CHAPTER 13
Laura’s stomach began to growl.
After what seemed an eternity, their
plates of huevos rancheros were delivered with an apology. “Mix-up
in the kitchen. Sorry,” the barkeep said, as they’d ordered over
half an hour earlier. Laura cautiously tried the food. Harrison’s
gaze was on her, and she admitted with surprise after the first
bite, “It is really good.”
“Told ya,” he said with satisfaction.
“Worth the wait.”
“I don’t know about that.”
They tucked into their food for a few
moments, and then Laura ventured cautiously, “You’re a little too
easy to talk to.”
“I get it, you don’t trust
me.”
“Should I?”
He laughed. “You tell me.”
“Not an answer, Frost.” She jabbed a
fork in his direction. “I’m guessing this—the meal, the laid-back
attitude, the easygoing smile—is all part of your own interviewing
technique.”
“If it’s working, call it what you
will.” The corners of his eyes crinkled.
“I know. You’re not into
semantics.”
He found a bottle of hot sauce and
sprinkled some over the remainder of his meal. “Tell me,” he
wondered aloud, “why would the police think you’re a psycho if you
told them you knew about Justice’s game plan?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe.” He took a bite and washed it
down with coffee. “By the way, what is it?”
“His game plan?” Laura gazed into his
hazel eyes, found herself slightly mesmerized. Scary. “I guess only
he could really answer that.” Harrison poured them each more coffee
from the pot, and she added a little more cream, watching the
clouds come to the surface of her mug. “Do you believe in psychic
phenomena?” she asked cautiously as she stirred and the cream
dissipated. She knew she was treading on dangerous water here. He
was a journalist, into the facts, things he could touch, taste,
hear, and smell. He wouldn’t be into “feelings” or
“sensations.”
“Not really.”
“Didn’t think so.”
He scooped a forkful of beans,
tortilla, and ranchero sauce into his mouth. “Why?” he asked after
he’d swallowed.
“The police don’t either.”
“You’re saying you’re a
psychic?”
“Not really,” she said, purposely
echoing his words. “But my family has experienced . .
.”
“Experienced?” he repeated when she
faded out.
“We have . . . we all have . .
.”
“Yeah?”
She wondered, really wondered, if she
was really going to admit this. Her heart started pounding
hard.
“Something woo-woo?” he
suggested.
“I knew you’d make fun.”
“I’m not making fun,” he said so
sincerely and she almost believed him. Almost. “I’m just trying to
see where you’re going.” When she remained silent, he suggested,
“Are you saying you have some kind of ESP, or
something?”
“Wow, I’m sorry I started this,” she
said, meaning it. “I knew I would be.”
“Look, I might have trouble swallowing
all the psychic stuff, but I’m not completely
closed-minded.”
“Aren’t you?” she
challenged.
He smiled, offering up that sexy grin
she found ridiculously fascinating. She looked down at her plate,
resisting his charm, his winning ways. “I’ll prove it. Why don’t
you give me an example of what you’re talking about?”
She said, “I’m a nurse. I’m a good
nurse, and I believe in science and healing through medicine. If
you repeat what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it. I’ll flat out
lie, because I’m good at my job and I don’t want my patients
thinking I’m a nutcase.”
“Fair enough.”
She smiled back at him,
disbelieving.
“Look, making judgment calls isn’t
conducive to interviewing people,” Harrison pointed out. “I gotta
say, you’ve got me on the edge of my seat.”
“I have a sister who is precognitive,”
Laura stated. “She sees things in the future.”
“Such as?”
“She knew Justice had escaped before I
told her.”
“Well, it was on the news. . .
.”
“Uh-uh.” Laura shook her head. “No
television. No outside information. They didn’t know anything but
what Cassandra had told them.”
“Cassandra?”
“Don’t write that down!” she stated
quickly as Harrison reached for his small tablet as the door to the
restaurant opened and a group of three men entered to take a seat
at a nearby table. She lowered her voice. “I’m
serious.”
He lifted his hands. “I know. I get it.
I was just going to ask you what all their names were. From the
sound of it, there are enough of you that I’ll need to write them
down.”
“I’m not giving you their names. Don’t
make me sorry I told you about Cassandra.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay.” She was firm.
“What about you, then? What’s your
special ability?”
