Double Vision (17 page)

“Me, too,” Jenna said. For someone so young who probably didn't yet understand all the ways Alzheimer's disease could ravage someone's mind, Molly was quite astute about the effects. No wonder kids and animals were good for people like Eldred Beasley. They were the few with the patience to treat them like they weren't different. Still, she needed to bring Molly back to the task at hand. “What other pictures on this page?”

“This man dropped his glasses on the floor. I picked them up for him, and he said thank you.”

Jenna noted the elderly man with salt and pepper hair Molly had pointed to. Yep. Also in the store. If nothing else, she was consistent.

They went through the same tedious process for the entire picture book, and Molly never once identified a picture of someone who hadn't actually been in the grocery store the day of the killings. Armed with a list of about ten people to look at closer—and a lot more of Molly's thoughts on Eldred Beasley—she and Saleda walked Molly back to the living room.

Liam and Raine were there, watching some nature show on TV. Liam held the remote control idly in his right hand, a can of soda in his left. His feet were propped on the coffee table. Raine sat on the love seat across from him, both feet on the floor, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were on the screen, but her gaze was far away.

Poor lady. Jenna knew that look all too well. She had the same one anytime she pretended to do something else while she thought of Hank, she was sure.

“All done,” she said, giving Molly a little push in the small of her back to send her toward her family.

Molly scampered over and crawled onto the love seat with her mother, eyes on the television. “Is this the cheetah one?”

“Nope, the crocodiles this time. It's a good episode, though,” Liam answered, standing. “May I see you ladies out?”

“Sure, thanks,” Jenna replied. When they reached the door, she turned to shake his hand.

He obliged, giving a curt smile. “Happy to help.”

Orange—a lie—flashed in.
I'll bet.

“Good evening,” Saleda said, also shaking the man's hand.

Then they were out the door, and it closed behind them. Since they'd been in the Tylers' home, the temperature had dropped with the setting sun. Jenna rubbed the goosebumps popping up on her arms.

“Thoughts?” Jenna asked.

“Yeah. My thoughts are I need a drink,” Saleda replied.

T
he next morning, Jenna rolled over and reached for her cell phone. She did it every morning she wasn't with Yancy these days, but this time, it was different.

When she and Saleda left Molly Keegan's house last night, they'd decided they could both use some rest. With nothing particularly time sensitive on the line, they called it a day and went home. But unlike most other nights, Jenna hadn't talked to Yancy at all, and she was starting to get worried.

She breathed out relief when she saw the text message from him.

Coming over first thing. Need to talk.

Who cared how he knew she was home. He was okay, and he hadn't been taken hostage by any psychopathic mothers named Claudia in the last forty-eight hours. That was what mattered.

Besides, Jenna had this feeling she knew exactly what local
Ramey Enquirer
field office had informed Yancy of her movements, and it was called Charley.

She crawled out of bed and threw on a pair of wrinkled black slacks from her dresser and a light blue button-down. The last time she ironed had to have been before they'd moved into the house from the apartment in Florida. She wouldn't even know where to find an iron if she wanted to. Oh, well. Good thing catching killers wasn't dependent on a tidy appearance.

After Jenna had combed her hair into a neat low ponytail, she swiped on some mascara to look a little more awake and headed for the kitchen. As she walked down the hallway, she passed Charley's room. He was sitting on his bed, restringing his guitar. She poked her head in. “Traitor.”

He didn't look up. “One of the pitfalls of living with your little bro all your life.”

The cameo pink Jenna had seen when she was around eight flashed in. It had been the day her grandmother had told her that she always wanted Jenna to remember to follow her dreams, and something had tickled Jenna's gut. A sick, worried sense that her grandmother was trying to prepare her for something. A few weeks later, she'd told the whole family she had cancer.

Jenna blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Charley's fingers worked at the instrument, but something sparkled in his eyes. “Oh, nothin'. I guess matchmaking's just part of my charm . . . one of the many services I offer, that sort of thing. Or in this case, maybe I should say making you make up with your match is just one of the many services I offer. I don't know. Which do you think would sound better in the commercial jingle?”

Neon lime green flashed in. Mischief.

“That did
not
sound anything like an everyday Charley-assesses-his-own-greatness statement, for the record,” Jenna said, ignoring his joke about advertising his own services and instead honing in on the tone of his voice when he'd mentioned the downside of the two of them living in the same house as adults. Despite the playful, devilish green she'd seen following the cameo pink of preparation, the skepticism and foreboding of the pink were the associations that resonated with her most in conjunction with his tone. If she hadn't known better, she'd think Charley was gearing up to tell her he had plans to move out.

