DIAGNOSIS: ATTRACTION Read online

  “Too bad we aren’t here for the Big Lick Blues Festival or the Strawberry Festival,” Elizabeth said as she looked up information about the city.

  “I think we can have our own festival,” Matt answered as he drove past several chain motels.

  She grinned at him, letting the images in his brain warm her, still thinking how lucky she was to have found this man.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot of an upscale motel.

  * * *

  “HOW LONG WERE you going to keep the information from me?” Jake Harper asked his wife.

  Rachel looked up from the table in her New Orleans shop where she read tarot cards. They were in the city—where they spent about half their time, when they weren’t at the plantation in Lafayette that Gabriella Boudreaux had established as a refuge for telepaths. Rachel raised her face toward her husband. “I guess I wasn’t going to keep it from you for very long.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “Her name is Elizabeth. His is Matt.”

  “You found them when they were on the East Coast. Are they still there? Or are they doing what other bonded couples have done—looking for their origins?”

  She sighed. “I think they’re on the way to Houma.”

  “And are they a threat to us? Like Tanya and Mickey.” The first couple they’d encountered like themselves.

  “I think Tanya and Mickey were unusual,” Rachel said. “They didn’t want anyone to share their powers.”

  “But you don’t know for sure, because you always want to see the best in people.”

  “I can’t help what I am.”

  Jake walked up beside his wife’s chair and slung his arm around her shoulder. “I love what you are.”

  She leaned back against him, reassured by what they were together. She was impulsive. He was cautious, which was often a good thing for both of them.

  “Is the same man after them who was after Stephanie and Craig?” he asked, happy they could protect the newcomers who had recently come to the plantation.

  “They ran into some bad problems in Baltimore—that didn’t have anything to do with the Solomon Clinic.”

  She opened her mind fully to her husband and let him see some of what had happened to Elizabeth and Matt.

  He winced. “It sounds like they’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Because they’re resourceful. They’d be a big asset to our community. Especially since he’s a doctor.”

  “An asset, yeah,” Jake agreed. “If they don’t want to wipe us off the face of the earth. Are they flying down here?”

  “They’re driving.”

  “That should give us time to prepare.”

  “For the worst?”

  “You know I have to think of worst-case scenarios.”

  “But we know some important things about them. He risked his life treating patients in Africa. She was going up against a man smuggling women into Baltimore and forcing them into prostitution. That means neither one of them is selfish—like Mickey and Tanya.”

  Jake nodded. “Those are good signs.”

  * * *

  IN THEIR MOTEL ROOM, after making wonderful love with Matt, Elizabeth finally turned to the baby book she’d brought from Baltimore.

  There were records of when she’d first eaten solid food, when she’d taken her first steps, and her first words—which were “dog” and “doll.”

  “My mother was pretty compulsive about writing things down,” Elizabeth commented.

  She turned a page, and her hand froze. There was a picture of her standing in front of a building. The sign beside the door read Solomon Clinic.

  Matt stared at the picture. “I guess that must be the place. But what were you doing there? I mean, you look like you were maybe three.”

  “Yes. And I don’t know why I went back there.”

  “But we do know it’s in Houma.”

  * * *

  CLEMENS, THE MAN who’d gone snooping in Elizabeth Forester’s house, had gotten into bad trouble. He was in jail, and Harold Goddard didn’t like it, but now he had no choice.

  He was certain that Forester and Delano were on their way to Houma. He had checked passenger lists on flights from Baltimore and found nothing. That wasn’t reassuring. It just meant that the couple was being tricky. Probably they were driving, so no one could track their arrival.

  Harold had been thinking about how to protect himself. Now he put that plan into action.

  * * *

  ELIZABETH FELT THEY were finally getting somewhere, when she went to sleep. She woke with a start in the middle of the night, her whole body rigid.

  Matt was instantly awake beside her. Rolling toward her, he took her in his arms. “What is it?”

  “Someone touched my mind.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean, it’s like when you and I communicate without talking. Only it wasn’t you.” She clenched her fist in frustration. “Well, it wasn’t exactly someone communicating with me. They were...probing.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re sure?”

  “I didn’t make it up. I felt another mind...skimming mine.”

  “You were asleep. You could have dreamed.”

  “I don’t think so. But that could be true.”

  When she started to tremble, he pulled her closer.

  “Something else we need to worry about,” she whispered.

  “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “I’m not sure. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a woman.”

  “Why?”

  She laughed. “Because she was delicate...subtle.”

  “You don’t think men can be subtle?”

  “It’s not the way they normally operate.”

