If Finn kept up with the monosyllabic answers, she was going to burst something. “What happened? Do you think it was an animal attack or something we should know about?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t feel anything.”
His nonchalant tone was as good as a shrug. What the hell was wrong with him? He sounded like he couldn’t care less. “You don’t seem very upset.”
“I’ve seen worse, remember.” He paused and a deep sigh came through on his end of the line. “It’s not like Willie was a nice guy or anything. He was an asshole. And a son-of-a-bitch to work for. Fish and Game met up with the Sheriff’s Department at the scene. They all agree it was a mountain lion attack. Maybe karma gave Willie what he deserved.”
“How can you say that?” Finn could be callous, especially when they were on the trail of something nasty, but this was an unusual apathy from someone who was much more compassionate. “Willie happened to be a human being and, asshole or not, we need to know what did this. Trish will want to know what did this.” Karma in the form of a mountain lion. Right. Jacquelyn would have laughed if this wasn’t all so damned tragic.
“I’ve already talked to Trish,” Finn said, his voice becoming impatient. “Nothing at the scene stuck out to me. I felt fear, anger…the usual. But vague. I can’t imagine the old bastard was pleased about being eaten. What I felt at the scene could have been Willie’s reaction to the attack.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. I’ve gotta go.”
The phone went dead and Jacquelyn dropped it at her side. How could Finn think Willie’s death was a simple open and shut case? A mountain lion this close to town? Even hungry, there wasn’t much that would coax a large cat down from the mountains this time of year. It didn’t matter what Finn thought. She needed real answers. And she needed to get to Trish’s if she wanted to dig for more information. But if she bailed on work, she wouldn’t have a job. And no job meant no paycheck. Real life had become a serious inconvenience.
Rage pooled in Micah’s stomach like acid and burned through his limbs as hot as wildfire, waking him from a deep sleep. He threw himself out of bed and stumbled into the kitchenette’s counter, his jaw clenched and his muscles tightened, constricting as though ready to throw his body at an invisible assailant. He bit the inside of his cheek, the coppery tang of blood only spurring him on as the urge to rip someone’s throat out consumed him. He didn’t care who, anyone would do, really. By sheer force of will he stayed planted in his RV, arms shaking as they braced him up against the counter. His chest heaved while he drew ragged breaths through flared nostrils as he tried to control the need to leave this lonely space and seek out a fight. Deep breath in. And out. In… Out… God, what in the hell was wrong with him?
He continued to focus on his breath and by small degrees, the violent urges subsided. The unchecked rage was soon replaced with a warm glow that turned his bones soft and made his legs weak. A low moan escaped his lips, unbidden and he could only compare the way he felt to the afterglow of the best sex ever. Micah backed away from the counter and collapsed on the edge of his mattress for a moment and waited for the intense physical response to subside. And when it did, a surge of power took its place, better than an endorphine rush, his energy levels spiking as though he’d chugged a gallon of Redbull and chased it with a few triple espressos. His chest swelled with a confidence that bordered on foolhardy in its blindness.
These weren’t his emotions. The intrusion made his stomach lurch and Micah swallowed down the bile that rose in this throat. But who, or what was he channeling? It wasn’t the first time he’d picked up on emotions that weren’t his, though there didn’t seem to be anyone else near. The closest building was the lumber store across the street, but it seemed unlikely some for some shopper to fly into a rage and find sexual satiation in the conduit isle. Of course, there were some strange sorts of people in this world. Since winding up in this crazy town, he’d never experienced anyone else’s emotions so strongly. Jacquelyn pushed her emotions outward in a way that he couldn’t help but feel them. His mother had been the same, he knew without her saying a word, when she was sad, happy, upset. He’d always been intuitive to people’s feelings. Nothing could compare to the raw emotion assaulting him now, though.
He popped an Ativan under his tongue. It didn’t matter that it was almost seven in the morning. There was no way he’d be able cope without the drugs. Forcing himself down on the bed, he tried to think of anything other than the shadows of rage, lust, and the resulting overconfidence that made him feel like he was better than anyone and ready to take on the world. Micah counted to thirty and took a deep breath, his body relaxing a little. Just enough to take the edge off. No need to take another pill. The dose he’d taken would help him rest. He couldn’t stand the surge of emotions coming and going without rhyme or reason. At least now he could sleep a few more hours.
