Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (6 page)

“What are we going to do?” she demanded, hyper. “Please hurry, Miss Baranuik, I need you. I don't want to die tonight.”

Wonka wha--was I going somewhere? I swallowed my too-hot espresso, choked on the burn. I didn't know how much protection I could offer, with my itty bitty gun (that I'd never actually fired at anyone) and my psychic Talents. I could tell her how the rogue DaySitter felt just before he killed us, though I failed to see how that would improve the situation. If I Groped him, I could tell her how he planned to slaughter us. That didn't sound particularly helpful either.

Besides, a ninth degree telekinetic wouldn't even be arrestable. How would you get him into handcuffs? How could you get him into the squad car without him throwing it on its side? He'd turn bullets mid-air and tear craters in asphalt. My brain tripped along this fantasy a bit while I thought of some way to get out of helping her. What would he need eyeballs for? Why get the revenant to steal them when a telekinetic of that magnitude could just thought-pluck them right out of your living head? That image made my tongue stutter into action.

“OK. We'll figure this out. There's got to be something that can be done. Where's Mar—Agent Batten?” Christ on a Cheez Nip, Marnie, he's just a coworker. Ex-coworker. Last name basis!

“We're staying at a little motel called the Ten Springs Motor Inn, just off—”

“I know where it is. Tell him to bring you here immediately, you'll be far safer at my place.”

“He's not here.”

“Why the hell not? Didn't you tell him?”

There was a long beat of silence, during which the nape of my neck crawled unpleasantly. This was not a good sign; why wouldn't someone call in Big Guns Batten and the monster killing guts of his kit? He was a gigantic jerkwad, but he was still the first person I'd call if the bad guys were on my ass, and she was his fiancée…something felt wrong.

I said tentatively, “Look, I'm retired. I really shouldn't get involved in a federal case.” Especially since I told them to go take a flying leap only an hour ago. “You need to contact the PCU immediately.”

“You're just going to let me die?” she squawked.

“Of course not. Call Chapel, he'll bring you to me—”

“Bad cell phone reception, can't reach him.”

Grimacing, I slipped off my left glove and wrapped it around the receiver of the phone; it rarely worked unless the other person was really keyed-up, pouring out emotions in a palpable fashion, but it was easy this time: distrust, suspicion, fury, disgust, fear. Mostly fear. I was about to tell her I was on my way to pick her up when she snarled, literally snarled, and the feral sound of it stole my voice.

“You need to get here,” she ground out. “Now. I don't want cops. I don't want Mundanes. I want you.” Gone was the shaky voice. She didn't wait a beat for me to accept or refuse. “If I don't see your scrawny, bleached ass within the hour, I'm going to call Assistant Director Geoff Johnston at Quantico and tell him you screwed a PCU agent on the job. You'll never work for the FBI again.”

Bleached ass? I boggled at the phone, holding it away from my face as if gawking down the line at her. Who bleaches their ass? What does that even mean?

Laughing incredulously, I spluttered, “I'm retired. Why would I give a rat's left tit what anyone thinks of me?”

“You've got thirty minutes,” she shouted. “Or I make you sorry you ever entered the circuit!”

“I'm already sorry I ever worked the circuit!” I shouted back. “Look lady, I was fully prepared to drive out and help you, but I don't respond well to ultimatums. Tell Director Johnston I say howdy-doo!”

Her tone became frosty, enunciating each word clearly. “I'll tell Johnston that Special Agent Mark Batten compromised the Jeremiah Prost investigation and let a child killer escape because he was too busy fucking your brains out, and that SSA Gary Chapel knew and covered it up. Because of you, they'll both lose their jobs.”

Silence dropped like a bomb in my kitchen, and I reeled back in the chair. Point: Sherlock, that bitch. Again I had to hold the phone away from my head, this time so I wouldn't take her head off. All my objections died in my mouth; my jaw worked around a hundred of them, but my pinched lips were a fortress of reluctant compliance. There was no way I could let my inability to keep my knees together get Chapel and Batten fired.

“It'll take me about fifty minutes to drive in,” I growled, not believing what I was hearing myself say. “Do you have clary sage?”

“What for?”

“I'll bring the sage,” I told her, going to the pantry to pull down my big yellow Tupperware box. Not all psychics practice green magic of an herb-and-gemstone sort. Most did, simply because once you witnessed magic in one form, you believed, and belief is a potent ingredient. “Go take a bath, saltwater if you can find salt, and
as cold as you can stand. That should slow down the vibration of your psi signature. If they're using that to track you, he might miss you on a first pass. Stay chilly. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“And then?” she asked.

