by Adira August
Psychic Men
Hunt&Cam4Ever Book 5
written by
Adira August
edited by
Tanja Ongkiehong
“It is the theory which decides what we can observe.”
ALBERT EINSTEIN
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 Adira August
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only.
Author’s Note:
This writer offers her humble apologies to all statisticians or those who know statistics is not something cured by fabric softener. The explanation of a P-value is meant to give a feel for what the included graphic represents, not teach anyone mathematics. Thank you for your understanding.
As to the title:
I’m not a fantasy writer or a supernatural writer. Psychic Men is fact-based like my other Hunter Dane Investigations in the Hunt&Cam4Ever series. I’ve used my artistic license to sculpt real things into a story I made up. As usual, there are links to sources in the Appendix.
Really hoping they don’t revoke the license.
addi-
Prologue
* * *
Alessandra Dark, pushed through the front door of Dolly Does Tarot, the bell over the door tinkling as she closed it behind her. It was a pleasant sound. “Quaint,” Dolly often said. “Like my place.”
And if quaint was another word for shabby in this case, Lissa also believed the shop was warm and welcoming.
Dolly Florez looked up from under a cloud of fuzzy, brown curls. “Hey, Lis.” She sat behind the glass display case that served as a customer counter.
Lissa looked at the array of colorful cards on the counter. “Reading for yourself?”
“You.” Dolly studied her array. “Something’s coming,” she mumbled more to herself than Lissa. Dolly put down another card. “A man. There’s a man coming for you.”
“Bill collector?”
Dolly tapped the card of a richly dressed figure on a throne. “You see what’s under him?”
“A chair?” Lissa guessed. Dolly rolled her eyes and lifted the card. Lissa walked around the counter to get a better look. “The Sun.”
“He’s a good thing. A powerful man who brings you light.”
“So my electricity will go out and a fat guy with his butt crack showing will come to fix it?” Lissa teased her best friend.
“He’s coming from the Light,” Dolly repeated, firmly. “And he’s close.”
“Then I’d better hurry and get ready for my first appointment.”
Lissa moved off toward her “studio.” An upholstered chair across from a small couch in a converted storage room at the rear of the metaphysical shop. It did have it’s own door to the rear parking lot for her mediumship clients.
She took off her coat and realized she was antsy as she often was when they arrived before their people, wanting her attention, wanting to begin.
They’re outside.
“I know.”
Go get them.
“You get them.”
They can’t hear me now.
She looked through the blinds at the blue pick-up truck parked out back. A couple. He was shaking his head. She was peering at Lissa’s door. Lissa could just make out his upper body movement - a big sigh. He opened his door.
They’re coming!
“Patience,” she said.
She moved to the armchair, closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, allowing all her “antsiness” to slide away as she exhaled, submitting to the Light.
The woman opened the door. He was behind her, craning his neck to check out the building.
Lissa rose. “Please, come in.” The woman stepped inside, eagerly. He came behind, hovering protectively. “Will you sit down?” She locked the door behind them.
They were probably in their mid-thirties, both haggard with the grief that aged them. She sat with her hands in her lap, clutching a small purse. He sat back with his arms folded over his chest, then put one around his wife and eyed Lissa with open suspicion.
“I’ll get started,” Lissa told them, sitting slowly, relaxing into her chair. She was careful to do nothing that would exacerbate their anxiety, keeping her movements small, her hands open and relaxed on her lap.
“I’ll tell you what I hear, see, smell, anything I perceive. If I ask a question, please be very brief, I want to give them as much time to get their message across as possible.”
The woman sat up and leaned forward. The man shot her an irritated glance and lowered his chin, giving Lissa a cold stare.
She listened. Her words came slowly at first, but increased in tempo as the messages came more quickly. More clearly.
Lissa’s eyes were fixed above their heads on the blank wall. “It’s … an open barrel, I think. Metal. Lots of green … lawn? … Taller than the little boy but …”
Lissa focused on the woman who had her hands clasped over her mouth. “You put him in a trash barrel?”
The woman was openly weeping, smiling, nodding.
Lissa pulled her mind back. What kind of parents would do that?
I had to pee.
Lissa smiled. “He had to pee?”
The man sat up, shocked. “Where were we?”
Lissa held up a hand to him - wait.
“He’s showing me animals, elephants and lions. But they’re not close. Sound of the lion, something else, roaring. I’m not … I can’t see it .. it’s loud but distant.” The energy ebbed.
Lissa stopped and took a breath, brought the parents into focus. She, openly weeping. The man was very red in the face, but there were tear tracks. He looked shocked and thunderous simultaneously.
Lissa leaned over and placed a box of tissues between them. She went through a lot of tissues. “Did what I said make sense to you?” She already knew it did.
It was the man who spoke.
“We were in City Park. There’s a playground at the end where it borders the zoo. But he had to go. No bathrooms close by. He really had to go.” He stopped and wiped at his eyes. “Nobody was around and the can was almost empty so I just picked him up and set him down in there. Told him to go ahead. He was three, it’s a little pee. How could you know all that?”
