Megan nodded slowly. “I wonder if he found the evidence your father had on him in those files.”
“Megan, this is all speculation on your part.”
She held his eyes, and he thought maybe she could see that he was trying to convince himself as much as her. She didn’t even waver. “We need to convince your mother to let us go through that room, Sam. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. If there’s anything to find, your father left it in there for us.”
“She’ll never agree to that,” he said.
Megan lowered her eyes.
Sam drew a breath. Everything in him was telling him to trust her. To believe her. And he was damned if he had it in him to do otherwise. “All right, Meg. If you feel this strongly, we’ll do it.”
She looked up at him, an emotion he couldn’t name shining from her eyes. “You believe me?”
“I trust you like I’ve never trusted anyone. If you say we need to check it out, we need to check it out, Megan.” He saw the tears gathering, and then it hit him why she was reacting so strongly to him believing the unbelievable at nothing more than her word. “I’m not your father, Megan.”
She smiled. It was shaky, unsteady, and wet. “No, you’re not even close.”
There was so much more to say, so much to explain. But she didn’t give him the chance. “How are we going to get in if your mother won’t agree to let us?”
He glanced at the clock on the radio dial. “She’ll be out all morning. Volunteers at the Ladies’ Auxiliary till noon. If we’re lucky, Lily is with her. She often goes along.”
He drove her to his mother’s house, the house where he had grown up. And while he was at it, he phoned the hospital and spoke to the guard on Linda Keller’s room, told him not to let anyone, including police officers, even the chief himself, be alone with her and to delay her release from the hospital until further notice.
Then he pulled his car into the familiar driveway. The house was a big old Victorian, and his parents had lived in it for as long as he could remember. It had changed very little over the years.
Meg seemed to have recovered, physically, during the course of the drive. Still, he held her arm as he led her up the walk to the front door. She might be feeling better, but he wasn’t sure he was over seeing her take a phantom beating, and pass out like that, much less hearing the things she had to say afterward.
“Lily’s not home, either,” he said, deducing as much from the fact that the door was locked. “She refuses to live behind locked doors. If she were here, it would have been open.”
Megan nodded, and he led the way into the house. He looked around first, making utterly sure they were alone, before leading the way down a hall, to a closed door. Then he paused, hesitated.
“It’s not easy, is it?”
He turned to face Megan, saw her looking into his eyes. “Mom would consider it a betrayal, my bringing you here. Invading Dad’s space.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t feel it was vital, Sam.”
He nodded. “I know that. And I wouldn’t bring any other woman in here. Dad . . . Dad would be rolling over in his grave if I did. But somehow—I just don’t think he’d mind so much with you.”
“There’s something in there he wants us to find. Maybe even needs us to find.”
Sighing, Sam nodded and turned to face the door again. His hands felt clammy and his heart heavy as he inserted the key into the lock.
Chapter Eleven
SAM opened the door to his father’s den, and was immedi ately transported backward in time. He was seven years old again, tapping on the door of his father’s inner sanctum, waiting without drawing a breath until that deep, powerful voice, laced with just a hint of laughter, called, “Hmm, if it’s important enough to interrupt my quiet time, it must be pretty important. Come on in, then.”
He looked at Megan, saw her watching him, feeling what he felt. “Dad usually stole a half hour a day in his den,” he told her. “It was off-limits to us kids, to everyone except Mom. He didn’t even bring his friends in here.”
She nodded as if she understood. “It’s okay, Sam. Take your time.”
Stepping further into the room surrounded Sam in the very essence of his father. He could smell old cigar smoke, and expensive leather, and aging books. So much his dad, those smells. “God, no wonder Mom likes to come in here sometimes, just to sit alone.”
“It’s bringing back a lot of memories for you, isn’t it?” Megan put a hand on his arm as she asked the question.
“It’s like he never left. Like he could just walk in here like he used to, pick up where he left off.”
“You loved him a lot.”
He nodded. “Still do.”
“He’d be proud of you, Sam. He is. I feel it.”
He met Megan’s eyes. Could she know what her saying that meant to him? Yeah, he thought. She knew. He’d never been with a woman who knew him the way Megan did.
“Sam, if he had kept anything related to work, private files or cases he was working on . . .”
“Mom found everything he had here, gave it to Ed.”
She tipped her head. “Probably. But there’s a chance she could have missed something. She must have, because I feel very strongly there’s something here. So where would he have kept them?”
Sam shrugged and looked around the room. The big oak desk took up most of one wall, face out, a chair behind it, so his father could sit there and work and still see the TV set. It held an oversized IBM Selectric typewriter with the cover securely in place, a leather blotter, an earthenware mug full of pens and pencils, a stack of blank sheets of paper, a paper-weight—clear acrylic with a forever-frozen spider inside, a Father’s Day gift from Sam—and a couple of framed photos of the family, as they had been many years ago.
“I don’t know. The desk I suppose.” He moved behind his father’s desk and opened its drawers. None were locked, but then there was no reason why they should be. He didn’t find anything like what they were looking for in any of them, but the small center drawer’s contents brought him up short.
