Okay, I put aside my own justifiable anger for the moment. God, I ached for him. If I could only free him from his burden, for even a little while. I could vividly recall what switching bodies had been like, the constant bombardment of everyone’s thoughts, the selfishness and ugliness of it all. It wasn’t fair that he should have to live like that. All because he accidentally brushed up against one of those boxes in a museum.
“I’ll be fine. After all I’ve been living with this for a while. I’m getting used to it.”
“Why do I think I’m getting the speech you give the troops?”
“You are the troops.” I got the dork smile. The one that I knew was real. Shit. I probably shouldn’t think of it as the dork smile anymore. He only smiled broader and began snickering, a wheezy little sound like Muttley, the cartoon dog from my mother’s youth. Before I could comment on his way of laughing like fictional animals, he lifted his head and cocked it to one side. “My mom’s home.”
I checked my watch. She’d been gone a little over two hours. I blushed at the thought of what had been going on in her kitchen while she was at class and thanked God she wasn’t telepathic.
“I dunno,” John said softly, making sure his shirt was tucked in. He’d put on a T-shirt and jeans after his shower, and he looked good enough to eat. “She is a mother, after all.” He snatched up the imitation Freaky Friday box and put it back into the briefcase. He snapped the locks shut as we heard the sound of the front door opening.
I glanced around. We’d done our best to clean up, but Jean would almost certainly notice the missing coffee carafe. And the fact that the dish towels were gone. Or that we both had damp hair. With any luck, she also wouldn’t pick up on the fact that John had scraped his knuckles and I was sporting at least one new bruise. Or ask any embarrassing questions.
“Yoo-hoo, boys,” Jean called out from the living room. “I’m home.”
“She’s warning us.” John shot me a look.
“Maybe she’s remembering the day I got kicked out of my house and thinking how much simpler it would have been if my mom had just given me a heads-up before barging into my room.” My mouth went dry, though.
John’s wide-eyed stare in return made me think I’d gotten pretty close to home. “Come on,” he said, standing abruptly. “She has someone with her.”
Checking to make sure I didn’t have any obvious telltale signs of the hot and heavy sex I’d just had, I followed John into the living room.
“There you are,” Jean said brightly as we came into view. “I thought you might be downstairs. Lee, you’ve met Richard before. Richard Callahan, this is my son, John.”
“I can see the family resemblance.” Richard stepped forward to shake John’s hand briskly, with a smile.
“Richard had to give me a ride home. My car wouldn’t start.” Jean spoke with a raised eyebrow and an air of imparting important information.
John did the guard-dog-alert thing, which made Richard glance uneasily at Jean.
“Yes,” Jean went on, with that same tone of underlying emphasis. “It’s a shame you missed the class, Lee. I learned so much this evening. There was this very nice young man present too. He was so helpful to me and volunteered to be my partner when he found out you hadn’t been able to make it to class tonight. I suspect he was there more to meet people than to learn how to cook. He was certainly very—competent—in the kitchen.”
Richard cleared his throat. “Yes. Well, a lot of people sign up for cooking classes as a means of meeting people. Meeting them romantically, I mean. I mean, in the hopes of…. Right. Well, anyway I’m always happy to have people sign up for classes for any reason, I just hope they get something out of the course. Cooking-wise, that is.”
Jean cast her glance sideways at Richard, and it didn’t take a mind reader to know she thought he was cute. That explained the Audrey Hepburn impersonation, as well as her determination to go to class. “I certainly got a lot out of the class, Richard. I’m looking forward to the rest of the course. And I appreciate you running me home. That was very kind of you.”
John frowned. “You could have called.”
“I could have.” Jean nodded innocently, tapping her fingers over the purse she held in her hands. “But Bas, the young man from the class, was right there, offering me a ride, and Richard was on the spot as well. It seemed silly to call you out when I had two knights on white horses ready to take care of me.”
John focused a laser-like stare on Richard, who cleared his throat nervously.
“It was my pleasure. Really, Jean. No problem at all. I should be going now.” Richard nodded at her and gave a sketchy salute in our general direction.
“Thank you for bringing my mother home, Richard. I’m much obliged.” John walked him to the door.
“It was no trouble at all. It… uh… seemed a bit odd. The car, that is. It started, but then it just shuddered and died. Jean said she’d just had it serviced the week before last.”
John shook hands again with Richard at the door—a rarity for him. He didn’t often touch people, which made sense because of the telepathy. Contact with another person probably intensified it. “That is odd,” John agreed. “I’ll certainly look into it.”
I didn’t imagine the look of relief that flickered over Richard’s face, nor the hopeful glance he shot in Jean’s direction as he said good night.
John closed the door behind him and locked it. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen and tell me all about this Bas fellow?” John steered his mother toward me by her elbow. I recognized that silky tone. He was pissed. Very, very pissed.
At least as much at himself as this mysterious Bas. We should have made Jean stay home. We’d probably have had better luck trying to bottle a hurricane.
John wasn’t the only one who was angry.