Jacquelyn proclaimed this particular eight-hour shift the longest in her history at Grind. She checked the clock for the millionth time, positive the second hand ticked backward.
Town was buzzing with news of Willie Carmichael’s death. A community as small as McCall didn’t see many tragedies. And a death as violent as Willie’s had the local cops thrown for a loop.
“The sheriff called in a wildlife expert. Even the Fish and Game can’t make heads or tails of it,” Bree said to the room at large. “But they’re wondering what Willie would’ve been doing out by Goose Creek so late at night. They questioned his wife, but she doesn’t know anything. She said he got drunk like he always does and they got into a fight…”
Jacquelyn grabbed a washcloth and headed for the most recently vacated table in an effort to tune the gossip out. Bree should quit her job and go to work for the newspaper. Why even bother with the formality of speculation? Bree just inhaled every bit of news floating around and spewed it all out in a nasty cloud of malicious gossip. Maybe it made Bree feel important to be the person delivering these important juicy tidbits of information to the town at large. Probably why she made it her solemn duty to have her nose in everyone’s personal business. If somebody took a shit, Bree knew about it, and apparently Willie’s situation fit under the category of Things People Talk About at Work.
“…can’t say anyone’s too sad about it. I heard he had a tendency to beat poor Christy…”
Finn hadn’t been sorry. Not in the least. He didn’t even seem to think Willie Carmichael’s death was out of the ordinary, but Jacquelyn knew better, and damn it, so should Finn. You couldn’t live in the world they lived in and not believe in monsters. She’d seen them with her own eyes. They were real and worse than any mountain lion.
“…I heard his kids didn’t even cry. When the sheriff told them, they just sort of stared at him…”
Would anyone notice if Jacquelyn stuffed a couple of napkins in her ears? It was all she could do to keep from flinging the dirty wet washcloth at Bree’s face. That’d give her something to talk about. “So, it’s close enough to three, and we’re pretty slow,” Jacquelyn said, interrupting Bree’s verbal diarrhea. “I think I’m gonna leave early, if that’s okay.” She didn’t really care if Bree thought it was okay or not. But she had to play nice. She couldn’t afford to lose her job just yet. At least, not until she had something new lined up. Hey, maybe Libby would give her a job!
Bree waved her off, too wrapped up in gossip to care if Jacquelyn left early or not. The rumbling of a diesel engine caught her attention, and Jacquelyn looked up just in time to see Trish pull up out front. The truck sat crooked in the parallel parking space outside the coffee shop, one set of the dual back tires dangerously close to interfering with traffic. Apparently Trish didn’t share Finn’s lack of concern over the supposed animal attack. She wouldn’t be here otherwise.
Jacquelyn left Grind, stalked up to the Dodge one-ton dually, and jerked open the door. Trish smiled down at her, the floorboard of the truck towered above her and reached almost to her chest. She couldn’t understand wh
y the hell Trish couldn’t just drive a nice compact car or little pickup. Instead she cruised around town in the throaty diesel, annoying vertically-challenged Waerds with the task of climbing in.
“What did Finn tell you?” Jacquelyn asked as she launched herself into the passenger seat.
Trish flashed a mischievous smile, totally convincing Jacquelyn that she did, in fact, enjoy watching her climb up into the truck. “Not much. You shouldn’t ride him the way you do, dear. He’s doing the best he can under the circumstances.”
Oh, please. “He didn’t seem too busted up over Willie’s death. Maybe you’re overestimating his ability to care.”
The older woman leveled her gaze and Jacquelyn’s shifted uncomfortably away. On a scale of one to about a million, Trish’s power clocked in somewhere in the seven-figure mark. Her steel-gray eyes bespoke of power. And when she wanted someone to feel what she possessed, they did. “And perhaps you’re underestimating him. Did it ever occur to you he may find it difficult to interact with you right now?”
