Psychic Series Boxset: Books 1-3

by Lisa Freed

  My head dropped, my chin on my chest, as my eyes closed in shame. Everything he said was the truth. Then my hands balled into fists. But that didn’t mean I deserved to be with a weasel like Mateo. Yes, I’d made mistakes, I was still human and fallible.

  “And what is it going to be, Teresa?” The black mist spilling out of his eyes made it difficult to look at Mateo but I still glared.

  “No!”

  “Well, I guess I have another loose end to tie up then.” With a shrug, Mateo shot Adrian, whose body slumped wetly against me, before turning the gun on me.

  The blackness oozing around him flashed yellow as Andre Sr jumped into Mateo’s body. The gun dropped with a loud clatter as it struck the hardwood floor.

  Victor was now next to me, “Teresa, Teresa,” he shouted in my face. “Get up! Get out of here!”

  Stunned, I stumbled to my feet, watching Mateo tear at his clothes, a few times Andre Sr hovered over him before sinking back into the young man. The darkness was gone, leaving Mateo’s panic plain to see as his eyes rolled around the room. “Get out of me!” he screamed, ripping at his hair. Wheeling around, his wide, panic-filled eyes settled on me, “Help me,” he implored.

  Trying to get away from his outstretched grasping hands, I tripped over Adrian’s legs and fell back onto his body. The smell of blood surrounded me. I gagged, managing to roll off his unmoving body, landing on the floor between the couch and the coffee table with a thump that sent a snap of pain into my shoulder even as vomit shot out of my mouth in a bitter rush.

  Tears blinded my vision, and I heard myself crying as I pushed at the coffee table so I could move away from my mess and the blood. I was desperate to get away, crawling back on my hands and knees. Several crashes sounded in my ears, making me jump with each one. But the bang of my front door opening and hitting against the doorframe brought relief. It might be over. Please let it be over!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Teresa, it’s okay,” Victor’s voice, low and gentle, whispered in my ear. “You’re safe.”

  I looked up through the curtain of my damp, smelly hair swinging in my face. Free from the confinement of the coffee table and couch I pushed up to sit on my knees, shoving my hair back with a grimace of disgust. I had puke on my hands and in my hair. I wiped my hands on my jeans, looking around my trashed living room. Adrian’s body remained slumped on the couch, the expensive tan suede material black with his blood.

  “Victor! You have to help Adrian. Get back in his body! Save him!” I felt my stomach clench again but fought it back.

  Victor’s eyes were full of remorse as he shook his head. “He’s gone, Teresa.”

  I got to my feet, my eyes flying around the room, trying to take everything in and make sense of the last hour. “Mateo?” I asked, not certain I cared or even wanted to know.

  “My father has taken care of him.”

  “The black stuff pouring out of him?” I asked with a shuddering breath, trying not to look at the dead body on my couch.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t see any of that. In Adrian’s body, I was human and had none of my spirit abilities.”

  I moaned. “What am I going to do? I have to call the police.”

  “Don’t,” Victor’s voice barked out, stilling my attempts to stand. “I’ll handle it.” He weaved around me, careful not to touch me, and for that, I was thankful. I didn’t think my system could stand another shock.

  Victor pressed into Adrian’s body and he sat slowly up with a groan. “Damn this hurts!”

  I leaped to my feet, staring in fascination as Adrian’s bloody form stood up, “What are you going to do?”

  Holding a hand to his bleeding chest, Adrian attempted a smile, exposing bloody teeth. “Get rid of the body.”

  Despite my fear and repulsion, I stepped forward to help him.

  “No!” The word ripped out of him, blood flecking his lips. “Don’t touch me. Hopefully, I can do this so nothing can be traced back to you.” One sluggish footstep at a time he began making his way out of the room. “I don’t know how far this body will make it,” he warned. Then he was gone, smears and drips of blood marking his staggering departure through the still opened door.

