Shattered: A Psychic Visions Novel (43 page)

Trevor had listened
and tried to take it all in, but there was a lot of information that pertained to his life here too, and it was hard to hear. So much was becoming clear now. All these people he’d known. For a time had cared about…

Then there was Stefan. He’d felt his start of surprise turn to shock before he’d raced away. But was he okay?

Stefan, are you okay?

Yes, but I know what’s the matter with Anita now, thanks to Hannah. It’s Anita’s grandmother trying to protect her granddaughter from men. She thinks I’m hurting Anita or at least afraid that if I remove her that’s going to leave little Anita vulnerable to be hurt. She was behind Anita stabbing me earlier that day.

Christ.

When she found Hannah could walk in grayscale and they connected through my energy as I was calling to Hannah, she hoped to finish the job. Only Hannah spent her entire life being controlled by others – in her grayscale world no one was going to control her. Besides, Hannah was already inside my safety zone at the house and couldn’t have acted even if she’d understood what she was being guided to do.

Anita?
Trevor was confused for a moment.
So we were right about it being a possession issue. Only in this case it was the grandmother sitting in grayscale pulling the little girl’s strings?

Yes, her Russian grandmother. The woman had a horrible life and hated men. All men. She’d been demented at the end. Never making any sense. She’d been on a rampage trying to separate the women from their men in her family before she had a heart attack and died in the middle of a huge argument. And Anita had been at the center of the argument.

Hannah had a nightmare where she was chased by dogs and then an old woman. She was led to a small room and that’s when she woke up screaming. She said it was the same woman she’d seen on the patio.

Yes, Anita’s grandmother. She’d been trying to save Anita from me. She wasn’t stable at the end and only wanted to keep her granddaughter safe.
Stefan laughed.
I can save her now.

And Stefan disappeared.

Although Trevor turned his attention back to Hannah, his mind worried about Anita. So many people figured that a person with mental health issues would be fine and healthy again after their body died, but it wasn’t that way. In many ways, getting caught in between made the situation worse.

Poor Hannah never knew what was her knowledge or someone else’s. Not knowing she was a graywalker and what that meant, and with all the blocks, it was amazing she’d survived mentally at all.

Not only survived but had thrived.

He studied the woman who’d come to matter to him so damn much in such a short time period. He hadn’t expected her to charge in like she knew what she was doing today, but apparently she
did
know what she was doing.

So had Stefan when he’d sensed her on the road in trouble and directed her toward his house.

Switching directions, and looking carefully, he could see the resemblance to the Victor who he’d known years ago but it was hard, and without Hannah’s conversation, he’d not have seen it.

He settled back into the room and glanced over at George, as he called himself now, to see him staring, a deep abiding hatred in his eyes, at Hannah. She smiled cheekily at him then turned to her father’s longtime girlfriend and said, “Hello, Stones. Have you killed anyone today?”

And the place went dead quiet.

Goodman jumped into the silence. “See what I mean,” he cried. “She’s completely unbalanced. There’s no way she can handle her own affairs.”

Hannah laughed. “Actually, Father, you’re the dupe. She’s been sleeping with George, whose real name is Victor since they were teens, and his brother, whose body was in my burned out shell of a store.” She motioned to Drew. “He’ll confirm it all for you. She’s been screwing Will on the side for decades too. She does like variety.” She turned her hard gaze on the woman who’d caused so much pain. “Don’t you, Stones?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Wanda gasped. “Darling, don’t let her talk to me like that…”

“Hannah,” her father warned. “Behave yourself.”

“Sure you don’t.” Hannah turned to Will. “Did they promise me to you or was that just my father?”

He glanced at her and curled his lip. “I don’t want you at all, there isn’t enough money to make me take you on.”

“Right. Keep saying it and you might believe it.” She smirked. “If my father never remarried, then Stones’s bid for the money was out of luck. That meant I was the next best thing, for you. But to do that she had to keep you on the string too.”

She leaned forward. “I know you’ve been screwing her. But you’re not special. She sleeps with
everyone
.”

