Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Let’s find out,” Gabe suggested.
“Okay.”
Olivia felt Travis step a few feet away. She saw him, but more dimly than he’d been manifesting to her before their crazy transformation.
As he walked several feet farther, she began to feel a tug or a strain. When he took another step, she called out, “Stop.”
He went still.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
Yes. It was unpleasant.
Right.
“What’s the answer?” Gabe asked, barging into the silent conversation.
“At the moment, about twelve feet. But we can probably make that farther if we practice.”
“Um, maybe you should.” He paused before saying, “I asked you to do this so that Travis can help me capture one of the men who’s staking out his house. And I’d like you farther away when we do it.”
“You belong to the school of—the guys do the dangerous stuff and the womenfolk hide in the bushes?”
He shot her a sharp look. “Look, you know what he did to Travis. What do you think he’d do if he had a woman in his clutches?”
Olivia winced. She didn’t like the answer, but it made sense. She felt a little chill sweep over her as she remembered Travis’s description of his own interrogation and murder.
“Okay, we’ll see how far apart we can get,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable, and we’ll go outside.”
Gabe looked like he wanted to say, “Don’t take too long,” but he only pressed his lips together.
She took another sip of coffee, then exited through the kitchen door, and Travis stepped through the wall. It seemed that the new physical connection between them hadn’t affected his ghostly status.
They headed for the patio, where she lowered herself into one of the chairs.
Travis paced to the edge of the flagstones before stepping off into the grass.
They weren’t quite to the limit of their bond yet, and he took a cautious step forward.
Again, she felt the uncomfortable sensation that she might have described as insects crawling over her skin, only it was also inside her body.
She shuddered.
Yeah, he agreed.
Interesting that he didn’t have a body, but he could feel it.
“Let’s change places,” she said.
He might have asked why, but he didn’t need to. Whatever she was thinking was fully accessible to him.
“I wonder if there’s some way to shield my mind to keep you from reading me like an e-mail. Maybe that’s another skill we have to practice.”
It’s probably easier when the two people are more separated, he finished.
As she got up, he returned to the patio and stood with his arms crossed, watching her.
She reached the spot where he’d had to stop and felt the unpleasant tingle again.
This time, she strove to banish it by bringing back the memory of the two of them on the couch, when he’d kept her at a peak of sexual need until there was nothing else she could do but succumb.
The heat the memory generated helped to dissipate the creepy-crawly sensation.
Inconvenient to have to turn yourself on to get away from me, he quipped.
She answered with a small sound. “Don’t pull me out of the moment by making me feel ridiculous.”
Sorry.
The technique seemed to work, and she was able to double the distance. The sound of the door opening startled her. She expected that it would have made the effect snap off, but she didn’t feel the discomfort.
Gabe was standing on the patio, looking from her to where Travis was standing. “I was watching out the window,” he explained.
“You can see Travis?”
“Not exactly. But I kind of see a disturbance in the air.”
“Let’s hope nobody else can.”
“I think they might—but only if they’d spent some time with him.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Do you think you could push the distance any farther?”
“Maybe, but we’d have to keep practicing.”
“This may be far enough. You should change, and then we’ll leave.”
They went back inside, where Gabe took her outfit from the gym bag. It included a dark wig and an industrial-looking outfit with the logo of a well-known big-box store. Probably she was supposed to be a checker or one of the workers who restocked the shelves.
“I’ll go up to change,” she said. She also intended to take a shower because the activities of the night and the previous day had made her sweaty.
Upstairs, she quickly cleaned up before changing into the clothing, which fit her pretty well.
It was a little hard getting all her hair up under the dark wig, but she managed it with a rubber band and a bunch of hairpins.
When she was finished, she could see that the dark wig gave her a very different appearance, although it was a bit startling in contrast to her pale skin.
Deciding that a grocery checker would want to look her best, she put on a little lipstick and blusher.
Examining herself critically in the mirror, she decided that it would be hard to recognize her. She and Gabe now looked nothing like the couple who had been at the dock yesterday.
When she came downstairs, Gabe gave her a critical inspection. “Good job,” he approved.
“You picked out the outfit.”
“And you look perfectly comfortable wearing it.”
She glanced at Travis, So what did you two talk about while I was gone?
We haven’t reached that stage in our relationship yet.
“I’ve started recognizing when I’m being left out of a conversation,” Gabe interjected.
“I was just wondering if you two were talking about me while I was gone.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Only half.”
Olivia climbed into the passenger seat of Gabe’s clunker. He slid behind the wheel, and Travis settled in the back seat.
When they were on the road to the Bay Bridge, Olivia asked, “What’s the plan?”
“First, we see some of Smith’s guys watching Travis’s house or the marina.
The house would be best, since there will be fewer people around on that dead-end street.
When we locate them, you’ll stay out of sight.
