by Amie Gibbons
I found Grant, got the okay to go home and even take the next day off since I finished my report, and headed home.
We’d get Jade. We’d make her pay for the deaths of those people. And I’d get Carvi’s number from Quil and call him, open up some communications there and extend a hand of friendship. I couldn’t let Milo’s last wish just die with him.
It’d be okay. We’d make it all okay.
Fine, my life’s a bit complicated, but I like it that way.
Keeps things interestin’.
Thanks for reading!
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This story is the first in the SDF series. The two prequel short stories and my other works are available on Amazon from my page at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01651YIZU.
And keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in the SDF Series, Psycho (and Psychic) Games, available February of 2017.
PSYCHO (AND PSYCHIC) GAMES
“Hey, guys,” I said as I passed out the coffees. “Where’s Grant?”
“Right behind you,” a cool voice said.
I turned, holdin’ his coffee out.
Grant took it with a barely noticeable tug at the corner of his mouth.
“We, um, still on Mender’s drug case, General?” I asked.
“They are.” He pointed at Jet and Dan, jerking his head. “You’re with me.”
I grabbed my latte and followed him to the elevator. “What are we on, sir?”
“The director,” he said, hitting the button, “has volunteered you to interview JB Trunk.”
“Why do I know that name? Wait, the Puzzle Master?” I asked.
We got into the elevator and he took a deep breath. “The one and only.”
The serial killer was caught nearly a year ago, but he’d been at large across the South for at least five years. The papers dubbed him the Puzzle Master because he would lock his victims up with mental challenges and games, and watch on camera.
He got cocky and started putting stuff online live and that’s how the FBI caught him down in Atlanta.
He costarred in a few of the videos, playing with his captives.
He was found guilty of over a dozen murders, but they were speculating he had at least another six.
He was on death row, but he’d be filing appeals for the next ten years, workin’ the system as only a psychopath trying to avoid the death penalty can.
Grant scowled. “His lawyer tried to get life in prison for telling where he buried the bodies and who all of them were, but the DA didn’t bite. She wanted a needle in his arm and I can’t blame her for it. But they’ve been questioning him for months and he’s not telling.”
“So the director decided to bring in me?” I said once it was clear he was done.
You don’t interrupt Grant; it’s just not a good idea.
“You’re the psychic.”
That was it?
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Grant plays things close to the vest.
“Sir?” I said as the doors swished open.
“This isn’t Silence of the Lambs,” he said as we walked out. “Truck isn’t a genius who will tie you in knots, but he does play mind games with his interrogators, and I don’t want you to have to see what’s in his head.”
“I can take it.”
He looked down at me. “I know you can.”
The director walked out of her office as we hit the door to interrogation .
What were the odds?
“Director Foster,” I said, my nervous smile blossoming like the roses outside. And it’d take more than plant killer to wipe it off.
Since I was about to talk to a serial killer, I was pretty sure it was sticking around for the day.
“We’ll get you set up in the interrogation room,” the director said in a kind tone that couldn’t have been more fake if it was made of silicone. “Then we’ll bring Truck in.”
I just kept smiling as she walked away. She’d be back. The second I knew where the bodies were buried (strange how that’s normally just an expression, huh?) she’d want to be right there to track them down and take the credit.
She was runnin’ for Congress next year, so she needed a big, flashy win that didn’t have anything to do with the supernatural. And we all knew it.
“I’ll be with you the whole time,” Grant said.
“I’m not whinin’, sir, but why do we have to do this? He’s already been convicted.”
He stared at me. “When you were kidnapped, your family had no idea what happened to you. If you weren’t found, when would they have stopped looking?”
“Yeah, never.”
“It’s called closure, Ariana. These families need it.”
“Good point.”
“Let me do the talking,” Grant said. “Tap him to get visions. Do not respond to anything he says. He likes to get under people’s skin. He’ll mess with you if you let him.”
“What do I do when I get a vision and start crying and he wants to know why?”
“Don’t answer him. Let him wonder.”
“Yes, sir.”
I followed him into the first interrogation room, set my purse down and pulled out the sticks of incense I keep in there.
Smell helps amp my visions, so does alcohol, but we weren’t allowed that on the job, otherwise I’d be chuggin’ an apple martini. Sandalwood seems to work the best to up the psychic juices so I always keep the incense on me.
“I wonder what he’ll think of all this,” I said as I put the sticks in their wooden bowl and lit them.
“Doesn’t matter,” Grant said.
“What about his lawyer?”
“He agreed to wave council.”
“What? Why?”
“The director said a young woman wanted to interview him.” Grant got his lemon look, the one that said he was fixin’ to rip off a head or two. “He liked the idea.”
“But you’ll be doing the interviewing?”
