Twisted Miracles

by A. J. Larrieu

  “Did you tell her?” I sat down next to him, leaning a shoulder against his chest, and he shifted to wrap an arm around me. I hooked my fingers over his forearms and closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of him. He’d just shaved. I could smell his shaving cream.

  He sighed. “Yeah.”

  “How’d she take it?”

  “I’m not sure. She didn’t say much.”

  I looked at my hands. “Maybe it’ll come back. We don’t know much about how this works.”

  “Maybe.” He stowed his phone back in his pocket.

  “It’s still hard for me to believe it’s Ryan. There’s got to be some mistake. I mean, do you really think he killed that kid?”

  “A few years ago, I would’ve said no, but now...” He shook his head. “He’s changed.”

  I didn’t want to believe it. I’d been sure we were looking for a villain, someone so far fallen they were past all redemption, someone using the money to pay for prostitutes and cocaine. If Ryan Tooley could descend this far, hurt this many people, what hope was there for me?

  “We have to be sure,” I said. “I can...deal with him, but we have to be sure.”

  “One way to find out.” Shane pulled his cell phone back out of his pocket and scrolled for a moment, then held it to his ear. “Hey, Ryan...Yeah, it’s Shane.” I sat up and stared at him as he laughed into the phone. “Yeah, you too. Listen, you’re not offshore, right? Cass and I were gonna grab a beer later—you game?” A short pause. “We were thinking of Lazy Al’s, down on St. Philip...Sure, sounds good. See you then.”

  He hung up and put his phone back in his pocket.

  I glared at him. “Aren’t you risking tipping him off?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Beats freezing my ass off in a tent at Briny Point for the next week waiting for something to happen.”

  “What if he looks in your head and sees what you’re thinking?”

  “Come on, Cass, give me some credit. I’ve got better control than that. And that’s why we’re both going. You can poke around in his head while I get him drunk.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we’ll know.”

  He didn’t say it out loud, but we were both thinking it. Then we’ll have no choice.

  * * *

  Lazy Al’s was a neighborhood-y sort of place, and Shane waved to at least three people as we made our way to the bar. I didn’t like being around the crowd. I’d finally stopped wishing for my pills every time I encountered a mass of people, but I still had trouble blocking out thoughts in packed places like this. Shane took my hand and squeezed it.

  “You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  We ordered a pitcher of Abita Turbodog and found a place to sit, and a few minutes later, Ryan showed up. He clapped Shane on the shoulder and kissed me on the cheek, then poured himself a beer. Shane drained his own and set down his glass with a thunk.

  “You’ve got some catching up to do,” he told Ryan, and I laughed obligingly.

  “Where’s Mina?” Ryan asked, and my face flashed with one part anger that he’d dare to ask and one part hope that this had all been a mistake. Luckily, Ryan’s attention was still on Shane.

  “Went to visit some friends,” he said, which I supposed was true enough. “She’s still coming to terms with it all.”

  “Yeah, I guess it would be hard.” He took a long drag from his pint.

  I wanted to hit him. I wasn’t nearly collected enough to slip into his head and see what he felt. Remorse? Guilt? Nothing at all? I recited phone numbers in my head to hide my thoughts and topped off Ryan’s glass. With any luck, he’d get too drunk to remember any of this.

  It wasn’t hard to sip my pint while the guys worked through the pitcher. Shane stayed sober enough to remember why we were there, though, and after a little while he turned the conversation toward work. “Look at me, still working for my uncle. I thought by now I would’ve moved out.”

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Ryan said. “I miss those home-cooked meals.”

  “I hear you get them often enough.”

  “Only when I’m not offshore. The rig food’s all right, but it’s nothing like home.”

  I’d calmed down enough to skim his thoughts, and I let my awareness brush over his mind, looking for dark spots, things he was hiding.

  “The money must be good though,” Shane said. “I saw that new truck.”

