Energized (9 page)

“Thanks.” Hannah twisted off the cap and guzzled half the bottle.

“Worked up a thirst tonight?” Karma asked, grinning when Hannah nodded. She took a pull from her own bottle, then tilted her head to one side as if studying Hannah. “Your aura's looking better. It's a vibrant orange again. Not that sickly yellow it had been when you walked out of Niall's office. And definitely not that hot orange red it was when you two walked into it.”

“You really see auras. It's not just an impression of people's characters you get when you talk to them, is it? You see actual colors. All the time?”

The dishwasher made a
shunking
noise, indicating the next wash cycle. Karma eyed it, then lifted herself onto the clean table and sat. Hannah folded her arms over her chest, but didn't join her on the metal table.

“Yep. I literally see colors around living people.” Karma lowered her eyes and hunched her shoulders. “Pretty weird, huh?”

“No, not at all. I think that's amazing. I have my own little, um . . . talent.” She hesitated briefly, but figured if Karma saw auras, she shouldn't be weirded out by Hannah's gift. “I touch objects and get visions.”

“You're a psychometrist!” Karma's expression brightened. “I've heard about people like you but I've never met one in person until now. Now that's a cool gift. How does it work? Is it like mine? Do you do it all the time? Bet that's a great way to weed out loser dates.”

Hannah laughed. “It
can
come in handy for spotting the creepy guys but it can be a bit of a pain too. I don't just see visions from objects—metal objects—I mean. I, um, well. Shoot, it's going to sound nuts but I actually live the vision.”

Karma frowned. “You mean if I handed you a fork, you'd get into my head and fish around?”

“Nothing quite that diabolical.” Hannah twisted her braid in her fingers. “It's more like you hand me something and whatever memory you had when you were handling it will be one I walk through. I'll see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, just like
you did. Like a dream, sort of. You know how it's all bright and shiny when you're in the dream and it fades after you wake up? My visions are like that.

“In a way, I am you for a few minutes. But I cannot search for other memories once I'm in there. Usually, I wonder a question, like what's your favorite guilty secret TV show or something before I touch the object. Unless you were really upset when you touched it before me, I'll usually only see the answer to my question.

“I think it's an invasion of privacy to go rooting around in someone else's memories, you know. Anyway, I don't think I can do something like that. I've never tried. And I wouldn't. It's kind of, you know, icky.”

The dishwasher emitted a loud hiss, then water ran down the drain. Karma glanced from it to Hannah, then grinned. “We're so going to get along. Tell you what—” Michael Bublé singing “Home” rang out from her pocket. Karma held a finger in the air, then tugged out her cell. “Hey, Ziggy . . . I'm closing up . . . How about I stop by the station in an hour? No, I don't need a ride . . . No, I won't walk there alone in the dark . . . Yes, I can't wait to see you either.”

Karma ended the call. Her dark brown eyes were bright with excitement. “Tell you what, I need to finish up in the office and sign the time cards for everyone. Can you do the dishes? You don't need to put away the clean ones, just load the dirty ones into the dishwasher and get it started.”

Karma pulled the clean rack of dishes out of the dishwasher and set up another one for the dirty ones.

After receiving a quick demonstration on the machine, Hannah agreed. It wasn't rocket science. And they had a much smaller version of this model dishwasher back in Fincastle. Karma gave her a quick hug and bolted to the office.

Hoping for more time to talk after, Hannah lifted the rubber bin from the floor and started loading the plates. Everything was fine until she grabbed a handful of knives. The world around her went gray.

Then someone screamed.

E
VERYTHING WAS DARK,
but that was perfect. Mercy loved the dark. Besides, the only thing Mercy needed to see was him. And there he sat, trussed up. Naked. Delicious. D
ying.

Blood ran black
rivers from the left side of his chest. It gurgled and spouted.

The heavy scent of metal clung to the warm, humid night air. And Mercy drank it in. How that smell made her shiver. Excitement danced through her like electricity.

“Mercy, please,” her lover begged. His long blond hair hung limply in front of his face. His brown eyes, hollow. The skin beneath them sunken. He radiated pain.

Mercy's joy dimmed.

“You're still here?” She moved closer. He wasn't supposed to be here. Not after everything. He was supposed to be gone. To be free. He shouldn't be clinging to life like this. “That's not right. Not right at all. What do you think you're doing? I set you free. You can't stay.”

Her bare feet shuffled across the rough, unfinished floor. He wriggled his legs uselessly. He couldn't fight her. He was
tied to the two-by-fours that framed the house's ocean view window. She reached out her free hand to touch his leg and he kicked at her. The weak move sent more blood pumping through the hole in his chest.

Fury exploded through Mercy. This was how he repaid her kindness?

She shifted the knife from hand to hand, slashing the air with each pass.

He screamed again, a long throaty cry of agony.

And she sank the knife into his neck this time.

