6. Cheribelle
Cheribelle
High Risk, High Reward
I was in the middle of a crime scene.
That was the only thing I could think of as I stepped in front of an expansive, rather intimidating desk made of polished wood and black marble. I really needed to look up this VanMarche family, because they seemed like high rollers.
I was in the middle of a crime scene.
Normally, I liked to use humor to crack through life when things got too serious, but this situation was a little too serious. It was uncanny how intensely clean everything was, with not even a speck of dust, but Paul had mentioned that it was forensically cleaned.
Luckily, those guys couldn’t clean away emotions. I could already see so much swirling around me.
My world was always filled with the faint echoes of what had been felt or experienced in that space. Specters lingered long after everyone else had moved on. It was one of the reasons I often needed to sequester myself in my house and get lost in my hobbies.
However, the aura in the room around me wasn’t faint, wasn’t even close to an echo. No, as with many situations where the emotions were intense, they filled the entire room in alarming streaks of violent color.
“Oh boy,” I whispered as my eyes traveled across the torrid display. There were red splashes of pain, almost like blood spatter. The way they moved showed me the order in which everything had happened.
Paul had told me the important facts on the case in the car, such as it hadn’t just been his alpha and his brother, but also five of their security detail.
I couldn’t wrap my head around how someone could break into this place, take out two powerful wolves and all their bodyguards, while also being completely undetectable.
Was it a political rival? The place screamed money so loud that it wasn’t hard to believe. Was it personal?
I supposed I was going to find out.
“The attack didn’t happen at the door,” I murmured, following the trail of scarlet agony.
“Pardon?”
I pointed at the first of the red, the faintest, which had toxic bubbles of shocking, vile indigo rising up from it.
It was much thicker there than anywhere else in the room.
Of course, Paul couldn’t see what I was seeing, but that was fine.
As far as he was concerned, I was just notating the where of everything that had happened and not the emotions I was seeing.
“There. That’s where the first attack was, and then it moved over to two guards by the door,” I said. The two other places were more vibrant red, with olive clouds of betrayal, but less of the indigo shock. “I assume that’s where they found the bodies?”
“Uh, no, not quite.”
Paul’s tone didn’t sit right with me, so I glanced up at him. The color had drained from his face, and horror radiated from him like little currents of electricity.
“Where did they find the bodies?” I asked cautiously, knowing I was going to hate his answer.
“Kind of…” He swallowed hard, cleared his throat, then straightened his shoulders. I was sure he didn’t mean to, but that wall I’d broken through earlier began to drop bricks again, trying to build up the barrier I’d already dealt with. “…everywhere . ”
He’s used to having to hold everything inside. Middle child syndrome? Likely the glue of the family. Always had to prove himself.
“Ah,” I said slowly, and I realized what I had stepped into in my ambitious desire to keep my mother’s legacy relevant.
Back in my reading room, it had been an exciting opportunity I couldn’t pass up, but now, as I stood in a murder room where the victims’ pain was as bright as paint, I knew I’d acted without thinking.
Fucking impulsivity.
But as irritated and ashamed as I was of myself, I couldn’t back out now that I was in the middle of it. I was seeing things no one else could see, and I owed it to Paul now to help him.
I looked at the most intense part of the room: the office chair with a single slice barely wider than my pinky in the expensive leather. Paul had mentioned a silver weapon was used, and I figured that was where it had rested until it was photographed, bagged, and collected as evidence.
But it was the swirl of colors I saw around it that drew my attention more than that tiny cut. Like everywhere else, it was bathed in that red pain along with the shock and the betrayal, but there was something else there.
Heartbreak.
It ascended from the floor like raindrops in reverse, pearlescent drops of opal, as if the ground itself was weeping in zero gravity. The alpha, Paul’s father, had likely been near tears after watching his son and security be decimated so thoroughly.
As I stared at those drops rising to the ceiling, then disappearing beyond, something scratched at the back of my mind.
“How many people were killed?” I asked, spinning in a slow three-sixty to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“Seven. My father, my brother, and the five in their security detail.”
“Seven,” I repeated, mentally counting in my head.
Spot one, spot two and three by the door, spot four by the bookcase, spot five to the right in front of the desk, spot six behind the desk, and then spot seven being where the alpha was killed with a silver weapon.
There are only seven emotional signatures.
There are only seven emotional signatures!
I wanted to blurt out that revelation right then and there, but I felt like I hadn’t observed the space enough yet.
While I’d never physically been in a murder scene before, I couldn’t help but think that the killer would have exuded at least something .
The triumph of victory, or burning hatred, or maybe even their own fear at what they were capable of.
Even satisfaction would make sense. But no, there was nothing. Nothing but sorrow, pain, and shock.
Something wasn’t adding up.
Figuring that I had observed everything I could from my particular vantage spot, I slowly walked behind the desk, pausing to silently check with Paul if that was permitted. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded to let me know it was okay.
Hyperaware of what I was doing and Paul’s eyes lingering on me, I cautiously touched the desk. Once I made contact, the grizzly reds and violent colors faded, allowing me to see a subtler display of feelings swirling across the surface.
Feeling my hyperfocus take over once more, I let my fingers follow the path of fondness and affection until I was opening a drawer. Almost as soon as it was cracked, I was nearly blinded by an outpouring of what could only be love.
My heart skipped a beat as I saw two different emotional signatures glowing sweetly inside the drawer.
And while it wasn’t entirely shocking to see that it was full of all sorts of knickknacks and trinkets, it was a bit jarring when I realized the magazine sitting at the top was open to an advertisement from my mother.
