Tears of No Return (11 page)

“Sorry, guy,” he said. “Got to have you pay before each one, like you been doing.” He took his hand away. “Don’t mean to be an asshole or anything, but I don’t know you, which means I don’t know where you live so I can collect if you stiff me.”

Morgan held up his hand. “No problem, I understand. Don’t blame you one bit.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ten, then handed it to the man.

“You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve had to put up with in this place at one time or another. Like college kids ducking out without paying for their drinks.”

“Can’t believe people do that,” Morgan said, shaking his head.

“If you have a credit card I can run a tab.”

“I’ll pay as I go.”

“You got it.”

“Keep the change.”

“Thanks.”

A man at the other end of the bar was waving his hand and calling out the name Billy. “Drunken asshole,” the bartender said. “Nice talking to you. Enjoy the beer.”

“Guess you’re the most important guy in here.”

“Yeah, someone’s always the most important somewhere, I guess.” He laughed and walked away.

Chapter 13

Karen pulled around to the back of O’Hulahans. She turned off the ignition but remained in the car. The bar would be much smaller than the cavernous rest stop. Fewer people, but they’d be crammed in a smaller space. She worried she’d get the same results.

Karen thought about turning around. A blanket of cold realization fell over her. Needing to stay positive, she stomped the floor. “You’re not going down that road again. Not now,” she told herself. “Toughen up, girl. You need to stay strong, and there
will
be no crying.” She felt the heat of triumph grow within her.

After removing the car key, she exited the vehicle. Like an angel on her shoulder, her rational side-kicked in. Was it wise to spend money on more food and alcohol when she had so little cash? In reality, she hadn’t thought much about the future, let alone the next day. She didn’t want to, and emotionally she couldn’t. Not without breaking down. The future seemed so bleak and frightening. No, tonight she would try to get by, maybe even enjoy herself; alone in a bar with people she didn’t know. She would eat and drink and worry about tomorrow after sunrise. Because she needed this, a piece of something normal after everything she’d gone through. Straightening her blouse, she took a couple of deep breaths and walked to the front of the bar.

At the entrance, she paused, a hand wrapped around the door’s handle. “You can do this,” she told herself and opened the door.

Voices filled the air with a lively static. Unsteady, she placed a palm on the wall, panic beginning to take hold. She reminded herself that she needed to go through with this; try to control her gift, and that she was safe here. To the left was the entranceway to the restaurant. It was closed. To the right was the bar where the voices poured from. She stepped forward, stopping just inside the threshold to the bar.

People laughed, chatted, played darts and pool. She stepped into the room, wincing. A few people turned to look at her before returning to their conversations. Another step and she was beginning to relax. She didn’t want to appear awkward, draw attention to herself, but she would turn and run the second she heard the buzzing. Thinking about it, she realized that the voices she was hearing were from people’s mouths, not their minds. And she heard no buzzing. She didn’t understand why she wasn’t getting bombarded with thoughts, but was grateful. Maybe the gift wasn’t working at the moment, still settling itself into her. Or maybe there just weren’t enough people. She took a deep breath and marched forward, looking straight ahead, to an empty seat at the bar.

She bit her lower lip, her heart pumping rapidly, expecting at any moment to have to run outside when the voices came, but all she heard was the familiar sound of bar chatter.

“What can I get you, Miss?” the bartender asked. Karen did a double-take at the guy, wondering for a moment if he’d really asked her what she wanted or if she had read his thoughts. “Miss, you okay?”

“Oh,” Karen said, shaking her head and feeling silly. “Yes, is the grill still open?”

“Not for dinner, just for the greasy things like fries, mozzarella sticks, pot stickers, and wings.”

“I’ll take an order of fries and wings.”

“You got it,” the man said, and was about to turn away when Karen spoke up.

“You know what,” she said, not wanting to seem like a pig, but starving. “I’ll take two orders of wings and add a mozzarella sticks, too.”

“Expecting company?”

Karen’s face reddened. “No, I just haven’t eaten all day.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I just wanted to know if you needed more room at the bar. I’d have made you some. You know, in the event you had friends meeting you here.”

Karen laughed, feeling better. She watched the man as he walked away and heard him say he hoped she doesn’t throw it all up in the ladies’ room. “Excuse me?” she asked loudly. The man turned around to face her.

“You need something else?”

Karen realized that the man hadn’t actually said anything aloud. “Ah, no, thought you said something is all.”

The man continued down the bar and through a set of double doors which she guessed led to the kitchen.

Karen could read thoughts, but it appeared to be selective. She looked around the room, focusing in on individuals. Most people were talking. It was the ones that weren’t that she could read. When people talked, they didn’t think, at least not like they did when being silent.

Karen glanced at a couple sitting near her. They were in deep conversation, appearing as if the noisy bar around them didn’t exist. The woman listened as the man spoke. She thought he was adorable as he professed his love for her. He was drunk, at least she assumed, so she didn’t take his words with certainty but enjoyed the declaration nonetheless.

