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E ach word from Agatha was like an excruciating blow to Kylie’s heart, and she couldn’t believe what her aunt was saying. “I don’t understand,” Kylie said. “I was a child. You shouldn’t have held any of that against me.”
“Sure, I shouldn’t have,” she muttered. “Maybe if it hadn’t been so damn hard to function in this world, knowing that he was after us every damn minute, but that wasn’t easy either.”
“No, of course it wouldn’t have been,” Kylie agreed, “and yet you feel as if I’m the one who brought Hogan to us.”
“You were. Absolutely you were. I gave you that pencil to hold things back and told you to always use it. I coded it into your damn brain, and every time I saw you with it, I would smile and think, Okay, we’re still good . Then something would happen to all that coding, and I realized I needed you to just disappear from my life, once and for all. I thought that finally I could be at peace,” she cried out softly.
“At peace from whom? From Hogan?”
“Yes, from the same killer who took your parents and your brothers, not that you ever cared.”
“What do you mean, I never cared?” Kylie cried out. “How old was I? Four, five? I was a child. Of course I cared.”
“Yeah, of course you cared, but you still had to play with that stupid energy all the time. No matter how many times I told you to stop, especially the damn hopscotch. And yet that was so much better than everything else.”
“What do you mean, so much better?” she asked. “I remember the hopscotch, and I remember playing with lots of people.”
“Yeah, you played with lots of people all right, but every one of them was dead,” she snapped. “Every one of them was dead, and how was I supposed to explain you to the world around me?”
“So why did you keep me?” she asked.
The aunt gave a broken laugh. “I didn’t have a choice,” she muttered. “I didn’t have any damn choice. Otherwise I would have gotten rid of you in a heartbeat.”
At that, her aunt fell silent.
*
Kylie and Porter walked into the captain’s office a little while later. Kylie remained silent since leaving the hospital.
The captain motioned to a chair. “Sit.” She sat. The captain glared at her. “So, what the hell?”
“So, what the hell is right,” she repeated to him. Now that she knew he was married to somebody who was also used to dabbling in this psychic stuff, Kylie felt much more at ease with him.
The captain looked over at Porter. “Answers?”
“Some, not enough,” Porter said, and he repeated most of what had happened at the hospital.
“Agatha came back from the dead?” the captain asked, his eyes widening.
Kylie nodded. “And I don’t know why.”
“What do you mean?”
She raised both hands. “It feels as if she was supposed to tell me something and didn’t.”
“So, she’s that scared of Hogan, even on her deathbed?”
“Seem to be, but I don’t know for sure. She won’t tell me those things,” Kylie replied.
“The doctor did say these episodes happen, and the patients appear to be gone,” Porter shared. “Then they suddenly come back, but they often pass away soon afterward.”
“Which would make my aunt very happy,” Kylie stated sadly. “She wants nothing to do with me at all.”
“I’m not against that,” Porter declared at her side. “Absolutely nothing she’s shown me makes her somebody I would want to stay in touch with, much less have you endure her again. Agatha could have told you all kinds of things.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure she’s in any way capable of it.”
“What is she trying to hide?” the captain asked.
“Herself,” Kylie declared.
He looked at her. “Anything else?”
She stared at him, wordless, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it, and it would do me an awful lot of good for her to talk to me, but I can’t seem to force her to do that, so…”
The captain looked over at Porter. “Did you get a chance to talk to her?
He shook his head. “No, she was unconscious again fairly quickly after the conversation opened up with Kylie.”
“Interesting.” He shuffled the papers on his desk erratically, as if that would give him answers, and finally he looked over at her. “It sounds as if maybe you need to stay at the hospital, until you can get some answers.”
“Sure, wouldn’t that be nice. However, my aunt doesn’t want me there, so I’m not sure that will get me the answers anyway.”
“Maybe not,” the captain conceded, “so go to her house. See if you can come up with anything to question her about that’ll give you something. Then go see her at the hospital and see if you can get any answers.” He looked over at Porter. “What do you think?”
“I think that’s a good idea. I was shocked when she came back to life, and I think, in a way, Agatha was too. There was that shock on her soul, as if I almost sensed her saying, I escaped, I left. Nobody should have brought me back .”
“It was definitely odd, very odd,” Kylie confirmed. “One thing’s for sure. She’s not any friendlier after having died.” Kylie had a wry look on her face, as if finding Agatha awake was an unexpected thing.
“So, was that her soul talking?” the captain asked cautiously.
She studied him, then shook her head. “I don’t know. We hide so many things from ourselves, and Agatha hid everything, especially from me, apparently,” she added, with a sad look over at Porter. “There was something about blocks, something about me talking to dead people all the time, so I don’t know what Agatha was trying to say.”
“Dead people?” he asked.
