The Touch

by Lisa Olsen

  “Great, just what I wanted, a game of hide and go seek in a spooky house…” Lexi muttered, padding down the stairs in search of her sister. She found Allie standing in the darkened kitchen, staring out the window at the night sky.

  “Allie?” Once more her sister gave no sign that she heard her name being called and Lexi began to wonder if she was sleepwalking. What was it that they said, don’t disturb a sleepwalker? Lexi wrestled over whether or not she should just leave her standing there in the kitchen when all at once Allie blinked to life, noticing her there for the first time.

  “What are you doing up?” Allison asked in surprise.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” Lexi replied carefully, trying to gauge her mood.

  “I have a terrible time sleeping lately; I don’t know what it is, but I’m up all hours of the night.”

  “Yeah, I can see why.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Lexi shook her head. “Did you need something?”

  “Me? No, I’m just gonna have a drink, do you want one?” Allie reached for a half full bottle of brandy and a cut crystal glass from the cupboard.

  “You woke me up to ask me if I want a cocktail?” Lexi groaned. That was taking misery loves company to a new level, as far as she was concerned.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Allie sounded miffed at the accusation.

  “What did you think would happen when you came in my room?”

  “I didn’t come in your room,” Allie shook her head, pouring out a healthy jot of liquor.

  It definitely sounded like she’d been sleepwalking if she had no memory of it. After all, she’d been under a lot of stress and admittedly not sleeping well, but Lexi was too tired to press the issue for now. “Okay whatever; I’m going back up to bed, alright?”

  “Okay, good night.” Allison gave her a bland smile, raising the glass in a salute.

  “G’nite Allie,” Lexi yawned, leaving her standing in the dark kitchen. Nearly half asleep, she didn’t have the presence of mind to worry about being scared this time. Until she brushed against something cold and hard in the bed as she slipped between the covers. Scooting back onto the floor with a squeak, Lexi fumbled with the lamp next to the bed, squinting in the bright light. Trying to look everywhere at once to figure out what it was, her eyes were quickly drawn to the glimmer of silver half obscured by the bed sheets. Lexi drew in a shaky breath as she tried to steady her heart that was beating out of control.

  “Nothing to be afraid of,” she whispered over and over again in a breathy mantra as she approached the bed. Tossing back the sheet as fast as possible, Lexi stared dumbstruck at the sight of her Grandmother’s teapot lying in the center of the bed. No longer dusty, it gleamed in the lamp light, nestled comfortably among the bedding. “What the…?” Lexi blinked at the family heirloom, wondering if she was dreaming. How in the seven levels of hell had the teapot gotten into her bed? It hadn’t been there when she was sleeping and Allison wouldn’t have had time to get past her and put it in there before she’d come upon her in the kitchen; she was sure of it.

  Ducking down suddenly, Lexi peeked under the bed, breathing a sigh of relief as it came up empty. Half a second later she was performing the same search on the closet which revealed nothing more than shoeboxes stacked in neat rows on the floor. For a half-second she considered calling Gabriel to fill him in on what was going on, but what would she tell him? There was nothing to be gained by ruining his night’s sleep as well.

  Someone or something had been in her room, there was no doubt in her mind of that. But the question remained, was it an intruder sneaking around in Allie’s house in the dead of night or was it the dead themselves? Lexi picked up the teapot, half tempted to remove her glove to see what she might pick up from it since she’d held it in the dining room. Instead she set it down on the bedside table and climbed into the bed warily.

  Lexi slept the rest of the night with the light on and the door locked; courage be damned.

  Chapter Ten

  Lexi spent a fitful night’s sleep tossing and turning, unable to relax enough to surrender to dreams. Her eyes were constantly drawn back to the silver teapot sitting on the bedside table, wondering why it had been placed in her bed, until exhaustion won out in the wee hours of the morning, delivering a few hours of peace. But instead of sleeping in late to compensate, she was up with the early birds, venturing downstairs in search of some coffee to help clear the cobwebs from her mind. After setting the coffeepot to drip, Lexi took the silver pot back to the dining room, not wanting to explain its presence in her room to Allie.

