He gaped at her, kicking himself for tearing down the filmy sheers that had been left by the previous owners. They might have afforded some privacy from the determined woman. That was something he’d remedy just as soon as he could pick up some long blinds. Hell, he might just have to tack up some old sheets in the meantime.
“I’m not leaving until you hear me out.”
Lifting the phone again, he called, “They do have 911 in this town, don’t they?”
“So I hear.”
He punched the 9 button. “How long will it take them to get here, do you think?”
Frustration washed over her face and her full mouth twisted. “Would you just shut up and listen for one second?”
He had to give her credit. She wasn’t like the typical attractive female reporters he’d dealt with—the ones who used smiles and low necklines to forward their agendas. She hadn’t started flirting, hadn’t used her pretty face or her admittedly curvy body to get a foot in the door with him. But that was about the only positive thing he could say about her so far.
“It’s about a missing person.”
At the words “missing person” Aidan’s muscles tensed to rock hardness. He’d once made a name for himself off that term. Now it was stricken from his vocabulary—the mental one and the verbal one. The surefire way to guarantee she didn’t cross his threshold was to try to cajole him with that kind of bait.
“I’ve been looking into this on my own for a long time; the police don’t care that this young woman is missing. I know you’ve got experience with this type of thing. I’m not looking for an interview; I just need some help.”
Aidan hesitated, though he didn’t lower the phone. She could be lying, making up some story to get in so she could hit him with the Remington crap all over again. But something about the sheer frustration in her voice told him she wasn’t.
“I’m not lying to you, or trying to talk my way in,” she said, correctly reading his skepticism. “Her name’s Vonnie Jackson, she’s seventeen, and she disappeared while walking home from an event at her school Monday night.”
A few convincing details. She was either good at her job, or believed what she was talking about. Of course, there was one big hole in her story. “How long can you have been working on this if she just disappeared Monday?” he asked with a smirk.
She didn’t even hesitate to think up an answer. “She isn’t the first. Something strange is going on in this town, and nobody else seems to want to find out why.”
He thought for a second, suddenly remembering a few of the whispers of conversation he’d heard in passing when he’d had to make a trip to a local grocery store. There had also been some serious gossip floating that night a couple of weeks ago when he’d gone out to dinner with Julia and the other XI agents. People had been talking about some big local scandal. He’d tuned out as much as possible, but the echoes lingered.
Other echoes were louder, however. The grief of an anguished father, the helpless scream of a heartbroken mother, the accusations of an enraged public, the blame and condemnation of a city police force, and the glee of a rabid press. Yeah, those all came through loud and clear.
“Five minutes,” she pleaded.
No. Not again. Never again.
“I don’t do that anymore,” he said, keeping his voice raised, both as a self-reminder and so she could hear him from outside.
The woman stared at him, something haunted and desperate in her vivid green eyes. “It’s a matter of life and death!”
“That I especially don’t do anymore.”
“You did once,” she snapped. “I know you did. I’ve spent the day reading about you.”
He leaned against his desk, crossing his arms and staring at her with a jaded smile. “Then you know why I don’t talk to reporters.”
Her hand flattened against the glass door panel and he could see the slimness of every finger. “I’m not here to do a story about you. Please, I’m desperate.”
Something about the pleading tone in her voice got to him, grabbing at him, at least for a second. He’d almost swear she was telling the truth. The fear in her eyes wasn’t a simple reporter’s worry about not getting the story. She looked genuinely worried about someone else.
A matter of life and death, she’d said. Maybe she’d even meant it.
But he couldn’t give her what she wanted, couldn’t make himself responsible for anybody’s life ever again. He simply wasn’t willing to carry the weight of one more death.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, knowing she probably wouldn’t believe him, though he meant it.
“You won’t even hear me out?”
He shook his head, resolute, certain, and forbidding.
She finally got the message. Acceptance mingled with disappointment made her shoulders sag and her anxious frown deepen into one of anger.
“Yeah. Whatever,” she said, raking him with a look of disgust. “You stay locked up safe while that poor teenage waitress disappears off the face of the earth like she was never born.”
The woman, this Alexa Nolan, turned as if to leave, but then hesitated. She reached into her backpack, dug out a sheet of pale green paper, and slid it into the crack between the doors. It hung there, half inside, half out, resting on the lock. The page flapped in the breeze, looking like a Greenpeace flag, cautionary and guilt-inducing, demanding notice.
“Try looking at her face and still getting to sleep tonight,” she said.
If only she knew. He didn’t need any more faces of the lost to keep him from sleeping. He’d waged a lifelong battle with insomnia.
Their eyes met one more time, hers green and stormy; his, he knew, dark and unyielding. Aidan didn’t move toward the door, didn’t say a word. He merely crossed his arms and watched until, finally, the reporter shook her head, turned and trudged away. Her shadow moved past the windows in front, and her footsteps came heavily on the steps as she descended. Other than that, the only noise was the faint rippling of that single sheet of crumpled paper she’d left behind.
Damn it. He knew what was on it, knew why she’d left it. She was trying to suck him in, grab his interest whether he wanted to allow it or not. Or else she thought she could guilt him into getting involved.
