He rubbed his jaw. “I figured that might be a consideration.”
“How can you be so damn blasé about all this?” she demanded furiously. “My life has been threatened, Lieutenant! There’s a nut out there who wants to kill me, and if I run away from him, I lose my means of making a living. This is all your fault. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“You did this to me. You.”
“I know.”
“It’s your responsibility, Lieutenant. If you hadn’t—”
“Jamie.”
“What?”
“I want you to call me Jamie.”
She studied him, a stubborn set to her jaw. “I’d rather stick to Lieutenant, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind. Call me Jamie.”
She closed her eyes, as if straining for control. “Why?”
“Because then I’ll get to call you India.” She opened her eyes and blinked. He smiled and shrugged. “I’ve been wanting to call you India.”
She blinked again, then looked away. From her wavering expression, he gathered she was trying to summon her rage back up, but having a hard time of it. Finally, with a weary sigh, she backed up and sank into the big overstuffed sofa, hugging a throw pillow to her chest. She looked sweet and lost and defenseless. “What am I going to do, Lieutenant?”
With exaggerated patience, he said, “You’re going to call me Jamie.” He knelt in front of her and looked into the troubled depths of her eyes. “And you’re going to let me protect you.” She looked toward the ceiling. “I know, I know. I got you into this mess. I’ve blown it, I admit it. That’s why I want to make it right. I need to make it right. I can’t just expose you to danger this way and walk away. But I can’t tell you to walk away, either, if it’ll destroy your practice.”
“I’m waiting for some brilliant plan,” she said listlessly.
He bit his lip, then came out with it. “The brilliant plan is that I stay with you.” She just stared at him. “At night.”
A pause. “Here?”
“Of course. Here in your house.”
“Every night?”
“Until we apprehend the Firefly.”
She looked thoughtful. “I’ve just moved here, and I’ve got my professional reputation.... What will people think?”
“They’ll think we’re sleeping together.” He chuckled at her nonplussed expression. “Unless I spread it around that it’s strictly police business, which I’ll certainly want to do anyway, to warn the Firefly off.”
“I’d have to fix up one of the empty bedrooms.”
“No need. I won’t be sleeping. I’ll be pulling guard duty.”
“Why you?” she asked. “You could order some patrolman to do it.”
He stood. “First of all, I trust myself more than I trust even the best patrolman. Second, I’m the one who got you into this mess. I figure I should be the one to lose sleep over it.”
“When will you sleep?”
“I’ll leave work early and catch some shut-eye in the afternoons. During the day, I’ll have a car watching the house. Then I’ll be here from about eight o’clock till I go to work in the morning. So, what do you say?”
She looked off across the room for a few moments, seemingly lost in thought. Finally she said, “All right, Lieutenant. I really can’t see any other way.”
He crossed his arms as he looked down on her. “I’m going to call you India whether you call me Jamie or not. I can’t spend the night with a woman I’m not on a first-name basis with.”
Her mouth curved in a reluctant, lopsided smile, as if she were trying to fight it. “All right.”
He grinned, sensing victory. “All right what?”
“All right, Jamie,” she said with amused petulance.
“That’s better.” Grinning, he grabbed his document kit and headed for the door. “See you tonight.”
* * *
INDIA CHECKED THE clock when she turned on the shower that evening—6:35. She adjusted the stream to pulse and stood under it for a luxurious interlude, letting the hot jets pound some of the tension from her neck and shoulders. When she finally set about washing her hair and scrubbing off the paint, she felt far too mellow to rush the job. She dried herself off, slipped on white silk panties and a sleeveless T-shirt, and combed her hair in front of the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door.
The sound of footsteps made her drop the comb. She held her breath to listen, hearing a soft tread, and then another, and another, from the other side of the door. Someone was slowly climbing the stairs. Jamie? He wasn’t due until eight o’clock; she hadn’t even turned on the downstairs lights yet. And how would he have gotten into the house? All the doors were locked. How would anyone have gotten in? By breaking in—that’s how.
With a shaking hand, she reached toward the doorknob, forgetting for a moment that there was no lock on it. Hissing a curse, she listened to the footsteps draw nearer.
A weapon! She ran on trembling legs to the mantel, opened a case at random, and pulled out a pistol—ancient and worthless, of course, but at least it looked kind of like the real thing. She slapped the wall switch, plunging the room into darkness, and positioned herself in the corner farthest from the door just as it flew open.
“I’ve got a gun!” she yelled as the dark figure materialized in the doorway.
There was a moment of silence, and then she heard a soft chuckle. “I’ve got two, and mine aren’t flintlocks!”
She knew that voice. “Jamie?”
The lights went on, and she blinked. Jamie stood just inside the room, wearing jeans and a denim jacket, a gun held loosely at his side. The grin faded as his gaze swept over her thoroughly, taking in the white T-shirt with its deep V neckline, and the satin bikini panties. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Or, uh... you know... barge in on you.” His ears, India noted, were bright pink.
India’s legs felt wobbly, and she leaned back against the wall. “How’d you get in?”
