a Touch of Ice

by L. j. Charles

  “And?” he asked, the single word heavy with harsh calm.

  “For now, we’re good to go. How about you show us the photographs?”

  Cryptic. Some kind of silent understanding passed between them and it… “Whatever’s going on with the two of you, it’s giving me a whole body prickly neck sensation.”

  They ignored me.

  Violet slid the photographs in front of me. “What’s your take?”

  Curiosity, being shut out of their secret handshake, and plain old pissed off knotted in my stomach. I tamped it down. The time for my magic fingers to explore what in the hell was going on would come later. Especially since they weren’t the only members of this team with secrets.

  I reached for the photographs, spread them out and spent some time analyzing each one. I wanted to let the pictures drift through my awareness on several levels to see what caught the interest of my subconscious wisdom. Finally, I separated one of the enlargements from the rest and pointed to the edge of the building that partially hid a car. A section of rear bumper and a portion of license plate were barely visible. The plate was blurry, but I could make out the letters F ELD G. “I’m sure both of you noticed the license plate. Does it make any sense to either of you?”

  Mitch shook his head. “Not to me. It’s a vanity plate, so I’m hoping Adam Stone will be able to connect a name to the vehicle.”

  Violet stood up, glanced at both of us. “I need to get the plate information to Adam. It’s a solid lead, something he legally can act on.”

  I blew out a breath, fingered the soft edge of my t-shirt. “There’s more you need to know before you talk to Adam Stone.”

  Twelve

  I bent to retrieve the diagram from my nightstand and a wave of trepidation skimmed down my spine. My fingers dug into the notebook as I jogged back to Violet’s house and burst into the living room, attitude in every step. “I’m going to tell you about last night but if either of you interrupt, yell, or otherwise mess with me, I will stop talking. Is that clear?”

  Identical frowns. Nope. Not gonna go well.

  “Last night I went back to Tony’s place.”

  Violet’s breath hissed through her teeth. Mitch’s hands curled into fists. “Back to Tony’s?”

  Oops. “Umm, uh-huh.”

  Violet shook off her frozen expression and cleared her throat, claiming the floor. “Everly and I did a walk-through of the crime scene on Wednesday night.”

  “What the fuck? And you didn’t say anything? And you accused me of…” He was on his feet, pacing before the last words left his mouth. “Neither of you said a damned word, let me go on about—”

  “Your information was just as critical, more so because I didn’t have it on record.” Violet, in control. The Voice of Reason. “I need all the details, from every source, before I can take this to Adam. They attacked you, Mitch. You knew they killed Tony, said as much in your recount. Now it’s Everly’s turn.”

  She nodded at me. I detailed everything about Shaved Head, Pudgy, and our Wednesday night B and E, and Mitch paced, jaw clenched, every muscle screaming with visible tension as he listened. He didn’t look at me. Or Violet.

  When I stopped talking, he slammed his fist into his palm a few times, held first Violet’s gaze and then mine. Heat blazed from his eyes. “That makes it definite. Let’s get Adam on board, and if he won’t, or can’t act—”

  Violet stepped in front of Mitch. “Unless you plan on going vigilante, we work through legal channels. It’s my job to handle the liaison between our team and Adam. I promise you, Mitch, the killers will be brought to trial.”

  It was like she shook the stuffing from him and sanity replaced the wild and crazy in his eyes. “Yeah. Trial. Hands are tied anyway. I’ve been rescheduled on that assignment. Flying out tomorrow.”

  “You just got out of the hospital, surely they can’t—” The need to protect him squeezed my heart.

  His smile bordered on feral. “They can and they did. Time sensitive. No choice. How about you hit the high points of last night?”

  Violet seconded his demand with an abrupt nod.

  “Right.” I squirmed some. Make that a lot. Sucked in a breath and started talking. “Something about being at Tony’s Wednesday nagged at me. I couldn’t cubbyhole where it came from, so decided to drive over and look around. My intention was to stroll around the outside of the house and see what I could learn by touch.”