I was supposed to have an answer. I didn't. I had a glimmer of several rotten ideas that no doubt would get us both killed, I had sage and I had my mini gun. I was hoping when I got there, Batten would be back. I could turn the problem over to the law and just forget this whole shit day had ever happened. The lovebirds (ex-lovebirds?) could catch a flight out of Colorado to a safe house wherever, and I could wake my Cold Company for his nighttime feed and an old black and white movie with popcorn before bed.

“Then we end it,” I promised her with far more bravery than I felt. “We figure our shit out, and deal with the rogue together. Like adults. Like professionals. I'm sure we can work it out.”

“Yes,” she said, dreadful relief flooding through the phone. Her disgust had been replaced by hope. “You and me. We end it. Together.”

I hung up by chucking the phone clear across the room, where it smashed and the battery pack went spinning across the floor. I slipped my glove back on angrily. As if Batten were standing in front of me, I muttered, “I knew your dick was going to come back and bite me in the ass.”

SIX

When I was seventeen, I had inherited the care and feeding of Lord Guy “Harry” Harrick Dreppenstedt on the recommendation of my grandma Vi's last will and testament. Sharing his psychic Talents wasn't a conscious decision on Harry's part, not a gift or an honor bestowed on his caregiver. It was more like living in the same house as a chain-smoker: one day you realize that, never mind your clothes or your hair, even your flesh is embedded with their stink.

Being as my power was his, that he effortlessly feels my intentions through our Bond, you'd think Harry never has to ask me anything, never mind stupid questions like: “just where is it you think you are going?”, which is what his text message read. I could practically hear the disdain.

I hurtled down the ice-slicked Interstate in my old reliable Buick Century, the bumpy ride barely felt by the mammoth car, hugging curves and charging uphill and plunging in and out of dim mountain pass tunnels. The sun was full-strength now at winter's distance, brilliant without warmth, glinting off crumbled frost shards and salt patches. The car's heat was cranked. Fat heavy clouds warned that the sunny moment was fleeting; I'd be needing my headlights and wipers soon. Daft Punk was thudding my car's old speakers. I didn't have the time or attention to take one hand off the wheel and thumb-in a reply; Half-Asleep Harry could just figure it out for himself. I didn't know what had roused him early from his rest—I'd been too far away to feel him wake—but I did know he wouldn't be overjoyed about me riding to Danika's rescue, regardless of the reason. I was not in the mood to hear bleated objections in his lofty Londoner's tongue.

For half the ride, my thoughts revolved around Batten. OK, more like ninety percent. Should I call him, tell him about the rogue DaySitter and the blackmail? He was the capital-L Law. He was the big tough FBI dude, the PCU's preternatural crimes expert (if there was such a thing). Mr. Guns Ablazin’ with the bulletproof vest stamped with big white letters and a license to kill misbehaving monsters, a hundred and five kill-notch tattoos on his left pectoral to prove it.

I'd never had bad reception in the area, not even out at the lake at Shaw's Fist, but I hadn't felt a lie from within Sherlock's transmitted goulash of disgust and desperation. Had Chapel turned off his phone? I thought FBI dudes shouldn't be allowed to do that. Had Batten had more pressing matters this morning? What could be more important than a crazy-scary telekinetic after your fiancée? Certainly not coming to my cabin to flap pictures of dead people at me, mock me with stupid nicknames and take potshots at my living arrangements. That, we both could have skipped.

I should call him. Could I bring myself to say her name to him? Had Batten told his fiancée about us, even if there was really no “us”? Confession, full disclosure? Or had she found out on her own? Had she confronted him? It niggled at my conscience when I should have been paying more attention to navigating sharp turns. I fishtailed once and nearly went off on the runaway truck ramp, had to crank the wheel and yelp a quick prayer. When the Buick was back under control and I had called myself all the synonyms for moron I could scrounge up, I went back to obsessing. The Buick sailed into a murky mountain tunnel. The overhead lights strobed across the long hood rhythmically.

When I showed up and Danika opened the motel door, I'd be facing a woman who knew I'd boffed her man behind her back, a woman who didn't sound too pleased about it. To be fair, when I was with him in Cheektowaga, up against that bathroom door breathless with lust, thinking I might just be the luckiest/stupidest woman on Earth, I didn't have any idea he was engaged. He gave me no reason to believe so. I like to think it would have stopped me.

