by Julie Miller
Kelsey swept her hands up across his shoulders. T had to rock back on his heels to keep from doing the natural thing and wrapping his arms around her to complete the embrace.
She grinned and giggled like a kid.
“What?”
She patted his shoulders and pulled away. But the sass in her voice made the loss of contact easier to accept. “Your mother doesn’t think you dress warmly enough.”
“You don’t have to be a psychic to know a mother thinks that when she gives you a wool coat for Christmas.”
Kelsey planted her hands on her hips and challenged him. “Your mother is about five foot four and has silvering blond hair that she pulls back into a bun. She never has been able to get you to button your coat. She bought you long underwear, too. It’s still in a package at the bottom of one of your drawers.”
“You got all that by touching my coat?”
She nodded. “I was concentrating. If I put my mind to it, if I don’t restrict myself in any way, I can sense almost anything that’s come into contact with an object.”
“So if you touch a person, skin to skin—”
“The reception, if you will, is more direct. So the impressions are, too.” All of a sudden, her smile vanished. She hugged her arms around her waist and latched on to that item beneath her sweater. The lesson was over. “You don’t want me to touch the body, do you?”
“Too much to ask, huh?”
She shivered and turned away. “That’s not even funny.”
“What’s under your sweater?” he asked, not considering the more interesting responses to that question until he’d said it out loud. He cooled his jets with a determined breath and went on. “You keep clutching at something. What is it?”
She rubbed at the pink mark on her temple where the electrode had been, and he wondered if she was getting one of those “nasty” headaches she’d mentioned last night, or if his questions just made her uncomfortable. But after a moment, Kelsey touched the long silver chain around her neck and pulled out a necklace. At the end of the chain, he saw a pale blue, teardrop-shaped crystal in the palm of her hand.
Caressing the silver filigree work holding the crystal, she held it up for him to inspect. “This was a gift from my grandmother—jewelry making was a hobby of hers. I inherited my gift from her. I never knew my parents. Apparently, ‘Daddy’ was some sort of traveling musician who got my mother pregnant and left. My mother didn’t survive childbirth. Lucy Belle—” the pipe-smoking grandmother from the Ozarks she’d talked about last night “—raised me. Taught me how to use my talent. Taught me that if I used it to help others, it wouldn’t feel like such a burden.”
“I can see why the necklace would have such meaning for you.”
“It’s more than sentimental value. Go on.”
With Kelsey’s permission, he touched the pendant. The blue prism glowed with heat beneath his fingertip. “It’s warm. But that’s from body heat, right?”
“It’s always warm. Even when I’m not, which seems to be most of my life. I believe it has the power to control the impulses I receive.”
“Crystals?” Like from-another-planet religious cults?
She closed the pendant in her fist and pulled away, sensing his skepticism. “Let me put it in layman’s terms you can understand. This pendant, this symbol of the greatest love I’ve ever known in my life, protects me. If I focus on it, it sharpens my perception. If I touch it, it dampens the input I receive and diffuses it. Like the gloves I wear.”
He tried to understand. “So, when you get stressed out—like when persistent detectives ask a lot of nosy questions or claim you’re a fraud—you use that pendant to ground yourself. To center yourself back in a calmer place.”
“Basically.”
“Yoga or tai chi would do the same thing for you.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling. “You asked me how I worked. And, for the record, I don’t mind your nosy questions. It’s people who have all the answers already who get on my nerves.”
He almost laughed. “Well, then, you and I should get along really well this evening. Because I don’t seem to have answers to anything.”
“This evening?” Kelsey tucked her necklace back inside her sweater. She picked up her checkered coat and black leather backpack, holding them in front of her, shielding herself when she faced him again. “Is something going on?”
He plucked her coat from her hands, shook it open and held it out to help her put it on. “Last night, you indicated that you intended to go back to the mission district to try to find some more clues to the Jezebel mystery.”
Kelsey paused with one arm in her coat. A-ha. He only needed the gift of deductive reasoning skills to figure out that she’d probably intended to go back to no-man’s land once she got off work. By herself.
“I’ve decided I don’t have a problem with that. I could use someone else to take a look at things, hopefully point me in the right direction, maybe catch something I’ve missed. But you’re going to go with an escort.”
She shrugged into the other sleeve of her coat and started bundling up. “It almost sounds as if you’re asking me out.”
On a date? He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Though now that he considered it, the idea wasn’t…no, wait. “I’m taking you to a murder scene.”
She laughed and headed for the door. “I’ve had worse dates than that. Believe me.”
“T, LOOK AT THIS.” Kelsey sank down onto the couch in Ulysses Wingate’s office and flipped through more pages in the dusty, leatherbound volume she’d pulled off the bookshelves.
Since he loved a volunteer, Reverend Wingate had been delighted to see Kelsey and her detective friend back on his doorstep. They’d missed the opportunity to serve dinner, but in a big place like this, there was always cleaning to do. The residents who spent the night were responsible for keeping their quarters neat, but there was no staff who went into the offices.
T had been quick to offer their services, and in minutes Ulysses had loaded them up with dust rags, a vacuum and trash bags. He’d left them in his office and gone out to greet and preach to his evening guests.
