Wicked Lies (17 page)

Do you want to know your future?

She shook her head and switched on the ignition.

Hell, no.

CHAPTER 13

L
aura’s stomach began to growl.

After what seemed an eternity, their plates of huevos rancheros were delivered with an apology. “Mix-up in the kitchen. Sorry,” the barkeep said, as they’d ordered over half an hour earlier. Laura cautiously tried the food. Harrison’s gaze was on her, and she admitted with surprise after the first bite, “It is really good.”

“Told ya,” he said with satisfaction. “Worth the wait.”

“I don’t know about that.”

They tucked into their food for a few moments, and then Laura ventured cautiously, “You’re a little too easy to talk to.”

“I get it, you don’t trust me.”

“Should I?”

He laughed. “You tell me.”

“Not an answer, Frost.” She jabbed a fork in his direction. “I’m guessing this—the meal, the laid-back attitude, the easygoing smile—is all part of your own interviewing technique.”

“If it’s working, call it what you will.” The corners of his eyes crinkled.

“I know. You’re not into semantics.”

He found a bottle of hot sauce and sprinkled some over the remainder of his meal. “Tell me,” he wondered aloud, “why would the police think you’re a psycho if you told them you knew about Justice’s game plan?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe.” He took a bite and washed it down with coffee. “By the way, what is it?”

“His game plan?” Laura gazed into his hazel eyes, found herself slightly mesmerized. Scary. “I guess only he could really answer that.” Harrison poured them each more coffee from the pot, and she added a little more cream, watching the clouds come to the surface of her mug. “Do you believe in psychic phenomena?” she asked cautiously as she stirred and the cream dissipated. She knew she was treading on dangerous water here. He was a journalist, into the facts, things he could touch, taste, hear, and smell. He wouldn’t be into “feelings” or “sensations.”

“Not really.”

“Didn’t think so.”

He scooped a forkful of beans, tortilla, and ranchero sauce into his mouth. “Why?” he asked after he’d swallowed.

“The police don’t either.”

“You’re saying you’re a psychic?”

“Not really,” she said, purposely echoing his words. “But my family has experienced . . .”

“Experienced?” he repeated when she faded out.

“We have . . . we all have . . .”

“Yeah?”

She wondered, really wondered, if she was really going to admit this. Her heart started pounding hard.

“Something woo-woo?” he suggested.

“I knew you’d make fun.”

“I’m not making fun,” he said so sincerely and she almost believed him. Almost. “I’m just trying to see where you’re going.” When she remained silent, he suggested, “Are you saying you have some kind of ESP, or something?”

“Wow, I’m sorry I started this,” she said, meaning it. “I knew I would be.”

“Look, I might have trouble swallowing all the psychic stuff, but I’m not completely closed-minded.”

“Aren’t you?” she challenged.

He smiled, offering up that sexy grin she found ridiculously fascinating. She looked down at her plate, resisting his charm, his winning ways. “I’ll prove it. Why don’t you give me an example of what you’re talking about?”

She said, “I’m a nurse. I’m a good nurse, and I believe in science and healing through medicine. If you repeat what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it. I’ll flat out lie, because I’m good at my job and I don’t want my patients thinking I’m a nutcase.”

“Fair enough.”

She smiled back at him, disbelieving.

“Look, making judgment calls isn’t conducive to interviewing people,” Harrison pointed out. “I gotta say, you’ve got me on the edge of my seat.”

“I have a sister who is precognitive,” Laura stated. “She sees things in the future.”

“Such as?”

“She knew Justice had escaped before I told her.”

“Well, it was on the news. . . .”

“Uh-uh.” Laura shook her head. “No television. No outside information. They didn’t know anything but what Cassandra had told them.”

“Cassandra?”

“Don’t write that down!” she stated quickly as Harrison reached for his small tablet as the door to the restaurant opened and a group of three men entered to take a seat at a nearby table. She lowered her voice. “I’m serious.”

He lifted his hands. “I know. I get it. I was just going to ask you what all their names were. From the sound of it, there are enough of you that I’ll need to write them down.”

“I’m not giving you their names. Don’t make me sorry I told you about Cassandra.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay.” She was firm.

