Never Alone (43 Light Street) Read online

  Now she knew for certain there hadn’t been anything of substance building between the two of them. It had all come from her too-vivid imagination.

  Or maybe it was worse than that. Maybe he had felt something and now he was cursing himself for letting down his guard with a woman he couldn’t trust.

  Too bad she wasn’t a real psychic. Then she’d know for sure what he was thinking. Unfortunately, whatever power she had wasn’t something she could turn on and off when she wanted to. Images, sounds, impressions came to her when she was least expecting them. They were always dark. Usually painful, and she had no more control over the process than she had over the rain or the wind.

  As he waited for her to answer the question he’d asked half a minute ago, the arms that had held her close became unnaturally rigid at his sides. Like his chiseled jaw. Like the skin stretched over his cheekbones.

  Her tongue felt thick in her mouth as she faced him, but she managed to say, “No, I don’t expect you to believe it. Not when you’re looking at me like I just grew a pair of Martian antennae.”

  “You’ll pardon me, but I don’t believe in anything I can’t verify through normal means.”

  “Okay.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. His eyes had gone as hard and shiny as obsidian. “What do you mean, okay?”

  “I mean I accept your rules. You’re not going to believe I heard anything out of the ordinary. I can’t prove that I did. So Hallie must have been out here last night, and I heard her calling for help. If you want, you can search my property to find out whether or not she was here.”

  “I think Brodie did an adequate job of that.”

  “He was here in the dark. It’s light now.”

  “Let’s not get off the subject of your, uh, special abilities. What did you hear exactly?”

  She hated the way he used the word special as if it was a curse. Actually he was right. The abilities were a curse, but she wasn’t going to explain all that now. Instead, she simply murmured, “I heard her say, ‘No, please. Don’t hurt me. Please.’”

  “That’s all?”

  She closed her eyes, wishing she could make him vanish in a puff of smoke, or turn him into a frog and watch him hop away. But none of that was going to happen, so she forced herself to confront his disapproval. “A little later she said, ‘help me’ again.” She gulped. “Then, ‘God, no.’”

  “You heard those words. That’s all there was to the experience?”

  She shook her head, wondering how much detail she had to go into for this man who so obviously believed she was somehow making up a story. “At first I heard a woman calling for help and didn’t know who she was. Then I saw her face in my mind, saw she was terrified, saw blood dripping down from her hair. I knew it was Hallie.”

  He made a snorting sound. “Did you happen to see if anyone was with her?”

  “No.”

  His features twisted into an expression she didn’t much like.

  “How do you explain my knowing about the blood?” she asked quickly.

  “Easy. You went to her town house. You saw what happened.”

  She carefully considered the implications of his words. “So now you’re trying to insinuate I was involved? If I were, why would I have called the police?”

  He stared at her impassively. “Can anyone verify that you were home last night?”

  “Granger and I were here alone—until Officer Brodie showed up.”

  “Right, I’ll interview your dog. No doubt you can translate his barks for me,” he said sarcastically, then asked, “So how often does this happen? How long have you been having these, uh, mystical experiences?”

  The phrasing and his tone of voice told her that he still didn’t believe her but was playing along because he still wanted information. Balling her hands into fists, she rested them against her hips. “You think they’re something I enjoy?”

  “Do you?”

  “No! That’s why I live out here in the middle of nowhere. That’s why I stay away from people. I don’t want it to happen. It’s never anything good. It makes my head hurt. Sometimes it scares me. So I try to shut it out. But sometimes I can’t! Despite everything, it gets through to me.” The last part came out as if she was a character in a television show and someone had just turned up the volume. Deliberately she took a steadying breath, then inquired evenly, “Do you have any more questions?”

  “Did you tell Officer Brodie that you thought you’d picked up vibrations from Ms. Bradshaw?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked down at the worn Oriental carpet, twisted her hands together in front of her. “I felt embarrassed about saying anything.”

  “You didn’t think it was relevant, after he didn’t find anyone out in the sheep pasture? You were worried about your friend, but you kept your mouth shut because you were embarrassed?”

  When he put it that way, she didn’t like the sound of her own motivation. But she still tried to explain. “He already thought I was hysterical. I didn’t want him driving me to a mental hospital.”

  “But you told me how you tuned in to some kind of extrasensory distress call from Ms. Bradshaw.”

  “It was either that or have you think I went after Hallie with a hatchet last night.” She swallowed. “You’re the one who told me she’s missing and that someone had been in her town house.”

  “That’s not precisely what I said.”

  “Right, you’re trying to see if you can trip me up. Punch holes in my story about hearing voices in my head—or my claim that I was home alone all night last night.”

  He gave her a small shrug.

  “Do you have any more penetrating questions?” she asked.

  “Not at the moment, but I’d like you to stay available.”

  She nodded tightly.

  Turning, he stalked out of the parlor. Beth remained rooted to the spot, listening to the sound of the door opening and closing, then a car engine starting.