Wednesday, March 1st, 2017
6:45am - Running
* * *
Hunter Dane ran easily along the wooded slope above Camden Snow’s luxurious foothills A-frame. The path ran straight for a hundred feet. He closed his eyes, running blind in the cool, clean air.
Men had made the track: flat, clear of roots and rocks, a civilized path bordering the twenty residential properties cut into the canyon’s upper slopes. They all had access to the six miles of winding, rising, falling, roaming, perfectly maintained jogging track with views of the southern slope, the river far below and the road that wound along beside it.
Hunt did not jog; he ran—the smooth, waste-sparing motion as natural to him as opening his hand. But if the perfect mechanics of his long, lean body came easily to him, his breath did not. Not always.
It had been years since he’d run to greet the sun as a boy visiting Hopi during his school breaks. The other boys always made a place for him, and he did not feel other.
He neve
r ran in the cities; you don’t cast pearls before swine. Even as a child, he’d understood what it meant. He only ran in Hopi.
In the dust, down the mesas, along the roads, underneath the vast, lightening sky, up and up and up to the top again. He was young and strong, and this was a thing his people did from ancient times. And he was one of the people.
Until he wasn’t.
Now, he ran again. Alone. Since the Chinooks had blown away the snows, he’d run every morning he’d awakened at Cam’s luxury A-frame. His lungs objected at first, but soon adjusted, and then celebrated.
Hunter veered off the track, taking the low rock wall without a break in stride. He wound his way upslope through the mountain maple, around the boulders, leaning and running and climbing and feeling the burn in his calves and glutes, and the looseness in his spine until he scrambled the last ten vertical feet to the canyon’s lip.
Halted, he faced east. Arms away, palms up, he drank the peace.
The sun peeked over the spine of the hogback, and touched him.
CAMDEN SNOW HEARD the faint susurration of water in the pipes that meant Hunter was in the shower.
He set the container of fresh fruit and veg on the kitchen island next to the juicer. He’d gotten Hunt hooked on his go-to breakfast drink. But where Cam would have an egg white omelet and whole wheat toast, Hunter wanted sausage with his eggs and something home-baked by Cam’s grandmother: pie or strudel or coffee cake.
Delores Snow delighted in stocking Cam’s freezer with Hunter’s favorite breakfast breads. Though when apple pie became a breakfast food, much less a bread, was a mystery to Cam. What wasn’t a mystery was Gran instantly adopting Hunter as her own when they’d finally met in person at Christmas.
It wasn’t so much that Hunter was beautiful, though he was that—tall and dark and graceful—it was his reserve and intelligence and complete absence of bullshit that won her over. She also liked that Hunt was no kid, but a homicide detective in his thirties, respected in his field. “Settled” was how she put it.
Hot as fuck was how Cam did.
Cam grinned to himself as he set a medium flame under the sausage. It also probably didn’t hurt that his bisexual switch lover had let just a touch of his Dom show, and his grandmother had enough flirtatious girl left to appreciate it.
The pipes went silent. Cam started the coffee.
“I HAD A CALL WHILE you were running,” Cam said, settling on a counter stool while Hunter cleaned up after breakfast. “You’re not going in today, right?”
Hunt closed the dishwasher and set it to humming. “I am, actually, but not until three. Some stuff I have to go over with Natani, then I’m grabbing a bite on the way to the club.”
It was Wednesday and they were both “munch nite” regulars at Scene and Not Heard, the very discreet BDSM club where they’d met. But Hunter didn’t go to find a sub on Wednesdays and no longer sought out the club’s Doms. Camden Snow, 24-year-old blond sex god, was all the Dom he needed, now. On munch nights, Hunter played poker with millionaires.
“How far are you up?” Cam asked, knowing it was Hunt’s goal to earn and pay back the $100,000 buy-in he’d been given by the club as reward for his handling of the matchstick case.
“Thirty-five. But we get some new blood tonight, I hear. So what was the phone call?” Hunter finished wiping the counters down.
“You know David Morganfeld?” Cam asked, referring to the world-famous concert pianist.
“Not personally, but yeah, he lives in the glass and metal monstrosity a couple miles along the track,” Hunter said, bringing a jar of salve with him and taking the stool next to Cam’s. “You taking off your pants, or am I doing it?” He ran a finger over the bulge of Cam’s cock under the fabric. “And how would you like me to do it?”
Cam’s head lifted and his eyes darkened. Every morning that Hunt stayed at Cam’s, which was most nights, he put a healing ointment on Cam’s left thigh. The salve treated the scars left by bullets and surgery and the external fixators that had been screwed into his shattered femur.
Even after four months, it was rare that they got through the process without orgasms. At first, the feeling of Hunt’s fingers on the scars had been unpleasant. Not painful, according to Cam, but weirdly nauseating. But it had to be done, to keep the scars from hardening, to help them heal, and over time, fade.
