Chapter 44
44
FIONA
“You don’t believe me,” I said. I was hurt that he didn’t, even if it sounded farfetched.
Dax shrugged.
“I haven’t lied to you,” I added.
It may have taken me a while to tell the truth, but I never lied to him.
He shrugged again. Damn his casual attitude! This was a big deal to me. It was a part of me and while crazy, I hoped he had faith in me.
“Then prove it,” he said. “I’ll go outside and talk. Text me what I’m saying.”
I didn’t like that I had to prove anything, especially to him, but last year before my brain tumor, if someone told me they had bionic hearing, I’d be doubtful, too .
He wasn’t asking Hannah to prove she could power lift. Based on his words, he’d seen her in action, although I couldn’t imagine what he thought happened in a Pilates class if he saw her lift a refrigerator or something.
I nodded. “Sure.” I didn’t have much choice.
He waved his phone, prompting me to do as he said, then went out the front door.
“I’ll go with him,” Jack offered, following only a few seconds behind.
The testosterone those two had could make women ovulate by being in the same room.
Hannah dropped onto one of the kitchen stools and took a sip of her coffee. “I had a meningioma. What’d you have?”
I hadn’t heard of that before. I’d have to look it up.
“Acoustic neuroma. I… started hearing really, really well a few months ago. When I got the letter, I knew it was because of the machine.”
“Me, too! I mean, not hearing really well, but I was so excited when I got the letter in the mail, too! It answered so many questions.”
I agreed. “This was why I came here, to meet you and find out if I wasn’t alone.”
She reached out and took my hand. Smiled. “I’m glad you came. You’re not alone. And I can do more than lift things.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “I can teleport, too. ”
I blinked and stared and blinked some more. “ Teleport? Like in Star Trek ?”
She smirked, seemingly pleased with the newfound skill. “Yeah.”
I arched a brow. “Um, Jack knows?”
She laughed. “Oh yeah. Dax doesn’t though. Not because he wouldn’t be down for it, but it’s extra crazy to explain. You know, here one second, gone the next.” She flicked open her hands like an explosion. “Poof.”
“Uh, yeah.” I could only imagine.
It was impossible for me to miss the deep rumble of Dax’s voice. The two words he said.
I grabbed my cell and sent him a text.
Peanut butter.
“Dax?” Hannah asked, watching me.
I nodded. She abandoned her seat and came around the counter to look at the text. “Peanut butter?”
All was quiet for about ten seconds. Then I heard him again and I had to chuckle.
Canadian steel imports.
“What on earth?” Hannah whispered when I typed the three words.
Then again, after a little while. I had to laugh and shake my head.
Man eating piranhas.
Then he spoke once more, but this time in a breathy whisper that he used when he was deep inside me and telling me dirty things in my ear.
Cheesy rice.
I was equally turned on and hungry as I texted him the two words. Then I heard him growl, then mutter.
Is that what I’m supposed to hear and report back or are you swearing aloud?
Then he said to me, even though he was probably a block away, “I believe you. We’re going to get donuts. Back soon.”
“What kind of donut do you like?” I asked Hannah.
“Um, maple.”
Get a maple and strawberry glazed with sprinkles.
“They’re getting donuts?” Hannah asked after she read the text.
I nodded, then set my phone down.
She started pacing and waving her arms. I refilled my coffee from the fresh pot.
“I can’t believe you can hear like that. I’m so excited! Jealous, too.”
I shook my head. “Don’t be. You have no idea how many people have sex and flush toilets until you can hear everything in a two block radius.”
She grimaced. “That must be–”
“You haven’t told her? Are you insane?” It was Jack’s voice, followed by a car door shutting. An engine starting.
I tried to focus on that, but Hannah said, “Toilets, yeah that–”
It might’ve been rude, but I shushed Hannah.
“I can’t tell her I’m a fixer,” Dax said. “She’s FBI.”
“She just proved she’s got fucking bionic hearing,” Jack replied. “I think she can handle you being a fixer.”
I gasped.
“What?” Hannah asked, looking around.
I waved her off and continued to listen–and stare at the microwave.
“Yeah, but she’s my latest job.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jack asked.
I heard the click, click, click of a blinker.
“Max Pinter. Remember I got his son out of that drug bust?”
“Yeah.”