“She does not,” Will snapped. “You can’t say shit about her.”

Hannah gloated. “I don’t have to. I saw you two together,” she lied easily. “Stones is nothing but a greedy whore. As long as my father was happy, I didn’t care. But then I saw what you guys were doing and figured you might not know about the double-cross.”

“What double-cross?” he said half coming out of his chair. “You didn’t see nothing.”

“Ah see, you should have said that about not having seen anything first, but what you really cared about was the double-cross. Think about this, what if my father reconsidered the marriage issue.” She smirked again. “That leaves
her
in the money and
you
out in the cold. Particularly if he manages to wrest control of my money away from me.”

She smiled. “Either way, they don’t need
you
. You’re the new kid on the block. She and Victor have been lovers for years. The term here is
Love
. She loves Victor but more than that, Victor loves
her
. Always has. And when she marries my father, Victor will kill him soon after, and they’ll live happily ever after.” She leaned forward. “See, she doesn’t know about his decision to never marry again. You might come out of this after all.”

Silence.

She could sense the shock of everyone caught in the middle. She’d pegged Will as the weak link. He was slimy and nasty, but he wasn’t hard core inner strong like the other two. She pulled out the picture she’d had in her purse since she’d found it in her personal effects at the hospital. She held it up for Will to see. “This is Victor’s stepbrother. The one he just killed a few days ago.”

She turned to Victor. “You finished him off at my store after I ran. Decided it was a perfect opportunity to get rid of a problem. He was getting pretty unstable, wasn’t he?”

She turned her gaze to the photo. “See who he’s with? Both nude. Both of them holding onto each other. Yeah, my father’s girlfriend. The same one who’s been screwing you in the background all these years. See the date here? Only a few weeks before he died. Sticks had it on him when he came to the store. It fell out when we were fighting.” She shrugged. “I didn’t even recognize the people until last night.”

Hannah leaned back and gave him a fat smile. “You’ve been threatening me all my life, that evil presence always there haunting me, terrifying me. But it wasn’t you I should have been scared of. It was the other two you were in cahoots with. Victor here is the one who made me feel threatened all the time. I just didn’t know it. And my poor weak father.” She turned her mocking gaze on her father who sat shell shocked beside Stones. “He had no idea she was sleeping with every man she could get horizontal with. Or vertical.” She held the image up for her father to see clearly. “Sorry, Dad.”

His face sagged. She was sorry to do this in such a way, but there wasn’t much option.

“You stupid bitch,” Will snapped at Wanda. Or Stones as Hannah would always think of her. “Why the hell would you sleep with Victor? He’s scum.”

“Because I love that dirty scum,” Stones cried. “He’s twice the man you are. And a way better lover.” She flicked her hand at Victor. “Are you coming, darling? I do think this show has had its final curtain.”

Victor stood up to leave.

Will spluttered. “It’s true? All of it? You have been sleeping with him?”

“And me,” her father said faintly. “Why?”

“Of course. Victor is the love of my life. The rest of you are just for entertainment.” She smiled at Victor. “I’m so happy this is over. This game has been tough to keep up all these years.”

She turned to Hannah. “Who knew you were smart enough to figure this out?”

And she jumped into Hannah’s mind, slamming blocks around like they were Lego. But Hannah hadn’t gone through what she’d been through for nothing. She flicked Stones out of her mind with such force Stones slammed back against the wall in the office in the physical world.

Stones did a slow slide to the floor.

Her father cried out and jumped back. The two financial advisors raced to the other side of the room.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Hannah snapped. “My father might be foolish and woman stupid, but your days of playing ‘head’ games with either of us is over.”

And she slammed her own hands into Stones’s mind and reached in to pull up the horrible memories that must have started this woman down this nightmare path of destruction.

Instantly Stones curled up in a tiny ball, stuck her fingers in her mouth and chanted in an eerie voice, “Hush little baby, please don’t cry, Daddy’s got something to make you smile.” She repeated it over and over again in a sick parody of her memories.

“What did you do to her?” Victor cried, racing over to her. He crouched down beside Stones.

