by Cameron
She could feel that they were on the move. She tried to slow down her breathing. If she hyperventilated—if she passed out again—she would lose whatever advantage she had.
Soon enough, the car came to a stop.
She had seen all this before. She had dreamed this very moment so many times, each and every vision a nightmare. She had tried her best to prepare herself.
But it was all a gamble. And Morgan’s revelations earlier, the fact that he no longer believed Thomas had killed Estelle…if Gia was wrong about that, she could be wrong about everything.
The trunk popped open. He stood over her. She could see he was holding a gun.
“Ready, sweetheart?” he asked.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the trunk. They were in an underground garage. He draped a hooded jacket over her shoulders and popped the hood up over her head. He held her tied hands high up her back, making her almost scream with pain.
“Come on,” he told her, shoving her forward.
He took her to an apartment on the first floor. With the blinds closed, she couldn’t see outside. She could be anywhere.
He pushed her inside and bolted the door. He hooked his arm through hers and dragged her into the room, then shoved her into a chair and grabbed another chair from the cheap, particle-board dining room set. He sat just across from her, knee-to-knee, and stroked the side of her cheek with the muzzle of the gun.
Before she knew what he was going to do, he grabbed the edge of the duct tape and ripped it off her mouth. She bit back a scream of pain.
He had the gun on his lap. He looked a lot older than Gia remembered. The last twelve years had not been kind. Gia had a theory, how certain spirits could drain you. That’s the kind of demon Thomas had carried around all these years.
He smiled. “What are you thinking about, witch?”
She didn’t reply.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s make this a little more fun.” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Beg.”
He sat back with a smile, waiting. He started to whistle, as if he had all the time in the world.
“Not gonna beg for your life, sweetie?” He cocked his head. “Why the hell not? Your mother did.”
She hazarded a smile. “Liar—”
He struck her across the mouth with the back of his hand.
“I said, beg.”
She licked blood from the corner of her mouth, but stayed silent.
“Well, you’re not bringing much to the party. Just get it over with and kill me—is that what you really want?” He shook his head. “You look so much like her. When I first saw you in Greece, you took my breath away. When I strangled her, I closed my eyes and imagined it was you. I pressed my mouth to hers right at the end, sucking in that last breath.”
“Thomas?” she whispered.
She kept her voice very soft, so that he had to lean forward to hear her, that horrible smile on his face.
“Yes, darling,” he said in total anticipation.
“You were always such an asshole,” she told him.
In that moment, she threw her head back, then slammed her forehead straight into his face like a hammer. The force and shock of the blow sent him backward, his chair tipping over.
The gun landed on the floor. Immediately, Gia kicked it away across the linoleum. As Thomas gained his feet, she launched a roundhouse kick across his chin. He fell to the floor with a groan of pain.
Gia dropped to the floor. She wiggled her taped wrists out from behind her back, then slipped her wrists over her heels. Her hands still taped together, she raced for the gun.
He tackled her from behind. Kicking as she crawled forward on her elbows, she tried to reach the gun. Thomas threw himself on her. He flipped her over and straddled her.
“It was no easy thing, killing Estelle,” he said, the words coming as if he were out of breath. “I respected her. I even offered to split the money with her. But I knew she’d never sell the Eye.”
Gia tried digging in her heels, hoping to inch back toward the weapon. But he kept her pinned with his body weight.
“Later, I understood. You see, I held the Eye in my hands. I felt the warmth of the crystal against my skin. Man, could I spend hours looking into that pale blue. I had it almost two days. You know, I never would have sold the Eye to Gospel. But by then, the cops had me and I needed the money.” He leaned in close. “No, I didn’t enjoy killing Estelle. But you know what, darling? It’s going to be a thing of beauty to snuff the life out of you.”
She was still inching back, trying to make some progress toward the gun.
“I left plenty of evidence at your apartment,” he continued. “I can see the headlines now. Serial Killer Takes Out Police Psychic.”
Gia closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. She pushed back with all her strength, finally managing that last inch. She reached over her head with her tied hands, knowing it would be there. It had to be.
She grabbed the muzzle of the gun, the only part she could reach. With the weapon squarely locked between her hands, she pistol-whipped Thomas across the head.
In that moment, as he let out a guttural cry, she slipped out from under him and jumped to her feet. She fumbled with the gun until she held it by the handle, a finger on the trigger. She pointed the barrel straight at him.
She walked backward toward the door, watching as he stood, rubbing his cheek where she’d struck him.
“Well, you’ve learned a thing or two over the years.”
“I’ve had time to practice,” she said.
“But there’s one tiny problem. I don’t believe you’ll kill me, baby. The father of your child? What are you going to tell Stella? ‘Sorry, darling? I killed Daddy?’”
“Maybe I don’t have to kill you, Tommy. How about I just hurt you real bad?”
He shook his head, still advancing on her. “Not good enough. You’ll have to kill me, and you know it. She begged for your life, Estelle did. She didn’t care about herself. But her little girl? Oh, you bet she begged.”