She glanced at her half-eaten food and
gently pushed her plate aside. She’d never told anyone. Had known
not to.
You need the truth
seeker.
“Ms. Adderley?”
“It’s Laura . . . Lorelei,
actually.”
“Lorelei. Like in the
myth?”
She stared at him, surprised. So few
knew. Fewer still made any connection.
“I majored in journalism with an
English minor,” he explained.
She didn’t know what to say. He kept
surprising her, which made her question whether she was the one who
had the prejudices. No, no. She wasn’t going to second-guess
herself. If she’d learned anything from her marriage to the God of
all know-it-alls, Byron Adderley, it was that she did know her own
mind. She took in a calming breath, then said, “Okay, here it is. I
sometimes know what’s wrong with a patient, physically. I can guess
the diagnosis.”
“Is that so weird . . . for someone in
the medical field?”
“Maybe not.” She pressed her lips
together. She knew her ability was something special, but if he
wasn’t interested in believing, she wasn’t about to push the issue.
But she also wanted help in finding Justice, and so far, he was her
best candidate. “But the thing is . . . the real psychic ability
that I guess I want you to know . . . is . . .”
“Is?” he prodded.
She almost laughed. What good was this
admission going to do for her? “Okay, it’s that I can hear
Justice.”
“Hear him? How do you
mean?”
Oh, God, here goes
nothing. If anything would convince Frost that she was off
her nut, this would. “What I mean is that I can hear his voice
scraping at my brain. He talks to me.”
Harrison Frost was trying really,
really hard to keep his face from giving him away. Laura could
sense the effort he was putting into his act of believing her.
“Well, then, what does he say?” he asked carefully.
“I knew it. You’re humoring
me.”
“What does he say?” he
repeated.
“He says, ‘Sssisssterrr,’ ” she rasped. “He says it with a menace
so strong, it actually scratches across my brain and I know he’s
coming for me.” Harrison was staring at her intently, but there
wasn’t disbelief in his expression. “I’ve sensed him all my life.
He’s sent messages off and on for years, although I didn’t really
get what they were about until I was older. I only really fully
understood the last when he was on his mission.”
Harrison’s face was sober now, his eyes
darkening gravely, his jaw rock hard, not a hint of a smile on his
lips. “His mission of killing people? A few years back? That’s what
you’re talking about?”
She nodded. “Justice is after my
family. I don’t know why exactly. He wants to kill us
all.”
“And he’s sending you messages to that
effect?”
“Yes.” Then, “I know what it sounds
like.” She rubbed her face hard, wishing she hadn’t started this,
knowing there was no backing out now. Besides, she needed someone
to know that she had contact with Justice, though she supposed
trusting a reporter like Harrison Frost wasn’t the best idea. “His
voice is really strong right now. He knows where I am. I’m on his
radar.”
“You think he wants to kill
you.”
And my baby.
“Oh, yeah.” Of this she was certain.
“What’s he got against all of
you?”
“Good question. Catherine says Mary was
cruel to him when he was young. What that means, I don’t really
know. People can be unkind, even brutal, or cruelty can be
imagined. Even so, to the victim, it’s real.”
He clicked his pen as he frowned
thoughtfully. “What about Justice’s own mother?”
“Madeline,” she said, remembering. “I—I
don’t know. He tried to kill her before, though. He’s never sent me
any kind of message about that, and when . . . when he reaches
toward me, I block him out.”
“You mean mentally?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“So, he’s got this ability,
too.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I guess
so.”
Harrison’s gaze narrowed. “So, how does
it work, exactly?”
“I raise up a wall inside my mind, and
he’s blocked out. I mentally visualize the wall, build it strong
and tall, and it cuts him off.”
“But didn’t you say his voice is
stronger now?”
“Since he escaped. Yes.” She nodded,
felt the hair on her nape rise when she thought of Justice’s
hideous sibilant messages. “Oh, God, this is
horrible.”
Harrison stared at her a moment, then
said softly, “I think I’ve got enough. No more questions for
now.”
“Good.” The truth was, she was drained;
dredging up all the old memories and concentrating on Justice’s
malevolence was exhausting.