  “It’s not bad,” Ryan said, and he instantly put up shields. Aha. I sent a message to Shane to keep talking.

  “When’d you get it?” Shane refilled Ryan’s glass.

  “Few months ago.” He picked up the pint and drank. “Not that I get to drive it much, I’m offshore so often. Not so good for my love life, either.” He glanced at me and winked, and I risked scanning his head more deeply. He was drunk—his thoughts were disorganized and swirling, and I caught a distinctly sexual image in the tangle.

  “No women on the rig?” Shane asked.

  “Most of ’em aren’t looking for what I’ve got, if you know what I mean.” In his head, he was imagining pulling my shirt off in the parking lot behind the bar. I struggled to keep my mind clear, as though I hadn’t seen it. He was starting to notice my presence, his mind reacting to mine. We had to keep him talking.

  “Another round?” I said. Maybe if he loosened up just a little bit more, I’d have a shot at staying in his head longer.

  “Sure, yeah,” Ryan said, and Shane got up to refill the pitcher.

  I turned back to Ryan and shifted the conversation to fishing, thinking it would keep his mind on boats and rivers instead of sex. He started talking about fishing off the side of the platform, and I slid a little more deeply into his head. He didn’t seem to notice. At first, all I got were flashes of the gulf and fishing tackle. No good. I went in deeper, into the more ordered places of his memory. It was like searching for boxes in a warehouse organized by some complex and unknowable system. Jumbles of memories from the rig were sorted with fragments from high school math classes; his past girlfriends and his cars were lumped together in clusters according to the year. I kept searching, looking for something that would lead me to the moment I’d seen in Annabeth’s mind, almost hoping I wouldn’t find it. I had to move fast—he might be drunk, but he wasn’t totally insensible. He’d feel me if I stayed too long.

  Even as I thought it I felt the first flares of awareness in his mind—the first signs he could feel me looking. I sped up, skimming, desperate, and almost missed the place where he kept his secrets.

  It was buried behind his worry over money. Most people had it to some degree, either a constant, low-level concern over having enough for retirement or a spiking, sporadic terror of financial ruin. Ryan fell somewhere in between, but beneath his fear that he wouldn’t make his truck payment was a tightly shielded ball of memories and emotions. I almost missed them, he was keeping them so quiet, covered and obscured like a seed in cotton. If he hadn’t been drunk, I never could’ve pushed in this far. But he was drunk, and I could.

  —no more fucking converters. Too fucking risky. Bitch’s powers must’ve come back. Gotta go back to grabbing homeless guys. Friday. Do it Friday—

  It was true. It was him.

  I felt cold and hot all at once, and I chugged my beer to hide my expression. I found his memory of pulling from Annabeth and I felt sick, recognizing the elation. It was exactly what I’d felt pulling from Andrew and Jackson. Just like me. I wiped sweat from my face and got out fast.

  Too late. He’d felt me. He caught my eyes and his mind nudged against mine, questioning.

  Shit. “Excuse me a sec,” I said, getting up. “Bathroom.”

  His gaze was on me as I pushed in my chair. Shit shit shit. I walked to the back of the bar where there was an old pay phone with a broken cord and two cramped bathrooms in a poorly lit hallway. On the wall was a bulletin board papered over with flyers for lost cats and guitar lessons, and I leaned my head against it, cursing myself
for being careless. We all skimmed the surface of each other’s thoughts—that was normal conversation for a converter. But going in deep like I’d just done was like rummaging around in someone’s medicine cabinet. Worse—like reading their diary.

  The hallway was deserted, and I was thankful for it until I realized Ryan had followed me in. I turned to face him, preparing to stammer some apology about being drunk and not realizing what I was doing, but before I could speak, he grabbed me and backed me up against the wall. At first I thought he was angry, but then his mouth slanted over mine and I figured it out. His hands ran over my waist and his thoughts pressed into my head, thick and fragmented. God, I want to fuck her right here—another two days and I’ll be flush—incredible tits—want them in my mouth—

  I pushed him back, breathing hard. Ryan was looking at me with hooded eyes. I could still taste him on my mouth—beer and tobacco.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, and gave me a suggestive smile. “I felt you in my head.” He leaned down to kiss me again. I put my palms on his chest and pushed, stopping him.

