True Seeing

by Leigh Wyndfield

  Jake passed back the purse. “Thanks,” Briles said. Jake drove to Briles’ place, following Susan's directions.

  Thirty minutes later, Jake and Susan had left a crying Briles at her own apartment. Susan had tried to stay, but Briles wanted to be alone.

  “She'll be okay,” Susan said as they walked out into the October sunshine. Jake smiled at her but didn't quite know what to say back so he changed the subject.

  “Do you mind if I stop at my place on the way back? I need to pick something up,” he said.

  * * * *

  He'd tried to sound casual when he'd invited her in. She had been all fired up this morning and he didn't want a reprise. He had to be careful—she was tricky. But he figured it was worth a shot.

  He locked the door behind her and asked, “Do you want something to eat?” He walked into the kitchen. “I'm starving after all this morning's excitement."

  She touched his arm as he reached to open the fridge. “Jake, thanks for helping Briles out like that. I really appreciate you coming along today."

  He looked at her as seriously as he could. “You can make it up to me, of course.” He hid his grin at her surprised face by leaning down to peruse what was in his refrigerator. The view made him wince. Pizza a few days old sat beside some take-out boxes of ancient Chinese. He needed to clean this out but the fact was he usually ate leftovers that should have been thrown out long beforehand. He couldn't serve them to her, though.

  “Make it up to you how?” she asked from behind him, her voice laced with suspicion.

  “What about grilled cheese and soup?” He wondered if he had any bread that wasn't moldy even as he asked her.

  “Make it up to you by doing what?"

  Jake shut the fridge and walked over to his pantry. “Ha! This is your lucky day, Ms. Rivers. I am a master chef at grilled cheese.” He threw the bread onto the counter and got a can of chicken noodle out.

  “What exactly did you mean when you said I would be able to make it up to you?” Susan followed him back to the fridge.

  He reached in and got out a block of cheddar. Thank God cheese took forever to go bad. He got out butter and mayonnaise. “How many do you want?"

  “How many what?"

  He got out a pot and a pan and then glanced at her. “Grilled cheeses."

  “Oh, one's fine.” She watched him dump in the soup and set the pot on the burner and then put six slices of bread out. He started buttering them on both sides of the bread. “Whoa! Are you buttering your bread?"

  “One generally does when one is fixing grilled cheese."

  “No one doesn't."

  “You don't put butter on your grilled cheese?” She shook her head.

  “What about Mayo?"

  “Ewww, that is so gross! Mayo on grilled cheese.” She shivered.

  “You are truly missing out, Ms. Picky.” He kept buttering, careful to leave two slices of bread condiment free. “I take it you don't like fried baloney sandwiches either?” He grinned at her distressed look. “That is so your loss."

  After lunch, as they did dishes, he found he liked the casual way she moved around in his kitchen. Earlier, he had made a large deal about how good his sandwiches were when he ate them, enjoying the rise he got out of her. He was surprised she seemed to enjoy hers.

  “So,” she said, handing him another dish to put into the washer. “What did you mean when you said I could make it up to you earlier?"

  “I thought maybe we could delve into the kind of sex that doesn't require protection.” He caught the bowl that flew out of her hand and placed it casually in the dishwasher.

  “Jake,” she said sternly.

  “Yes?” He tried to seem innocent.

  She surprised him by simply turning the sink hose on him, soaking his shirt. He yelled and jumped back. “I cannot believe you just did that.” She laughed and did it again. Instead of jumping back, this time he waded forward, glad he had a closet full of clothes to change into. Grabbing the hose, he turned it on her, catching her when she tried to get away.

  He stopped only when she said mercy four or five times, kissing her with a deep, soul-searching kiss that made his own knees go week.

  “Come on,” he said, dragging her away from the kitchen. “Let's throw your clothes into the dryer."

  “Wait a second,” she said, trying to dig in her heels but sliding instead on the slick floor. He hauled her along as if she wasn't protesting. “My clothes will dry."

