Energized (25 page)

“You sure?” He pressed a kiss to her hair, faintly surprised by the uptick of his blood pressure when she finally spoke. “Want to talk about it?”

She nodded, then shook her head.

“Not exactly. Gimme a minute. I need to catch my breath. No, don't let go. Please,” she said when he started to pull away.

“I'm right here, my fairy queen,” he said, hoping to make her laugh.

She turned in his arms to face him. “Your what?”

“My fairy queen.” He winked at her. “Hannah of the fairy face and the queen of optimism.”

“You're an odd one, Marine.” Color was returning to her cheeks. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

He laughed. “Right. You have visions but
I'm
the odd one.”

“Got me there.” She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on his shoulder. “I need to talk to Ian and Ryan again about Mercy.”

“You had another Mercy vision?” Niall's stomach shrank as understanding crept in. He swung his gaze around the tiny office. “In here? You can't honestly think someone at the Cat is a killer?”

Niall's mind wanted to rebel at the idea. He knew these people. Had hired most of them. Worked with some for years.

And yet . . .

Hannah pushed shakily to her feet, then climbed onto the chair. With her head between her knees she gulped air audibly. Finally, she spoke.

“Niall, I know you don't want to believe it but I don't know what else to think. Every vision I've had of Mercy has been in the Boxing Cat. Until now, I thought she was a guest. But you don't let guests in here, do you?”

Niall waited until she lifted her head, her golden-brown eyes huge and shadowed with fear. “No, I don't.”

“That's what I thought.” Her eyes went vacant again.

“Hannah? Hannah, are you still with me?” He squatted in front of her. As if his hand had a will of its own, he stroked her cheek. When she met his gaze, he breathed easier. She might be frightened, but she was still with him. “There you are.”

“Why'd you close the door?”

He glanced at the shut door. “It must have happened when I ran in. I hadn't even noticed.” Honestly, he was a bit startled by the revelation. He was in an enclosed space but it didn't evoke the usual bout of suffocating claustrophobia. “Must be because I'm with you. Don't worry about me. I'm fine, love. It's you I'm worried about. Can you tell me about the vision?”

“I can't. Not yet. I don't think I can talk about it more than once. I want to do it with Ryan and Ian here.” She turned green. “I think . . . I think I'm going to be sick.”

*   *   *

N
IALL HADN'T TAKEN
her vision well. Not that Hannah could blame him. But he had agreed to call Ryan and Ian for her. That gave her time to wash her face.

And sent her into a third vision in the bathroom. She was getting pretty tired of seeing scenes through a lunatic's eyes.

Hannah kept rinsing her face in the hopes the cold water could wash away the icky feeling in her chest. The newest vision clung to her with razor-sharp talons. Sliced through her reality. Touching the faucet had been stupid of her, clumsy. It had sent her spiraling further into the vision. Showing her things her brain could never unsee.

Then she did get sick. Horribly, viciously sick.

This time, when she went near the sink, she used a wad of paper towels to avoid touching the metal knobs as she shut off the water.

She stared at her reflection, still seeing the gray angel from Mercy's memory.

“Hannah?” Niall knocked on the door again. “Are you okay? The guys are here.”

“I'm better,” she said, opening the door. “I think I need some fresh air.”

“I thought you might.” The worry lines in Niall's face stood out in stark relief. “They're out back waiting for us.”

Niall wrapped a hand around hers and led her outside.

Ryan sat on the grass beneath a pink crepe myrtle tree. Ian and Dev shared space on the hood of an expensive-looking Lexus, talking.

“I'd be good to her,” Ian said, bumping shoulders with Dev. They made an odd pair on the car. Dev wore a dark three-piece suit with shoes polished to a shine. Ian, nearly his polar opposite, had on a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers.

“I'm not selling my dad's Charger.” Dev pulled the sunglasses off his face and rose to his feet.

“But I helped you rebuild her.” Ian hopped off the car, but clearly had not finished arguing his case. “I'm a good driver.”

“He said no, rain man,” Ryan called out from beneath the tree, then spotting Hannah, pushed to his feet.

Dev laughed and clapped a hand on Ian's shoulder. “Rain man? I thought you were Robin?”

Ian pointed at Ryan. “He's Robin. I'm Batman.”

Ryan turned an aggravated glare to Dev. “You had to start that again?”

“I win,” Ian said with a grin, turning to Hannah.

“You still don't get the Charger.”

He shrugged good-naturedly, then greeted Hannah. “As pretty as you are to look at, Hannah, I'm not sure I understand why we're back so soon. We don't have any information for you yet.”

Ian's head snapped forward as if Ryan or Dev had popped him in the back of it. It was impossible to tell which one had done it, since both men stood quietly with their hands in front of them.

