The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) (7 page)
Read The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Jody Klaire
I felt myself getting angrier. The hate in the town egged on my already raw senses. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough. Jake, those Gyppos, now Darcy. Who’s next?”
“Aeron.” Renee grabbed my arm. “Just leave it. She’s just another fool.”
“Fool?” The woman turned to Renee. “I ain’t the one keeping a killer company? I heard about people like you.”
“Really?” Renee said calmly. “What kind of person am I?”
The woman backed off as I stepped forward, her boy ran down the sidewalk. Renee put herself in front of me with her arms to her side, eyes still fixed on the woman.
“One of them groupies. Like a serial killer, do you?”
“You’re pathetic,” Renee said. Her voice level, steady, and colder than an Alaskan winter. “Why don’t you go get your hair styled, maybe your roots are making you cranky.”
The woman covered her head like Renee had revealed a deep dark secret. I tried not to laugh. The anger dissipated as the woman rushed after her son, almost bumping into a startled pair of tourists.
I gave Renee an amused look. “Seriously? Her roots?”
Renee turned around and shrugged. “A lot of women place their entire confidence in looking perfect. One thing out of place and suddenly they aren’t worthy anymore.”
“Yeah, but she reacted like you’d just wounded her.”
Renee sighed as we continued past a bar with frosted glass windows called The Red Dragon. “I did. The woman had major self-esteem issues. Huge. I hit her where it hurt.”
“Why? You didn’t seem mad.”
Renee stopped and turned to me. “These people are despicable. They are yelling at you in the street. Accusing you of harming women. None of that bothers you?”
I shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
Renee threw her hands in the air. “And that’s what irritates me. It’s mob mentality. One of them decides they don’t like you, the rest follow—one sheep after the other. Human nature at its worst.”
“They’re just scared is all,” I said as we walked up to Uncle Abe’s shop. “I don’t think it’s a good idea if I go in.”
Renee leaned against the wall and shoved her hands in her jeans. “Why?”
“It’s my Uncle Abe’s shop. He’ll have me arrested in minutes.”
“Your own uncle?”
I looked down at my shoes. How did I explain how little Abe thought of me? Renee was already in a bad mood and her aura looked like she may sock the next friendly insulter.
“Tell me.”
I shifted and kicked a loose stone around. “My father’s family are a little, well, stuck in the middle ages.”
“And?”
I fiddled with the stone and tapped it against the wall Renee was leaning against. “Women are not citizens. They’re possessions. And ones that should be grateful to the men for allowing them to exist.”
Renee leaned her head back against the wall. “Do these people still exist? Seriously?”
“Should hear how he feels about foreigners.”
“How the hell did you turn out like you did?”
I laughed. “Not surprising I’m a murderer now, huh?”
“You’re not a murderer,” Renee said. “You’re not. I don’t care what happened. You did not mean to hurt Jake. I know that and I know you, so quit it.”
“But—”
Renee held up her hand. “I’m going in to paternal purgatory. Wait here. If anyone so much as scowls at you, knock their teeth out.”
“Is that a tested therapy, Doc?” I said.
Renee nodded. “Oh, yes. And I thoroughly recommend it.”
Renee walked through the doorway, the little bell tinkling inside. I stared out at the busy street. Despite the storm damage, those on the luckier side were happily splashing on new coats of paint, the window fitters shining up the new replacements. Most of them were open for business too with a few tourists taking pictures outside and browsing through the displays on the sidewalk. It didn’t stop the hostile looks from the shopkeepers coming my way.
How the hell they could figure that I was to blame for Mother Nature, I didn’t know. Faces of people glowered at me from the windows and sidewalks. I had always been treated the same way. I couldn’t really understand how it could be any different.
It wasn’t just my gifts that bothered them either. I didn’t fit.
The girls in town from the age of nine or ten talked about weddings and the cutest boy in school. It drove them crazy that Sam had been my best buddy. None of them could figure out why he wanted to bother with the weird girl who was all arms and legs and unruly hair.
I didn’t really get it myself. I mean, I wasn’t a princess, I wasn’t even interested in him. Not only that but I didn’t give a crap who his daddy was.
“Hey, Aeron?”
I snapped out of my daze and turned to find Sam standing in front of me.
“You okay?” he asked.
I folded my arms. I hadn’t forgotten the spat in the police station parking lot. “You gonna tell me to get the hell out of Dodge?”
Sam shook his head. “No, and I’m sorry ’bout before.”