  He stopped in front of the dryer and began stripping her. “Sure they will. In the dryer.” When she started to protest, he held a finger over her lips. “I would be a terrible host if I let you hang out at my house in wet clothes.” He pulled off her shirt, unhooked her bra and slid down her jeans with efficient motions. Then he stripped his own clothes off and threw them in. She was still trying to talk him out of it when he closed the dryer door.

  He turned it on and then caught her hand. “Come on. Let's get you dry.” He pulled her into his bedroom and then picked her up. She made a little yip when he threw her onto his bed and dived after her. “Welcome to my bedroom.” He kissed her and then drew back. “It's missed you."

  “Jake, you are absolutely bonkers, you know that?"

  He leaned down and bit her neck playfully. “Only for you, Susan love."

  His body already wanted hers badly. His cock was hard and throbbing and he hadn't even really touched her yet. He rubbed along her, dragging his engorged shaft along her stomach and then back along the triangle of hair between her legs. Then he rolled them both over.

  “Any interest in sixty-nine?” he asked her, hoping he wasn't pushing his luck.

  “Umm...” She looked embarrassed. He took that as a yes and turned his body under hers. Not the easiest way to do it, but he wasn't taking any chances that she'd spook. “This feels weird, Jake."

  “Only because you haven't done it before. Believe me, it won't feel weird once I do this.” He raised his head and ran his tongue from the top of her slit to the back, smiling when he heard her moan. God she was so hot. They were more compatible in bed than he thought possible. He loved her response to him, loved the way touching her made him feel. He moved her legs further apart, then worked his tongue up to her clit and stroked it. She hummed.

  He lost his concentration for a second when she tentatively licked his cock from base to tip. He forced himself back to his task. Her mouth was warm and wet as she covered his head, running her tongue around the rim. He moaned into her clitoris, holding her down when she jumped at the sensation. He caught her sensitive bud between his lips and moaned again, to see if she liked it.

  She responded by moaning back, his cock lodged in her mouth. Now he knew why she jumped—it felt great. He licked up to delve his tongue inside her then returned to her clit. She was wet, soaking his face with her desire. He loved every second of it. She tasted like honey. He pushed a finger and then another inside her. She pushed back against his hand, her mouth pulling at his cock.

  Her hand dropped to roll his balls between her fingers. Jesus, it felt so good—her mouth working over him while her hands played below—that Jake felt his climax building. He wanted to take her with him.

  Sliding one of his fingers out, he pressed it against her tight back entrance. She moaned and he increased the pressure, while his tongue picked up speed. The moans she made when she climaxed took him over the edge and he came, his tongue still moving over her clitoris, even as he pumped into her waiting mouth.

  * * * *

  Susan got slowly out of Jake's car at her apartment complex. Her legs weren't functioning as well as they should. Jake had given her an education on safe lovemaking options that didn't require protection when they stopped at his apartment and she still felt the effects. She enjoyed the new feeling of sated contentment she was experiencing, taking her time to walk up the path, leaving Jake behind on his cell phone talking to Gordon. She groaned silently when she saw Mr. Parker walking across the lawn to her. In ten seconds, she
would have been in her apartment but now she was stuck talking to a guy Georgia had nicknamed Mr. Divorce.

  Mr. Divorce had left his wife six months ago for his secretary. He had moved into the apartments with a flourish, obviously on a huge high. “Freedom after thirty years,” the fifty-ish man had told Susan on more than one occasion. But then his twenty-something secretary had dumped him (Susan heard this from another tenant) and he was no longer Happy-Divorce-man but Bitter-and-Evil-Divorce-man. Susan had always felt sorry for him. Getting dumped by someone with half your IQ had to be a major blow, especially after you changed your life for that person. The rest of the building's women thought she was crazy. They all believed he got what he deserved.

  “I've seen you with a guy a couple times over the last week, Susan,” Mr. Parker said without any opening salutations.

  “Mr. Parker,” Susan said in her cheery voice she usually reserved for small, grumpy children. “It's good to see you! I haven't run into you in weeks."