  As she stood in front of the china cabinet she couldn’t help but wonder if it would somehow find it’s way back into her possession again? Had one of the ghosts in the house guessed how much it meant to her? Did they think she deserved it? How did they even manage such a thing? For a split second she almost thought maybe Chloe was running around the house, coming out of hiding only after everyone else had gone to bed, but that was crazy. There was no way the girl would put them through the grief and worry of faking her own disappearance; she didn’t have a mean-spirited bone in her body. Short of holding a séance she was running short on answers.

  Hearing the sound of a car pulling up the drive, Lexi was torn between ducking up to put something else on and looking to see who it was. In the end curiosity won out, and it was Detective Ryan’s blue Towncar she saw parking in front of the house. Barely time to smooth her fingers through the tangled mess that was her morning bed-head, Lexi beat him to the front door, not wanting him to ring the bell and risk waking Allison.

  “Good morning,” she smiled at his approach, hugging her arms close in the chilly morning air. “I just put some coffee on, would you like a cup?”

  “I won’t say no to that,” Gabriel smiled back. “I like the toes, they’re a nice touch.”

  Lexi wiggled the brightly colored toenails, not at all embarrassed that they didn’t match one bit. “We couldn’t have a girls’ night in without painting our toenails, I think it’s the law,” she pretended to consider as she shut the door behind him. “Allie’s still asleep, so…”

  “Ah, gotcha, I’ll try to keep it down,” he hovered in the entryway, waiting for her to take the lead.

  Lexi decided to bring him back to the kitchen with her instead of waiting on him like a guest in the front room. It was warmer on that side of the house, and the sound would carry less anyway. “So, do you have some news for us, or is this just a social call? I could go up and get the nail polish…”

  “Not today thanks,” he shook his head, following her deeper into the house. “I came to give an update, which is really no news is good news at this point.”

  “How do you figure?” Lexi went straight for the coffee pot, pulling down a couple of matching mugs and pouring them each a healthy cup. “Wouldn’t some news be good news?”

  “That’s true, some news would be good news and it’s not that I don’t have any news, just a lot of negative confirmations. But the important thing is that so far there’s no indication that Chloe’s in any kind of danger, there have been no sightings of her on any form of public transportation. We haven’t gotten any tips from the news spots that have panned out. There’s been no activity on any of Neil’s bank accounts or credit cards and his car hasn’t been sighted either.”

  “That doesn’t sound so good to me, that sounds like she disappeared off the face of the earth,” she frowned, mixing in some sugar and chocolate creamer that she found in the fridge before sliding them over to him.

  “Ah, but if a girl is traveling with her father, in no distress, not acting suspiciously at all, would you give them a second glance?”

  He had a point. “No, I guess not. But isn’t it kind of strange that he isn’t using any credit or debit cards?”

  “Not if he’s been planning this for a while. Then it makes sense that he’d have accumulated a cash reserve, we see it all the time.” Gabriel added the creamer to
his coffee but ignored the sugar.

  “I still think something bad happened to Neil and he’s either dead or unconscious,” Lexi sighed, stirring her coffee morosely. But what could she do to convince him? While Gabriel seemed to have an open mind where her gift was concerned, he also tended to want cold hard facts before he changed his course of action.

  “Like I said, without anything to go on, there’s not much I can do with that hunch.”

  “I know.” Lexi debated whether or not she should say anything about what she saw in the attic the day before either. Maybe she’d tell him about it later, if there was a later for them. But while it was interesting, it didn’t really have anything to do with the case and she didn’t want to overload him on the weirdness meter. She sipped on her coffee as he did the same, the silence stretching between them as they were both lost to their own thoughts. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you,” she said finally.

