Jon's Crazy Head-Boppin' Mystery

by A J Sherwood

  11

  I woke up feeling like someone had put me through the meat grinder. Every nerve in my body was overly sensitive from being so open yesterday. It honestly felt like someone had taken sandpaper to every inch of my skin, leaving me raw and sensitive in the worst ways. That didn’t even take into account my head, which throbbed with pain. Just trying to lift my head from the pillow nearly set a migraine off. I whimpered and stopped trying to move.

  The bed dipped next to me, a warm hip pressing in against my own. “Jon? Babe, you awake?”

  “Did someone get the number of the bus that hit me?” I rasped plaintively.

  He chuckled, although it sounded strained. “You’ve been out eighteen hours. I’ve got magnesium, Advil, Gatorade, and Mom’s coconut chicken soup. Any of that sound good?”

  “I want to have your babies,” I managed, doing my best to turn over so I could at least inhale the painkillers.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he drawled, the relief obvious in his voice. “And if you’re joking with me, I probably don’t have to worry about calling an ambulance. Alright, easy does it. I’m going to put another pillow behind you, prop you up, yeah?”

  He was gentle, I gave him that, but moving still equated torture. It took a good minute to prop me up so I could drink something without choking on it. I downed all the pills together, getting it over with in one shot, because any real movement of my jaw set the pain off in my head all over again.

  Donovan only left long enough to go downstairs and microwave some of the soup before coming back up with a tray. It smelled divine, like it normally did. I wasn’t a particular fan of coconut as a whole, but I could eat my weight in this soup.

  The tray settled on my lap and I gamely lifted a small spoonful to my mouth. It agitated my head a little to eat, but my stomach clamored for sustenance. In between bites, I looked at my boyfriend, still sitting patiently next to me on the bed. He looked…not as fantastically bright as he had before. A good sign; that meant the thrice-cursed drug had finally worn off and I was back to normal levels. Praise heaven.

  Donovan was still worried, angry, but also strangely happy? Why would he be—oh. Dammit. I had not planned to tell him I loved him while drugged to the eyeballs.

  “That’s a pretty blush you got going there, babe,” Donovan observed, eyes crinkling up with wicked amusement. “How much of last night do you remember?”

  “All of it. It’s not like I was drunk. Just, uh, without my usual inhibitions.” I paused in eating, suddenly feeling shy. It went without saying, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt Donovan would never hold anything I’d said or done against me. That wasn’t what made me hesitate. It was the crap-tastic timing of all of this. Surely me sitting here with an impending migraine wasn’t the best time for a romantic declaration.

  But I could see how happy it’d made him. I’d never said it before. I’d felt awkward and a little scared of putting all the fear, love, hope, desire, trust, and need I felt for this amazing man into three little words. Seeing how happy it made him, to have those words, I felt rotten about my own hesitancy. “I do love you, you know.”

  A brilliant smile overtook his face, lighting him up brighter than a second sun, and he came in close enough to press a gentle, sweet kiss to my mouth. Pulling back a few inches, he murmured, “I know. I also really love hearing it.”

  “I’ll say it more often, then.” See, heart, that wasn’t so hard. It was even nice, saying those words. Pleased all around, I pulled him back in with a gentle touch to his neck for another kiss. Although doing that brought up another memory, a little foggier than the other. Pulling back, I asked in concern, “Did I proposition you in the back of the car?”

  Donovan snickered, golden-brown eyes laughing. “You did. Don’t worry, Garrett will only tease you about it for the next fifty years.”

  I could feel my cheeks heat up to magenta levels. “Oh god. Why did I do that? I’ve never felt particularly stirred up with the drugs before.”

  “What you told me was that because I want you, it got you riled up.” Donovan spread his hands in an open shrug, leaving me to my own opinion on that.

  “Great,” I muttered, focusing back on my very late lunch. Breakfast. Whatever. It neared two in the afternoon, so it could be any meal of the day. “As if I didn’t already dislike the drug to begin with. Now, there’s a good chance if I take it, I’m going to try to pin you to some flat surface.”

