Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Sweetie wasn’t a hunter, certainly, but she had a sharp eye. Her squawks grew louder.

  “All right, all right, I’m comin’,” he said, following the bird into the shadowy hallway. He was picturing a showdown between Tweetie bird and Jerry the mouse—as if the two old cartoon shows he’d liked as a kid had done a crossover episode. But not with the cats, Tom or Sylvester. Jersey didn’t like cats.

  He hadn’t taken two steps when Sweetie’s trilling voice was cut off, mid-tweet.

  Jersey’s heart raced as he realized something might have happened to his baby. She coulda flowing into the wall, or a window, or the closet. She might be injured, or trapped.

  He ran. Two long strides. Burst into the bedroom.

  Sweetie was lying on his bed, her little head twisted awkwardly to the side. A few drops of blood dotted her feathers, and her wings fluttered spasmodically.

  “No,” he wailed, his anguish a living thing that filled the room. “Whadja do, Sweetie? Oh, God, what’dja do?”

  He dove onto his knees on the bed, hunching over the tiny, gasping animal, watching as the delicate body grew still. His mind raced as memories of another lovely bird falling from the sky and dying on the ground shoved into his brain, until the two incidents became one.

  A scream rose from his mouth and a physical pain surged up from his gut. Tears welled in his eyes; his heart twisted and he wanted to curl up in a ball on the bed in shock and horror, and rock away the pain, not to mention the memories.

  Slowly, eventually, he dragged himself out of the past and focused only on the here and now. Which was equally as painful.

  His baby. His little girl. His companion in the dark, lonely hours, was gone.

  “Why?” he cried, aware others would probably think he was overreacting over the death of a bird that would probably live less than ten years anyway. But he’d wanted those years. He’d counted on them. Just as he’d wanted and counted on the years he’d spent with the three Sweeties who had come before her.

  He looked up at the fan spinning lazily overhead. Had his baby flown into it and been thrown down to the bed?

  “Stupid!” he called himself. “You were so stupid to leave it on.” The words ended on a sob as he reached down to brush his calloused fingertips over those soft wings.

  Jersey had seen death before. He’d wept when his favorite ponies had passed on over the years. He’d sobbed when he’d come home to find one of his chirping angels dead in a cage. That had happened more than once since the life of a bird was but a mere drop in the bucket full of a lonely old man’s tears.

  But this time there was blood and a broken neck. This hadn’t been the natural result of the old age of a small animal. It had been brutal and painful.

  A thought danced across his mind. Brutal.

  Barry.

  “No,” he whispered, tensing.

  Sweetie had been upset. She’d flown into something, likely the fan, and had fallen to her death. An accident.

  But what if it hadn’t been?

  Impossible. He was imagining things—boogeymen who stalked innocent birds.

  “You’re losing your marbles,” he muttered.

  The thought wouldn’t go away. What if Barry’s killer had been lying in wait for Jersey? What if a stranger’s dark presence was what had upset the sensitive creature? Maybe only the treats in Jersey’s front pocket had distracted her from swooping through the house to find the intruder as soon as her cage door was opened.

  He rose to his knees, preparing to back up and hop off the bed. He should look around, check the closet behind him. He was, after all, completely alone on this side of the carnival grounds. Everyone else had remained at the gathering, far out of screaming distance.

  You’re being a chump! As nervous as an old lady on the Round-Up.

  It wouldn’t hurt to check, though, would it? Nah. Wouldn’t hurt at all.

  Before he could follow his crazy instincts and search the small mobile home, though, he heard the floor squeak. He knew that squeak, hearing it every night when he got up to go to the can. It was distinctive, unmistakable.

  Someone was here. In the room. Behind him.

  His fear became terror. But before he could leap to his feet, a strong figure was on him, the attack happening between one breath and the next.

  Well, there wasn’t a next. Never would be.

  Pain. Good Christ, the pain.

  The nerve endings in his neck exploded with sensation. Fire was spreading across it, from right to left. He reached up, grabbing at his throat, shocked to see bright red blood pulsing between his fingers to ooze down his arms.

  Someone had cut him. Slit his throat from behind.

  “Poor birdie, cut down in mid-flight,” a deep voice said in a thick whisper. “Little tweety-bird would have been better off meeting a mean old pussy cat than me.”

  Jersey tried to breathe. Tried to swallow. Could do neither.

  He couldn’t even see his assailant, who stood behind him. He could only feel the warmth of the person’s body as he moved in close. Grabbing a handful of Jersey’s thinning, grey hair, the bastard brutally yanked his head back, sending a geyser of blood spewing across the bed. It drenched the bedspread. And the dead bird.

  If he could have screamed, he would have.

  He couldn’t. His vocal cords had been severed. His breath was gone.

  He wanted to understand. But with every beat of his heart blood gushed from Jersey’s slit throat. Shock came quickly, drawing his attention away from the pain a bit as his mind went hazy and his vision blurred.

  Just as he felt himself begin to fall forward, and the last of the brain waves fired, the powerful man behind him wrapped an arm around his chest to hold him up, and leaned close.

  He whispered something. Just a few words.

  They were enough.

