Maura was horrified.
“I’m not babysitting the sugar rush,” she stated. “And you’re sleeping on a couch.”
Luke couldn’t help himself.
Avalon was like a kid sister. He knew how shitty her life had been, so the team liked to give her pretty much anything she liked or wanted.
It was always food.
She ran on high, and she could eat all day long and never be full.
“Aww, Luke, you’re my favorite,” she said, pulling the paper off the muffin. “Well, you and Lucian, since I know he made sure to buy me muffins.”
“I hate you both,” Maura stated. “She’s going to get hyper and start asking really uncomfortable questions, and I’m going to answer them.”
All of them stopped laughing.
“You wouldn’t,” Nate stated.
“Oh, I would. Wait until I explain bondage.”
Nate pointed at her.
“Maura!”
“What’s that?” Avalon asked, loving to learn. She was in Nate’s mind, so she already knew, but it was fun to play dumb. Avalon was learning more and more each day. “Does it involve spanking?”
Maura grinned triumphantly. “See?”
Everyone snickered.
Lucian burst out laughing despite himself. Since these people saved his life and helped him get Bishop, he’d do anything for them. Taking care of his ‘family’ was nothing. He loved doing it.
Plus, since being disfigured, it was nice to have people need him. Before, he was locked away in a dusty, book-filled office.
“Well?” Avalon asked.
“We’ll discuss that later,” Maura said. “I promise.”
Avalon took a big bite of the muffin, eating all the crusty sugar off the top. She then guzzled the sugar-laden coffee.
She began laughing at nothing.
The sugar shock was coming.
“I’m serious. I’m not staying locked up here with her,” Maura stated. “I’ll go sit in the hanging tree first.”
That one sentence caused the transformation.
Avalon stood and stopped moving. The whole team watched her. She was ridged, but energy vibrated around her.
“She’s still there. She never got to leave.”
The family watched her.
It was as if they were afraid to speak.
Finally, Nate took one for the team.
“What are you talking about, Avi?” Nate asked, taking her hand. “Who never got to leave?”
She moved toward the big window overlooking the backside of the estate. It was open to all the trees, the rolling hills in the distance, and the fog that was always there.
Creeping.
Nate followed her.
“When I look outside, I can see her. She’s not far from the house. She lives here. She’s never leaving.”
That was super creepy.
Dead witches.
A haunted house.
Two more psychics…
Maybe they should have headed South, not East across the pond.
“Maybe we shouldn’t freak the straights out,” Lucian warned. He, too, could feel the things that wandered his home. When Avalon was near, his gift morphed too.
Bishop stared at him.
“You see it too?”
He shrugged. “I hear it. Avalon sees it. Together, we combine and it’s very real.”
Well, shit!
That was…scary.
Nate led her back to the table to sit. Honestly, this creeped him out on so many levels.
He didn’t want to discuss it.
“Finish your muffin,” he said, pulling it toward her as his eyes met with everyone else on the team.
He wasn’t the only one worried.
“I guess you’re right,” she said, popping the last of the muffin into her mouth. Then she paused to consider something. “That would have been good with Jelly.”
Maura stared at her. “Avalon…”
She laughed. “Okay! You’re cranky without Jagger here. You need to relax. I’m fine. Really.”
Maura hoped that was true. She was beginning to think she was out of her element with being the only person here to guard them all.
“Yeah, I miss him,” she admitted. She couldn’t rag on anyone else. Jagger and Maura picked at each other like siblings.
It was fun.
It passed the time.
Now…it would bring welcomed normalcy.
“What else can you tell us?” Luke asked, trying to get them to focus. They needed as much information as Avalon and Lucian could give them.
If this was a regular case, chasing a normal person, they needed to be ready. They couldn’t reach into the static and pick out a killer.
It took sleuthing.
In a way, Luke was glad.
Normal was good.
“As I was saying, our killer isn’t psychic, so I have no way to track him. I can only focus on people in the static.”
Lucian explained how it was from his perspective too. “I can see a killer taking a life, but only if I’m connecting to a psychic perpetrator.”
They got it.
They were going in blind—like normal investigators.
“So, these two psychics?” Nate asked. “They can see the killer?”
“Yes. She’s getting flashes, and he’s having nightmares that he’s writing off as nothing more than really bad Chinese.”
Okay, well, that made some sense.
These two psychics were connected, and they needed to use them to track the killer.
They could do that.
Nate was more than happy to let someone else wear the target for a while. After all, she was always the one in danger.
Now she was safe.
If Avalon couldn’t track a killer, the killer couldn’t hunt Avalon.
Well, there was Nate’s silver lining.
“I can communicate with our two psychics, and I have. Lucian and I have been handling it little by little. Until this moment, I haven’t been as overt with the male. He’s skittish, and he’s going to be the difficult one. The female knows she has been led here for a reason.”