Hannah said in a calm voice, “I gave her a dose of her own medicine – in reverse.” She glared at him. “I pulled a handful of memories forward to the front of her mind.”

“You can’t do that. She suffered terribly. Look at her,” he roared. “You can’t hurt her like this.”

“Oh, I can fix it,” Hannah said, her gaze locked on his. Her heart was breaking, but she daren’t give in at this point. They were almost there. She didn’t want to hurt Stones more than she had to but damn it, she needed to make sure she was free too. “But Drew is going to be the one to tell you what’s needed from you before I do.”

“A full confession, a full list of crimes. And everyone involved,” Drew said in a hard voice. “And that’s just a start.”

“Anything,” Victor cried. “Just help her.”

Instantly Hannah grabbed the memory and shoved it back deep behind the blocks that Stones had built for herself. Inside she felt sick. She’d had no idea such a thing could happen. And knowing what had happened to Stones as a kid – well, that was just wrong.

Drew asked, “Is Wanda’s father still alive.”

Victor shook his head. “She killed him. A long time ago.”

“Good,” Hannah said. “It’s hard to feel sorry for that bastard after what he did to her.”

“And yet you did this to her.” Victor stared at her in hatred.

“And I will do it again if you renege on your part of the deal. And that includes all of Will’s crimes as well.” She glared back. “Remember, I know all the shit you pulled in my mind.”

“He was never really involved except it made it easier to track you because he was screwing Wanda and following her energy blocks. But he didn’t understand what or why. He figured he was just
that
good,” Victor said tiredly, his hand stroking Wanda’s forehead, brushing the hair back off the unconscious woman’s face. “She just liked to keep multiple strings in play and tug on them a little in case she needed them. She had to use men or she didn’t feel in control. Her men never bothered me because I understood.”

He studied Will and added, “Except for the threats in Goodman’s name. The beatings. Accepting and keeping payouts. A job he liked a little too well.”

“What? Did I just hear all this?” Hannah’s father said. He sat frozen at his seat. “How is this possible? I don’t understand. I never authorized him to threaten anyone.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” Drew said. “But for the moment, I think it’s safe to say that you have escaped an early demise.”

The door behind them opened to admit several cops. Victor and Will were both taken into custody. An ambulance was called for Wanda.

Hannah sat off to the side, hating her part in all of this but at the same time knowing it had to be traumatic for everything to come out.

Her father, well, she wondered just what he’d do now. She didn’t have long to wait.

He walked over to her and held out his arms. She stood rigidly in place, not sure how to react. He dropped his arms and his shoulders sagged. “I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t even understand what’s just happened?”

“All you need to know,” she said, “is that I’m not mentally incompetent. I’m fine and we will survive this.”

He studied her for a long moment as if searching for something. “You were so distraught when we lost your mother, I didn’t know what to do.” He shrugged. “I got the best doctors in the world to help you, but…”

She knew there’d be no way to explain about the blocks in her head or the psychic abilities. So she kept quiet. Later she’d remove the blocks in his head and let him find a way to deal with his past too. Maybe they could both be free to move on.

“I do have a question about Hannah’s mother’s death,” Trevor asked quietly from behind her.

Her father looked bewildered. “It was an accident. She had a seizure while in the water and drowned.”

Trevor nodded. “Did she die right away?”

“No,” her father shook his head. “She was in a coma for several weeks before she passed on.” He threw out his hands. “I have tons of money and still couldn’t save my family. Either of them.”

“So you turned away from me – your only remaining family – to make more?” Hannah didn’t get it.

“No,” he said. “I turned
to
the only thing I knew to do and focused on that. And I buried myself in work.”

Maybe she could understand after all. And now she knew where the oldest, biggest block had come from. Her mother’s last gift to her before she left the physical plane. Hannah would need time to come to terms with everything that had happened. When she was ready, she’d take that block apart too. Finally, she’d read her diary and look at the keepsakes. They were gifts to be treasured. She doubted there was anything helpful in there to the case, but maybe it would help her to know her mother better.