Through His Eyes (Mind's Eye Book 1)

by Deborah Camp

  “Of course, I do,” she said, playing along. “If I had more money, I would wear nothing but designer labels.” She ran her hands down her belly and along the top of her thighs. “I love being a woman.”

  “But you think I’m a pervert. You think I’m insane.” The smile vanished from his lips and his voice had roughened. He sounded like a man again. “I bet you think I’m a fucking genius now, don’t you? Right now you’d agree to anything I said just to keep me from slicing your throat open and cutting out your heart.”

  A scream clutched at her throat. She parted her lips.

  “You scream, you die.” He lifted the knife. “Simple.”

  “I scream, someone comes running, and then you get arrested . . . or dead.”

  “You want to die?” He backed her up against the sink. The blade of the knife tapped her throat and then he lifted it away so that she could look at it. “Did you see me gouge out that bitch’s eyes when she recognized me?” His breath was soaked in Guiness.

  Trudy nodded, her mind whirring, plotting her survival. She had to time it perfectly. She had to commit totally or it wouldn’t work. Looking past him, she smiled. He frowned and she felt his confidence falter.

  “Your mother is here,” she lied.

  He shook his head. “Who’s crazy now, bitch?”

  “You two were very close. She told me that she knew about you. All about you. But she protected you. She kept your secrets, Jaybird.”

  A muscle pulsed in his jaw and his eyes narrowed minutely. It was all she needed. Ramming her knee up into his groin, Trudy grabbed the wrist of his knife hand and pushed it away from her. Then she jabbed the thumb of her free hand into Jay’s eye.

  “Fucking whore! You’re dead! I’ll cut out your goddamned . . .”

  She sidestepped him and lurched for the door. The knife arced, whistling up, nicking and burning her shoulder, and then the bathroom door flew open, slamming into the side of her face and sending her backward . . . backward . . . tripping and falling into Jay. She scrambled off him and saw the knife sweeping toward her again. She lost her balance, her feet sliding out from under her.

  “Trudy! No!”

  Levi!

  Something hard banged against her head and all the lights in the world were doused.

  ###

  A voice wound through her mind. A dream? Real?

  “Hello, Trudy. I’m Dr. Drumright. You can open your eyes. Come on. I know you’re conscious. What color are they? We all want to see for ourselves, don’t we, people?”

  She tried to lift her lids, but they wouldn’t obey.

  Murmuring. Chuckling. A hand on her face. Something sticking her. Her arms and legs being lifted. The rip of fabric. Cold. She was freezing cold. Her eyes popped open. Owww! The light!

  “Oh, look, everyone. They’re green. Your head hurts, I know. You’re going to X-ray to see if you cracked it. Hey, Carol, take a look at her shoulder. Yeah, go ahead and clean and close that wound . . .”

  Trudy shut her eyes and shut out the voices and that hurtful, cold light.

  ###

  “Get your fucking hands off me, Sinclair! I want to know how she’s doing and I want to know now!”

  Levi? Trudy tried to call out to him, but she had no voice. Her lips and tongue wouldn’t move.

  Hands lifting, moving, pressing down on her. Humming machinery. Soft voices, but none of them Levi’s. He had sounded so mad! Mister Moody Blues.

  ###

  The shadowy figure came closer until she could see his dimples and his cold smile. Trudy backed away from him, but then the ground disappeared from under her feet. She reached out and the knife . . . oh, the knife! It plunged into her flesh, ripping, tearing, the tip finding her heart and cleaving it in two.

  She screamed.

  “There, there,” a woman soothed. “Settle down. You’re in the hospital. Lie back. Are you awake now? Sir, please, you have to step out so that we can attend to her.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Sir . . . Mr. Wolfe . . . . please.”

  “No!”

  Trudy forced her eyes open to slits and glimpsed him standing at the foot of her bed. He was so far away. They were separated by a white and gray ocean. She lifted one hand. “Levi.” Had she spoken? It didn’t sound like her.

