Partner-Protector

by Julie Miller

  “On most days. I am human and do require sustenance.”

  He grinned, subtracting years from the serious set of his mouth. The unexpectedly sexy result was almost as disconcerting as when he’d grabbed her arm. “I meant, have you eaten lunch today?”

  “Oh.” Kelsey quickly gathered her composure. She had to think of Merle Banning as a cop, not a man. Certainly not an attractive one. “No. I haven’t eaten since last night.”

  She hadn’t had the appetite to stomach food.

  “Well, since I require sustenance the same way you do, let’s go grab a quick bite to eat. We can continue our conversation someplace without the audience.” He nodded his head toward the break room. “Away from those yahoos.”

  Kelsey looked over shoulder and spotted the pudgy bald guy watching her again. Did he think he knew her? Should she know him? Being stared at like that, without any apology, like some sort of sideshow phenomenon, gave her the willies. The barrel-chested man, standing in the open doorway to the Captain’s office and eyeing the interaction between her and Banning like some sort of watchful guardian didn’t help, either. She quickly turned away.

  She’d love to get out of here.

  Kelsey nodded. “Okay. That’s fine. I need to eat before my afternoon class, anyway.”

  “All right. Let me ditch these and we’ll head out.”

  Kelsey refused to turn around to see where he dumped the coffee and retrieved his coat. That bald cop might still be staring at her. Well, he could look all he liked. She didn’t have to give him the satisfaction of knowing how his unwanted attention rattled her.

  Going out to lunch. That almost sounded like a date.

  But it wasn’t. Kelsey knew better. Men didn’t ask her out. Not ones who knew about her talent. Whether Merle Banning believed her or not, this would be a working lunch.

  The weight of the bag on her shoulder multiplied with her resolute sigh, bearing down with the burden of so much more than that doll. She carried the memory of last night’s murderous vision, the responsibility of her curse—along with the crippling knowledge that, more likely than not, she would always carry that burden alone.

  Chapter Two

  The Jukebox, just east of the Plaza in downtown Kansas City, was a 1950s-style soda fountain and burger joint, complete with twirling bar stools, vinyl booths and waitresses with handkerchiefs pinned beneath their name tags. The decor was airy and nostalgic, the food plain and simple. The clientele was mostly retirement-age patrons revisiting their high school years, and young families with kids on Christmas vacation looking for a fast meal served on a plate.

  In short, the choice was more laid-back and less uptown than she’d expect Merle Banning to make.

  Either he was trying to keep things fast and easy so he could be done with her as quickly as possible, or he’d purposely taken her to an out-of-the-way place so there’d be no chance of one of his cop buddies coming in and seeing him with her.

  It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been cast aside or hidden away.

  At least the food was good. Hearty and filling. She couldn’t exactly say her appetite had returned, but now that she was actually doing something about the doll and the dead woman, practicality had kicked in. Her visions could be draining, physically, mentally and emotionally. She couldn’t stop the headaches, and the emotions would always haunt her. But she could maintain her physical strength, keep her body healthy even when everything else in her life was royally screwed up.

  Although the thermometer registered in the single digits outside and the graded snow stood thigh-high or taller along the edges of every street and sidewalk, she’d ordered a milk shake served with the chilled metal cup it had been blended in. In between bites of her steak-burger with cheese, and thin, crunchy fries, she’d drunk and spooned her way through every last delicious drop.

  She was paying for the indulgence, though. Even with the sleeves of her wool sweater pulled down to her knuckles, and her coat draped over her shoulders, she shivered with the pervasive chill that hadn’t left her since she’d crawled out of bed last night. At this rate, she wouldn’t be thawing out until summer. But she’d needed the reinforcing medicinal properties of chocolate and ice cream to sustain her.

  Especially since Detective Banning’s idea of lunchtime conversation was to question every detail about her account of the psychic impression she’d shared while they’d waited for their order to arrive.