“Yes. I know this is hard for you, but pretend you have laryngitis.” He gave me his ghost smile.
I mimicked zipping my lips shut.
Grant stood behind me, restin’ his large hands on my shoulders. “If you start to think you can’t handle it, or he gets to you, or anything, we’ll leave. Don’t hesitate to call it quits.”
“Are you saying that cuz now you know I won’t call it quits, General?”
“No. I’m saying it because I know you won’t want to call it quits if you think it will disappoint me. I’m telling you right now, it won’t.” His face hardened. “Is that understood, Ryder?”
I met his eyes in the mirror.
The icy green depths drew me in, settling calm down to my bones.
No clue if it was part of his powers or just him.
I licked my lips. “Crystal, sir.”
He nodded once and jerked his chin.
We walked into the observation room.
You always put the interrogatee in before the interrogator, that way they can stew or whatever.
Grant made a call and not three minutes later, two agents walked the psycho in from the hall’s entrance.
He didn’t look like a psycho.
He looked a bit younger than his thirty three years, was around Grant’s height, and kinda scrawny. His brown hair was a little shaggy, and he had a light layer of scruff that amplified his strong features. His dark brown eyes sparkled as we walked into the room, and he grinned at the mirror, showing off full lips and straight teeth.
Holy crap on a cracker, he was cute.
Well, I guess if he actually looked like a psycho, he wouldn’t have been able to lure that many people. He wasn’t the jump out and grab ‘em t
ype of psycho. Most of his victims were women he picked up in bars and clubs.
At least, the one’s the authorities had found.
The rest of them could be along the same lines, but we weren’t sure.
I guess that was my job to figure out too.
Lucky me.
“You ready?” Grant asked.
Truck smiled at us through the glass.
“This guy doesn’t have any kind of powers, right?” I asked.
Grant didn’t say anything.
“Sir?”
“Nothing on record,” Grant said.
“Are you sensing something?”
He paused again. “I don’t know.”
He opened the door into the interrogation room and waved me through.
Truck smiled, lookin’ me up and down like we were in a bar and finished by meeting my eyes.
I blushed.
“They weren’t lying,” Truck said. “You are beautiful. And so little.”
He stared into my eyes and I looked away, trying not to smile.
Shouldn’t a serial killer have seemed more… creepy! The words could’ve easily been creepy, but he was downright charming.
“I love shy women,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m JB. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Special Agent Ryder,” I said.
He held up his hands, making the chains clink as they hit the end of their length. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m kind of tied up at the moment.”
I covered my smile.
Oh crap on a cracker and kittens too, I was in trouble.
“You’re here to talk to me,” Grant said, making me jump.
I stepped to the side and my boss sat across from Truck.
“Hey,” Truck said, “I’m JB. You must be Special Agent Grant. They told me about you too.”
Who was they?
I walked behind Truck, hovering in his blind spot. Interrogators do it all the time. It’s supposed to intimidate people.
JB, er, Truck… Truck, smiled at me in the mirror.
“That’s not what I agreed to,” Truck said.
“You agreed to talk,” Grant said in a tone that would terrify me.
He has this really soft voice he gets when he’s angry. It’s so scary cuz you know he’s gonna do something when he has it.
I’ve seen him punch a suspect so hard the guy dropped like a load of bricks, and he switched from talkin’ soft to screaming at another one, and broke that guy faster than a cowboy with a new colt.
“Where’s your dumping ground?” Grant asked.
Truck didn’t take his eyes off me and I shivered as I reached forward.
“Are you supposed to be touching the psycho?” Truck asked. “I don’t know.” He shook his head and tutted. “I could claim abuse and since my lawyer isn’t here, and you could get in real trouble.”
“The interview’s being recorded,” Grant said, still stone calm. “She’s here to observe. You’re talking to me.”
“Nope.” Truck shrugged.
I took a deep breath, hand shakin’ as I lifted it again. Nope, not ready yet.
“I agreed to meet without a lawyer,” Truck said, “because I was promised an audience with a pretty, young agent. So unless she starts talking, and you leave, I’m not saying a word until my lawyer gets here.”
Grant met my eyes over Truck’s head.
I nodded and Truck’s eyes reached a new level of luminance as I reached out and pressed my pinky against his neck.
I didn’t want any more contact with him than necessary.
I was already gonna have to boil my skin just from being attracted to him.
Flash.
The young boy, maybe thirteen, smiled at a little one, no more than five.
“It’s so cool; you got to see it,” the teen said, pulling the child’s hand.
The little boy had the delicate face of an angel, floppy light blond curls, and the biggest green eyes I’d ever seen.
He nodded and followed, little legs going at super speed to keep up.