I didn’t answer. Sam would get ’round to what he wanted to spit out faster if I let him talk.
“Mary Goss just accused you of hurting her roots.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Can I do that too now? Hell, with all the child snatching, twister causing, and mayhem . . . I’m a busy woman.”
Sam laughed. “You’re a regular witch. Mary’s in fits. Last thing I saw, she was headed for the hairdressers.”
I didn’t really like to tell him that Renee had fired that barb.
“You ride out the twister okay? Your dad said you were stuck with him.”
I nodded. “Two days.”
Sam whistled. “Sounds worse than any kind of prison.”
I chuckled. Sam had never gotten on with my father. My father hated him by default, because all fathers hated it when their daughters spent time with a boy. Sam hated him right back because he felt my father never stuck up for me and was a useless waste of space.
“After the institution, two days was nothing.”
Sam looked away. “I’m sorry you went through that—”
I touched his jacket sleeve. “Don’t be. We both live with those scars.”
Sam nodded. “I gotta go. Duty calls an’ all that . . . but . . . I know it don’t mean much . . . I guess . . .”
I waited as he tried to untwist his tongue.
“I’m not sure if anyone said this, or if it matters, but—”
“Spit it out, man. I’m growing cobwebs.”
Sam smiled. “Welcome home, Al.”
I hadn’t heard the nickname in so long it almost swiped my feet out from under me. Sam, not being able to tell his parents just who he was hanging around with, invented a male version of me, using my initials. So Al was born and it was always our way of sticking it to the man.
“Thanks, Sam-o,” I called after him as he strolled down the sidewalk.
Chapter 52
RENEE CAME OUT of Uncle Abe’s store, and I could barely see her for the groceries. I hurried to her and took a couple of bags. “You feeding the five thousand?”
“The more supplies I get now, the longer I can go without visiting the dark ages.”
I nodded, understanding her thinking. The less time in the town the better.
“You know, he even called me little lady,” Renee said as she turned to lead me toward the town center. “How does he make it sound like he’s hurling the ultimate insult at you?”
I followed Renee, knowing that if we were walking into the hornet’s nest, she was probably doing it for a reason. “That’s Abe for you. His wife is just as friendly.”
“You seem a bit lost in thought. You okay?” Renee asked.
We passed by Mrs. Stein’s café, and I looked across the street at Mrs. Casey’s shop. “Sam came and spoke to me.”
“Sam? Not about the case I hope?”
I shook my head. I could see Mrs. Casey’s blonde hair bobbing as she chatted to one of her customers. Mrs. C, as I had once called her, had been kind. She was the kind of woman that all the kids loved.
I turned and saw the worry in Renee’s eyes. “He welcomed me home.”
“That shop looks a hell of a lot nicer than Abe’s. Oh, why don’t we take a walk to the lodges and turn around?”
I sighed. “Mrs. Casey was always so nice. Even to me. I mean, I didn’t get hugs like the other kids or free sweets but I did get a smile, and once she helped me up when I came off my bike.”
Renee matched my sigh and then some. “Was anyone nice?”
“Apart from Mrs. Casey?”
Renee gazed at me for long moments before she simply shook her head and carried on walking.
“What?” I asked, catching up with her.
“How you don’t have more issues than
Rolling Stone
, I don’t know.”
“Are we back to that again?”
Renee nodded. “It’s like systematic neglect . . . the complete shunning of a child. It’s actually a good thing you are so strong.”
“What do you mean?”
Renee stopped outside one of the lodges, or at least it had been a lodge. Now it was a mass of tangled girders jutting upward from beneath the collapsed building. I hoped like hell nobody had been in it at the time.
“If you weren’t strong, these people could have broken you. They are lucky you didn’t have any of the MacDonald Triad.”
My stomach rumbled.
Renee rolled her eyes. “Not the fast food place.”
“You want to explain?”
Renee looked at the splintered wood and rubbled remains of the lodge. “Bed wetting, hurting animals, and starting fires.”
“I once set the field alight trying to roast marshmallows. Any help?”
Renee laughed. “No, it’s compulsive. Otherwise, you would have been their worst nightmare.”
“And I’m not now?”
Renee shook her head. “No, you really aren’t. You’ve been their victim your entire life, and yet there’s not one shred of bitterness in you, is there?”
I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t overly fond of the folks around here but then I guess they weren’t overly fond of me. Maybe I was naive or stupid. I mean Sam had turned his back on me yet the second he wanted to talk, I listened.
“Just dumb I guess.”