  Mitch dropped his head in his hands, threaded his fingers through his hair and grabbed on. He wouldn’t look at me. Probably he wanted to do me bodily harm.

  On the flip side, Violet’s gaze cut through me and locked on.

  I dragged in another breath and kept going. No way I could back out now. “Nothing popped from the sidewalk or the front door, but when I got to the bedroom window, I knew I was in the right place.”

  Double nods from my audience, neither friendly.

  “Things got a little out of hand. I couldn’t control the compulsion so I pushed the window open and went inside.”

  Mitch groaned.

  Violet glared.

  “There was a long table against the bedroom wall, and when I ran my fingers over it, the image of this diagram became clear.”

  I set my drawing on the table, hoping it would distract them from doing me bodily harm.

  Mitch glanced at it, headed for the deck. “Need some air.”

  Violet leveled her gaze at me. “What you did was unsafe, and you know better. What if the perps were watching Tony’s house, waiting to question, or kill anyone who approached?”

  “I…needed to do this.”

  She slid forward on her chair to rest her hand on my arm. “I get that, and to be honest, I would have done the same thing. The difference is, I’m trained for it.”

  “There’s something else.” A sharp pain wrapped around my heart, and I had to push to get the words out. “This thing you know about Mitch that you’re keeping from me, the thing that makes it okay that he lied, it hurts. You not trusting me…hurts.”

  She closed her eyes, stilled. “I trust you, Everly. But I’m limited in what I can say. I can tell you that Mitchell Hunt is highly respected in select circles. He earned that respect. He’s a good man. Solid.”

  And didn’t that just open a whole new world of questions. Not the time, Everly. This is not the time. I touched Violet’s hand, fingertips excepted. “To have secrets between us, I don’t know what to do with that.”

  Her eyes snapped to attention. “You are my friend. This is an issue of confidentiality exactly like you have with your clients, and not one that I’d allow to come between us. I promise, when I can, I’ll tell you everything.”

  “That puts it on me to trust you or not.” I sifted through the years Violet and I had been friends, found nothing but respect, and yeah, the woman was my sister in every way minus the DNA.

  “It does.” Violet’s gaze caught me, held. “And on me to trust you with your gift. What you touch. What you share. Friendship flows, changes. I’d like this to make our stronger.”

  The slider door whooshed open.

  “We okay?” Violet asked.

  “Yeah. We’re okay.”

  Mitch slipped inside, dropped onto the sofa next to me. “Glad you weren’t hurt, Sunshine. Doing it again—not an option. It’s my fault you put yourself in danger, I got you into this, and goddamnit, Everly, I don’t want you to be the next dead body.”

  “Tony was your friend, but this was my choice. Just like you, and Violet, made the choice to keep whatever is between you a secret. Last night was my first nightmare-free sleep in days. Yeah, I was scared. But what I did was right for me. Besides, the universe isn’t going to let me wriggle out of using my gift.”

  The breath from his sigh tickled my cheek. I touched my finger to his lips. “You might notice, I’m not the one walking around battered and bruised. Healthy, here. Still, I’m sorry you were worried. Can we finish this later? After we sort through photographs and d
iscuss my diagram?"

  He blinked at me, struggling to make his point. “I’ll heal, and you were in danger, doubly so because you’re without any training or experience to back you up. And what’s with the universe? Last I knew it wasn’t capable of having a conversation.”

  “Communicating with the universe is like the prickly neck thing, or the twisted gut thing. You’re both right about the training though. I’ll be checking out educational opportunities tomorrow.”

  He kneaded the muscles at his nape. “Not exactly what I had in mind.”

  I held out my hand. He took it, pressed it against his thigh. A tacit decision not to give up on each other. At least not today.

  “You about done with the touchy feely so we can get on with this?” Violet didn’t wait for an answer, just started talking. “I think this is a pattern of drop-off or pick-up points. They seem to encompass the greater Raleigh area, but I have no idea why, or what’s being dropped off or picked up.”

