Chapter 3 #2
“Through touch, as I mentioned. When I hit puberty, that’s how it started.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if hormones had anything to do with it, but it strengthened as I grew older. Touch is still the strongest conductor, but now the dreams and visions are often broadcast to me.”
“Like a radio signal?”
Her lips compressed to contain a sigh. He didn’t sound skeptical, and his expression was neutral, but she knew what he was thinking when he looked at her, complete and utter whack job.
“It’s not a predictable gift. I wish it were because it often wakes me up at night or strikes when I least expect it.”
He looked at the articles covering the table. “You’re saying that’s what happened here, and tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve never met Cheyenne Wilson?”
“No.”
“Never been inside her home?”
“No.”
He leaned forward slightly. “You mentioned her tattoo. That detail wasn’t in the photo I showed you. Had you seen it before when she moved around the neighborhood?”
Challenging her previous statements to trip her up was a common technique. She didn’t argue or get angry. There was no point. “I saw it in the mirror,” she reminded him.
Silence stretched between them. Then he sat back and crossed his ankle over the opposite knee. “Gotta be honest. This is a stretch for me.”
“I know. You want tangible proof,” she said tiredly.
“I want the truth.”
“That’s all I’ve given you.”
“I’m not sure what I believe yet.”
“At least that’s honest.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s getting late. Am I free to go, Detective?”
“It’s Lieutenant. But how about you call me Coop?”
“Okay, Coop.” She exhaled, rubbing her forehead. “I’m tired, and you are obviously a skeptic, so, allow me to help move this along a little.”
She sat up straighter, gathering what was left of her patience.
“As you can tell from my file, I have some experience with this. Usually, one of three things happens. You believe me, and we work together professionally. You dismiss me as a crackpot and ask me to never darken your doorstep again. Or you arrest me for the crime.”
“Has option three happened?”
“Six times. Which I know you’re aware of because you have all of that.” She waved a hand at the rather thick file he’d assembled in a quick order. “I don’t have the money for an attorney and court costs to get the arrests sealed or expunged. Completely unfair, by the way.”
It had been a thorn in her side for years; the irritation gave her a second wind.
“Arrests stick to you, even if the charges are dropped. They make the next cop look at you like you’re already guilty. Like you looked at me.”
Coop didn’t deny it. His gaze held hers, steady but not unaffected. He knew exactly what she meant.
She wasn’t done.
“What happened to innocent until proven guilty?” she demanded, hands slicing the air for emphasis.
Her elbow grazed the folder. Only a little bump. It was enough to send the entire stack sliding off the table in a dramatic cascade of papers that went everywhere.
“Oh, for the love of Pete,” she groaned, dropping to her knees to gather the mess. “I swear I’m not usually this… kinetic.”
She scooped the pages into a crooked pile, mortified. When she laid them on the table, her cheeks were burning. Coop watched her with a different look now, one she couldn’t quite decipher. The corner of his mouth twitched before he smoothed it away.
Although the increased heat in her face said she absolutely had, she pretended not to notice.
She climbed to her feet and fisted her hands on her hips, facing him across the table. “So, what’s it going to be? Do you plan to arrest me?”
“Nothing places you at the crime scene, but we’ll run your prints to be sure.”
“Great,” she drawled. “But don’t leave town, right?”
“You know the drill,” he replied.
That was the sad truth. Knowing too much about what she shouldn’t made her a suspect. It had played out the same way in every case. His doubt still stung. But really… what did she think would happen? If she hadn’t lived with this gift for nearly three decades, she wouldn’t believe it either.
“Since you’re not sure yet, that only leaves option number two.
” She looked at him thoughtfully. He hadn’t outright laughed in her face, like O’Reilly and so many others.
He seemed… decent. “Leon Valley is a quiet little suburb for this type of violence. Do you want to tell me why someone would kill Debra Wilson?”
“Even if I knew, I couldn’t say.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said, huffing a laugh.
This time, both corners of his mouth lifted. “Why’d you ask?”
“You never know when you’ll get lucky.” Realizing how that sounded, she stifled a fake yawn and looked at her watch. “I need to get some sleep before work in the morning.”
“Just one more thing, then I’ll take you home. You reacted when my partner touched you, but not when I did earlier tonight.”
She frowned. He was too perceptive. “My kitchen was full of smoke. I was… distracted.”
He placed his hand palm up on the table. “You’re not distracted now.”
Wanna bet? She kept that thought to herself.
Erica stared at his hand: big, strong, masculine. She couldn’t see the nails, but she’d bet money they were neatly trimmed. No ring, either.
Did she dare put it to the test?
After spending her life avoiding touch, now, he wanted her to volunteer.
“Humor me,” he pressed.
Curiosity surpassed caution. She sat and laid her fingers against his palm then waited.
“What do you feel?”
Another few seconds passed before she whispered, “Nothing.”
Now a skeptic herself, she grasped his other hand. Still nothing. No emotions. No images. No scary sounds or unexplained smells.
“What about now?” he asked.
“I don’t feel anything. It’s amazing,” she said with wonder.
Coop lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know why, but I’m mildly insulted.”
She laughed, despite herself. “I didn’t mean to.”
His fingers curled around hers. A dark brow quirked in question.
She grinned at him. “I only feel me.”
That wasn’t entirely true.