Blood spurted up into her face. It dripped down her cheeks and lips. “Yes! Yes! Baptize me in your blood. Show me you're grateful for my mercy.” Laughter rang out loud and disjointed and she shivered in delight.

He was gone now.

Her mercy had been granted.

“Hannah! Hannah, let go of the knife.” Karma's voice filtered in, distant and tinny. Then fingers brushed her damp cheeks. “Hannah, let go of the knife.”

Hannah blinked open her eyes. Karma's caramel-colored skin had gone gray and her eyes were wide and frightened.

“Wha?”

“The. Knife.” Karma repeated the words, separately, slowly. “Let. It. Go.”

Knife?

Hannah glanced down to see her right hand, covered in blood and clutching the blade of one of the dinner knives. She dropped it instantly. Fear and pain rushed in to replace the vision.

“Damn!” She cried out when Karma wrapped her hand in the black apron Hannah had been wearing. “Oh, that hurts! Holy fucking schmoley.”

Karma snorted a nervous laugh. “I've never met anyone before who says
holy
and
fucking
like that in the same sentence. Are you back with me?”

“Yeah, I'm here.” Hannah nodded. Her palm throbbed and burned. Oh, she was most definitely back in the land of the living. Pain was really good for breaking free from a vision. “Sorry if I frightened you.”

“I'm just glad you'd told me about your gift before I found you clutching that thing like you were about to stab someone with the wrong end.” Karma gave her a weak smile. “Although, the fact that your aura was no longer any shade of orange but a muddy brownish-black would have clued me into something being really wrong. Are you sure you're okay? Do you think you need stitches?”

“I hope not. No insurance right now.” Carefully, Hannah unwrapped her hand and examined the wound. Blood smeared her palm, making it difficult to see the actual damage.

“Come here.” Karma gently but firmly pulled her to the sink and ran her hand under a stream.

Hannah's palm burned despite the cool water. “I really think it's fine. A lot of blood, but the wound doesn't look too deep.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” Karma's voice took on that Spanish accent again. “Do you always whip knives in the air during a vision? Seems like it could be very dangerous to me.”

Despite the levity of her tone and the smile on her face, Karma's skin was still gray.

Hannah tried to pull back but gave up when the manager tightened her grip on Hannah's wrist.

“Really, Karma. I'm fine. I'm not sure what happened. I've never done anything like that before.”

“How would you know?” Karma pulled Hannah's hand out from the water stream and examined it again. She blotted it dry with a paper towel, only to push it back under the water again. “You didn't seem to know what you were doing when I walked in here.”

Hannah pulled free of the woman's grasp and pressed a paper towel to the wound. “Karma, I'm normally very careful about what objects I touch. It was stupid of me to pick up a bunch of silverware bare-skinned. I wasn't thinking. And I certainly couldn't have imagined what I'd see when I did.”

Karma shut off the water and handed Hannah another paper towel. “What did you see?”

Hannah focused on stanching the blood from the long, shallow cut and tried to think. She needed to tell someone fast because the vision was already starting to fade.

The name, what did the killer call herself?

Mercedes? Mirabo? Marcy?

Hannah needed to touch the knife again and reconnect with the vision. Her stomach pitched at the idea but maybe she could get something she missed the first time. She held out a shaking hand and said, “Karma, can you hand me the knife?”

“You want it back?” Karma frowned. She held it aloft, wrapped in a hand towel, examining it herself. “Why?”

“Because I need to touch it again to remember what I saw.”

“Are you going to stab me with it?”

“Of course not.”
I hope.

Karma slowly lowered it into Hannah's waiting palm.

Instant connection, hot and fierce. A flash was all she needed and Hannah shoved the utensil away.

“You okay?” Karma asked, putting the knife behind her on the table. “What did you see?”

Hannah stared at the gold-handled table knife sitting innocuously on the tabletop. It wasn't the knife from the vision. So why had it sent her world spinning?

“Hannah, what did you see in that vision?”

“A murder.”

*   *   *

M
ERCY SAT AT
her mother's vanity and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn't the ugly little nothing she'd once been. So why didn't he notice?

She was a good person. A kind person. She granted peace to all those who suffered around her. Didn't she deserve love?

“You're nothing but a little freak. A whore! Here, freak, let's paint you up like the whore-clown you are. Then I can charge admission. Five dollars a peek at the freak.” The bitch's voice cackled with laughter. Her sister's voice joined in the jeering. “What's the matter, sissy baby? Don't like hearing what you are? Freakazoid. Freakazoid. Everybody hates the freakazoid. God, stop that blubbering. If you weren't such a loser, you'd be completely worthless.”

Mercy shut her eyes and pounded her fists against her head. Her mother's voice taunted more often. Dead or not, the bitch
never let her have a moment's peace. Every time Mercy found a way to be near him, she'd hear her bitch sister's jeers in her head. But that helped. At least then Mercy could remember her purpose on earth was not to be loved but to grant mercy.

Tonight, she'd make him notice her. She'd seen him walking alone earlier tonight. He wasn't like the others she'd set free. He was special. Her one true love. Her dead bitch sister had been wrong.