“There was an unlocked window into your examining room. I’d rung the bell, but you didn’t answer, and it was dark inside. I got worried.” His gaze rested on her wet, combed-back hair. “You were in the shower, I guess.”
Again his eyes seemed irresistibly drawn to her scantily clad body. India looked down at herself, suddenly very aware of her state of undress. She automatically pulled her T-shirt down in a vain attempt to cover her panties, only to find his attention suddenly riveted on her breasts as they pressed against the taut white cotton.
He backed up, gesturing toward the stairs with the gun. “I, uh... I’ll be in the kitchen.”
He shut the door behind him. India exhaled an unsteady breath, put the useless flintlock away, pulled on comfortingly sexless gray sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt, and went downstairs.
She found him at the kitchen table in front of an open box of fragrant pepperoni pizza, working on his second slice. “Want some?”
Grateful for his casual, everything-back-to-normal tone, she said, “Thanks. I’m starving.”
She pried off a slice and sat opposite him. He’d taken off his denim jacket, and now wore a blue sweater, over which was strapped a shoulder holster. “Do you wear that thing all the time?” she asked.
“Only when I’m on duty. Does it bother you?”
“No.” Actually, yes, but not in the way he meant. There was something unabashedly macho about the image he presented—a big, good-looking guy wolfing down pizza with a gun strapped to his chest. The gun shouldn’t have intrigued her, shouldn’t have increased his already potent sex appeal—yet it did. This had to be the height of political incorrectness, India thought ruefully, getting turned on by a gun! What was happening to her?
The men in her past had all been like Perry, urbane and coolly cerebral. They’d been the kind of men who liked to ponder things, discuss things, analyze things. James Keegan was the kind of man who took care of things. Plain and simple. H
e did what had to be done.
India finished her slice and reached for another just as Jamie did. As his hand neared hers, she flinched and drew back, sighing in relief that they hadn’t touched. To cover her awkwardness, she rose and went to the fridge. “Soda? Water?”
“Water’s fine.”
She filled two glasses with ice water, handed him one, and sat down. He hadn’t taken the slice he’d been reaching for, she noticed as she took a sip. It seemed he’d simply been watching her, his expression thoughtful.
“Can I ask you something, India? Something personal?” She nodded. “What happened to make you like this, so you can’t stand being touched?”
“I assumed you knew,” she said. “It’s the psychic reception. Every time someone touches me, their thoughts just... fill me up.” She shivered, and rubbed her arms. “I can’t tell whose thoughts are whose. It makes me feel as if I’m losing my mind.”
He nodded slowly. When he spoke, his words seemed chosen with great care. “I asked because, well... in my line of work, I’ve seen a lot of girls and women who’ve been victimized—abused, beaten, raped. Sometimes, especially if it happened when they were children, it leaves them very skittish about being touched.”
So that’s what this was all about. “That’s not why I don’t like to be touched, Jamie. I told you—it’s my ESP.”
He leaned forward on his elbows and spoke gently. “Are you sure? The human mind is very good at self-protection, India. It’s not uncommon for someone who’s been abused to block the experience from her memory—or to remember it as something other than what it was.”
She gaped at him, dumbfounded. “You’re serious. You think I’ve invented this whole psychic business to cover up—”
“Subconsciously, of course. I think it’s a possibility. I know something happened to you when you were twelve. Alden told me it was a very traumatic time for you.”
India laughed shortly. “‘Traumatic’? You have absolutely no idea. Neither does Alden. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Jamie. Why don’t you just drop this whole—”
“Because I like you.” His gaze held hers solidly. “And I don’t like the fact that you’re terrified of the slightest touch from another human being. It’s... it’s horrible, it’s crippling. How can you stand it?”
She swallowed hard. “I can’t.” She looked into his deep blue eyes, so full of misguided compassion, and added, “But I have no choice. That’s the way it is.”
He slapped a palm on the table. “Wrong. If something happened to you, you should face it. Try to remember. Go under hypnosis, if that’s what it takes. You have to know the monster if you’re going to fight it, India.”
“Jamie, I know the monster!” She struggled to keep her voice steady. “You’re the one who refuses to acknowledge it. Believe me, I remember every detail of what happened to me when I was twelve. And none of it involved abuse, sexual or otherwise.”
“Are you sure? Have you ever explored the possibility? Maybe you should talk to somebody about it. Get professional—”
“You don’t think I have?” She rose and pushed back her chair. “You’re not the first person to decide I’m crazy, you know.”
He stood also. “I don’t think you’re—”
“Save it.” Her hands curled into fists; she quivered with frustration. “You know, I’m really sick of people like you, so full of good intentions, but so completely lacking in faith. I’m fed up with being doubted, fed up with having to prove myself... and I’m fed up with you!”
“India!”
She swept past him and out the kitchen. He heard her take the stairs two at a time, and then came the muffled slam of her bedroom door.
