Gigi cooed and held out her hand, wanting to see my new ring, just as a car pulled into the driveway across the street. Kids wearing soccer uniforms got out of the SUV, and they were joking around with each other.
“Can we take this inside?”
Gigi and Grant moved back into the room but Ford gripped my hand and held me on the threshold. “I wanted it to be special and different.”
“It was perfect,” I said, cupping his cheek. “I can’t even tell you how perfect.” I kissed his lips and squeezed his hand and guided him inside.
I closed the door and locked it and gestured to the couches. “Now, all of you sit. I need to tell you what happened.”
“Did I miss it?” Sam asked as he and Carson stepped out of the kitchen. Sam had a soda, and Carson had a beer.
“We were meant to miss it,” Carson said, nudging Sam.
“Great. The only person missing is Noah, and I’m sure he’s probably already been told what the doctor had to say. So, you guys have a seat. I only want to say this once.”
Carson shared a look with the others before he took a seat, and Sam sat on the floor.
“What did the doctor say?”
“You told me she was fine,” Gigi said, elbowing her husband.
“That’s what she told me,” Grant said, rubbing at his ribs.
“Look at her. She isn’t fine,” Gigi said.
I held up my hands to stop them. “All the results are back, but I have some information. Like the change of the color in my eyes, Dr. Cline confirmed that my DNA has changed. He also said that my blood type has now changed too.”
“How is that possible?” Gigi asked.
“I’ve heard of it happening before,” Sam said from the floor. “It’s rare but it can happen. Scientists have discovered that a particular type of enzyme can cut away antigens in blood types A and B, to make them more like Type O. It’s being researched as we speak.”
We all turned our gazes on Sam.
He shrugged. “What? I’ve been educating myself. We work with blood and Lucy absorbs it. The more we know the better right?”
“Right.” I said fighting the swell in my heart that just wanted me to grab Sam and squeeze him tight for caring. I would, but not until I was done. “Well, in my case, Dr. Cline believes it’s either from my participation in the program, or my blood donors and/or from my hunts.”
Ford sat on the edge of the recliner. It was like he knew I was saving the worst for last.
“Because of the changes that have happened and the people in my head, he believes there might be additional changes. For instance, I’ll start liking food that once I hated and maybe start talking about people or relatives that aren’t mine but belong to the donors.”
“Oh, Lucy,” Gigi said as if understanding. “You’re afraid you’re going to lose yourself?”
“It’s a possibility. There are three potential outcomes. One is I die from the mental overload. Second is I go insane, not knowing what’s real and what isn’t…”
“And the third?” Carson asked.
“The third is I adapt and become normal by a transfusion from a clone.”
“I’ll do it,” Gigi said, rising from her seat. “Of course, I’ll do it. You can have some of my blood, and we can continue to swap until I share the load with you or until you’re back to normal.”
“I couldn’t ask that of you.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Wait,” Sam said. “Normal as in you won’t have your ability to hunt?”
“Dr. Cline benched me from participating for at least a month until he sees if anything else changes or if this is my new normal.”
“Noah’s going to be pissed.” Sam chuckled. “He just got you signed up.”
“Technically, this all started with the transfusions, right?” Ford asked.
I nodded.
“And one of those guys is a killer. What if you go back to just being more …you…when he’s dead and out of your head?”
I crossed the room and sat on the arm of the chair with Ford. I wrapped my arm around his neck. “I may never be just me again. I may never be the girl you fell in love with. You have to know that going in, that I may change.”
“We’re going to fix you,” Ford said, kissing me softly. “One way or another. Normal or psycho. I’m going to love you just the same as I did when we met, and as I do right now.”
“We’ll deal with the obvious first and get the killer out of her head, and then we’ll start looking into the transfusions,” Gigi said. “But we’ll do that tomorrow. Lucy and Ford deserve to celebrate without an audience.”
Gigi started shooing everyone out of the living room. Once they’d all gathered their things and walked out, she stood at the door and squeezed my fingers. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Proud?” I asked and tilted my head.
“These guys are part of our family. You let them in. All of them are here for you. You’ve grown so much from each other. Your ability to love always amazes me. Family matters, and ours has grown because of you.”
I pulled my sister into a hug. “I love you, Gi.”
“I love you too, Lucy Loo.” She pulled back. “Now go celebrate with the man you just promised forever to, because I have to be honest. His love for you is soul deep.”
“I know.” I smiled at her and glanced back at Ford, who was picking up the living room. “I feel it too.”
I closed the door behind her and spent the rest of the evening in and out of bed, celebrating with Ford and reminding him just how much I loved him.
Chapter 19
Sebastian Elliot
Sebastian snapped a picture of the new woman in his cell. He’d meant for it to be Lucy by now. Not this scared mouse staring back at him. The nurse had been so proper at the bar. It had taken Sebastian giving her his undivided attention just to get her to agree to going for coffee afterward. He’d told her he wanted to get to know her, and she’d fallen for it.
Stupid woman.
Sebastian waved the Polaroid in his hand and waited for the picture to develop before he added it to his wall. “I’m not going to kill you, Betty.”
