Psychic for Hire Series Box Set

by Hermione Stark

  “I didn’t need to kill her. She was gonna give me what I wanted. It turned her on. A dirty little secret. She liked that as much as I did.”

  “I look at you, and then I look at her, and I just can’t see it,” says Leo. “She was twenty-three, at the start of her life, the sort of girl any successful young man would want. And here you are, fifty-four, unemployed, two failed businesses behind you. Not exactly a catch.”

  Gibbon leans back in his seat and shrugs. “It was a game. She liked to play games.”

  “Maybe it was you that liked to play games,” says Leo. “Maybe you followed her to the bar. I bet you liked that. Invading her space. Cornering her in front of her friends. Embarrassing her. Making her afraid that you would tell everyone her dirty little secret. Is that what you did?”

  Gibbon laughs. “Maybe that is what I did. So what? Is not illegal to go to a bar and talk to a girl. You’ve got nothing on me.”

  Storm and Leo keep at him, but the slimy bastard gives nothing up. He knows they have nothing on him. He knows Storm’s team are not going to be able to hold him with that lack of evidence.

  Leaving Gibbon alone in the interview room to sweat it out some, Storm and Leo go to get a coffee in the break room.

  “He’s right,” says Storm. “I don’t think he’s going to crack under interview pressure. We’ve got no hard evidence. We’re going to have to let him go.”

  “I don’t like it,” says Leo. “He’s one arrogant bastard. There’s something not right with him. And he’s got no alibi. If we let him go, we should put a tail on him. He’s angry. I wouldn’t put it past him to go to the hospital to shut India up.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” says Storm. “Rachel was the one he fancied. She was the one who was leading him on. Why would he kill the girl he wanted and abduct the one he didn’t want? He showed no interest in India at all.”

  “Maybe he messed up,” says Leo. “Maybe he got it into his head that he wanted to abduct Rachel. Things went wrong and he killed her by accident, so he decided India would do instead.”

  Storm shakes his head. “He’s a bully, but he’s a coward. He liked Rachel because she was the sweet one. The one he thought he could manipulate and control. But India was a werewolf. He didn’t want India. He wanted the girl that he could make into his victim. He wanted the girl who would kneel, the soft one who would feed his ego. Not the one who would challenge him. And he likes to operate in secret.”

  Storm downs the rest of his coffee. “Rachel’s killer attacked the girls in the street where anyone could have seen it. He didn’t care that both girls were together. He was brutal and efficient. Totally different MO to Kurt Gibbon. I don’t think it was him.”

  Leo nods reluctantly. “It looks like Rachel wasn’t quite the sweet Miss Innocent that everyone thought she was. Which means there might be other people with a motive to hurt her. We should let Diana have a crack at Gibbon before we let him go. I wouldn’t put it past her to pick up something he’s not telling us.”

  Storm nods. He dials Diana with one hand as he rinses out his mug with the other. Diana does not answer. The call goes straight to voicemail. He wonders if she is sleeping. She has been looking tired these past couple of days. He leaves her a message asking her to call him back and hangs up. He’ll offer to send her a car if she feels up to coming in. He smiles. No way is Diana going to let a little tiredness get in her way.

  “Do you think this thing about some woman attacking Gibbon is related or a coincidence?” asks Leo.

  Monroe sticks his head into the break room. He sees Storm and Leo and his expression brightens. Clearly he had been looking for them.

  “DI Zael’s guy finally got the footage we were after,” he says. “It’s the video from outside where Rachel Garrett was killed. They refused to send it earlier, said they were reviewing it, but I doubt they got a lead off it. You’ll want to see it.”

  Storm and Leo follow him back to his desk. He presses play on his computer. The footage from a night vision camera plays, its image black and white. It shows Rachel and India arguing near the parking bay gate. A car pulls in, its headlights on, making the girls instinctively stagger back a few steps towards the gate. The license plate is not visible in the glare of headlights. The car waits but the girls are too busy shouting at each other to get out of its way. India is waving her arms about, clearly angry about something.

  The car’s door opens. A figure emerges and walks towards the girls, as if to break up their fight. The figure jabs something at India’s neck. She looks backwards, startled. Then her knees buckle and she collapses on the ground. Rachel runs to India. She reaches for her. She leans down. The figure stabs her in the back. The arc of the knife is brutal. It flashes again and again, relentlessly. Rachel falls on top of India, trying to protect her. The figure drags Rachel by the hair off of India and unleashes a flurry of frenzied stabbing until Rachel stops moving. It is over in less than a minute.

  The figure drags Rachel by the hair towards the gate, pushes it open and carries her into the car park. Then returns quickly to lift India’s limp body into the back seat of the waiting car. The car drives off. All the while the glare of its headlamps in the dark and the figure’s hooded jacket hide any identifying features completely from the camera. The bright light, the stark black and white image, the silence, all lend the scene the feel of a horror movie. It is impossible to see who the killer is. One thing is clear. The figure is slim and athletic, not bulky and awkward.

  “No way is that Kurt Gibbon,” says Leo.