“Not dumb, sweet and kind.”
Renee seemed to have decided we’d spent enough time loitering and turned around.
I didn’t relish a walk to the edge of town. “So what does the triad thing mean, anyhow?”
Renee looked up at the people who were now bunching together in front of shops like I would fire lasers at them any second.
“It’s a marker. Red flags that warn us
doctors
.”
“Warn you? About what?”
Renee and I turned the corner opposite Abe’s on the way to city hall.
“Psychopaths,” she said. “Like the one targeting the girls.”
CHELSEA BORLAND. THE only child of the Borland family. Your father is such a fool, Chelsea, did you know that? He thinks that his sweet little wife is hard at work all day everyday as he stays at home with you.
What kind of a man stays at home? No wonder you’re so mixed up. You don’t want to end up like Aeron now, do you? No, she was left with her father when her mother was out of town and look where it got her?
And you’re no Aeron, are you, Chelsea? No, you’re nobody really, just like Mari, just like Darcy, you will never amount to anything. Why would you? How can you be anything with a father like yours?
He dotes on you, doesn’t he, Chelsea. He plays games and cooks and cleans like a good wife while your mother goes off and thinks she can be a man. What right does she have, Chelsea? What right does she have to think she can play the hero?
She even wears a man’s uniform. That’s right, Chelsea . . . are you ashamed? Of course you are . . . she cleans up that firehouse like she deserves to be there. Can you imagine that? A woman, allowed to be in a firehouse . . . let alone run one. I think we’ll have to teach her a lesson, won’t we, Chelsea? We’ll have to show her that she ain’t worthy of anything.
Yes, that’s right. We’ll show them, and it will be perfect. Especially as we can catch Aeron’s attention. You can help me catch her attention . . . she’ll see me then, won’t she, Chelsea . . . then she’ll see just how much of a fool she really is.
Chapter 53
ELI STEPPED OUT of the station into the brilliant sunshine, his lunch in his hand, breathing in the clear air. He didn’t get away from his desk most days but today he had his eyes set on a nice peaceful patch in the shade of the old oak tree. He stared at it long enough from his office window with memories of Lilia smiling at him as he carved their initials into it. Somewhere on that old bark, his love for her was still etched. Striding out across the parking lot, he tried not to think how true that was of his heart too.
“Chief . . . Hey, Chief.”
He turned around to Skip, knowing that his break was about to be snatched from under his nose. “What is it?”
“Jim Borland rang. Chelsea’s gone,” Skip panted as he caught up to Eli.
Eli hung his head. Chelsea was his eldest, Ruth’s, best friend. “When?”
“He said she was out in his front yard maybe two minutes before he rang. So ten at the most.”
Eli saw a US government issue car pull up and his chest tightened. “Skip, handle these guys will you? I’ll head over there.”
A man got out of the car. “Chief Lorelei.”
“Speak to Skip. Got an emergency,” he yelled over his shoulder as he ran to his car.
He slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and sighed as the man strode up to the car and put his badge on his windshield.
“I’m Agent Ewan Fitzpatrick. I need to speak to you, now,” the man said.
Eli rolled down his window. “No offense, but I got a little girl who has just been taken. You’re stopping me getting there.”
Fitzpatrick took his badge off the windshield and jumped into the passenger seat. “In that case, I’ll keep you company.”
Eli tried not to mutter under his breath. No doubt the mayor had something to do with the kid, half his age, being here.
“So, what’s the problem?” Eli asked.
“Senator Evans was visiting Mayor Casey,” Fitzpatrick began.
Eli nodded. The senator was a really nice guy and he’d come to survey the tornado damage so he could lobby Congress for support.
“His wife and daughter were with him.”
Eli turned the corner onto the main road. “Okay. So where are you going with this?”
“Elsie, his daughter, went missing last night.”
Eli stared at Fitzpatrick, narrowly avoiding driving over the sidewalk. “What?”
Fitzpatrick frowned. “You haven’t been told?”
“Of course I damn haven’t! Where . . . where from?”
“Mayor Casey’s reception in the golf club I believe.”
Eli rubbed his chin. This was a nightmare, if the daughter of a senator was a victim, Aeron would stand no chance at all.
“Skip, any news?” he radioed.
“Mrs. Stein was on her way out . . . saw a van of some kind . .
. she said Aeron was in it.”
Eli muttered under his breath. Mrs. Stein would say that, stupid gossiping bat.
“Aeron?” the agent asked.
Eli growled. “My daughter, but you already knew that.”