  He stroked her arm. “I guess you’re right.

  Is this woman a threat to us?” He reached for her hand and knitted his fingers with hers, and she tightened her grip.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “We talked about practicing our skills on this trip. I think shielding our minds should be one of our top priorities.”

  She nodded against his shoulder. She’d thought they were safe—at least for a little while. Now she was a lot less sure. And she knew she wasn’t going back to sleep any time soon.

  Matt packed up on the observation. “We can start practicing now.”

  “Because you know I’m worried?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

  He sat up, and she did the same, pulling up the pillow and leaning against the headboard.

  When he climbed out of bed, she gave him a questioning look.

  Better if we’re not touching.

  You mean, easier.

  He pulled on a T-shirt and his shorts, and sat down in the chair near the window.

  I’m going to block my thoughts. You try to worm your way in.

  A nice way to put it. How do you block your thoughts?

  I don’t know exactly. I guess we’ll find out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I’m going to picture a wall and put it up around my mind,” Matt suggested.

  “Will that work?”

  “I hope it’s better than picturing a mud hole.”

  She laughed. “I guess so.” She gave him a long look. “Okay, you put up your wall, then think of something you want to guard behind it.”

  She could sense the barrier going into place. She could even see it in his mind. It was made of cement blocks, and he put it together block by block.

  Then she knew by his expression that he’d hidden a thought behind it.

  She had very little t
rouble breaking through. And when she did, she laughed.

  “You’re thinking about the food we’re going to get in New Orleans,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Try again.”

  He gritted his teeth and went back to the wall, and this time she had a little more trouble breaking through. When she did, she gave him a long look. “You’ve switched from food to sex.”

  “I’m a guy, after all. Maybe I put them in the wrong order. Why don’t we reverse the process, and you try?”

  She focused her gaze inward, constructing a barrier out of sturdy upright metal pieces. When she had it in place, she put an image of a beautiful garden inside, then put herself in the picture, sitting down in a wicker chair, enjoying the sunlight slanting through the trees.

  It was hard to keep the wall in place and keep the image of the garden at the same time, but she managed it for a few minutes until Matt came along and started pulling her stakes out of the ground.

  “No fair,” she said aloud.

  “Everything’s fair.”

  “Oh, is it?” She heated up the metal stakes, making them too hot for him to handle.

  “Nice move,” he said.

  “We’re just playing around.”

  “But everything we do is practice for when we need to use it.”

  * * *

  RACHEL HAD ANOTHER report for Jake in the morning. “She felt me probing her, and she’s trying to shield her mind.”

  He cursed under his breath. “That means they have something to hide.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Then what?”

  “Suppose you’d felt an outside presence trying to read your thoughts, wouldn’t you try to keep him from doing it?”

  “That’s one explanation.”

  “But you think they have evil intentions?”

  “I want to keep you safe.”

  “You’re always so suspicious.”

  “I guess it comes from my early childhood experiences.”

  She reached for his hand. Jake had grown up on the streets of New Orleans, and he’d learned never to trust anyone until he’d proved himself.

  “Did you get into his mind?” he asked.

  “She’s more open.”

  “Why?”

  “Like I said, he was a doctor in Africa. I think he learned caution on a lot of different levels.”

  “And they’re on their way down here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess we’d better be prepared.”

  “How?”

  “Keep trying to figure out what they’re up to.”

  “On the other hand, maybe it’s better if I don’t try to dip into her mind.”

  * * *

  ELIZABETH AND MATT left the motel after breakfast and got back on the road, keeping up their practice sessions as they drove.

  But there were some things Elizabeth couldn’t hide from Matt. The closer they got to New Orleans, the more unsettled she felt, and he picked up on her mood.

  “You think we’re going to be in danger when we get there,” he said, not bothering to frame the statement as a question. “From whoever that Clemens guy is working for.”

  “Unfortunately.” She turned her head toward him. “When is it going to stop?”

  “Soon.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I think there’s got to be a quick resolution. Like we came to with Lang.”

  “That’s not exactly reassuring.” She reached to cover his hand with her own. “I got you into a lot of trouble.”

  “You know damn well we’re in this together.”

  She understood that as much as she’d understood anything in her life and pressed her palm more firmly against the back of his hand. “I wouldn’t have gotten my memory back or gotten away from Lang without you, but now I’m wondering if we’re making a mistake.”

  He waited for her to say more, although he probably knew what was in her mind.

  “I think we should do some research before we get down there. You can use the web to look up that fertility clinic.”

  “Agreed.”