  I paused, certain I heard sirens, but it was just my fears making me paranoid. Just the same, I put my flagging energy into making it to the door. Closing it carefully, I didn’t let out my held-in breath until the deadbolt slid across with the whispered promise of security. I didn’t have a clue where to begin. Looking down, rust-colored blood coated my hands and maroon splotches trailed up my sleeves. I reeked, my nose stuffed full with the scent of coppery blood and death. Desperately I wanted to take an hour-long shower but my living room looked like a murder took place there.

  Wild, hysterical laughter poured out of me as freely as my vomit did just a short time ago. Well, gee Teresa, that’s exactly what did happen. And you owe your life to a ghost. If not for Andre Sr, I would be slumped over with Adrian’s body on my couch instead of worrying about how I was going to clean all this.

  Wonder what Helen charges for biohazard cleanup? I giggled to myself as I limped into the garage where all the cleaning supplies were stored. I didn’t have a clue what to use and just grabbed an armful of bottles and spray cans. On my return trip, I took the box of trash bags. Moving through the kitchen I heard a loud yowl. My cats!

  Dropping the box, I tore through the house to find my babies. Loud gasps filled my ears, and suddenly I was sobbing again, tasting salt on my lips as I cried out, “Agnes! Maverick! Daisy! Please, please, it’s okay.”

  Uncaring of the mess I might be dragging with me, all I could think about was if one of them ran out through the open door. It was shocking that nobody reported the gunshot, but I wasn’t out of the woods there yet. I couldn’t go racing around the neighborhood covered in blood, calling for the cats and not draw attention.

  The two guest bedroom doors are shut firmly so I don’t have to worry about the fosters. I’d comfort everyone after this nightmare was behind me. I just had to locate Agnes, Maverick, and Daisy. I chanted that to myself as I went into my bedroom, looking first under the bed and dressers.

  The hardwood floor was painful as I literally fell to my knees in relief when I found all three of them in my walk-in closet, huddled behind a few totes of old clothes. Pulling Agnes to me, I kissed her furry head again and again. “Mommy is so happy you’re all okay.”

  Releasing Agnes, my hand reached out for Maverick when I pulled back just in time as he hissed and lashed out with claws extended. “It’s okay, you’re scared. And I smell horrible,” I mumbled, standing up.

  “You’re all safe in here so I’m going to close you in,” I told them. “Don’t need any of you tracking blood around or getting into the chemicals.”

  The bedroom door closed with a click and amazingly, I felt much more in control. I could handle this.

  Three hours later, the living room was s as spotless as I could make it. The place would probably light up if a CSI team were to pop in, but it was my fondest hope that wasn’t going to happen. Despite the chill, I had to open all the windows so I wouldn’t be overcome by the cleaner fumes. The couch was ruined, no way around that. But even if I could get it perfectly clean, I would never be able to sit on it again. Nope, tomorrow, or rather, later today, since it was almost two in the morning, I would go furniture shopping, fast delivery and speedy haul-away service was a must.

  With a wet wipe, I cleaned up any errant spots that could possibly be blood as I trudged upstairs to finally get my shower. In the bathroom, my clothes and the dirty wet wipe went into one of the trash bags I brought with me. A sigh eased from my weary body I stepped into the shower, the dual heads pelting my body with not quite scalding hot water.

  I used an entire bottle of shower gel, the smell of lilacs overpowering and wiping away almost all traces of the scent of blood, yet it lingered in my memory no matter how I scrubbed. When I left the shower, I didn’t bother combing out my we
t hair, I just bundled it in a towel and flopped onto my bed.

  The sheets stuck to my damp body, twisting with me as I turned over. My eyes closed before my head even hit my pillow. Despite thinking I couldn’t possibly sleep after the events of last night, my body knew better and I dropped into a dreamless sleep.

  ****

  Bright sunlight drilled into my eyelids as full consciousness teased my resting mind. Unable to fight it, I rolled to spare my eyes and came face to face with a black, furry butt. I blew gently, watching the fur lift up in thick spikey clumps before it settled back down along Daisy’s twitching spine.