She pulled her legs in tighter to her chest. Betty had been wearing a white dress at the bar. It was a breath of fresh air against all the black that women wore to hide their flaws.
Betty didn’t have flaws. Her body was her temple. He’d traced every outline and every curve when he loaded her into his trunk.
There was one thing that was missing. She needed a white scarf to be the picture of perfection.
Sebastian grabbed the scarf and unlocked the cage, stepping inside.
She stared up at him from beneath her eyelashes. She made such a tempting picture. One that he’d sear into his mind, even if it were Lucy that he wanted in this moment.
“I need information that only you can provide. If you’re a good girl, I’ll keep you alive. If you’re bad, well, you might be hurt,” he said, ripping the duct tape off the woman’s mouth.
She gasped. She flexed her jaw. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know everything there is to know about Dr. Lucy Bray. I saw you two talking. I want to know what was in the bag you gave her and why she was being seen.”
Betty’s brows dipped. “Is that what this is about? You’re obsessed with Dr. Bray?”
He thought about that word for all of a second. Obsessed. “Yes. I am. So, tell me, Nurse Betty. Tell me what ails Lucy?”
“She’s a freak. They all are,” Betty announced and almost seemed to relax, as if her words were what he’d wanted to hear.
“Freak? How so?” Sebastian asked. He knelt down in front of her and opened a water bottle, holding it to the woman’s mouth for her to sip.
“I don’t have all the details, but she was a government experiment, and she wasn’t the only one. She helps to track killers.”
Fascinating. It made him even that much more intrigued. “How does she do it?”
“She has to absorb their blood, and then they stay entangled in her mind until the killer dies. It’s why a few patients are in the psychiatric ward and some of the others have died. It’s an overload for their minds.”
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “You say she needs blood to find these killers?”
“Yeah. That’s how it was explained to Dr. Cline.”
“You’re lying.” His knuckles hit her cheek with a satisfying crunch. Her head snap the opposite direction.
Betty tugged hard at the handcuffs holding her in place as if she were going to hit back. Maybe he’d release her and let her. He might enjoy the fight. Just watching her and imagining it was Lucy, ignited a fire behind his zipper.
“I’m not lying.” Her words were a little slurred. Blood oozed from the corner of her mouth “Look in her chart. It’s all there.”
“What other special ways does she use to track these killers if there is no blood?”
“There isn’t any other way. Blood is needed, either from the killer or the victim.”
He sat back on his haunches and tightened his hold on the scarf. “I haven’t bled, and the bodies have never been found. I’d know it. So how do you suppose she got fixated on me?” Sebastian wrapped the scarf around Betty’s neck and ran his fingers down her cheek. “So pretty. It’s a shame you have to die.”
“Maybe you cut yourself shaving? Or maybe you gave blood.” Betty voice rose and crackled with desperation. “If you let me go, I can check her chart or ask her when she comes in. I swear I won’t tell a soul.”
“I donated blood in Glendale. That must have been it,” he whispered. “But how does she know things?”
“The records in her chart say that she sees them in her mind. It’s why the others were institutionalized.”
“She sees the kills.” Sebastian lifted a brow as his pants tightened at the thought. A witness watching him. The thought aroused him. Made him want more.
“And the drugs you gave her?” Sebastian asked.
“They’re for her migraines. She gets them from so many people being in her mind and tapping into all those emotions.”
“And you say she sees the killer in her mind?”
Betty nodded as the handcuffs clanked as her hands trembled.
He tightened the scarf around Betty’s neck, and her struggles intensified. Praying Lucy was watching him at this moment, he twisted the scarf. Betty was unable to stop him. Unable to move her hands between the scarf and her neck. She twisted and turned and started to kick ineffectually.
“I hope she’s enjoying this,” Sebastian whispered. “I know I am.”
Chapter 20
“No.” I screamed the word as I shot up in the bed. My heart raced as I clutched the sheet to my chest.
The door flew open. A halo of light from the hallway surrounded Ford where he paused in the doorway. His frantic gaze searched the room, as if seeking an intruder. Within an instant, the tense muscles in his body seemed to relax as he made his way over to the bed. He sat next to me, a sympathetic look on his face. “Another bad dream?”
“He killed the nurse just like he killed the barista and Dorothy.” My heart tightened. “That’s not all.”
Ford took my hand, and he let out a deep breath as if expecting the worse. “What else?”
“He knows about the program and what I can do. He’s figured out that I’m watching him and that we’re connected by blood.”
“The nurse told him?”
I nodded and swallowed around my dry throat. This changed things. Him knowing wasn’t something I’d anticipated. None of the other killers knew, but this time it mattered. Sebastian was smart. I needed the element of surprise, and now that had been ripped away. “Ford, we have to find these bodies before I’m the next face that goes on the missing person flyer.”
“We will.” Ford spoke with quiet but fierce determination before he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine in a soft reassuring kiss. “Gigi and I may know exactly where we need to start.”
“Where?”
“Glendale,” he answered.