So Hunter had used the most expedient distraction available: he’d taken Cam’s limp dick into his mouth. It didn’t stay soft for long. Hunter’s tongue and lips worked his Dom’s cock while his fingers worked the salve over the scars.
They’d been on the massage table in Cam’s birch-panelled bathroom that first time. Cam had lain back, not chasing his orgasm until Hunter treated the last of the scars and wrapped his strong arms around Cam’s hips, pulling him tight to himself, deep-throating him.
It had become their morning ritual, and they were quite creative about varying the location and form of sex play. The scars had smoothed and flattened without hardening, and the feeling of Hunt’s fingers no longer bothered Cam. But it was still, they agreed, a fine way to start their day.
But this day, Cam had made a promise. He sighed and stood, slipping his left leg out of his sweats. He perched back on the stool as Hunter balanced Cam’s leg over his own thigh.
“Must have been some phone call,” Hunt said, not letting his disappointment show. “He want to give you a private concert?”
“He wants me to meet his houseman’s grandson. I guess the kid is a big fan.” Cam’s face clouded. “I said I would but—the kid sounds squirrely.”
Hunter’s fingers paused for a fraction of a second. He kept his voice easy. “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”
“He’s refusing to go to school until he meets me and”—he shook his head— “I think he needs a therapist more than a has-been Alpine skier.”
Hunter ignored the has-been part. Cam had to come to terms with his post-Olympic-champion life, in his own way. But Hunt also knew how dangerous a fan could be. He was touching the evidence with his fingers.
“Maybe he has me confused with someone else,” Cam went on. “He told his grandfather I should bring my cougar.”
Hunt’s fingers stilled.
“Morganfeld wanted to know if I kept one as a pet.” Cam looked down. “You done already?”
Hunter dipped into the jar for more salve. “No, just thinking how people insist on trying to tame wild things. So, you’re going?”
“Yeah, Morganfeld’s a really good guy. You want to walk up there with me, or are we still keeping our relationship on the down low?”
“I think we’re okay up here in fag heaven,” Hunt shrugged. “Besides, it’s been months, so if people figure it out, it now officially qualifies as old news.” He gave Cam his leg back and capped the jar.
“Everybody in the development is not gay. Minnie Houston, for instance,” Cam said, referring to a feisty woman in her sixties who’d reportedly inherited a fortune.
“The world’s most reclusive fag hag,” Hunter grinned, washing his hands again. “Her hot tub looks like a feature spread for Out.”
“Since when have you been at her hot tub?” Cam asked, sliding a hand over Hunter’s backside on the way to get his canes from the hall. Two miles was still a long hike for his leg.
Hunter grabbed a dishtowel. “Her bevy of beautiful boys is on full display from the trail.”
“At dawn?” Cam had his light jacket on, ready to go.
“I think they sleep in there.”
10:00am - Walking
* * *
It was a beautiful morning for a walk. Bright yellow faces of miniature sunflowers rose from the dark forest floor alongside low clumps of flame-orange foothills paintbrush. A Canadian jay followed them, swooping from tree to tree, waiting for one of them to drop a treat on the path. The residents delighted in interacting with the big grey-blue birds—more communal outdoor pets than wildlife.
T
he closer they got to the turn-off to the Morganfeld house, the more Hunter felt a growing sense of expectancy. Maybe it was thinking about Hopi during his run. But he always thought of Hopi then, or what was the point?
Hunter Dane was a man who relied on data, the objective examination of fact, and application of logic to do his job. But he knew, like most good cops know, that he should never ignore instinct. Something was coming. He walked a pace ahead of Cam and kept himself attuned to his surroundings while Cam went on about what was happening at the club that night.
“It has to be tonight?” Hunter asked
“You didn’t have plans, did you? You said you’re playing poker. When Sherrilynne called I felt like I had to say yes.” Cam said. “It’s their twentieth anniversary. I don’t know anyone who could put up with either one of those people for twenty days, much less years. But I don’t know two people happier with each other, you know?”
Cam was talking about Chez Cannon and Sherrilynne, his Domme wife, who both owned and operated Scene and Not Heard.
“And only you can do this?” Hunter asked. “You finally giving Chez the fanboy flogging he’s been pining for from the Full Metal Dom?”
Cam turned pink.
Hunter laughed and the jay flew to a further tree, scolding him. “Are you serious? Cam, he’ll be more obsessed with you than ever!”
“You gave K-girl her fantasy for her birthday, and she’s always had a crush on you.”
“A sub-crush. I’m sure away from the club she rarely gives me a thought. And I’m not a national treasure,” Hunter said. “So what’s this thing that Sherrilynne can’t do for him?”
“If you don’t stop smirking about this, you’re going to have several hours to regret it after we get home.” Cam reached up and pulled down a supple branch of a young aspen, eyeing it speculatively.