  “If it helps at all, you were very adorable trying to get me naked.” He waggled both eyebrows playfully.

  I glared at him. “No. That is, in fact, anti-helpful. If you’re going to be like this, you can go away and let me eat my soup.”

  Still snickering, he left the bed, only venturing as far as the en-suite bathroom. “How about a hot bath?”

  Soaking for a while actually sounded blissful. Might get rid of some of the tension knots. “Sure. Did you call your mom?”

  “Didn’t need to. She’s called me three times. Dad twice. My sister keeps texting me on the hour. And your mother has called me three times, Skylar texted me several times, and Natalie informed me that if you weren’t awake by the time she got off work, she was calling an ambulance. I don’t think I’ll get any peace until you call someone,” he called from inside the bathroom.

  Yeah, that all sounded about right. It wasn’t nearly the amount of calls I normally received in the aftermath of a level three reading, but then again, I’d never had an anchor before when doing it. They were naturally more at ease with Donovan here keeping an eye on me. So was I, for that matter.

  I ate my soup, then crawled into the bath and soaked until there was absolutely no warmth left in the water. Eventually Donovan convinced me to come out, which I did only with the promise of more soup and comfy sweats. It was incredibly nice, being pampered like this. Maybe I should have been more open-minded about getting an anchor.

  Only when I was ensconced in the bed again, propped up comfortably, did Donovan bring my rotary phone up from the kitchen and plug it into the bedroom outlet. I called Natalie first, as my sister’s phone call would only last five minutes, at most. Then I called my mother. And then Donovan’s mother. It was an endless round of assurances that yes, I was fine, just tired and with a headache. No, this was much better than previous times. My emotions didn’t feel strewn out over the universe. My anchor kept me grounded, and I felt remarkably well, all things considered.

  After three phone calls, I figured I was done and fell into a doze; just that little amount of effort had exhausted me. Who knew how long I slept before I heard Donovan’s voice from the reading nook outside the door.

  “Yes, sir, he’s asleep. We’re all relieved by it, honestly; he’s usually in too much pain and confusion to sleep. Yeah, he agrees, doing this with an anchor is way better. No, he’s basically been sleeping and I’ve let him. He’ll recover faster this way. No, he was up and moving earlier, why? Huh. I’m honestly relieved, but where does that leave us on the case? Yeah, okay, well it’s not like we’re moving anytime soon anyway. He’s still out for the count. Sure. Sure, I’ll tell him when he’s awake again. Yeah. Bye.”

  “Donovan?” I called, my voice thick with sleep.

  I felt more than heard him move, as he moved quietly for such a large man. The shadows in the room were thick, the blinds pulled to keep the failing light out, the lights off to encourage me to sleep. I still felt tired but kept myself awake. I wanted to know what was going on.

  He settled on the bed next to me, a hand brushing lightly through my bedhead hair. “Hey. You properly awake or not?”

  “Not,” I admitted, leaning into the touch with a sigh. “Was that Jim on the phone?”

  “Yeah. Things have gotten a little interesting. Jim reported what Hall pulled in the hospital, and the police chief isn’t happy. There was an IA review this afternoon and they have removed Hall from the case.”

  I blinked, surprised. “I know he crossed a line, but he didn’t actually manage to do a
nything.”

  “Apparently, word on the street is this isn’t the first time he’s bullied a psychic consultant. IA’s had it up to here—” Donovan lifted a hand to eyebrow level “—with him. So he’s suspended until further notice.”

  “So I’m the straw that broke the camel’s back?” I relaxed back with a huff, not expecting this development. Hall had always been a thorn in our side, but at least he’d work with us. Some of the detectives in Clarksville flat refused to do even that. “But where does that leave the case?”

  “Jim wasn’t sure. IA was going through the other detectives, too. Investigating Hall apparently knocked the ant hill over and all sorts of things came to light. They’re scrambling up there, reassigning cases. We currently don’t know who’s going to take over.” Donovan scrubbed a hand over his face, worn in and worried. “Switching detectives while there’s still a serial killer on the loose seems like a really bad idea to me.”