“Wait, Glendale is the town next to your hometown.”
“That’s also where Sebastian Elliot grew up. Sam has confirmed by hacking flights and rental car details that Sebastian was in Glendale around the time of your accident. We believe that’s when he gave blood.”
I’d gone to Glendale Memorial Hospital after my accident. I’d received three units of blood there that were still lingering in my system.
“We need to go there,” I said, sliding my feet off the bed. In order to understand Sebastian, I needed to know what drove his urges. I needed more answers, and his past was where I’d find them.
“There’s more, but for now, you need to shower and get dressed. Everyone has already returned, and we have more company coming.”
“Everyone came back?” I asked.
“Of course, they did, Lucy. You aren’t in this alone. One day you’re going to realize that.”
“I’ll love you forever, no matter how long that is or how long I remember,” I whispered and kissed him.
“You’re assume I’m going to let you forget.” He chuckled and walked out of the bedroom.
Ten minutes later, I stepped into the living room to find the entire team reassembled, including Noah. If he’d heard the news I was benched, he wasn’t taking it seriously. Sam was seated at the dining room table, popping M&M’s and buttered popcorn into his mouth like they were happy pills.
I walked by and grabbed a handful.
Gigi gawked. “You are not eating that for breakfast.”
I pointed at Sam. “But he is.”
Sam looked up. “She already crammed wheat pancakes down my throat first.”
“You need to eat some real breakfast, and then you have to pack,” Gigi said, walking into the kitchen.
“Where am I going?” I asked, glancing in Ford’s direction.
“We are going to visit my parents and tell them the good news, and then we’re driving to Glendale to meet the locals and law enforcement to figure out what type of deviant Sebastian Elliot was growing up.”
“It sounds like the perfect date,” I said, sliding up to Ford and batting my eyes. “But if we’re all going out of town, who’s going to look for the bodies?”
Gigi appeared with a plate in her hand and set it on the table. “Your answers are in his past. Start there and unravel the ball of lies and anger until you reach the first trigger that sent him over the edge. When you find it, you can use it, and he won’t even see it coming.”
“Like the dress and scarf?”
“Exactly,” she said.
“Okay, but what makes you think the answers are in his childhood?” I asked.
“Because she’s right. They are,” Sam said, turning the monitor around for me to see.
I sat at the table and picked up a piece of bacon. There were women’s faces on Sam’s screen. Twenty or so of them. My heart raced as I realized I recognized them. All of them.
I jabbed my bacon toward the screen, at a loss for words.
“All of these girls went missing from that area over several years,” Sam said.
“All of their ghosts showed up in my room the other night.” I wiped my greasy fingers on a napkin and scrolled down the screen. My heart almost skipped a beat, and I jabbed the computer. “We start with her.”
“Her, but why? She isn’t the first one who went missing,” Carson said.
“It’s in the details.” I grinned. “The missing girl was wearing a white dress and white scarf on the day of her disappearance. She’s important, and more than that, I’m betting this Susan Brighton is going to be the key to understanding Sebastian.”
I ate while the others made plans on what would happen and how. Sam pushed his bowl of M&M’s over to me, and I smiled, picking out a few of the chocolate morsels and popping them into my mouth.
“You know…I don’t have any living uncles,” Sam said out of the blue, but I understood
him. I understood what he was implying. He didn’t want to think that it might be his memories that send me over the edge.
I grinned. Sam was an awkward guy. He was like my baby brother, and he was the only guy on our team in my head thanks to our shared blood connection I’d forced him to make. I’d cut him on purpose like children might do creating blood brothers. Now we had an inseparable connection and I’d never regret making that decision. That was why we had a special understanding. It was as Gigi suggested and he was more like the family I might not have been born into but that I got to pick. “Good to know you aren’t taking up all my RAM.”
Sam chuckled out loud. “You made a computer joke.”
I shrugged. “It’s better than referring to you and your memories as pizza toppings. Every time the doctor brought it up, it made me hungry, and now when I think about pizza, I just think about brains.”
“Brain pizza, huh? I know what I’m ordering for lunch.” Sam winked. “It can be our little secret unless, of course, you told your twin or your fiancé.”
Fiancé. I wasn’t used to hearing Ford referred to as anything other than a pain in the ass or my boyfriend. Fiancé had a nice ring to it. “Nope, that secret is between you and me.”
Sam nudged the bowl a little closer to my plate, as if it were a prize he was willing to share since I was his favorite person in the room. “If you go crazy, you know I’ll visit you, right?”
“Why bother? I might not even know who you are.” I popped a handful of chocolate and popcorn into my mouth.
“You’ll always know who I am. I’m in your head. Now the others…they can’t say the same thing.”
“Nope, they can’t.” I grabbed a few more pieces of chocolate and slid the bowl back. “I guess I should get busy. I still need to pack and make a call to Detective Rowan.”
“I remember a time you were ready to kill Asher,” Sam said.
“I almost did,” I said, rising from the table and picking up my half-eaten pancake.
Chapter 21
Broken Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 6) Page 8