“How long have you been prepping this?” he asked.
“Since we arrived,” she stated. “We’ve been working on it to make it happen.”
They knew that secrets happened, but sometimes, what happened in Lucian and Avalon’s minds should be shared. They could have been getting ready.
“A heads up would have been nice, Lucian,” Nate stated.
“I had to do what I had to do,” he stated, motioning toward his partner, Avalon.
Nate got it.
Lucian didn’t work for him.
He worked for Avalon.
He had to come to grips with the fact that whether the man liked it, or not, he was there to help her. He’d sworn he would.
“For the record, I did give you one. I told you about witches and Ireland, didn’t I?” he asked. “I was giving you a little at a time.”
The man had a point.
“Anyway, as I already stated, this person isn’t a witch. They’re not right in the head. They think they’re a witch, but that’s not here or there. I would be able to sense the killer if there was genuine witchcraft involved.”
Nate stopped her.
“Could you really?”
She smiled. “Yes. They play with energy, I work with the aura. It’s basically the same thing if you think about it.”
He didn’t want to think about it.
Ever.
All he knew was they were in a strange country in a second haunted Graymoor, and the woman he loved was seeing a dead witch outside the house.
He was getting an ulcer, and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better, any time soon.
“I’ll be the first to say that not having a killer tracking Avalon is a good thing. I can rest easier,” Maura stated. “Finally, a tangible target. I can just shoot him.”
Luke lifted a brow.
“Beat him up?”
He stared.
“Watch Avalon while you guys have all the fun?”
That was more like it.
“You can’t carry a gun,” Nate said, for like the thousandth time since getting there.
“Know why Ireland has serial killers?” she said.
“Why?” Avalon asked.
“They don’t have guns.”
Nate laughed. “America has a ton of serial killers, and a ton of guns…so…”
“Shut up, Nate. I want a freaking gun!”
Lucian laughed. “I have guns here, but they are specially permitted. You can’t use them. If the inspector who keeps issuing the permits were to find out…I lose them all. They were my father’s collection here, and I’d like to keep them.”
She sighed.
Truthfully, they were all struggling with that one law.
They all felt naked.
Maura would normally carry three guns, a few knives, and zip ties to restrain someone.
Now she had a knife and zip ties, and if she was caught with her blade, she was screwed.
What the hell, Ireland?
If you had a serial killer issue, you might want to protect yourself.
God!
She missed the USA.
“We don’t need guns,” Avalon admitted, tapping her head. “You’re going to have to do this the hard way. Investigate, investigate, and investigate.”
Well, it was how they used to do it.
“Truthfully,” Nate admitted, “I don’t care if this person is a witch or not.”
She didn’t either.
Her job was to connect the two psychics. They had work to do. They had lives to begin.
Together.
Sue her.
She was going to play matchmaker. It was her way of making sure they survived what was coming. People like her, they were unique, and she wanted to ensure equal footing in life. She wasn’t a freak, and she shouldn’t be caged.
No psychic should.
Well, unless they were using their gift to do bad things. Then they ABSOLUTELY needed to be locked away.
But these two…they needed each other. They were connected, woven together by Fate herself. Avalon had to prioritize.
She had to save them.
She couldn’t help it.
Avalon Miller was a romantic at heart.
“We’ll find them, locate the killer, and call it a day,” she said, giving the team a pep talk.
They were staring at her like she was definitely crazy. It was never that easy.
Ever.
The uphill battle was about to begin.
“How do we find them?” asked Maura.
She had to admit, she was a little relieved that the killer wasn’t going to lock onto them. They could all do the job, and not have to play ‘keep Oracle safe’.
At least Avalon would go unnoticed. That meant she could pretty much leave the spooky house and wander around Adare with everyone else.
Now that she was back to being blonde, against Maura’s best judgment, she’d been worried.
Despite the fear, Maura knew how tough it was for her to be locked away.
“He’s a cop…I mean Garda. That’s going to be hard to remember. I’m so used to police or cop,” Avalon admitted.
They all were.
“Anyway, his name is Detective Laird Maguire, and his office is right in town. Today, we’ll go visit him.”
They stared at her.
“Uh, no, you won’t,” Nate offered.
Avalon saw this coming too. “Well, okay. Good luck telling him he has some wacked-out witch killing people. Let me know how that goes. When are visiting hours at the cuckoo farm?”
“I believe they call them psychiatric facilities here, Avi,” Lucian said, trying to keep a straight face.
Only, Nate wasn’t upset with his fiancée.
He knew who to blame.
Nate pointed at Maura. “You are a horrible influence on her. She was sweet and gentle before you tainted her. I have to deprogram your evil training.”
She flipped him off when Avalon wasn’t looking.