The Borlands lived not far from his own house. Everything about their place looked identical to his apart from the ramp instead of front steps. It wouldn’t take a couple of minutes to get there but as he started up the road, he saw Aeron and Doctor Llys walking away from the town.
What the hell was she doing now? He pulled in behind them, slammed open his door, and marched toward them. Were they complete fools? “I told you to stay away from town.”
Fitzpatrick got out of the car and strolled up behind him. That was all they needed, a damn Fed eavesdropping.
“We got hit by a storm, remember? We needed supplies.”
Eli looked down at the grocery bags in their hands, then up at Doctor Llys who smiled knowingly. He wanted to grab her and hug her.
“Have you seen anything?” he asked.
Aeron gave him a look, which confirmed his worst fears but the doctor seemed to be teaching her some wiles, that was for certain. “Only a big ol’ twister carving up the field and trashin’ the cabin.”
Fitzpatrick stepped forward and the doctor put herself in front of Aeron.
“I’m Agent Ewan Fitzpatrick—FBI. Where were you yesterday evening?”
“We were in the cabin, attempting to clean up the flood water, why?” the doctor said.
“You were together the whole time. Miss—?”
The doctor smiled. “Doctor Serena Llys, and yes, we were. Aeron was quite the hero in the storm along with her father. She’s been putting me up.”
Eli smiled back at her. Thank heavens she was here.
“Chief,” Eli’s radio squawked.
“Yes, Skip.”
“We got a report of the white van . . . Abe . . . confirmed it’s Aeron driving it,” Skip said.
Eli looked at Fitzpatrick who nodded. “Aeron is with me, Skip . . . and Agent Fitzpatrick . . . I want you to stop that van.”
“On it,” Skip said.
Eli nodded at Aeron and the doctor, trying not to grin like he’d won the world series.
He trotted back to the car, got in, and waited for Fitzpatrick to get into the passenger seat.
“Mayor Casey had us thinking your girl was on the run,” Fitzpatrick said.
“Mayor Casey hates Aeron. I’m not saying he doesn’t have cause to either but as you can see, she ain’t driving a van around and she ain’t in the habit of snatching girls.”
Fitzpatrick nodded. “I think it pretty much showed that, so the next step is to find that van and figure out why someone wants to set her up.”
Eli felt a huge weight drop from him. “It’s nice to have someone with some sense around here.”
Chapter 54
JENNY LORELEI SAT in the chair as her regular hairdresser, Grace, snipped out her split ends. The smell of bleach and lotions was thick in the hot air. Her mind was not on the magazine she was thumbing through but on the conversation between Grace and Mary.
“Just walked up to me an hexed my hair!” Mary wailed.
“Don’t you worry ’bout a thing,” Grace said, walking away from Jenny and going to the sobbing Mary. “We’ll fix those roots right up.”
“She’s an abomination. Why’d they let her out? Why?”
Jenny tried not to mutter a word. She knew exactly who they were referring to.
Now, to Eli, Aeron was infallible. She could do no wrong and he had just gone on ignoring the nasty little brat’s “problems” until finally it cost a boy his life.
Jenny had been the only one who went to him when Iris up and left and Aeron was locked up where she belonged. It was Jenny who had picked up the pieces and given him a proper family, a normal family, and how did he repay her?
Jenny flicked over a page in the magazine irritably. She’d seen little Miss Mischief at work plenty of times. Eli seemed to forget that the girl had stolen and vandalized and delighted in the misfortune of others.
Jenny hadn’t. Oh no. She hadn’t forgotten the time Aeron stole her father’s car and put it into a tree, or the time when she’d thought it was funny to decorate Mrs. Stein’s shop with spray. The woman had taken nearly three weeks to get the bats off her windows.
Eli had forgotten what a nasty piece of work the freak was. He was always one to bury his head in the sand, and look where it had gotten them?
The entire town was terrified. After Darcy Toughton had gone missing, no one felt safe. The school had advised parents to meet their kids at the door, the school field trip had been cancelled, and no one was allowing their kids out to play unsupervised.
They were prisoners in their own town. Hiding from Aeron as she waltzed down Main Street like she owned the damn place.
“Jenny, you hear what Mary said?” Grace asked.
“No,” Jenny answered.
“She’s got one of them groupies following her ’round. Can you believe it? Some woman who thinks Aeron is a good person under it all.”
Jenny threw the magazine onto the floor with a slap. “You think she’s brought in some con from inside?”