  Mitch slipped his glasses on and slid the diagram in front of him. A low rumbling in his throat broke the silence as he spread the photographs into an array around my diagram, pointing to them as he talked. “The areas on El’s drawing match the addresses of the buildings I photographed for Tony. I took the one with the visible license plate just off Farrington Road.”

  He shuffled the photos into a stack, placed them on top of the diagram. “We need to get these to Adam Stone, see if they mean anything to him.”

  Violet slapped her hand on top of the stack. “Too soon. We have enough here to get us in trouble, not enough for Adam to act.”

  Mitch opened his mouth. Closed it. “Yeah.” The sigh came from deep, settled heavy around us. “Don’t know how long I’ll be away, never do.”

  “El and I will check out the photo locations while you’re gone. I’ll be working on building a viable case because I want these bastards prosecuted, Mitch. With any luck, we’ll have some solid evidence by the time you’re back.”

  Mitch stood, offered me his hand. “Holding you to that, Violet. Sunshine? Walk you home before I take off?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good. You can carry the storyboard.” I gave Violet a quick hug, and Mitch tucked my storyboard under his arm.

  When I unlocked my front door, slivers of apprehension skittered between my shoulders. I had to tell him, come clean if there was any chance we’d become a couple. Everly’s new rule: relationships don’t last unless they’re built on trust.

  “Where do you want this?” Mitch held up the storyboard.

  “Upstairs.” I led the way, flicking on lights as I went. “I should spend some time with it before I go to bed. There have to be answers in those pictures, just as there are in the photographs you took for Tony. Speaking of Tony…there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Mitch spun one of my kitchen chairs around and sat backwards, the way men do. He looked edible, and probably knew it judging from his mischief behind his eyes. And the dimple that sprang to life when he smiled. Made me want to touch it in the worst way. And wouldn’t it be nice to—

  “El? If you keep looking at me like that we won’t get around to the talking.”

  I turned away, noticed the daisies sitting on the counter. This couldn’t be put off. I sucked in a fortifying breath, rolled my shoulders back, and faced him square-on. “On Saturday, at the beach, I deliberately shook hands with you.”

  His lips twitched. “People shake my hand on a regular basis, what’s the…” He suddenly lost his smile and stillness crept around him like a shroud. “What exactly do you mean, deliberately?”

  I dragged in a shaky breath. “I saw an image of Tony’s body. That’s why I flopped at your feet. I knew you’d been at the scene of the crime and my curiosity kicked in. I couldn’t let you walk away without trying to find out why, and how, you were connected with a dead body. I had to know if you murdered him.”

  “You thought I was a murderer and still asked me to coffee?”

  “I thought if we had coffee, I would find an opportunity to touch you again, maybe get some more images, a clearer picture of what happened to Tony.”

  Mitch stared at me. No words, just That Look. The one that had me sprouting words to fill the gaping hole between us.

  It worked. “And lately there have been these sensations waking me up in the middle of the night. Fear running through me until I can’t catch my breath. And the visions. You know about that first hand.”

  “What the hell?” He pushed off the chair, stood toe-to-toe with me.

  “That same wild nightmare feeling zinged me when I first saw you on the beach. It’s the reason I approached you and shook your hand. I wanted to see if there was a connection. You know, the universe telling me something. It happens that way sometimes.”

  “Second time this evening you’ve put the universe and conversation in the same sentence.”

  “Well, it’s…”

  He tipped his head to the side. “I think I’m beginning to get it, El. It’s how I know the precise second to snap a photograph.”

  I nodded, relief washing away some of my tension. “Exactly. And then, there was the way your hair curled around your collar, like you needed a haircut but didn’t have time. I couldn’t touch your hair, so I shook your hand.”

  The clip sprung out of my hair, this time landing on the kitchen counter. Mitch grabbed for it. “And?” he asked.

