by Penny Childs
“Much better, actually.” Passing him, she made sure not to touch him. “I still have to shower and get ready, obviously. I’ll meet you down in the restaurant.”
“Mel?”
Stopping, she turned back to him as she reached the door. “Yeah?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head. “Nothing. Just good morning.”
“Thanks for the toothpaste, Trevor,” she said with a tiny smile, knowing, just by the look in his eyes what he was thinking. As soon as she closed the door she leaned back on it and squeezed her eyes shut. She could not be falling for him again. She could not be letting him get to her. She shook her head. She could not let it happen. Not again.
Carly Richards had lived downtown in a small apartment off a busy, noisy street. Trevor sat on a couch that had seen better days and her parents were in two chairs.
“I just don’t understand,” her mother was saying. She was a slight woman with bottle blonde hair and skin that was just starting to wrinkle around her eyes and mouth. “Why would the lord let her live through the horror once, only to be taken from us by another killer? It’s just atrocious.” She watched Mel move around the apartment. “You understand, though, don’t you?”
Mel stopped and stared at her. She did understand.
“I saw on the news what happened to you,” she explained.
“Did your daughter go out a lot? With friends?” Trevor asked to get her attention off Mel.
The woman nodded her head. “She had a lot of friends.” She sniffled and picked up her husband’s hand. “She was really just starting to get back to normal. For a while, she wouldn’t even leave this apartment.”
Mel drifted from the edge of the kitchen to a little roll top desk. She looked at the lamp that sat atop it, confused at first by what she saw. There was no cord. Frowning, she picked it up, seeing the clean cut right at the base. Who the hell kept a lamp with the cord cut off? It was a cheap banker style lamp, nothing special. But still, to have a lamp with no electrical cord made absolutely no sense at all. “The police came here and went through the place?” Mel asked, turning to the couple on the couch.
The woman nodded her head and the father said, “Yes, they came in, looked for fingerprints, that kind of thing.”
Carly’s mother pursed her lips. “They thought she had run off so they didn’t look very hard.”
“But when they found out she had been murdered they came back, right?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. I sure didn’t let them in. I did call them to see if they needed anything else and they said they didn’t.”
“They said they didn’t find any sign of a struggle in here,” the father supplied sadly.
“Mel?” Trevor asked, wondering where she was going and why she was gripping the lamp she held so tightly her knuckles were turning white. As a matter of fact, her face had taken a pallor he didn’t like.
She didn’t realize what was happening until it started and she almost didn’t stop it in time. She heard the buzz in her ears and noted with alarm a darkening around the edges of her vision. Taking in a sharp breath, she set the lamp back down, breaking her contact with it. She was left with one certainty though, the killer had cut the cord off of that lamp to bind Carly’s hands before he took her out of the apartment.
“Mel?” Trevor asked, getting up and coming to stand in front of her, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her shoulders to steady her. “You okay?”
Forcing a smile, she said, “Yeah. We need to have crime scene go through this place again though.”
He cocked his head, still not liking how pale she was. “Did you--”
“Mr. and Mrs. Richards,” Mel said, cutting Trevor off, “Agent Giles is going to have a team come and go through your daughter’s apartment again.”
Without touching it himself, Trevor looked at the lamp she had set back down. After a careful look he saw what she had seen, or had not seen, in this case. He’d read the pathologist’s report. It was believed that Carly’s wrists had been bound with some type of cord, probably plastic or rubber covered. Like an electrical or extension cord, he had reported, based on the pattern on her wrists. “I’ll get it set up now,” he said, pulling his phone out and walking into the kitchen.
“Do you think something happened to her here?” Carly’s mother asked with tears in her eyes.
“I think she may have been taken from here, yes.” Now she went and sat on the couch across from the man and woman. “If you don’t mind, we can wait here for the team to show up. You can go on home.” She didn’t want to have them hear the discussion she would have with the tech team when they arrived. They had thus far been spared the ugliest of the details and she wanted to keep it that way.
Carly’s father stood up, taking his wife by the hand and pulling her to her feet. “That would be nice of you. I don’t think we need to be here when they arrive.”
“Will you let us know if you find the man who killed her?”
Mel nodded her head, not reminding the woman that if the killer was found it would be all over the news anyway.
With his calls made, Trevor came back out of the kitchen, his eyes on Mel. “You send them home?” he asked her when he saw no sign of the parents.
“I didn’t see any reason for them to stay.” Other than to stop the conversation she knew was coming. A conversation she did not want to have with him.
“Mel, you got something off that lamp, didn’t you?”
She hadn’t meant to. She also knew better than to lie to him, so she nodded her head. “He cut the cord off it and tied her hands with it.” She swallowed hard. “He used it to strangle the last victim,” she heard herself say before she knew she was going to and cursed vehemently.