Gia knew he had waited a long time for this moment. He liked the drama, drawing out the moment. It made the kill more thrilling. He would want to savor every second.
“She knew you were pregnant and in love. But I forgot she was a witch. That damn note she left, pointing the finger straight at me.”
Gia kept the gun aimed on Thomas.
“Remember the night you found her note?” he asked. “For two whole days, you let her murderer comfort you. You even agreed to marry me, the father of your child. Your mother’s killer.”
“Of course I agreed to marry you. I loved you, Tommy.” She was almost to the door. “By the way, how are the seizures?”
He looked surprised. But then he chuckled. “I’m betting they’re going to get a hell of lot better once you’re dead and gone.”
“You’re wrong, Tommy. If you kill me, you’ll only fall faster and deeper into that black hole. That’s how the Eye works. It gets inside you. If you don’t know how to manage that power, it will kill you.”
“Really?” he said in a bemused tone. “Well, as long as you’re going first. All these years I’ve had to hold back, worried that you’d show up one day, another finger pointing at me. But now, finally, I’ll be free.”
He kept walking toward her. She slowly inched to the door.
He halted, then started to laugh. “It’s locked, Gina. And your hands are taped together. You’ll have to put down the gun to unlock it.”
Her back touched the door.
“That’s when I’ll make my move, see? When you turn for that lock. I have something very special planned for you, my love. It involves an old Vietnamese story. Unfortunately, I will have to cut off those lovely fingers. Maybe I’ll do it while you’re still alive.”
She could feel her breath coming hard, her hands shaking.
“Well, this is exciting,” he said. “A standoff. I’m almost sorry to put an end to it. So what’s it going to be?” He r
aised his hands in question. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“No,” she said very firmly.
He started to laugh. “See? I knew it! I may not be a psychic, but I know character.” He walked toward her now, more confident. “You can’t kill me.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She raised the gun and fired into the ceiling. He stopped walking, stunned.
“Catch,” she said, throwing the gun at him as she rolled to the floor.
The door burst open.
With Thomas holding the gun, the police had no problem shooting him dead.
51
Seven pulled the blanket over Gia’s shoulders. They were standing just outside the apartment building at 18951 Brook St.—which was where, using her BlackBerry, Agent Barnes had found an apartment available for rent in Little Saigon. When she’d called the manager, she’d discovered that it had been taken recently, the renter offering to pay over asking price for immediate occupancy.
Upon hearing gunfire, the police had knocked down the door. It was Seven who had killed Thomas Crane.
“You okay?” he asked Gia.
She watched as staff from the coroner’s office wheeled Thomas’s body out to the waiting van.
“Estelle told me my father died in a car accident,” she said. She kept her gaze on the coroner’s van. “Imagine. She knew I had psychic abilities. And still she choked out that lie.”
Seven braced himself, seeing that she wouldn’t be holding back anymore. She was like one of those soda pop bottles after they were shaken hard. The top was ready to blow.
“My mother had this vision,” she continued in a monotone. “She thought that Morgan, my father, was a danger to me. But, you see, she misunderstood. It wasn’t Morgan. And it wasn’t me.”
It all came together then. How, long ago, a younger, pregnant Estelle had a vision: of a father who was a danger to his daughter.
Estelle assumed the danger was to the child she carried…but she was wrong.
“Thomas and Stella,” Seven said.
“As I told you, it’s not an exact science.” Gia shook her head. “I always assumed she lied because he cheated on her. That she was just being stupid, keeping me from my father because he’d broken her heart. I should have known. I knew my mother. She wasn’t…like that.”
He took her hand in his. “How could you possibly have known if she didn’t confide in you about her fears?”
She smiled up at him, squeezing his palm. “I was seventeen years old when I discovered Morgan was my father. Morgan Tyrell. Can you imagine? Millionaire philanthropist—parapsychologist to the stars.” She shook her head at the memories. “I moved to Boston to live with Morgan. He paid for school, encouraged me to work at the institute right alongside him. I wouldn’t even take my mother’s calls.”
“Hey, you were young. You forgave her, right?”
“I missed her too much—I missed her terribly. And I wanted to understand. I started spending summers at her dig sites whenever I could. And I felt good about it…especially when Estelle and Morgan started up again.” She leaned back against Seven, smiling. “I felt as if I was playing Cupid, bringing my parents together. I had no idea.”
“And why would you?”
She smiled up at him. “That’s nice.” She took a breath, closing her eyes—opening them on the exhalation. “I was so naive. I had taken Morgan’s name by then, Gina Tyrell. I never told anyone at the site we were related. But we looked so much alike. And she was proud of me. Why wouldn’t she confide in Thomas?”
According to the dossier he’d read, Thomas Crane had been a graduate student at Harvard. He’d already accepted a teaching position at Boston University. When Gia showed up at the dig site, he must have known immediately she was Estelle’s daughter…and he’d seen an opportunity.
Of course, he’d moved in. But the pregnancy…
“No, I’m not that naive. I used birth control,” she said, answering the question Seven would never ask. “Some things are just meant to be.”