  “Yeah, me too, although I can see why they felt compelled to do it.” I personally felt relieved IA was tearing through the Clarksville PD ranks. It was high time someone did so. We’d had nothing but bad experiences with them for years, and we weren’t the only psychics they’d called in.

  Donovan regarded me thoughtfully. “I didn’t have any experience working with a psychic up until I met you. I mean, there’s not many psychics to begin with.”

  “Less than one percent of the population,” I confirmed. “And we come in all kinds of different flavors. Most people, I imagine, have never met or worked with a psychic before. It’s not a common, everyday sort of trade. And there’s places where the old prejudices run strong. Places that still think our powers come from the occult.”

  Donovan’s head canted to the side as he took this in. “Just like not every place can accept sexual orientations aside from straight?”

  “About the same,” I admitted with a shrug. “Kinda a toss-up which one’s harder to be some days. Although if you ever do get to work with the alphabet agencies, you’ll find they have a totally different attitude. They love psychics. Have more than a few of their own, in fact.”

  His eyebrows arched. “You’ve worked with some of them?”

  “Yeah. Almost got recruited by the CIA, in fact. And you can imagine what a disaster that would have been.”

  Because Donovan was loyal to a fault, he automatically protested, “You’d have been great at that, what are you saying? Although…yeah. The no-electricity thing would have been a real bear.”

  “And psychics with the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security all have to be anchored. No exceptions.” That had been the second sticking point. Although my interview with a recruiter had led directly to my introduction to Jim, so I really had no regrets about talking to them.

  Donovan’s expression warmed and softened, his meridian lines glowing gold and green. “In that case, super relieved you didn’t go with them. Well, anyway, we’re on standby for now until Clarksville PD figures themselves out. So no stressing about it, yeah?”

  “Mm,” I agreed, eyelids drooping.

  Donovan lifted himself up and onto the other side of the bed, his usual side, and crawled in next to me. I turned and snuggled into him, a hand resting on his hip and my head tucked up under his chin. Ahh, better.

  “You doing okay, babe?” he whispered into my hair.

  “Better than I ever have on the first recovery day,” I answered honestly. “Normally I’m still curled up into a ball and trying to hibernate until spring. Are you doing alright? You’re so tired.”

  He paused for a long moment before confessing, “I stayed up pretty late watching over you. When the Psy-Aid wore off, you were whimpering in pain. Took some coaxing to get some heavy-duty painkillers into you, and even then you refused to let go of me. Took hours before you relaxed back into a REM cycle.”

  That, I did not remember. But it didn’t surprise me. “I promise I’m okay now. Not ready to brave the outside world yet, but much better than before. Sleep with me?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed with a content sigh, snugging me in a little tighter. For a moment he flashed gold, stronger than usual.

  I grinned against his collarbone. “Love you, too.”

  “You know, one of the best things about being with you is, you can hear what I don’t say.”

  “It’s one of the perks of dating me,” I agreed, half-teasing.

  “It most certainly is.”

  The most disturbing thing about accidentally waking up at four in the morning is realizing some people do this on purpose so they can exercise. Really, who in their ever lovin’ mind thinks this a good idea? Just being awake irritated me.

  I woke up on my side, Donovan curled around my back, his arm heavy over my waist, breathing so deeply it was borderline snoring. For some reason, despite the fact I was completely comfortable, I was also wide awake. At four in the morning. Maybe because I’d been sleeping so much the past twenty-four hours, my body was tired of it and wanted me to move?

  For several moments, I tried staying still. I didn’t want to wake Donovan—the man needed his sleep. But eventually I got agitated and restless, too much to ignore, and decided I’d better get out before I woke him up with my fidgeting. I carefully maneuvered out of the bed, slipping free. He frowned, hand reaching for me for a moment, then settled again with a discontented sigh. He was such a teddy bear, I swear.