“What about you, then? What’s your special ability?”

She glanced at her half-eaten food and gently pushed her plate aside. She’d never told anyone. Had known not to.

You need the truth seeker.

“Ms. Adderley?”

“It’s Laura . . . Lorelei, actually.”

“Lorelei. Like in the myth?”

She stared at him, surprised. So few knew. Fewer still made any connection.

“I majored in journalism with an English minor,” he explained.

She didn’t know what to say. He kept surprising her, which made her question whether she was the one who had the prejudices. No, no. She wasn’t going to second-guess herself. If she’d learned anything from her marriage to the God of all know-it-alls, Byron Adderley, it was that she did know her own mind. She took in a calming breath, then said, “Okay, here it is. I sometimes know what’s wrong with a patient, physically. I can guess the diagnosis.”

“Is that so weird . . . for someone in the medical field?”

“Maybe not.” She pressed her lips together. She knew her ability was something special, but if he wasn’t interested in believing, she wasn’t about to push the issue. But she also wanted help in finding Justice, and so far, he was her best candidate. “But the thing is . . . the real psychic ability that I guess I want you to know . . . is . . .”

“Is?” he prodded.

She almost laughed. What good was this admission going to do for her? “Okay, it’s that I can hear Justice.”

“Hear him? How do you mean?”

Oh, God, here goes nothing.
If anything would convince Frost that she was off her nut, this would. “What I mean is that I can hear his voice scraping at my brain. He talks to me.”

Harrison Frost was trying really, really hard to keep his face from giving him away. Laura could sense the effort he was putting into his act of believing her. “Well, then, what does he say?” he asked carefully.

“I knew it. You’re humoring me.”

“What does he say?” he repeated.

“He says, ‘
Sssisssterrr,’
” she rasped. “He says it with a menace so strong, it actually scratches across my brain and I know he’s coming for me.” Harrison was staring at her intently, but there wasn’t disbelief in his expression. “I’ve sensed him all my life. He’s sent messages off and on for years, although I didn’t really get what they were about until I was older. I only really fully understood the last when he was on his mission.”

Harrison’s face was sober now, his eyes darkening gravely, his jaw rock hard, not a hint of a smile on his lips. “His mission of killing people? A few years back? That’s what you’re talking about?”

She nodded. “Justice is after my family. I don’t know why exactly. He wants to kill us all.”

“And he’s sending you messages to that effect?”

“Yes.” Then, “I know what it sounds like.” She rubbed her face hard, wishing she hadn’t started this, knowing there was no backing out now. Besides, she needed someone to know that she had contact with Justice, though she supposed trusting a reporter like Harrison Frost wasn’t the best idea. “His voice is really strong right now. He knows where I am. I’m on his radar.”

“You think he wants to kill you.”

And my baby.
“Oh, yeah.” Of this she was certain.

“What’s he got against all of you?”

“Good question. Catherine says Mary was cruel to him when he was young. What that means, I don’t really know. People can be unkind, even brutal, or cruelty can be imagined. Even so, to the victim, it’s real.”

He clicked his pen as he frowned thoughtfully. “What about Justice’s own mother?”

“Madeline,” she said, remembering. “I—I don’t know. He tried to kill her before, though. He’s never sent me any kind of message about that, and when . . . when he reaches toward me, I block him out.”

“You mean mentally?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“So, he’s got this ability, too.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Harrison’s gaze narrowed. “So, how does it work, exactly?”

“I raise up a wall inside my mind, and he’s blocked out. I mentally visualize the wall, build it strong and tall, and it cuts him off.”

“But didn’t you say his voice is stronger now?”

“Since he escaped. Yes.” She nodded, felt the hair on her nape rise when she thought of Justice’s hideous sibilant messages. “Oh, God, this is horrible.”

Harrison stared at her a moment, then said softly, “I think I’ve got enough. No more questions for now.”

“Good.” The truth was, she was drained; dredging up all the old memories and concentrating on Justice’s malevolence was exhausting.

