Page 67 of The Psychic

Combustion … Aunt Kat’s description of her parents’ love affair.

“She took you in the car and ran it off the road,” he went on as if he couldn’t hear her.

“She was babbling, raving, when they found you both. You didn’t remember it, which I thought was a godsend.

The less you knew the better. She was heading to the coast. Said that’s where her people came from.

And that psychic … power … that you both seem to have?

That power is a lie . Creates a hell all its own!

I knew your mother would kill you and herself, if she wasn’t locked down.

That’s when we put her in Seagull Pointe, near the ocean. ”

“I just saw her,” Ronnie said tightly.

That finally broke into his diatribe. “You went to see her?” he asked, sounding stunned.

“Of course I did.”

She heard him take a deep breath. “How was she?”

“You don’t get to know!” she snapped back. “You and Aunt Kat … I can’t even tell you how awful and upset I feel! You kept her from me. All these years!”

“For your safety.”

Bullshit! “You could have told me at any time!” she sputtered. “Neither of you saw fit!”

“I didn’t want you to know!”

“Well, there. Honesty, finally. I needed to know, Dad. And I’m sorry you’re in flux at the firm … No, scratch that. I don’t really give a flying fuck!”

She clicked off, infuriated that angry tears now blurred her vision. She swiped at them and gripped the wheel tighter. She breathed hard, in and out, a dozen miles passing beneath her tires before she felt in control again.

… said that’s where her people came from …

What had that meant? Mom’s people? Where had they come from? The coast?

Her mind snapped back to Evan’s message: How goes it with the fam? He would maybe know because he’d looked up her history. He was the one who’d told her there was no death certificate. Maybe there was more to learn.

She punched in his number and put the phone on speaker.

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Psychic.”

Ronnie ignored his self-satisfied drawl. “You looked up information on my family and found out there was no death certificate for my mother.”

“And?”

“And she’s alive.”

He started chuckling. “So they hid her from you.”

“Yes, they did.” She also ignored the creepy crawlies that seemed to climb up her back whenever she was dealing with him. “Did you get anything more?”

“Like what?”

“Like anything about my mother’s past. I know very little about her, as it turns out.”

“I could dig a little deeper, I guess.”

He sounded doubtful, but she was having none of it. “Can you do it today?”

“Well … sure, why not? I can probably fit it in.”

“I’ll come by and pick up the information, if that’s all right.” She wanted a hard copy. Something she could hold in her hands … and maybe crumple into a ball, if she found something else in those pages that would piss her off at her father. “I’m sorry to push, but can you do it right away?”

“What’s the big rush?”

“I’ve waited over twenty-five years and I’m impatient, okay?”

“Give me an hour,” he said.

Ronnie checked the time. Two o’clock. Perfect. She was going to arrive around three p.m. anyway.

Clint Mercer looked like hell. White bandages around a pale face with eyes surrounded by deep purple, almost as if he’d taken punches to the face. Sloan gazed at his old friend, who gave him a crooked smile.

“I fucked up bad,” rasped Clint.

Brandy muttered, “Oh, Clint,” sounding more defeated than angry.

“I know. I never listen to you, do I?” He slid his dull gaze toward his sister.

“I want to know what you did,” said Sloan. “The whole story.”

“There isn’t much of a story to tell.” He sighed. “Everything was fine. Melissa and I were really connecting and she said she was done with seeing other guys.”

“And she meant that she was not going to see Ben Neel and Erik Wetherly any longer?”

“Benzene and that asshole who hit me.” He snorted, then lightly touched his bandaged head and winced.

“You think there was someone else?” Sloan prompted, but apparently Clint had lapsed into silence.

“Was there someone else?” Brandy demanded impatiently.

“It’s all right,” Sloan told her. He didn’t want Brandy to stop the flow of the story.

“There was some dick she was real secretive about. I caught her talking to him on the phone once or twice. Her voice would change and she would hang up quick, act like it wasn’t important. She got off on that kind of thing.”

“Not Neel or Wetherly.”

“Didn’t seem like it. I knew about them.” He made a face. “Dickhead tried to kill me,” he muttered.

“You brought the barbell to his house,” reminded Brandy.

“Anything else about those phone calls?” asked Sloan.

“Nah … well, mighta not been the same guy, but she got real sober on one of those calls, right before she said she was going off for a while, taking some time. I asked her what that meant and she just blew me off. Then she called me from that shed in the forest. Told me where she was. All apologetic about fucking around. Said it would never happen again. I was pissed. Was done believing her. But yeah, I went there and yeah, those are my tire tracks and the plant shit from my truck, that’ll be me, too. ”

“And when you got there?” Sloan pressed.