  With a noisy groan, I rose up and there was Victor stretched out on my gray silk damask chaise lounge, his long legs in his skin-tight brown pants crossed at the ankles, as his linked fingers rested on his flat stomach under the brazenly unbuttoned gold and tan silk shirt he wore, that gave more than a hint of his black hair-covered chest. The clothes he died in, forty years ago when his girlfriend and his brother killed him.

  “Victor,” my voice came out soft and with a breathy quality that I was ashamed of.

  His closed eyes opened slowly, the chocolate irises so dark they looked black from the distance. He rose slowly, moving forward until he sat on the end of the lounge, his hands dangling loosely between his spread legs. “I think it will be okay,” he said, his deep voice steady but with a hint of weariness.

  I opened my mouth to question that, but he cut me off before I got a single word out.

  “The less you know, the better.”

  “Mateo?” the name hung between us, guilt flooding me as his eyes narrowed.

  “What about him? We’ll let my father deal with him.” The smile he gave me told me enough about what that would be.

  My eyes flickered to Agnes who rubbed around the chaise lounge, overjoyed to see her friend again.

  Victor’s expression softened as he looked down at the black and orange cat drifting in and out of his legs. Once more I was reminded of happier days.

  Still, I wanted answers. “What about Andre and Brianna?

  Grim satisfaction radiated in his voice and on his face as Victor answered, “When the body is found they’ll be notified. I made certain of that.”

  “Victor?”

  In a flash he was next to me, a lean brown hand reaching toward me.

  I could no more stop flinching from his searching hand than I could prevent the sadness that shone clearly in his eyes.

  His arm fell to his sides. “You must understand, I never wanted all this, especially not to hurt you. I just wanted a chance at a life, a life with you.”

  There was nothing I could say to that. Hot tears dripped from my eyes, collected on my jaw, and then fell onto the comforter.

  “Know that I love you.” His lips crept upward in a sad smile and then he was gone.

  Tossing off the covers, I crawled forward on my hands and knees, my eyes scanning the room. All I saw were the cats. “That’s it?” I yelled out. “You say you love me and poof? Gone! You come back here right now, Victor! You don’t play fair.”

  Inching back against the headboard, I banged my battered body against it, full on sobbing now. “You don’t play fair.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Shifting my weight from one leg to the other while the humming furniture salesman rang up my new living room, set my phone launched into its ringtone, the theme from the movie, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Claude, my jovial salesman, raised his elegantly arched brown brows as his thin lips twitched.

  “Excuse me,” I said when I saw John’s name on the phone’s display.

  “For more privacy, the customer lounge is right down past the bedroom suites,” Claude put in smoothly, a well-manicured nail pointing the way.

  Head down, I raised it briefly to thank him before I powerwalked away. Only when I felt I was safely out of range, did I answer my phone.

  “Hello, John?”

  “T, I’m so happy to hear your voice! Are you okay?”

  My throat dried up as I cast guilty eyes around the room. There was simply no way for John to know about what happened last night after he left. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?” I managed to get out between numb lips.

  “Rescue just came back from Rehoboth Beach, a homeless guy stumbled on two dead bodies under the boardwalk, down near Funland.”

  I sank into the nearest space available which happened to be a King-sized captain’s bed, the hard knobs on the drawers smacked against my legs.

  John continued, “This hasn’t been released yet, but both men are from Greece and identification was found on them, along with credit cards and money, making robbery not a motive at this point.” He blew out a big breath right into the phone and it sounded like a wind tornado whizzing in my ear. “But one was Mateo Carras and it seemed a big coincidence you meeting a guy in Greece named Mateo and this guy turning up here dead.”

  My blood pounded in my temples and I was glad to already be sitting down. “What are you saying?”

  “I think this guy came over from Greece meaning to stalk you! I told you I didn’t have a good feeling about him.”

  John wasn’t completely off base in his thinking, but a wave of sweet relief hit me. Thank goodness I had never mentioned my date with Mateo in Baltimore or our lunch in Rehoboth. Now I could only hope that Sandy, the only person at the rescue who had met Mateo, never got wind of his body turning up. It was an unrealistic hope but I was going with it at the moment.

