Psycho [and Psychic] Games

by Amie Gibbons

  I had an idea.

  I opened the door and walked into the room. Grant was growling at Truck, and Truck was just grinning. He really didn’t care how scary Grant was.

  “Out, Ryder,” Grant barked.

  “I... uh...” I risked a glance at Truck and he gave me an encouraging nod, like he was a friend, like he was Quil lending me strength to stand up to Grant.

  Uh, that was scary.

  “I just wanted to say, sir, that if Truck comes back, then he’ll have to behave if he wants to talk to me, but if he does, then I’ll see if I can’t help him do some experiments with me. With my powers. If he starts cooperating and telling us what we want to know, he’ll have me to experiment on.”

  “Out,” Grant said.

  “Really?” Truck asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Obviously there’ll be restrictions on what you can do, but yes.”

  “Deal! I’ll see you Monday.” Truck grinned up at me.

  Grant grabbed my arm, dragged me out, and shut the door behind him.

  As soon as it closed, the mask dropped and I stumbled back as he glared at me, anger borin’ into me like a laser.

  “I don’t give a fuck if you’re following orders and have to do this shit, Ryder,” Grant said in that cold, soft voice he uses when he’s truly pissed. “Why the hell did you do that? Do you think it’s smart to play with the psycho?”

  “We need him to help, he wants info from me, it seemed like a good idea.” I couldn’t get my voice above a whisper.

  “Next time you get one of your good ideas, tell me first. You got that, Ryder?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He grabbed my chin and pulled my head up. The agents waiting in the back were unchaining Truck to take him back out to the prison transport van.

  “Look at me, Ryder,” Grant said.

  “Kinda scared to, sir.”

  I grinned as I met his eyes, heart racing.

  “You don’t do something like that without running it past me, you got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” He let me go. “You see anything else?”

  I told him about the vision walk.

  “About the actual vision vision, sir, it was down in Florida,” I said. “A farmhouse outside of Tallahassee. I think I could pin the burial area down if we know what farmhouse it was.”

  He nodded. “I’ll dig through what we have on houses down there. Do you have a name or time frame?”

  “Her name was Dawn… Witz or Weiz or somethin’ like that. It was more recently, I think.”

  “Okay, we’ll figure out the farmhouse, and call you. For now, get your ass home and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I actually have to help the vamps tonight, sir,” I said. “Vamp invading their territory.”

  “They’re pulling you into that crap?”

  I shrugged. “I am the big kahuna’s girl, and I am psychic. I’ll probably find that guy before they will.”

  “This going to put you in danger?”

  “No, sir. I’m not actually goin’ out into the field to get the guy. I’ll be at the club or my house and just getting visons and telling them through calls.”

  I pulled out my phone. “It’s not even dark yet, sir,” I said. “The dancing is barely getting going if you want to go join Cora.”

  “Not a bad idea.” He shook his head and walked away.

  I called up Quil and told him I’d meet him.

  “Where?” Quil asked.

  “Where do you think Carvi would be hanging?” I asked. “Cuz I was thinking in a hotel room.”

  “Well...” I could almost see him chewing it over. “That is actually a good idea.”

  “You sound surprised, should I be offended?”

  “Of course not, sweets.” He paused again. “Whenever we’re in someone else’s territory, we stay with them. It’s rude not to. It wouldn’t even occur to me that one of us could be in hotel room.”

  “But Carvi’s not here under any rules and I think he’s past the point of caring if he’s being rude.”

  “True. I’ll look up the best hotels in the city. He’s trying to stay under the radar, but you won’t find King Carvagio in a Motel Six.”

  “Meet you at the club? We can research there and send people out from there.”

  “Yes, but I’d feel better if you wait there for me. I’ll join you and we’ll go from there together.”

  “Aw, big strong protector.”

  “A presto, sweets.”

  I smiled, I couldn’t help it. “A presto.”

  We hung up and I went to my desk. I could start the research while I waited for him.