  “Could the killer and Kurt Gibbon be in it together?” asks Monroe hopefully.

  “It’s conjecture,” says storm. “We have no reason to believe the killer had an accomplice.”

  “That figure could have been a woman,” says Monroe. “In that bulky jacket and with the glare it isn’t possible to rule it out. Gibbon said he was attacked by a woman, didn’t he?”

  “Nothing Gibbon gave us confirms whether the woman he claims assaulted him is related to this case in any way,” says Storm. “But Gibbon is still our strongest suspect at this point. We’ll sweat him until Diana gets here. After that we’ll have to cut him loose, but we’ll keep a tail on him”

  Storm’s phone rings. Thinking it might be Diana calling him back, he pulls it out of his pocket. The caller ID shows it is DI Zael.

  Intending to give Zael an earful for delaying getting the footage to Monroe, Storm answers it. “Storm speaking.”

  “She’s gone!” DI Zael yells into the phone. “India Lawrenson has escaped from the hospital. She’s poisoned my officer, and she’s run off. I told you she was guilty!”

  Chapter 21

  ALYS

  The moment I take Rachel’s phone out of my bag, India’s eyes glue to it. It is like I have taken Rachel out of my bag. The case is a sleek ribbed gold. Classy. Distinctly Rachel. No wonder India looks horrified.

  Before I hand it over, I tell India exactly what to say. It had taken some persuading and cajoling and near downright threatening to get her to agree to make this phone call. She is crying. Too right she should be. She’s the reason that Rachel is dead and she knows it.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “You’re with me now. And I won’t let him get you.”

  The emotion of getting her memories back must have addled her mind because she had nodded along, and agreed to do it. Believing that I would protect her.

  I dial the number and listen to the phone ring on the other end. When he answers, I hand Rachel’s phone over to India. I nod at her reassuringly, urging her to speak to him. To say all the things I have coached her to say.

  She looks kind of pathetic, still kneeling on the tarmac of the parking bay, trusting me like a newborn lamb.

  She holds the phone in trembling hands, and says in a trembling voice, “Hello, this is India Lawrenson.”

  She winces at the sound of his voice on the other end. She clutches my hand. She takes a deep breath and says, “I know what you did. I
want you to meet me.”

  Her breath is coming out in shallow gasps. I stroke the back of her hand to reassure her. He is speaking to her on the phone and she is listening.

  “I need to be able to trust you,” she says. “Tell me your name.”

  She listens. She looks at me. I give her a nod of encouragement, reminding her of what I instructed her. She gives a convulsive swallow.

  “No. Don’t lie to me,” she says into the phone. “I know that’s not your name. Tell me your real name.”

  She listens, and nods. She whispers the name he has told her.

  I nod at her, and am careful to hold back a smile of satisfaction. He must want her badly if he was prepared to give up his real name to her.

  “I won’t tell anyone what you did,” she says. “I don’t want them to know. I… I just need to see you.”

  He’s saying something to her. I can just about make out his tone on the other end of the phone. It is hushed and urgent.

  She nods. “I was scared. You frightened me. I didn’t realize what you were. But now I know why you did it, and I understand. Please, I just need to see you. Tell me where to meet you.”

  He says something, but she shakes her head. “No. I’m not at the hospital. I came back to the bar to get my memories back. I needed to know what happened to me. And now I remember. Can we meet somewhere near here?”

  He says something again, and this time she nods her head. “Yes,” she says. “Yes I can meet you there.”

  She hangs up the phone. She wipes her tears away. She looks exhausted, her eyes slightly blank, as if she has been through a great ordeal. “He fell for it.” She gives me the address that he asked her to meet him at.

  It takes me an hour to get rid of her, and to get back to the address that he had wanted to meet India at. It is an abandoned building, the shop in Shoreditch that she had been caged in. It is within the perimeter of the places that the Agency had searched, but this particular shop must have escaped the list. It is a small private property. Empty now.

  I have arrived fifteen minutes before he is due to meet India here, but I approach it warily, aware that he may already be there watching me. I see no signs that he is there, no car outside, but I still take care to tread quietly as I go down the alley that runs along the side of the shop, following the route that India had told me she had taken as she ran to escape him.

  At the back of the building is a rusting door. It is chained and padlocked shut. It takes me some minutes to pick the lock. There is no way for me to remove the chains quietly, but I do so as swiftly as possible. I place them carefully on the ground. I am hoping he will come in by the front entrance and he won’t notice that I have entered already.

  When I pull the door open its hinges squeak loudly, and echo inside the emptiness of the building within. I wait for a long moment listening for any sound before I step in. I am reassured by the silence inside.

  I tread carefully, stepping lightly into the corridor within.

  In the back room is the cage India had been in. A cage designed to hold a full strength werewolf at full moon. One that the beast can rage against all he likes but never break out of. It is a seven foot tall contraption made of a steel bars and tightly interwoven black metal. A commercial werewolf cage on the cheap end, the sort that werewolf parents buy while training their children to control their monthly lunar transformations. I can’t see them in the dark but I know there are little magic sigils carved into the steel rods of the cage. Without them the integrity of the metal wouldn’t last long under the repeated abuse from an angry werewolf.