  “Is that what you think?” his head cocked to one side in disbelief. “I could have sworn you were a little more perceptive than that.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t be here talking to you like this if I thought you were crazy.”

  She wanted to believe him, but years and years of rejection made it hard for her to accept. “No? You’re not just doing your job right now?”

  “Actually, I’m doing the opposite of my job right now,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of paperwork waiting for me at my desk and I should have just checked in with a phone call, but I wanted to see you again.”

  “You did?” A warm flush of awareness went through her as he came around the corner of the kitchen counter, closing the distance between them.

  Gabriel nodded, “In fact, there are a whole lot of reasons why I shouldn’t be here with you right now. Why I should be turning around and walking out that door, but I just can’t get you out of my head.” He stopped, gazing down at her intently. “Are you doing that to me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you can tap into people’s thoughts if you touch them the way you tap into the memories in the things they touch. Does that mean you can get into my head and make me think about you whenever you want?”

  “You make it sound like you think I’ve bewitched you,” she gave a nervous laugh. Whether he thought that or not, he didn’t look particularly disturbed by it, but she was having trouble interpreting his expression.

  “Maybe you did?” Gabriel moved a half step closer, reaching out and picking up one of her gloved hands. “Maybe we should test this out?”

  “What do you mean?” He had her rattled; drawing in a shaky breath.

  “See what you can pick up from me and see if I can feel you in there rummaging around.” He started to pull at the end of her glove and she snatched it out of his hand.

  It was incredible to her that this wasn’t a deal breaker for him, in fact he seemed like he was anxious to learn more about her abilities, but she was more leery of what could happen. “No, I told you I don’t touch people.”

  “Why not? I don’t have anything to hide,” Gabriel held his hand out in offering. “Go ahead, read me.”

  Lexi stared back at him, not sure if he was playing with her or not. “Everybody has something to hide,” she muttered darkly, stepping away from him. What was he trying to do, force an argument between them? Playful banter on the phone was one thing, asking her to lay herself bare and vulnerable to a man she hardly knew was quite another, no matter how appealing his smile was. “You might not think so, but then I’ll pick up something you hadn’t intended for me to see and there’s no way for me to un-see it. Trust me, these things never end well.”

  His brows drew together in confusion. “End? Hell, we never even started anything.”

  He sounded so bewildered; her heart wrenched with pity and she wasn’t sure which one of them it was for. “I just need to focus on finding Chloe right now, that’s all. Anything else… has to wait.”

  “Okay, but we’re not done talking about this,” he pressed.

  “We’ll see how you feel when we come through the other side.”

  “You make it sound like a battle.” Gabriel reached up to push a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not everything has to be so difficult.”

  “My experience proves otherwise.” Lexi resisted the urge to turn into that gentle touch, instead fixing him with a rueful smile. “I ah, was going to try again today. In Chloe’s room I mean. See if I could pick up anything from something not so closely related to her bed and possible nightmares.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  “You have time?” She thought he would want to leave, given her rejection.

  “Sure, why not? That paperwork’s not going anywhere. For a little while at least.”

  “Well… okay then,” Lexi nodded, taking a big gulp of coffee to fortify herself, she led him up the stairs, still trying to stay quiet to keep from disturbing Allison. The room was unchanged; she didn’t think Allie had so much as opened the door since Chloe’s disappearance. “I’ll have to look for something she didn’t keep in bed with her, and something I haven’t handled too much before.”

  “Why is that?” he asked, closing the door behind them.

  “I can’t keep using the same thing again and again because slowly my own energy will overwrite what’s stored in the object. But besides the bunny and the DS, I haven’t spent too much time trying to read anything of hers before. I wonder…” Lexi paused before the sketchpad on the easel, staring at the drawing of Bianca that Chloe drew so frequently. “She spends a lot of time drawing…”

  “Just like you?”

  “Yeah,” Lexi beamed with pride, “she’s pretty talented for her age too.”