  “Trudy! I’m here.”

  Was that him? His voice was husky . . . broken. Sighing, she fell back into the darkness.

  ###

  Trudy?

  Ethel?

  I failed you. I placed you in danger.

  I’m sorry about Jay. You knew about him?

  Yes. I knew he was different, but I didn’t know how sick he was until after I left him. I should have talked to him about his . . . tendencies, but I didn’t. I love him, Trudy. He’s my son.

  I understand.

  Do you?

  Totally. We’re good, Ethel. How’s Mike?

  Mike will be okay. Mike had his work . . . and his other women. I had Jay. I told myself it was just a phase my boy was going through – wanting to dress up in my clothes and tell me what to buy, what to wear. I failed him, too.

  I understand. Ethel, did you guide me to the Stirring Palms? It couldn’t have been a coincidence that I ended up there.

  I don’t believe in coincidences and neither should you. You’re a remarkable young woman. Take my hand, dear, and I’ll guide you back to where you belong.

  ###

  The world positioned itself under her again. She felt its solidness. Trudy stared at the shadowy room with its silver blinds obscuring a large window. A tray on wheels was near her and a pitcher and plastic cup sat on it. Oh. She was in the hospital and she was incredibly thirsty!

  Snatches of conversations returned. Suddenly, she was back in that restroom with Jay Yardley and his knife and his madness. She closed her eyes, blocking out the memory because it made her head pound furiously. Taking a couple of deep, head-clearing breaths, she pried her eyes open again and looked to her left, sensing that she wasn’t alone. Levi sat slouched in a chair, his head resting in his hand, his elbow propped on the chair arm, his eyes closed. The lower half of his face was dark with stubble. His clothes were wrinkled. Oh, he looked so uncomfortable!

  His chin slipped off his palm and his head fell forward. His whole body jerked and his eyes flew open to stare at her. At first, his gaze was unfocused, but then in the next second he was out of the chair and clutching her hand.

  “You’re awake!”

  “Yes,” she croaked out.

  “Thank God in heaven.” He pressed her palm to his lips and she curled her fingers against his whiskered cheek. His eyes drifted shut for a few seconds and his lips moved as if in prayer against her skin. When he looked at her again, concern swam in the blue depths. “How are you feeling? How’s your head?”

  Imps played bongos between her temples. “It hurts.”

  He reached across her, fumbling with something. “I’ll call the nurse. Do you remember why you’re here? You hit your head on the sink. That motherfucker was—.” He turned as a wide beam of light fell into the room. “She’s awake,” he told someone. “Her head hurts.”

  “I’m sure it does.” Another man stood next to her bed. “Let’s take your temperature and get some other vitals.” He glanced at Levi. “You’ll have to shove over, friend, and let me do my job.”

  Levi frowned, but let go of her hand. “I’ll be right over here, Trudy. I’m not leaving.”

  “You can believe that,” the man said, shaking his head and chuckling. “That’s his mantra. ‘I’m not leaving!’ and everyone on staff has started to chant it with him.” He glanced toward Levi and chuckled again as he tightened a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm. “I’m Travis and I’m your nurse for this shift. You hit your head and you have a knife wound on your shoulder, but it’s not deep. They stitched you up. You have a concussion, but you’re doing great. Just great. Nothing to worry about.”

  “What time is it?” Trudy asked. I
t seemed to be very late.

  “It’s seven thirty.”

  “At night?”

  Travis smiled. “Yes.”

  “I’ve been unconscious since this afternoon?”

  “Uh . . . no, you were admitted yesterday afternoon.”

  “Yesterday?” She swallowed and coughed. Her throat and mouth felt like they were fur-lined. “I need some water.”

  “Certainly. Let me finish taking your blood pressure and I’ll let you have a drink of water.”

  Her eyelids were too heavy to hold up. The blood pressure cuff tightened around her arm. She had been unconscious since yesterday? It felt odd to have no concept of time or of time lost. Levi . . . where was he?