Mary shook her head. “Uh uh, this one looks a bit too educated. But she defended her point blank, like we don’t know what she is.”
“Just keep your Tommie away from her,” Grace said.
Mary put her hands over her mouth, then scrabbled in her hand bag and pulled out her cell.
“What?”
“She saw him . . . please Tommie . . . pick up . . .”
Jenny looked at Grace who bit her lip. “Aeron wouldn’t, would she?”
Jenny didn’t answer. What Aeron was really capable of, no one knew. She would never have expected Aeron to kill Jake Casey.
“I got to find him. He ain’t picking up.”
Jenny pulled out her phone. “I’ll try and call Eli. Maybe he will go find him.”
Mary shook her head. “I’ll call Bill instead.”
Mary hurried out of the shop, her roots forgotten, and Jenny fought the urge to throw something. This was all Aeron’s doing. Would she have taken Tommie? What if she’d taken him? Would Eli just ignore it?
Jenny felt her heart thudding. Her own girls were at her mother’s house while she had her hair done. She picked up her phone and called her mother.
“Hey, sweetie, you all right?” her mom asked.
“The girls okay? They okay?”
“I’ll go check now.”
Jenny paced around in a circle, wondering if her mother had locked the doors. What if she’d let them out in the yard?
“You wanna talk to them?” her mother asked.
“Where are they?”
“Picking daisies, how else they gonna make chains?”
Jenny gripped hold of the salon chair. “I asked you not to let them out.”
“Oh, hush. They’re just fine. Your father is with them.”
Jenny heard the sound of her girls’ laughter and nearly fainted on the spot, and she thanked every saint she could remember while she was at it. She looked out the window—she only hoped Mary’s Tommie was safe and sound too.
Chapter 55
WHEN WE GOT back to the cabin, we slumped down onto the bench, taking a minute to cool off in the shade. Mrs. Squirrel was having a sniff around nearby and the forest buzzed with activity. I guessed the little critters were busy rebuilding themselves only they were a lot more efficient about it. That, and the wildlife didn’t shoot me daggers every two seconds.
I glanced up and saw a beefy guy storming down the road toward the cabin. Looked like trouble. I didn’t know who the hell he was but he sure knew me.
“You got any ideas?” I asked.
“Nothing that won’t get us both locked up,” Renee muttered under her breath.
I sighed and we got to our feet. I tried to brace myself for the onslaught. The guy wasn’t armed but by the size of his fists, he didn’t really need to be.
“Where the hell is my son, you sick son-of-a-bitch?” he demanded.
I frowned. “Your son?” I hadn’t got a flash of a boy, I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Tommie, my son. I know you took him!”
I looked at Renee who stepped forward. “We’ve only just got back ourselves, as you can see—groceries.”
The guy’s fear was far more acute than his anger.
“I haven’t seen your son. What does he look like?” I asked.
“Aeron,” Renee warned.
I waved away her concerns.
The guy looked me square in the eyes, his malice gone. “Tommie. He’s seven. Blonde hair. Scar on his cheek.”
I looked at Renee and then turned to the man. “I saw him in town with his mother . . . er . . .”
“Mary, yeah. Tommie’s missing.”
I looked up at the clouds. It wasn’t pulsing so I knew Tommie wasn’t on the killer’s radar but I could feel the man’s desperation.
“Hold out your hand,” I told him.
“We’ve got company,” Renee whispered.
I looked down the dirt track. My father and Agent Fitzgerald were heading this way.
“Your hand,” I urged.
The man stuck his hand out and I touched it.
My ankle . . . oh please . . . it’s so dark . . . I hate the dark . . . I want to go home . . . please . . . someone!
I opened my eyes and was lying on the ground. My father, Renee, the agent, and Tommie’s father all standing over me.
“The old mine . . . he’s fallen down the shaft . . . you need a med team.”
Fitzpatrick gave me a blank look, while Tommie’s father, Bill, as I was shown in the flash, went whiter than I felt.
“Listen,
Bill
,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “He’s okay, but he needs to get help soon.”
Bill nodded. “I gotta let Mary know.”
I shook my head and clambered to my feet. “Just go with the agent and my father, okay. Go get Tommie.”
“But Mary—”
“No one ever knows. Understood?”
Bill shifted on his feet.
I pulled him into a hug. “Take it as a gift and don’t bite the hand,” I whispered in his ear.
Bill nodded and he followed my father and Fitzpatrick to the cruiser. My father looked back and smiled at me.