  * * *

  WHEN THEY STOPPED for the night in Huntsville, Alabama, they had an early dinner at a ribs restaurant. Then they returned to their motel room, and Matt used his computer to get on the web.

  Because the Solomon Clinic had been closed for twenty years, there wasn’t much information about the facility. But it had been run by a Dr. Douglas Solomon, and there was a piece of startling information about him.

  “According to a newspaper article, he had a research facility in Houma that blew up a few months ago.”

  “Did he die?”

  “Yeah. He was inside at the time. Also one of the nurses that used to work at the fertility clinic died with him. And another man who apparently used to run a government think tank.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “No idea.”

  Elizabeth winced. “Do they know what caused the explosion?”

  “The article says it was a gas leak, but I find it pretty jarring that just before we started poking into Dr. Solomon’s background, he got killed.”

  “You’re saying you don’t think it was an accident?”

  “I don’t know what to think, except that we should be even more cautious.”

  She shuddered, wanting to say that they should just turn around and go back to Baltimore.

  “Only we’ll always be looking over our shoulder, waiting for something else to happen,” he said.

  She answered with a little nod, knowing he was right.

  “First we’ll go to New Orleans and poke around,” she said, thinking that she was only postponing the day of reckoning.

  “No. I think we’re going to find something there,” he said.

  “Not the guy who hired Clemens, I hope.”

  “He won’t know we’re in the city.”

  “Unless he has some way of finding out who’s checked into hotels.”

  “That would take a lot of digging.”

  They arrived in New Orleans the next day and found a charming bed-and-breakfast in the French Quarter, a place where Elizabeth would have loved to stay if they’d been here on vacation. But she was too restless to enjoy their antique-filled suite or the old-fashioned claw-foot tub in the bathroom.

  Matt looked at her with concern. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come.”

  “You know we have to. And I want to walk around a little bit and get a feel for the city.”

  They headed for Jackson Square, where they watched the street performers and wandered around the stands where artists were offering to do quick sketches of tourists, and women had set up card tables where they were selling tarot cards and palm readings.

  “Do you remember it?” Matt asked.

  “Yes. I guess it hasn’t changed much in twenty-five years. But I want to see something else.”

  “Something you remember?”

  “No.” Elizabeth walked rapidly along one side of the square, then took a side street leading to Toulouse Street.

  “If you haven’t been here before, you seem to know where you’re going,” Matt commented.

  She shrugged. “Not really.”

  “You’re just...wandering?”

  She knew he didn’t think that was true. Perhaps she didn’t, either. She scanned the shops along Toulouse and stopped at an inviting little storefront that offered tarot-card readings by a woman named Rachel Harper.

  “You walked past the readers in the square,” Matt said. “Why are you stopping here?”

  “This woman interests me.”

  “Why? Do you know her?”

 
“No.”

  “Then what is it about her? Is she more insightful because she has her own shop?”

  “She made enough money to buy it.”

  “Or maybe a rich husband set her up.”

  Elizabeth snorted and peered at the Closed sign in the door. “I wonder when she’s coming back.”

  “We can try again later,” Matt said. “If you think it’s important.”

  “It could be. I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “Or maybe it’s nothing.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “It’s weird. When I first met you, I didn’t remember anything. Now I do, and I’m also...” She flung her arm. “I don’t know what to call it. Having insights?”

  “Maybe part of your mental abilities.” He examined the door and window of the shop. “You’d think she’d let customers know how to get in touch with her. But there doesn’t seem to be anybody here.”

  They kept walking through the French Quarter, both of them on edge, but still able to enjoy the colorful buildings, art galleries, antique shops and tropical flowers that were so different from Baltimore.

  When Elizabeth stopped in front of a restaurant, Matt gave her an inquiring look.

  “You want to eat here?” he asked.

  “Not necessarily. But I’m getting the same kind of feeling I did from Rachel Harper’s shop.”

  She stood on the sidewalk for a minute, then walked on. “Or maybe I’m making stuff up because I want to have something significant happen.”

  “Maybe it’s not going to happen in the city.”

  At breakfast the next morning, as they enjoyed beignets, strong Louisiana coffee and omelets with andouille sausage, Elizabeth said, “I’d like to go back and see if Rachel Harper is there.”

  “Not by yourself. Not until we find out about that clinic.”

  She nodded, knowing he was right. They were safer if they stuck together. But safer from what? She still didn’t know.

  They both walked back to Rachel Harper’s shop, but the tarot-card reader still wasn’t there.

  A woman across the street stuck her head out of a doorway and asked, “Are you looking for Ms. Harper?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s only here part-time—since she got married.”