Page 51 of The Psychic

“Right.” Ronnie had spotted the white Ford at the same time and was girding herself for whatever came next.

By Benzene’s description, Clint was in fight mode.

She jockeyed into a tight parking space and glanced toward her purse, which was sitting in the console between herself and Brandy.

The light from her cell phone had flashed on from inside a pocket.

A text … from Sloan? The ringer was on silent, but she didn’t dare check it without risking Brandy’s ire.

“You ready?” Ronnie asked Brandy, whose determined gaze was pinned on the house as they both got out of the SUV.

Then Brandy stopped at the front yard and anxiously turned to Ronnie. “You don’t … think he did it, do you? You know, by mistake.”

Ronnie didn’t know what to think anymore. “We should call Sloan.”

“No! God, Ronnie. He’s the police! I need to talk to Clint. Please.” She pressed her hand to her mouth, suddenly unsure and scared, very unlike the Brandy Ronnie had always known.

A dull crash sounded from inside the house.

Uh-oh … Ronnie exchanged a glance with Brandy, whose face had slackened in horror.

“What was that?” asked Brandy.

“Nothin’ good—” Ronnie started, but Brandy was already jogging forward, breaking into a run through the snow in the front yard, Ronnie on her heels and fumbling in her purse for her phone.

She heard the sound of breaking glass just as she reached the porch and caught a glimpse of the text from Sloan: Met with Nadia. How’re you doing?

She didn’t have time to text back as she ran after Brandy and up the short flight of concrete steps to the front door, left ajar.

Oh, God.

Angry voices reached them from the top of the stairs that ran up one wall. Men’s voices. Raised in fury. Screaming obscenities.

One of the voices was Clint’s.

“Clint!” Brandy shrieked at the top of her lungs, starting for the stairs.

Thunk!

“Fuck!” Clint yelled back. Maybe not at her.

Ronnie was trying to call Sloan when a barrel-chested man appeared at the top of the staircase.

With a glance over his shoulder, he rushed down at them.

Brandy backed up a step.

Straight into Ronnie.

Her cell went flying through the air, toppling down the wooden steps as she grasped for the railing to keep from tumbling backward.

“He’s trying to kill me!” the man yelled, breathing hard, his eyes wild, his face a mottled red. “That fucker’s trying to fuckin’ kill me!”

“Clint!” Brandy yelled again.

“You know him?” the man demanded, stopping suddenly. He grabbed Brandy’s arm, preventing from her climbing further up the staircase.

“He’s my brother! Clint! Are you okay?”

The man—Wetherly, Ronnie assumed—held a small dumbbell in his free hand, his fingers clenched around it as if it were a weapon.

“I—I had to hit him,” he said, dazed, looking at the bloodied hand weight as if he’d never seen it before.

Brandy scrambled out of his grasp.

Ronnie, too, shoved past the man. He lunged for her jacket, but couldn’t catch her as she scurried up the stairs a step behind her friend.

Frantic, Brandy muttered, “Oh, God … oh, God …”

From below, Wetherly bellowed, “I had to take it from him! He came at me with it! Blames me for something I didn’t do!”

Ronnie stopped short at the landing.

Clint was stretched out on a faded red carpet runner, blood pooling into the fibers from a gash in his head.

“No!” Brandy screamed. She sank to her knees beside Clint, grabbing his wrist, checking his pulse. His eyelids were fluttering. Ronnie could see his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall. He was alive! But behind her, she heard the steady, heavy tread, the labored breathing of Wetherly.

“Get away from him,” Wetherly ordered as he reached the upper floor and took in the scene. “He’s fucking crazy!” Frantically Ronnie scanned the hallway for any kind of weapon.

“I’m a nurse,” Brandy said angrily, ignoring the fact that Wetherly was twice her size and holding the blood-stained hand weight.

“He gets up, I’m gonna hit him again,” Wetherly warned, holding the dumbbell fast. “I already called the police.”

Only then did Ronnie hear the sirens sounding far away, but growing closer.

“Clint,” Brandy said brokenly. “Clint.”

“He said I made him do it,” said Wetherly, backing up a step as the sirens screamed nearer.

Good.

“You made him do it?” Ronnie gave the big man her full attention, but all the fight had apparently gone out of Wetherly as he finally dropped the weight to his side and leaned against the wall.

Within seconds flashing red and blue and white lights strobed through the beveled panes.

Thank God, Ronnie didn’t need to call Sloan. The River Glen police were already here.

Sighing, knowing the police would want statements, that she would have to answer a bevy of questions, she glanced back toward Clint, who turned his head and looked her way.

