Page 63 of The Psychic

“It’s been over twenty-five years!” The horror of it struck deep into her heart.

“I know. I know. But—”

“I need to see her.”

“Well. Yes. Yes, of course.” Aunt Kat was scrambling. “I’ll go with you. Yes. I’ll make sure—”

Ronnie cut her off with a hard push of her thumb on her cell screen. Her hand was shaking. Her whole body was shaking from the inside out.

Her phone rang back. Aunt Kat. She ended the call and switched off her ringer.

She stood perfectly still for the space of ten heartbeats, then charged out of the office.

“Where are you going?” asked Dawn as she bypassed the elevator in favor of the exit stairs.

“To the beach, I guess,” she threw back, stiff-arming the door to the stairwell that led to the underground parking lot.

Sloan waited for Verbena outside Chief Duncan’s office.

He had a lot to tell her and felt he was wasting time while the chief brought her up-to-date on Sloan’s investigations, something he could have done himself, especially since he hadn’t given Duncan all the details, mainly because it had been a pretty heavy load over the weekend.

When Verbena was finally released into the squad room, she lifted a dark brow at him, which he took to mean she was surprised by all she’d heard.

And she hadn’t even heard the half of it.

She sat at her desk, her black hair pulled back severely into a bun at her nape, her brown eyes pinning him as he moved closer and leaned against Cooper Haynes’s desk.

“Sit down,” she said. “I’ve heard what Humph had to say. Now you can bring me up to speed. I know about the McNulty woman’s body found in the woods, and that Clint Mercer is your number one ‘person of interest.’ What else?”

“Mercer’s in ICU at Glen Gen.”

“You think he’s good for it?”

“We believe he was at the homicide site. We have tree DNA and tire tracks that will probably corroborate that theory. He’s as much as admitted he was there. Says he didn’t mean to hurt her. Denies killing her. They were in a romantic relationship, but he wasn’t the only man McNulty was seeing.”

“Motivation jealousy? Revenge killing?”

This was a crime of passion. Quick’s words.

“Seems that way.”

“What else?” she asked.

“Veronica Quick and Brandy Mercer interviewed several men McNulty had allegedly been seeing. Each of them admitted to a relationship with her, but insisted they weren’t anywhere near the clearing where McNulty died. They both pointed the finger at Mercer.”

“But … ?”

She clearly had heard his hesitancy about putting the blame squarely on Mercer.

“We have alibis to check. Sheriff Townsend interviewed McNulty’s husband, Hugh McNulty.

He wanted me to back off on Mercer. Said he’d handle it from that point.

I haven’t personally interviewed McNulty yet. Planning to do it today.”

“There have been a couple other suspicious deaths?”

“Shana Lloyd was strangled in her apartment. Or, at least left there. Her apartment door lock doesn’t latch properly, so the perpetrator didn’t have to have a key or be let in.”

“You brought up Veronica Quick, the psychic. You allowed her to investigate the death of her friend.”

“I didn’t stop her.” Quick and Brandy Mercer had taken that on, on their own, but he didn’t defend himself.

“Has she helped you? Psychically?”

Sloan wondered if this was a trick question. But Quick had been instrumental in saving Edmond Olman’s wife, so maybe Verbena was being on the level. “She had a vision of McNulty’s death before we discovered her body,” he said carefully.

“Just the one?”

Sloan leveled a look at her. “No. As you seem to well know. Am I being interrogated?”

Verbena dropped her gaze from his and looked down at the pile of papers on her desk. “Walk with me,” she said, getting up from her chair. She headed for the back door of the station.

Sloan, sensing he was under curious eyes, casually followed after, picking up his overcoat on the way out. He caught up to her as she shrugged into her own black wool coat and they strode through the rain to one of the department Explorers.

“You’re driving,” she said, handing him the keys to the black SUV.

“Where are we going?” he asked, as he backed around and headed out of the lot.

“Somewhere we can talk privately. Just drive.”

Ronnie cracked her window as she started through the Coast Range toward the Oregon Coast, letting the air play with her hair and cool her overheated face.

She’d been lied to. Lied to for most of her life.

Decades. She’d grieved her mother for years and neither her father nor Aunt Kat had ever told her the truth.

And they were in it together. A conspiracy of two.

She wanted to call someone—Sloan—but reception in the mountains was spotty and the road surface was wet but could turn icy as she climbed through evergreen forests of old-growth timber.

Mom’s alive!

Her heart jolted again. She just couldn’t … believe … it!

She didn’t care if her mother didn’t recognize her. Didn’t care what the situation was. Just to know Mom was alive … ALIVE.

She could kill her father for keeping it from her. And she was livid with Aunt Kat.

With an effort she pushed her fury aside and just drove.

Harley’s mind was full of about anything and everything but the term final test in front of her as she sat down in her classroom at Portland State. Spanish.

All that was going through her head was: Padre loco, padre loco, padre loco.

Unlikely to be on the test. She softly muttered to herself, “ Delincuente sexual .” Sex offender. She’d had to look that one up on her phone on the way in.

Crazy sex offender father, Atticus Symons, was not in jail where he should be.