I could tell her that. It would be my only defense. But stuff like hindsight didn't mean much when a man swapped bodily fluids
with more than one woman. I mean, it wasn't like I was planning to fuck him again, right? (“Don't ever doubt that you're needed, Baranuik.”) With a sick heart, I managed the last sharp turn near the gas bar and barreled downhill into town in my civilian tank.

Ten Springs, Colorado, population 540, was forty-five minutes northwest of Denver, nestled between two small mountain lakes, Shaw's Fist and Cleaver's Rest, named after two of the three founding families. The town was entered from the north by a one-way bridge that had no official name but which locals called Lambert's Crossing, named after the third.

Ten Springs is the kind of place where proprietors ran shops like “Bobbi-Sue's Classi Hair” right next to the head-scratching combination of “Indian Gourmet and Saloon” featuring “town-famous Tikka Masala”. In front of the Salon and the Saloon was a scuffed budgie-yellow emergency phone that was a direct line to the Lambert County sheriff's office, presumably in case of a butchered haircut or hot curry attack. It was sort of redundant; the sheriff's office was across the street and you could stand at the phone waving at the bored dispatcher through the plate glass window.

The town had the distinction of boasting the best breakfast-only cafe in the state, Claire's Early Bird. Claire's was open at midnight and through the moonlit hours for truckers passing through on US-36, and closed at 1:30 pm. I'd never understood why Claire kept undead hours when she was human, and hadn't yet summoned the courage to ask anyone.

I was the last customer of the day to grab a couple of coffees and a cherry Danish to settle my growling tummy. Claire herself was there, a serious woman of wiry hair and indeterminate age, manning the cash register while a waitress finished spritz-cleaning the tables. Claire was a rare gem; she knew who I was and what I was, and didn't give a crap. I appreciated that. In a tiny speck of a town where it was an unwritten law that people know their neighbors’ business, Claire held the opinion that we were all on an even playing field. As such, I deserved the same flat crocodilian stare she gave everyone, no more, no less.

I took my coffee black, and left Danika's black because I didn't know how she took it. Claire packed me some creamer and sugar
packets and off I went, cramming the Danish in my cheek and sucking clean my fingers. Harry would have a conniption fit if he saw it: gasp, me without my serviette.

As I cruised the only street through Ten Springs, I wondered why Batten and Sherlock (and I assumed Chapel) had come to stay here of all places, when Denver had better hotels closer to the crime scene. I knew they were still together, I'd seen her ankles in those pictures, dammit. Maybe they chose Ten Springs because they had to come see me? How did Danika feel about that? Why did they come to me at all? They had her, a clairvoyant, a Witness; even with her ability to focus psi fading-out, a Witness still trumped a Groper like me any day. Danika really was better than me in every way. Lovely thought.

And then I thought of the only compromise that made sense for me. I dialed Chapel's cell and waited for his pleasant, business-casual reply.

“Gary, it's Marnie. I've got an issue, here. Your psychic is in trouble.” I explained what Danika had seen, and how she needed me, but left out the blackmail part and any mention of Batten. “I'm pulling up to your motel now.”

“We're halfway to Denver,” Chapel replied, said something hurried that I didn't catch to someone off the phone, and I heard Batten's gruff, unintelligible reply. Then he came back with, “We'll be at the hotel ASAP. Hang tight, Marnie.”

I signed off, feeling a thousand times better. Hooray, the knights in Kevlar armor are on their way. Now, to shuffle my feet through the inevitable me-Danika-Batten moment in the same room, but only briefly, because once they arrived, I could probably scram. I'm no super hero. I don't have kickass fighting skills. Like I told Danika, I'm just a Groper-Feeler.

Wait, did he say hotel or motel? Probably it meant nothing. The Ten Springs Motor Inn came into view, eight rooms in a long L-shape, each room shaded from behind by stands of Blue Spruce and Bosnian Pine. An Aspen with ghostly branches, leaves lost two months ago, scratched at the weathered shingles with grey talons, a hibernating monster looming over the dark lot. She'd said room 4, and by the looks of the parking lot, it was the only one occupied.
Obscene fluorescent lights gleamed in the office, under the sign that said v can y. I mentally filled one missing letter and thought the resulting “v-candy” sounded vaguely pornographic.