“Yeah, she mentioned my playing hopscotch, and all the people I played with were dead,” she muttered. “I remember that too—not the dead people part—but I remember getting in trouble for it all the time. She mentioned she would keep everybody from finding out about me.”
“So, she put those blocks in?” the captain asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine. She’s definitely not sharing and doesn’t want to open that door,” Kylie explained, “which is just damn frustrating for me right now.”
“Of course,” he murmured, “but you got something out of her, and now you remember the hopscotch.”
“Yes, and there was something else.” She looked at the pencil in her hand. “She told me that she gave me this to me to help me keep things inside or whatever. I just don’t know what that means to her.”
“What would you have used instead?”
“Another pencil. Although I do love chalk,” she shared, “but I don’t know why I prefer chalk.”
“Probably because of the hopscotch,” the captain pointed out.
She looked at him and then nodded again. “You could be right.” She stared over at Porter. “Maybe I need to go buy some chalk.”
“I agree. We absolutely need to go buy some chalk for you,” Porter declared.
“There is also the chance that whatever you draw with chalk might completely change everything,” the captain noted.
Porter nodded. “You obviously have some a connection to dead people.”
“Maybe you need to phone Stefan,” the captain suggested, looking over at Porter. “Ask him.”
“You’re right, Captain.” Porter now stared at the pencil she always used for sketching. “The thing is, I think you have turned and made that your own,” he pointed out. “So, even if Agatha thought it would save her or would protect her, it appears to me that you created something that was geared more to help you than her. Or to help others. I would say that is a good thing.”
Kylie sighed. “She never really talked a whole lot in the hospital. I think there is more, a lot more, that she needs to say, or ought to anyway, but she probably isn’t ready,” she murmured.
“Which is why I think you need to go back.”
She nodded. “I’m not against going back. Believe me that I want as many answers as I can get.”
“So, give her an hour or two and then head back again,” the captain said. “I wouldn’t give her much longer because, if the doctors are correct, and this is not where she’s planning on staying, if there is any way for her to change that circumstance, she is liable to do it as soon as she could.”
Kylie frowned at that and nodded. “Porter, let’s go to her house and check things out. Maybe we’ll find some answers there.”
“Did you ever look around her house, poke around at things? Any of them that you lived at?” Porter asked.
“Me, are you kidding? No matter where we lived, certain rooms were 100 percent blocked off,” she stated, with a wry look in his direction. “I wasn’t allowed anywhere. I was given a certain amount of space, and that was it. I wasn’t welcome in her personal space.”
“Jesus, I can’t stand that woman,” Porter muttered. “The more I hear, the more I dislike her.” Turning, he looked at the captain and said, “We’ll head there now and let you know how it goes.”
As soon as they got back into the car, he asked Kylie, “Are you ready for this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she murmured, “which means not ready at all.”
*
Porter drove up to the townhome and parked right in front.
Kylie walked up to the door, quickly grabbed the key from under the mat, and stepped into a world that seemed so foreign and yet at the same time so familiar.
“Don’t forget,” she said, as she looked at him, “I never lived here with her. But, if I had, I would have been allowed into the kitchen, the dining room, my bedroom, the bathroom. That would have been about it,” she muttered. “I was required to be in my space at all times.”
He shook his head. “Does she have a home office?”
They headed there first and found almost nothing, except for a computer. He brought it up and a password was on it.
“I don’t feel as if we should get into her computer, especially considering that she’s still alive,” Kylie pointed out.
He shrugged. “That’s fine. Let’s check out the rest of the house and see what’s going on.” They went upstairs to the bedroom, and Kylie paused and nodded. “She hasn’t changed much. This is still pretty well the same bedroom as all of hers before.”
He whistled as he entered. “This is a very esoteric bedroom, with all those protective markings.” He pointed to the painting on the wall.
She looked at it and frowned. “I think I remember seeing those in some form every damn time I’ve ever been in her room.”
“How often was that?”
“Not many. The few times I ever had to disturb her when she was in her bedroom brought such an outrageous response, I learned very quickly to not come in. But, as a child, you’re curious, and a couple times I snuck into her room to see. She always knew though.”
“Sure, she probably had hidden cameras or something going on. She’s not the nicest or calmest person.”
“No, she’s not, but she managed to look after me.”
He just smiled and kept on moving through the room. “She also doesn’t seem to indulge much in the way of clothes. The closet is mostly empty, and it’s a walk-in, with plenty of room.”
“She did try to run, remember?”
“And she’s got a suitcase packed,” he noted, as he stared down at it on the bottom of the closet.
“We always did that,” she blurted out, the memory coming up. And then she frowned, “Oh my God, that’s right. We always kept a bag packed for emergencies and such.”
“Interesting. So she was that afraid all the time?”