“I think he’s thawing,” Renee said as the cruiser turned around and churned up mud as it sped down the lane.
I didn’t know how to answer. The man had been rejecting me since birth so why should I care now? Why should I care about any of these small-minded people? I did care, I cared too much and that was the problem.
Chapter 56
I SPENT THE afternoon and early evening throwing myself into preparing the wheel and the basic drive mechanism in order to get the electricity working. I soon figured that the windows would be a lot harder to fix and it would take weeks to order in replacements. Renee had suggested wistfully that taking out a section and replacing it with a wall of glass would open up the mill to the beauty around it.
The thought was a nice idea, the reality was pretty much impossible. Even if I’d had that kind of money, which I didn’t, renovating the mill was a waste of time. Anything we put in would only fall to the next storm.
I looked up at the sky. More than likely that storm would be heading in within the next day or two. How Oppidum was going to brace itself, I wasn’t sure. If the tourist trade wasn’t so profitable, I was sure that it would just become another ghost town. Distracting myself only lasted until I sat down as Renee put on the dinner. Then as if the vision had been waiting to pounce, it hit me.
No, please . . . please . . . no more . . . I don’t know what you want . . . please . . . let me go home . . . please . . .. no, no . . . NO!
My hands ached and stung, my head swirling.
“What’s happened?” Renee asked.
“Chelsea. The killer. God, who would do this?”
I put my head between my legs as each blow rocketed through me.
“Can you see anything?”
I clutched my knees, trying to keep conscious. “No, she lost her sight hours ago.”
A cold hand touched my arm and I nearly jumped clean out of my seat. Chelsea Borland, a girl of no more than nine stood before me, trying to offer comfort to me as Mari had done.
“What happened?” Renee asked.
I looked from Chelsea’s half-spirit to Renee. “We’ve got to stop this. I can’t just sit here and watch them go through this.”
Renee shook her head.
I got to my feet.
“Aeron, you can’t. Someone is already trying to frame you. If you start trying to get involved you could play right into the killer’s hands.”
I looked at Chelsea who sat calmly in the chair I had been sitting in. “I can’t do nothing.”
“Aeron, if you get arrested for this, more girls could die—”
“And if I don’t take the chance? How many more people will suffer? How many more girls?”
Renee sighed. “You have to leave it to the people whose job it is. You’ll only get in their way.”
I paced around, the movement helping me think. “I helped with Tommie, that has to buy me some kind of leverage.”
“To the authorities you are a convicted murderer who is terrorizing a town, or did you miss the entire you’re-a-sicko rant.”
I folded my arms. I knew Renee was right but I couldn’t bear living with another half-spirit, knowing that Chelsea was being played with by the killer.
“I don’t care. If I don’t do something, I ain’t no better than the killer.”
“Think about this—”
“I have. You would do the same thing if you were me. We both know it.”
Renee looked at me like she wanted to impale me on her tongs but she nodded. “I hate it when you do that,” she muttered, putting the hot dogs into buns.
“No, you don’t. You’re glad you don’t have to pretend.”
Renee slopped some onions onto the bun, spread mustard on them, and almost shoved the plate into my hands. “Quit it.”
I shrugged. “Sorry, I can’t help it. You’re like a book when you’re mad.”
“I’m not ma—” Renee stopped and rolled her eyes. “What’s the use in arguing when you already know what I’ll say.”
“So you will help?”
Renee took a bite of her hot dog, but her eyes twinkled as she conceded defeat. “Only if you sit and eat first.”
I shook my head, looking at Chelsea still sitting there.
“What? Hell, you look like you’ve seen—” Renee got up and grabbed the tongs as if they would save her. “You jumped.”
“I did,” I answered.
“There’s . . . is there a . . .”
I nodded chewing on my hot dog.
“Who, where . . . now I’m creeped out,” she said, hopping about.
“It’s okay. It’s Chelsea Borland, she’s nine. She went missing earlier. She’s staying with us a while . . . till it’s over.”
Renee put the tongs down and put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, no. Poor kid.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at Chelsea. “And that’s why it has to stop . . . now.”
Chapter 57
ELI FELT THE sheer elation soar through him as the medic team called out that they’d found Tommie. Bill, who had been sitting in the squad car, broke down in tears. It would take them a while to get the boy up the shaft but finding him so quickly had saved his life.
Fitzpatrick maintained a dignified distance throughout the rescue but Eli knew he would want to know how Aeron had known where the boy was.
“You know why Tommie would have been up here?” Eli asked.