Harrison leaned back, caught the bartender’s attention, and signaled for the check. Within seconds, the bartender brought over the tab. Harrison left several bills on the table as she shrugged into her jacket. Together they wended their way through tables and past the bar, where, despite the early hour, the barkeep was drawing beers and making Bloody Marys.

Laura felt Harrison’s hand in the small of her back once, guiding her around two newcomers who were talking and taking up more than their share of personal space in the aisle.

At the door, Harrison leaned closer and said, “I want to get this guy. I mean I
really
want to get him.”

“Me, too,” Laura responded with feeling. She wouldn’t rest easy until he was behind bars. Or dead.

“If you can help me, I’m all for that, no matter how you do it,” he said, shouldering open the door to the gray day beyond. “If he calls to you, let me know.”

“I will.” And she would, though what good it would do, she didn’t know. Standing on the front steps and looking toward the ocean, she noticed a fog bank crawling closer to the shore. Eventually, it would obscure the beach completely, making it difficult for the beach cleaners, volunteers who had come to the coast, to pick up the garbage, to do their job.

He thought for a moment as they started down the wide stairs, disturbing a seagull that was scavenging near the walkway. “Wait a minute. Does it work both ways? Can you call to him?”

Laura had never tried. Didn’t want to. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Anything was possible.

“Maybe the question should be, would you consider calling to him? You know, to draw him out?”

She paused on the bottom step and glared at him. “Let me get this straight. You want me to place myself in danger. He’s a psychopath, you know. If . . . if I let him in, he’ll know where I am.”

Harrison frowned, squinting against the fractured sunlight slipping through the thickening fog. “And he’ll come for you. That’s what you think?”

“Yes!”

“You’re certain?”

“Pretty much—yeah.”

His scowl deepened. “Okay. That’s not good.”

“Not good at all.” She felt the cold dampness of the morning caressing her skin, chilling her bones again.

“Does he know where you work?”

“He doesn’t know anything about me but my name. At least I hope he doesn’t,” she said with a catch in her heart as they crossed the pockmarked parking lot, their shoes crunching on loose gravel.

“Does he know what you look like?” he asked.

Laura touched her dyed hair before she could stop herself, and she saw his eyes follow the gesture. “If he got anywhere near me, he’d know me, I think.”

“That why you didn’t want to be on camera last night?”

“I didn’t want to be on camera for a lot of reasons, but yes,” she admitted, “that was the biggie.”

“So when was it that you last heard from him?” he asked.

“This morning, when I was in the shower.” She remembered his hiss over the shower’s pulsing spray, and she felt Justice’s malevolence all over again . . . so close . . . so damned close. “He told me he was coming for me.”

“In those words?”

“No . . . I don’t know.” Laura felt embarrassed now. Her secrets bared. The way Harrison was looking at her and struggling to understand was excruciating.

“Let me get this straight. Since he escaped, you think you’ve been getting stronger messages,” he reiterated.

“I know I have. It’s possible his messages might have been blocked while he was at Halo Valley. I hadn’t heard from him at all while he was incarcerated.” Harrison nodded slowly, and she said, “I know what this sounds like. The lady is loony, one step away from a room at Halo Valley herself.”

“Nah.” He shook his head, and she noticed his hair was darkening with the damp air. “I’ve heard a lot of weird stuff over the years. Maybe you’ve got some ability. Maybe you don’t. Maybe this is just insight. Maybe it’s something more. I don’t really care.” He seemed sincere. She didn’t dare look too closely into his eyes, though, because she was afraid she might get lost in them and start believing everything he said, and that, she knew, would be foolish. He was saying, “But I’m willing to go with it and see where it leads. You obviously believe it, and if it helps find the bastard, fine. But it sounds like you think you haven’t heard from him for a while because he was locked away.”

“Yeah . . . it might be the distance, but . . . I have the feeling that it could be because he was on some kind of meds, drugs that inhibited his ability somehow. But that’s just a guess. I don’t really know.”

“Doesn’t matter. The thing is he wasn’t able to reach you until he escaped. But now he’s coming in loud and clear.”

“Right,” she said, knowing it was, at least partially, a lie.

The pregnancy. That’s why he’s so close. He found me because I’m pregnant.
It wasn’t just because he’d been incarcerated.