“Yes, we always had something ready to go,” she murmured. “It must have been hard for her to go through life so terrified that she had absolutely no normalcy, no relationships, no friendships. I don’t remember her ever having friends and certainly not a love interest. She would have blamed me anyway.”
“In what way?” he asked.
“Just that I would have cramped her style. I do remember asking her if she’d ever been married, and she just laughed and said no, something about that time had come and gone—which didn’t really surprise me, given her age. Now that I understand a little more about what was going on, I guess her responses were fairly easy to understand.”
He dug further into the closet, and she noted, “You seem awfully fascinated by the closet.”
“I am, not to mention it’s a place where most people hide stuff.”
“I don’t know about her. She wouldn’t have been most people.”
“That’s true,” he replied. “Still, answers have to be in here somewhere.” As he moved farther into the closet, he pulled out a box from the far back corner.
“If you found a box, it won’t be that one but would possibly be another box beside it, looking very innocuous. She always had these little tricks to hide things. I can’t really remember what they were, but there was never any doubt that the obvious one was definitely not the prize.”
And, sure enough, when he opened the first box, nothing was there. “Fascinating,” he murmured.
She went into the closet next and then came back out again. “This one might have answers. I remember her getting really angry at me for opening it one time.”
He took it from her, walked over to the bed, and laid it on top. “This would be something to look at anyway,” he muttered to himself.
She stepped up beside him and added, “She always kept papers in here. I just don’t know what the papers were. I was never given the freedom to find out.”
“Not that we’re necessarily allowed to be here doing this right now either, but, since something is going on, and the captain has okayed our visit, we are okay to go forward.”
“But we’re supposed to have a search warrant, aren’t we?”
“He’ll get one, if need be.”
“But if nothing is here to warrant such a thing, that means we’re doing this illegally, right?”
He smiled, “Yet you are her niece. Her only relative.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t give me the right to go prying into her things.”
He faced her and said, “You need to ask yourself why you don’t want me to open this box.”
She took a deep breath. “I really do want you to open that box, but I’m terrified of what’s inside.”
He popped open the box, just as a man spoke behind them.
“I have been looking for that sucker for a long time.”
She slowly turned to see Keefe Hogan staring at them, a big smile on his face, a gun in his hand, and a feeling of relief in his expression. He looked at her and nodded. “I was hoping you would find it.”
“You didn’t kill her this time, you know.”
His eyes lit up. “Really? Damn, she’s worse than anybody I’ve ever known.” He looked at her and then chuckled. “You do realize she’s got this ability to appear dead, even to the point that you think for sure you wouldn’t get a pulse. Then somehow she comes back.” Kylie stared at him in shock, and he nodded. “I thought for sure she would have been 100 percent gone, but no. Once again, she came back from the dead. I’ll just have to kill her again.”
When Kylie gasped at that, he looked at her, then smiled. “If I told you the truth, you would want to kill her too.”
She reared back at that, but he waved the gun at her. “You need to just calm down those reactions a little bit,” he muttered, “because I don’t mind fighting off the two of you.”
Porter glared at Hogan. “What the hell do you want with this box anyway?”
“It’s probably what I’ve been looking for the whole time,” Hogan said. “I know you don’t think a killer has any morals or ethics, and, to a certain extent, you’re right, but this?… This is what sent me down that pathway.”
“What pathway?” Kylie asked, her voice faint.
“The pathway of hell,” he muttered. “The pathway of hiding for most of my life. The pathway that sent me to prison because of that bitch.”
Kylie frowned.
“Oh, right, you don’t know all about it.” Hogan chuckled. “Some of us know a whole lot more.” He waved his gun around at her again, getting Kylie’s full attention. “You’re the one who kept Agatha alive,” he announced, with a smile, “and you didn’t even know it.”
Kylie blinked at him several times, her mind trying to grasp what he said. “I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, that was another thing Agatha didn’t want to deal with. She never wanted to explain it to you. Then she got too scared and wanted to get rid of you,” he shared, with half a laugh. “I kept as close as I could, but I didn’t really intend to get too involved. Besides, I didn’t intend on letting her live, and she knew it, which was why she kept you close and used you more as a radar system than anything.” She blinked at him again, and he just smiled. “And, of course, none of this is making any sense to you.”
“No, it isn’t,” she cried out. “How could that make sense to anyone?”
He chuckled. “I get it. You don’t have a clue. I’m okay with that, but I’m sure you want answers. I guess I should allow Agatha to live long enough to confirm that you get those answers from her.”
“Yeah, that would be nice,” she said, staring at him in shock, “because I sure as hell don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. What do you mean, I kept her alive?”
“You have this little alert system that worked really well. Your mom didn’t really understand apparently, but your aunt did, as Agatha had abilities of her own. You tried to stop your parents from going in the car that day. That is until Agatha decided to silence you.”
“What are you talking about?” Kylie asked.