  I slid my fingers through my hair, pulling it back from my face. “And it was an invasion of privacy. I’m trying to apologize here, trying to be honest with you.”

  Mitch tucked the hair clip in his pocket and crowded my space until I was backed up against the counter. He planted his hands flat on the cupboard doors, one on either side of my head. I don’t like to be boxed in, makes me twitchy, so I did the only thing a reasonable, sensible woman would do. I kissed him.

  And kept kissing him. Breath backed up in my chest as he took control, pushed the tentative brush of lips into the deep and untamed. Until my knees shook with the joy of his touch.

  Time stretched, disappeared, and then Mitch surfaced long enough to realize my hands were tucked behind my back. I’d been pressing them tightly against the wall so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch him, terrified that my fingers would tell me what I didn’t want to know—that he was running on pure lust without recognizing…me.

  He backed away, pulled my arms free, and pressed our palms together. I was flooded with the truth. Images of what he’d like us to be doing. There were hormones involved to be sure, but underneath the lust, fantastic, respectful, caring images of us. I let myself sink into his vision of us. Together. Could I bend in that particular position? And his ass? Oh, what a glorious piece of craftsmanship.

  “I’m not afraid of you, Everly.” His words barely penetrated the wild haze of longing that raced through my veins, spreading the promise of something special. Usually I can’t “read minds,” but if there’s a lot of emotion attached, I sometimes get fragmented pictures. Sex tends to be highly emotional, and just about everything comes pouring through my fingers.

  “El? Hey, you in there? I’m going to guess my plans for us are no longer a secret.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close enough to sense the smile moving through his body, pooling in places that assured me: testosterone in working order here.

  As previously noted, there hasn’t been all that much sex in my life. I pick up on the images in the guy’s mind—which can’t be prevented if my fingertips come in contact with said male—and who wants to have sex without using their hands? Well, bondage scenarios aside. Anyway, the difference between the ideal relationship my mind creates and the reality of the guy’s plans usually becomes all too obvious before we get to the naked part.

  The sensations and images pouring from Mitch were like nothing I’d ever felt. I took a tiny step back so I could see his eyes before I blurted out my plans. “I’m going to find a yoga class tomorrow. If I practice diligently while you’re away, maybe I’ll have that mov
e perfected before you get back from your assignment.”

  His grin said it all. “I’m willing to compromise on the moves.” He kissed me, with hands and everything, not afraid of me, and not holding anything back.

  Thirteen

  “Let’s drive through Dunkin’ Donuts. I’m nervous, excited and nervous about this,” I said as I climbed in the passenger side of Violet’s hunter green Titan truck—a field trip to the infamous barn loomed in front of us. “So the Acura is for night work and the truck is for daytime? That works for me. Kind of fits with the activity, you know? Food would take the edge off my stress, give me something to do with my hands. The images from coffee cups aren’t usually too bad. Am I rambling? Do you think there’ll be anyone hanging around that barn? I really, really do not like guns. Do you have one in the car? Or on your person, like in an ankle holster?” I stopped to take a breath.

  “If you don’t shut up I’m going to leave you here. We will get food, but definitely nothing with sugar or caffeine. There’s a McDonald’s a couple miles up. I’ll drive through for Egg McMuffins and decaf coffees.”

  “Okay. Good. Food will definitely help.”

  She glanced at me. “Yes, I have a gun, and no, I do not think anyone will be there. If I did, we wouldn’t be doing this. And we’re taking the truck because the gas tank is full. Also it’s less noticeable on back roads.”

  I reached up to re-fasten the clip in my hair. “Okay. I’m breathing again. This is easier in the dark, and when it’s my idea—that really makes it a lot easier. I’m not doing so badly since you only gave me thirty minutes to get dressed and reschedule my appointments.”

  She shook her head. “What’s the matter with you? We broke into Tony’s house together. You broke in alone. On both occasions we were, in fact, committing a crime. What we’re doing today is normal behavior, legal even. People stroll around taking pictures of old buildings all the time. I don’t get it.”