by Dale Mayer
Inside the apartment, he nudged her toward the bathroom. “Grab a shower. I’ll get dinner started.”
She shook her head. “Don’t bother. It’s too late. I’ll have a shower and crash.”
“No.” His voice was adamant. “It will be ready when you come out.”
She shot him a look of disbelief. “Like hell it will.”
“Is that a challenge?” He gave her smile. “Accepted.”
Muttering to herself she walked into the bedroom or what would’ve been the bedroom if there had actually been four walls and a door, grabbed up clean clothes and headed into her shower. There she carefully undressed and hung up her holster. Today had been yet another day filled with shocks. Her body hurt in ways she hadn’t expected.
And she had no idea why. She hadn’t argued with anybody. Hadn’t been beaten up, nor had she hadn’t beaten anyone up. So what the hell was going on?
She turned on the hot water and stepped underneath. As it poured down over her head she remembered the paralysis she’d experienced along with the panic and fear. That train wreck of emotion would explain why she was such a mess inside, but not the physical aches and pains. Maybe they just came along with it all. If so, that was hardly fair considering her emotions were already bruised.
She’d done a lot today. Meeting Jericho in her own spirit form at the restaurant. She’d spoken telepathically with Stefan. And she’d learned how her own energy abilities could cause trouble like paralysis. All in all that alone was enough to deal with, but the loss of Gordon had hit her harder than she liked. She’d known him for years and his plight was one she had seen often enough. His demise was also so very similar. There had to be another way for these people to live. A safer way. She just didn’t have any answers.
She didn’t want to stay in the shower too long because that would give Jericho a time advantage. But at the same time she was hungry. She could shove the hunger back down, collapse on the bed and sleep like she did every other night, but the thought of fresh home-cooked food waiting for her was enough to give him an extra few minutes.
She shampooed her hair a second time and then just leaned under the water, letting it pour down her aching body. When she was finally done she turned it off and grabbed a towel. Drying quickly she put on a loose pair of slacks, bra and T-shirt. She hated bras and could often get away without one since she was small breasted, but the material of her shirt clung to the gentle mounds in a way she didn’t want to be suggestive. Gathering up her dirty clothes she dumped them into the hamper before walking into the kitchen. She put her boots on and snagged up Solomon and cuddled him as the aroma hit her. She moaned in delight.
“What are you cooking?”
“Come and see.”
As she walked into the small kitchen she marveled at how much he’d accomplished in no time. The kitchen was actually clean, the table cleared. Sure the garbage was stacked high and would need to go out, but the kitchen was actually functional. She said as much.
“Yeah, I had to clean it in order to cook,” he said dryly. “Maybe you could give me a hand to get this garbage out.”
“I can do that.” Placing Solomon at his food dish, she straightened to snag the bag out of the can and then with the stack of pizza boxes she headed to the garbage disposal in the hallway. When she walked back inside her gaze swept over the small space and she realized how poor and downright ugly it was. But she was never here. She was either at work or on a case in the streets. This was a place where she rested for the night. Other than that, she didn’t give a damn.
“Sit down. It’s ready.” She sat down, not sure what to expect, but when a thick juicy steak landed on her plate followed by steamed vegetables and a big salad she was astonished. “How did you get a meal like this ready so fast?”
“It’s called cooking,” he said dryly. “It’s not hard. You just have to make a little bit of effort.”
She didn’t say anything, but she was pretty damn sure there was no effort she could make that would put all this on the table in the fifteen minutes it had taken him. She picked up a knife and cut the steak. The knife slipped through the meat like it was butter. As she put the first bite in her mouth she raised her gaze to his. The meat was so tender and flavorful. “It’s wonderful,” she mumbled around her mouthful.
He nodded. Forking up a piece of steak, he took a bite almost experimentally. As if analyzing how good a job he’d done.
She didn’t know what he would consider this as, but for her it was perfect. She worked her way through the plate in no time. When she put her knife and fork back down she was amazed to see all the food was gone. “That was delicious,” she said sincerely. “Thank you.”
He waved a hand at her, his plate was still half full. “Glad you enjoyed it. Did you have enough?”
She nodded. “I’m stuffed.”
“We can pick up wine for our next dinner.”
Too happy with her full tummy and having enjoyed the meal so much, she couldn’t wait for the next one, so she didn’t make any comment about his assumption he would be there with her. Besides, she hadn’t managed to kick him out of the house yet. She just wasn’t sure how she felt about having a roommate.
Although she loved having Solomon around. Somehow he filled the void of living alone. She stood up and carried her plate over to the sink already full of hot soapy water. She quickly washed up her plate while Jericho finished eating. Then she washed the dishes left from the food preparation. She was fading quickly.
“Go,” he urged. “You need sleep. I just wanted to make sure you had a full stomach before you dropped.”
“It’s definitely happy,” she said. “Thanks again.” She walked the few feet to the bedroom and lay down on top of the bed. A few minutes later he called out, “Don’t you get changed for bed anymore, or do you live with so much stress you’re ready to hop up at a moment’s notice and go?”