They tromped from the typical suburban neighborhood down the street to woods looming up at a dead end like they were trying to eat the bit of civilization humans had carved out.
The boys walked down a path obviously forged by hundreds of humans over the years and hit a dense patch right before the ground sloped down.
“Over here,” the teen said, veering off the path to the right.
They plowed through the trees and the teen picked up a length of rope just lying on the ground. He grabbed the little boy’s arms and tied them behind his back.
The boy’s mouth moved and it took a moment for me to realize the sound had cut off.
The teen picked up a roll of duct tape and ripped off a piece, slapping it over the kid’s mouth.
Young Truck tied another rope over the one already holding the child’s hands behind his back and tossed it over a branch, making a crude pulley. Truck grabbed the end of the rope and yanked.
The little boy went up and his arms jerked up backwards.
I jerked away from Truck, swallowing bile.
I’ve seen some terrible things in two years as a psychic.
But I’d never seen someone hurt a child with that kind of cold, planned heartlessness.
I swallowed again and managed to drag my gaze up, keeping my eyes unfocused as they passed Truck and I found Grant’s eyes.
Grant nodded once and I turned, hitting the door, Grant close behind.
I sobbed and bent over, wrappin’ my arms around myself soon as the door was closed.
“It’s okay.” Grant wrapped his thick arms around me, holding my tight against his chest as I babbled it out.
“And the entire time, I could feel him,” I said. “He didn’t feel guilty, or sad, or even crazy, he just wanted to see what would happen, like a kid holding a magnifying glass over an ant. That’s all that little boy was to him, nothing more than an ant.”
“That’s what other people are to psychopaths like this,” Grant said, as though that was supposed to comfort me.
Funny, it didn’t.
“I think that little boy was his first kill, or attack, or whatever. We need to find out what happened to him, General.”
“Can you handle being in there?” he asked, letting me go.
I turned, staying close so I could feel his body heat.
“Ariana,” he said, “if you can’t do this, say so.”
“I can do it.” I gulped and nodded.
“You are a horrible liar.”
I nodded again.
Grant opened the door and I wiped out under my eyes before walkin’ back in.
Truck grinned like a teenage boy who just won a date with the homecoming queen.
“What was that?” Truck asked. “You seemed to lose it a little. And what are these?” He pointed at the incense bowl.
“Where did you bury your victims?” Grant asked, hovering behind the man along with me.
Truck couldn’t have looked more relaxed if he was sitting on a beach in Maui drinking pina coladas.
“Get me my lawyer, we’re done,” Truck said. “Unless you leave; then we’ll see if your little girl can’t talk it out of me.”
I looked at Grant.
The last vision was useless if I couldn’t find the location of his victims.
I couldn’t have gone through that for nothing.
“He’s all yours, Ryder,” Grant said, walking out.
He’d be watching from behind the mirror, but I was still alone in the room with the psycho.
“Please, sit,” Truck said. “I can’t stand sitting while a lady is standing. It’s so rude.”
I forced a smile and took a deep breath.
Okay, channel your inner Grant.
“I’m good standing,” I said. “Now, as my boss said, where is your dumping ground?”
“Your people found my dumping ground.”
“No, they found the latest one in Atla
nta. We know there’s at least one more from your earlier kills.”
“And how do you know that?” he asked, propping his chin on his hand, looking at me in the mirror.
“Because you told the agents who captured you as much.”
“I could have been lying.”
True, but the shrinks who analyzed him and, more importantly, Grant, didn’t think so.
“Our shrinks say you weren’t. So yeah, we’ve got to try to get it out of you.”
“Oh honey, you can get anything out of me you want.”
My stomach dropped and he smiled that same wide, almost innocent smile.
“You are going to be so much fun to play with,” he said.
I crossed my arms.
Let the games begin.
Hope you enjoyed this sneek peek and don’t forget to check out Psycho (and Psychic) Games February, 2017.
The Evie Jones Shorts Series
EVIE JONES AND THE CRAZY EXES
EVIE JONES AND THE GOOD LUCK FUNDRAISER
EVIE JONES AND THE MAGIC MELTDOWN
EVIE JONES AND THE SPIRIT STALKER
EVIE JONES AND THE SHADOW OF CHAOS
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The Laws of Magic Series
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THE TREETOPS EXPERIMENTATION (A MILLIE LEHMAN SHORT STORY)
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THE GODS DEFENSE
THE GODS’ APPEAL
THE GODS’ COURT
PATENTING MAGIC
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SPHINX ORIGINS (A SPHINX SHORT)
PARATA’S SHADOWS (BOOK 1 COMING 2018)
ONE IN INFINITY (A REALITY CROSSING NOVELLA)
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PSYCHIC UNDERCOVER (WITH THE UNDEAD)
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