Turning off the vacuum, T brushed the inevitable dirt off his gray slacks and sat beside her. “Did you find something?”
“It’s last year’s record of overnight guests.”
At T’s request, she wore only one glove, in the hopes that something at the mission would speak to her and point his investigation in a helpful direction. Technically, without a warrant, he couldn’t search through anything except the trash. But she had freer rein to explore. The books on the shelves she’d been dusting had spoken volumes.
“Here.” She turned to one of the last pages in the handwritten log book. Closing her eyes, she laid her fingers on the page and let the sensations wash over her. “There are a lot of sad stories here.”
“I imagine homelessness has its own set of fears and stresses.” She nodded, tuning out the garble of images and emotions, and focusing on the strongest, saddest voice. “You’re on December twenty-fourth.”
T’s announcement startled her. She clenched her fingers back into her fist and opened her eyes. “Is that important?”
“Delilah spent the night at the mission on December twenty-fourth.” T leaned in closer to look over her shoulder and read the list of names on the page. Though the lemony-chemical scent of furniture polish clung to his shirt, Kelsey didn’t mind the way his arm curled behind her back on the couch, or the way his golden scruffed jaw hovered so close to her cheek.
She was overwhelmed by the heat the man generated. Even without touching him, she felt his warmth flowing into her—a pervasive, comforting warmth, almost erotic in the thoroughness with which it moved throughout her body.
“Son of a bitch.”
Kelsey jumped at the curse, the hazy mood of sexual awareness broken by the sudden alertness in his posture. She turned her focus back to the book. “What is it?”
He pointed to an entry
. “Sally Lattimer. She was last year’s holiday victim. Spent the night here Christmas Eve.”
“Do you think there’s a pattern?” She shifted the book to his lap and started to rise. “Do you want me to check the others?”
“No. I want to get a warrant, make it official.”
A tug on her hand pulled her back to her seat. It was the hand with the glove, so she shouldn’t have received any sort of image. But the warmth she’d sensed just by sitting close to him intensified. His grip was sure, strong—confident—around hers. Maybe that’s what she’d noticed. He didn’t seem to mind holding her hand. Jeb had gone straight from no touching to let’s make out. She liked easing into things. She liked T’s patience and willingness to learn and adapt.
She liked T.
“Good work.” He smiled and closed the book. He was talking all business and facts now, but she didn’t mind. He still hadn’t released her. “Everything points to the Wingate mission. Somebody who lives nearby, who’s stayed here, or who works here knows about those murders. Maybe more than one person. But something’s keeping them from talking.”
“They probably see the mission as a haven—the one bright spot of hope in this neighborhood. Your potential witnesses might not be talking because they don’t want to jeopardize that.”
He nodded, conceding the possibility. Adjusting his grip, T laced his fingers with hers and pulled her hand into his lap. For a moment, he seemed to study the meld of his long, dexterous fingers wrapped against her shorter, turquoise-covered wool ones. “Or it could be something more sinister. Our killer might have a hold over these people we don’t know about yet.”
“Like blackmail?”
“Blackmail. Intimidation.”
His green eyes hooded and dropped their focus to her lips. That same, inexplicable heat seemed to rush to her mouth. She pressed her lips together, unused to the tingling rise in temperature. They felt parched and needy. Her tongue darted out to lick between them. But she found no relief. T watched the subtle movements. His eyes dilated and darkened, as if he found something fascinating about her mouth.
Instead of closing the distance, Detective Brainiac was still trying to talk. But the tone of his words was a hazy seduction against her ears. “That’s another reason why I don’t want you snooping around here on your own. The neighborhood’s dangerous enough.” Had she drifted closer? Or was he finally angling his mouth toward hers. “But one man, in particular, is more dangerous still.”
Kelsey braced her hand against his shoulder, and more warmth trickled in through her bare skin. But that’s all it was. Warmth. And awareness. And a hot, needy desire to connect with this man. “I’ll be careful.”
“You promise?” He came closer.
“I promise.”
His breath mingled with hers. The warmth of him caressed her face. She moved her fingertips to the firm line of his jaw, to guide him…
She saw the pretty blond woman at the altar again, sensed T’s regret.
Just as his lips brushed against hers, Kelsey slipped her fingers between their mouths and stopped the kiss before it ever happened. She blinked her eyes open and pushed away, taking the imprint of his confusion, his curiosity, his bitterness and his desire with her.
“I’m sorry.” She stood and put the distance of the room between them, hiding how much she wanted that kiss, hating how jealous she was of a woman she’d never even met. “I shouldn’t have let…I know we’re here to work.”
T was on his feet, coming after her. “Kelsey. I’m not complaining. I can keep it strictly professional if that’s what you want. But I thought there was a mutual thing there. Was I wrong?”
Another woman. A lost love. He might have a passing interest in Kelsey; he might even be willing to be her friend. But his feelings were tied to someone else.
She crossed behind the reverend’s desk and kept it between them. “You must care about her very much.”
“Who?”
“The blond woman in the wedding dress.”
T planted his hands at his waist and stared at her. Hard. She couldn’t blame him. She shouldn’t know these things, but she did.