It held his father’s badge.
“I know this is hard for you, Sam. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry to put you through this.”
“I know you are.” He took the badge out and held it in his hands as he moved from the desk to the file cabinet, which was nearly empty. The badge was in a folder the size of a wallet, with his father’s photo ID card on one side and his badge on the other. He couldn’t stop looking at it as he searched the room. Within a few minutes, he realized Meg wasn’t joining him in the search. Instead she was standing patiently aside, while he checked all the obvious places. She seemed engrossed in the family photos on the desk.
She felt his eyes on her and looked up, meeting them; she offered him a sad smile. “Your father was a handsome man. You look like him.”
“Think so?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You can help me look, Meg.”
“It feels like a sacrilege,” she said softly. But she joined him in the search, even crouched down to look under the sofa and chair, while Sam checked beneath the cushions. He felt the backing and upholstery for unusual lumps or bulges. Nothing.
It was while he was performing that last little function that he dropped his father’s badge on the floor. Meg was on her hands and knees peering under the chair, and it fell right beside her hand. Naturally, she stopped what she was doing and picked it up, looking at it, her eyes somber as she rose to her feet.
And then her head snapped backward so hard Sam thought she might have wrenched her neck. Her eyes widened and rolled back, and she staggered backward until her body slammed into the bookcase.
“Jesus, Megan.” Sam went to her, reached out to her, but she spun away from him, her arms flailing and knocking books to the floor.
“Easy, Megan, easy.”
“No, no, no!”
She wasn’t seeing him, wasn’t hearing him, he realized. She was seeing something else. So
me vision brought on by the touch of his father’s badge.
God, he was almost afraid to speculate. . . .
Meg backed into a corner and sank to the floor, curling her legs up to her chest, hugging them and rocking. Sam knelt beside her, touching her. “Megan,” he said. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. I’m right here.” He stroked her hair away from her face. But she didn’t seem to feel him, didn’t see him, was beyond his reach, and clutching his father’s badge in a death grip.
He could do nothing but leave her alone until it passed. She seemed to need space to recover. So he backed off, turning to return the books to the shelf and minimize his mother’s outrage at his invasion of what was, to her, sacred space. But when he lifted the first several volumes to the shelf, he stopped and just stood there, blinking.
In the space left by the fallen books, there appeared to be a false bottom on the bookshelf. He could see the fissures on either side of a short expanse of the wood. And when he gripped it and tugged, it came away, revealing a shoebox-sized compartment underneath. Inside that compartment was a manila envelope, folded in half, lengthwise, and tucked out of sight.
He gently pulled the envelope free, swallowing hard as he turned it over. But before he could examine the contents, Megan’s blood-chilling scream split the silence.
MEGAN shook off the debilitating impact of the vision and shot to her feet when she saw Chief Skinner walk through the door into the room. She tried to form words to warn Sam, but couldn’t seem to make her lips form anything coherent, and finally poured every ounce of energy she had into warning him in any way she could, clenching her fists, opening her mouth, forcing sound to come. The result was a scream.
Sam spun around, wide-eyed, an envelope in his hands, but it was too late. Skinner had already drawn his weapon and was pointing it at Sam. “I’ll take that file, Sam.”
“Ed, what the hell is going on here?” Sam asked.
The chief looked momentarily confused, then angry. “Trying to pretend you haven’t already figured it out isn’t going to help.”
“No, it didn’t help his father after all. Did it, Chief?” Megan asked from behind him. She’d found her voice. It was weak, shaky, far softer than normal, but at least she could put words together now.
The chief turned his head slightly. “Get over there next to him.” He directed her with his gun.
She stayed where she was, lowering her gaze to the badge she held in her hand. “I know what you did that night at the liquor store. I saw it, all of it.”
“You don’t know a damn thing, Ms. Rose.”
She looked past him, met Sam’s eyes. “They got the call. Armed robbery in progress, and they went over there. To the liquor store. It was called Joe’s Wine and Spirits. There were tubes of red neon in the shape of a giant wine bottle in the front window. I don’t think it’s there anymore.”
“No. They closed it after . . .”
“Your father went around the back. Skinner went in through the front. The place was empty except for those two kids and the clerk, who was lying on the floor, unconscious, bleeding, maybe already dead. It was the perfect opportunity, wasn’t it, Chief?”
“What did you do?” Sam asked.
“Pulled his gun and shot both of the suspects,” Megan said softly. “Never shouted a warning. They didn’t even know he’d come inside. Your father heard the shots, came in to help. He saw that his friend had it under control, and he lowered his weapon.” She narrowed her eyes on Skinner. “That’s when you took the gun from one of the boys you’d killed, pointed it right at your best friend, saw the shock and horror in his eyes, and shot him down. Pumped three bullets into his head.”
“Stop it!” Skinner cried.
“Jesus, Ed,” Sam whispered. “Why? My God, why?”