  Because as the last drops of Jersey’s life’s blood gushed out of his body and he collapsed forward, the old man understood.

  He understood everything.

  Chapter 5

  Although he was staying at Shane and Gil’s place, Mick had agreed to meet Gypsy in town for breakfast Monday morning. She wanted to talk on neutral ground, away from the carnival. Away from the grief-filled eyes and the accusing glances of people who wanted to know why she hadn’t yet found Barry’s killer.

  They weren’t the only ones. Her guys were getting restless. So were the mayor and the members of the town council, who demanded daily updates. Local residents called and stopped by the station, wanting to know if it was safe to walk the streets. The editor of the tiny local paper had become her shadow.

  Everybody wanted this case solved. Nobody more than Gypsy. And she would solve it if it was the last thing she ever did.

  The man sitting across from her would help her do it.

  “You weren’t kidding. These are the best waffles I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Right?” She forked a piece of her veggie omelet, glad for the normalcy of breakfast at the Extra-Ordinary Diner on Main Street. “So are you sure you don’t mind sticking around for a day or two? No problem missing work up in Savannah?”

  Mick shook his head. “Like I told you yesterday, I’m not working any cases right now. If Julia needs me for something, she’ll call.”

  “Julia Harrington, the founder of your agency?”

  “Yes. You didn’t get to meet her last week, did you?”

  “No, I only met Olivia.” The pale blonde with the creepy power to touch a corpse and relive that person’s death.

  “Julia’s great. All of the agents are. We’re a hell of a team.”

  His tone suggested these people were more like family than coworkers. She supposed that made sense. From what she knew the Extrasensory Agents weren’t exactly respectable. Being loyal to each other would be the only way the investigators could handle the bad press.

  “I don’t know if it will come to this, but if this investigation goes stale and you need some fresh perspectives, I can call in a favo
r and have any of them down here within two hours.”

  A week ago she’d have laughed at the very idea. But now, as every day went on without a serious suspect, she was going to have to keep his offer in mind.

  “They have pretty different abilities, right?”

  “Yeah. I told you about Olivia.”

  “You did,” she said with a grimace. “What about the others?”

  “Well, Aidan has the sight.”

  “The what?”

  “He is a straight-up psychic. He knows things. Last year, he helped solve a crazy kidnapping/serial killer case in Granville, Georgia.”

  Barry hadn’t been a kidnap victim, certainly. But she could see the potential benefits.

  “Derek sees, well, he calls them imprints of violent deaths where they originally occurred.”

  “Ghosts? Seriously?” Her eyes widened. “He sees ghosts hanging around the places they died?”

  “No,” Mick said around a mouthful of waffle. He swallowed. “He’s not seeing a real ghost. He just sees a recreation of what happened in any particular spot. A smeary mimeograph.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  He grinned. “Neither do I. Something about old photocopies. But Derek gets it and says it’s about as accurate as anything else.”

  “I guess he’d know. How does it help?”

  “He can find murder scenes and literally see how someone died. If, ten years from now, he walked into that funnel cake trailer, he would see Barry dying, over and over again. But he wouldn’t see who did it.”

  She shuddered. Jesus. If what he was saying was true, those people had some seriously dark abilities. They made Mick’s hand-thing seem tame by comparison.

  Or, well, maybe not. At least his colleagues could put aside their gifts some of the time and have normal lives. Except maybe Derek, who had to walk around worrying he’d see somebody dying every time he turned a corner. But at least he would know to avoid that corner in the future. And Olivia could live her whole life without ever touching another dead body. And it sounded like Aidan’s psychic ability wasn’t automatic. She assumed he had to reach out and seek information.

  Mick, though, well, his strange talent affected him every single day. He would never be able to escape it. There was no way he could avoid being hit with old memories and emotions just by touching something. Going through life having to wear gloves, no matter how mysterious and, to be honest, sexy they made him look, had to be a real struggle. He could never take them off and live normally. Not ever.

  It would affect everything. He’d already admitted how it affected his sex life. His relationships.

  Honestly, his explanation about how his ability intruded between him and any women had broken her heart a little. This man wasn’t meant to be alone. He was too smart, too sexy, too charming. It was damned unfair, and the thought of it made her hurt for him—just because he was an old friend. Not, of course, because she’d thought she felt some sort of attraction flowing between them.

  Gypsy had never been a good liar. She couldn’t even manage to lie to herself.

  It wasn’t true. There was attraction. He hadn’t misread a thing on that stupid water bottle yesterday. But his gloves made acting on that nearly impossible. So did the fact that they were working together—whether she’d envisioned things that way or not. She might have gone up to Savannah just to ask him about the property he’d leased to her grandfather, but he’d proved to be instrumental. She needed him. His ability was one thing. Her suspicions about his grandfather were another. And Mick was her entrée to Monty Tanner. So bringing anything personal into the mix—like sex—was a really bad idea.

  Mick didn’t know yet about the Monty Tanner issue. She’d been loath to tell him, wanting him to enjoy his breakfast. She’d be ruining his day soon enough.

  “As for Julia…well, she’s pretty unique.”

  Back to Julia again. His very attractive boss.