  “Like a log cabin?” he asked, picking up his last onion ring and popping it into his mouth. While he chewed, he pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and carefully wiped his hands.

  Kelsey swallowed her impatience. While he was being Mr. Clean and acting politely interested, she was reliving the scratchy sensation of rough wood cutting into the skin on her back. “No. It was more like a building under construction—or one being torn down. The latter, I’m guessing, because of the smell.”

  He wadded up the napkin and tossed it onto his empty plate. “The smell?”

  Of foreboding. The smell of dead bodies and buried secrets. But that sort of metaphorical description would surely elicit a laugh, so she stuck to more scientific facts.

  “Rot. Decay. Like when the cold seeps in between the cracks and condenses. It turns moldy before it can evaporate. Slimy. This place was dark and horrible. She wasn’t familiar with it. I’m sure it wasn’t her regular place of business.”

  He responded by adjusting his tie unnecessarily. His straight nose and square face reflected few lines beyond the squint marks beside his eyes. But he dressed older than his youthful face might dictate, with affluent materials and a tailored fit to his clothes. He acted older than a man of twenty-nine or thirty. Conservative. Wary. Politely distant. He carried himself older, too. Not just in the slight limp he camouflaged with a quick, rolling gait, but the way he sat across from her—straight backed, never leaning in to show trust or acceptance, never lounging back to relax.

  With her self-protective need to be constantly aware of the people around her, Kelsey couldn’t help but notice other incongruent details about him.

  Despite his relatively young age, Merle Banning’s hands had seen something of life. They were clean and neatly taken care of, to be sure, but they were also nicked up with scars around the knuckles and callused enough to show hard physical labor of some kind. They moved with precise efficiency at every task, from opening the front door for her to cradling his mug of hot coffee.

  He seemed unaware of her subtle perusal. Or perhaps her opinion just didn’t matter to him.

  “Those are pretty specific details for a crime you haven’t really seen.” He sipped his coffee, then frowned at the mug as if something about it didn’t please him.

  She had a good idea it was her report which didn’t please him.

  “But I have seen it,” she insisted. “That doll triggered something. Either it’s from the crime scene, or the victim touched it somewhere along the way. It carries her residue.”

  “Her DNA?” Banning’s moss-colored eyes flared with mild interest.

  “It’s not that concrete, Detective. It’s more of an imprint of her psyche, her consciousness. I can sense her thoughts and emotions. She was scared for her life. And I don’t think she suspected the man who killed her had that kind of violence in him. Not toward her at any rate.”

  “You saw the man who did it?”

  “No.” She hadn’t wanted to look that hard. She’d already felt death, she didn’t need to look it in the eye, as well.

  “Do you know who the woman was?”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t know where the murder took place.”

  Kelsey bristled at the challenge in his tone. “Apparently, you don’t know the answers to any of those questions, either, Mr. Banning, or her murder wouldn’t be relegated to the cold-case files.”

  His eyes narrowed at that one.

  “I know this is more of a lead than you had twelve hours ago. I’m only trying to help.”
Kelsey clutched her coat more tightly around her and eyed the box she’d taken out of her backpack and slid across the table to him earlier. “I don’t know if you’ll find scientific evidence on the doll or not. But you’re welcome to keep it and send it to a lab for analysis. I certainly don’t want it anymore.”

  “That’s generous of you, Ms. Ryan.” His insincerity irritated her, and it didn’t surprise her to hear him try to debunk her claim with a logical argument. “But unless you can tell me you picked that up at the murder scene, saw it used as a weapon or there’s a written confession hidden inside, it’s pretty useless to K.C.P.D.”

  She sat at attention, age-old defenses rising to the fore. Lucy Belle had tried to teach her to be patient with those who didn’t understand. But she had a real problem with anyone who refused to even try. “I don’t imagine these things, Detective. I know that’s not the murder weapon. She was strangled with a long scarf.”

  He nodded as if he’d caught her in a lie. “Then you’re conjuring dreams from facts you read in the newspaper and are using this doll as some sort of manifestation of them.”