  I checked the clock. I’d only been doing this about ten minutes but still, seemed longer.

  Research isn’t my best thing.

  As though on cue, my phone rang.

  I picked it up, expectin’ Quil’s picture to show up, but it wasn’t.

  It was Grant.

  Uh-oh.

  “Yeah, General?” I said.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  That wasn’t the tone I was expecting. I was ready for cold, but this wasn’t it. This was melted chocolate warm; the tone his voice gets when he’s worried. It’s not a tone we hear often. Grant does mad, he does happy, he does content, he doesn’t do concerned a lot.

  “I’m still in the office. I was waitin’ for Quil to get here so we could start our search.”

  “Cancel it. We’re on our way back.”

  The world tunneled in, everything rushing down to my phone.

  “Grant, what happened?” I asked.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say my boss was scared.

  When Grant’s scared, normal people are already huddled with their teddies.

  “I already called Kowalski back, the rest are coming in.”

  Was it just me, or was he stallin’?

  “The rest, sir?”

  “We’ve got some from our unit, some from others, at least thirty coming in.” His voice shook.

  Oh God. Grant never stalls. Grant’s never afraid.

  “General?” I asked.

  The world moved slow and I knew.

  The same way you know who’s calling before you grab the phone, or that someone you love was in an accident.

  That freezing, can’t-move-but-see-it-comin’ feeling of absolute inevitability.

  “Someone shot up the prison transport at the light on Division,” Grant said.

  I shook my head.

  No way.

  “The agent with him and the three guards are dead, and Truck escaped,” Grant said.

  Chapter ten

  “I want teams starting at the scene and spreading out,” Grant said as agents were still dragging their butts in.

  “Kelim’s team’s already down there with the dogs,” an agent I didn’t know said.

  Calling people in at nine on Saturday meant most were hanging around the house and rushed in lookin’ rumpled, wore weekend casual hanging out clothes like Grant, or they were out on the town and wearing going out clothes like Jet. A few were in usual business clothes like me, but I got the impression they thought takin’ two minutes to change was too much when we had a fugitive.

  “DiCianni, I want everything you have on him,” Grant said. DiCianni jerked his head the barest bit. “Files, evidence, everything. DiCianni, you hearing me?”

  DiCianni twitched, saying, “Got it,” in a thick voice.

  It was his man in the transport who’d been escorting Truck back to the prison.

  “DiCianni,” Grant said in a softer tone.

  He shook his head slowly. “I’ve been team lead for less than two years, sir. First time losing a man.”

  Grant nodded. “It’s never easy. Never should be.” He clapped DiCianni on the shoulder and turned to me. “Ryder?”

  I sat up straight, tryin’ to make my eyes focus on him. “Sir?”

  Besides to call Quil to say I wouldn’t make it and why, I
don’t think I moved between Grant’s call and now.

  “I’ve got Bridges hitting the liquor store,” Grant said. “I want full on Atlantic City if you can make that happen but stay coherent. What kind of alcohol?”

  “Oh man, we’re really going there?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Belle Meade Bourbon,” I said. “It’ll get me good and pickled, but it’s high quality enough to drink without anything added, and low on impurities. Hopefully I won’t go full on ‘walkin’ with unicorns’ or have a hangover.”

  Mender and Hailey, ladies from two of the other teams, shared a look.

  “I’ve got to ask,” another agent from the Knoxville office that came out with DiCianni’s team said. “Unicorns?”

  “I got drunk in Atlantic City,” I said. “And alcohol helps me with visions, but then I was so drunk, I was seeing things and couldn’t tell visions apart. I got kinda wacky. The unicorns kept trying to get me to ride them. We don’t want me that bad.”

  “Kowalski?” Grant said.

  “Already on it, sir,” Jet said from his desk, eyes glued to the screen.

  “On what?” I asked.