  With a deliberate shake of her shoulders, she tried to release the viselike tension gripping her body. Moving toward the door, she stepped out onto the porch, watching the trail of dust that his car had left down the long driveway. Granger thumped his tail, then stood. Absently, she stroked his big head. When she turned back toward the house, he followed her down the hall to the room where she kept her loom. Picking up the shuttle, she went back to the wall hanging again. But after a few minutes she realized that she wasn’t concentrating on the work and she was going to make a mistake.

  Sighing, she pushed her chair back, an image of Cal Rollins filling her mind. His features had been tight and strained when he left. In her mind, she managed to wipe that expression off his face and replace it with the one she’d seen in the yard after he’d held her in his arms. The warmth in those dark, deep-set eyes. The relaxed line of his jaw—a masculine jaw that carried the shadow of a dark beard this early in the afternoon.

  Unable to stop herself, she imagined rubbing her fingers over that rough surface, or touching his dark, short-cropped hair.

  Would her touch bring back the slight smile at the corners of his lips? His lips were too thin to be called sensual, yet she couldn’t help ascribing them that quality.

  When she realized that her body was starting to feel heavy and hot, she clamped her lower lip between her teeth. Why was she thinking about him that way? Why was she allowing herself to respond to him?

  She didn’t want to. She wished she’d never met him. But the meeting had happened, and she had felt something when he’d held her in his arms. It wasn’t merely sexual. It was something strong and deep arching between them. It had drawn her closer to him, even as it had frightened her. Not just the physical sensation of her breasts brushing his chest or his knee pressing against her thigh. Those details had been memorable enough.

  No, it was something below the surface, something far more powerful then mere physical sensation—a yearning she couldn’t remember experiencing bef
ore. It had made her weak and needy and vulnerable—emotions she wanted to avoid. Especially with a man like Cal Rollins—a man who thought she was either crazy or, worse, a criminal.

  A DULL ACHE POUNDED in Cal’s temples as he drove away from the farm. It had been a long time since he’d made such a mess of a simple interview. He’d touched Beth Wagner in ways that were totally inappropriate, felt emotions he shouldn’t be feeling, then he’d overcompensated by turning the interview into the Spanish Inquisition. God, when had he ever been this off balance with a suspect? Never. And now he was going to have to hustle to regain the ground he’d lost.

  Not only was he going to have to dig into Hallie Bradshaw’s life, he was going to have to do a thorough background investigation on Beth Wagner, psychic.

  He’d made it pretty clear to her he didn’t believe in that kind of garbage. But that left him with a basic problem. If she hadn’t had a flash of inspiration from the cosmic consciousness, where had she picked up her information about Bradshaw?

  He was going to investigate her, all right, because she was a suspect. Not simply for his own satisfaction.

  He’d start with civil records—utilities, DMV, a credit check. She looked totally innocent, sweet, vulnerable, like a sixties flower child transported from San Francisco to Howard County. But for all he knew, she might have been involved in a messy divorce, a custody battle. She might have been arrested for something. And she might have some hidden connection to Bradshaw that he’d be interested to know about. He’d find out where else she’d lived. Where she’d been employed. Whether this farm was her sole source of income. He’d dig up every damn thing he could—until he figured out how she fit into the Hallie Bradshaw case. Not because he had any personal interest in her, he assured himself.

  When he realized his hands were fused to the steering wheel, he deliberately loosened his grip, deliberately rolled his tense shoulders against the backrest.

  Half an hour later, he was back in the squad room. He made a stop at the coffeepot and poured himself a mug of high test. Then he read the pertinent reports from the uniformed officers—Brodie’s from last night and the one from Al Faraday, who had responded to Karen Philips’s call. He wanted to talk to both officers, but neither one was in the building.

  So he went into fallback position—research. Logically, he should start by digging into Hallie Bradshaw’s background. But he had reason enough to start with Beth Wagner, he told himself.

  He began with the Department of Motor Vehicles. He found out she was twenty-eight, that she hadn’t gotten so much as a parking ticket in her driving career, that her address had been the same since she’d first applied for a license when she was sixteen.

  Then he checked for a criminal record. There was none. Next, he put her name into the Web—just for kicks.

  What he got made his eyes widen. Apparently she was a weaver with an international reputation whose commissions ranged from the low thousands upward.

  After making requests for phone company and credit card records and other similar information, he took a break from Ms. Wagner and started looking for cases that were similar to Hallie Bradshaw’s disappearance.

  He found one. A woman named Lisa Stapler. She’d disappeared from her apartment in Long Reach and later her body had been discovered in a culvert near Route 175.

  She’d been the same age as Hallie—and Beth Wagner.

  Going to another database, he found out that all three of them had graduated from Glenelg High School ten years ago.

  Interesting, he thought, rocking back in his chair. Maybe that was a coincidence, but one thing he’d learned over the years was that coincidence was rare in a homicide investigation.

  He glanced at his watch. He’d been deep into the case and hadn’t realized it was seven-thirty, way past his quitting time. Turning off the computer, he stood and stretched, aware that the guys on the evening shift were watching him. He knew they didn’t like finding him still at work when they came in. Probably they thought the new guy in the squad room was trying to prove something by working overtime, trying to show them how things were done in the city.

