by Yvonne Heidt
Jordan looked at her and then at Shade. “Fine.” She stomped up the stairs and Sunny felt something inside herself crumble.
*
When Jordan reached the first floor, she turned left into the parking lot instead of the courtyard. She needed some air and some time to process what just happened. She sifted through the sequence of events in an attempt to find the evidence, but she couldn’t get past Sunny’s taste on her lips or the way her body reacted when Jordan kissed her.
She was beginning to question her beliefs and it was uncomfortable. Her powerful paradigm of what she thought life was and what was possible started to shift. Jordan hated to feel uncertain about anything.
Her phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her pocket. “Lawson.”
“Hey.” It was her partner, Vince. “Meet me at the convenience store by your house.”
A slight chill washed over her. It was eerily similar to the call she’d received the night she’d been shot, and it instantly made her suspicious. “Why?”
“Our tweaker buddy, Jack, says he has some information on our missing girl.”
“On my way.” Jordan ran to her truck and sped out of the parking lot.
The convenience store was flanked on one side by an old brick warehouse, and she spotted Vince near the back of it. It wasn’t until she got out and approached him that she saw Jack. If anything, he looked worse than the first time she’d met him.
It was clear he was out of drugs. He had that desperate air around him she recognized. It was a state her mother had been in often. She ignored him and turned to Vince. “What do we have?”
“Jackie here says he knows where our M.P. is.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“Well, here’s the problem. Jackie says he wants money for the information. His mother is sick and needs medicine.”
Jordan looked back at Jack and something in that wheedling, selfish, and lying expression caused her to snap. She spun and grabbed his lapels before slamming him into the bricks. “Listen here, you fucking junkie weasel. If you know where this girl is, you better tell us now before I snap your pathetic neck.”
Vince put a hand on her arm, but she hardly registered it. “Lawson.”
She tightened her grip. “Now give me the address.”
Jack’s eyes appeared to bug out further, and he frantically looked around for a way out before he slumped. “Okay, okay.”
Jordan let go. “Talk.”
“There’s an abandoned house in the woods behind Riddell Road. I heard a guy bragging about the new flesh they picked up and how much money they were getting for her.”
“I know the place,” Vince said. “It’s a known drug den. We chase them out and board it up and they keep going back.”
“How come you didn’t tell us sooner?” Jordan asked.
“I just heard about it and saw the flyer posted in the store here.”
“And you hoped to get your next fix. God, you disgust me.” She turned her back to him and walked a few steps away. Jordan was so mad she was shaking. She heard a rustle of bills and the sound of running footsteps.
“We’ll take my car,” Vince said. “Call it in.”
“Officer?” Jack’s voice came from the shadows behind the building. “They’re moving her to Seattle tonight. You better hurry.” Vince jogged back and handed him some more bills.
Jordan didn’t know how much and couldn’t care less. She waited impatiently for him to unlock the door while she called dispatch for backup.
Vince jumped into the Charger and they sped to the east side of town. Jordan’s adrenaline increased with each block. “My gun is at home.”
“I have mine.” He flipped open the glove box and handed her a small revolver. “And this one.” He turned onto a small dirt road and turned off his lights. Tree branches scraped along the sides of the car.
“We’ll have to walk in from here. There’s an extra flashlight under the seat, but I don’t want them to see us coming. Follow me.”
They’d gone approximately a hundred yards when Jordan saw a yellow glow up ahead.
“Oil lamps. I’m surprised they haven’t burned the place down yet.”
Jordan crept closer and a stick snapped under her feet. She froze and strained to hear. Something crashed up ahead in the bushes, and she heard someone yelling.
“It’s the fucking cops!”
Jordan heard at least three more distinct voices. “Freeze!” she yelled. The woods were silent around her. “Police! Come out with your hands up.”
Vince stood. “I think they’re gone.”
When they received no answer, they cautiously made their way to the front porch. Vince motioned for her to go low through the door.
“Clear.” Jordan heard Vince in the back of the house. “Ah, Christ.”
She sprinted down the hall to the back room where Vince stood looking at the small figure huddled on a filthy mattress and covered with a sheet.
Jordan tried to take it in but was struck with another feeling of synchronicity and the brutal scene from one of her nightmares.
Long, dirty hair covered the girl’s face, a pale hand exposed with blood red fingernails. No. Not again. She rushed to the bed. “Call an ambulance.”
Time slowed to a crawl and all sound faded away until Jordan was aware only of her heart thumping in her chest. She watched her hand reach slowly to move the matted hair while the other reached to pull the dirty sheet away.
Not her mother.
The girl’s face was battered and swollen, her lips cracked and bloody. She was naked and obviously beaten. Through the purple bruises on her pale skin, Jordan could see needle marks. “The bastards drugged her.” She gently continued to pull away the sheet.
When she saw the pools of old and fresh blood under her hips, she stopped and closed her eyes. Her mind desperately searched for the image on the photograph her parents had given them when this child had been smiling and happy.