  “The last few times Truck went after someone, he put a sort of ad on Craigslist,” Jet said. “It’s phrased like a dating ad almost. It says who he’ll go after next.”

  “He’s not going to try grabbin’ someone,” I said. “He just escaped. He’s gonna run.”

  “No,” Grant said. “He wants to play. He’s going to grab someone.”

  “He just barely got away in the last hour,” I said. “How would he have internet or anything?”

  “He had an accomplice,” Jet said. “He’s got help to set up whatever he wants.”

  Grant finished handing out the assignments and I sat down with the files we already had on Truck here, tryin’ to get a vision.

  “So we’re back to accomplice?” Dan said from his computer.

  “Yes,” Grant said.

  Truck didn’t have one though.

  We’d covered that.

  And I knew, I knew, he wasn’t lying when he said he left that body there on purpose, just in case he needed to push agents into questioning him.

  Or moving him.

  My head went swimmy.

  “That’s the why,” I whispered, moisture fleein’ my mouth.

  “Ryder?” Grant ask, moving my chair away from my desk and crouching in front of me.

  “He.” I gulped. “He set up that whole girl to be discovered thing, General. He didn’t have an accomplice. I was sure of it. But he left the girl in case he ever needed to direct LEOs to her, to get them to question him again, to get them to move him. I know I told you that already. But, he probably left girls preserved like that all over the country, just in case he was ever caught. He didn’t know what prison he’d end up in, so he… yeah, there’s gotta be more girls like that. He sensed me, sensed my power, but I think he needed to be closer to use it. And he used it to talk to whoever broke him out.”

  I took a deep breath. “He could sense me all the way up in New York, but needed to be closer to use me. He used my power to coordinate with whoever broke him out, sir. To tell them when and where he’d be and how many guards.”

  “Ryder, no,” Grant said, covering my knees with his hands.

  “He’s out because of me, sir,” I said, starin’ at his hands. “He got himself transferred here, used my powers because I can’t control them, and now anyone he kills-”

  “No.” Grant grabbed my chin, makin’ me look at him. “This is not on you. Yes, he used you. That doesn’t make this your fault. And we will find him.”

  “Oh shit,” Jet said.

  My stomach lurched and Grant stood and asked, “What?”

  “I found an announcement I’m pretty sure is his.” Jet took a deep breath. “What say you to a game of chess? Winner takes all. Protect the queens because the black knight is after them. I can run. I can hide. Even your psychic won’t be able to see my dark side. I’ve got to get somewhere safe, so first kill’s free, just something to whet my whistle. You have one hour. Come find me.”

  I giggled, high and loud as tears sprang up under my eyes.

  “Don't panic, Ryder,” Grant said.

  “There's a serial killer loose in Nashville because of me, and he likes to kidnap and play with coeds! And instead of running, he’s lookin’ for his next victim. He's probably already grabbed her. I get to panic, sir,” I said.

  “No, you don't. You're an FBI agent and we need you to catch him. Suck it up.”

  “Um, sir?” Jet pointed to the computer, dark skin at least two shades lighter. “He may usually target college coeds, but...”

  “Spit it out, Kowalski,” Grant said.

  Jet shook his head, finger still stretched towards the computer.

  I got up and walked behind him with Grant to read the screen. Just under the first message was another one listed about ten minutes later.

  “Woe foe, after dark. Who left the little girls alone in the park? Your damage isn’t done. Let’s have some fun. Maybe somebody’s family will be the one.”

  Under the message was a flyer announcing the Centennial Park’s Big Band Dance every Saturday night through the summer.

  Grant moved so fast I swear he teleported, getting across the office by the time I realized he’d moved and turned to see where he went.

  “Sir?” I called after him.

  “Cora. Backup!” he yelled over his shoulder before bursting through the door to the stairs.

  “Huh, what-” I said.

  My mouth dropped open.

  Cora was at the Big Band Dance.

  Maybe somebody’s family will be the one.