He laughed again, shaking his head. “I’ve always wondered if you had the same abilities as Agatha does.” And, with that, he raised the gun, and he fired a shot, right in the center of Kylie’s chest.
She felt the coldness sliding through her heart. She heard Porter’s scream of shock and a second bullet being fired. She vaguely felt herself fall to the ground, wondering at the icy coldness in her system, and heard a voice calling out to her.
She wasn’t sure who was calling or who was here. She felt a strange sensation of fullness, almost a weird awareness that life was about to change forever. Then in a distant part of her mind, she noted that Hogan walked over to the bed and picked up the box.
“Sorry about that, kiddo. No way I would let you stop me from finally getting the proof I needed. Whether your aunt lives or dies, I will confirm that people know what she did.” He laughed more heartily this time. “It shouldn’t really matter now because, after I was taken down that pathway, I never really got off of it. I was too angry, never giving up on the hope of revenge, and now you’ve finally given it to me.” He raised the box, as if in a toast, and left.
And that was the last she knew, as she collapsed, unconscious.
*
As bullets went, that second one had been deliberately placed to take out Porter. Only as he moved ever-so-slightly did he feel it snick at him and pass on by. He collapsed to the floor, expecting another bullet, which never came. He realized the gunman wasn’t worried about Porter at all. In the back of his mind, he had to wonder how that worked. Yet all Porter was concerned about right now was to get to Kylie as soon as he could. She didn’t understand what was going on either, but he had some idea that it would involve her aunt and this damn killer, who just seemed to float in and out of nowhere.
Porter heard something in the back of his mind, something about needing that connection, but then it was gone. After the door in his mind opened, Porter sent an SOS to the captain, then rolled over and shuffled to Kylie’s side. He dropped down beside her, seeing the blood well up from her chest, and he whispered, “It’s all right, honey. It’s all right.”
She blinked up at him several times and then whispered, “Goodbye.”
He shook his head. “Nope, no goodbyes for you,” he declared. “Haven’t you figured out how your aunt got herself back alive again? From a weird energy defense system, and you have it too.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was no reason for her to keep you all that time, if you didn’t have something she could use. And that’s what it was. Your ability to heal. Your ability to defend in a completely different way, just using energy,” he explained. “So, although I see blood from your bullet wound, I don’t see the amount of blood that there should be.” He ran his hands over her quickly. “Your killer thinks that he managed to get rid of you, and chances are he’s heading over to take out Agatha next.”
Kylie just blinked up at him several times, and he smiled. “Keep blinking up at me, keep looking at me, keep questioning everything I’m saying,” he suggested. “Give yourself time to recuperate because, right now, your energy is basically this mass of netting, and it went in with the bullet and even now is working that bullet back out again.”
Sure enough, as he watched, a weird plop sounded, and the bullet hit the ground beside her. He grinned. “That is the best supernatural ability ever,” he exclaimed. “I gather you didn’t know anything about it.”
Her hand went to her chest, as Kylie stared up at Porter in shock.
He nodded. “I’ve heard something about this, but I’ve never seen it, and this, sweetheart, is absolutely amazing.”
She groaned, and a second bullet came out of her shoulder. “It feels as if they didn’t even go in.”
“They went in, but your energy did too. Think about the force behind a bullet. The energy just separates, allows the bullet to enter, yet at the same time you almost capture it with that same energy and work it back out again,” he explained, fascinated. “A little bit of blood, not a whole lot, and a few minutes later, and you’ll be just fine.”
He laughed in delight, and then he frowned. “But we’re definitely not telling anybody about this ability.” He helped her to sit up. “Take it easy though. Take it easy, and don’t move too quickly. I don’t have a clue how fast that healing energy will work.”
Stefan called into his head, I’m not sure I just saw what I just saw .
Porter laughed and replied out loud, “I saw it too. No wonder the aunt needed her.”
Yes, but only as a protective system, and it wouldn’t have helped her, at least I don’t think so, if Agatha were alone . Then Stefan continued, now confused. I’m not sure, but maybe, if Agatha was literally connected to Kylie,… maybe it would have made a difference. Jesus, just when you think you’ve come up against everything, you realize you haven’t seen anything .
“I know,” Porter agreed in absolute delight, “but considering Kylie just took two bullets, and she’s now sitting up looking at me, it’s like I’m the crazy one.”
Hell, we’re all crazy , Stefan noted in astonishment.
“And, if this is crazy, I’m more than happy to be here,” Porter stated.
Stefan added, Under normal circumstances, I would tell you to go see a doctor and get her checked out, but right now I don’t think a doctor would even know what to do with her and would think you were crazy for bringing her in and for wasting their time .
“Exactly,” Porter said triumphantly. “I doubt Kylie’s ever had a cold. I don’t think she’s ever had anything in her world that was physically wrong with her.… But you said if Kylie touched her aunt, then her aunt was bulletproof too?”