Skinner faced him again. “Because of that file you have in your hands. All this time, it never surfaced. I figured it never would. Your mother gave me everything that was in this room. When I didn’t find the evidence there, I thought maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe he really didn’t have anything on me after all. Maybe I killed him for nothing.”
His eyes turned distant, pain-filled.
“And that’s why you took care of us, stepped into Dad’s shoes the way you did,” Sam said. “It was guilt.” He shook his head. “And you’re gonna make the same mistake now that you thought you’d made then, Ed. Because I don’t even know what’s in this file, and neither does Megan.”
He lifted his brows. “You really don’t know?”
Megan could see Sam trying to inch his hand toward his gun. But he couldn’t do it with the other man’s eyes on him.
“Oh, come on, Sam,” she said. “You can guess, can’t you?” The chief turned his attention her way. “Skinner is the man who’s been raping and murdering girls in town. And I suspect he was doing it long before the police realized they had a serial killer on their hands.” She added, “He knew someone was on to him when I phoned the police with that tip on where the next body would be found.”
“I still don’t believe you have any so-called psychic powers. But I had to find out for sure,” Skinner said.
“So you assigned Sam to get close to me, try to find out how much I really did know and how I knew it. That way you could keep an eye on both of us.”
“None of this is relevant,” Skinner said. He swung his gaze back to Sam’s, held out his free hand. “Give me the file, Sam.”
Sam held it out. Skinner reached for it, and seemed to realize at that moment that Sam’s gun was no longer in its holster. “Don’t, Sam!”
Skinner lifted his own gun higher, even as Sam brought his around from behind his back. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, barrels pointing, fingers squeezing, shots exploding, muzzles flashing.
Megan launched herself, hitting Skinner in the side just as his gun went off, so that he stumbled and fell. Rolling onto his back, he turned his weapon on her.
“No!” Sam shouted.
Skinner’s gun bucked in his hand. The shot exploded in a deafening roar, and Megan felt the blaze of red hot metal slice through her midsection; she doubled over at the impact long before she felt the pain. She lifted her head, shocked, stunned. Skinner was taking aim, would have shot her again if not for the shot Sam fired that made the chief’s head snap backward, leaving a neat hole between his eyes. His body went lax, his arm and gun dropping to the floor, and then he was still.
“For the love of God, what’s going on?” someone cried. Megan heard feet crashing through the house, female voices crowding around her. But Sam was her only focus. He knelt beside her, his face stricken.
“Megan, hold on.” Without looking away from her he told his mother, grandmother, whoever was within earshot, to call 911. “Tell them there’s an officer down,” he said. “It’s the truth, and it’ll get them here faster.” He added that last with a meaningful look at Skinner.
Then he was leaning over her again, holding a hand to her belly, where she felt warmth and pulsing wetness. “Don’t leave me, Megan. Hold on.”
She smiled softly, staring up at him. “Guess I was another one-night stand after all, huh?”
“No. Not by a long shot.” He held her desperately. “Jesus, Megan, you have to know I wasn’t pretending. Not from the first second I set eyes on you. This is real, this thing between us.”
Her hand closed around his. “I know that, Sam.”
“The curse is lifted,” Lily said in her raspy voice, from somewhere nearby. “The girl broke it, exposed it, took it upon herself.”
“There was never any curse, Grams. Skinner killed Dad.”
“And would have killed you too, if not for this woman and her gift.” She knelt on Megan’s other side. “Bless you, child.”
Meg smiled, shifting her gaze from the old woman’s back to Sam’s again. “Finally did something important with my abilities. Finally got someone to believe me.”
“Yeah. And I will never, ever doubt you or your visions, Meg. I promise.”
He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers, and she kissed him back until the darkness swallowed her up.
Epilogue
Megan was in the darkness, and it occurred to her that she might be dead. Oddly, she felt no terrible grief or resistance to that idea. She had reached one of the most important goals of her life—she’d understood, at last, why she had been given these powers. What earthly use they could be to anyone. They had been useful. Vital. They had saved an entire family, broken a curse, of sorts, solved a string of murders, prevented who knew how many other women from being victimized by Ed Skinner. And maybe kept Sam Sheridan from an early death. God, that was worth anything, wasn’t it?
He’d believed in her, in her gift. So had his grandmother. And so had she.
That was all she had ever wanted. Validation. Respect. And the chance to use her gift for something good.
“I love you, Megan.”
No, not love. She’d never asked for that. Just to be believed, just to be useful, just—
“Do you hear me? I love you. I’ve never said that to a woman before, and I’m not about to lose the only one. I want you back. I want you to stay with me. Always.”
Sensation seemed to return by degrees. She became aware of a warm, strong hand holding hers. And she opened her eyes, and stared up into a pair of familiar, loving ones.
“There you are,” Sam whispered. “You gonna stick around, then?”
“I think so.”
He squeezed her hand, and a vision flashed, making her suck in a breath and close her eyes, just briefly.
He frowned at her, his face filled with worry. “What is it, honey? What are you seeing?”
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