Hannah liked these guys. A lot.

“This might take a few minutes. Can we sit down? I'm not feeling my best.”

Niall swept his arm wide, gesturing to a picnic table. “Let's sit down over there.”

On the far side of the lot, beside the shed, was a wooden table-and-bench set. They each claimed a seat, Niall holding Hannah's hand on one side of the table, Dev, Ryan, and Ian on the other.

Hannah told them about her vision in the office.

“How old was Mercy in the dream?” Ian asked. Like before, he and Ryan wrote notes in separate books. This time, Dev did too.

“It wasn't a dream. It was a vision,” Hannah corrected. “I don't have prophetic dreams.”

“Sounds like you did this time.” All of Ian's playfulness had been replaced by an air of professionalism.

“I guess you're right.” Hannah rubbed at the base of her neck, trying to soothe the ache. Niall reached over and rubbed it for her. His touch was a balm to her aching flesh. She tried to think. “Eighteen. Mercy is one of a set of twins. Her sister's name was
Mona. She didn't think of her age but she thought the gray angel was probably six years older than Mona, who was eighteen.”

“About how tall were they?” Ian stood up and held up a hand to show height against his ribs. “This tall? Shorter? Taller?”

“Definitely taller, maybe to your shoulders, I think.” Hannah closed her eyes, willing herself to remember but it was hard. “Sorry, it's all fuzzy. When I first come out of a vision, it's crystal. Then it gets like a photograph left in the sun. It bleaches out the clarity and the sharpness. If I had to guess, I'd say despite her physical age, Mercy was pretty naive about sex. Old enough to know her sister had a lot of it with different men but Mercy was a virgin when she met the gray angel. It's weird but I think despite being drugged, and she was definitely drugged, she thought she loved him.” She shivered. “She really confuses sex and violence with love. The gray angel beat her sister and Mercy was okay with that. Mona was crying on the floor when he took Mercy to bed.”

Niall dropped his hand from her neck and interlaced his fingers with hers. “You're okay now.”

“There's more,” she said with a shake of her head. “I had another vision in the bathroom.”

Nothing in Niall's tone or his face showed his annoyance, but his hand tensed in hers.

Ian asked, “Can you tell us about the vision in the bathroom?”

“Okay, give me a sec.” She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. “In that vision Mercy was older. I think it was recent. Like last week or this week. Or maybe even today. She was looking at the man she had taken the night before. He's asleep—drugged, I think—on her bed. She was really mad. Her thoughts were jumbled but something about taking too long to get him into her place. No time to . . .” Hannah widened her eyes intentionally.

“She hasn't raped him yet?” Dev guessed.

“Yeah. And let me tell you, there's something different to her about this one.” Hannah bit her lip trying to understand what she'd felt as Mercy. “With the gray angel she thought
she loved him. I think in her warped way she's loved everyone she's killed. But this guy, he's really special to her. I think she believes they're soul mates or something. She expects him to love her in return. She actually believes he will love her. Will want to be with her. It's really freaky in her head.”

“Can you tell us more about what you saw in the room?” Ian interjected.

“Let's see, uh . . . There's red everywhere. Red sheets, red candles, red curtains. They're drawn by the way. Only a sliver of sunlight gets through between the drapes. Mercy was going for the whole psycho-romantic thing, I think. There are red rose petals all over the bed and the floor.” She shivered. “Really never want to see rose petals all over a bed after this.”

“Can you see anything else? Any ticket stubs or receipts lying around? Anything to indicate where they are? Did you hear any noises?” Dev kept the questions coming.

Hannah tried to focus on the room again, but without a direct connection, the images were fading. “Okay, windows were covered. Nothing on two walls. On the wall over his head is this month's calendar with today's date circled in red. She's really got a thing for red. Even the poster on the bedroom door is of some band called Red Reedus Live at the NorVa is red.”

“There's a poster of Red Reedus on the wall?” Ryan asked, an odd note in his deep, rumbling voice.

Hannah nodded. He glanced at his cousins, but no one spoke, so Hannah continued describing the vision. “Mercy's staring at him from a doorway and she says, “Tonight, we'll both be free.”

“Do you think she's going to let him go?” Dev stilled his pen and met her gaze.

“No. No, free is what Mercy thinks she's doing when she kills her victims. Setting them free from life,” Hannah said, then watched Dev's expression change. His eyes went flat. Scary flat. The same look she'd seen in the eyes of the two cops who'd questioned her.

“What can you tell me about the victim?” Dev asked in a brisk tone.

“Not much.” Hannah shrugged. “I didn't see his face.”

Dev and Ian started firing off questions in tandem.

“What was he wearing?”

“What's his hair color?”

“How tall was he?”

“What's his race?”

“Did he have any distinguishing marks?”