Bill rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah. Mary was always telling him that the old mine was where they kept Excalibur. Stupid woman.”
“So why did he come to the mine today?”
Bill grunted. “It’s Arthur’s sword. He loves those stupid tales.”
Eli didn’t get it. He looked at Fitzpatrick who shrugged. “Why look for it now?”
“To kill Morgana—the witch.”
Eli kicked a nearby fallen branch in irritation. “The witch? You mean Aeron?”
Bill nodded, his eyes lingering over the place where the medics were working. “She knew where he was. If it wasn’t for her . . .”
Eli walked to Bill and leaned in. “No one ever hears what she did, you understand?”
“She said the same thing. What is she?”
“Not a witch. And not someone your son or any other idiot should take on lightly.”
“He’s just a boy—”
“And that’s when it starts. The gossiping, the tales, the odd girl by the river . . . Yeah, she’s the odd one, then before you know it, she’s a witch.”
Bill stood up. “She
did
kill someone.”
Eli shook his head. “She was trying to stop the kid getting hit by the train, she couldn’t pull him back in time. She didn’t kill anyone, Bill.”
Bill folded his arms. “Mary and the others. They said she strung him up, just like the woman from the travelers’ camp.”
“Mary and the others are nothing but jabbering fishwives, mine included.”
“You’re her father though. You would defend her.”
Eli sighed. Of course he would. She could have chopped Jake Casey into tiny pieces and he’d still love her with every breath in his body. Even if he couldn’t show it, even if he messed everything up, even if she never forgave him, he loved her.
“If she’s so happy to kill little boys. Why would she help you today?”
Bill smiled. “She wouldn’t.”
“And that’s why you have to keep your mouth shut. Aeron’s got enough troubles without adding to them by revealing anything.”
Bill nodded. “Least I can do.”
The rescue team started moving and Eli and Bill hurried to the mine shaft. Bill was in a fit of tears all over again as they pulled a pale, sodden, and battered Tommie out of the mine. Bill ran to him, dropped to his knees, and cradled the terrified boy.
Eli looked at Fitzpatrick as the medics moved in to take Tommie and Bill off to the hospital.
“Your gal did a pretty good deed,” Fitzpatrick said as Eli walked to him.
“Yeah. Aeron is like that.”
“She’s a psychic?”
Eli frowned. He hated the word. “She’s a little different.”
“Different? She gave you the exact location of that boy, and if she hadn’t, he’d be dead by now.”
Eli got in the cruiser, Fitzpatrick following him. He was in no mood to think about Aeron’s gifts. Not that there was ever a mood that he did want to.
“Y’know, I’ve worked with a couple of folks who are psychics but she’s somethin’ else,” Fitzpatrick said.
“Worked with?” Eli asked, driving them in the direction of city hall.
“Yeah, as agents.”
Eli rolled his eyes. It was best he kept his mouth shut on that one. He turned his attention back to Chelsea Borland’s disappearance. No one had seen her since the mysterious van had snatched her and there’d been no sightings of it since.
“Any news on Elsie Evans?” Eli asked.
The agent shook his head. “We have set up check points on all the major roads and at the airport, but it’s chaos ’round here.”
Eli had to agree. The twister had pretty much blitzed the place. “I guess we weren’t as twister proof as we thought.”
“I’m surprised there weren’t more folks hurt. Good thing they actually listened to the sirens.”
“It’s not like we hear them an awful lot,” Eli said. “So what’s the next step for you and your team?”
Fitzpatrick smiled. “Well, I’m just a worker bee. The boss will be on the warpath ’cause we lost the van.”
“Ouch.”
Fitzpatrick laughed. “You have no idea just how accurate that is.”
Eli pulled into the parking lot, and Fitzpatrick smoothed over his trousers, his lips pulling into a thin line. What had gotten him so uncomfortable?
Eli followed his eyes to a woman with spiky blonde hair. “That your boss?”
Fitzpatrick shook his head. “No, that’s worse than the boss.”
Eli looked at the woman. The small group of agents around her seemed to be cowering like she’d attack at any moment.
“Do I get a heads up before she removes it?”
“Agent Ursula Frei,” Fitzpatrick said in a low voice. “Can’t tell you where she’s from but when she shows up, it’s gonna hit the fan.”
“All this over Elsie?” Eli asked.
“If it is, it was nice knowing you.”
Eli laughed. He thought it funny that this self-assured young man was scared of a woman. He braced himself and got out of the car.