  “Levi?”

  “I’m right here, Trudy.” He stepped to the other side of the bed and filled a plastic cup with ice and water from the pitcher. Selecting an ice chip, he placed it between her lips, smiling faintly as she closed her eyes briefly on a sigh. Then he directed the straw to her mouth. He held the cup while she took several long sips of the cool, bracing water. It chased aside the remnants of fog from her head and moistened her mouth so that she could use her tongue again.

  “Go see to Mouse for me,” she said, motioning one hand weakly at Levi. “Get some sleep.”

  “Mouse is okay,” Levi said, setting the cup down on the tray where she could reach it. “Mike Yardley is taking care of her.”

  “Mike?” She swallowed a sob. “Oh, dear. Mike. Jay. Oh, no.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Does Mike know about Jay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s Jay?”

  “In jail. You’re safe, Trudy.”

  She relaxed as Travis bustled around her, marking things on her chart and removing the needle from the back of her hand. Feeling a familiar burning pressure, she shifted. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “You think so?” Travis glanced at Levi. “I’m pulling this curtain for privacy while I remove her catheter.”

  Mortified, Trudy averted her gaze. She felt Levi’s scowl, but he walked to the other side of the room. Travis yanked at the curtains, enclosing the bed with them.

  “Just relax,” Travis said, lifting the sheet. “You’re going to feel a little pull and a slight sting. There. That’s it. You still want to use the restroom?”

  Trudy nodded, staring at the ceiling, feeling exposed and embarrassed. Travis patted her shoulder.

  “Okay. Let me help you sit up. Swing your legs over. That’s good. No, don’t try to stand yet. Get your bearings first.”

  She blinked, realizing she was shaking and weak. Her head pounded even more furiously until she thought she might black out. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths, trying to force strength into her quivering muscles.

  “Are you okay?” Travis asked. “Are you dizzy?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Let me support you. Just lean on me. That’s right . . .”

  Travis assisted her as she moved with the alacrity of a turtle to the bathroom where she found blessed relief. He waited outside the door with Levi. When she was finished and began shuffling back to the bed, she heard Levi swear under his breath. Then she was lifted off her feet. Gasping, she automatically flung her arms up and around Levi’s neck as he carried her to the bed and gently placed her in it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, concern etched on his handsome face.

  She bit her lip, finding him damn near irresistible. “Yes. Thanks.”

  “Well!” Travis glanced from Levi to her and grinned. “Okay, then! Once you eat something and get a little more rest, your strength will come back,” he assured her. “I’ll have a food tray sent up.” Travis glanced at Levi and winked. “Don’t leave her, okay?”

  Levi sent him a damnation glare, making Travis chuckle as he left the room. Taking Trudy’s hand in his, Levi kissed the back of her fingers and closed his eyes on a long, weary sigh.

  “I almost got you killed,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. Quintara was right. You could have died.”

  Trudy gasped. “Don’t say that! It’s absolutely not true. You didn’t bring me here. I came on my own. Look at me.” She waited for him to open his eyes. There was nothing but pain and self-loathing in them and her heart wrenched. “Hey, Wolfe, give me some credit, will you? I handled the situation, and if you and the police hadn’t barged in and sent me sprawling, I would have made a clean escape.”

  “You’re incredibly brave,” he said. His mouth thinned into a hard line. “He could have grabbed you before you could’ve escaped and sunk that knife into your heart. And it would’ve been my fault and it would’ve fucking destroyed me.”

  “Stop it!” Irritation surged through her. Then, in the next heartbeat, she fought back tears because he had just revealed the depth of his feelings for her. She gathered in a deep breath before she trusted herself to speak again. “Leave it to you to latch onto the worst scenario. I’m fine, Levi. I bumped my head and scratched my arm.”

  “That’s a knife wound. Not a scratch.”

  “The tip of the knife caught me when he was waving it about. Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “Don’t be so cavalier. This is dangerous business, Trudy. You faced a man with a knife who has murdered five women, that we know of.”