“Nice try, but it’s not happening, lady,” he mumbled, crossing the room. He didn’t touch the paper she’d left, not because he expected he’d get any kind of feeling off it—his abilities didn’t work that way. He had to be focusing for it to kick in, almost to invite the connection.
Except when somebody smells gingerbread.
He flung off the thought. That episode had been an aberration. Thankfully, it hadn’t been repeated, either. There had been no further incidents. That mental wall was still sky-high, his abilities in safe mode.
Flicking the lock, he pulled the handle, opening the door an inch, trusting the wind would take the missing persons flyer without him having to lay a finger on it. Somehow, though, the Georgia air wasn’t cooperating, or else the antilittering gods had other plans. Instead of whipping the document outside where he never had to think about it again, a gust carried it in. The page twirled and spun lightly, like a leaf riding a current of air, then came to rest on top of the mountain of manila envelopes piled on his desk.
Aidan shook his head, his jaw stiff. The cursed thing had landed faceup, right-side up, too, in the dead center of his work space. His files and other documents almost framed it. To Aidan’s eyes, it resembled the lid of Pandora’s box, just waiting to be opened.
Pressing his fingers to his temples, he felt the deepening throb of his pulse, each beat accompanied by a sliver of pain. The first hints of a headache. He so did not need this.
“Forget it,” he snapped aloud. He didn’t give it another thought before he grabbed the green menace, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it right into the trash can.
Then he froze. His breath caught and he stared down into the depths of the metal can where that one damned scrap rested alone. Not be
cause he’d felt anything when he’d touched it, but because of the picture—the photograph of the missing girl. He’d caught a glimpse of it as he’d swooped the flyer up and the wheels and cogs in his brain processed it almost against his own will. The pieces had clicked into place even as he’d tossed the unwanted page away.
Poor teenage waitress.
He knew her. He’d met her. He’d touched her less than three weeks ago.
And if she had, indeed, been kidnapped and was being held against her will somewhere, he greatly feared he might have mentally connected with her mind. He might even have heard her scream.
Though Aidan wanted to, he knew he could no longer ignore the reporter. Not without learning more. Not without finding out whether he already had information that could, indeed, help save a young woman’s life.
Thursday, 4:10 p.m.
Though they looked identical, the Kirby twins weren’t very much alike.
Taylor was tough and gutsy, Jenny sweet natured and considerate. Taylor squeaked by with Cs, Jenny’s name had never given up its permanent spot on the honor role. Taylor routinely barreled into trouble, Jenny carefully avoided it. Taylor took crap from nobody and loved dishing it out. Jenny usually let people walk all over her and seldom stood up for herself.
So, really, it should have been Taylor who’d gotten them into this current sticky situation. Only, it hadn’t been. It had been the “good” twin for once.
“Oh God, what are we going to do?” Jenny asked, her chin trembling.
The two of them sat on the floor in Taylor’s room, behind a locked door that meant their two younger sisters needed to stay out and let them do their “weird twin” thing, as their siblings called it. The rest of the family was used to giving them their space, and even though Taylor had insisted she wanted some independence, and had moved into her own room when they’d started high school, more often than not they still spent the night together.
“Calm down. It’ll be fine,” Taylor insisted.
She didn’t like seeing such weakness on her sister’s face, mainly because it was too much like seeing it in herself. And she didn’t even want to consider being weak, not when she’d always been the fighter.
Besides, somebody needed to stay calm and rational about this. She had looked after Jenny all their lives and would continue to do so.
“I swear, it’s going to be all right. It’s not like there’s anything we can do about it, anyway. We just have to stick to our story.”
Jenny grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to cover for me. It was my fault. I should come clean about it; that’s what you’d do.”
Taylor knew she meant it. Jenny would take the fall alone if she had to. Because, in her own way, Jenny always looked out for her, too. The only time her twin ever showed any kind of temper was when she rose to Taylor’s defense.
They were mirror images, people said, two halves of the same whole. Despite how much her sister’s niceness got on her nerves sometimes, Taylor knew she would absolutely lay down her life for Jenny if it was ever necessary. She also knew the feeling was mutual.
“We should just tell Dad,” Jenny added.
Taylor shook her head, horrified by the idea. “What’s the point? I mean, it’s not like I really saw anything, or know anything. I don’t have one tiny little idea what happened to Vonnie Jackson. And if you’d been at the meeting, like everyone thinks you were, you wouldn’t know anything either.”
Monday certainly hadn’t been the first time the twins had changed places. Usually, it was for Taylor’s benefit—like when they’d first started high school and she’d been flunking out of Algebra and needed her sister to take a couple of her tests.
That hadn’t lasted long. Their teachers had gotten pretty good at telling them apart because of their personalities and the one feature that distinguished them: the nickel-sized birthmark at the base of Taylor’s throat, just above her collarbone. Last year, their teachers had even gone to the school administrators, demanding that the Kirby twins be restricted from wearing turtlenecks, as ridiculous as that sounded.