Nate sighed. “See?”
“Nathaniel,” Avalon began. “Really? I think I may be Irish. I have all this blonde hair and blue eyes, and I feel like I need to try my hand at this investigator stuff. Let me go out into the town and wander!”
“It’s not like slipping into the static, Avalon,” he said, trying to talk some sense into her. “It can be dangerous. Killers…they kill. Thus the name.”
She laughed.
She knew how to do battle against her overprotective mate. She’d been learning from watching his responses. He was backed into a corner.
“Someone has to tell the detective.”
“Not it!” shouted Maura, Bishop, Lucian, and Luke—practically at the same time.
Nate’s mouth dropped open as they all smiled at him.
He was screwed.
“Really? Right under the bus, you four?” he stated. “Just like that? I can feel the love. It’s clear who you all love more, and that hurts.”
Avalon laughed.
She loved him so much.
“See why you need me? The second you walk into that place, and you say you have information…you’re a suspect. If I walk in, do my thing, and scare him, you have assistance. It’s fairly simple, but I won’t stop you from doing it your way. The killer is at the second victim, so have at it.”
He was horrified.
She was right.
“Avalon…”
She smiled. “Yes, my love?”
Nate sighed. “Fine. We go. What about psychic number two?”
“I can make that happen. She’s about to run into him. Fate already set it up.”
Maura didn’t get it.
“Then why do we have to help? If they’re going to meet…?”
That was simple.
“She’s going to be this killer’s last victim. Lucian and I have both seen the death. We just don’t know who is wielding the knife. In order to save her, and him, we need to make sure she survives. She has to be part of this so I can fix their fate.”
Well, that said it all.
They should have figured it was about getting them together to be a team.
Avalon had Lucian to focus for her, and these two must be the same.
“Shall we get ready?” she asked. “I can’t wait to see Ireland. It’s going to be pretty. I can’t wait to walk around the property.”
They all watched her leave.
“Did she just say that she wanted to wander outside the house where she saw the dead witch?” Luke asked.
There was no way…
“Yeah, she did,” Bishop offered.
They all shouted, ‘not it’, again, once more leaving Nate to take that one for the team too. It looked like he was going to have one hell of a date if Avalon was so inclined.
“You four really suck.”
They laughed.
Yeah, but this was going to make one hell of a story.
They could tell.
Oracle was on the hunt.
The fun was about to begin.
Again.
* * * O R A C L E * * *
Downtown Adare
Morning
Laird was a simple man.
How did he know?
It was the little things in life he cherished most. At the top of the list, he loved walking to the office.
He could take his car.
He could ride his bike.
But, no, he’d walk.
That way, he could say hello to the people he was there to protect and serve. That always gave him a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.
His job was tough, and it was the small moments that got him through the day.
Like now, he was buying a flower from the same older woman he saw every day. Despite the murder, he had hope.
He believed the day would get better, and that one perfect
bloom...
It spoke to him on some deep level. Once he saw it, he couldn’t turn away.
It cheered him up.
Yes, Laird had a shitty night’s sleep, and he was plagued with horrible nightmares, but being in the colorful streets, checking out the scenery was always a blessing.
It grounded him.
As he crossed the road, he was taken aback by the cheery atmosphere. The cobblestone streets were lined with bright buildings, all attached and lining the road. Those terraced homes always called to him.
It was why he’d bought his.
Still, this place gave him good feelings. It always amazed him that the town was so little, so quaint, but yet…diversified.
He lacked for nothing.
For example?
The Chinese place sat beside the Irish pub.
The Catholic Church sat not far from the Methodist one.
Adare was a good place to call home, and that cheeriness had welcomed him with open arms, and he was paying it forward the same way.
As he headed down the street, Molly following him to work, he thought about the cases sitting on his desk.
The autopsy would be done, but he already knew it would match the first one waiting for him.
He had both of their IDs, and he was aware that the families would be heartbroken. Whether you did good or bad in Adare, you were still part of the community. To these strong, sturdy country folk, you mattered.
That pride was found in everything, and for that, he was grateful. These good people would wrap their arms around the victims’ families and help them heal.
While the victims had led questionable lives, the good people of Adare wouldn’t care. They would take care of their own.
Like the first victim.
He’d been some small-time thug, stealing his way through life.
The second victim, a lady of the night, spreading her legs for a paycheck.
They were still his, and they were still Adare’s. He only hoped the people didn’t freak out and begin gossiping.
They were his responsibility, and he’d fight for justice even if they’d been on the wrong side of the law.
It was the right thing to do.
As he headed past the yellow and bright blue businesses, Molly gave out a bark and took off running.
His mutt was on the loose, and that was never a good thing. Molly had good intentions, but horrible timing.
Oracle Haunting (The Phoenix Files Book 4) Page 6
