The Touch

by Lisa Olsen

  “I like to go for a swim on most days; it helps me clear my head. The pool can get crowded, even in the evening.”

  “Oh yeah? I love to swim in the ocean. Pools and I… don’t get along.”

  “Why not?” Gabriel shrugged out of his coat and she caught sight of the gun holstered at the hip. Guns didn’t scare her on principle, but she’d never seen one up close and personal before.

  “People tend to stare when you wear gloves in the water,” she replied with a half shrug.

  “You pick up things from the water too?” He paused in the act of hanging up his coat to stare at her, and she couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on his face.

  “No, but the sides of the pool and the ladder can be a real eye opener. Trust me, you don’t want to know what people do in the hot tub,” she grinned.

  “Oh, I have a fairly good idea. My balcony overlooks the spa,” he smirked back. A brawny, orange tabby cat appeared with a plaintive meow, slinking through Gabriel’s legs before approaching Lexi with a wary sniff. “This is Jake. Jake, be polite to Lexi, she’s not a scratching post.” He leaned down to give the cat a pat on the head, but Jake was more interested in Lexi.

  “Hey there Jake, I can only imagine what smells so interesting on me.” Lexi crouched down and offered her gloved hand, which Jake sniffed with interest and then slunk off towards the kitchen without approaching her. “He seems a bit skittish,” she commented, rising to stand again.

  “He was a stray, followed me home after a run, and he’s been here ever since. I guess he’s not entirely socialized yet, but at least you got a sniff. He won’t even come near Cooper.”

  “So, he’s got good taste then,” she grinned.

  “Cooper might be a little rough around the edges, I admit, but I’ve known him for a while now, he’s a good guy,” Gabriel defended his partner.

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.” The guy seemed a little juvenile to her, and that was saying something, considering some of her friends.

  Gabriel came to stand beside her at the screen door, close enough for her to think he might wrap an arm around her, but he kept his hands to himself. “See, the thing about Cooper is, he’s so smart, his social skills come off as… borderline retarded sometimes, but he’s a good cop.”

  “Nice,” she laughed. “I’d hate to hear how you describe your enemies.” It was peaceful standing there looking out at the water, and she almost suggested they move out to take a seat on the small balcony, but curiosity won out. “So,” Lexi turned to inspect his apartment with interest. “Do I get the fifty cent tour?”

  “Yeah sure, I’m forgetting my duties as host, would you like something to drink? Are you hungry?”

  “No I’m good, you go ahead though.”

  Gabriel retrieved a beer from the fridge and twisted the cap off, taking a deep pull as he leaned against the breakfast bar. “This is the living room, which abuts the kitchen, as you can see.”

  “Very nice,” Lexi nodded, taking in the simple décor that favored blues and browns, much as the bedroom she’d seen in her brief vision. There wasn’t much up on the walls, but she liked the simplicity of it; a contrast to her own clutter.

  “The bathroom is at the end of the hall, and we have my office and the bedroom.” He moved to lean against the wall that separated the two. Lexi peeked into the first room, expecting to see a desk or office furniture, but the only piece of furniture in the room was a rolling office chair, along with a large dry erase board that dominated the room. Several milk crates were stacked along the wall by the window, filled with a haphazard collection of items, some of which looked completely out of place in an “office”.

  “What kind of office is this?” she asked, stepping deeper into the room. On closer inspection, Lexi was surprised to find her family prominently featured on the dry erase board, with Neil and Chloe’s pictures at the top and a series of branches leading off of them that included Allie’s picture as well as her own.

  “This is a mock up of the murder board we have down at the station. It helps me piece things together to see them up on the wall like this; to spot patterns and connections I might ordinarily miss.”

  “Murder board… does that mean that you’ve officially decided that Neil was murdered?” In all the times he’d called with an update he’d never come right out and said the word.

  “Yep, the official cause of death was by arsenic poisoning.”

  “You’re joking…” Lexi spun around to face him, eyes wide, but he shook his head. How was she just now hearing this?

  “Nope, not joking, he was definitely poisoned.” He came to stand beside her, eyes on the board. “Unfortunately, the poison used is commonly found in pest controls and can be bought at any home and garden store, so that lead gave us a big fat zero,” Gabriel scowled.

  “Arsenic,” she repeated. It didn’t sound real; it sounded like something out of a movie. Nobody really poisoned anyone anymore, did they? If they did, didn’t they usually find some kind of untraceable poison? “What does this mean?” she tapped the line going across the bottom with times and dates written above it.

  “That’s a timeline of events starting with the last time anyone saw Neil alive and ending here… in limbo where we are now. This red zone is the window our killer had. These letters represent the various players and their verified whereabouts in that zone.”

  “Ah, okay I see.” Lexi studied the timeline. “So I’m the letter C and you have me at home during that time period?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do you know that’s where I was?”

  A single brow was raised. “Are you saying you weren’t where you said you were?” he asked mildly.

  “No,” she laughed. “But I’m assuming you can’t just take my word for it, right?”

  “Not exactly, no. But we spoke to both of your housemates and they verified your story.”