  “You going to marry him?” This was said with a growl, spittle flying on the word ‘to.’

  Susan picked up her pace to the stairs, Mr. Parker walking beside her. “Wow! Mr. Parker, I wouldn't go that far. This is only our first week of ... dating.” Susan wondered if they were in the dating realm yet, or if they were still in the ‘thing’ stage, as Courtney called it. Maybe she should break down and ask Jake. She could go back to the car and say, “Jake, do we have a thing going here or are we dating?” Yeah right.

  “I thought he was the guy Prissy left me for when I first saw him.” Mr. Parker looked down at his hands, obviously thinking about his lost love. He looked about ten years older than he had last month. “But then I realized his hair was brown, not black like that asshole's."

  Shaking herself from her musings, she realized Mr. Parker's behavior was even more bizarre than usual. The long piece of hair he usually had covering his bald spot had fallen on the wrong side, giving him a very strange appearance.

  “Yeah, actually Mr. Parker,” Susan began to feel worried about being alone with him. Maybe she was being paranoid but the guy who died in the laundry room had black hair, too. “Jake's actually taking a phone call in his car. He should be here any minute.” At Mr. Parker's sharp look, Susan's nervousness increased. “You know, he's a cop,” she hastened to add.

  Mr. Parker held out his hand as if to stop her and she jumped back. No way was she going to touch him and See little Prissy break his heart. “Don't ever marry anyone. He'll run around on you and lie to you and break your heart!"

  “Umm ... I've got to go, Mr. Parker. Right now.” Susan turned and ran up the first set of stairs to her apartment. Mr. Parker was in weirdo-ville these days. Poor guy. He needed help. Big time.

  Susan slowed her pace, forgetting her strange encounter as she thought about the fact that she hadn't yet done her laundry in all the excitement of the day. She decided she would go to Briles’ place later and keep her friend company. She wasn't about to go into a place where she had seen the first real dead body of her lifetime.

  Of course, she'd Seen plenty of dead bodies before she'd learned to shield correctly. Her high school class had taken a trip to the prison as penance for being ‘the worst bunch of tenth graders to ever attend Sanderson High School’ according to the principal, Mrs. Rogers. Susan had passed out after the third True Seeing episode, when the old man cleaning the floor touched her shoe. The punishment may not have worked for everyone, but it did with her. The thought of being locked away with people who could pass on those types of memories made her into the most law-abiding citizen she knew.

  She was so in her own world that she stepped on the body that was lying face down in front of her apartment door. “Holy shit!” she screamed and backpedaled all the way to the railing behind her. The vision hit her almost immediately.

  The man in the green shirt walked towards the stairs when another person in a yellow raincoat with the hood up appeared out of the shadow in the stairwell. A knife flashed from under the raincoat and cut the neck above the green shirt deeply, from side to side. Blood welled up from what looked like a second mouth. The cut man collapsed slowly, laughter following him down. “Oink, oink, oink."

  It was several minutes before Susan really saw the scene before her. When she did, she realized immediately who the dead man was. Robb Connors. He lay on his stomach, wearing a green windbreaker to fight off the October chill. Not a green shirt, a green windbreaker. Jeans and bucks completed his outfit. And he was dead. No question about that. Blood had splattered all over the wall that marked the division between Georgia's apartment and hers. It was all over the floor, pooling around his head, which was face down on the concrete landing. Susan could see her own footprints walking up to him and then back to the railing. Move. Get to Jake. The person who did this might still be here. Run!

  Susan slid along the railing, giving the body a wide berth. She ran back down the stairs to Jake's car. Jake got out as he saw her coming, still talking to Gordon on his cell. She heard him say, “Hold on a sec, Gordon. Susan's running like she's seen another dead body."

  “Jake,” Susan said, her voice cracking.

  “Susan, what is it?” He caught her arm with his left hand. “Tell me what's wrong.” His voice was calm and sure and it got through to her.

