“Already planned to.” Juliana stroked his chest. “What do you make of the break-in?” She had theories, but wasn’t ready to share. Not until she did her own special brand of investigation. Ideas burned in her gut to explore as if she’d lose the scent if she didn’t.
“Someone trying to freak you out, playing games. Maybe the mysterious people screwing with the Guild.”
“But I’m not Guild.”
Alex muttered unintelligible words, his typical undocumented caveman opinion.
Happy to divert his attention elsewhere and leveraging his willingness to share, she asked, “What about Falbrooke’s accident?”
“Forensics hasn’t found evidence of a bullet anywhere.” Juliana froze and he held up a hand. “They’re searching for causation. Right now, it’s ruled an accident.”
She knit her brows, shaking her head. “I know what I saw.”
“You’ve been wrong before.” He flinched as if she’d haul off and hit him. “You didn’t have another vision last night. You didn’t touch anything at the scene that meant a damn.”
She shot him a death-ray look. “That’s because I didn’t touch everything.”
“There’s nothing left.”
“The car.”
“Falbrooke’s dead. You communing with the dead now?” His lips kicked up in a tiny smile.
“No.” She frayed the edge of the sheet, what if’s working overtime in her brain. “Doesn’t mean he didn’t leave strong imprints that might give me a vision. He was living through the worst trauma of his life. There has to be an emotion left behind on the steering wheel at least. The faster we act, the better.”
“You seriously think your vision stemmed from Falbrooke, not the gunman?”
“According to San Jose’s finest, they don’t think there was a gunman,” she half-teased despite her puzzlement. What had she truly seen? “I want to check out the car. Today.” She braced for Alex’s denial.
He opened his mouth, hesitated. “We’ll see after I get back.”
A clunky knock sounded on the door. “Uncle Alex, Aunt Jewel?” Lisette’s tiny voice wafted through the door. “Can I come in?”
Joy washed over Juliana. She’d never tire of hearing the precious child call her “Aunt Jewel” before her status became official. Speaking of which, if her fiancé had his way they’d be married tomorrow. They needed to set a date and plan a wedding. If she played her cards right, they might even celebrate a double wedding.
“Hey, Lizzie, come on in,” Alex answered his beloved niece.
Andrea opened the door, admitting Lisette carefully balancing a tray of waffles and fruit cups.
“Check it out, munchkin. You’re the best breakfast server in the world.” Alex rose and took the tray from Lisette before she dropped her load.
Andrea set two mugs of coffee on the nightstand. “Must we have all family meetings with you two in bed all the time?”
“We could always have them in James’s room,” Alex teased. Andrea blushed scarlet.
“In my new room here!” Grinning, Lisette bounced on the bed.
Alex drummed his foot on the floor. “Sure. Your new room? Are you two becoming a permanent fixture?”
James came up behind Andrea and wrapped her in a bear hug. “Why not? You’re never here.”
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my cue to eat my breakfast and let the cops duke this out on your run.” Juliana scrambled over the bed covers and snagged a plate. “Bye. See ya.”
“Wouldn’t want to be ya.” Lisette giggled, settling onto the bed and gazing upon Juliana adoringly, a sly smile lighting up her sweet pixie face. “Will you bring JB over?”
Alex shouted from down the hall around a mouthful of waffle, “JB’s guarding the house while Aunt Jewel stays the weekend.” With his parting shot, the guys disappeared, leaving the girls alone. The house alarm beeped. Their prison wardens may as well slap bars on the windows and install a dozen guards outside.
Andrea tilted her head to the side. “Tell me what’s revolving in that freaky brain of yours, Aunt Jewel.”
Juliana grinned. “Road trip?” she mouthed. “When the guys return. We need to go grocery shopping, if you know what I mean.” Juliana elevated her voice for Lisette’s benefit. “Don’t you need to pick up some clothes at your house?”
Chapter Six
After Alex’s frowny warning about sticking together like glue, Juliana and Andrea drove off in Andrea’s car, beeping the horn as Lisette waved to them from the front doorway. The PD had just called Alex in for an emergency fill in, leaving Juliana and Andrea to their own devices and Lisette hanging with James.
