Eyes to the Soul (23 page)

And that was his best clue. She’d never been wrong yet.

“I’ll see if I can find out more. I’ll bring it home tonight.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice stronger as she distanced herself from the vision. “I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll only bring it if you have a swim and try for a nap later today.”

“I planned on it.” She laughed. “I’m fine, you know.”

He grinned. “You, my beloved, are more than just fine.”

And with that he hung up, her laughter still ringing in his ears. God, he was blessed. The smile fell off his face as he returned to hunt for any information on her latest vision.

*

Jacob felt like
an idiot.

He was lying on top of his body, sprawled like a lumpy blanket. And no matter what position he tried out he couldn’t get back into his body. He remembered Lissa’s words about needing to find the reason why he wasn’t in there, but for the life of him – and didn’t that phrase made him wince – he couldn’t come up with a good reason.

He loved playing for the orchestra. He loved his friends. Sure, he had some problems with his family, but nothing major. He was close with Celina, and that brought him up short. He’d taken her to the restaurant that night. Had she been injured? He hoped not. She had enough to deal with. He couldn’t remember anything about the accident.

There’d been something important then. Something important.

What was it?

A
weariness Celina
hadn’t felt in a long time swept over her system. She knew Stefan’s sharp eyes would notice. Fine. She was too tired to care.

“Why don’t you lie down?” he suggested.

She smiled. “I plan on it after you leave.”

A slight whoosh of air drifted toward her as he said, “Except I’m not leaving.”

She froze. Damn that smooth voice of his that made everything seem so reasonable. So easy. But not this. And not this easy. Keeping her voice light she said, “Why?”

“Because I can see energy, and I want to see what goes on here while you’re asleep. You have several ghosts in here now but they are distant. Wanting to communicate but not able to.”

Ouch. She wasn’t sure she liked him being able to pick up so much.

“Tell me why they are there in that state.” His voice, so soft, was controlled and determined.

She shrugged. Well, it wasn’t a big deal. “I was overwhelmed. Somehow with the accident it seemed like any and every ghost could call on me at will and I couldn’t handle it. I closed a door and let only a few in. And no, don’t ask me how I closed it. I just did.” She gave a small shrug. “As it was, several still managed to get in.”

“Were they persistent?”

“No, I just think they were more capable.” She turned to look around her room, knowing where everything was and where her ghostly visitors usually were. “It’s an odd thing to consider that some ghosts are more conscious, more adept than others. But it’s the same with people. I just hadn’t considered that the same traits would show up between ghosts.” She stood up. “This conversation would have normal people running for the hills.”

“I’m not normal people.” There was a hesitation in his voice.

Celina stopped and waited for him. When he didn’t speak again she said, “What?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“What’s stupid?” she said, frowning.

“I was going to ask if you need any help, but you are obviously very competent and don’t need it.”

She paused, hearing a note in his voice that said he’d like to help regardless. As in he wanted more from her than she was giving at this point. She had to think about that. Her life was a mess. She really didn’t need anyone else adding complications. She opened her mouth to make that clear.

She sensed his indrawn breath, as if waiting for her to say something he wasn’t going to like but damn it, the words wouldn’t come out. Because in spite of all the problems, in spite all of the people in her life, real and ghostly, she didn’t want to go it alone. Didn’t know if she could. But she knew this man would never want to be anyone’s crutch. He’d want a partner. In every sense of the word.

Could she be that for him? That was the dream she’d had with her fiancé. And that had gone up in a puff of smoke.

She couldn’t sense any eagerness or pushiness in his voice or actions. In fact, she had to wonder if she’d imagined his tone. She’d shut down so much of her life after Peter’s death that it was impossible to know if she were interpreting the signals correctly. She really wished she could see the answer in his eyes. The truth on his face when she asked him.

The thing was she was interested herself. And too damn afraid to go down that pathway.

Tired and frustrated with the constant double questioning, she made her way to her bedroom. “I’m going to lie down. You do what you want.”

“I’ll stay then.” The humor in his voice hit her as she entered her room.

Inside she leaned back against the closed door and shut her eyes for a long moment.
Thank God he was.

*

He couldn’t imagine
a more prickly character to have fallen in love with. Not that he had any choice, of course – but still it was the universe’s way of making him work for what he wanted. He’d just once like to have something come easy. So many people saw his gifts and ignored the pain and difficulty they’d brought him over the years.