“I think it high time you boys tell me exactly what’s going on. Or rather, you tell us, John, seeing as Lee doesn’t seem to know.” She shook off John’s hand at her elbow, headed into the kitchen, took a seat at the table with regal grace, and placed her handbag in front of her. I thanked God for the heavenly scent of fried bacon.
“I wish I could tell you, Mom, but I can’t. It’s work related. I’ve just been updating Lee.”
So that’s what we’re calling it now? The memory of John bent over the counter, my body melded into his, flashed to mind, and I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty when John scowled briefly in my direction.
I cleared my throat. “We need to know everything you can tell us about this guy, Bas.” Maybe if it came from me, she’d be more inclined to cooperate. Strange that we’d fallen into interrogation mode with John’s mother. Nevertheless she was a witness, and we needed information. I took a chair across from Jean.
Bless her heart, she didn’t ask why we wanted to know. Sharp cookie, our Jean Flynn. “If I had to guess, Lee, he was looking for you. He knew a lot about cooking, so why was he taking the class? He kept asking me questions that somehow brought the conversation back around to you. Very charming, but in a way that felt off somehow.”
“It sounds a little hinky to me, Mrs. F,” I agreed. “What did this guy look like?”
Anyone could have checked the class roster and seen that Jean and I were signed up, but it was far more likely that someone had gleaned the information from my journal. I was really beginning to regret following Regina Bishop’s therapy guidelines.
“Well, I have to say, he was extremely good-looking. About your age, maybe a little younger. His hair was a sort of golden brown, but that couldn’t be his real hair color, because his eyebrows were thick and dark—almost black. It was a little long on top, and he wore it swept back off his forehead. He had the most incredible blue eyes, very light in color, almost like ice. Not like yours, dear.” She patted my hand. “Your eyes are like the ocean, a nice depth of color to them. His were a little disconcerting, despite being breathtaking.” She paused, frowning. “Oh, and he had a little cleft in his chin.” She touched her o
wn chin as she spoke.
Not one of my muggers. Someone new. Perhaps the person behind it all. I made eye contact with John, and he nodded, following my train of thought.
“He could have been wearing contacts. He sounds like a vain bastard.” John straightened, rested his index finger against his lips, and tapped them lightly. “How convenient too, that your car just so happened to break down.”
“He couldn’t have been sure she’d go with him. If Richard hadn’t volunteered to take her home, she probably would have phoned you. Disabling the car and hoping she’d go with him was a long shot, at best.”
“I’m still here, boys.” Her voice was tart. “What would this man want with me anyway?”
“Leverage,” John growled. “Against me.”
“Well, he certainly would have gotten more than he bargained for.” She glanced at her purse with a little smug smile. “Don’t you boys think you’re overreacting? He could have simply been a nice young man.”
“Richard didn’t think so. He thought there was definitely something fishy going on.”
Jean arched a delicate eyebrow. “And just how do you know that?”
The color left John’s face abruptly, only to rush back at double strength. “I’ve got eyes, don’t I? Anyway he was sufficiently worried to bring you home.”
Jean made a little noncommittal humming sound.
John crossed to her side of the table and took her hands in his. “This is really important, Mom. We don’t know exactly who this guy Bas is, but we think he’s part of some bigger organization. And while no one that we know of has gotten hurt yet, I suspect these guys don’t mess around. We think they may have been in the house when we were all gone Friday night. It’s possible they’re looking for something that’s related to one of our old cases. They might be amateurs, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. I want you to promise me you’ll do exactly what I say.”
Jean’s eyes widened, and she squeezed his hand. “Of course, dear.”
The look of relief on John’s face was there and gone like a green flash over the water at sunset. “I need you to go stay with a friend for a few days. Pack your bags and leave tonight. We’ll take you there. Can you do that?”
She frowned. “I suppose I can go stay with Hazel for a while.”
“Good.” He infused the word with the warmth of the sun, and I could see that Jean was going to give in by the way she smiled at him in return. “In the morning, I’ll see about getting a burglar alarm put in the house. Hopefully they can get it installed tomorrow, the next day at the outside. That may deter anyone from coming back here. Lee and I should probably stay in a hotel for a while.”
“What about the cats?” I protested. “And I think your mom would be safer with me hanging around. Once we get the alarm installed, let Jean invite a bunch of her friends over to stay for a while. Collectively we can serve as a deterrent to anyone taking an interest in the house or the people in it, and you can work on the problem from your end.”
“I like that idea. I don’t like the thought of being run out of my home, for one thing. But Lee’s right, dear. If someone is trying to get to you through me, then he isn’t likely to care if I’m staying with a friend or not.”
John shook his head. “For my plan to work, I’m going to need everyone out of the house for a while. Mom, can you take the cats with you to Hazel’s? And invite more of your friends over? I need to know you’ll be safe.”
Jean’s mouth curved in amusement. She looked remarkably like her son when she did. “Hazel will think it’s a blast. Cats and all. It will be like something out of one of her favorite mysteries.” I knew the moment she realized just what John’s plan would entail. Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. “This thing that they’re looking for. You’re going to use it as bait, aren’t you? You’re going to make them think the house is empty and they can come searching at will.”