Surely not. No matter how overbearing and paranoid Charley might think Jenna was or how many speeches he might give her about being overly fearful and not enjoying life to its fullest, he'd always seemed okay with Dad and him living with her and A. Not just okay; he'd been
happy
. Could he have met someone? Be thinking of moving in with a girl?

No. Right? She'd have met her. Wouldn't she have?

“Color coding's failing you, Rain Man. I'm not going anywhere,” Charley said, strumming a note on the guitar to check it. He looked up. “And yes, I know you're doing it. You give off some kind of pheromone when it happens . . .”

“Oh, shut up,” Jenna said, though she smiled. Maybe she
was
paranoid. After all, he'd moved all the way to Virginia with her and Dad when she'd been offered her job back at the BAU. He wouldn't have come all this way to just walk away from them without a serious reason, and he'd always been honest with her—almost to a fault. Even if he'd been trying to keep something cryptic from her before now, he'd just reassured her that her random fear based on nothing but a throwaway sentence was unfounded. He didn't have a reason to keep anything secret from her.

“Love you,” she said, grinning as she left his room.

“I know you do. I'm too awesome for you not to,” he called after her in a loud whisper.

Jenna entered the kitchen to see Yancy, the only outside party in the world who was
supposed
to be able to find this place. He sat at the table with a strawberry Pop-Tart. Jenna glanced at the clock. Charley must've let him in, too. Too early for her dad to be up.

“Hey, you,” she said as she reached for the coffeepot.

“Hey,” Yancy said.

Something about the little side smile he always did looked different today. It was slower to develop, and his eyebrows didn't lift the same way. But mostly, it was the defeated way his greeting sounded that let her know he was still low from their fight.

She sat down across from him with her coffee, this time shaking a packet of sugar to its bottom before opening it and dumping it in.

“Listen, I'm sorry for the other day. I know how bad it sucks for us to have to be so separate when I'm on the job, particularly after working so closely on the case last year. It sucks for me, too,” she said.

Wow, his eyes looked tired. Bags underneath them, bloodshot. She did miss him. So much.

“Don't worry about it,” Yancy said. “I need to talk to you about—”

“But I
am
worried,” she cut in. He wasn't weaseling away from the issue that easily. She'd been a psychiatrist too long to stay silent when she knew something was bothering him. If they didn't discuss it, they would both let their feelings fester so long they wouldn't be able to talk about it if they tried.

“I know, but . . .”

“But nothing. I want us on the same team again. Bad,” she said.
I want you to never go a whole two days without letting me know you're okay again. Ever.

“Jenna, I know you think you know what this is about, but . . .”

Yancy stared down at his Pop-Tart, his fingers working steadily at pulling off the frosting-less edges.

“I know I can't possibly understand how you feel. I'm not ever going to insult you enough to think I can.”

He was quiet, just looking at the pastry. He half smiled again, though his eyes stayed on his plate.

Body language says shame. But you don't have to be ashamed of missing me . . . Maybe you think I'm hearing your words and taking them as you being too clingy? Not even close. I'd give anything to cling to you on every step of this case.

“I
want
you to understand. I'm just afraid you won't,” Yancy said, still staring at his food.

She reached across the table and covered his right hand with her left. “I love you, Yance.”

He looked up at her, met her eyes. His were watering, his face pained.

“I love you, too, Jenna. More than you know.” He stared into her face a long minute, then smiled, this time brighter. “Your last few days been okay? How many monsters have you saved the world from since my last update?”

So, that's how we're playing this, huh?

But if he didn't want to talk in depth, she couldn't make him, no matter how convinced she was it would be best. Staying close was the next best thing, and she still hadn't had a chance to catch him up about Hank's brother, Victor.

“Well, now that you mention it, it was weird. You'll never believe who was here yesterday.”

•   •   •

A
fter Yancy left for work, Jenna tiptoed through the hallway. She eased the knob of the door on the left until it pushed open into the room swimming in fairies and flowers. The morning sun spilled in from the window, leaving a bright, lined pattern across Ayana's face and white-blond hair. It was no wonder that Hank's mother wasn't convinced Ayana was his. The platinum hair, the porcelain skin. She hardly looked mixed.

Jenna knelt down beside the bed and smoothed her hand over Ayana's locks. As she gazed at her little girl's closed eyelids, she smiled. Behind them, Hank's eyes. If his mother saw those, how could she ever doubt?