  With a shrug, he headed for the parking lot and climbed into his unmarked car. After a short hesitation, he drove down the hill into the historic district, figuring he might as well eat at McKinley’s and get a look at the crowd that hung out there.

  THE RESTAURANT-BAR was crowded and noisy. From a table in the corner, over passable chicken fajitas, he watched young men and women eye each other, laugh, make contact and pair up.

  Some of the women looked in his direction, but he made it clear by his body language that he wasn’t interested. He’d played the game at places like this. But tonight the scene depressed him. Everybody seemed bound and determined to make sure everybody else knew they were having a good time. But there was an undercurrent to the festivities that conveyed a sense of loneliness. Or perhaps it was simply his own detachment from the scene that gave him that impression.

  It hadn’t been that way with Beth Wagner this afternoon. No, when he’d held her in his arms, his pulse had started pounding and awareness had zinged along his nerve endings.

  In his mind he saw her again, saw her incredibly long blond hair, then pictured his fingers combing through that spun gold. His imagination drifted from her hair to the multicolored shirt that had given only tantalizing glimpses of her breasts. But he knew their shape. He’d felt them against his chest when he’d caught her in his arms.

  With a low sound, he pulled his mind away from that dangerous direction, reminding himself sternly that she was a suspect. But if she was skating on the wrong side of the law, why would she have made that call to 911 and saddled herself with a story that was impossible to verify?

  He had no answers to his own questions. So he deliberately yanked his mind away as he watched the men and women mingle.

  Men and women, he thought as a sudden idea struck him.

  He’d checked for cases similar to Bradshaw’s in which women had disappeared or been murdered. He hadn’t checked out the guys.

  It was a strange angle to be playing. Usually serial murderers went after one sex or the other. But his hunches were often right. Maybe he should buy a crystal ball and join a carnival, he thought with a snort as he signaled for the check.

  BETH STOOD in the kitchen with her arms wrapped around her shoulders. She should be fixing some dinner, but all she could do was stare out the window into the darkness beyond the floodlights.

  Long ago, she’d discovered that holding back the night was more important than curbing her electric bill. She’d learned to fear the dark, because it was at night that the bad stuff dug its claws into her mind.

  The first time…

  No, she wouldn’t think about the first time.

  But she couldn’t stop the memory from leaping into her head.

  She’d been twelve and miserable with a bad case of flu, propped up in bed against a mound of pillows, trying to sleep when she could hardly breathe.

  Then the headache had struck, a sharp pain inside her skull like a dagger piercing her brain.

  The pain brought a scream to her lips. Then Mom was dashing into the room, coming down beside her on the bed, her face white with alarm.

  “What, honey? What is it?”

  She tried to speak, but she couldn’t get the words out because images had superimposed themselves on the pain, a truck hurtling along a country road, taking a curve too quickly, careening into an oncoming pickup.

  Dad’s pickup!

  As she saw the scene in her mind, her father’s truck plowed off the road, bumped through a cornfield and bounced into a low metal fence.

  “Daddy! No. Daddy!” she screamed again, then began to sob hysterically as she saw his body jerk forward before the seat belt pulled him back.

  She sat there shivering and crying, her mother trying to comfort her, trying to tell her she must have had a bad dream, that Daddy was at his monthly card game with his friends.


  “He didn’t get there. He’s hurt. We have to go help him,” she sobbed out.

  “You’re too sick to go out. Maybe I’d better call Dr. Hamilton,” her mother answered, probably thinking the fit of hysterics had been brought on by a high fever.

  “No. It’s Daddy. I saw his truck crash. In that field off Underwood Road.”

  Her mother hadn’t understood—not then. She’d given Beth aspirin, put a cool cloth on her forehead and tried to soothe her fears.

  She’d almost convinced Beth that she’d imagined the whole thing—until a policeman had come to their door to tell them that Bill Wagner was in Howard County Hospital with a broken shoulder.

  That had been the first day of the rest of her life. Until then she’d been a pretty normal kid. After that…well, her parents had treated her differently. It was subtle, but in a way, it seemed as if they were afraid of her, in awe of her, so that there was no way to turn to them for help.

  Instead, she’d fought the scared, helpless feeling on her own, even as she started withdrawing from people.

  On that long-ago night she’d seen her father injured. There had been plenty of other terrifying images since then. Mostly the experience came to her in visual terms.

  With Hallie, it had been different, and she’d thought at first that she might actually be hearing something outside the house and close by. Even when she’d known in her heart that she was fooling herself, she’d kept pretending it was real, because that was better than the alternative.

  Beth Wagner, harbinger of disaster.

  That was what she was. Because the sights, and now the sounds, that came to her with a knife-sharp pain in her head were never anything she wanted to know.

  That was bad enough, but along with the unwanted knowledge came the torment of being different from everyone else. She’d seen the way that cop, Brodie, had looked at her. He’d thought she was a nutcase, just from the way she was acting, and that had cut her to the core. But that was nothing compared to what had happened with Cal Rollins. He’d put his arms around her, and needs she seldom acknowledged had surged through her like a riptide carrying away everything in its wake. She’d wanted him to see her as normal. She’d wanted him to think she was like everyone else.