He shrugged. “Like someone disabling your car, it’s a long shot. That’s why I’m not going to fool around. I’m going to get the alarm system installed. But if we make them think there’s a window of time in which they can find it, then we have a chance of catching them. So, can you please pack some things and call Hazel? Lee and I will get the cats ready.”
She nodded and stood to give him a peck on the cheek as she left to go upstairs. She took her purse with her.
“They already searched the house. They know it’s not here.”
“They know it wasn’t here the other night,” John amended. “They searched without disturbing much, only taking your notebook. They think you have amnesia, so you should be relatively safe, because they think you don’t know anything. If you take a hotel room, and I stay here at the house….”
“They’ll think you have it here, with you, and make an attempt to take it,” I completed his sentence. “I don’t like it. It’s too risky.”
“They probably won’t even take the bait. Unless someone is currently watching the house, and I haven’t seen any signs of that. I’m pretty sure I’d pick up on someone who was spying on the place. So they’d have to take a chance on driving by to check the place out.”
“If they think you have the box on you, then they’ll come prepared to take you out. At least a couple of guys. You can’t do this alone.”
Smile Number Six, the nasty shark smile, made an appearance. “Actually,” he said, “I’ll be able to spot them coming a mile off. It’ll be a bit like fighting a blind man in a blacked-out room. I’ll have the advantage—one they won’t be able to deal with.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Seriously, it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ll be fine.”
“If there’s another telepath out there, don’t you think he knows exactly how difficult it is to control sometimes? Including the best way to overwhelm you? I’ve been there when you’ve been on the verge of a meltdown before. It’s not pretty.”
I’d come within a hair’s breadth of calling him “Flynn” just like I’d always done before. But I wasn’t the same man who’d hidden behind the soundproof booth when I first met John. No more concealment for me.
The blank look of surprise on his face told me that this hadn’t even occurred to him. “So what do you suggest?”
“We send your mom and the cats to her friend’s house. We check into a hotel room, if you think that little fiction needs to be played out. I pretend to stay there, but in reality, I come back here with you. After you make an obvious entrance, I sneak in and lie low. If someone does attempt to break in tonight, at least you won’t be alone.”
“It’s not a very good plan,” he said, curling his upper lip. “It’s likely to scare them off altogether.”
“It’s the only plan you get to play tonight. Hey, you said you liked it when I was bossy.”
“I’ve created a monster.” He could tell, however, I wasn’t going to back down.
This mind-reading thing might come in handy, after all.
Chapter Eighteen
THE REST of the evening passed in ridiculous quietness. We got Jean and the cats off to Hazel’s. Oliver initially fought being put into the carrier, but John just looked at him, and the cat went in with a haughty flick of his tail.
“I knew it,” I hissed at him when Jean wasn’t looking. “You’re freaking Doctor Doolittle.”
“Watch it,” he warned in a low voice, “or I’ll get Phoenix to tell me what you do all day long while I’m at work.”
After we got Jean settled at Hazel’s—to the delight of her friends, who’d been more than happy to converge with overnight bags for an impromptu slumber party with mysterious overtones—John registered us at the nearest cheap motel. We took both cars so I could leave mine at the hotel. After an hour of pretending to watch television, I got into the backseat of John’s car, and we drove back to Jean’s. John made his presence known in an obvious way, turning on all the lights and wandering about in plain sight. I snuck in the back, and we spent a fruitless night in separate parts of the house, keeping watc
h for an intrusion that never came.
The sky outside was turning a pale rose, and the birds had begun their morning songs when John woke me out of a light doze. “Why don’t you go lie down and get some real sleep for a few hours? I’m taking a personal day. As soon as they open, I’ll get the alarm company out here. I’ll have coffee waiting for you then.”
I nodded, too stiff and tired to argue. Not that I would have. A few hours flat in a bed sounded like heaven. The only thing better would be John lying down with me. He held out his hand to help me out of the chair I’d been sleeping in. I grunted with the effort of standing and rotated my neck until it popped.
He winced. “No one’s neck should make those noises.”
I said nothing. My head was killing me, and the pain crawled up in bands of steel from the base of my shoulders. I flinched when he placed a hand on my neck and began kneading the muscle. “I could give you a massage,” he offered.
“I’ll take a rain check. Pain meds, nap, then coffee.”
He was as good as his word. It was almost noon when I staggered into the kitchen like a zombie in search of coffee-flavored brains. John had a pot brewing, having resurrected an old carafe from Jean’s stockpile of unused items.
He was dressed in the same black T-shirt and jeans from the night before and working on day two of stubble. No one looked as good in casual clothing as John did. No one. You could keep all your pretty boys and gym rats. I like my men gorgeous, and yet a little rough around the edges. He set a steaming coffee mug in front of me with a little roll of his eyes, but there was no way I was apologizing for my thoughts. “The alarm company will be here around four. I had someone check out the car. They couldn’t find anything wrong with it, so they drove it back here this morning.”
“Huh. What do you make of that?”
He looked grim. “I’ve got no proof, but my gut says someone pulled the fuse to the fuel pump relay, and after Richard offered to take my mom home, put it back so no one would know it had been tampered with. Richard certainly thought there was something odd about Bas last night.”
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