She sat up and stared at him. “In a way, yes.” She lay down flat again. No way had she wanted to discuss that issue. This time when she closed her eyes, sleep was reaching for her. She quickly and easily reached back and sank under.
*
Jericho had never seen anybody go to bed quite the same way. Fully dressed as if expecting to get up in another two hours. If he was doing security detail and hoping to sneak a few hours of rest in that was fine. But this was her home, her bed. This was not normal. She had to have hit an emotional wall to do this. He prowled around the kitchen cleaning off the counters and feeling more domesticated than he liked.
Inasmuch as he was tired, he wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep. He envied her ability to just drop and knock out. He’d never been like that. Then again, his nightmares were different than hers. He’d seen his nightmares come to conclusion. They didn’t reach for him in the middle of the night anymore. He’d been given no quarter when he caught the asshole that murdered his friend’s boy. Jericho had been innocent of life before then. Trusting. Naïve. He lost it all that day.
That the killer had turned on Jericho next had helped. The fine line between right and wrong was never an issue in that case. Self-defense all the way.
But that day had changed the course of his future. And it had set him on this path to make the world a better place. Psychic style. Abilities he’d thought of as jokes until then. He’d been busy building his real estate career until his best friend’s son was kidnapped. Afterwards he’d walked away without a thought.
He sat down on the couch and pulled out his phone. He needed to do more research and this was a good time. He wanted his laptop, but he’d left it in his truck. He could slip outside and grab it, but he was afraid she’d wake up and lock him out. Leaving herself alone, unprotected. Why did he think she welcomed that? So far she was a mystery. An enigma.
She certainly stood for people in her world. Bending over backwards to help them out. He was surprised by the little bits and pieces of her he’d learned so far. They were good pieces. There was also a lot of talent in there. And he
knew some of it was not new. There was a lot of old energy around her. He didn’t know what happened in that house decades ago and he didn’t want to, but there had to have been some impact on her abilities.
As he glanced over at the kitchen he saw her bag sitting there. The folder within. Damn it. He really needed to look at that.
Would she be pissed? And if so, was it worth it? Hell, yes it was. His whole goal here was to take down the Ghost. If that meant crossing the line and looking at her notes then that was what he had to do. Besides, they’d already gone over all the notes. There shouldn’t be anything in there that was new, but he couldn’t leave it alone just in case there was. He needed every little bit of information. There was no way to know which tidbit was the nugget that would blow the case apart.
He quietly reached for her bag and pulled out the folder. It wasn’t very thick. There were maybe twenty odd pages in it. He sat down with his notebook and carefully took notes as he read from the first page right through to the last. When he got to the end he went back to the first page and reread a few of the highlights. It was mostly her notes and bits and pieces from the case files. Nothing new but a good refresher. After packing the folder back in the bag he took it to the front door. Then at least it would look different than the way it was when she’d last seen it.
With his notebook in hand, he walked back to the couch and stretched out – his mind going over what he’d learned. The girl had a history of a running away. That was why nobody had called in when she was missing. That was sad but it wasn’t news in itself. Every single day in America there were thousands of runaways. It just made things more complicated when they showed up dead. In this case she hadn’t been sexually assaulted as far as anybody could see, but they were waiting on the autopsy results.
Just as he dropped off to sleep he realized he and Tavika were in beds not very far from each other and both were still fully dressed.
What a waste.
He was smiling over that when he heard a sound that sent a chill over his skin.
Tears. A female crying. But not Tavi. At least he didn’t think it was her. He sat up and looked in the direction of Tavika’s bed. From where he sat she looked to be sleeping normally, Solomon once again on her back. But the sound was coming from the back of the tiny apartment. He got to his feet and in his socks, slowly walked toward the bathroom. The crying was definitely coming from the bedroom area.
He stopped and stared at the wall of the apartment next door. Could it be coming from the neighbors?
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. In blue.
Fascinated he watched what appeared to be the spirit of a young girl. Her energy was soft and wispy. And yes, blue, but not a bright one, more like an early morning sky blue.
He couldn’t place her age as her features drifted in and out of focus. She was young though. Maybe eight or nine.
The tears though, the tiny cries of anguish, yeah, they were too hard to walk away from. It could be Sarah’s ghost. The runaway they’d found with her neck broken. But that girl was older. Although spirits didn’t show their age the same way.
He called out in a soft voice, “Hello, are you okay?”
It was a foolish question. If she had a problem it wasn’t likely to be one he could solve.
Was she even listening? She’d curled up on the bed beside Tavika, her body shuddering as she attempted to still the sobs. As if afraid someone would hear.
Well he had heard. Now he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
*
He hunched over his computer. Why hadn’t she logged onto the main computer in the last while? He’d gone to great pains to track her system, but she was forever changing her damn login. It always took him a while to get back in. He didn’t have time for this. It was as if the IT department had put an extra layer on her machine. Damn it. This was no good. It was like he’d gone blind in one area.
He couldn’t have that.
It was bad enough she was lead on these cases, but somehow she also seemed to know it was him.
And that was seriously freaking him out.