Harrison leaned back, caught the
bartender’s attention, and signaled for the check. Within seconds,
the bartender brought over the tab. Harrison left several bills on
the table as she shrugged into her jacket. Together they wended
their way through tables and past the bar, where, despite the early
hour, the barkeep was drawing beers and making Bloody
Marys.
Laura felt Harrison’s hand in the small
of her back once, guiding her around two newcomers who were talking
and taking up more than their share of personal space in the
aisle.
At the door, Harrison leaned closer and
said, “I want to get this guy. I mean I really want to get him.”
“Me, too,” Laura responded with
feeling. She wouldn’t rest easy until he was behind bars. Or
dead.
“If you can help me, I’m all for that,
no matter how you do it,” he said, shouldering open the door to the
gray day beyond. “If he calls to you, let me know.”
“I will.” And she would, though what
good it would do, she didn’t know. Standing on the front steps and
looking toward the ocean, she noticed a fog bank crawling closer to
the shore. Eventually, it would obscure the beach completely,
making it difficult for the beach cleaners, volunteers who had come
to the coast, to pick up the garbage, to do their job.
He thought for a moment as they started
down the wide stairs, disturbing a seagull that was scavenging near
the walkway. “Wait a minute. Does it work both ways? Can you call
to him?”
Laura had never tried. Didn’t want to.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Anything was possible.
“Maybe the question should be, would
you consider calling to him? You know, to draw him
out?”
She paused on the bottom step and
glared at him. “Let me get this straight. You want me to place
myself in danger. He’s a psychopath, you know. If . . . if I let
him in, he’ll know where I am.”
Harrison frowned, squinting against the
fractured sunlight slipping through the thickening fog. “And he’ll
come for you. That’s what you think?”
“Yes!”
“You’re certain?”
“Pretty much—yeah.”
His scowl deepened. “Okay. That’s not
good.”
“Not good at all.” She felt the cold
dampness of the morning caressing her skin, chilling her bones
again.
“Does he know where you
work?”
“He doesn’t know anything about me but
my name. At least I hope he doesn’t,” she said with a catch in her
heart as they crossed the pockmarked parking lot, their shoes
crunching on loose gravel.
“Does he know what you look like?” he
asked.
Laura touched her dyed hair before she
could stop herself, and she saw his eyes follow the gesture. “If he
got anywhere near me, he’d know me, I think.”
“That why you didn’t want to be on
camera last night?”
“I didn’t want to be on camera for a
lot of reasons, but yes,” she admitted, “that was the
biggie.”
“So when was it that you last heard
from him?” he asked.
“This morning, when I was in the
shower.” She remembered his hiss over the shower’s pulsing spray,
and she felt Justice’s malevolence all over again . . . so close .
. . so damned close. “He told me he was coming for
me.”
“In those words?”
“No . . . I don’t know.” Laura felt
embarrassed now. Her secrets bared. The way Harrison was looking at
her and struggling to understand was excruciating.
“Let me get this straight. Since he
escaped, you think you’ve been getting stronger messages,” he
reiterated.
“I know I have. It’s possible his
messages might have been blocked while he was at Halo Valley. I
hadn’t heard from him at all while he was incarcerated.” Harrison
nodded slowly, and she said, “I know what this sounds like. The
lady is loony, one step away from a room at Halo Valley
herself.”
“Nah.” He shook his head, and she
noticed his hair was darkening with the damp air. “I’ve heard a lot
of weird stuff over the years. Maybe you’ve got some ability. Maybe
you don’t. Maybe this is just insight. Maybe it’s something more. I
don’t really care.” He seemed sincere. She didn’t dare look too
closely into his eyes, though, because she was afraid she might get
lost in them and start believing everything he said, and that, she
knew, would be foolish. He was saying, “But I’m willing to go with
it and see where it leads. You obviously believe it, and if it
helps find the bastard, fine. But it sounds like you think you
haven’t heard from him for a while because he was locked
away.”
“Yeah . . . it might be the distance,
but . . . I have the feeling that it could be because he was on
some kind of meds, drugs that inhibited his ability somehow. But
that’s just a guess. I don’t really know.”
“Doesn’t matter. The thing is he wasn’t
able to reach you until he escaped. But now he’s coming in loud and
clear.”
“Right,” she said, knowing it was, at
least partially, a lie.
The pregnancy. That’s
why he’s so close. He found me because I’m pregnant. It
wasn’t just because he’d been incarcerated.