Then Travis will get their attention with a horror movie thing so I can make a capture and run an interrogation. ”
“He wants to know—what kind of horror movie thing?”
“Anything paranormal that will scare the crap out of them so I can get them under my control and ask some questions about where to find Smith.”
“Okay,” Olivia answered. She didn’t love the scenario, but she knew Travis was looking forward to some payback.
It was a two-hour drive to St. Stephens from Frederick. On the way they discussed tactics that they might use, but Gabe cautioned that they couldn’t come up with a plan until they encountered the actual situation.
Olivia could feel her heart start to pound when they reached the St. Stephens town limits. She knew Travis was picking up on her reaction when he said, You’ll be out of the line of fire.
I don’t want to be. You know I want to help.
The best way you can help me is by my knowing you’re safe.
She sighed. Okay.
Gabe turned onto the street where Travis’s house was located. As he drove past, he said, “Keep an eye out for a car with two men sitting inside—last time it was a five-year-old Chevy. But it could be something different.
Travis spotted the watcher, and Olivia conveyed the information to Gabe. He’s in a Range Rover.
“I see it.”
Travis uttered a curse that only Olivia could hear.
What?
There’s only one guy. But it’s one of the men who abducted me from the boat. The one named Pete.
Oh Lord. In a shaky voice, Olivia gave Gabe the news.
“That’s good,” he answered.
“How is it good?”
“We know he’s in contact with Smith.”
He’s looking at us, Travis said. “It’s only him, as far as I can tell. Not the others.”
“I’m going to turn onto the next block,” Gabe answered. When he reached the corner, he executed the maneuver and pulled down several car lengths along the curb so that he was no longer in the line of sight of the watcher.
As the vehicle came to a stop, Olivia felt like she was hanging on to a wire with electricity coursing through it.
Gabe turned his head to look at the backyards of the houses along the street. “Some of them have fences,” he reported. “But there’s an alley. Slight change of disguise. Pull the logo off your shirt, and we’ll switch it out for the electric company.”
“Why didn’t we do this in the first place?”
“Because it was a fifty-fifty proposition that we were going to end up at the dock, where you could have been on your lunch break or something. But this is a better setup. Now you need a disguise that will give you a reason for being here.”
He retrieved his bag from the back seat and rummaged inside, coming out with a lanyard that held a name tag. On it was a pretty good picture of Olivia with her dark hair.
“How did you get that?” she asked, as she slipped it over her head.
“Combination of Photoshop and AI. You walk up through the alley. If anyone asks, you’re checking the electric lines.
“What lines?”
“I don’t know, but this meter is going to register something that looks official.” He pressed a button on the device that activated a blinking red light.
He turned to Travis. “You and I will walk up the sidewalk, keeping pace with Olivia. You can do that, right?”
“He says, yes,” Olivia relayed.
“I’ll stop at the house before the car and turn in at the walk. You keep going. When you get to the car, do something that will scare the shit out of the guy inside.”
He looked back the way they’d come. “Did you see anyone on the street?”
“No,” Olivia answered, speaking for herself and Travis.
“Let’s hope we don’t alarm any bystanders. If they see what’s going down, they might call the cops.”
Olivia made a low sound. “Now you tell me.”
“Probably not gonna happen. Just be alert.”
Gabe looked toward the back seat. “Can you open the door of your house?”
“He thinks so,” Olivia relayed.
“Okay. We’re going to take Pete inside where we can question him in private.”
Hoping she could pull off the plan, Olivia stepped out of the car and stiffened her legs.
She waited until Travis and Gabe were on the street they’d come from before starting down the alley. She could feel the connection between herself and Travis stretching almost to the breaking point. What would happen if they got too far away? Would he vanish?”
I guess we’ll find out, he answered.
She kept walking, worried that at any time this could all fall apart. But her only option was to keep going.
Can you pick it up a little? Gabe is going to draw their attention at his pace.
At any pace, she shot back before speeding up.
Travis told her when she was behind his house. As she studied the exterior, she was relieved to see that the patch of lawn between his property and the neighbor on the right was not obstructed. She cut partway through and stopped behind a large, unwieldy juniper.
You should have trimmed this monster, but it makes a convenient hiding place now, she said.
From where she stood, she could watch the action on the street, but was pretty sure she wouldn’t be spotted.
She could see Gabe stop, well back from the target car, but she knew he was visible to the man behind the wheel.
The thug looked up, now more aware of his surroundings than he had been a few minutes earlier.
Gabe held his ground, but as she looked on, she heard Travis say, Give me energy.
She did as he asked, sending power to him.
He waited a moment before charging toward the car and throwing himself violently against the side.
The blow made the vehicle rock. It kept rocking as Travis moved his hands against it, and she continued to give him the power he needed.
She could feel his elation as he rained some payback on one of the men who had delivered him to Smith.
From her hiding place, she could see panic and confusion bloom on Pete’s face.