“You're gonna wake her up, Rain Man. Might not matter to you, but I was kinda looking forward to watching a little MTV
before
the twelve back-to-back viewings of
My Little Pony: The Movie
.”

Jenna turned to see Charley standing in the doorway, crunching a mouthful of cereal, the hand not holding the spoon cradling the bowl. “The
My Little Pony
movie hasn't been on the table since the last VHS player died, and you know it. And I'm not going to wake her up.”

Ayana stirred.

Shit.

“He shoots, he scores!” Charley said.

Her daughter blinked sleepily, yawned. She rolled her eyes at the way Charley was now pretending he was a radio announcer and making a weird hiss come from the back of his throat to mimic a roaring crowd. “Mommy?”

Jenna smiled and shook her head. “Don't worry about Uncle Charley. You know how werewolves change into wolves on full moons? Well, this is kind of Charley's werewolf thing, only it's less predictable and way less cool.”

“Hey!” he cut in. “I'm offended by that.”

“Well, I'm offended that you think I don't know my own daughter well enough to peek in on her and not disturb her,” Jenna said.

“But you did disturb her.”

“And you're a towel,” Jenna said, turning back to Ayana.

“Hey, sweet A. Go back to sleep, sweet girl. I just came in to give you a kiss.”

Ayana blinked more as if trying to get her eyes to focus. “Did you kiss Yancy, too?”

What the hell?

“Huh?”

She didn't mean for it to come out, but the surprise was so great, she couldn't control it.

“Yancy was here, right?”

How on earth . . .

“I saw . . .” Ayana yawned again. “Out the window. Then fell 'sleep 'gain.”

That explains a lot.

Ayana stared up at her. “You know what Yancy's like to me?”

Jenna grinned at her daughter. Whenever Ayana said something like this about a person, something silly that Ayana approved of was sure to follow.
I sense the word “marshmallows” or “kittens” coming up.
“What's that, baby girl?”

Ayana sat straight up in bed and stretched her arms wide, yawning again. She finished and slapped the pink-and-yellow, unicorn-covered comforter with her palms. “Lime beans!”

“Lime beans? You mean lima beans? I thought you liked Yancy. You can't stand lima beans.”

“No, not the veg-able. The
color.
”

Behind her, Jenna heard Charley coughing loudly and on purpose. Well, this was a first.

“We've always known it might be genetic,” Charley said smugly.

Jenna shot him a look. It was true, they'd all wondered if Ayana would be a synesthete like Jenna, since the phenomenon was hereditary and more common in females. But even though she'd known it was a heavy possibility, experiencing actual signs of it felt just plain weird.

“What's Unk-a Charley talkin' 'bout?” Ayana asked, looking confused.

She patted Ayana's hand. Even if her daughter was a synesthete, she was too young to be in touch with her color associations anyway. “Oh, he's just being goofy as usual. You ready for breakfast? How about pancakes?”

“Mmm!” Ayana said, kicking her feet excitedly.

“Okay. You hop up and make your bed, and I'll get 'em started. Sound good?”

“M'kay!” Ayana said with enthusiasm.

Jenna closed Ayana's door behind her as she left, then glared at Charley, who'd adopted an innocent expression. “Charley Padgett, you know better.”

“I didn't do anything! She has no clue what I'm talking about, and even if she did, it's not like it's a bad thing.” He shrugged. “Unless you don't enjoy nicknames like ‘Rain Man.'”

“You know what I mean. I don't want her to know much about synesthesia—”

“You're not going to have her be that girl whose parents don't tell her what condoms are until she comes home one day as a teenager and tells you about a boy she fooled around with who happened to have a balloon in his pocket, are you?”

Jenna ignored the comment. “Because if she does have it, I want her to find out for real. Kids can think they have a certain characteristic and ‘try to' have it—”

“Little hypochondriacs,” Charley murmured.

“It's the same reason we can't ask leading questions to children in police work. Keep your mouth shut.”

Charley mimed zipping his lips. “I won't say another word.”

“You just did,” Jenna said.

“But if I
was
going to say another word, I'd ask what lime bean color means to you.”

Jenna kept walking into the kitchen and removed a frying pan from the cabinet. “It doesn't matter. Even if Ayana
is
a synesthete, she'd probably have different associations from me, anyway.”

But no matter how true that argument was, Jenna couldn't help but think how the dull, pale green of lima beans happened to echo the color of moss in her mind. A color she associated with doubt.