“I really do need to snag stuff at home.” Andrea chewed a fingernail. “What’s going on in that blonde head of yours? You’re hiding a scheme up your cute little sleeve.” She paused and fingered Juliana’s sleeve. “I want to marry your blouse, by the way. Where on earth did you score it?”
“Macys and I want another one in black. Damn, we needed our shopping trip yesterday.”
Andrea and Juliana had instantly reconnected after Juliana helped save Lisette from the psycho kidnapper. Time seemed to reverse and they were inseparable best friends again. Juliana had truly come home in a way she thought she’d never experience when she left New York.
“Head to my house.” Juliana twisted her loose hair around her fingers. Now that she was a permanent fixture in Alex’s life, he preferred her hair loose and not tied up in a French braid all the time. As much as she liked her old-fashioned braids, she loved pleasing Alex, loved the feel of his hands sliding in her hair. The style made her feel sexier, more confident.
“Alex said—”
“To stick together. I need to do this now before I lose this weird gut feeling I have, and Alex can’t go with me.”
Andrea snickered. “Yeah, if he had his way, you’d be in his bed all day long.”
Juliana giggled. “The sex is incredible.”
Andrea scrunched up her nose and twisted her mouth. “Eww. TMI. TMI. You’re talking about my brother.”
“You’re one to talk. You and James haven’t spent a night apart since—”
“Sure we have. He had to work an overnight shift a few weeks ago.”
Wincing in sympathy, Juliana said not unkindly, “And you spent that night at my house.”
“I don’t like living alone anymore.” Andrea’s shoulders slumped forward. “I like our little family, the five Musketeers.”
Her words hung in the air. The kidnapping remained too fresh, always in the depths of their minds how easily the perp had slipped in and out of Andrea’s condo without her knowing.
Juliana squeezed Andrea’s hand on the center gearshift. “I feel the same. I like us all together too.”
Andrea hit the main street leading to Juliana’s neighborhood in the Almaden foothills. “Give me the scoop, Ms. Rebel.”
Her sympathy gave way to excitement. “I viewed enough in my vision when I touched the doorknob to discern a couple places the man touched. I didn’t recognize my house at first. Now that I’ve figured it out, I see him in place. He’d taped his fingers, but his palms remained bare and he left imprints.”
“What’s up with that, anyway? It appears deliberate, or someone trying to throw you off the murder trail.”
“Yet, Forensics is still ruling it an accident, not a murder. Alex thinks the two are related too. He hasn’t decided to believe if there was a gunman shooting at the car.”
“He doesn’t want you joining the Guild, you know?” Andrea swerved to the left to avoid a pothole primed to eat her economy car.
Juliana swished her hand in the air. “I’m not sure when or if I’ll join, but I’m not ruling it out. There’s a comradery with like-kinds that may be beneficial for me and them too.”
“Do you wish you’d known about them while you were at the Institute?”
“Sure. The general population at the Institute was allowed to engage, yet we weren’t living real world, if you kno
w what I mean. It was forced, forced testing on each other, limited interaction. Too many psychics in one room ain’t a pretty sight.”
“But Niles told you to stay away. Do you think the intruder might be related to the attacks against Guild members? Seems farfetched, all this happening in one day. A coincidence, but not.”
Juliana twisted the emerald ring Alex had given her for her eighteenth birthday. “I don’t know. I wished he’d given me the ugly details. He acted sketchy like he wanted to befriend me, then wanted to escape me or was hiding something. He didn’t even want to interrogate me about my vision. über evasive.”
Andrea drove onto Juliana’s driveway and parked. “To keep his distance and you safe from the threats, right?”
“I guess.”
Juliana shut the door to the car, scanning the neighborhood. She waved to her neighbor Alan washing his car across the street. “Neighborhood looks normal.”
“Normal’s over-rated.”
“Talking to your brother, much?” Juliana unlocked the deadbolt on the front door and palmed the doorknob, holding up a finger to quiet Andrea. She focused, but didn’t gain an inkling of an impression. In doing their job, the police had botched up Juliana’s chance to get closer to the perp.