  “Up by my apartment,” she gasped. “There's a dead man out on the landing."

  Jake's hand forced her face up so that they could make eye contact and he spoke into his phone. “Gordon, looks like I was right. Susan found another body on the landing outside her door. Can you call it in for me?” Jake's voice was calm. He clicked shut his cell and put it into his pocket. He drew his gun out of his shoulder holster.

  “Wait!” Susan grabbed his arm, not wanting him to go.

  “It's going to be okay.” Jake leaned down to kiss her and then stepped back, handing her his keys. “Stay in the car until I get back here. Lock the doors."

  Susan watched him walk up the stairs and then got into his car. She looked at her hands and saw that there was blood on them. When had she touched blood? She hadn't, had she?

  Chapter Nine

  Jake walked up the stairs, keeping a look out in case the perp had decided to hang around. When he got to the top, he saw the body face down in the middle of the hallway. Blood had pooled under the victim, out from around his stomach. He looked as if he had been going towards the stairs. Blood spatter on the wall showed he had been standing for part of the attack. Jake saw that Susan had walked through the blood, all the way up to the victim and wondered why she had walked through something she should have seen from the top of the stairs. The footprints went straight to the body before they stumbled back to the railing. The blood held the outline of her shoes.

  Jake kept away from the victim then went down the stairs to meet the squad cars in the parking lot, clipping his badge onto his pants. The first two uniforms on the scene had been part of the group at Buddy's the night before.

  “Hey Matherly, how did you beat us here?” one asked.

  “I was visiting someone.” Jake didn't try to hide the fact that he knew someone in the building. It would only look suspicious if he didn't own up right away. “Whoever did this isn't in the immediate area. Set up a police line so we can try to save the scene and then start a larger search. Circle the building and check the basement. The body is right at the top of the left stairwell.” A car door slammed and Jake looked out to the parking lot to see Gordon walking toward them. Jake couldn't stop himself from gloating. “Ahhh, Detective Gordon. How nice of you to join us.” The two uniforms chuckled, in on the joke.

  “I see we stayed at Miss Rivers place last night,” Gordon said to let Jake know that he didn't count this in Jake's win column.

  “Your run is up, Gordon. I got here first. This point goes to me."

  Gordon nodded. “Matherly one, Gordon one thousand.” A wide smile showed very white teeth against his dark skin, making him look like the Cheshire Cat.

  Jake
shook his head. “At least I'm on the board.” He turned to walk beside Gordon across the lawn, mimicking the same route they took only days before.

  “The victim is at the top of the left stairwell. I haven't gotten near him yet. I figured I'd wait for you to show up."

  “Tell me what you know."

  “Susan went up to the apartment while I finished talking to you and came back down hysterical."

  “She found this one too, huh?” Gordon's voice held a note of something Jake didn't like.

  “Since he's outside of her apartment on the landing, she didn't have much of a choice.” Jake didn't like the defensive sound in his voice but he couldn't keep it out.

  “When did you two get here?"

  “We pulled in while I spoke to you on the phone."

  Gordon looked at his watch. “How long have you been gone?"

  Jake looked at his own watch. “Probably two and a half to three hours. One of Susan's friends had an emergency."

  “Hmm. You see anyone when you got here?"

  “Yep. Our friend Paul Parker cornered Susan when she got out of the car. I don't know what he had to say to her."

  “Let's go up,” Gordon said, after a pause. When Gordon got to the top of the stairs, he asked what Jake knew he would. “Who walked through the blood?"

  “I guess it was Susan. I haven't spoken with her since she came to get me."

  Gordon looked at the body for a few more minutes. He walked back down to Jake's car to talk to Susan. Jake said nothing, trailing in Gordon's wake.

  “What happened, Susan?” Gordon's voice steady as always, as he reached into his jacket for his notebook.

  Susan shuddered. “I didn't see him until I stepped on him."

  “Why not?” At this question, Gordon looked up like a hawk. Jake was waiting for an answer himself. She should have seen the body.