  “Her aunt’s no slouch either. I checked out your website by the way, I was impressed.”

  “You did?” she looked up in surprise.

  “Well yeah, I’m a detective, remember? I can’t help but check into people that catch my interest.” Gabriel moved next to her, flipping through the sketches. “Hey you’re right; she can already draw much better than I do.”

  “Do you draw at all?” Lexi asked with interest.

  “No, my talents lie elsewhere.”

  Lexi mashed her lips together, suppressing the urge to ask him what talents he possessed; they were supposed to be focusing on the case by her insistence. Instead she turned back to the drawings. “You see this girl? This is Bianca; she’s one of the ghosts that Chloe mentioned, the little girl who used to live here back in the forties or fifties.”

  “Not too big on having her portrait drawn I see,” Gabriel gestured to the image, the girl’s head downcast in every drawing.

  “Yeah, she said that’s just what she looks like when she can see her. Even when I saw her in the past images, she had her head down too far for me to see much more than a mop of brown hair,” she replied, removing her right glove. “Well, let’s see if I can pick up anything that’ll lead us to where she is now.” Closing her eyes, Lexi went through the ritual of a deep cleansing breath, bracing for the rush of images and focusing on trying to establish that link. Unfortunately there was no sense that she was experiencing anything live, she merely caught layer after layer of Chloe drawing in the sketchbook.

  “Nothing useful.” Choking back the disappointment, Lexi cast her eyes about the room, looking for anything that might prove useful.

  “What about any other toys or books? Does she wear any jewelry?” Gabriel suggested.

  “She wears a little gold heart pendant her parents gave her last Christmas all the time, but I’m pretty sure it’s not here. That’s not too surprising though, she’s probably got it with her, wherever she is.” Lexi spent the next fifteen minutes touching various items in Chloe’s closet, but she didn’t get anything helpful at all. “I’m sorry; I really hoped I could find another link.” Her eyes fell on the stuffed bunny again. “I could try the bunny again, see if I can tell if it’s a dream or not?” she suggested after a moment’
s thought.

  “I thought you said you can’t use the same thing again?”

  “It could still work if her connection with it is strong, or I might get nothing. It couldn’t hurt to try though.” Lexi took another long breath, not exactly looking forward to tapping back into that same vision she had before, but not having much choice if she wanted to find her niece. Trying to shake off the apprehension, she took an extra couple of breaths to steady herself. What was she so worried about? It wasn’t like anything she saw could hurt her. Even if she did encounter something ghostly, nothing had attacked her in all of the time she’d been in the house, there was nothing to worry about. At best the ghosts would try to communicate with her, and maybe they could even tell her what happened to Chloe? Communicate… Lexi’s eyes popped open as an alternative came to her. “Under the bed…” Dropping down to her knees, she peeked under the bedspread, and sure enough, there was a new pile of things under the bed that hadn’t been there before. “Looks like the ghosts left us something new.”

  Reaching under with her gloved hand, she withdrew what looked like Allie’s hairbrush, the book of nursery rhymes she’d found up in the attic the day before, and a small white teacup, smudged and dirty as though it hadn’t been used in a long time. Looking up triumphantly, she realized she must look just as Chloe had when she’d first shown her “proof” of the ghosts. If Gabriel’s expression was any indication, he found it just as doubtful as she had initially.

  “These weren’t up here the last time I was in the room. See this book? I found it in the attic yesterday, and I saw Allie with this hairbrush just last night.”

  “I don’t remember seeing anything under the bed in the inventory, but I might have missed it.” He was already pulling out his phone, accessing the report from his email to scan the contents.

  “That’s because it wasn’t there. The ghost likes to leave things under the bed, remember? These are newly deposited.”

  Gabriel was silent, scanning the report long enough that she started to wonder if he was going over it twice. “Yeah, there’s nothing here,” he allowed after another minute. “Unless they missed it.”