She placed two fingers on her throat. After a moment, she felt a very faint pulse. “She’s alive!” Jordan knelt on the filthy floor littered with used hypodermic needles and beer cans. Vince ran out to meet the officers arriving on the scene.
“We’ve got you. You’re safe now.” She held the girl’s hand gently. “We’ve got you.”
The EMTs rushed in and Jordan backed off. After an emotional call to the girl’s parents, she told them to meet her at the hospital. Jordan would stay with her on the short ride to Harrison Memorial.
She nodded to Vince before the back doors of the ambulance slammed. The sirens screamed and Jordan wanted to throw up while the medic was attempting to assess the damage of her brutal ordeal. She refused to look away. She would be a silent witness to this girl’s pain and the horror she endured.
They pulled into the emergency entrance where a trauma team waited to take the teenager away. They tried to get Jordan to wait outside, but she refused to budge until a front desk nurse approached her to tell her that the parents were waiting to talk to her.
*
Sunny carried her gear to the van and handed it to Shade. Tiffany waved before pulling out.
She felt hollow, not the normal drained feeling she usually had after an active investigation, but literally empty. It was foreign to her, this ache that she couldn’t place or blame on someone else’s emotions.
“We done here?” Shade asked before hopping out the back.
Sunny looked to the dark windows of the third-floor apartment. “Yep. We’re done here,” she answered sadly. Jordan couldn’t wait to run away from her and hadn’t come to Agnes’s apartment to say good-bye. When they went to get the camera from her apartment, it was clear she hadn’t even stuck around to see what they were doing. She was gone. Why had she hoped that inviting Jordan to the investigation would change her skepticism about the paranormal? Instead, it appeared that Jordan had chosen to keep her distance. Sunny was at somewhat of a loss because she’d never been in this position before. How could she be th
e person Jordan wanted if she couldn’t read her feelings?
“See you tomorrow, princess.”
“What? Oh. See you tomorrow, buddy.” She went to her own car and drove home. When she got there, she grabbed the evidence box and took the stairs slowly, feeling like every minute of the day’s events weighed on her shoulders. She noticed that Shade had followed her in the van but drove away before she was fully inside. Shade must really be upset, since she usually waited until Sunny was inside with the lights on. It was just another emotional piece in a puzzle weighing her down.
After she locked the box in the safe, Sunny was halfway to the kitchen to get some water when the doorbell rang. It had to be Shade, making sure she was safe after all. She hoped she wouldn’t have to make too many excuses because she was too tired to think of them, and she certainly didn’t want to discuss Jordan with her.
Sunny turned on the porch light, flipped the dead bolt, and opened the door to find the porch empty.
“Ha, ha. Very funny, Mazie.” Not.
Ash appeared on the stairs behind her, arched his back, and hissed, viciously baring his sharp fangs. Ten seconds later, Isis came out of the office and immediately took an aggressive stance. The growl that erupted from the tiny cat had every hair on Sunny’s body standing at attention, right along with the cats’ fur.
“Pret-ty.”
Sunny heard the raspy voice and fought the urge to shudder. She hated it when they followed her home.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she yelled. “Get out!” She slammed the door and took the red energy from her anger and wove it together with ribbons of white for protection, an old charm her mother had taught her. She wove it tightly around her, closing any gaps with white light, until it encircled her fully. Instantly, the fog she’d been wandering through since her time in the basement lifted some, and she was surprised she hadn’t felt the intrusive oppression earlier. Why was that? Sunny finished with the light shield and thrust it through the reopened door. “Out.”
The fetid wind that swirled around the door nearly gagged her, but the next breath she took was a clean one. She burned sage anyway, leaving the front door open while she cleansed the area and herself.
When she didn’t feel there was any trace remaining, she shut the door and leaned against it. When had her life gotten so complicated?
Right around the time I met Jordan. She looked longingly at the bed when she passed it on her way to the bathroom. The encounter with the entity and the effort to throw it out had left her depleted. Sunny wanted nothing more than to drop facedown into the bed and go to sleep, but knew from experience that it would leave her open and vulnerable while she slept.
Her hands shook while she lit the candles and filled the tub with water, but she stayed with her routine, stripped, and threw her clothes down the laundry chute to be washed first thing in the morning.
Sunny sank into the hot water and closed her eyes. She felt the stiffness in her shoulders relax marginally, but her mind insisted on taking her back to the basement and Jordan, which caused a different tension altogether.
The way Jordan had looked at her across the table over dinner…
Was that only last night? It seemed longer than that. Sunny smiled to herself when she recalled the playful flirting in Jordan’s apartment when Sunny changed her clothes.
She remembered her visceral reaction that shut out her inner voice. It was a new and unique feeling to be alone in her head and stop thinking all the time and wondering what someone else was feeling. She had no point of reference for the experience.
She replayed her explosive orgasm over and over and the feeling of Jordan’s hips thrusting between her thighs. The sensation echoed and Sunny’s pulse picked up. I’ve got to get out of here. Jordan’s parting words intruded and threw ice water on Sunny’s fantasy.
She forced herself to get out of the tub and put on her nightshirt. What she needed tomorrow was a day of reflection. Her friends and mother meant well, but she didn’t want any company. Sunny changed the outgoing message on her phone.