Maybe that is what brought the aunt back, to be near Kylie?
“Oh God, I don’t know. Kylie was holding her aunt’s hand for the longest time at the hospital, so, for all I know, that physical contact is possibly what let Agatha live.” He looked down at Kylie. “How are you feeling?”
“Bizarre, but fine.” She gave a whole-body shrug, almost as if the energy wafted back and forth, like an elastic band.
He grinned. “You are an absolute anomaly, and I am thrilled, and Stefan is here with us now as well.”
She nodded. “I can hear him.” She looked around the room, frowning. “That’s got to get irritating though.”
Stefan’s voice filled the room. “Maybe, but that’s a hell of an ability you have.”
“And not one that we need anybody to know about,” she pointed out.
“No, I hear you there.”
“But that is wild and useless if it’s just related to me,” she noted.
“I’m not sure it is just limited to you,” Porter stated, “but we’ll have to explore that afterward. Remember the X-Men movie? You would fit right in.”
She snorted. “I so am not that.” She walked over to the closet and stared inside.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I don’t think Hogan got the right box,” she replied, turning to look at Porter. “I think something else is in here.”
“Where? Point me in the direction, and I’ll dig in.”
She frowned. “I think it’s higher up. I feel as if it’s quite high.”
Immediately Stefan added, “Yes, it’s much higher up. Whatever it is that you guys are after, a little door is up there, a hatch or something.”
She nodded. “Yes, it’s up there, whatever it is.”
And, with that, Porter moved her aside. “Let me take a look.” He kept glancing at her. “Are you sure you feel okay?”
“I feel fine,” she replied in a wry tone. “I mean, I’ve just been shot twice, but, hey, don’t worry about me,” she muttered. “Apparently that’s not an issue.”
He grinned. “You can’t imagine how thrilled I am that it’s not an issue,” he murmured. “The last thing I wanted was to have you taken out by a bullet.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen at all,” she murmured. “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure what this is all about, but I think it’s time we go back and talk to Agatha.”
“Not yet. Soon, just not yet.”
“Why not?” she murmured, as he reached up into the closet, trying to locate the hidden space.
“Because I think we need to sort this out first, and then go talk to your aunt.”
“Did she use me as an antiaging talisman too?” she asked. “I always wondered how she stayed so young looking.”
“Is she young?” he asked her. “I thought she was probably what? In her mid-forties, late-thirties, early-forties?”
“She’s a lot older than that,” she declared, staring at him. “But you’re right. She looks very well preserved, doesn’t she?”
“So then, maybe she was using some of your energy, along with the blocks, to help her stay young, and maybe it was part of her way of hiding. If she looked younger, and Hogan was always expecting an older woman, maybe she thought that would keep her safer.”
Kylie frowned. “Didn’t Hogan say something about proof? He did mention that he was looking for proof, right?”
“Yes, he was. Something about being on a path, sending him down a pathway.”
Porter reached into the back of the closet, way up high, and sure enough found an attic hatchway there. He slid back the door and, using both hands, he swung himself up so he could take a look. Resting on his arms along the opening, he pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and took a look around. It was empty, except for a very flat 9x13 inch box in front of him. He grabbed it and slid back down.
“And do we know if Hogan actually left?” she asked, frowning as she turned and looked around. “The last thing I want him to do is come back and find me alive. I did survive this time, but I don’t know that I can do it every time.”
“That’s a good point. I suggest we get out of here with the box, just in case.”
She nodded, and, with the two of them moving as quickly as they could, they headed to his car, got in, and he headed down the road. She now clutched the box tightly in her hands. “Do you think it’s safe to open?” she whispered.
At her wording he looked at her, almost as if she were a little girl, and he realized that once again the blocks were stopping her from being the person she needed to be at every step. The fact that she’d even been a fully functioning adult just blew him away.
He smiled, closed his fingers around her hand, and said, “We’ll go somewhere safe, and then we’ll open it. And, yes, it’s definitely time to open up this thing.”
She nodded and sank back into her seat.
Porter couldn’t help but be worried that there would be some after effects from all this.
Kylie looked over at him. “I’m fine.”
He frowned and nodded. “I hear you, but I just don’t see how.”
“I know,” she murmured. “I feel as if there will always be that doubt.”
“You’ve heard it before?”
“I think so.” She looked puzzled at first. Then her face cleared. “At the hospital, after the car accident, they didn’t understand why I was free from any injuries,” she murmured. “I guess that’s why, huh ?”
“Maybe. And would Agatha have known that?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, as she thought about it. “But I feel as if maybe she did.” He found a coffee shop and pulled in and parked. She looked at him in surprise. “Are you sure you want to do this out in public?”