But when they weren’t going to be closely scrutinized, they still pulled switches now and then. And Monday night, at the honors society meeting, nobody should have cared enough to tell which Kirby twin was there. It had been no big deal for Taylor to sit with the nerdy kids and pretend to be interested in all that academic junk. In fact, she’d liked it, smiling to herself as she thought about how she’d contributed to the delinquency of her straight-laced sister.
Monday night had been a very big deal for Jenny. She’d desperately wanted to spend a little more time with a hottie from Georgia State whom she’d met last summer at cheerleading camp. The guy was twenty-two and was staying at a local hotel, having driven down for the weekend just to see Jenny. So there’d already been a made-up sleepover at another friend’s house.
All of which, had he found out, would have caused their father to totally lose his shit.
Neither of them had wanted to upset him, or Mom, and figured one little switch so Jenny could have a couple more hours with the guy she was crazy about wasn’t such a major thing.
Who would have imagined somebody would kidnap Vonnie as she walked home from school that night? Or that Taylor—posing as Jenny—would be the last person to ever speak to her?
“What should I say if the police question me?”
“Exactly what I told you. You tell my story, as if it were yours. Every detail I told you, just pretend you were standing there, not me. Vonnie was in a great mood at the meeting, she got along with everyone, didn’t have any kind of disputes or fights. Afterward, she and I walked out together. I offered to drive her home, but she said her mom was coming to get her.”
At that point, Taylor probably should have insisted, or at least volunteered to wait until the ride showed up. Everybody knew poor Vonnie’s mom was a crack-whore. And, judging by what they’d all learned later, there never had been any scheduled pick-up. Vonnie had just made it up, probably so she wouldn’t have to let anybody from GHS see where she really lived.
I wouldn’t have cared.
She really wouldn’t. Damn, how she wished she had waited. But she hadn’t done it—for one reason. All the kids at school knew which twin drove which car, and she and Jenny had forgotten to switch before they’d gone out. She hadn’t wanted to answer any questions about why she was driving her “sister’s” Beetle—which might get back to a teacher, and then to Dad. Being totally paranoid about it, she’d even kept her headlights off as she’d driven across the huge parking lot, not flipping them on until she’d turned the corner heading away from the school.
“You’re sure you didn’t see anything that could help her?”
“No,” she said, probably for the twentieth time since yesterday. “I left her there by the exit, went to get my car, and by the time I drove back, she was gone. I figured maybe her mom had actually shown up. Now, looking back, I guess she just started walking.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it,” Taylor said with a nod, absolutely certain.
“I promise you, Jen, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m not a psycho bitch. I know the kind of trouble Vonnie’s in. If I knew anything that could help find that girl, I woulda gone to Dad myself. But I just don’t. Meaning you couldn’t have either.”
Except, if she’d been there, Jenny wouldn’t have had the car worry and would absolutely have insisted on driving Vonnie home, or waiting for her ride. Taylor shifted uncomfortably at the thought. That guilt had been nagging at her, a lot. And it probably would for a long time.
That didn’t, however, mean there was anything she could do to change what had happened.
“It’s decided,” she said. “Until there’s some massive, compelling reason for us to tell somebody, we’ll just leave it as it is. You repeat what I told you and that’ll be the end of it.”
Jenny didn’t look entirely convinced, but at least that chin quivering thing
had stopped. Still, she sniffled as she asked, “What do you think happened to her?”
“To Vonnie?”
“Yeah.”
Taylor frowned. “We both know what happened. That psycho ghoul got her.”
Her eyes looking shiny and wet, Jenny lay down on her side and curled up with a pillow, like a kid who couldn’t let go of her favorite stuffed toy. Honestly, Taylor couldn’t blame her. Retreating back into childhood, where stuff like this only happened in scary dreams or movies they weren’t allowed to watch, sounded really nice right now.
“I can’t stop thinking about her. Do you think she’s still alive?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor replied. She wanted to console her sister, answer as a hopeful kid. She couldn’t. Because the adult in her knew the truth.
“Even if she is, I don’t think anyone in this town is ever going to see Vonnie Jackson again.”
Chapter 3
Thursday, 4:15 p.m.
With every step she took toward her car, Lexie’s indignation grew. Yes, as a journalist, she’d become used to having doors slammed in her face, euphemistically speaking. But this was the first time it had ever really happened.
The guy was totally rude. Incredibly good-looking, yes, but talk about a bad attitude; his made the average angry teenager seem like a barrel of sunshine.
She had already called Aidan McConnell a whole lot of names in her head; now a few choice ones spilled out of her mouth. “Condescending, arrogant ass.”
To think she’d almost felt sorry for the man before she’d come here this afternoon, her hat in hand, her hopes high. After having researched him online as much as she could today, she’d almost come to the conclusion that he’d gotten a raw deal in Savannah. She’d definitely begun to rethink her psychic-stuff-is-garbage opinion, having read about the dozens of cases he’d proved instrumental in solving.
She’d been feeling self-righteous; not only was she going to find Vonnie Jackson and learn what had happened to the others, she could help redeem a crushed man in the process.
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