“Let me get this straight. While I’m putting myself on the line, taking a risk on something that is completely out of character for me—you’re sitting over there, reading my mind? Getting bent out of shape over some hallucination you think you see inside my head?”
“You asked me how I work. This is it. I wanted to kiss you. But she was so clear, so beautiful. I can’t read minds,” she insisted. “So how do I know you weren’t thinking of her, when you were stuck kissing me?” Kelsey hugged herself, felt through her sweater until she could grasp Lucy Belle’s pendant in her hand.
His gaze flicked down and took note. “Yeah, you’d better hold on to that. If you’re going to get inside my head and mess around, you need to get the message straight. That blonde is Ginny Rafferty-Taylor, my partner. We’ve worked together at K.C.P.D. for six years.”
“But you love her.”
Everything in the room went still. She couldn’t even hear herself breathe. After several endless moments, T nodded. Though what he was agreeing to, she couldn’t tell.
“I thought you told me you could only see things in the past.” His voice was crisp, but subdued. “Ginny’s married. She’s having a baby. She’s in love with someone else. Ginny’s in the past.”
“Your feelings for her aren’t.”
The grinding of the doorknob was Kelsey’s cue that this conversation was over. The door swung open and Ulysses Wingate blew in. “Good evening, boys and girls. My gosh, I can see the woodwork in here again. You can sure smell the clean.”
He’d blustered his way halfway across the room before he realized that Kelsey still stood behind his desk, and T wasn’t moving much faster. He stopped at the seating area and looked down at the log book on the coffee table before lifting his concerned gaze. “Is there a problem?”
T had unplugged the vacuum and was winding up the cord. That was his answer.
Ulysses looked to Kelsey. “You know I’m a good listener if you two need to work something out. I’ve done couples therapy before.”
Kelsey finally roused herself. “There’s no problem, Reverend.” She grabbed her dust rag and headed for the kitchen. “And we’re not a couple.”
Chapter Seven
“Ow!”
Kelsey dropped the shards of the glass that had shattered around her hand into the sink and thrust her fingers under the running water. She muttered a few choicer words beneath her breath as she inspected the damage. One edge of the glass had cut straight through the plastic glove she wore and opened a gash across her last two fingers.
“Not good. Not good at all.”
She glanced around for some assistance, but most of the staff were out in the dining room taking a coffee break, including T, who was slyly asking more of those never-ending questions of his. The industrial dishwasher was already running, so her shouts wouldn’t be heard over the crunch of gears and roar of water.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to fend for herself. And, judging by the outcome of the camaraderie-turned-passion-turned-unspannable-gulf she’d shared with T in the office, it wouldn’t be the last time she’d have to function all by herself, either.
Kelsey breathed slowly, in and out, keeping her mind off the pain and distracting herself from the steady seep of blood. That was goal one. Stop the bleeding. Holding her hand up above shoulder level, she found a dry dish towel and wrapped it tightly around her fingers. Then she spared a few moments to toss the biggest pieces of the glass into the trash and rinse The Flakes and splinters down the drain.
Goal two? She needed some antiseptic and a bandage. A big one. The blood had already soaked through to the outer layers of the towel.
“Wait a minute.” Duh.
Doctor Siegel had an office, down the hall from Reverend Wingate. If a medical doctor didn’t have gauze and tape on hand, then she really was in trouble
.
The hallway was deserted when Kelsey stepped out. The reverend had locked himself in his office to work on his New Year’s sermon, the staff was either in the dining room or outside smoking, and tonight’s residents had already gone upstairs to their beds.
Kelsey’s low-heeled boots clicked along the dark marble floor as she walked past the office, the check-in window and the chapel and made her way to the back of the mission building. The sobering quiet, broken only by the tap of her soles and the beat of her heart, made her think of walking through a museum. Or a church.
Or a mausoleum.
Kelsey’s nervous sigh added another sound to the silence. She didn’t have to touch the polished stone walls to feel cold. She shivered beneath her sweater and apron. As warm and vibrant as this place had been at dinner time, full of people responding to the reverend’s generosity and hearty laugh, it felt like a tomb when it was empty. Despite its high, arching ceilings, Kelsey felt more than alone. She felt trapped.
“Ho, boy.” She was really letting her imagination get the better of her this time. The stone walls blocked the cold air; they didn’t transmit it. And she wasn’t alone. There were at least a hundred other people in the building. They just weren’t out here in the hallway where she was. All by herself.
Thankfully, her fingers throbbed, diverting her attention to more practical, less fanciful notions. She stopped outside the carved walnut door marked Clinic, with a chipped, white plastic plaque that read, Marlon Siegel, M.D. A glance at her feet revealed no light shining beneath the door. “I hope it’s not locked.”
Rapping lightly on the door, Kelsey leaned in. “Hello?”
No answer.
She tested the doorknob, and when it gave, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”
The interior was dark beyond dark. At night, with no windows, no lights and little illumination from the hallway, the furniture inside the clinic looked like big, monolithic shadows in the blackness. Leaving the door open, she felt along the wall for a switch. “Victory.”