“These pickle people are his colleagues. Whatever. Fiona’s been snooping around the place and now they want me to get rid of her.”
“Who the hell are the pickle people? Have you heard yourself?”
“They’re the guys going onto your FUCKERS IN COAL SPRINGS list and– ”
His voice faded away and was replaced with a vacuum turning on.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“What?” Hannah asked again. She came over, gripped my arms and gave me a little shake. “WHAT?”
I blinked, trying to understand what I just heard. What I knew about Dax. Why so much made sense.
“I… I have to go,” I told Hannah.
Dax was a fixer. Since I was in law enforcement, I knew that didn’t mean he fixed broken garbage disposals or replaced a transmission. He worked for people who didn’t want to get their hands dirty, specifically in illegal things. Took care of problems. Of people.
My mind started spinning. Had he shown up at the convenience store because he was following me? Was I a job from the get-go? Had he kept breaking into my house to keep an eye on me? God, did he get in my bed for the same reason? Every time I tried to slip away, there he was.
He carried a gun. Locks weren’t a hindrance. He was aloof. Mysterious.
Fuck. FUCK!
“Fiona, wait. Please,” Hannah cried, following me into the living room. “What’s happened? I can’t hear like you.”
I spun around and faced her. “Dax played me.”
Her brows drew down. “What do you mean?”
“I just heard him talking to Jack.” I tapped the side of my head. “They forgot I could hear them, or they figured they were out of range. Whatever. He’s been lying to me.”
“He’s not like that,” she assured me .
“He never told me he was a fixer. Never told me I was one of his jobs. Never told me anything.”
And I’d sat in his lap and blabbed and cried. Told him about my dad, about Neidermeyer and Trotter. About my mom. Told him I was afraid.
I sounded weak. So weak.
In return, he told me nothing. No, he mentioned his mom had been killed by a drunk driver. Was that even the truth?
He’d said he did repo work. REPO. I thought that meant repossessing a fancy corvette or furs or something.
I felt like an idiot. I felt… used.
“One of his jobs? ” Hannah asked.
I nodded, swiped at tears on my cheeks. God, I was turning into a sappy crier. “You knew he was a fixer?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Jack’s a former hitman and they worked together.”
Now my eyes really did pop out of my head. “WHAT?! You guys came back so Jack could help Dax fix me?”
“Dax did call Jack and told him we had to get back here,” she said.
“Because I was snooping around the pickle shop,” I explained.
A frown crinkled her forehead. “The Pickle Hole? The place across the street from the bookstore with the dick shaped cartoon character?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you snoop around there? The Fentanyl?”
I nodded. “Yeah, they’re transporting it in the pickle containers. I never got a chance to thank your parents for helping me, by the way.”
Her mouth dropped open. “My parents helped you? Are you sure you have the right people? Marcia and Bob?”
I offered her a huge fake smile. “You mean Mrs. Highcliff? And you don’t want to know what your dad was doing with a beaver.”
She bit her lip. “How did you get them to do anything?”
“I brought them potato salad.”
The confusion on her face lifted. “Okay, that’s totally my parents.”
“Your parents think Jack’s a mortician.”
She shook her head as she laughed. “Yeah, it’s hilarious and I don’t plan to tell them otherwise. But let’s circle back to Dax. You’re telling me he got a job from the pickle people to get rid of you because you did what?”
“Snooped.”
She glared, set her hands on her hips. “He told Jack he was in love with you. He can’t love you and do that.”
“Fucked and fucked over,” I muttered.
“I’m going to kill him. How dare he be a… a jerk!” Her cheeks got red and if smoke could come out of someone’s ears, it would be hers right now. “You said they were going to the donut shop?”
I nodded.
Her eyes narrowed and she looked pissed. Strangely, the air crackled with electricity, the hair on my arms standing on end .
“I’m going to teleport to Donut Delights and give him a piece of my mind.”
My eyes widened. I never, ever thought I’d hear that sentence. “What? Um…WHAT?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then was gone. Poof.
“WHAT THE FUCK?” I shouted, but no one else was in the house to answer. Because Hannah fucking teleported. She told me she could do it, but seeing was definitely believing.
After about ten seconds of blinking and trying to process what happened, I grabbed my purse and my keys and I was out the door. No supercool teleporting for me. I just got the stupid ability to hear annoying things, like Dax turning out to be a colossal dick.
I was out of here.