Trevor would have smiled, relieved that she was back, but the look on her face prevented him from doing so. Her eyes were wide and frightened and her bottom lip was quivering.
“This can’t be happening,” she said without getting up. She shook her head. “It has to be you,” she told him, shooting him a glare.
“Me?”
“Yes. You. I’ve been able to keep it shut off. Until last night. A couple times I got something from you. It has to be because of you.”
He thought he knew where she was going and what she would demand next. She would want to go home and hide, thinking if she was away from him she could control her ability again. “Mel, I don’t think it’s me.”
“All the sudden you’re the expert?” she ground out.
“No. We already discussed this. You’ve been stifling yourself, something is bound to give.” He paused, taking in a long breath. “Let me guess, you didn’t completely shut if off until you suspected you had a serial killer on your hands.” When she didn’t answer him, he went on. “You used it here and there, just for little things, right? Daily bullshit. What did Craig have for lunch? Where the hell are my keys? Is Brody happy with his new girl? But at the first hint of a serial killer, your fear kicked in and you shut down.”
“Yes,” she whispered. No point in lying.
“So you let off the steam, so to speak.” He sat down in the chair across from her, his ice blue eyes drilling into hers. “You want to blame this on me so you have an excuse to stay away from me.”
“I don’t need any excuses to stay away from you, Trevor. I have a lot of valid reasons.” She wanted to retreat from him but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “I will not let myself get pulled into this psycho’s head.”
“Judging from what just happened, I don’t know if you’re going to have a choice, Mel.” He didn’t want to give her another reason to run but wanted to be honest with her. “If you let yourself, you can help catch this killer.”
“I don’t think I can do that, Trevor.” Now she did get up. She moved to the sliding glass door at the balcony and stared out into the still gloomy weather, watching water drip from the eave above.
“Mel, it doesn’t have to be like last tim
e. You won’t be on your own, for one thing.” He said that with more bitterness than he had intended and saw her flinch. “You can let me help you.”
“Just because I got something off a lamp doesn’t mean that I can get into this guy’s head anyway.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shivered at the thought because she was relatively certain that she could get into his head. Especially with Trevor near. He had acted almost as an amplifier in the past and she was certain that had not changed. She thought it had something to do with the connection they shared. Though their affair had been brief, it had been thunderous. Nothing before or since had compared.
“We’ll take it as it goes, Mel. I won’t push.”
Now she did turn around to face him. “You? Not push? Hmmm…” She frowned at him. “I have the feeling you wanted me to come with you on this trip to see what it would do to me. You wanted to know if it would force anything to happen.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I just wanted to keep you close.” That had been the most prominent reason.
Still frowning, she turned away from him again. That connection between them was forging again, no matter how hard she tried to stop it.
“I have a feeling they won’t find much,” Mel said, looking out the window of the small jet.
“You’re probably right. This killer isn’t going to leave us fingerprints, hair and fibers. He’s obviously done his homework on serial killers, so he’ll know what we’re looking for and avoid leaving it.” He pecked away at the keyboard of his laptop, which he had balanced on his thighs. “Bill was pretty excited about the lamp. He has teams going back through the other victims’ homes.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll have been sloppy again.”
Trevor looked away from his computer to her. “That wasn’t slop, Mel. The lamp was left there intentionally to see how good the cops were.” He sighed. “The slop was on the cops’ part, not the killer’s.”
“You think it was a test?”
“Oh yes. This is a game to him. He wants to see how good we are. What he can’t be counting on is what you can do.”
“Something I don’t want to do.”
“Darling, if I could do it for you, I would. But you know mine doesn’t work that way. Mine only works on living, breathing people.” Hers worked on both living things and inanimate objects. And sometimes, if she built a bridge to the person in question, she didn’t even need to touch them to read them.
“I just don’t know if I can do this,” she said miserably, looking back out the window again. Her fear was like a physical weight on her chest and it was threatening to crush her.
Eight
They landed in West Virginia at a small airport after an uneventful flight and drove the rental vehicle to the hotel where Trevor had made reservations.
“Dinner?” he asked her as they each opened their doors.
She nodded. “We’ll have to eat at the bar across the street.” The hotel he had booked them into did not sport a restaurant. Dropping her bags inside the door she came back to where he waited and they walked across the street together in silence.
The bar wasn’t very busy so they would have their choice of tables. Mel caught the aromas of fried foods and felt her stomach growling. She normally ate fairly healthy, so the bar food would be a rare treat for her.
“You mind getting us a couple beers while I hit the men’s room?” he asked.
Agreeing, she headed toward the bar. A man sitting there caught her eye. From behind he looked familiar. Buzz cut blonde hair, broad shoulders…and his voice…a deep baritone like her father’s. He was busy talking up a cute little waitress who leaned on the bar next to him waiting for a drink order. Coming closer, she caught his reflection in the mirror and found him staring back at her. “Neil?” she asked.