  “And I lived to brag about it,” she added, clutching at his shirtsleeve. “We did it! We kicked ass. We caught the bastard!”

  A reluctant smile touched his lips. “You caught the bastard.”

  “No, we did. How did you know I was in the bar?”

  “We tracked you through your cell phone.”

  “Brilliant! Did you know it was Jay? Did the last victim identify him?”

  “Not exactly. I was able to piece it together. But I was almost too late and I—.

  “Wolfe!” she interrupted him.

  “What?”

  “Shut up and kiss me.”

  The tension around his mouth faded a little. With a defeated sigh, he leaned over the bed railing and brushed his lips across hers once, twice, and then kissed the tip of her nose.

  “That’s it?” she asked when he straightened away from her. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “For now. Yes.”

  She winced against the pain in her head. “Go on back to the RV park and shower and shave and—.”

  “No.” He sat in the chair to drive home his intention. “I’m not leaving. Hopefully, you’ll be released tomorrow.”

  “Levi . . .” she whined.

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “This is where I want to be.”

  “I’m going to sleep and you have spent enough time watching me sleep.” She clasped her hands together and shook them at him in a silent appeal. “Please go get some rest!”

  He sighed again, but she felt him waver.

  “It’s a good thing you’re so gorgeously male or I’d kick your stubborn ass,” she grumbled, closing her eyes and releasing a long sigh. “You are dismissed for now, but I expect you back here in the morning.” She heard his soft chuckle before she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Loading the fork with a big bite of scrambled eggs and bacon, Trudy held it out to Levi. He shook his head.

  “Quit being such an ass and eat this.” She kept the fork suspended, refusing to give in. With a roll of his eyes, he leaned forward to accept the bite of her hospital breakfast. “Thank you,” she said, giving him a scowl. “I swear, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

  “I have some lewd suggestions, if you’re interested,” he said with a quirk of an eyebrow. “Anyway, the food is for you. Not for me.”

  “I’m sure you’ve had very little to eat. You can have the eggs and bacon. I’ll eat the cereal. You can have the coffee. I’ll drink the juice. Don’t argue with me. Just do it.”

  “You’re bossy this morning.” He sat on the edge of the hospital bed and took the fork from her.

  “Your bossiness and p
issyness are rubbing off on me.”

  He slanted a narrowed glare at her. “It’s nice to know that you think so highly of me.”

  He shoveled eggs and bacon into his mouth. Trudy shook her head. The man was starving just as she had suspected.

  “You should call your parents.”

  Trudy almost choked on the cereal and milk she had just spooned into her mouth. “Why?” She eyed him, warily.

  “Because they’re worried about you.”

  “You . . . you didn’t tell them that I was in the hospital, did you?” Her heartbeats slowed.

  “No.”

  She placed a hand to her fluttering heart. “Oh, thank God!”

  “Quintara told them for me.”

  “Oh, crap!” Trudy dropped the spoon, her appetite sufficiently snuffed. “Why? Why did she do that?”

  “I asked her to.” He raised his dark brows, clearly puzzled by her reaction. “They deserve to know when their daughter’s in the hospital, don’t they?”

  “I’m sure they’re worried out of their minds,” Trudy said, already picturing her father and mother upset and swearing that they would talk her out of any more of this crazy psychic work.

  “All the more reason to call them.” He finished the last of the bacon and eggs and reached for a triangle of buttered toast.

  “Hand me my phone,” she said, telling herself to get it over with. She frowned at Levi and took the cell phone from him. “You shouldn’t have troubled them with this.”

  “Troubled them?” He shook his head and went to stand by the window to look at the bright morning while he sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “They love you, Trudy. You’re lucky to have people who love you.”

  His simple statement made her wince with guilt. She studied his profile and wondered if he would ever accept her love or allow himself to love her. With a sigh, she punched in her parents’ number in Tulsa. There will be crying, she thought, and the moment she heard her mother’s voice, she sobbed.