  “John, this is all so wild,” I said truthfully. “Thanks for calling me. This is definitely a lesson to be wary in the future.”

  “That’s what I’m always telling you. For such a smart girl you can be so naïve when it comes to jerks.”

  I was nodding my head along when I caught a glimpse of Claude weaving between the displays. “Hey, John? I’m in the middle of something, need to let you go. And did you hear about the new Jay and Silent Bob movie? I feel the need for a marathon night, soon!” I tried to inject some excitement into my voice.

  “Snoochie boochies!” John sang out one of our favorite phrases from Jay.

  “Later, partner,” I replied and disconnected.

  Claude stood a respectful distance away, his hands behind his back, waiting for me to finish up. As I put my phone back in my purse, he came closer. “All set, Ms. Ashford. Delivery first thing tomorrow.”

  I had wanted today and had pushed, but money truly could only spin the wheels so far. And what was one day?

  “Thank you so much, Claude.”

  Claude handed me three pages of paperwork and a shiny silver metal fountain pen. I signed my name in the proper places and accepted a handshake. Then I was on my way.

  Driving home, I couldn’t help but think about Mateo and Adrian. Mostly Mateo. Adrian, in reality, had been dead for weeks. Apparently happy to be free of his earthly life and with no interest in reclaiming his body, it was harder to grieve for him. A lot of that had to do with the fact that I had never met the man himself other than the few glimpses of his spirit.

  But Mateo, he had held me in his arms, kissed me, he was real to me. I felt horrible for what had been done to his grandfather all those years ago, but Adrian had no part in that. And neither had I, yet Mateo would have shot me as easily as he had Adrian. My head was a jumble of emotions and I was so tired of the half-truths and lies I was being forced to tell in order to cover up the fact that I knew Mateo and why he was in Delaware.

  I was under no illusions that the police would believe me that a dead drug kingpin from Greece had killed Mateo after some weird black mist had overtaken him. Remembering the way it had drifted over him gave me the creeps.

  Horns blasted from behind me, the light had turned green. I could have been there three seconds or a minute, lost in thought. Pressing down on the gas, the Tahoe shot forward and I cranked up the radio to keep my attention in the here and now.

  A trio of ghostly bikers tore around me and I smiled watching them speed through the yellow light. H
alloween was a week away and it would be interesting to see if the majority of the new ghosts headed out of town when it was over. There was nothing sinister with their presences that I had observed, it was the humans that were the true scary ones.

  At home, I saw a small manila envelope tucked into the trim around my garage door and after I parked, I went out and retrieved it. Lance. Just a touch and I knew it was from him. Standing in the opened garage I ripped open the top of the envelope, peering inside.

  A rush of warmth shot out at me as I tapped the item out. Sunlight caught on the brilliant red of the sea glass as it spun on a silver chain in my hand. The envelope crinkled noisily against my chest as I clutched the necklace to me. Walking out into my driveway, my eyes sought out Lance’s house but I saw no sign of anyone.

  Heading back, I opened the blue trash can near the side of the garage, planning to toss the empty mailer, my eyes were caught on writing that I had missed in my eagerness to open it. It simply said, Thank you for everything. Lance.

  Thank you, Lance, my heart answered.

  I put the mailer in the trash and fastened the necklace around my neck. Going inside the house, I sniffed and didn’t smell the overpowering scent of the cleaners. Walking into the living room I realized why. Cold wind blew in through all the partially opened windows!

  All three cats had claimed a window and cried when I pulled them down and shut the window. My furnace must have been working overtime all day! I almost sat down on the couch but sprang up before my butt touched it. My new things couldn’t come soon enough!

  In the kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of Pepsi and my purse, intending to head upstairs and unwind as best as I could. I fished my purse out and checked it as I walked upstairs. I had a message from Derek. Guess I didn’t need his services anymore.

  Hitting listen and the speaker button, I took the stairs at a gallop as Derek’s deep, monotone voice filled the air.

  “Ms. Ashford, Derek here. I got some bad news for you.”