Oh.
So that’s how he found me.
The magazine was really old and had a lot of nineties tropes for advertisement, but seeing it sent a wave of softness and warmth through me. Goodness. If I could grow up to be half the woman she was, I would consider that a life well lived.
“And you’re sure there were seven?” I asked, deciding not to ask about the magazine and other things in the drawer. Even in a murder investigation, some things were private.
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure. And the morgue confirmed that number once they counted all the body parts.”
Yikes. Wouldn’t want that job .
While I wasn’t an investigative genius, I’d watched enough true crime documentaries to know that most people were murdered by someone they knew. Was there a way for me to bring that up tactfully? But even if I could, that didn’t explain why there were only seven signatures.
Seven points of agony.
Seven spatters of crimson.
What if I wasn’t missing something?
What if...
“What the hell is going on here?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin as the doors to the study burst open, and a man stormed in. He looked quite a bit like Paul, but with green eyes instead of gray, and much less chiseled features.
“Christopher,” Paul began, affirming that he knew this man. I didn’t have to be a psychic to figure out this was one of his siblings.
“Why are you in here? And who the hell is this woman?”
Speaks with authority, demanding .
Could just be angry,
but he seems too comfortable in his condescension.
He’s used to talking to Paul like this.
Hair: stereotypical business cut.
Suit: designer, but in charcoal gray with skinny tie and a perfectly creased pocket square. Like he just stepped out of the 2010s .
The Mad-Men wannabe era was wild. The hipster one was weirder.
I dunno, a mustache tattoo on my finger would be kinda funny…
All of that ran through my mind in a split second, and I knew without a doubt I was looking at Paul’s older brother.
And he wasn’t making that great of an impression.
“She’s a psychic,” Paul answered. I was impressed he could keep his voice so calm and level, almost like his older brother hadn’t just barged in and started yelling at him. However, I couldn’t help but notice more bricks descending, slamming into place with an audible thunk only I could hear.
“A psychic? Are you fucking kidding me?!”
“No, why would I joke around about that?”
As the man’s face began to change color, I took the opportunity to study him.
His emotional signature was similar to his brothers’ and the alpha’s, but it was different enough for me to know he hadn’t been in the room when everything went down.
Emotional signatures were kind of weird.
They weren’t quite as distinct as fingerprints, but still unique to individuals.
I could see the tiniest wisps of his jealousy, his insecurity, and his desire for approval in the far corners of the room, but they were so faint that there was no way they had been exuded at the same time as the graphic deluge of negative emotions.
Just an asshole. Not a murderer.
“What the hell is wrong with you? The police are handling this! Why are you bringing some charlatan into our home, and letting her come into this room?”
Ooh, charlatan. That’s a good word.
“I needed to make sure—” Paul began.
Wow, I wished I could stay as unruffled as he was. I wasn’t the one being yelled at, but I still wanted to whack him over the head with a frying pan.
“Make sure of what? Is this about you thinking that someone is after the rest of us?”
All right, as much as I didn’t want to get involved in family drama, this conversation was unproductive. Now that I had vital information, I would see this investigation through to the end—or at least as far as I could.
“Before you dismiss me,” I said, squaring my shoulders, “you might want to hear what I have to say.”
But the new VanMarche barely even spared me a glance, choosing to direct his ire at his brother. “Right, because I want to hear the pitch of some two-bit Madam Cleo.”
Madam Cleo!
Madam Cleo!!!
He had no way of knowing I was a little bit of a fraud!
Besides, even if I wasn’t clairvoyant, I was an oracle with the gift of sight. Although, that sight was something most people never even thought about.
Apparently, it was time for yet another attitude adjustment.
I dropped my voice low and stared at him with all the intensity I could muster, letting my deadpan fully take over.
“Careful of the helping hands you refuse. Biting hands willing to feed you is not the way to assume your father’s position.
Times like these require tact, and being decidedly unpleasant will not help dissuade people from whispering about the son who was all too happy to rush into the role of his murdered father and sibling. ”
Now he looked at me, the fire in his eyes matching the boiling, turbulent bright orange around him.
“What did you say?”
“I think you know exactly what I said, but I will reiterate. You are the eldest son of a powerful shifter family whose alpha and alpha-heir were taken out in a single event that could be easily interpreted as being pulled off by an insider.
“Who stands to gain the most? When it comes time for the police to list out their prime suspects, where do you think your name will be on it? I ask you this not to threaten you, but to enlighten you that your demeanor does you no favors in the situation you find yourself in. Especially since you’ve been gunning to replace your deceased brother as the heir for quite a long time. ”
It was a leap in logic, but the faint drags of desperation for approval I could see all around him, combined with his personality, made me confident in the claim.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“The same way I know that there were only seven psychic signatures in this room and only seven dead. An impossibility.”
Technically, it was emotional signatures, but they didn’t need to know that part. I had to shift the narrative a little, otherwise the whole jig would be up. Besides, it wasn’t like saying psychic signature instead of emotional signature would come back to bite me.
“What does that mean?” Paul asked, since Chris was apparently shocked into silence.
In for a penny, in for a pound. My heart thundered.
This was no longer a bit to uphold my mother’s legacy.
No, I was encountering something I never knew existed, and I would be damned if I let that mystery go on to hurt others.
It almost felt like my responsibility as an empath to figure out what was going on with an assassin who didn’t have any emotions at all.
“It means that whoever did this has zero psychic signature, so you’re going to need someone who can read every suspect’s energy to figure out exactly who it is and who it can’t be.”