  “No—”

  He set down his mug with a precise thud. “Or you were at that crime scene and you’re just now working up the nerve to report what you saw.”

  Kelsey gripped the edge of her seat to hold on to her temper. “I have no idea where the murder took place. That’s why I tried to describe it to you in detail.”

  “Or perhaps you’ve been intentionally withholding evidence on a capital crime.”

  “Inten—?” She swallowed hard, then tapped out each sentence onto the table top. “I didn’t get the impression until last night. I called right after. At three in the morning I called.”

  “Even if that doll was good for something, it’s so far removed from the crime scene and so tainted, it’d be worthless now.” He shoved the box back across the tabletop toward her. “So, no thanks.”

  Kelsey dodged to the side, avoiding the doll as if he’d fired his gun at her. “I didn’t know it was evidence.”

  “I’m not sure if you need to get some professional help, or if you just need to get a life.” He offered her an apologetic smile, arching one golden eyebrow and carving out a dimple at the side of his mouth, as if that would take the sting from his words. “But, plain and simple, Ms. Ryan, you’re wasting my valuable time on this case.”

  With that, she stood up. She knocked her leather bag to the floor and spilled some of the contents. The curse she muttered was neither ladylike nor subdued. Watching her lipstick roll beneath the empty table across from them did nothing to improve her mood. This conversation was done as far as she was concerned. But so much for making a dignified, hasty exit and salvaging some semblance of her pride. Squatting down, she shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat while she snatched up her lipstick, keys and a pen.

  Detective Banning slid out of his seat to help her. She noted the tight set of his mouth as he knelt beside her, and idly wondered if his knee was giving him trouble. But Kelsey fought the sympathetic urge that would defuse her temper, grabbed the last item before he could reach it and shot to her feet. One coat sleeve caught at her elbow and tangled with the strap of her bag.

  Banning rose more slowly, moving more deliberately, while she struggled to free herself. “I appreciate that you mean well and want to help, Ms. Ryan. The department always appreciates when a citizen steps forward.”

  When he latched on to her collar to try to help her, she shrugged that efficient hand away and dug inside her pack. Kelsey pulled a ten dollar bill out of her bag and threw it on the table. “There. That’s for my burger and fries.”

  When she turned to leave, he blocked her path. He picked up the ten dollars and tried to hand it back to her. “Lunch is on me.”

  Too little, too late. “Oh, no. I insist. Heaven forbid I waste a moment of your precious time or a penny of your money, Detective. Forget the data I could have been evaluating at the lab or the class I should have been prepping for. And who’s going to go home and let my dog out now? I have to be on campus in half an hour. This was a waste of my time, Mr. Banning.”

  He patted the air with a placating hand, trying to calm her before she created any more of a scene. “Keep your money. It’s not a big deal. I’ll have the department reimburse me if that’ll make you feel better.”

  If Kelsey had kept hold of her temper, she would have seen it coming. She could have protected herself.

  “Take it.”

  He grabbed her left hand, slapped the ten-dollar bill into her palm and curled her fingers down over it, holding her loose fist between his hands. Bare hands. Skin to skin contact.

  Oh, hell.

  The bombardment of sensations came fast and furious. The detective continued talking, apologizing, but she heard no words. It was nothing but a hum of noise in the background as her skin burned beneath his touch. Her chest constricted and a flood of images flashed through her mind like movie clips spinning faster and faster, flying off their reel.

  Banning, lying broken on the ground. So much blood. So much pain.

  A tiny blond woman at the altar in a wedding gown. Longing. Sadness. Regret.

  The explosion of a gun, firing over and over at a shadowy target. Such anger. Such determination.

  The musky scent of sweat. Exertion. Banning’s muscles straining, harder and harder. A determined mind pushing the body beyond its limits.

  A little boy at a funeral, squeezing his mother’s hand. Confusion. Grief.