I didn’t mean to hurt her … he said, rising upward, his slack lips not matching the words.

This time, as she watched a ghost ascend, Ronnie managed to keep herself from screaming.

Sloan’s fingers tightened over the steering wheel as he drove back to his You+Me apartment after his meeting with Nadia. That had been a tough meet-up. Nadia’s grief had solidified to anger since she’d been told the night before of Shana’s death.

“That conniving witch you brought here? She’s the one responsible for my girl’s death!” Nadia had blasted him, her face twisted in grief.

“What?” was all he managed to ask, he’d been so taken aback.

Nadia had pointed a finger at him. “I know she’s the one you saved from drowning that day at The Pond. The psychic girl. I know who she is! Don’t think I don’t. What did she do to my girl, Sloan? What did she do to her?”

“Nadia, we don’t know, yet, what happened to Shana.” He’d said it quietly, hoping to calm her.

“Shana was strangled ! And if that psychic witch didn’t do it, she had someone do it for her!”

“She had no reason to hurt Shana,” Sloan had tried to explain.

“She has you .”

Sloan had opened his mouth to deny it, but images from the night before in bed with Ronnie crowded his mind.

Nadia had catalogued his hesitation with a hard, miserable smile and tears glistening in her eyes.

“Go away. Leave me be. You weren’t there for Shana when she needed you. You were with that woman .”

“I’m going to find out who killed Shana,” he’d assured her.

“Tell me you’re not with that devil’s spawn. Tell me you didn’t …” She’d glanced him over. “You’re in the same clothes. Oh, for God’s sake. You spent the night with her, didn’t you?”

“Shana’s murder is my priority.”

“You … liar .”

So much for offering comfort to Shana’s mother. He’d left feeling like he’d let her down and had sent a text to Quick, needing to make contact.

He’d planned on interviewing Hugh McNulty himself, as he’d told Townsend, but the man was meeting a friend for an afternoon of watching NFL games.

Not exactly pining over his wife’s death, but then everyone grieved in their own way.

Sloan had run into the same thing before.

Sometimes the survivor of a violent death was stricken, wailing, lost in clear misery, sometimes they were in a state of suspended shock, but sometimes, like maybe this time, they completely compartmentalized the tragedy and moved on with their life as if nothing had happened.

Didn’t mean they were a killer, or a sociopath.

Townsend didn’t seem to think McNulty was either, and maybe he wasn’t.

Sloan planned to meet up with the man and take his measure of him, one way or another.

But after Nadia … and McNulty wrapped in his circle of friends … Sloan had decided to head to home base for a change of clothes. Didn’t need a shower. He’d had a couple of those already.

Memories of the night before peeked into his brain as he parked. Quick softly moaning as her heart raced in tandem to his … the tangle of her arms and legs … her fingers digging into the flesh of his back … the sweet, hot pleasure of her mouth on him …

Damn. It was unexpected … and breathtaking … and had unleashed a craving that was frankly new to him. The hours it would take before he could be with her again felt like a punishment.

He didn’t believe in predestiny … unexplainable abilities … hocus-pocus … He’d always lived by empirical data, that which could be tested, verified …

But now … ?

Now, he was under Veronica Quick’s spell.

Inside his place he quickly changed into jeans, sweater and insulated jacket.

The snow flurries were slowing, but it was still freezing outside and, well, he might not come home to sleep again tonight.

He hoped to hell he didn’t come home to sleep tonight, as a matter of fact, he thought with a smile.

Tomorrow was Monday and Detective Verbena would be back.

Sloan planned to get up early, head home from Quick’s apartment to change again, check in with Townsend …

and quit. The way he’d been summarily told how to run his case when Townsend had told him not to interview Clint Mercer had proved to him that there would be no independence under the sheriff.

No original thought or planning. He’d been grateful for the job Townsend had given him, but he was going to try for River Glen P.D. full time.

It might not work. Detective Haynes’s leave would end and he would be back on the force, leaving no other spot available on the River Glen roster. Didn’t matter. It was a chance he was willing to take.

On the drive back toward the RGPD station, he checked his phone to see if Quick had read or returned his text.

Not yet. Was she with Brandy? And had they contacted Clint?

He felt uncomfortable with them out in the field, so to speak, even while he reminded himself that Mercer wasn’t a violent man and Brandy was his sister.

His phone buzzed.

Evan Caldwell.

A call, not a text. “Hart,” he answered, the phone clipped to his dash as he negotiated traffic.

“Thought you’d already be at the scene with your girlfriend.”