  Just enough light comes in through the boarded up windows for me to see that the cage’s door is slightly ajar. That’s good. There is no electricity. That is good too. It is better if it is dark. There is still some old furniture in the room. To the side of the cage is an old cupboard. The perfect hiding place.

  I go quickly to the door of the cage now, worried that he might arrive at any moment. I hate being worried. Worry is for the weak. But I’m no fool. Compared to him my body is weak. And I have no desire to damage my precious self.

  There is a little crystal in my hand. I toss it into the cage. All of my recent dull reading had come in useful. For example, I had learned there is an incantation that will make this little crystal light up at my whisper. A crystal suddenly lighting up in the darkness, oh what a curious thing. It is going to lure him in.

  The little crystal clinks as it lands on the ground inside the cage. I turn towards the cupboard. Time to hide and wait.

  He charges at me out of the darkness behind me, so fast and so quiet that I do not have time even to turn. He smashes bodily into me. I fly forwards into the cage, falling on the ground, him landing on top of me. He grabs my hair and smashes my forehead into the ground. Pain explodes in my skull.

  On top of me his body stiffens. He knows something is wrong. I’d sprayed India’s perfume on me and worn her jacket to try to mask my scent, but he has sensed I am not her. He turns me over. He can see my face in the darkness though I cannot see his. He has recognized me.

  “Fooled you,” I say.

  “You bitch,” he snarls. “You little bitch. Where is she? Where is India?”

  I open my mouth to speak, but his hands fasten around my throat. The bastard. I try to choke out the words I need to say, but he won’t let me. His hands are huge. They are squeezing. He is so fucking strong. My hand reaches for my pocket but he feels it. He squeezes his thighs around my torso, trapping my arm against it. The bastard. He has me pinned. I buck and I thrash but I cannot get free. My body is no match for his. Goddamn it.

  I scream, but my breath only wheezes out. Lights are popping in the darkness before my eyes. Lights that aren’t really there. I am suffocating. I’m going to die.

  The hell I will. I will not die. Not after I have waited so long for my payday.

  My legs and my hips twist and writhe. I kick and buck and thrash. But there is no getting him off me. I’ve made it worse. My arm is trapped beneath my torso now, pinned by the full weight of him on top of me. I need that arm.

  “India is here,” I say. The words do not actually come out of course, because he is choking me to death.

  But he hears enough. “Where is she?” he snarls.

  His hand eases away from my neck to let me speak, to tell him about India.

  I say the incantation. The magic locked into the shield bracelet on my wrist explodes outwards. It throws him off me. But it doesn’t hurt him. It only winds him.

  He screams in rage. He is between me and the door of the cage. I can’t get out. I scramble backwards away from him. He roars in rage and charges towards me. My bracelet is used up. There is no more shield magic. And I am weak. Too weak.

  I scream in equal rage as he comes at me. I thrust my hand into my pocket. I came prepared. I grab the potion-tipped spike. He throws himself on top of me and I thrust my fist forward, the spike clutched in my fist. Its slender length sinks into his chest. He feels its sharpness, but it is too late. Even as his mouth contorts into a snarl of fury and realization, his body gives up on him. He collapses.

  I crawl out from under him. I am panting with exhilaration and effort. I pat his cheek as he lays there helpless, the glint of his eyes telling me that he is glaring up at me. I’ve bested him, the muscle bound fool. I’ve reduced him to a dog.

  “Stephen Manners, you little idiot. How do you like me now?” I taunt.

  He says nothing. He resents me using his real name but he can’t speak. The elixir I jabbed into him is magically supercharged. I doubt he’s ever felt anything like it in his life. I switch on the torch of my phone so that I can enjoy the expression on his face. He is so potion-addled that he is drooling. The light is all the better for him to see me by. I want him to know who did this to him.

  I drag the dead weight of his body a couple of feet. When he is close enough to the back of the cage, I cuff his hands to the bars. The elixir will eventually wear off and I want him helpless in
here. I want him feeble and immobile.

  “Sweet pea,” I say. “It’s time to accept that you tried and you failed. And nobody likes a failure.”

  His eyes glower. If he could speak he’d be screaming at me.

  I crouch over him, enjoying the sight of his impotence. “Poor pathetic you,” I say, enjoying how his eyes seemed to bulge at my words.

  He doesn’t want to be pathetic. He wanted to be powerful. He is desperately trying to think how to escape even now. If he could, he would scream at me that it isn’t his fault. That none of what happened is of his making.

  I laugh at him. “You know you have to die, right?”

  He can’t answer, so I grab a handful of his hair and make him nod his head. I giggle at the pathetic helplessness on his face. The puce humiliation.

  “You’re wondering how India got your phone number, aren’t you?” I ask him. “I gave it to her. Naughty you. Hiding in plain sight among the search party. I bet you just loved it. Speaking of phones…”