  T. Merle Banning, typed on a document, and a pencil, scratching out the first name. Gouging out a memory. Erasing shame.

  It was the shame that got to her. Washed over her like a bucket of icy water. The emotion inside her—her own emotion—woke her, breaking the spell.

  She jerked her hand away. “Let go of me.”

  Still disoriented, she saw broad shoulders and a forceful chin swim in front of her eyes. Years of rote training reminded her to reach into her pockets for her gloves and quickly pull them on.

  “Ms. Ryan?” She forced herself to breathe, in through her nose, out through her mouth. “Are you all right?”

  Firm, gentle hands closed around her shoulders. The twin spots of warmth shocked her back to reality. She lifted her gaze past the sensuous male line of Detective Banning’s mouth to read the concern etched beside his alert, assessing eyes. A frisson of energy that was neither psychic nor temper sparked along her nerve endings. He really was a good-looking man—in a buttoned-down, just-the-facts-ma’am kind of way.

  This is wrong.

  Kelsey wiggled her shoulders and shook herself free from his grasp, heeding the warning voice from her conscience. “Get your hands off me, T.”

  Without his touch she felt cold. Even colder than she’d been before the psychic impression had fully left her.

  The chill was nothing new to her. Nor was Detective Banning’s instant withdrawal. How many other people had she freaked out with her talent? How many others would scoff at her knowledge of things a normal person wouldn’t know? He spread his hands out to either side of her, in plain sight. “Did you just call me T?”

  “Isn’t that your name? T-something Banning?” She set her bag on the tabletop so she could tie her scarf and button her coat with some degree of grace and then get out of there. “Merle’s your middle name.”

  “The T’s for Thomas. But nobody calls me that. And I did not tell you that was my name.”

  Kelsey simply turned her face and glared, daring him to put two and two together to come up with the right explanation for her knowledge of his secret. But that wasn’t a leap of faith he was willing to make.

  “I don’t know where you did your snooping, lady. But this game isn’t funny anymore. I’ve done my duty.” He pulled another ten from his wallet and laid it with hers, leaving the waitress a huge tip. Then he was slipping into his long, camel-hair coat and limping toward the exit, robbing her of the glory of walking out on him. “Have a good day, Ms. Ryan. Driv
e safely.”

  Kelsey stared at the worn-out box he’d left on the table behind him.

  How had this gotten personal? How had she gone from ultracaution to trading barbs with T. Merle Banning and letting her emotions rule her? Lesson one in Grandma Lucy Belle’s book of down-home advice was keep your eyes focused on the goal. Kelsey’s goal had been to help that poor woman. To give a forgotten murder victim a chance to find justice.

  This meeting wasn’t about her, or justifying her gift, or making sense of the tumble of emotions Detective Banning stirred inside her.

  Ashamed that she’d let old wounds get the better of her, Kelsey took a deep breath, grabbed the doll box and hustled after Banning, beating him to the glassed-in lobby before he could open the outer door. She planted herself squarely in his path and pleaded her case one last time. “I don’t know who that woman was. I know she was naked. She was in some falling-down, ramshackle building. I know that man strangled her. She thought the scarf was payment. A gift. Maybe the doll, too.” She held it out. He didn’t take it. “I don’t know. Putting that all together makes me think she’s one of your hookers.”

  He pulled back the front of his coat and jacket, propping his hands on his hips and exposing his gun and badge. “Your point?”

  She got the message. But she refused to be put off.

  “I have a degree in criminal justice studies, Detective. I know police procedure. You didn’t ask me any probative questions. You spent this entire interview trying to get me to admit I’m a fraud. You didn’t write down a damn thing I told you in that notebook of yours. And now you’re going back to your office to have a good laugh with your buddies at my expense.”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “You’re not the first cop to think I’m crazy. In fact, you’re more close minded than most. If you want scientific facts, you find that building. You check out the store where I bought this doll. You interview the man who sold it to me. The doll’s the key if you want to use it.” She shoved the box into the middle of his chest and backed out the door into the icy winter chill. “Now we’re done.”