  That was news to her, but it didn’t surprise her. Turning back to the board she found the other “players”, seeing where they’d found alibis for Neil’s girlfriend, friends and coworkers. There was one letter that was conspicuously absent however. “Where’s Allie’s letter?”

  “She didn’t have anyone to confirm where she was that night, so she doesn’t get a letter there.” Gabriel tapped her picture to the left of the board and Lexi read the list of cryptic words scribbled beneath it.

  “What does ‘prints’ mean?”

  He took a long drink of beer before answering. “Allie’s prints were all over Neil’s car.”

  “So what? It was her husband’s car.”

  “So nothing, I was just making a note of it.”

  “What does this say here… a woman scos… I can’t read your writing.”

  Gabriel hesitated again, “it says a woman scorned. But there’s a question mark after it, see?” He pointed to a little squiggle that might have been a question mark or the atomic symbol for cobalt for all she could tell.

  “Is Allie a suspect?” Lexi’s head swiveled to face him, watching the play of emotions on his face before he decided how to answer that question.

  “She’s a person of interest that we haven’t ruled out yet,” he said carefully.

  “Am I a suspect?” Her eyes found her picture up on the board, trying to decipher the words scrawled under them. It looked like the word “hand” was there as well as… “psycho? You think I’m psycho?” Lexi demanded.

  Gabriel turned her by the shoulders to face him square on. “It says psychic, not psycho and no, you’re not a suspect, you have been officially ruled out,” he replied evenly and the bluster went out of her. While she wasn’t really a psychic by her definition, she didn’t want to quibble over semantics. “Though I haven’t crossed you off as a person of interest yet,” the corner of his mouth tugged up into a smile that she couldn’t help but return.

  “So, you’re saying you’re still interested then?” Lexi took the beer from his hand, stealing a sip. “It’s been kinda har
d to tell the past few days.”

  “Definitely,” he nodded, eyes on her mouth as she drank from his beer. “Sorry about that, it’s this case… it’s been taking up all of my free time. Unfortunately it’s not the only one I’m working at the moment and the longer it goes on without a break, the more of a backburner it gets placed on by the senior brass.”

  “They’ve already given up on it? Just like that? What about Chloe?”

  “No, it’s just that other cases have to be worked as well, and to be honest, there’s not a lot to do on this one until we get a break.”

  “If there’s not a lot to do, then what’s been taking up all of your free time?” Was it her or was he contradicting himself?

  “There’s not a lot to be done as far as the routine investigation we do, but there’s always more research I can do on my own time.” Gabriel picked up one of the milk crates and withdrew a fat manila folder. “I widened my background search to find all of Neil’s living relatives. I’ve contacted the local precincts in Miami, Culver City, Las Cruces, anywhere that Chloe might turn up, just in case. I spoke to every single person who ever filed a grievance with the sales department at Neil’s company, and that was more than you’d think. I talked to people we used to know back in high school to see if anyone knew of a reason why someone might have killed him. Any tiny possible lead, I’m pushing to the limits to see what I can turn up, but so far I’ve got nothing.”

  “What did you find out about my family?” Lexi was almost afraid to ask, but there was a file in that milk crate labeled Morgan, and she wanted to know if he’d managed to track down her mother.

  Gabriel’s brows twitched together as if he was weighing how much to tell her.

  “Oh come on, you can’t not tell me. Don’t I have a right to know about my own family?” she pleaded, gratified to see the change in his expression a split second before he answered.

  “Alright then, but I’m only going to tell you what I found out, I can’t dig any deeper than what I’ve turned up already,” he cautioned her. “Most of it you probably know; I’ve got copies of your birth certificate, school transcripts, there wasn’t a whole lot there with the exception of some interesting notes from your school counselor in junior high. It seems like you made quite an impression on Mr. Garcia.”

  Lexi’s brows climbed higher at that, she hadn’t thought about him in forever. “What did he say about me?”

  “He seemed to think that you should have been sent to a private school for the gifted, he even sent a recommendation to the Halstead Academy against your mother’s wishes, but nothing ever came out of it.”

  “Gifted because of my brains or because of my hands?” she gave him a sidelong glance.

  “Your hands, though he did say you were an exceptionally bright child,” he smiled.

  “Okay, so what else? What didn’t you want to tell me?”

  “There were records from CPS about your custody situation when your mother left, and the eventual decision to let you live with your grandmother.”

  “What’s CPS?”

  “Child Protective Services.”

  “Ah gotcha, okay…” she prompted him. None of it sounded too awful yet and none of it was anything she didn’t already know. “Did you find out anything about what happened to my mother?”

  The hesitation was much longer this time, “She checked herself into a mental health facility in Lexington, Kentucky.”

  Lexi wasn’t sure what to be more surprised by, the fact that her mom was in a looney bin or that she was in Kentucky. Kentucky won out, because she already knew on some level that her mother hadn’t been stable for a long time. “What’s she doing all the way out there?”

  “You have family out that way, second cousins I guess they’d be. She stayed with them for a while before checking into the facility about six years ago.”