For years he’d been dealing with women’s unwanted attention. A man should be so unlucky. But as he could see the women’s energies he knew what was behind their actions. And that was a huge turnoff. He didn’t want to sleep with a woman who wanted the cachet of sleeping with a psychic or that came from sleeping with a person with certain notoriety. Too often his looks were the reason for the instant attraction, and that was difficult and often made him – almost out of necessity – blunt as he brushed them off. The last thing Stefan needed was someone who judged by the cover.

Celina was refreshing that way. His looks meant nothing to her. But he’d very quickly realized that her blindness was something she endured on sufferance, and was making no attempt to learn to live with it beyond what she had to. She’d rather see with her eyes than her fingers, and given that it wasn’t an option at this time she’d prefer to do neither. An all-or-nothing girl.

He settled into the living room in his lotus position and slipped free of his body. He could do a lot of his work from here. Good thing, as his days were too busy and nights lately had become even worse.

Opening his eyes, he could see the room come alive with colors and energies. He searched to see if there was anything off and found everything calm. Normal. Next he checked the security measures he’d put up, and again everything appeared fine. More confident now he slipped into her bedroom to hover over her sleeping form. She needed rest. These last couple of months – years – had been rough on her. In fact, as he looked at the old energy moving restlessly, entwined with the newer, he figured much of the last few years had been tough.

On instinct he headed to the hospital and checked out the other survivors of the accident. He needed an eyewitness. Someone who’d heard something. There had to be a reason behind the accident. He wasn’t prepared to listen to the claim of Celina’s predator as the cause just yet.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to the morgue.

The icy chill hit him first. Opening his eyes, he found himself at the same part of the large, connecting rooms as he’d been in last time. The same lineup of sheet-covered bodies before him. Different bodies, he thought, as several were young women. New arrivals, considering the conversation going on around him.

“Stabbings at the street corner. What is this world coming too? That guy there, Brown,” one of the staff pointed to a large, middle-aged male off to one side, “up and attacked without warning. He killed these three women and knifed two more. They are still upstairs.”

“So autopsies on all three?” Gurneys were rolled forward and backward, shifting the order of the work to be done.

“The boss is doing the guy.”

The other man nodded, not seeming to care either way. “Let’s hope the doc finds a medical reason for going off half-cocked and killing those women.”

And that’s why he was here. Stefan watched as the same black energy he’d seen in the morgue before on yet another body drift around this Brown character. He had no idea how long this man had been dead, but that black mist was still here, dissipating but thick enough that he could see the layers on the body.

He needed to be here during the autopsy if possible, and if not he needed to see the autopsy report. Somehow this man was connected to Celina’s troubles.

That meant he had to contact Brandt.

He smiled. No time like right now. He popped over to Brandt’s office to find him at his desk, pounding away on the keyboard.
Brandt?

Brandt’s gaze shot up. “Stefan?”

Yes. I need to ask you a couple of questions.

“Well, I’m alone, so go for it. What’s up?” Brandt’s voice reverberated oddly in Stefan’s head. Brandt had come a long way and his telepathic skills were getting better all the time. He just couldn’t keep doing so for long periods of time, so they didn’t talk that way unless they needed to.
You’ve got a guy in the morgue I’m interested in
.

“Yeah, well, we’ve actually got a lot of guys in the morgue. Which one are you talking about?”

A man who just stabbed several women.

“Interesting. I should have guessed,” Brandt said, busy clicking away.

Guessed what?
Stefan asked.

“Sam contacted me earlier. She’d connected to him and led me through the vision right up to the point he’d grabbed up a knife from the grocer and started stabbing.”

What else did she say?
Stefan asked, his voice sharp.
I need to know everything she said.

Brandt walked him through what he remembered. “If you need more than that you’ll need to call her yourself, but leave it for a bit. I keep hoping she’ll finally get some sleep one of these days.”

She’s still not sleeping?
Stefan didn’t like the sound of that.

“No. Too many visions. That’s a problem. If there was a chance of a serial killer being involved here, there’s no way he’d be as prolific as this. There has to be something else going on here,” Brandt said. “The visions are wearing her out. In the beginning it seemed like the connections were weaker, but now she says they are getting stronger. She can now hear their thoughts and feel their emotions. She said this stabbing guy was burning up in pain, and rage was fueling his actions. She said it was a horrible rage. Deep-seated and very old.”

Of course. Emotion is one of the best ways to gain a hold into someone.
And one he hadn’t considered.
You should be collecting a few more of these cases to add to the pile I have.

“I have them,” Brandt said. “Just haven’t gotten them to you yet. I could run them by your house today on the way home if you want.”

I might not be there. I’m keeping an eye on Celina right now.