Maddy's Floor (26 page)

"Anything's possible. We don't know enough. Make sure it doesn't shift to you. If you suddenly have a new person in your life, someone who's on your mind all the time, I'd be leery.

"Take a hard close look at them. The person tied to this black energy would need a way to get into your energy somehow, but once he's there, the person appears to be able to do all kinds of things."

Maddy's mind sorted through Stefan's words. She leaned back against the counter and nearly dropped the phone.

"Oh my God!"

A very sleepy Drew raised an eyebrow at her. Dressed only in pants, Drew stood there, pinup perfect. Maddy gulped. How was it possible she'd forgotten him? He must think she'd lost it completely.

"Maddy!" Stefan's voice reverberated through the phone. "What's wrong?" A thick pause filled the phone. "Oh. That's what."

Heat rushed through her cheeks. Trust Stefan. He read her mind every time.

"I wouldn't if you didn't constantly advertise what you were thinking." There was a second heavy pause. "He's involved in a murder case, an old murder case and a new one." Stefan's voice took on an odd note, distant with an odd echo. Maddy sat back to listen as Stefan shifted into a different reality. She listened but kept her gaze locked on the virile male dominating her kitchen and her senses.

Drew reached into the open cupboard beside her, snagged two cups and poured coffee from the freshly made pot. He held one out for her.

Maddy nodded, struggling to stay focused on Stefan. A little hard to do with a half-naked man in her kitchen.

"He's got trouble. Dead kids, dead man. And that's not the end…this is just the beginning." Stefan spoke clearly but quietly.

"Can you help?" Maddy kept her voice calm and even. She needed Stefan's vision to continue and anything jarring or loud had the potential to snap him out of it.

Stefan's voice dropped, slurred. "Same energy."

Maddy leaned forward. "What? Stefan? Same energy as what?"

"The Haven. 
Maddy's floor.
 Same energy."

Maddy ran her fingers through her hair. "Stefan," she whispered. "Talk to me, please. What about Maddy's floor? Stefan, what does this killer have to do with my floor?"

"Wait…" His voice died. "Not…quite the same. Same, yet different." Stefan's voice had deteriorated to a deep slur. His words faded with his effort to maintain conscious awareness in both spheres.

"Can you see the person?"

"No. Energy."

"Can you trace it to the person?"

 "Death. Drew is in danger."

"Drew?"

 "Weird energy. Can't hold…" His voice warbled before draining away.

There was only blankness on the phone. A tinny sound gave her the sense he was still there, but not speaking. "Stefan." No answer. "Stefan, answer me."

Click.

***

Drew sipped the coffee, enjoying the unusual sensation of being with someone first thing in the morning. He'd woken suddenly, reaching for a ringing phone. But it wasn't his, so he lay back and listened to the sound of Maddy's voice drifting to him from the kitchen.

He watched Maddy as she studied him. Then again, he was standing shirtless in her kitchen. Hopefully not a sight she was accustomed to seeing too often. And one she liked.

With one ear tuned to the conversation, he studied her face. Sleep had helped to restore the bloom of pink across her cheeks, and in that long cotton dress, she glowed. That woman wore her height well. She wasn't shy or self-conscious about it. That made all the difference in the world. Confidence was sexy.

He sighed. What an idiot. He was acting like a lovesick teenager.

***

Maddy whipped up breakfast while Drew got dressed. Even without much practice entertaining males early in the morning, making breakfast didn't take long. With her mind full of Stefan's disturbing words, she finished the job quickly and set two full plates of pancakes on the table. "Let's eat, then we'll talk."

Finishing first, Maddy sat back with a second cup of coffee and watched Drew polish off his plateful. Every bite went down with gusto. This man loved his food. He looked up.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

"Remember the painting you saw in the other room last night?" She raised her eyebrow in question. "That was the artist, Stefan, calling." Unsure how to continue, she sipped her coffee.

"What did he have to say?"

It wasn't that easy. If Drew didn't have working experience with psychics or knowledge of energy work, he wouldn't understand the gist of her answer. Even more complicated, he wouldn't understand the bits and pieces, the incompleteness of the information. "He's worked alongside the police for years and probably has names to give you as references."

He sipped his coffee and stared at her quizzically. "Why would I care?"

"Because he's a powerful psychic and while talking to him, he slipped in and out of a vision. Your name came up. He said that you were busy with murder, an old case and a new one."

Drew's mouth opened, then closed before opening again. "He said 
what?
"

She quickly went over the little bit that Stefan had picked up. When she mentioned dead kids, his cheeks sucked in and his eyes chilled. Black reached deep into his eyes. "I need to talk to him." Curt, sharp and no arguments allowed. She wasn't planning to argue, but knew Stefan usually avoided people.

"I'll have to call him."

"Do that." He took out his cell phone and tossed it at her.

She grimaced. "Now?"

"Now. Remember those dead kids? If he has any information that might help with that case, I need to know. The father of one of those children was attacked on Sunday, and with that bruise on Jansen's back that might link the old and new cases, well…"

Maddy sobered as she grasped the connection to his cold case. "I understand."

"Good. Thank you." Drew took a sip of coffee and motioned toward his cell.

Maddy slipped her own cell phone out instead. "He won't answer if he doesn't know who's calling. Even then, he doesn't always answer."

Stefan didn't answer her call. Reaching out mentally, she frowned. She couldn't sense him. A curl of unease unfurled deep in her stomach. "I think maybe we should go to his place. The phone went dead when I was talking to him earlier. I didn't worry at the time because I sensed he'd dropped into a deep sleep." She tilted her head. "Now I'm not getting a reading at all."