  “Hey—this was your idea.” He leaned in closer, pressing his thigh between my legs, running his hand up my arm. His breath was hot on my cheek.

  “You got the wrong idea.”

  “Seems like a great idea to me.” He sent me, deliberately, an image of the two of us in the alley behind the bar, his body pressing mine against the brick, his hand between my legs. “He’ll never know.” His hand traced a line from my jaw to my breast, coming to rest on my waist. It occurred to me that having Ryan think I was coming on to him was far, far better than his knowing the real reason I’d been surfing through his thoughts.

  I looked at him. “I’ll know.” I resisted batting his hand away with effort. I reached up slowly, took his hand in mine, and returned it to his side. He took a step back, and I breathed again. We stood there staring at each other for a long moment, then a sound at the end of the hall made us both look up.

  “You guys ready for another round?” It was Shane. He was standing between the hallway and the bar, propping the swinging door open with his hand and holding a pitcher of beer. His voice was casual, but his knuckles were white on the pitcher’s handle.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying not to sound relieved. Everybody had shields up like lead blocks. I felt Ryan’s heartbeat racing, then Shane’s. I wanted to tell him we should leave, but I was so flustered I didn’t want to risk broadcasting and tipping off Ryan, so we sat back down and drained another pitcher. When we finally got up to go, Ryan gave me a look that said he wasn’t so drunk he’d forget this.

  “You got a ride home?” Shane asked lightly as we walked out.

  “I’ll get a cab,” Ryan said, and we parted at the corner. Shane never took his arm from around me.

  For the whole fifteen-minute walk back to the house, he was silent, and I avoided looking in his head. The anger coming off him was enough to let me know what he was thinking, and I thought we’d better get as much distance between him and Ryan as possible.

  When we got to the B&B, we went out back. Shane stopped on the patio and turned to face me. I could tell he was barely holding it together as he ran his hands over my arms, gently, as though he was feeling for damages. “Did he hurt you?” he said, his voice clipped. “Did he—God Cass, tell me what happened. Tell me before I chase him down and kill him with my bare hands.”

  The raw fury coming off him made the blood drain out of my face. “No, Shane, it—it wasn’t like that. I got into his head. He took it the wrong way.”

  “The wrong way—Shit, Cass, he was all over you! If he hadn’t stopped—”

  “I was handling it.”

  Shane ran his hands over his face and looked at me. “Oh, I know you were. I know you don’t need me to protect you.” He gave me a grim smile. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. I could hear what he was thinking all the way at the bar. I saw him put his hands on you and I almost lost it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. We stood in silence for a few minutes, and I hugged myself against the cold. The images from Ryan’s head were still running through my mind.

  “I got it,” I said finally. “I’m sure now.”

  Shane nodded, but he didn’t speak. He was looking out into the dark.

  “I’m gonna go take a shower.” I turned to go into the house. Shane stayed outside. As I walked upstairs, I could still feel him wrestling down the anger.

  I got into the shower off my old room, turned on the hot water and I scrubbed my skin until it hurt. Then I put on a pair of flannel pajamas. When I walked back into my room, Shane was waiting, sitting on the end of my bed. I sat next to him.

  “I’m sorry.” He was calmer now. “I never should have put you in that situation.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I’m the one who suggested you sneak into his head. I should have done it myself. I should have known this would happen.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said again. “I went in too deep.”

  Shane made a sound in his throat, a mixture between a growl and a laugh. “You went in too deep, and he just assumed you were giving him an invitation? He knows better than that.” He met my eyes. “And he knows how I feel about you.”

  I looked away from him. “I didn’t want to tip him off. I let him think I wanted it.”