“Hi, I hope you’re having a nice day. I’m fine but taking a mental health day. Thanks, love you, bye.”
She didn’t take too many of those, but when she did, barring an emergency, she knew it would be respected. She could sleep in and recharge.
Sunny got into bed and willed herself to clear her mind and energy. It was time to go to that place where her feelings began, to concentrate on that white light in her belly that burned without flame. She shut out the physical world and let the day go.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on the light. When her soul began floating and she no longer felt the barrier of her skin, she left her room behind and her spirit flew on the wind of her thoughts, over a cascading waterfall on the wings of an eagle, across the ocean and beyond.
A drum beat to the rhythm of her heart, and Sunny drew nearer to the sound by simply willing it. An old woman sat on a braided rug in front of a small fire and beckoned her to sit across from her. The evidence of a long-lived life was etched into her kind face while her smile radiated love and patience.
“Why do you deny yourself, daughter?”
Sunny felt sorrow well up from her soul, coming from an urge she couldn’t vocalize past the lump in her throat. “Jordan doesn’t want me as I am.”
“You’re afraid,” the old woman said and stoked the fire.
“I’ve tried.”
“No, daughter, you’re using Jordan’s emotions as a crutch to gauge whether you should move forward.”
The truth of the words stung her skin, and Sunny felt tears drop into the fire where they burst into dancing blue sparks.
“You have to learn to follow your feelings and reach for the things you desire. If you don’t ask, the answer is always going to be no. The time is at an end where you can let life just come to you like loose leaves blowing in the wind. Destiny waits for you.”
“I thought giving messages to people from their loved ones was my destiny.” Sunny was appalled at the trace of bitterness she heard in her voice, here in this sacred place.
The old woman smiled gently at her. “That’s only part of who you are, child. The other part is love.”
“Where do I start?” Sunny asked.
“You already have.” The forest scene shimmered around her, and Sunny felt herself falling sideways. She closed her eyes against the vertigo.
When she landed in a dark room, she opened her eyes to see the little dark-haired girl huddled in the corner. This time, Sunny thought she knew who it was.
Chapter Eleven
It was close to four in the morning when Jordan entered her apartment. She flopped on the couch and stretched her legs over the coffee table. A small piece of duct tape caught her eye, and she noted the camera in the corner was gone. She closed her eyes and felt regret knot in her stomach.
Sunny. Jordan had never called her last night to tell her what was going on and why she left so suddenly. It was too late to do it now. She really needed a couple of hours of sleep first. She could call when she got up.
Jordan woke suddenly and was instantly alert. When she convinced herself that nothing was amiss in the apartment, she glanced at her watch, surprised to see she’d been out for three hours.
She rose from the couch and stretched her stiff muscles before heading into the kitchen to make coffee. It wasn’t until she was done that she looked down and saw the blood on her clothes and dirt encrusted in the knees of her jeans. The nightmare of finding the missing girl replayed in her mind while she stumbled into the shower.
Jordan tried to put it away, but the weight of it made it difficult. Jordan wrapped herself in a towel and went into her bedroom to get dressed.
The rising sun came in her window and something red sparkled on her dresser. Curious, she crossed over and picked up Sunny’s necklace. She must have left it there when she changed last night. Jordan recalled how beautiful she had looked over dinner, the red stones glittering against her pale skin.
>
So pure, so good. Jordan’s throat tightened. She wanted Sunny so badly it made her chest ache. And that was before she kissed her. The little moans she made, the way she smelled, her incredible uninhibited response. Jordan had been unable to stop herself from taking more.
The room grew oppressive around her. Jordan took an honest appraisal of the way she lived. There was so much ugly in her life. What could she possibly offer Sunny?
Her bright and positive personality was a direct opposite to Jordan’s, and she couldn’t find one scrap of evidence that would convince her otherwise. Sunny was too good for her and she knew it.
Knowing that hurt much more than Jordan thought possible. Just once, she wanted to reach out and touch something better. Just once, before she had to crawl back into her dark place in the world. She finished dressing and carefully put Sunny’s necklace in her pocket. She decided to walk over. She could use the extra time to remind herself she liked being a loner and didn’t need anyone special in her life.
When Jordan reached Sunny’s house, all the curtains were closed and she realized she must still be sleeping. It was probably for the best anyway. She would leave her necklace in the mailbox and do the right thing. She would walk away.
She’d just crouched on her knees to slip it through the little metal slot when the door opened and she nearly fell on her ass before catching herself. Sunny stood in front of her wearing a white sports bra and yoga pants that hung low on her hips. “That’s it? You weren’t going to talk to me?”
Jordan was caught off guard and couldn’t find her voice. To her horror, Sunny’s eyes filled with tears.
“Why do you keep pushing me away?”
“I don’t.” Sunny’s accusing look reminded her otherwise. “I don’t mean to, okay? I thought you were still asleep. Can I come in and explain?” Jordan slipped by her when she stood to the side. Sunny pointed to the sitting room.
“Do you want some coffee?”