Jacquelyn adjusted her gaze to stare out the window. She’d been trying to think of anything but her break-up with Finn.
“He is a Bearer, after all,” Trish continued. “Meant to bear the heavy weight of your emotions and pain. Imagine, just for a moment, what that must be like for him.”
Jacquelyn sucked in a breath and held it. It couldn’t be. Could it? Had that been the reason behind her casual acceptance of their breakup? Even though she’d been the one to end it, she’d expected to feel a certain amount of loss. They’d been together for almost five years, after all. Pain came with the territory no matter whose fault the breakup had been. As she reflected on the past month, though, she realized that she just wasn’t torn up the way she should have been. Damn him. Had Finn actually taken her pain, and bore the brunt of both their hurts? “He wouldn’t…” Jacquelyn said, her voice sounding tiny in the large double cab of the truck.
Trish looked away from the road, leveling her frosty silver gaze. “Yes, he would. He’d do it without thinking twice about it.”
“Well, I didn’t ask him to.” Jacquelyn felt suddenly defensive. Who did Finn think he was anyway? To take the hurt she’d rightfully earned. The hurt that had nothing to do with being a Waerd, something hard and real. There were days she felt like her compassion, her ability to feel sorrow, happiness, or pain was the only thing that separated her from the creatures she hunted. If Finn took that away from her, she was nothing. Just another empty, soulless monster. He had to realize that. No matter how well intentioned, he caused more harm than good by bearing the burden of her emotional weight. She was entitled to those emotions, damn it. And he’d taken that from her before she could even feel anything.
Don’t think about it now, don’t think about him. “What about the site?” A change of topic was in order. Otherwise she’d be after Finn and not whatever tore Willie Carmichael to shreds.
“Untouched. The sheriff called a special forensics team up from Boise, but I pulled some strings and made sure they stayed away until we saw it first. Lord knows they’d muck it up before we could glean anything meaningful. But we’re running out of time. We’ve only got an hour before they show up.”
Jacquelyn sat up straighter in the vinyl bench seat. First of all, blech. There was one upside to being a Waerd and not a Bearer. Thankfully, she wouldn’t be required to glean anything meaningful from the bloody crime scene. Secondly, did she really want to know what strings Trish had to pull to keep law enforcement from the scene of a violent crime? Probably not. Jacquelyn wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity, though, and the fact of the matter was they needed to know, without a doubt, what had happened to Willie Carmichael. And since his Bearer’s magic was already screaming at her from across town, she might as well put it to good use. “Let’s stop by Golden Hills RV Park on our way. There’s someone we need to pick up first.”
Chapter 9
MICAH HADN’T PLANNED on sleeping until three in the afternoon. After the Ativan wore off, he’d popped a Trazadone. Or two. Shit, he couldn’t remember. Real nice, dickhead. Way to assert yourself as totally independent from the drugs. He should have known better. Whatever. At least his emotional compass once again pointed north. The strange influx of unsettling emotion and sensation was gone. Thank fuck.
The loud growl of a diesel engine made its way to Micah’s ears, growing louder as the truck pulled up alongside his RV. He scrubbed a hand over the short stubble of hair on his head and peered through the wooden slats of the kitchen window blinds. A tiny, dark-haired figure sat beside a rather regal looking older woman. She looked just as out of place in the crew-cab ranch truck as the brunette. He smiled.
Through the slat in the blinds, he watched Jacquelyn jump out of the truck—she was so short, it was quite a drop—and walk with purpose toward his door. The serious expression on her face had him on edge and the hairs on his arms prickled. She was pissed.
“Micah, are you here?” She rapped on the sturdy fiberglass door. “I need to talk to you.”
Micah fixed a pleasant expression on his face, unwilling to openly show the worry slowly creeping up his spine. The door stuck when he tried to push it open and, only after a hefty shove, did it swing outward, bouncing off the exterior wall.
“I must not be parked completely level,” he said with a laugh. “How did you find me?”