He nodded. “As much as it might be better in private, if Hogan finds us here in a public place like this, it’ll be a little harder on him.”
“And is it harder on him?” she asked. “Is that who we’re protecting?”
“I don’t know, but this box is definitely something he is looking for.”
“Right.”
They got out, and thankfully the coffee shop was pretty empty. He took a seat at the very back and faced the entrance. She sat on the other side of the table.
She frowned. “I don’t like having my back to the door.”
He nodded. “Let’s switch the chairs ever-so-slightly.”
It was a little more awkward, but they finally had it so that both of them could see around the restaurant. When the waitress came over and frowned at them, he apologized. “Sorry, we’ve just been under some difficult times right now, and we need to both feel more comfortable.”
She shrugged. “As long as you put the chairs back afterward. This area doesn’t get a whole lot of use anyway, particularly when the weather isn’t glorious. What can I get you?”
He looked over at Kylie. She said, “I just want coffee.”
He ordered two coffees, and, when the waitress didn’t appear to be very happy with that, he ordered a large sandwich for them to split. With her gone, he looked over at Kylie. She was still clutching the box in her hands but made no move to open it. He wasn’t sure if he should nudge her in that direction or just let it wait. Finally he suggested that maybe she should take a look.
“Maybe.” Yet she couldn’t bring herself to put the box on the table. “This box could hold documents,” she whispered.
“Yes, I would suspect so.”
“So, it likely has information about my parents,” she murmured.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I’m not sure I want to open it,” she admitted.
He just waited. The waitress came back with coffee and said the sandwich would be coming soon. With cream in her coffee, Kylie picked up the cup and had a couple sips. Then she sat back again.
Porter noticed her fingers went right to her earring, and she massaged it.
He smiled. “That earring always makes you feel better, doesn’t it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know,” she murmured. “It’s something I tend to do when I’m stressed.”
“Of course, and, if this place is something that’s stressing you out, we can go somewhere else.”
“No, it’s not the location. It’s the contents of the box.”
“Of course.” He just waited and let her have some time to settle in.
She let go of one heavy sigh and then a second one, and finally, with the third, she opened the box without warning and put the lid off to the side. Multiple file folders were inside. At the top was a file labeled Keefe Hogan . The next file was labeled Ann Marie , and at the bottom of the folders was a third one with Kylie’s name on it.
She frowned as she looked at them. “I’m not sure what this is all about,” she muttered. “Ann Marie is my mother’s name.”
He looked surprised at that. “You pick one, and I’ll take one.”
She handed him Hogan’s folder, which Porter really was hoping she would give to him. He opened it and found documented conversations, but it was also proof that he had been involved in the killings of Kylie’s family. Porter frowned, wondering why Hogan would want this. It was proof that he had been involved, and that wasn’t necessarily something he would want to keep. Surely he would want to destroy this. Yet Hogan felt this would somehow exonerate him.
Porter kept going through this batch of paperwork and saw emails back and forth between Agatha and Hogan, from many years ago. Porter frowned and pondered any relationship between the two of them. Then Porter brought up on his phone the digital file that he had on Kylie’s parents’ deaths and what he had known about the aunt’s involvement in hunting down Hogan.
Did the police have it all wrong? Had Hogan and Agatha known each other prior to this? Or was this part of the trap she had set?
In a way that would make the most sense, but it also still didn’t completely clarify this mess. As Porter sat here, his phone rang. He answered it quickly, and it was the captain.
“Progress?” he barked.
“Yes,” Porter replied in a low tone. “We found something.”
The captain dropped the tone of his voice too. “Good. What is it?”
“Not sure, and we are working on it. We’re going through a box right now.”
“Heads up. Agatha has disappeared. She checked herself out of the hospital, and nobody knows where she is. So, if you’re at her house…”
“No, we’re out now, at the coffeehouse on Fifth and Main, but we did get the box from her house.”
“That’ll be fun,” he muttered. “We didn’t have a search warrant.”
“I know, but then again,… her next of kin had ample worry that she wouldn’t survive.”
“And yet she came back to life just fine,” the captain noted in a tone that clearly revealed he didn’t like anything about this.
“I don’t like it either,” Porter replied. “We need to go through this box, and then we can give you more information.”
“Hurry it up. I’m sending a few uniforms your way, just in case,” he snapped, and, with that, he disconnected.
Kylie frowned at Porter, who shrugged. “The captain’s looking for answers.”
“Right, of course he is,” she muttered.
He hesitated, then added, “Agatha has checked herself out of the hospital.”
She gasped, and he saw the fear in her eyes. She looked down at the box and almost picked it up and smashed it against her chest, as if it were so important that she was afraid she would lose it.
He nodded. “I gather this is superimportant information.”