  “He’s after Cora,” I said. “Jet, call for backup, tell them we’re at Centennial Park’s Dance and we think Truck will be there.”

  I ran after Grant, pullin’ my phone out.

  Grant could put on the siren and get over to West End in maybe ten minutes.

  I had a flying carpet that could do sixty miles an hour, and hopefully would have his phone on him.

  I called as I hit the door to the stairs and the phone clicked on after only two rings.

  “Pyro, thank God!” I said, thundering down the stairs. “Baby, how far are you from my work? Hit a button for every mile.”

  The phone beeped once.

  “Fantastic! Can you come get me? I’ll be running west down the street. There’s a psycho we think is going after Grant’s daughter.”

  The phone beeped once and he hung up.

  I hit the door and booked it across the parking lot.

  Not that whatever I managed to cover before Pyro flew in would make a big difference, but I couldn’t just stand there.

  Pyro whooshed down less than a minute later and I jumped on, holdin’ onto his front hard enough to bruise if he were human.

  “Centennial Park, baby,” I said. “Careful, it’s a clear night.”

  Pyro shot up at an angle so I wouldn’t hang off, hitting his max speed faster than a sports car.

  We blasted over the skyscrapers, high enough that hopefully anyone lookin’ up just saw a shadow. We zoomed over downtown and down the road into midtown, the air cold and harsh at this speed, and makin’ my eyes run.

  We hit the edge of the park and Pyro dove, stoppin’ just short of the grass behind some trees near the bandstand.

  I hopped off and he pointed up to the tree.

  “No,” I whispered. “There’s lights over at the bandstand, around the Parthenon, street lights, for cryin’ out loud. Someone will see you.”

  He shrugged and zipped up, landing at the top of the tree.

  “Pyro!” I hissed.

  He pointed towards the bandstand with a tassel and I growled and ran.

  He was right. I didn’t have time to argue with him.

  The band was playing some bouncy fifties sounding song with no lyrics and there was a crowd of at least two hundred on the dance floor and hanging out on t
he grass around, just watchin’ the fun.

  There was everything from teens to old people at the party and I scanned the crowd near the edge as fast as I could.

  How hard could it be to find a tall blond thirteen-year-old, probably in a group of ‘em?

  “Crap on toast,” I said, pulling out my phone and calling Grant.

  “What?” he said.

  “What’s Cora’s number, sir?”

  “I already tried calling her,” he said.

  “Oh right, of course. Sir, I’m here, I don’t see her, but it’s pretty crowded.”

  “How are you there?”

  “Um, I called a ride who kinda zoomed me over.”

  Okay, so I implied it was a vamp instead of my flying carpet, but I wasn’t actually lying.

  “Good thinking. Get a vision. I’m pulling into the park now.” He hung up.

  “Right.”

  I took a position near the back with lots of people standing around watching and closed my eyes.

  I pictured Grant’s daughter, so much like her father it was no wonder they fought. She had her mom’s blond hair and sharp features, but her daddy’s light green eyes and thick lips, and she was all long, slender limbs, like a colt. In the last year, she’d grown around six inches and was a whopping five seven already.

  Flash.

  She danced with her boyfriend near the edge of the floor, play swing dancing, though neither really knew what they were doing.

  I opened my eyes and fast walked around the dance floor.

  And there she was.

  She grinned big and beautiful, straight blond hair swinging around. Her boyfriend was a big guy who looked like he was at least sixteen. He was over six feet tall and had broad shoulders guys didn’t get until after puberty.

  I walked up to them, waving once Cora saw me.

  She slammed to a stop, sayin’ something.

  I tapped my ear and pointed out to the grass.

  She nodded and I followed her and her boyfriend out, grabbing her arm to stop her once we got far enough away to talk without the band drowning us out.

  There’s no way Truck would grab her with this many people around, especially with me and her guy right there, but still.

  “Ariana, hey,” she said. “You here with my dad or something? He said he’d join us if he could get away from work.”