They entered, the alarm notification beep piercing an ear drum. Juliana punched in the code—her and Alex’s birthdates—silencing the irritating beep. The comfort of the alarm didn’t stop Juliana from growing leery since plenty criminals knew how to breach them. She relocked the door, and they walked from room to room, on guard, until satisfied the house was empty.
JB ran through the cat door cut into the door to the garage off the kitchen. Juliana scooped him up and hugged him to her chest. “Miss Lisette says hello, Jingle Bells.” She kissed his furry head and set him down, then refilled his food and water bowls. She turned to Andrea who was scoping out her bare pantry. “Ready?”
“Girl, you seriously need to go grocery shopping.”
“Well, Alex and I haven’t had food much on our minds.”
Andrea held up her hand. “Stop. I can’t take much more of your trash talk. That’s my bro.”
Juliana grinned. She loved every moment of her life now, and had a boatload of fun times ahead. “Come on. Police took the book and candleholder to check for prints, but I think he touched the table. I hope the CSI team didn’t obliterate him totally when they dusted for prints.”
“I’m sure they did if they were thorough.”
“Not necessarily. An imprint isn’t tangible, if you know what I mean. However, if too many people touched the imprint, the interaction diminishes or kills the connection. A powerful transmitter, strong excitement, or exaggerated emotions are the best bet for a solid connection.”
“You mean like another psychic as the transmitter?”
Juliana leaned over the coffee table in the family room. “Remember, touch telepathy is all new to me. I’m not sure how far my capabilities will go. There’re psychics who have extra-sensory abilities—clairvoyance—who read imprints most sentient beings leave behind, not just by touch either.”
Andrea shuddered. “Ugh, freaks me out how one can sense things about another person by touching their imprint. How does that person exist in the real world? Or maybe they can block like Alex and I do with our twin telepathy. You know anyone with those abilities?”
“There was a girl at the Institute, about our age.” Juliana straightened, eyeballing the door to the patio, another item the intruder had touched. “The minute I touched her, I knew she was unique. I couldn’t read her mind, for one, and I felt her invasion in my skull, but she wasn’t reading my mind. She told me she was sorry my mother had died, sorry I had lost the love of my life, and that I left my book in the courtyard garden. The weirdest thing ever. She wasn’t at the Institute long…lost her memory, PTSD after her mother died. I’ve never met another clairvoyant, but I’d love to find someone who has similar ESP. We could do killer tasks for the police.” She hip-bumped Andrea. “Just what Alex and James need, right?”
“You got that right.” Andrea locked her arm around Juliana’s. “Sooo…had you left your book in the courtyard?”
“Yes! I was frantic thinking I’d lost it. Doc Brian gave it to me, a first edition signed copy of The Hobbit. Middle Earth, my escape from my crapass life.”
Andrea tugged her in for a bone-crusher hug. “You have the MacKenzies now. You’re one of us. Always have been, always will.”
Tears misted Juliana’s eyes. “I love you guys so much.”
“You love me more than Alex, right?” Andrea released her and gave her a thumbs up. “Girl power.”
“When he’s being Overprotective Detective McGrumpy.” Juliana sighed. “Okay, let’s do this before he sends out the McDwarves.” She handed her tote to Andrea. “If I get sucked in…somewhere, which I doubt since the intruder wasn’t overly excited, talk to me positively. Tell me how much you, Alex, and Lisette need me, love me, Musketeers, blah, blah, blah. You get it, right?”
Andrea twisted her bangle bracelets, the jingle of the five silver bands a nervous melody. “I’m scared. What if I fail?”
“You’ll be fine.” Juliana’s words didn’t match her waning confidence, not in Andrea’s ability, but in the unknown of her budding touch telepathy.
“I’ll call Alex, put him on speakerphone.”
“Last ditch.”
“Agreed.”