  “I know. I saw it in your head.”

  “It was lucky you came in when you did.”

  “Maybe it was luckier I didn’t get there sooner.” Rage flared in him again.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, thinking of what might have happened. Shane was a strong telekinetic, but Ryan could pull.

  “Stop apologizing. Please.” He put his arm around me, and I leaned toward him, my damp hair soaking his shirtsleeve. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Will you stay with me tonight? Just...stay?”

  “Of course.”

  He got up and took off his belt and socks and shoes. I stayed where I was and watched as he slid under the covers, still wearing his jeans and his long-sleeved black Saints T-shirt. Then I climbed in next to him, turning my body toward his. He lifted his arm and drew me against his chest. The thick cotton was warm. My thoughts quieted a little with the nearness of him, but I was still having trouble getting the feel of Ryan’s hands out of my mind. My skin felt cold everywhere he’d touched me. I remembered the familiar joy he’d felt at the thought of pulling, and my skin went clammy with panic. Shane pulled me tighter.

  “Sleep, Cass,” he said, and his mind slipped into mine and drowned my racing thoughts with a simple, overwhelming sense of calm. I fell asleep with his arms around me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “We have to know if the Tooleys are in on it.”

  It made me sick to even suggest it. Janine and Mac were like family to me. But I’d seen those overdue bills. Desperation can change people. We had to know for sure.

  “I don’t reckon they are.” Lionel flattened a square of sweet dough with a worn, tapered rolling pin. We’d just finished serving breakfast, and he was prepping for the next day. “I reckon I would’ve picked up on it by now.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” It was true that Lionel played cards with Mac once a month, but Ryan had been hiding his abilities from us for years. Being around telepaths made you good at burying the secrets that mattered.

  “Mac’s good people,” Bruce said. He was oiling baking sheets and setting them out for Lionel’s cinnamon rolls. “I can’t see him hurting folks on purpose.”

  I looked around for Shane, hoping he’d take my side, but he was still up in Geary’s room, letting him eat and making sure he didn’t escape. It was getting tedious, having that man in captivity.

  “I’ll have a look in Mac’s head if it’ll make you feel better, sugar.” Lionel arranged raw cinnamon rolls on the pans. They looked like miniature braided floor rugs, alternating rings of light dough and dark filling.
“Been meaning to ask him out for lunch anyway.”

  “Be careful.” If Mac felt him looking, it could end badly. I thought of Mary Ellen. Lionel grunted dismissively and moved on to the next batch of dough.

  I knew what he was thinking. He was too generous. It was why he ran the B&B, why he’d taken me in. I could sense he didn’t really believe Ryan was capable of the things he’d done, much less that Mac and Janine might be involved. I didn’t want to believe it, either, but part of me knew what the gift could do to a person.

  Part of me knew it could have easily been me.

  * * *

  My caution turned out to be for nothing. Lionel came back with what we already suspected: Ryan was passing money to Mac and Janine to help out with the bills, but they assumed it was coming from his job on the rig. I was glad they weren’t involved, but now I had to deal with the fact that I was going to attack their son and throw him in an underground prison.

  The question was how.

  I couldn’t do it in the city. Too many people, too many chances I’d hurt someone. I was nervous enough about having Shane and Lionel around. A block full of normals was out of the question. We had to find a way to get him out of New Orleans.

  “What about Geary?” I said. “We could make him call, say he needs to meet.”

  “Risky,” Shane said. “He slips out of control for a second, and we end up tipping Ryan off.” We’d managed to keep Geary quiet with threats and duct tape so far, but I was looking forward to getting rid of him.

  “I don’t want to wait until Friday.” That was when Ryan planned to drop off his next “source.”

  “We may not have a choice,” Shane said. “Come on, let’s try this again.”

  I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. We were in the old kitchen out back, and I was practicing. If I was going to drain Ryan, I needed to be sure I could block his powers, and Shane had volunteered to be my guinea pig.