  Pulling on a pair of sweats, I silently made my way downstairs. Now that I was awake, I was hungry. My head no longer threatened to split open with every twitch, so maybe I could actually eat something solid. My stomach seconded this motion as I slipped into the kitchen, grabbing my claw from its wall hook as I moved.

  When Alani decided to feed someone, she went all out. I had lots of lovely options. After almost four months of eating her cooking, I recognized most of the dishes she’d made, although I couldn’t remember what all of them were called. With happy anticipation curling through me, I pulled out several containers and made a hodgepodge selection on a plate before warming it in the microwave. I flipped on the coffee machine as I waited, getting it percolating.

  With food and coffee, I settled on the couch in the living room, the news on but sound off to avoid waking Donovan. I read the captions instead, not fully paying attention to most of the announcements of road construction—yay, more road construction—to happen in the greater Nashville area, and how they anticipated another five million people would move in by 2020. Someone shoot me now. We were already way overcrowded in the city as it was.

  Focused as I was on the quite excellent food, I nearly missed the story. They switched anchors, someone speaking outside in a downtown section—hang on, that was Clarksville’s downtown. I read with growing interest as they reported the story of a serial killer striking random victims on the back of the head. Our case, in other words. So someone had finally picked that one up? Or at least, it was now a big enough case they’d report it outside of Clarksville.

  Then they switched screens again, this time showing a woman’s smiling picture in Army uniform, and I read the caption carefully: Latest victim was not in Clarksville as the previous ones, but instead in St. Elmo, Kentucky. The victim, Kristen Myers, is a lieutenant with the US Army and was heading to her car after shopping when she was attacked. Lieutenant Myers fortunately survived that initial encounter and is in a medically induced coma at this time. Police say the change of location by the serial killer is unexpected, and no one is sure why he changed his habits. They had no further comment. We urge all women in the surrounding towns of Clarksville and St. Elmo to be alert and cautious while going to their vehicles in the evenings—”

  “This just became an FBI case,” I whispered to myself, my plate forgotten in my lap. “Well, shit.”

  12

  I waited until seven, because I knew Jim was something of an early riser, but I didn’t have a death wish. I gave the man’s alarm clock the chance to go off first before calling. Only when I deemed it safe did I sneak upstairs, grab the r
ed rotary phone, then sneak it back to its hanger on the kitchen. Donovan slept through everything without even a twitch.

  Once the phone was plugged back in, I dialed Jim’s number. It rang once before he answered, words distorted with a yawn, “Hello?”

  “Jim, it’s Jon.”

  “Oh hey. Are you recovered enough to actually call people now?”

  “I’m feeling far better than I should be,” I answered honestly, and let me just say, I was more than a trifle smug about that. Also relieved, happy, and a few other dozen emotions. “You know all those people who told me life would be so, so much better with an anchor? Turns out they were onto something.”

  “You don’t say,” Jim drawled sarcastically. “How recovered are you?”

  “Hmm, I could probably go outside today if I had to, but I think I’d prefer to take another day before braving the outside world.”

  “If that’s the case, then why are you calling me at bird o’clock in the morning?”

  “Woke up at four, caught the news, and it’s quite the news. Did you hear that our serial killer jumped state lines last night?”

  Jim sucked in a startled breath. “You sure about that?”

  “It was on the morning news. He hit an army lieutenant in St. Elmo, Kentucky late in the evening yesterday. She survived, is in a coma now. Jim, you know what this means.”

  “Even if she survived, he’s crossed state lines to attack someone else. That puts this in FBI territory.” A moment of silence as he pondered this. “Jon, we might be permanently off this case, we may not. You know as well as I do the FBI don’t have a field office in Nashville.”

  “Yeah, I know.” The first year at Psy, we’d been pulled in by the FBI to help augment their forces. It hadn’t been anything major—we were basically another set of psychic hands to handle the crap-ton of evidence they’d been shifting through—but it had been a memorable experience. I’d learned a lot during it, one thing being the FBI were alright to work with. Good people. I’d even made friends with one of the agents. “What odds are you giving us still being on it?”