Page 1 of Mend My Soul (Shattered Hearts of Carolina Ghost Psychic Mystery Romance #2)
Chapter One
________________
ANSON
I take my right hand off the steering wheel and reach across the console to place it on Rae Lee’s leg. Her skirt has slid above her knee, tempting me with her soft skin. But the truth of the matter is, I crave any connection with her. The need to touch her, to care for her, is all-consuming.
“Are you considering taking advantage of this situation?” The corners of her lips tip up in the teasing smile I adore.
Her fingertips rise to the black mask covering her eyes. She touches the elastic matting her chin-length blonde hair.
“Take advantage? I’d never do that.”
The highway in front of us is the recipient of my wolfish grin, but my palm skims up her warm thigh.
Beneath the fabric of her dress, my fingers graze her lace panties. Agitated, she groans similar to when my phone rings in the middle of the night and it’s the precinct calling.
Now’s not the time for us to get frisky, but I’ve wanted to hold Rae Lee since before we left the cramped quarters we’re currently calling home.
More than sexual desire, I’m driven by a surge of protectiveness that ramped up exiting the Brighton city limits.
I’m also trying to stop my girlfriend from reading my mind—something I hope to fuck she’d tell me if she could do—and using sex as a distraction technique.
She moves my hand to her knee and lays hers on top of mine.
I take my eyes off the highway for a second to glimpse how exceptionally pretty she is without even trying.
Her blue camp dress looked like a tent on the hanger.
But on her, with the ties cinched at the waist, it fits her weekend style to a T.
It has buttons down the front. Rae Lee in anything I can unwrap is a gift.
It reminds me I was a lucky bastard the night we met when I took off her button-down shirt and trailed my lips over the swell of her breasts which had peeked out of the lacy blue bralette she was wearing.
I lift our joined hands and kiss her knuckles.
At the beginning of my investigative career, if anyone had told me I’d volunteer to drive a psychic to a crime scene, I’d have said no way.
Falling for a medium?
As a police detective, I might’ve suggested a 24-hour hold.
However, fifteen years after Pearl Tatton’s disappearance, her mother wanted to enlist a psychic to solve the case. Despite thinking the woman was grasping at straws, I agreed.
I initially shrugged off the leads Rae Lee provided for the Pearl Tatton case as insignificant and esoteric psychobabble.
Of anyone, there was no way Rae Lee should have known the intricate details of the young girl’s final hours that the Brighton Police Department hadn’t uncovered during its initial investigation.
Except, once Rae Lee presented evidence there was something else out there—something other-wordly—she changed my mind, and there was no turning back.
The hidden clues she is capable of unearthing are truly remarkable and it was Rae Lee’s skill that brought Mrs. Tatton the closure she needed.
Unaware of our personal connection, a local sheriff, at the edge of the Uwharrie National Forest, remembered reading a newspaper article mentioning Rae Lee’s involvement in closing the Tatton case.
He put the Investigative Services Branch agent, who was seeking a meet-up with the psychic who assisted Brighton PD, in touch with me.
This morning, we’re traveling North Carolina Route 49 South on our way to meet the agent and discuss the case that falls under their jurisdiction.
The drawback of being a clairvoyant is the toll it takes on Rae Lee’s body.
She has long-term health problems. So, while I appreciate the agent wanting Rae Lee’s help, I don’t particularly like exposing my girlfriend to vulnerable situations.
The last thing I’d consider is letting her consult on her own.
I haven’t told Rae Lee anything about the law enforcement agency interested in her help, the people involved, or the potential crime. Not that she’d want to know. That’s not her MO and it’s another reason she’s chosen to start wearing a mask.
I turn the car to the right, pulling into a gas station parking lot.
The exterior gray-blue paint is peeling, but the parking lot is immaculate for a business out in the middle of nowhere.
Not a candy wrapper, random soda can, or a used paper cup litters the ground.
The tinted doors gleam in the sunlight free of fingerprints smudging the glass behind the handles.
“Are we there?” Rae Lee folds her hands in her lap.
“Pit stop. Will you be okay while I’m in the convenience store?” I roll down the windows to give her some air and cut the engine.
“How many living people are outside?” Rae Lee asks.
“One male between eighteen and twenty-two. He’s getting into a construction truck, carrying a bottle of Mountain Dew and a wrapped danish. Another, approximately forty, just pushed the convenience store door open and is making his way to a late-model red hybrid.”
“What did he buy?”
“Coffee. He burned his mouth on the first sip.”
“There’s a cautionary tale,” she teases me.
“Okay, smarty. How many dead people are here?”
Although wearing a mask is new for Rae Lee, our back-and-forth in these circumstances is normal.
“Three.” She sighs. “One is at my window.”