He’d already hired legal counsel and was spitting mad and claiming he was going to sue.

Still, several women in his flock had come forward and named him as the father of their children, one of whom was just barely nineteen, so it wasn’t looking good for the puta mierda .

Fucking shit. Another lookup. One she planned to hang on to.

Feeling the proctor’s eyes on her, she bent her head to her paper.

“Why do I still feel anxious?” Jamie asked Cooper, who’d told her the whole story about Atticus Symons and his Heart of Sunshine Church.

She was relieved that Mary Jo Kirshner was back with her family, her pregnancy still on schedule, the baby healthy as far as they all knew, but there were other worries to consider.

“You’re not going to get in trouble over this, are you? Not really being with the police?”

Cooper shrugged. “Wouldn’t change anything. He’s been exposed.”

“What about those women? His—oh, I don’t know what they call them—sister wives or girlfriends or whatever. What will they do now?”

“They plan to run the church the way it should be run. And there are a few men who live on the grounds, too. They appear to want to pitch in and make the church what it purported to be all along.”

“Good.” She made a face and leaned up in bed, rubbing her lower back. “I think I’ll get up and walk.” As Cooper watched her uneasily, she assured him, “Just to the bathroom.”

His cell buzzed and he plucked it from his pocket, saw it was the chief and felt a shock of worry that maybe Jamie’s fears had been clairvoyant. “Haynes.”

“You were busy this weekend.”

Yep. “You heard about Symons.”

“Verbena’s back and working with Hart.”

Cooper glanced in the direction of the bathroom. If he was getting bad news, he wanted to keep it from his wife. “Glad she’s back.” He’d spoken to Verbena just this morning. The chief probably knew that.

“I’m trying to shorten your leave, Haynes,” the chief said. “Try to stay out of trouble for another week or so, okay?”

“Okay.” He was flooded with relief. “What happens to Hart when I come back?”

“That guy …” He scoffed.

Cooper strained to listen to what his boss was really thinking. He couldn’t tell if it was good or bad, where Sloan Hart was concerned.

“Three homicides over a weekend. And all of them center around Verbena’s psychic friend, who, I understand, once predicted she would marry Hart.”

“Where’d you get that?”

He scoffed again. He wasn’t one to reveal information he felt you weren’t worthy of receiving.

“Just enjoy the rest of your time off. Take it easy. Hart seems capable enough, and with the homicide rate being what it is, you’ll both be on full hire, along with Verbena.

Oh, and say hello to that lovely wife of yours. ”

Verbena had mentioned it had been a busy weekend, but not that there were three homicides.

Jamie returned and gingerly climbed back into the bed, her nightgown stretching over her expanding belly. “The days speed by like molasses,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, but you’re still a babe.”

She sent him a middle finger. “I’ve never been a babe. Don’t want to be a babe. And will never be a babe.”

“I’m heading downstairs. Can I get you anything … babe?”

She started laughing despite herself, then jerked and said, “Ooohh … ugh.” Reached for her lower back.

“You okay?” he asked in growing concern.

“I think so. If you can find any tea, or juice, in the kitchen, could you bring me some … babe?”

“Will do.”

Cooper’s cell rang again as he was looking in the refrigerator.

There was some cranberry juice, so he poured Jamie a glass.

His phone rang again and he half expected it to be the chief again, maybe Verbena.

JJ Taft’s name appeared on his screen. “Hey,” he started to greet him, but the P.I.

broke right past him. “Angel Vasquero is dead. Killed by Carlton Langford. Veronica Quick and your new detective, Hart, discovered his body at a shed in her apartment complex.”

Cooper didn’t know Vasquero, but he’d recognized the name when Verbena had told him about it earlier. “You knew him?” One of the three homicides.

“You could say that. I asked him to keep an eye on Quick.”

He wasn’t expressing it, but Cooper understood the guilt that he was now living with. “Angel was good, but Langford managed to surprise him. Took him out with a shovel.”

“He ambushed him,” agreed Cooper, repeating Verbena’s description.

Taft asked, “Is Quick okay?”

“From what I understand. You’d have to ask Hart.”

Taft let out a harsh breath. “Damn.” A beat. “I don’t want Angel to be gone.”

“Yeah. Bad news.” Cooper heard the beep of an incoming call. Stephen Kirshner’s name flashed on his cell. His attention sharpened. “I gotta go. Gotta answer this call.”

“You learn anything more, let me know.”

“You got it.” He clicked off from Taft and answered the new call, “Hi, Stephen. Everything okay?”

“She took the car. She left, for the church. She wants to see … Father ,” he blurted out as if in pain.

“He’s not there,” Cooper said. “He should be still under arrest.”

“Well, she’s gone! Again!” He sounded undone, which was nothing like the sanguine “vision quest” comments he’d spouted earlier when Mary Jo had last taken her leave.

“I’ll go to the church,” Cooper told him.

“Detective …”

The hairs on the back of Cooper’s neck rose. Stephen had long since dropped calling him by anything but his given name.

“She’s in labor,” he said. “And you know her babies have a history of coming fast!”