“I’m reading my mother’s will,” she shared. “I don’t really understand why it should be here, but considering my aunt was trying to help find her killer,… I guess it does make sense. The other document is a summary of details about how and when Agatha tried to find Hogan and then getting Hogan incarcerated,” she murmured. “That’s all I’ve read so far.”
He asked, “May I?”
She hesitated, then handed over the folder. She did not ask for Hogan’s folder. Instead she picked up her own.
Porter looked down at the few sheets in Ann Marie’s file and read through the little that was here, but it struck him a moment later just how wrong one part of it was. When he heard a soft cry, he looked over at Kylie, staring down at the papers with tears in her eyes. “What’s the matter?” he whispered.
She stared at him in shock. “You probably need to read this. I don’t think I can read anymore.” And she handed him the file, her hand shaking so badly that the papers trembled in the air. “And now I feel as if she’s here,” she whispered, looking around in a panic. “If Agatha’s not here yet, she’s on her way.”
“The only way she would know that is if she can track you.”
Her hand went to her earring and twisted it nervously. “I don’t know about that, but she’s always had this uncanny ability to find me whenever she wanted to.”
“Take off the earring,” Porter ordered.
She frowned at him, then took a moment for the comprehension to click in, and she pulled the stud from her ear and dropped it on the table, staring at it in shock. “Agatha told me that it was from my mother.”
“And maybe it was, and just because Agatha said that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t from your mother,” he replied. “It just means that maybe Agatha found a way to utilize it, to keep track of you. And by telling you it was from your mother, you kept it close.”
“Yeah, of course I did.” She stared at him. “It’s the only thing I have of hers.” She tapped the file Agatha had hidden away that he currently had in his hand. “Did you read it?”
“No, I’m trying to,” he said, with a note of humor. “Give me a minute.”
She sat here, staring at him, her eyes beady and hard, as she watched him read through every page. When he came to the end, he slowly closed the folder, his mind completely overwhelmed.
“Did you see everything Agatha did to try and find my mother’s killer?” she asked.
“Yes,” he confirmed, wondering if Kylie really understood what was in this file.
“I don’t understand why you’re looking at me like that,” Kylie noted. “It’s heartbreaking enough for me, but I didn’t think it would affect you quite so badly.”
“It’s not that it didn’t affect me,” he began. “It’s the fact that I don’t think you understood exactly what it said.”
She stared at him, then at the file. “Maybe you better tell me.”
“It’s everything that she did to find Hogan, yes.”
Just then a woman spoke up. “Now I know where that file went.”
Porter saw Agatha in full outrage beside them. She was vibrating with fury.
“How dare you come into my house and steal from me?” she snapped, her voice growing louder and louder. She stared down at her niece with such venom that Porter pulled Kylie’s chair closer to him. So much hatred filled Agatha’s gaze. “I always knew you would be trouble,” she snapped at Kylie.
“Trouble?” Kylie repeated, staring at her. “I was never trouble. I went out of my way to not cause trouble.”
Agatha laughed. “You were trouble right from the beginning. You just didn’t realize what kind of trouble you were causing everybody. Even if you had understood, I don’t think you would have changed one bit.” Agatha tried to snatch the box, but Kylie hung on to it.
For that, Porter had to give Kylie full props.
“Give me my box,” Agatha yelled. “This is private and personal and has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me, considering you have files with my name on one and my mother’s name on another,” Kylie snapped.
Porter was happy to see Kylie reacting defiantly against her aunt, but something was almost painful about it, as if Kylie was just finally waking up to the fact that an issue existed.
“As if you didn’t cause me enough trouble all these years.” Agatha glared at her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kylie declared. “I spent a lifetime doing my best to cause you no trouble. As much as I appreciate the fact that you raised me and didn’t dump me into the foster care system, sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off elsewhere.”
Her aunt gave a hard laugh. “Yeah, you probably would have been, but I couldn’t allow that.”
“I don’t get it,” Kylie murmured. “Why? What the devil did you even want to hang on to me for?” Kylie asked. “I don’t know what foster care would have been like, but I know that life with you was not easy.”
“Life isn’t supposed to be easy,” Agatha spat, with a wave of her hand. “You take what you need, what you want. However, nothing is out there that others can’t take back.”
It was such a harsh philosophy that even Porter had to stare at her in surprise. She was so bitter and so angry over everything. “I don’t understand your mindset,” Porter stated. “You had choices. You didn’t have to take Kylie in. You could have handed her off to the authorities. Somebody would have adopted her.”
“Maybe, but she was too damn dangerous. So I couldn’t let her go. Anybody could have utilized her abilities.”
At that, Kylie stiffened. “You wouldn’t ever let me use my abilities.”
“Of course not.” Agatha frowned at Kylie. “Everything I did was to keep you safe, you,… you ungrateful little wretch,” she snapped. “And look at you. You broke into my house, and you steal from me.”