“What?” Harrison asked, his gaze
searching her face, as if reading her thoughts.
I need to save my
baby.
She nearly stumbled at a pothole, and
Harrison caught her arm. “Hey, you okay?”
No, I’m not. I’ll never
be as long as Justice is free, maybe not until he’s dead.
Trying to get a grip on her runaway emotions, she closed her eyes
and faced the ocean, feeling the heavy air, pent up with rain, calm
her racing mind, while his strong hand held the crook of her elbow
steady.
“Look, I’m going after him,” he said
with conviction. “He’s a killer. Maybe the police will find him.
Maybe I’ll find him first.”
“For your story?” She heard the bite in
her words as they reached her Subaru.
“For the good of humanity.” He offered
her a smile and dropped her arm. “And yeah, it’ll be a helluva
story.”
A question hung between them—unspoken
and blurry, like fog—yet she guessed what was on his mind. “You
want me to help you find him, don’t you?” Of course he did. That
was what this interview was really about.
“Yes.” He was honest. “But that
decision’s yours. Meanwhile, I’ll do some investigating. Maybe his
mother knows something. Or maybe one of your sisters or your aunt?
Any chance I could talk to them?”
“No,” she stated quickly. “You’re a
reporter. And a man.”
“Hmmm . . . okay. Well, Justice lived
around here. Your family’s here. He’s going to come back this way
to get to you all. The police aren’t idiots. They know that, too,
and it’s merely a matter of time before he’s caught.”
“But you want to find him first,” she
guessed, fishing in her purse for her keys.
“That’s the plan.”
“A crazy plan.”
He shrugged.
“And ‘the cult’ will make a big
story.”
“Not bigger than the recapture of a
psychotic killer. Maybe a nice side story,” he admitted, unabashed.
“But I’m off the record until you give me the green
light.”
She had to believe him. Trust him.
She’d just bared her damned soul . . . well, almost. She hadn’t
mentioned the baby or the fact that being pregnant made her more
vulnerable, more easily found by Justice. “So, what are you going
to do now?” she asked as she unlocked her car.
“Right now? For starters, stick close
to you. If he’s sending you messages, I want to be around when you
receive the next one.” Harrison slid her a look. “And if you change
your mind and decide to call him first, I want to be on that party
line.”
“Why do I feel I’m being
used?”
“Not at all.”
So much for the “good
of humanity” line.
“I don’t think you should count on me
dialing up the psycho,” Laura said, opening the Outback’s driver
side door. “It’s the old self-preservation thing, you
know.”
“I wouldn’t put you in
danger.”
She sent him a look that said more
sarcastically than words, “Sure.”
“Seriously, I’ll be with you every step
of the way.”
“Oh, yeah, right. Save that for some
idiotic romantic, B-rated movie.”
He touched her arm again. Long fingers
curling over her jacket’s sleeve. “I’m not kidding. But this is
your call.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“If you change your mind, if you want
to catch him soon, let me know.”
“Don’t hold your breath!” She pulled
her arm back, grateful to break any touch with him. What had she
been thinking? That he cared? For the love of God, she barely knew
him! “There’s the sheriff’s department. They’ll handle
it.”
“They’re doing their best, I’m sure,”
he agreed.
But the unspoken end of that sentence
was, “They just don’t have your unique resource to pinpoint his
location.”
“Will you call me? The next time you
‘hear’ from him?” He handed her a card and scratched a number on
it. “My cell,” he said, and she, telling herself this was crazy,
the damned reporter was on a fool’s mission, slipped the card into
a pocket of her purse. Foolish, foolish woman!
“I’ll think about it. Thanks for
breakfast. You were right. The huevos were worth it.”
“You’re welcome, Lorelei.” He gave her
a quick grin, and he headed for his Impala, jogging across the
asphalt and gravel, his back straight, his legs striding in an
easy, athletic lope.
She dragged her gaze away and climbed
into her car.
Pulling out of the lot, she checked her
rearview mirror and saw him slide into the interior of his beat-up
Chevy. A sexy man. A very sexy man with a mission. Just exactly
what she didn’t need in her life right now.
Still, she watched him nose the Impala
out of the lot and wondered what the hell she’d gotten herself
into.