His skin was warm, callused in places, his hands firm around hers in a way that made her notice.
The clean scent of him and maybe a hint of aftershave curled through her senses.
A rush of heat spread through her chest and migrated south to her belly, which had nothing to do with emotion other than her own.
That interesting detail, she kept to herself, however.
She squeezed his hands, not ready to break the connection yet.
“You can’t imagine how good it feels to touch someone without being bombarded. Without being afraid.”
“That must be hard to live with.”
It was, but something in his tone brought her head up. Was he humoring her, or starting to believe? She couldn’t tell and shrugged. “I’ve learned to adapt.”
She wasn’t sure she’d ever adapt to touching Coop. She swept her thumbs over the backs of his hands, just feeling him. She imagined doing more: gliding her hands up his muscular arms, over the breadth of his shoulders, and running her fingers over his end-of-day scruffy beard.
He was attractive. No doubt about that. But what made him different?
“There have only been a handful of people that I couldn’t read. A few I can dampen and ignore, but that isn’t often either.” She wasn’t sure why she’d said all that, but it led to what she really wanted to ask. “Do you have any perceptive gifts or talents?”
“Coop has the best gut on the force. His instincts are always dead-on. If that’s not some kind of ESP, then I don’t know what is.”
A middle-aged woman in uniform stood in the doorway with a coffeepot, smiling at their joined hands with zero subtlety.
Erica let go.
“We’re in the middle of something,” Coop told her.
The woman didn’t take the hint. “I came to see if you needed anything. Coffee, maybe, if it’s going to be an all-nighter.”
Coop glanced at his watch. “It’s after midnight. We should get going.”
He rose, gesturing her up, then guided her out with a hand at the small of her back. She brushed up against the woman, who barely had time to step aside.
Erica sucked in a breath as she hit a hollow pocket of emotion. Not fear. Not danger. Sadness. A bed gone cold on one side, and the faint echo of a man’s laugh that would never fill her kitchen again.
“I’m so sorry about your husband, Judy.”
The woman started, coffee sloshing over the rim of her carafe. It splashed on her hand, but she didn’t seem to feel it as she stared.
“Isn’t that hot?” Erica asked.
“What? Oh… crap.” Judy set the pot down and fumbled for a napkin.
Coop closed his eyes briefly, drawing in a slow breath.
She was used to this—Judy’s shock and his suspicion. The look that said she’d moved outside the bounds of normal. She needed a redirect.
“If you don’t mind, Lieutenant, I’d like to stop by the ladies’ room before we go.”
Still staring, Judy pointed down the hall.
As she walked away, Erica heard her ask, “How’d she know my name? Or about Earl?”
“Your name is on your ID badge,” Coop pointed out. “As for the other… damned if I know.”
***
On the drive to her house, Coop switched off the radio.
Not to talk—they’d already done plenty of that—but to think.
She was a jumble of contradictions. She knew things she shouldn’t.
Her reactions to people were visceral in ways he couldn’t explain.
But when she’d taken his hand earlier, there’d been no flinch, no recoil, nothing at all.
He didn’t know what it meant. But it meant something.
When he pulled into her driveway, he shut off the engine and reached for his door.
“No need to get out.” She had a hand on the latch, ready to bolt.
“There’s a need,” he said, tone firm. “I don’t leave women standing alone in the dark.”
She stared at him, surprised. Her mouth opened as if to argue, then she reconsidered.
At the door, she unlocked it and turned on the entryway light.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” he said, pulling a business card from his wallet. “Call me if you remember anything or get any more—” He searched for a word that wouldn’t sound insulting.
“Spooky visions? Psychic delusions?” she offered.
He grimaced. Because yes, those had crossed his mind.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a hint of a smile. “I’ve been dealing with skeptics all my life. If they can’t see it, hear it, taste it, or feel it, then it’s not real. Funny how those same skeptics trot off to church on Sundays.”
He didn’t disagree. She wasn’t wrong.
“Good night, Lieutenant.”
“Good night, Erica.”
He waited for the locks to click before heading to his truck. He had shifted into reverse and barely started pulling out when movement on the porch caught his eye. She hurried down the steps and across the drive, breathless.
He rolled down the window. “Everything all right?”
“I almost forgot.” She held out a box wrapped in brown paper. “This was in my mailbox by mistake.”
He took it, reading the handwritten label: Thomas Wilson.
Misdirected mail happened, especially with clustered boxes. But there was no postage mark. It had been hand delivered.
His unease intensified. “This came today?”
“I picked it up today,” she clarified. “I can’t say when it actually arrived. Most of my mail goes to my business address, so I don’t check this box every day.”
“You didn’t try to deliver it, did you?”
She hesitated then admitted, “I had a funny feeling.”
More like a lucky feeling. Had she walked that package over, it would’ve placed her at the scene, and tonight might have gone much differently.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said.
She smiled faintly and stepped back. “Good night, then.”
Coop watched her climb the steps barefoot. She must have kicked off her boots first thing. He caught the glint of an ankle bracelet beneath the hem of her skirt, feminine, unexpected, and somehow perfectly her.
Whatever she turned out to be—empath, intuitive, or something he didn’t have a name for yet—Erica Stevens wasn’t forgettable.
He had the uneasy feeling he hadn’t seen the last of her. And he wasn’t entirely sure that was a problem.