And made his decision that much easier.
Chapter 18
Tavika woke refreshed on one level and exhausted on another. Her mother had spoken often about preserving different levels of existence. At the time Tavika hadn’t understood. Part of her mother’s lectures included always keeping one level as a backup in case one exhausted themself doing healing work. Her mother had been a great healer. And she believed that it helped the other abilities develop a lot. Her sister, like Jericho, had been a pre-cog. And Lord knew what else. Her sister had been beautiful, flawless looking. She’d had many guys hanging around her in high school, much to her mother’s alarm. She tried to keep Bellamy chaste and sweet, saying the longer she remained pure the stronger her powers would develop.
Her mother had been very strong. Without having children, would she have been even more so?
There was no way to know. Tavika could ask her mother but she wouldn’t tell her. The spirit left behind was only a single layer of the multiple personalities her mother had been. She hadn’t been an easy woman to live with, but her heart had been good. Even if misplaced at times. At the end her anger, her fear, had overwhelmed everything. When it was obvious she wasn’t going to be given any mercy, the goodness in her heart had turned to screaming threats and curses at the man.
Tavika had no idea if curses had any merit, but she understood her mother trying. She hoped the Ghost had had a hellish life these last twenty years.
She swung her legs over to the side. And stared disgruntled at the boots still on her feet. This was no way to live. She needed to get to bed at a decent hour, also actually strip the clothes off her body so her skin could breathe. Her feet ached already and she had yet to stand. Holding her head in her hands she lifted her gaze to the small space she called home.
It was clean. That was one thing. Not by her hand though. She looked toward the living room – sure enough Jericho was sprawled across the couch. Just his position alone made her wince. His spine had pretzeled into a shape to accommodate the couch. He was going to pay for that as soon as he woke up and tried to move. Then, as she stared down at her feet in her boots, she realized so was she. She forced herself upright, wincing as she took the weight on her soles and headed for the kitchen.
With any luck there was coffee still. She should have picked some up at the grocery store yesterday. She made a pot, grateful there was still a half pack. She searched to see if they had brought any groceries home for breakfast. The steak last night had been amazing, but it was long gone. Her system preferred to eat often, but when she couldn’t, she followed the trick her mother had shown her and just shoved more energy down into the poor organ.
It would hold off hunger for hours, but she’d been doing that too much for too long and she really needed food. In the freezer she found a loaf of bread. She pulled it out and popped two pieces into the toaster. She needed protein but the cupboards were bare. Although she had lots of cat food. She’d never let him suffer.
As she waited for the toaster to pop she stared out the window. Instead of sunshine, gray clouds promised rain. Great. Feeling off and depressed she turned to look around the small apartment but outside of Jericho’s presence nothing was amiss. She felt like there was something going on, but she couldn’t see anything. Another of her mother’s tricks had been to look at something sideways and see the layers. Tavika tried often but with no luck.
You’re not trying hard enough, her mother’s voice said, rolling through her head. You can do it because you’ve done it once or twice before. You just have to figure out how to do it at will.
Like many of her mother’s techniques they all had to be learned to be done at will. Why was nothing ever easy?
Being a rebellious misfit, Tavika had learned to do things her way. But it sure wasn’t easy.
The coffee maker behind her beeped, signaling it was done. As she ate her toast, she tur
ned and poured herself a cup, grabbed up her jacket and keys, popped the lid on her mug and strode to the door.
Jericho slept soundly. Relaxed. The dark curls of his hair made him look a decade younger. There was an innocence in his sleep. Once he opened that laser gaze, there was nothing young about the man at all. In fact, her mother would’ve called him an ancient soul. Here on this earth to learn a few more lessons before his last trip home.
Wouldn’t Jericho love to hear that? Still, just looking at that relaxed lion of a man made her want to drag him into her bed for a few hours. She stuffed the need, the desire, way down deep. With everything else going on it should have been easy to keep it there, but now seeing him asleep like that she was tempted to cross the room and stroke his soft cheek, yet she knew as soon as he opened his eyes that face would firm up into hard lines again.
This gentleness was a gift.
She cast one long look at him and opened the door and walked out into the early morning – fallen angel on her couch or not she had work to do.
*
He would have loved to know what that look in her eyes had been about as she walked out the door. His eyes had been opened just enough to peek through his lashes. And there had been a softening of her face, something pointed in her glance as she gazed at him. He had no idea why. It had been one of those brief glimmers into the inner dimensions of who Tavika was, that person she kept hidden from everyone else. He considered following her but realized it was going to be a repeat of yesterday. If that was the case he could stay where he was and follow her in spirit.
Before she got into trouble again.
Then he remembered the little girl ghost. He bolted upright and walked to Tavika’s bed. Tavika had smoothed out the wrinkles. Solomon once again slept in the center of the blankets. So it was ready for her to collapse on again tonight.
Except he had plans that didn’t include her crashing in bed fully dressed.
He walked past the bed searching for remnants of the ghost, but there was nothing left. Either she’d dissipated so that he couldn’t see her or she’d left a long time ago.