The decision made, she stood up abruptly. "I'm going."

Drew stared at his half-finished coffee. "Going? Now?"

"Now." Maddy snatched up her purse. "Sorry, but I mean 
now.
"

She hurried for the front door, not caring whether Drew was behind her or not.

When she arrived at the parking lot, she glanced back to see him rushing to catch up, shirt open and billowing behind him, his jacket hanging off two fingers over his shoulder. She paused. He looked like he'd enjoyed a hell of a wild night. Damn. She felt cheated.

"My truck or your car?" he asked.

"Your truck. And fast."

***

John huddled under his covers. He'd barely closed his eyes all night. He'd been too scared. How many people were actually ready to meet their maker when the time came? He'd been sure he wouldn't see the dawn today. In his life, he'd done things he wasn't exactly proud of – getting onto Dr. Maddy's floor was just one more.

He hadn't done anywhere near enough for friends or family over the years. Drew would lose all respect for him if he knew. He'd do a lot to keep that from happening. He'd been hell on wheels throughout his years on the police force and he was proud of that, yet he'd not been easy on his family. He'd never married because he hadn't seen himself committing to one woman. But he could have helped his stepsister out when her son was so sick. The boy damn near died. 

His stepsister hadn't done as well. Whether it was the scare of her son's close brush with death, her loose lifestyle or just an encroaching mental weakness, she'd slipped mentally. When Doris's mental state was first called into question, the boy had struggled – a lot, yet instead of stepping up and helping out, John had stayed in the background, not wanting to get involved.

He hadn't treated Drew much better, except he was his younger brother's boy and that made all the difference. Blood counted. He hadn't wanted kids and had regarded his nephew as his own. Drew would get everything when John was gone. He could help Doris now, if he wanted to. But some habits were too hard to break.

Tugging the blankets higher, John sank deeper into the mire he'd made for himself.

God, he'd never planned on 
this
 as his end.

What irony. What hell.

***

Stefan, for the first time, wondered at the sensibility of his actions. He thought he was lost, and in the etheric plane, no less. It wasn't the first time, but damn it, he hadn't expected it now. During the call with Maddy, he'd thought about following the trace energy back to the source. Once the thought went out, the action had followed. He'd zipped out of his body to travel the energy field in search of who was doing this.

It was nice in theory but difficult in practice – at least like this. He'd wandered Maddy's floor and probably scared the crap out of John, who couldn't see him. Instinctively John had still known something wasn't quite right.

Stefan found Maddy's dark faded 
blob
, as she'd called it.

He'd tried several tricks. He'd tried to smother it, then to join with it, anything to get a handle on where it was coming from.

Nothing had worked. He didn't understand how or why, only it seemed the black globs were attached to, or maybe even originated from John. For the past ten minutes, he'd been trying to see through the dense material to see what and how and where it was attached. Was it to John or his bed?

Stefan hadn't been able to figure it out. That had pissed him off, and made him try harder.

And in the process, Stefan had burned up too much energy. He cast a cautious glance at the throbbing blackness that instinct said had helped drain his reserves faster than he'd expected. It was an easy mistake to make if you were inexperienced. He wasn't. Shit. He hadn't made a mistake like this in years, decades even.

He didn't have enough reserves to get back home.

***

Maddy's sense of urgency refused to abate on the trip to Stefan's. Her anxiousness even prevented her from reading his energy clearly. When she finally connected with him, it was faint at best. Maddy knew she was capable of connecting and scanning the energy of people around the world, but only when her emotional state was calm and balanced. If it were, then the physical distance 
could
 be crossed as fast as the thought was understood.

If her own energy were chaotic with worry, nothing would allow her to bridge even the shortest of distances.

The trip took close to twenty minutes, with Drew at the wheel. He drove up the long, winding gravel driveway and stopped outside Stefan's cedar house. As soon as the vehicle rolled to a stop Maddy hopped out.

She paid little attention to the oversized plants lining the driveway, noting only that Stefan's truck and car were both parked in front. She pounded on his door.

No answer.

She tested the knob and it turned easily under her hand. She pushed the door open and tossed a quick backward glance to make sure Drew was behind her, then stepped inside.

"Stefan, are you here?" She walked down the hallway. "It's Maddy. Stefan?"

"Any idea where he'd be?"

"Anywhere. He's very unconventional. He'll paint in a tuxedo if he feels like it, and as his days and nights are his, he abuses traditional constraints of time, does as he pleases."

The living room was empty. Maddy crossed the gleaming hardwood floor into the glass-enclosed sunroom that faced the wooded backyard. Stefan's special place. She walked in and almost missed him. He sat cross-legged in an oversized wicker chair.

"Stefan?" Maddy bent down to his level. His face was gray and lax. Switching her view, she searched his aura, finding it thin and discolored – dangerously so.

Drew crouched beside her. "He doesn't look so good." He flipped his cell phone open and dialed for emergency help.

Maddy slid a sideways glance his way, reached over and closed his phone.

Startled, he glanced at her. "What? I'm not supposed to call for an ambulance?"

Keeping her voice low, she murmured, "No medical professional can help with this."

Ignoring him, she studied Stefan's energy. Scanning him from his head to his toes, she saw no obvious cause for the energy drain. She knew he often took trips. Astral travel was one of his specialties. His silver cord appeared almost nonexistent, even fainter than his energy. She frowned. Crap, she was so worried about him she wasn't thinking straight.

Glancing at Drew, she found him staring at Stefan with a puzzled frown on his face.