  After their meeting last week, when she’d still been stunned over the kind of man Mick had grown up to be, she’d gone online and researched the Extrasensory Agents. One thing she quickly learned by visiting the paranormal detective agency’s website: it was staffed by extremely attractive people. Every agent pictured was attention-getting in one way or another. She’d caught herself staring at Aidan McConnell’s piercing eyes for a long time, and was fascinated by the scowling, brooding Derek Monahan. The female detectives were equally as unique. Olivia, the blonde, had been just as beautiful in person as she was in the picture on the site. And despite her professional dress and pose, the picture of Julia Harrington made her look more like a brunette bombshell than a businesswoman.

  Then, of course, there was the sexy man sitting across from her. Gorgeous. The innate charm and hint of playfulness had shone through the .jpeg, the slightest grin playing about that attractive mouth and a faint twinkle in his deep green eyes.

  Damn, she wished she’d looked up his picture before tracking him down last week. At least she would have been somewhat prepared for seeing the guy in the flesh after all these years.

  “Gypsy?”

  She stuffed some egg in her mouth, pretending she’d been so enjoying the food that she’d lost track of the conversation. “Um, what? Oh, you said something about your boss, right? What’s her special power?”

  “She doesn’t have any.”

  That was a surprise. “I thought it was kind of a prerequisite for the paranormal detective gig.”

  “Well, she was a cop, and was very good at it, from what I hear. So she brings that to the table, as well as some really good management skills.” He grinned. “She’s also one of the most relentless people I’ve ever met. She has a lot of confidence, and can definitely get us clients.”

  “I’m still surprised she ever got into this business if she didn’t have some kind of brush with the Twilight Zone side of investigation.”

  “I didn’t say that.” He reached for his coffee cup, and brought it to his mouth.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I said she didn’t have any abilities. She’s definitely brushed up against the supernatural. In fact, it pretty well lives with her.”

  She tilted her head in confusion.

  “She has a ghost friend who helps us out a lot.”

  Gypsy had just bitten into a piece of wheat toast and Mick’s comment made her swallow it wrong. She inhaled some crumbs and immediately had to cough into her napkin.

  “Here, take a drink!” he ordered, handing her a glass of water.

  Taking it gratefully, she gulped some down. She had to clear her throat several times before she felt capable of drawing a regular breath.

  “Did you say a ghost friend? Like the kind the other guy—Derek—sees?”

  “No. Try to keep up. Derek doesn’t seek ghosts. Julia does. Actually, so does Olivia these days, but we’re talking about Julia.”

  “I’m getting dizzy.”

  “Julia was a cop on the force in Charleston, and she was in love with another cop, a guy named Morgan Raines. He was gunned down one night and died in her arms.”

  She swallowed, not even wanting to imagine having to go through something like that.

  “A few months later, he came back into her life. Or his ghost did. He’s been with her ever since. She calls him her ‘silent’ partner. He’s been a lot of help and works cases with us.”

  She looked at her coffee cup. “Did you spike my coffee with vodka or something? Because I’m feeling drunk.”

  “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “It’s insane to take in.”

  “Yet it’s true. Every word of it.”

  She fell silent, thinking. The Mick she’d known had never been a liar. And he’d certainly never been a phony. So if he told her all these strange, paranormal activities and powers really existed among his friends and colleagues, she should believe him.

  But damn, it was hard. Her rational side—the side that wanted to live that nice, quiet, normal life that
was unlike anything she’d known in her carnival childhood—rebelled at even considering all this. The rational Gypsy had taken a vacation ten days ago and she wasn’t sure how she felt about this wilder one who actually believed in ghosts and psychics, other than not happy.

  “Say the word and I’ll have them here helping. Savannah’s not far away.” He ate more of his breakfast and moaned appreciatively. “God, this is good. Because Savannah’s so close, I might move here and commute, just so I can eat breakfast here every day.”

  “You should taste their mac-and-cheese,” she said before she could think better of it. Because that had sounded like she was encouraging the man to move here. She wasn’t. She had enough on her plate without dealing with a daily Tanner distraction. She’d see those eyes and that tall, strong body everywhere she turned.

  “You inviting me to dinner?”

  She swallowed and admitted, “I might owe you that after what I’m going to ask you to do in a little while.”

  He put down his fork, obviously hearing her seriousness. Eyeing her, he said, “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “Probably not.” She’d delayed enough. Time to get right to it. “I tried to reach your grandfather as soon as I got to the station this morning, and got only as far as his attorney.”

  He blew out a disgusted breath. “Fatcat named Richard Fremantle?”

  “That’d be him. I told him I’d like to ask Mr. Tanner some questions regarding the case. He got back to me right before you arrived.”

  Mick’s whole body tensed, and his eyes narrowed. She saw the way his gloved hand clutched his coffee mug, the way the leather flexed under the strength of his grip. He obviously knew where this was going.

  “I guess he’s heard that you’re in town. He will only meet with me in his lawyer’s office…and only if you are there as well.”

  “Sonofabitch,” he muttered, looking angry but not terribly surprised. “Typical Monty, always having to set the terms and get what he wants. Even at the expense of a murder investigation.”