She would have been in her late twenties, that special time in a woman’s life when she would start thinking about beginning a family before thinking about the alternative…he knew that much from his divorce. And there she was, pregnant and in love.
“I was lonely. An all-work-and-no-play kind of girl.” She held the blanket tighter. She looked so tired. “Psychic abilities are murder on a love life.” She took a moment. “I don’t know. I mean, here was this evil, evil man. And yet, he gave me Stella.”
Seven had read the dossier; he knew she’d been the one to turn Crane in to the Greek authorities.
“How did you know he killed Estelle?” he asked.
“She left me a note. I found it two days after she’d died. That’s when I finally got the courage to go through her things. It was this small piece of paper—but you couldn’t miss it, because she’d drawn an image of the Eye in the corner. The note described the vision she’d had so many years ago—the night before she’d found out she was pregnant.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“Even before I discovered who my father was, Estelle came to believe that she was wrong about Morgan. That he wasn’t a danger to me—or anyone. In the note, she said if it wasn’t Morgan then I should be careful. She said—” she choked on the words “—she said that sometimes it was difficult for her to know where she ends and I begin. That maybe her vision wasn’t about Morgan at all, but the father of my child.” She shook her head. “She didn’t even know I was pregnant. That’s why she didn’t give me the note.”
Seven wanted to hold her tight; he wanted to run away. Shit.
“After he killed my mother, Thomas asked me to marry him.” Gia looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with emotions. “I didn’t know he was her killer. I said yes.”
He pushed the hair from her face. He held her close, giving the comfort she needed.
“Ms. Moon?”
They both looked up. A uniformed officer stood next to them, ready to take her home.
She looked back at Seven, almost pleading for this not to be the end.
He sighed. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
She gave him a melancholy smile. “Of course. Tomorrow.”
52
Tomorrow.
Gia dropped onto the sofa in her front room, exhausted. What a lovely idea, that Seven could forgive her. That he could look into her eyes and never think, She knew what would happen—she’d seen it all before. She set me up to kill Crane.
“Not going to happen,” she said to herself.
There must always be a sacrifice. That’s what she’d said in her trance.
Well, there was no help for it now. She had made her choices—Thomas was dead. And after his horrible confession, she couldn’t say she was sorry.
He could never hurt them again.
“Ms. Moon?”
It was a woman’s voice, coming from the hall behind her. Every fiber in Gia’s being went into high alert.
She turned slowly toward the voice.
Meredith Gospel stepped out from the shadows. Gia recognized her from photographs in the papers. She’d been keeping track of the Gospel family, uncertain as to why her spirit guides had brought her here, until her vision of Mimi Tran’s murder.
Meredith stood in the hall leading into the bedrooms. Apparently, she’d been waiting for Gia to come home.
She was holding a gun.
“I came for a reading,” Meredith said.
She held the gun almost casually at her side as she glanced around the room as if searching for Tarot cards and a crystal ball.
She settled for the love seat opposite Gia, placing the gun across her lap. “It’s my first time so I’m not sure how to proceed.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Gospel,” Gia began carefully. “I’m not that kind of psychic. I’m a painter. If you want, you can tell me what’s bothering you. I can see if my gift can be of any use.”
“Painter?” Meredith shook her head. He
r hand tightened on the gun. “I think we’ll manage without that, then.”
“Can we go into the kitchen?” Gia asked, thinking that in closer quarters, she might have a better chance at disarming Meredith. “The energy there,” she said, improvising. “It would be better.”
“Oh, I think right here will be just fine. I kill psychics, did you know that? But of course you did. You see the future. How could you not know?”
Gia let the question hang in the air between them, knowing Meredith wasn’t looking for her to justify her gift.
“Women like you, Ms. Moon, are evil. You stalk the weak minds of those who actually believe in your gifts. You deserve to die.”
Gia felt her heart in her throat. She felt blindsided, having seen nothing of this in her visions.
She’d always believed the killer had taken the eyes of his victims because he believed he could use them somehow to tap into psychic powers. But there was also an element of hate. The desire to blind—to disable. She’d thought it was Thomas doing the killing, his hate coming through.
“You sound very upset, Mrs. Gospel. I would like to help.”
Meredith nodded. “My son, Owen. He is…he is very sick. It’s his eyes, you see. A neurological condition. We didn’t know his disorder was associated with any sort of…psychological issues. I believe it’s quite rare.”
Gia had seen photographs of Owen Gospel in the paper, as well. He was always wearing sunglasses, the kind with only a slight tint so that they could be worn indoors.
There’s something wrong with his eyes.
That’s what she’d told Seven when he’d pressured her for in-formation about the killer. To Gia, it was just more evidence pointing to Thomas. She knew Thomas was experiencing seizures accompanied by rapid eye movement.
“I thought I could help him. I was the Moon Fairy, you see,” Meredith said, choking a little on the words. “I would turn Owen into a rabbit and take him to the moon. Rescue him from his father before David could destroy Owen for his potion.”
“Potion? I don’t understand.” Maybe if she could keep her talking, make a connection….