Hannah bounced her gaze from one man to the other as the questions flew at her. With each question she felt more useless. They needed to find this guy. Fast. And she didn't feel like she was helping.

“Hannah?” Ian reached across the table and gently cupped his hand over hers. “You still with us?”

She nodded.

Niall put his hand on hers. Ian pulled his back.

Hannah hid the smile that tugged at her lips. Now was not the time to get all marshmallowy over Niall all but claiming her as his.

“Hannah, it's very important that you tell us everything you can about the victim. That poster you saw is only a week old. So the victim is likely still alive.”

“How do you know that?” Hope tasted like warm caramel in her mouth.

“Because I play drums for Red Reedus,” Ryan said. That was about the last thing she expected to hear from the security specialist who dressed like a rogue biker. “And we only played the NorVa once. Last Saturday.”

“And I read the case reports at the office,” Dev interjected. “There have been eight murders committed by the Construction Site Killer over the past three years. They were all white men, ranging in age from eighteen to thirty-five, and they were all blond. Some had their hair dyed, but they were all blond at TOD. Uh, time of death. So any detail you can give about the victim might save his life.”

“Okay, okay, let me think.” Hannah closed her eyes and tried to remember the room. It came but it was fuzzy, faded. “I can't tell you more. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” Niall said, his voice sharp.

“Unless, I go back to the bathroom and try to get the vision again.”

T
HEY
WERE
OUTSIDE
and yet the walls were closing in. Sweat rolled down Niall's back despite the unseasonably cool, late afternoon breeze. She'd just
offered
to go back into the vision of a serial killer? Was she out of her ever-loving mind?

“Hell no.” The words were out of his mouth before he'd even realized he'd spoken aloud.

All eyes turned to him.

Hannah rose from her seat and placed a gentle, cool hand on his cheek. “I need to do this. What if they're right? What if the guy I saw is still alive?”

Dev's cell phone rang out with the Righteous Brothers, “You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling.”

The man jumped to his feet. “Sorry, I gotta take this.” He turned his back and said, “Hi, Shells.”

Hannah still had that sweet, pitying smile on her face. The sight of it seriously twisted his insides when she followed up with, “Niall, can I talk to you for a minute?”

She pulled him by the hand across the parking lot to the crepe myrtle tree. In the late afternoon sunshine her hair looked like flames aglow with a pink braid over one shoulder. “Niall, I can do this. I really can.”

“Hannah, you screamed like the hounds of hell were after you.” Niall wanted to pull her close, hold her. He crossed his arms instead.

“I'm sorry about scaring you last night but—”

“Not last night. Today. In my office. You screamed and I thought—” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I don't know what I thought. But it wasn't good. Now you want to go back in?”

“No, I don't want to go back in. Not ever.” Hannah grabbed one of his hands with both of hers. “But I need to. If I saw anything that could help them find this guy before she kills him, I need to. I couldn't live with myself if he died and I didn't even try to help. Could you?”

Ah, Christ.

“No, I suppose I couldn't either.” Niall hated this. All of this. “I wish you didn't have to put yourself through this. You should have seen your face when I found you this afternoon. You were terrified. You looked traumatized. I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that your memory of the vision fades after a while.”

Hannah's gaze cut to Dev still speaking quietly into his cell.

“Hannah, it does fade, right? You don't remember everything?”

“We should get back to this.” She started to walk away but Niall grabbed her arm.

“Don't walk away from me. Talk to me. Tell me the truth.” Niall wished with everything he had he could save her from this curse she called a gift. “It does fade?”

She exhaled a breath on a tired sigh. “Once I'm out, yes, it does fade. But while I'm in it. I feel like
I
am fading away. Becoming her . . . Mercy.”

“You mean getting the sudden inexplicable urge to slice up men?” Niall said, only half-joking.

She didn't smile.

His gut cramped and the tree they were under seemed to suddenly loom instead of merely providing shade from the harsh late afternoon light.

“Not exactly. More like I'm losing . . . me.” She shrugged. “It happens if I stay too long in a vision or if I go into the same one too many times. I have this locket that used to belong to my mother. When I hold it I get a vision of her right after she found out she had cancer. I felt everything she felt from the pain in her chest because of the disease that would eventually kill her to the pain in her chest at finding out my father was a polygamist. I remember that vision clearly because I've gone into it probably twenty times. I can't keep going into it, because one day, I might not come back.”

“And you think going into the head of a serial killer is a
good
idea?” Niall paced away from her only to pace back. “You're a smart woman. What happens if you go in and don't come back? Huh? Do you die? Do you go catatonic? Or maybe you just go stark raving fucking mad!”

A few startled birds in the tree above took flight at his words.