Mercy wasn't worthless. Wasn't a loser.

Mercy could be loved.

He could love her. He
would
love her. Once she made him notice her.

It was why she was saving him for last. She knew what he didn't. She knew that when he found his peace, Mercy would go with him. Not out of pity or pain but because they were meant to be together.

Not tonight.

Tonight, she'd set another man free.

Mercy selected the tube of Waitress Red lipstick, glossed it over her mouth, blew her reflection a kiss, and imagined it was her true love she kissed.

*   *   *

N
IALL WAS A
friggin' moron. He'd driven all the way home only to turn around and immediately come back because he'd forgotten to grab the bank deposit. It had been completely by accident. He'd dropped off yesterday's this afternoon, so it had naturally slipped his mind to grab tonight's deposit. Anyone could have made the same mistake.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the last thing he'd been at the Cat was flustered by Hannah.

Yeah. Right. Tell another, Marine.

That's what she'd called him that night.
Marine
.

She of the fairylike beauty and endless smile.

Hannah. Hannah Halloran. He'd learned her last name when he'd read her application. But he still had no idea where she lived because the address on the form was for the hotel down the street. Okay, he could have gone over there,
but hadn't he been the one to make her promise to keep the relationship strictly business?

He was definitely not the kind of boss to screw his employees, figuratively or literally. But damn, she was here. And their one night together had been definitely worth repeating.

Now he was back at the restaurant. Despite the empty parking lot, lights blazed through the high office window. Either he'd left on the office light or someone was still there. The odds that it was Hannah were slim. She was brand new. With his luck, he'd find Sadie in there no doubt writing him a note complaining about Michael or Ross or Virgil . . . again.

Maybe I should take care of the deposit in the morning.

Something crashed inside the kitchen. Hell, it sounded like dozens of dishes breaking.

Niall was out of the truck and banging on the screen door in an instant. “Open up. It's Niall. Hey! Is anyone hurt in there?”

The locks clicked, then the main door pulled back to reveal an ashen-faced Karma. She smiled, a nervous twitch of the lips, then unlocked the screen door. “Hi, Boss. Didn't expect you back tonight.”

“Bankroll,” he muttered, pushing his way inside.

The kitchen gleamed in the quiet. Only the sound of the dishwasher running around the corner broke the unearthly silence. He glanced around the empty room before turning back to Karma, who'd relocked the doors behind him. “You alone in here? I thought I heard a crash.”

“Oh, um.” Karma sidled past him, angling for the dishwasher around the half wall. “No, I'm not alone. And nothing's broken.”

Niall followed her to find Hannah, pale as death, sitting on the floor. Her back propped against the demi-wall. She alternately sucked in air in gasps and sipped at a water bottle, as if trying to settle her stomach.

Squatting in front of her he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Her eyes were a bit unfocused but she nodded. Her color was off and she definitely didn't appear fine.

“Did you fall down?” Because that would be his luck. To have her slip on something in his restaurant.

“No,” Hannah and Karma replied in unison. They glanced at each other and laughed weakly.

“I had a vision and needed to sit down. I knocked over the clean silverware in my haste.” She took another, longer gulp of her drink. “Sorry. I'll clean that up in a few minutes.”

Only then did Niall notice the forks, knives, and spoons littering the floor.

“You stay put, I'll get it,” Karma said, moving to clean up the mess. “What do you want to do, Hannah?”

“About what?” Niall asked at the same time Hannah said, “Go to the police, I guess.”

Hannah and Karma both gave him that infuriating stare that women had when they thought the men they were with were being obtuse. He didn't squirm. If his mother couldn't make him uneasy—well, she could, but only she could do that to him after his life in the Marines—he wouldn't let them.

What did she say?

“What was that about a vision?” he asked. His neck itched at the calm expressions both women wore.

“I was loading up the dishwasher when I had a vision of a murder.” Hannah shivered and looked at her hands. “It was gruesome. There was blood everywhere. He struggled and fought, even when the knife was coming down. It was the most awful thing I've ever witnessed. And the smell . . .” She shivered again.

“It was pretty freaky from where I was standing,” Karma added, opening the dishwasher as soon as it cut off. “She went pale, and I swear for a minute I didn't think she was going to come out of it. She was saying some creeptastic things.”

Despite her deathly pallor, Hannah's eyes went wide. “I spoke? I don't think I've done that before. At least, no one ever mentioned me doing that. What did I say?”

“You kept talking about giving mercy, then you said, ‘Baptize me in your blood. Show me you're grateful for my mercy.'” Karma's accent returned, thicker than Niall had ever heard it before. She ran a hand through her short, curly hair and blew out a breath. “You didn't sound like you. Your voice, I mean. It was like someone or something else was talking through you.
If I hadn't known what you can do, if I hadn't already seen your bright, clean aura before, I'd have been hauling butt out of here and calling the cops. You sounded like a psychopath.”