He turned around on his bar stool, waitress forgotten, and rushed to her, picking her up off the floor in a hug that completely engulfed her. “Sis!” he said, planting a kiss on her cheek.
“What are you doing here?” But she thought she knew and looked back to where Trevor still stood, watching. The smile on his face confirmed her suspicions.
“He called and said you would be close by. I couldn’t resist.” He looked toward Trevor and his smile faded. “I still don’t like him though. What the hell are you thinking getting tangled up with him again?”
She sighed heavily. “You watch the news. You know what’s going on.”
“Are you okay?” He pulled her toward the bar, not caring if he was being impolite to Trevor or not.
“I don’t know if I’m okay or not, Neil. I’m getting things. Whether I want to or not right now.” She knew he would understand. They shared more than just the same mother and father.
Instead of saying anything to her, he just touched her hand for a moment, staring at her. “Wow,” he said at last. “Good luck keeping a leash on that. Sis, instead of trying to shut off you might want to try some controlled burns, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” She just didn’t know how when she had little control over it now. The bartender stopped by and she ordered a beer for herself and Trevor, earning herself a look from Neil. “Look, I know you don’t like him but I am working with him right now. Besides, it’s not all his fault.”
“You’re falling for him again,” Neil said, taking a sip of his mixed drink.
“That much I have control of. I won’t let that happen again. I did learn the first time.”
“Sure you did,” he said with a grin, earning himself an elbow to the ribs.
Trevor sat across from the two siblings and watched them talk amiably about this and that, catching up with each other. He was happy to see that Neil could elicit laughter from her along with a lot of smiles. He was jealous of the fact that she was so easy to let him touch her, whereas just a nearness to himself made her draw back.
“So I haven’t been to your new place yet,” Neil said.
“He comes to visit me once a year and I come here for a visit once a year,” she explained to Trevor.
“So you know your way around this burg?”
“Two hours east, yeah. Here, not so much.” After one beer she had switched to water, which she took a sip of now. She wasn’t taking the chance of going soft tonight.
Trevor watched her sip the water and knew why she had switched. It made him smile inwardly, knowing she was worried about slipping up. Maybe he stood a chance, afterall.
Standing, she said, “I have to use the bathroom.” She looked from Trevor to her brother. “Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”
The two men looked at each other, saying nothing to each other until she walked away.
“I don’t want you hurting her again,” Neil said, his eyes hard, his jaw clenched.
“I have no intentions of hurting your sister.”
“If you really meant that, you wouldn’t have even come. You would have told them to send someone else.”
“Neil, I’m good at what I do, and hunting these psycho’s is what I do.”
“I’ve heard.” The media had nothing but praise for him. They called him a monster hunter.
“I also think your sister is in danger. I think she’s a target, or will be. This guy didn’t pick her home town by accident. He knows about her past.” He looked in the direction of the bathroom and went on. “I also think he knows about my past with her. I don’t think my coming here was a surprise to him. I think that maybe he even planned it to some degree.”
Neil frowned but didn’t say anything.
“I’m confident that we’ll hear from him soon. He’ll want to make contact now, to let us know that we’ve played into his hands.”
Now Neil shook his head. “If you can think like that then I’m glad I don’t do what you do. I probably would have lost it by now. Like Mel did.”
“Mel didn’t lose it, Neil. Or at least not so much that she can’t come back from it. She’s been hiding these last seven years. Don’t you think it’
s time she started to live again?” He saw her coming toward the table and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest.
“That looked pretty intense,” she said to both of them. She smiled at Neil. “I can take care of myself.” She looked to Trevor. “He didn’t threaten to kick your ass, did he?”
“Something like that,” he said with an amused smile.
“He used to do that all the time while we were growing up. Between him and dad I’m surprised I ever had one single date.”
Trevor had seen the picture of her as a teenager. He was not surprised that she’d had dates. He would bet the boys had been willing to risk a beating to get close to her. He knew he was, though the beatings had been coming from her these last days.
“We were just looking out for you.” He threw Trevor a meaningful glance. “I still am.”
“Duly noted,” Trevor said, saluting him with his beer.
Neil glanced at his watch and frowned.
“You need to get going, don’t you?” she asked.
“I’ve got a two hour trip ahead of me and have to be up at four in the morning.” He smiled and leaned into her. “It’ll be worth the lack of sleep though.”
Standing, she walked to the exit with her brother and said goodbye. Coming back to the table, she sat down and stared across it at Trevor. She still wanted to hold onto her anger to keep him at a distance but he was making it difficult. She silently cursed him for it. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “He was what I needed. He grounds me.”
Trevor remembered when he’d had that effect on her, but he saw her shaking her head.
“You never grounded me Trevor, you sent me sky high.” She thought that if she gave it the chance this time, it might be different though.
He raised his brows at her. “Peeking?” he asked. “You know that’s not fair if you won’t let me even touch you.”