“I was mad. I’d had a couple drinks. That didn’t help,” he allowed.

“And she was all nervous, but then said I shouldn’t have come.

Like she hadn’t been the one to call me!

I just … lost it. Grabbed her.” His breath expelled in a rush.

“She hit me, man. Fucking hit me,” he admitted in disbelief.

“And that dog! Barking its goddamn head off! So I shook her. Grabbed her shoulders and shook.”

Brandy had closed her eyes as she listened. Now her lids flew open and she snarled, “You piece of shit!”

Clint’s short laugh was tortured. “I know.”

“Did you put your hands on her neck?” asked Sloan, steeling himself for the answer. His belief in his friend was crumbling.

“NO,” Clint shot back immediately, his gaze flying to Sloan. “I hurt her. I admit it. I shouldn’t have. I left her there. The damn dog bit me in the leg and I left.”

“You think the person who killed her came to see her after you were there.”

“You’re so goddamn official,” complained Clint. “Caldwell was right. At least Townsend believes me.”

“Can you think of anything else? Any clue to who she’d been talking to on the phone?”

“Look, she lied about giving up cheating. That was just to cool me off, but she wasn’t changing.” He turned back to his sister. “I’m sorry, Brandy. She was your friend and I …” He looked away, the whites of his eyes turning red from emotion. “You know I loved her.”

“Like hell you did,” she muttered.

“I did,” he insisted. To Sloan, he said, “I don’t know anything else, man.” He choked out a humorless laugh. “You want information about anything, ask Caldwell. Bro knows everything.”

Ronnie rode the elevator up to Evan’s apartment, looking out at the café and pool. A watery afternoon sun had turned the water a cold, slate blue. The lights in the café beckoned and her stomach finally growled. She’d been running on high emotion a long time and she finally needed food.

She was at Evan’s door when she heard someone approaching behind her. He was coming down the carpeted hallway, pushing a wheeled walker, deliberately picking up first one dragging leg, then the other, as he came toward her slowly, a sheen of perspiration dampening his forehead.

“Just doing a little exercise,” Evan greeted her, pulling out keys to open his door, which he pushed open with one hand. “After you,” he said, gesturing with that same hand.

“Thanks.” It was awkward walking in ahead of him, but she could tell he wanted that bit of chivalry. She moved toward his computer.

“Take a seat over there,” he ordered, gesturing away from his workstation to chairs facing the sliding glass door to the balcony.

He then moved to his wheelchair, dropping into it heavily, pushing the walker away.

“Excuse the sweat. Gotta keep myself in shape.” He positioned himself in front of his desk as Ronnie moved toward the chairs, her gaze flickering briefly back to him and his array of monitors.

Bark! Bark! Bark!

Ronnie inhaled a sharp breath and jerked her gaze toward the sliding glass door. Was the dog outside? Mel’s dog?

Was it another warning?

“Relax. Put your purse down.” Evan waved a hand to her and she carefully took off the cross-body and set it on one of the chairs.

But she didn’t sit in the other. Her mind was racing.

“I’ve got the file right here,” he went on, swinging around to look at her.

He had a manila envelope in his hand. She had to take a couple of steps closer to him to grab it.

Her eyes glanced again at the monitors, drawn as if magnetized by the glowing screens. She had to drag them back to examine the pages she pulled from the envelope. Flipping through them, she frowned. “This is a genealogical family tree.”

“Sure is.”

“For my mother. What’s ‘The Colony’?”

He shrugged. “Those are her people. Your people. Live around Deception Bay on the coast.”

Those are her people … her father had used almost that identical phraseology …

“Have you talked to my father?” she asked.

“Your father?” He was clearly surprised by that.

Bark, bark, bark!

Ronnie looked through the glass door again. “Do you hear that?” Her pulse was suddenly pounding so hard in her veins it nearly deafened her.

“Nooooo …”

Had he listened in on her conversation with her father? How was that possible?

He seemed to realize she was having trouble concentrating.

“You know, I wasn’t kidding when I said I have a little bit of your psychic woo-woo, too.

Seems you and I come from the same place.

I haven’t let anyone take my DNA. Don’t want it in the system, but I bet there’s some distant match with yours. ”

She was getting a raft of strange vibes. She looked hard at Evan, those creepy crawlies morphing into the beginnings of fear. “You rely on intuition, not just hacking?”