Hannah's eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She opened her mouth and Niall waited for her to blast him right back. It would have been well deserved. He made a point never to yell at anyone now that he was out of the service. Five days in her presence and he was already raising his voice.

She lifted a hand and placed it against his heated cheek. “You're so sweet to worry. I'm not foolish. Despite what you think, I'm not naive either. I know the risks. If you don't want to be here when I go back in, then I understand. You don't owe me anything, Marine.”

Don't owe her anything?

“Hannah, you couldn't make me leave if you called in shore patrol. My ass is here to protect yours.”

“Actually, that's why we're here,” Ian said from right behind Niall.

Niall whipped around to find the pair of TSS guys standing close enough to kiss him. Or to try to kick his ass. Dev was farther away, an intense look on his face as he ended his call.

He strode over, tapping the phone against his chin.

“Everything okay with the little woman?” Ian asked with a shit-eating grin. “Need ya to bring home some milk?”

Dev didn't speak until he stood, literally, on Ian's foot. “We've got . . . a concern, you might say.”

If his puckered lips were any indication, the concern was going to be a pisser of an issue.

“What?” Ian asked, sliding his foot from beneath his cousin's. He appeared to snap to attention.

Dev turned to Hannah. “That was Shelley on the phone. She got a call from Jules, who had a visitor early this morning. A young man by the name of Brandt. Seems he's worried about a friend yours, Hannah.”

“Wh-which one? All my friends are in Ohio.” All the color drained from her face. “Except for the ones who work here.”

“Do you know someone named Ross?”

*   *   *

“
Y
OU'RE WRONG,”
N
IALL
snapped. “Ross is at home.”

Hannah reached to touch him, to calm him, but he acted as if she wasn't there. As if he didn't need her.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Dev asked as Ryan and Ian stepped up to flank Niall.

“Last night, at the reception. He was supposed to clean up and meet me here. This morning. He didn't show. But that's not surprising. I told him to sleep in, that I'd cover opening the Cat this morning.”

“Did he show up late? Call? Has anybody seen him since the reception?” Ian asked, notebook and pen at the ready.

“No. I-I don't know. That is we, uh . . .” Niall tossed a confused glance at Hannah.

“We didn't get here until late this morning. Virgil opened the restaurant,” Hannah answered for him. She wanted to reassure him, but with each passing second the fear mounted. She took his hand in hers. “And Niall and I left around noon to get supplies for a wiring issue.”

“Did you call him when he didn't show?” Dev kept the questions coming.

“No, shit. I promised Virgil I'd call Ross and Paulie.
Neither of them showed today, but I got distracted.” Niall pulled his hand free of Hannah's and began to pace. “I'll call him now. You'll see, he's sleeping off his latest hangover. He is
not
in fucking danger.”

Niall tugged his cell phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear.

Answer the phone, Ross. Please God. Answer your brother's call.

“It's ringing,” Niall said and hope sparked in Hannah's chest. Then he rolled his eyes and her heart sank. “Voice mail. Ross, it's Niall. Call me back.”

Niall's green eyes were dull and his face had turned pasty white. “I had to leave him a message . . . Are you sure Jules's visitor was right? I thought the Brandt guy was the name of the dead guy Hannah had a vision about earlier in the week. Maybe Jules got it wrong.”

“Niall, I told you earlier about Jules's crift.” Hannah forced the words out around the tears clogging her throat. “She talks to ghosts. I doubt she'd get the names wrong. Would she, Dev?”

Niall turned a vacant gaze her way. She opened her mouth to say more but the words wouldn't come.

“You're right, Hannah. She's never wrong when it comes to names. Jules and her ghostly visitors have helped us solve two murders and put us on the path to solving two others,” Dev said. “Why don't we go back to the picnic table and have a seat, Niall? You look like you could use it.”

Dev reach for Niall but was shrugged away. “I don't want to sit down. I want to find my brother, now.”

“We're going to do everything we can—” Ian began but Niall cut him off.

“Fuck that! I'm a Marine. I was an MP. I want in. I want to find this bitch holding my brother.”

“We need Hannah to do it,” Dev said, nodding to her. “She's given us our best lead yet.”

“What about Jules? Does her ghost have any more information?” Niall clapped a hand to his head. “Fuck me. I can't believe I just said that.”

“Jules is driving back from her honeymoon right now.”
Dev's words surprised Hannah. “She and Seth were supposed to board a plane to Greece this morning from DC but only got as far as Jamestown before the ghostly visits started. As soon as Jules heard the ghost mention your name, she called Shelley, who told her you were in town. Jules made Seth turn around. They'll be here in about two hours.”

“We're not going to wait two hours, are we?” Hannah cast a wary glance at Niall, who was steadily pacing a groove into the parking lot.

“No,” Ryan said. “We're going to do it now.”