Juliana sat on the floor against the couch in front of the table. Andrea perched on the couch next to her, far enough away to avoid touching Juliana. In her mind’s eye, she spied the intruder grip the table’s corner, deliberately feathered his hand along the edge, as though wanting her to follow. Shutting her eyes, Juliana hovered over the table edge, her index finger brushing residual fingerprint dust until it stopped on the top of the corner. Bursts of light flickered. The vision sucked her in, and she slumped forward.
He stroked the table, ran his hands along the edge, his mind blank, until a kernel bloomed, opening a crack. Self-serving and inquisitive, he wandered the room, stroked a vase here, a lamp there, opened books on the credenza, closed them, touched the remote control. A skosh of excitement waltzed around his pedantic behavior, his need to do his job and move onward, hoping his actions bore fruit.
He glimpsed the black cat meowing outside the door to the patio, and he let the cat inside. The black beast sniffed at his shoes, hissed, and scurried past. Leaving the door open, he returned to view the framed photo of Alex and Juliana, prom night in high school. Beautiful couple, beautiful girl, reminding him of the one they waited for. The one on her way.
A sapphire blue brilliance pervaded his mind, dazzling amidst a sparkle of gold, the spray of glitter. Birthright. Salvation? He buried the thought. Not now. Later. She had yet to prove herself, to pledge her allegiance.
He smiled, stroked the young lovers’ faces, and set the picture face down on the credenza. Within seconds, he released the rear of the frame and stuck a piece of paper between the photo and frame. Once he reset the photo in place, he tapped his index finger on the edge to center it.
He mouthed silent words, but said aloud, “Juliana Westwood. Will you join my dance?”
The words jolted through Juliana. Her head banged against a solid hardness, her mind spinning into a black void. Emptiness met her and she glided into the hollow, finding a warm, soft resting place.
Chapter Seven
Mired in a deep, dark hole, Juliana propelled her way out inch by inch. Muffled voices fogged her brain. Where did they stem from? The hole? Outside her head? Another person’s subconscious? She gained a few inches through the thick muck, then slipped farther into its depths. It wasn’t a smothering, evil prison, and after she recognized she needed to leave, she didn’t kick and scream her way out. Peacefulness centered her as if a guiding light emerged above her head from the depths of a dark lake.
“Juliana? You okay? Time to come back. Alex is here waiting for you. You know, the love of your life, t
he man of your dreams, the handsome detective…”
Andrea.
Juliana grasped onto the babbling voice, until a deeper one rose above her.
“Jewel, come back to me. I love you. We have amazing adventures to go on together,” Alex said. “Look at your ring, the emerald you never take off, the jewel that matches your beautiful eyes. Remember—”
Ring? Emerald? Juliana visualized her hand, the small emerald ring he’d given her yesterday. God, how she’d melted when he’d promised himself to her, promised he’d never leave her. Leave her? No! She’d left him. Wait…she’d returned. A thread of clarity bloomed over her confusion.
The here and now walloped her, and the past skated away.
“Alex?” she croaked out, squeezing her eyes from the bright sunlight slashing the room, her head throbbing.
“I’m here, sweetheart.” He cradled her to his chest, strung tight in his fear. The heart beating against her cheek was so alive and vibrant.
“Did Andrea call you? How bad did I conk out?” She managed to squint against the light.
“You okay? Headache? Tummy ache?” Andrea knelt on the floor, her warm hand gloving Juliana’s icy fingers.
“I’m okay. This wasn’t like being sucked inside that asshole’s head. Did you call Alex? Was I out that long?”
Andrea slid a glare at Alex. “Tell her why you came here.”
A muscle pulsed in his jaw and he said without remorse, “I installed a GPS on Andrea’s car after the kidnapping.”
“What? Did you stick one on my car too?” Juliana raised a hand, dropped it, her attempt at annoyance falling listless.
“Lucky you, not yet,” Andrea spit out between her teeth.
“Don’t say you didn’t know, Andrea,” Alex lashed back. “I told you before I installed it. You agreed. And thanked me.”
Andrea spun the silver bangles around her wrist, diverting the guilt of her forgetfulness. “Whatever.” She trolled her fingers across Juliana’s arm. “Sorry, I forgot.”
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