Frei turned and held out her hand in greeting. “Agent Frei. A word, Chief Lorelei.”
Eli tilted his head. “Sure. My office okay?”
“Fine.” Frei gripped his hand and shook it.
Eli tried not to wince and shake out his hand as he turned, in a daze, toward the building. She’d almost crushed his fingers. There was dominance, then there was this woman. “This about Senator Evans’s daughter?”
“No.”
He led her into the building and to his office. Frei marched past him into it and told him to sit.
“I’m quite capable of standing,” he told her.
Frei folded her arms. “It wasn’t a request.”
Eli frowned as she closed his door. “Excuse me?”
“The sooner you sit down, the sooner I leave.”
Eli went behind his desk and sank into his chair, unsure how the hell to react to the demanding Agent Frei.
“Why is Aeron helping the FBI?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
Frei frowned, her sharp blue eyes like an eagle eying its prey. “Don’t play dumb, I know what she is. Why did you let her help the FBI?”
“I think you’re mistaken, Agent Frei. Aeron doesn’t follow orders from me and I have no intention of telling her she can’t help them.”
Frei slammed a chair down and sat in front of the desk. “You know what’s at stake if they so much as think she might be the killer?”
“I’m very aware they may charge her for a federal offense, yes.”
“And with her track record? Did it not cross your mind that they will go for the death penalty?”
Eli’s panic thumped through his heart and he pulled his tablets out from his pocket. He needed to see the doctor soon. “I don’t know who you are, Agent Frei.”
“The senator has an election coming up, which makes this look much worse than a random attack.”
Eli frowned. “I’m more worried about my daughter’s life.”
“You are the only one who is.” She glared at him, stoic, icy. “The mayor wants her gone, keeps telling us she’ll drive away the tourists. That’s a lot of money.”
Eli rubbed his hand over his face. The last thing he wanted on his conscience was the entire county’s welfare. “I thought Oppidum was Lorelei owned. Why should he care?”
Frei looked at him like he’d told her the grass was purple. “Sure you own the land, but the mayor owns half the tourist trade.”
Eli frowned. “That doesn’t surprise me. Aeron doesn’t know she’s the heir. No one knew we owned anything. Do you think that’s why they’re targeting her?”
Frei nodded. “It could be and if it is, we need to find out quickly.”
Eli looked at the gun she had strapped under her jacket as she sat forward. Same one as Doctor Llys had. Same one that Dan had worn. “Do you have someone taking care of her?”
Frei’s eyes cooled even further. “I’m not at liber—”
“It’s my daughter, Agent Frei. If you want my help, you’ll tell me the truth.”
“Fine, yes. One of our best.”
“Name?”
Frei’s lips thinned as she tensed her jaw. Eli sat back and folded his arms. She could take all night to answer for all he cared. It beat arguing with Jenny.
“Renee Black,” Frei said.
“As in Colonel Charles Black’s daughter?”
Frei nodded. “One and the same.”
Eli smiled from ear to ear. If she was cut from the same cloth as the colonel then they were in great hands.
“Give me the rundown on all you have,” Frei said.
Eli nodded. “Okay. So far we have three murders, one adult female Natalia and her daughter Mari were the first two, then we found Darcy Toughton just before the storm hit.” He stood up and walked to his window. “The Feds show up and tell me that the senator’s daughter Elsie Evans has gone missing.” He sighed. “And Chelsea Borland has been taken. She can’t be more than eight.” What was he going to tell Jim and Kay, her parents? He didn’t know where the hell she was. There was no sign of the van, nothing.
“What about the boy? Tommie?” Frei asked.
Eli shook his head. “No, just an accident.”
“The Unsub is escalating, two in one day.”
“Not escalating, not really. Mari and Natalia were found within twenty-four hours, and Darcy was found not long before he tried to get Doctor Llys, I mean Renee.”
“What?”
Eli swallowed hard. Renee had obviously left that bit out of her reports. “Someone tried to run her off the road. Aeron tried to save her. We nearly got sucked up into the twister.”
Frei got to her feet and scowled like she wanted to shoot someone. “So, it could well be political if the killer knows who she is . . . the killer knows who Aeron is.”
“That could be true, but why not just make a hit on her? Why the game?”
Frei shook her head. “I don’t know but somehow we need to keep Aeron away from all this. Maybe we could move her?”
“You’d be lucky.”
Frei shot him a dark look.
He nodded. “I mean it. You go marching up to Aeron and demand she run and hide and you’ll get the same answer the rest of us get.”