Porter watched the shame appear very quickly in Kylie’s expression. “That’s enough of that, Agatha,” Porter announced. “You do realize you almost died, and that these records would have been something Kylie would have gone through anyway.”
“No,” Agatha declared. “I would have left nothing to her. She took everything of mine already all these years ago. I wouldn’t give her one more penny.”
He saw the hurt in Kylie’s eyes, but she stiffened and replied, “I don’t care. I don’t need anything from you.”
“Not now, but you sure did before, and I couldn’t be rid of you fast enough,” Agatha muttered, as she glared at Kylie. “Now give me my damn box.”
Porter picked up the empty box and handed it to her. “Here. Have it, but you’re not getting the contents of it until I have a chance to go through these folders.”
Agatha pinned him with a skewered look, almost as if to wound him.
And he did feel some pain. She was incredibly powerful, and he realized suddenly that they were up against something else. “Why are you so adamant about us giving these over to you?” he asked, sensing something was incredibly wrong about all this.
“One, it’s mine. Two, it’s personal. Three, I’m hardly dead. How dare you go on the assumption that I would die anyway,” she stated, glaring at him. Then she caught sight of Kylie’s earring on the table. Agatha’s mouth twisted. “And of course you would ditch everything I worked so hard for, wouldn’t you?”
Agatha’s fury was building, and Porter felt it in his bones.
“Your poor mother, how the hell she thought that the sun rose and set with you, I don’t know.”
Bewildered, Kylie picked up the earring and went to put it back in her ear, but Porter stopped her. “Don’t. Just wait.”
Her aunt spun and glared at him. “Men,” she snapped. “Interfering pieces of shit, that’s all you are,” she roared. At this point her outrage was causing a scene at the restaurant.
“Is that what you want?” he asked Agatha. “Everybody to hear and to see you? You’ve spent a lifetime in the shadows. Surely you have a reason for that, things that you don’t really want everybody to know about you now.”
She muted her tone, but her fury was almost out of control. “I gave her that earring when her mother died. It was her mother’s, and look at you. How very quickly all she wants to do is get rid of everything that mattered to her, and all because you told her so.”
Porter watched a growing sense of something happening here that Kylie didn’t understand.
Kylie replied, “I don’t understand your reaction, Aunt Agatha. Why are you so angry? If I do nothing else but take off this earring to clean it, it’s still not removing the memory of my mother.”
“Of course not.” Agatha gave a harsh laugh. “I worked hard for you to understand how important it was for you to keep that earring in your ear. But he says one thing, and you ditch it just like that.” Agatha shook her head. “I shouldn’t have expected more from you. You’re so much like your mother that it’s unbelievable.”
At that, Kylie glared at her. “Once again, you’re insulting my mother.”
“Your mother was pathetic. She would have done anything for your father and look where that ended up. She’s dead.”
“And so is he,” Kylie pointed out. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is right now.”
“I’m angry,” Agatha snapped. “And I want my things. I’m not leaving here without it, and believe me that I will call the cops—and not this sorry excuse for one. I’ll confirm this becomes a massive issue.” At that, she glared down at the files, seeing that some of them were already opened. “You just had to snoop, didn’t you?” Agatha asked Kylie.
Kylie explained stiffly, “We were trying to figure out what was going on and how to stop Hogan from coming after you again. As you always told me, We were doing it for your own good .”
“Right.” Agatha sneered. “As if you could do anything. You just don’t understand who and what he is. I do, and I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding people like him. Yet, the first chance you get, what do you find?” Now Agatha sent a sneer to Porter. “Just another piece-of-shit man.”
“Wow.” Porter studied Agatha. “It’s not just me then. Apparently you hate all men.”
“No, I don’t hate any man,” she corrected. “I despise them. They’re weak, and, when they don’t like things that turn out differently than they expected, they turn around and want payback.”
“Oh, is that what Hogan was for you? You found him, helped the police put his sorry ass in prison, and then, when he escapes, wanting revenge, you can’t seem to understand or expect that from him? Is that it?”
Agatha laughed in such a chilly tone that people about to enter the dining area of the restaurant turned and walked away. Nobody wanted anything to do with this tirade of anger and fury. Agatha glared at Porter. “I’ll take my files now. They’re mine.”
“Maybe, but I also think some of them belong in a criminal file,” Porter declared, sending a wry smile in her direction. “I’ve read two of them, but I haven’t read the last one yet. So you’re not taking that one.”
“Oh, I can assure you that I am,” Agatha stated, as she went to snatch Kylie’s file out from under her nose.
A harsh voice spoke behind them all. “Well,… now, now, not so soon. We have a whole reunion gathered here. Isn’t that sweet?”
Agatha froze and turned to look at the man who had just joined them. The fiery expression on her face evaporated, and she suddenly looked terrified.