  “Six years…” Lexi reached for his beer again, taking a healthy swig. “I guess whatever it is she’s in there for isn’t getting better, huh? I suppose that explains why I haven’t heard a peep from her since she left that night.” Left in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye. Gran had shown up the next day with a box of donuts and a watery smile, helping them pack up for the move to her house. At least her mother had retained the presence of mind to call and make some arrangements for her children. It could have been worse. Hell, it could have been a lot worse if she’d stayed.

  “I’m sorry,” Gabriel took the empty bottle from her hand and gave her a comforting squeeze.

  “Hey, it’s not your fault,” a half shrug was given. Did it make her a bad person that she didn’t ask where the facility was that her mother was staying? Lexi figured her mother knew how to contact her if she wanted to. She still lived in the same town and had her own website for chrissakes; she wasn’t the one who’d disappeared. That left just one more elephant in the room. “Did you turn up anything unusual about my father?” That had been a thorn in the back of her mind for her entire life, always there, but for the most part tucked away and forgotten.

  “No, I’m sorry Lexi; I only have the bare bones on the man. You were what… two years old when he died?”

  “Three,” she murmured, trying to cast her mind back to that time and as usual, coming up blank. At the age of three she should have been able to remember something about the man, but she had a total absence of memory. Without anything of his left behind, there was nothing for her to ‘read’ either. There weren’t even any pictures to be found.

  “I could try to dig something up about him, I admit I didn’t look too much into his past,” he offered.

  Lexi shook her head, pulling her thoughts back to the present. “How about we continue with the tour?”

  “Ah sure, we can do that. All that’s left is the bedroom.”

  “The famous bedroom…” Lexi moved past him to stick her head around the corner. “Just like I saw it in my vision, only messier.”

  “Sorry about that, I wasn’t expecting company.” Gabriel kicked his discarded running clothes into the bottom of the closet, along with the expensive running shoes while she stepped into the room. Again there wasn’t an overabundance of décor in the room, but the overall effect was tranquil and soothing. A large window overlooked the pool and spa, as he’d mentioned before.

  “Don’t worry about it, you’ve seen all of the skeletons in my closet; it’s only fair I get a look into yours, right?”

  “I guess so,” he nodded with a wry grin. “Just don’t expect me to air out my own skeletons any time soon.”

  “Why Detective, are you implying that you’re just as flawed as the rest of us?”

  “Never admit to anything that can be used against you later in a court of law,” he held up a finger. “Here, you should check this baby out,” Gabriel hopped up on the edge of the bed with an audible sigh of relief. “I’ll bet you’d never guess this is a water bed, would you?”

  “A water bed? Are you kidding me? What is this, the seventies?” Lexi quirked a single brow, doing her level best not to laugh, but he still looked offended.

  “What? Check it out, it’s not like in the old days where it’s nothing more than a big water balloon, check this out… it’s almost completely motionless.” Gabriel rolled first one way and then the other and true to his words there was very little movement and no sloshing sounds.

  Lexi stared at him as if he’d started speaking in tongues. “What’s the point of having a water bed if it’s completely motionless?” Wasn’t that the whole benefit of having one?

  “Because there’s more give and it moves with your body. My back never had it so good. Really, try it out,” he patted the bed beside him.

  “Are you trying to get me into your bed?” she asked, unable to keep the arch smile from returning.

  “That was the plan,” he grinned back, “is it working?”

  God he was adorable. Even though there were warning bells pealing madly in the back of her head, telling her she was definitely crossing a line h
ere, Lexi couldn’t resist that honest smile. “I can respect that,” she nodded equably, climbing onto the bed. To her surprise, the motion of the mattress felt almost sluggish and stopped almost immediately as soon as she lay still, not at all what she’d been expecting. “Hey, this is kinda comfy.”

  “That’s exactly what I was trying to tell you,” his hand slid across the comforter, coming to rest beside hers, but not quite touching. “Next time you should listen to my good advice.”

  “Next time I will… when it has to do with the comfort of beds,” she promised, rolling over onto her side to face him. Tracing her gloved finger along the edge of his hand, Lexi realized the flutter in her belly had nothing to do with apprehension or fear; instead it had to do with wondering if he still wanted to kiss her. Still more wondrous was the realization that she wanted him to.

  “I’m happy to be your bedtime advisor,” his grin softened, eyes trained on their adjoining hands. “I also make a mean pasta, I’d be happy to provide any advice on that too.”

  “Now there I don’t need any help. I’m pretty sure I’ve cooked every kind of pasta known to man, it’s a staple for us starving artists.”

  “I feel a challenge coming on… my pasta versus yours… How about we try a pasta cook-off, Saturday night? I’ll even offer you the home court advantage if you want it, or we could always have dinner here if you think it might be too crowded at your place?

  “I thought we agreed to table anything like that until after the case is solved?”

  “We don’t have to eat at the table, I could serve you dinner in here, you seem pretty comfy to me,” Gabriel deadpanned.

  “You know what I meant; I thought we agreed to hold off on anything more between us for now?”

  “You’re the one who agreed, not me. I just pulled a strategic retreat. Besides, you’re the one who invited yourself into my apartment tonight.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Lexi caught her bottom lip in her teeth, “You’re the one who invited me into your bed though.”