“Are they going to make trouble?”
Rae Lee turns her face toward the apparition she senses. “You won’t make trouble, will you? I have a busy day ahead.” She waits a beat before turning the discussion back to me. “Go on and refill your coffee. That’s why we stopped, isn’t it? Your travel mug is empty.”
I chuckle under my breath. When I was a rookie cop, I used caffeine to keep me awake during overnight investigations. Nowadays, the constant low-dose drip in my system eases my nerves and keeps me focused.
“Want anything?” I ask.
“A sip of the water you’ll use to cool it off.”
My seat belt retracts, and I tug the car door handle. “How do you know I’m getting water?”
Rae Lee doesn’t see into the future. Not that I’m aware of, anyway. Though right about now, that information might prove useful.
“Because, Detective Ames, the last time we stopped for coffee, it was too hot. You spilled an inch from the cup onto the sidewalk and poured in water from my cold bottle.” Her nose wrinkles.
“Please don’t do that again. I think the owner tries to keep this place tidy, and they won’t appreciate other customers tracking sticky coffee shoe prints into the store after walking through a brown puddle. ”
“Why do you say that?” Rae Lee can’t see anything from behind her mask.
“We’re parked right outside the building, not over by the pumps, and I can smell faint ammonia.”
A grin pulls at my mouth. “I love you, you know that?”
I’ve grown to accept how in tune Rae Lee is with her world. But the fact that she uses her other senses—the skills I’ve honed after a decade on the police force—to stay alert never ceases to amaze me.
“I do.” Her lips part, and she flashes me her teeth.
I’d lean over and kiss her, but we have the briefest chance for a pit stop or we’ll be late.
Entering the gas station, the first things that catch my attention are a roll of paper towels and a three-quarters-full spray bottle of blue window cleaner on the counter in front of the lottery ticket display stand.
Homing in on the tall carafes, I make my way to the coffee bar.
I twist the lid off my travel mug and hold it upside down to stop any condensation from dripping onto the clean station.
Out of habit, I empty a single sugar packet in.
Doing it makes me more approachable during interviews, more than I enjoy taste.
Pressing on the coffee dispenser lever is second nature to me.
I know how many times it will fill the cup without it overflowing.
I turn my body, pretending to observe my sleeping girlfriend in the front seat of my car.
In my peripheral vision, a middle-aged man behind the counter snaps the white tape from the cash register.
He moves to the main floor. A pregnant woman, on the younger side to become a mother, leans a mop and bucket against the wall nearby.
As one enters the space, the other exits. The man’s shoulder bumps the woman’s.
“Don’t leave that there,” the man grumbles, as if he’s told her one too many times.
He lumbers between the aisles and disappears into a back room, closing the door that reads: Employees Only .
The woman continues past him, unspeaking.
I expect an uncontrolled eye roll from her or something to indicate her annoyance with his harsh demand.
She just rubs her shoulder, like getting upset isn’t worth the effort.
She collects some trash and tosses it into a receptacle.
Then, not allowing her burgeoning belly to get in the way, she reaches for the bottle of window cleaner.
Since no one else is in the store, I leave my cup on the coffee bar and walk over to the refrigerator cases for that bottle of water Rae Lee predicted I’d get.
When I’ve cracked the cap and have finished making my cup of Joe immediately drinkable, I secure the lids on both beverages, toss my garbage, and approach the counter.
Meanwhile, the young woman has brought the mop, bucket, and other cleaning products to a small utility closet near the room the man went into.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” She waddle-hustles back, holding her stomach and dodging slick spots on the worn tiles.
“Not a problem. I’m happy to have fresh coffee for the last leg of my drive. Did you just make this pot?” I place the water and the cup on the counter.
“Right before you came in,” she replies.
The worry lines someone her age shouldn’t have yet fade, as if I’ve given her a compliment. She pumps a hand sanitizer into her palm and rubs her hands together before scanning the bottle and a UPC on the register for the correct size coffee refill.
I absently wonder what sort of predicament a pregnant, not-quite-twenty-year-old girl has gotten herself into that custodial work and running the register at this convenience store is her best option.
If I mention this encounter to Rae Lee, she’ll laugh.
Not at the young woman’s circumstances. More that I need to practice shutting down my suspicious mind the way she consistently works to keep her barriers with the dearly departed in place.
I pull my wallet out of my back pocket to pay the cashier and notice she’s regarding the stretch of my button-down over my biceps, the way I catch Rae Lee appreciatively looking at me when I get out of the shower.
A faint whirring hums through the air. Her shoulders stiffen and her smile falters. She bites her lip, tucks her long, wavy dark hair behind her ear, and darts her eyes to the Employees Only door. The man is monitoring her every move on closed-circuit television.