With a groan, he sat down and dropped his head in his hands. Nice goin’, Keegan. After a while, he put away the pizza, wiped the table down, and washed out the glasses. Then he checked and double-checked all the doors and windows, making a mental note to install proper locks tomorrow. When he was satisfied that the house was secure, he went upstairs and stood outside India’s bedroom door for a full minute before summoning up the courage to knock.
Silence. Finally she said, “Please go away.”
“I just want to apologize,” he said.
Another pause. “Apology accepted.”
“Face-to-face.” He opened the door a crack. “India?”
She sighed. “Come in, then.”
She reclined on her bed against a mountain of pillows, wearing those gray sweatpants and the sexy little T-shirt he’d seen her in earlier, having tossed the sweatshirt onto the floor. The only light in the room came from the TV; one of her hands cradled the remote, while the other rested on Phoenix, curled up next to her. She looked heartbreakingly small and vulnerable.
As he crossed the room to her, she spared him a brief glance, then returned her attention to the TV, which she was watching with the sound off. She stared at the screen, soft blue lights shifting across her beautiful, tormented features. Jamie sat facing her on the bed, warily eyeing the cat on the other side of her.
He breathed in India’s shower-fresh scent, warm and flowery, but not overly sweet. She pressed a button on the remote, and the blue lights began flickering to a different rhythm. After watching intently for a minute, she switched channels again.
Quietly Jamie said, “I can’t seem to do anything right with you, India. Everything I say makes things worse. I hate that. I really do.”
She let out a tremulous sigh. “It’s just so frustrating to have this... this awesome power, this thing that totally controls my life, and know that I can’t even talk about it, or people will think I’m nuts.”
“You can talk about it to me,” he said. “I guarantee you I won’t think you’re nuts.”
“But you won’t believe me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I believe that whatever is happening to you is very real—to you. That doesn’t mean you’re of unsound mind. It just means you have stuff to deal with. I’d like to help you deal with it.”
“Why?”
“I told you before—I like you. Just because I don’t believe in psychic phenomena doesn’t mean we have to be enemies. I’d like us to start over. I think we can find some common ground for friendship, but we have to trust each other. You have to trust me, even though I’ve been an ass. I know that’s asking a lot.”
She smiled crookedly. “It is.”
He smiled, too, pleased at this little bit of progress. “Will you give me another chance, India? I just want to start off fresh. I want you to tell me about your powers, so I can understand what’s happening to you.”
“You won’t try to get me to go to some shrink? Because I won’t.”
He nodded. “I understand. I won’t try to pressure you into anything. I just want to hear about it. I want you to tell me what it’s like for you.”
She pointed to the TV. “That’s what it’s like, when I get visions.” He turned and watched one image metamorphose into the next as she advanced the channels. “Except in black-and-white.”
“You actually see pictures in your mind?”
“Yep.” She stroked Phoenix from head to tail; he purred in luxurious satisfaction. Ah, to be a cat. Jamie watched her hand caress the gratified animal. “It’s like I have an antenna inside me. In fact, I think the psychic energy I pick up on is actually a form of electrical energy—or something like it.”
“And it started when you were twelve?”
“That’s right. It’s like the antenna began to activate, to pick up signals. I’ve read that the onset of psychic powers often coincides with puberty.” She scratched the cat’s throat; his eyes closed and he arched his head, giving her greater access. “The hormones or something.”
“Did it come on all at once?”
“No, it kind of crept up on me, a little at a time. At first I just got vague feelings of distress when people touched me. Gradually it got worse and worse. In the beginning, my parents just thought I was—I don’
t know—making a play for attention or something. But when I told them I didn’t want anyone to come near me, they took me to a shrink. By the time I was completely telepathic, I’d already been diagnosed as psychotically depressed. They didn’t believe a word I said.”
They didn’t believe a word I said. He’d heard that before, from a young girl who’d lived through a nightmare of abuse, only to be told by those closest to her that she’d made it all up. So far, nothing India had said was inconsistent with his theory that she’d been somehow abused. What had really happened to trigger such a powerful delusion in her mind?
“Yeah, Alden told me your parents were skeptical.”
A mirthless little laugh caught in her throat. “Skeptical? They thought I was insane. My father blamed my mother, and my mother blamed my father. She cracked first. About eight or nine months into the ordeal, she just packed her bags and took off.”
“What did he do?”
“He had me committed.”
“Oh, India.” Unthinkingly, he started to reach for her, and she stiffened. “Sorry, I...”
“That’s all right,” she murmured.
“It must have been awful.”
“It was,” she confirmed. “It was two months of hell. You can’t imagine.”
“How’d you get out?”
“They gave me electroshock.”
“Oh my God!”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought when they started strapping me down for it. But you know what? It was the best thing that could have happened. When I woke up, the telepathy was gone.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. That’s one of the reasons I think psychic signals must be some form of electricity. Electrical currents seem to activate and deactivate the ‘antenna.’ The electroshock made my powers go away, and a bolt of lightning made them come back.”
The logic she had invested in her psychic fantasy was impressive, but not foolproof. “Then what’s to stop you from explaining all this to a psychiatrist and getting another shock treatment to make the problem go away?”
Bodyguards Boxed Set Page 118