“Please.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Your energy signature is so intense, I could find you from miles away. Plus, this is a small town, Micah. Not very many places to look.” The smile that threatened fled like sunlight hidden by clouds and Jacquelyn huffed out an exasperated breath. “I should be trying to ease you into this, but I just don’t have time. You need to come with me. Now.”
Micah sat in the backseat feeling a little like a kidnapping victim. Jacquelyn hadn’t given him much choice in the matter. For as small as she was, that woman was strong. She couldn’t have been much over five foot three, and if she weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds, he’d be shocked. And yet, she dragged his six foot five, two hundred and twenty pound frame out of the RV and toward the waiting truck as though he was an uncooperative toddler.
He had no idea where they were taking him, and introductions had been short. Somewhere along the lines of, “Micah, Trish. Trish, Micah. Now let’s go.” As he listened to the older woman ramble on in a no-nonsense way, he wondered when he’d get the opportunity to get a word in. But Trish’s authoritative tone didn’t give the impression that she was open to questions or comments at the present time.
“A Bearer is an empath, more or less. Bearers possess the ability to not only feel the emotions of those around them, but he can take those emotions and draw them into himself…”
“Or herself,” Jacquelyn interjected.
“Or herself.”
This woman, Trish, reminded him of his mom in a way. Bossy. Confident. One hundred percent in charge. Her smooth, melodic voice invited him to trust every word coming out of her mouth. Inviting trust and gaining it were two different things, though. Micah didn’t trust easily, but for some reason, he wanted to trust this Trish. He couldn’t shake a sense of rightness. Maybe it was the connection he made the first time he touched Jacquelyn, or maybe it was the kinship he felt with Trish, though barely a handful of words had passed between them. Whatever it was, Micah didn’t think he could leave this town until he understood.
As she continued on, rattling off facts about empaths, healers, and bunch of crazy shit that should make absolutely no sense to a sane person, Micah tried to pay attention. He wanted to absorb the facts as she laid them out for him. The rhythmic sound of her voice became nothing but white noise in the background of his thoughts however, as he focused his mind—and emotions—on Jacquelyn.
She shifted in her seat. Nervous fingers teased stray curls that had fallen out of her ponytail and lingered on her neck. She shifted again.
“Stop it,” she said without looking at him.
Trish halted
mid-monologue, looking at Jacquelyn before glancing over her shoulder.
“Stop what?” Micah asked.
“Thinking about me. I’m about to jump out of my freaking skin. Just knock it off.”
How in the hell had she known he was thinking about her? Micah fought a smile. Her angry frustration almost turned him on. Which was totally sick because he shouldn’t be so amused. “What makes you think I’m thinking about you?” A rush of emotion flooded his chest. Not anger, not annoyance. Excitement. This time he did smile. But the sensation faded faster than he wanted it to, and he sensed that she’d erected some sort of invisible barrier between them.
“I can feel it. All of your energy is focused right at me like tunnel vision or something.” Jacquelyn shivered involuntarily. “It feels like insects running up my spine.”
“Did you know,” Trish interrupted, “that the name Micah means ‘bringer of prophecies’?”
Another surge of emotion funneled into his chest, this time from the old woman. Her power spoke to him, pulled his attention away from Jacquelyn, almost commanding him to leave the younger woman be. Turning his head toward the driver’s seat, his eyes were last to follow, lingering on Jacquelyn’s profile for a moment before fixing his full attention back on Trish. Who in the hell were these people? And what had he gotten himself into by not driving right through town toward Wyoming.
“Now, what was I talking about?” Trish asked no one in particular. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’re here.”
Micah looked out the window at the wooded landscape. Tall trees shaded the afternoon sun, casting cool autumn shadows on the yellowing grass. A patch of ground soiled with a dark, inky substance had drawn a swarm of flies. Anxiety rippled across his skin. Great. She’d driven them out into the middle of nowhere. Wasn’t this how most slasher movies started? The thought didn’t do much to put him at ease. In the rearview mirror, his eyes met Trish’s and she smirked. Creepy. As if she wasn’t odd enough, her knowing expression threw up a serious red flag. Oh yeah, he was as good as fileted.
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