But I loved being here. It wasn’t making a profit but it could have with time.”

Only she was speaking as if from memory. Trevor glanced around the neighborhood, run down and tired looking. He could imagine the store being in the same condition.

Immediately her hand went to her forehead. As if in pain. He’d noticed it a couple of times before but hadn’t understood. Now he wondered if the questions didn’t have as much to do with areas that had been blocked or maybe the areas where she’d blacked out. “Do you remember the last time you were here?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t. That’s part of the problem. I can’t remember anything.”

“Do you have the company books anywhere?”

She motioned to the store. “In there. On the laptop that had been in there as well.”

“What about cloud storage?”

She frowned. Then her gaze cleared. “Yes, we used an online storage system to keep the information for income taxes.”

“Good. We’ll take a look at that when we get home.” He studied the building remains. “What made you buy it?”

“I was looking for something…”

“Was it a good price?”

“It was cheap,” she admitted. “It’s the only reason I could buy it in the first place.”

“Right.” And probably a complete and total rip off in the first place. But he stayed quiet.

“Did you have fun?”

Her face lit up. “I did. It’s the first time I had anything of my own that my father didn’t have his fingers in. I loved being around the flowers.”

That made the most sense of all. “Did someone help you with the transition?”

“The old owners. This would make them cry now,” she said, motioning to the shell in front of her. “They’d wanted out for a long time. They were tired and getting older, they needed to close it down but had lots of loyal customers they didn’t want to disappoint.”

“So you bought it. Did you buy it so they could have that extra boost for their retirement then give them the job of training you so they had some purpose in their life?” he asked, intuitively knowing she hadn’t been rooked as much as she’d deliberately helped them out.

The sideways glance in his direction confirmed his suspicions. “You are really a sweetheart, aren’t you?”

“You mean bad business person?”

He grinned and tucked her fingers into his arm. “Let’s order a bunch of Chinese and while we wait, we’ll walk around to the alley so you can see all the damage.”

And that’s what they did.

As they stood in the back and stared at what remained she shook her head. “I wasn’t here so my car was torched.”

“That’s the part I don’t get. If you weren’t here – where were you? And if you weren’t in your car, which as it’s parked here I assume you weren’t – what car were you in that took you to Stefan’s house?”

“I have no idea,” she whispered, staring at the remains of her vehicle. “Any chance I own two cars?”

“I’ll check the DMV.”

“Good, at least you know where to look. I haven’t a clue.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Do you need to see anything more?”

“No,” she said in a soft voice. “I don’t. It would be nice to see Tasha again though.”

“Sorry, Hannah. Remember, we still haven’t confirmed that’s who was found here.” With his arm around her shoulders they walked back to the Chinese restaurant. He went inside to pick up the order while she waited outside.

The owner said, “Order ready.”

“Good, Thank You.” He took out his credit card to pay. Then added, “I brought Hannah over to look at what’s left of the flower shop.” He nodded outside to where Hannah stood looking over the blocks around them. He figured she’d want nothing to do it the place again.

“Hannah?”

The owners’ faces scrunched up. “Who is Hannah?”

Trevor, his spidey sense tingling said, “She was the young owner of the store next door – wasn’t she?”

The little Asian woman stood at his side, and she burst into a spate of Mandarin. Then she stopped and they both turned to look at Hannah then back at Trevor.

As if synced together, they both shook their heads and said, “No. Miasha owner.” They pointed to Hannah outside and said, “Her Miasha.”

And his stomach heaved.

It took him a long moment to regain control, but when he could he nodded, paid for the food and left.

He glanced at Hannah as she stood pensively leaning against the car.

What was the chance her blackouts were at the core to this? Still his training brought up many other possibilities. The institutions were filled with examples. He just never thought to be married to one. And not for the first time he had to wonder what the hell he’d done getting involved in this mess.

Stefan? Got a moment?

He heard a faint response.
Sure,
Stefan said.
Don’t mind me. I’m just here working with Anita.

Any change,
Trevor asked hoping for good news. The little girl was such a sweetheart.
Did Dr. Maddy get a chance to stop by?

She has, but not long enough to learn anything new. Although she did mention there was some foreign energy there as well. Female and older. Then we already knew the older part. We’re looking into her family history at the moment.
His voice faded slightly.

The fatigue hitting him. Trevor didn’t know how Stefan could keep helping so many people. Then he was in the same boat himself.

What did you call about?

Trevor filled him in. Before he was done, Stefan was there barking questions.

She could be just using a pseudonym to hide from her father,
Trevor said.

Anything is possible. Particularly if her father was controlling, overbearing.
But Stefan’s voice was doubtful.
It will eventually make sense, but we need more pieces of information first.

I’ll go and lock down a few more bits of paperwork and see if there has been an ID on the body.

Good.
Stefan paused.
How is she?

Better. She’s learning more. Coping better.
He explained about the attack over lunch.

She keeps her energy in to avoid detection. So her mother must have thought the enemy was an aura reader. Or someone who could track by signature.

Essentially she’s been in hiding all her life,
Stefan said.
That’s so sad yet proves the strength and ability of the human spirit to survive.

T
revor made it
to the car and placed the two bags of Chinese food in the back seat then walked around and unlocked the passenger side for her. She was looking at the flower shop with a sadness on her face that if nothing else, made him feel better for seeing the grief. Whatever the hell was going on, he had to trust she’d been doing this for a damn good reason.

Considering her father’s domineering presence and that someone was hunting her…survival was the best reason of all. Even if only to do something on her own for once.

Back at the house, they ate quickly and moved to the living room. There she went into her business records to see what she had to do for income tax and to shut down the business due to fire.

Trevor kept his face down as he looked for the information he needed. An email from Drew came in. No positive ID on the victim in the fire yet. Except there was one major point. The victim had been male.

The business was registered to Hannah M. Goodman. It was seeing the M that made him realize he likely had the clue he needed and that was huge to unravel this. Seeing she was buried in the town research, he asked in a calm casual way, “What’s your middle name, Hannah?”

“Miasha,” she said distractedly.

Bingo.

He settled back and studied her. She was lively as she did her research. She had her fingers on the screen and her face twisted and fell as she looked for and found the information. “This is so confusing. I have to contact someone to make the last business day the day of the fire.” She groaned and settled back on the couch. She turned to look at him, a frown on her face. “You know how frustrating this is?”

“It’s going to get even more frustrating,” he said and turned to look at her directly. “The owners of the Chinese food restaurant didn’t know you by the name Hannah.”

She scrunched up her face. “They didn’t?”