Karen turned toward a lone man—quite handsome—sitting at the end of the bar. She concentrated on him, prying into his thoughts. He was happy to be alone, listening to the people around him and having a good time. He seemed different from everyone else, and, like Karen, wasn’t from the town. She felt herself drawn to him, enamored by his presence, but unsure why. She sat and listened to his thoughts, before the man turned and looked directly at her.

Karen glanced away. What had she just heard? He was happy to be away from all the death, killings, and evil. Was he a cop? Someone from the military? A soldier on leave?

To Karen, he looked like none of those things. She turned back, wanting to hear more. Concentrating on him again, the man no longer staring at her, she heard that he was here for a short time and happy not to be hunting. And glad that no others like him were around. Others like…

“Miss?” the bartender said, breaking her intrusion.

“Yes?”

“I’m out of wings. Would you like something else?”

“Sure, pot stickers then. Two orders please.” She spoke quickly, wanting to get back to the stranger at the end of the bar. The bartender left and brought back a pint of beer. “It’s local; let me know what you think.”

Karen quickly sipped the brew. “It’s wonderful, thank you.”

The bartender smiled, and Karen, using a quick probe, knew the man was genuinely glad. She hadn’t liked the guy at first, but realized he was a good fellow. His anorexic comment earlier had bothered her, but Karen realized people often thought things they would never say aloud and that she had cheated.

Reading people’s minds gave away sacred and private thoughts. People were entitled to their own feelings without criticism no matter how good or bad they might be. Karen truly had no right to hear them, but she couldn’t help it. It hit her hard then that she might never again meet another human being without being able to judge the person or feel completely comfortable. The bartender was nice enough, but he, like so many people, just had a quick thought. And probably a legitimate one, considering Karen’s size—five-eight and one hundred and twenty pounds—and the size of her order. She sank in her seat, realizing at that moment how truly difficult it would be to have a real friend again, let alone a boyfriend or husband.

Chapter 14

Karen sat at the bar sipping her beer, feeling the invisible weight of her thoughts press down on her shoulders. The bartender brought out her food and placed it in front of her.

“Anything else, dear?” he asked.

Karen held up a finger and guzzled the rest of her beer. “Another please,” she said, placing the glass down on the counter and wiping her mouth with a cocktail napkin.

The man returned quickly with another pint.

“Hey, do you know that guy down there at the end of the bar?” Karen nodded to her right.

“No. He just came in here tonight, like yourself.”

“Get a lot of travelers?”

The man laughed, motioning around the room. “What do you think?”

“Guess that’s a no.” Karen smiled, shaking her head. “This your place?”

“Yep. Me and the Missus.” He spoke proudly, making Karen like him even more.

“What kind of name is O’Hulahans? Sounds Irish, but I’ve never seen it spelled that way.”

“Well I’m Irish. Name’s Mike O’Houlihan.” He spelled it out for her. “But my wife is Hawaiian. She came up with the name, spelling it how you see it. The ‘hula’ is her personal touch on the place.”

Karen laughed loudly. The place suddenly felt warmer, friendlier.

“Must be something in the air tonight,” Mike said.

“Huh?”

“We hardly ever get strangers in here and tonight, counting yourself, we have two.” He motioned to the entranceway. “Now, we have four.”

Karen craned her neck and saw two large men standing just inside the doorway. Both wore black suits and had identical tightly cropped air. They looked rigid, like robots, while surveying the room. One caught Karen’s stare, then motioned to the other. She quickly turned back to the bartender.

“Waitress had to go home early tonight, so I’m alone,” Mike rambled.

Using the mirror behind the bar, Karen watched the men take a seat near the door. She tried probing them to see if they were agents who had found her somehow, but her gift wasn’t responding. Maybe it was the mirror. Maybe she needed to look directly at the person in order for her gift to work. It was times like this that she wished she had an instruction manual or that Josh was still alive to help her. She’d heard people’s thoughts without looking at them at the rest stop, but here it wasn’t working out that way. Must’ve been an adjustment phase, and now she was finally settling in.

She grew progressively more nervous as the seconds dragged. Mike excused himself to see what the gentlemen wanted to drink. She needed to turn around and take a nice long look at them, see what one of them was thinking, but she couldn’t make herself do it. If she hadn’t had any liquid courage in her she’d probably have run out of there already. Was it possible they were there for her? How could they have found her? Needing to know, taking a risk, she turned around and looked at one of the men.

A chill ran through her body as she heard two words: Karen Lakemire. Turning back around in her chair, she felt as if her heart might burst from her chest, her body no longer able to contain the muscle’s gallop. Damn, the man knew her name. They must’ve found her and were deciding what to do. With so many witnesses, they would probably wait for her to leave, then follow her. Frozen in a state of shock, Karen needed something to take her mind off of the men. She looked to her right and back to the loner at the end of the bar. She began reading him, trying to see if maybe she could leave with him. Having a bit of muscle might keep her alive a bit longer.

To her surprise, the loner was watching the men, too. He didn’t like them and thought they might be…
vampires
. Karen disconnected and went back to staring at her half-finished beverage. She couldn’t believe it. Of all the people to look to for help, she’d picked a lunatic who believed in vampires. Maybe she’d heard wrong. That must be it. She immediately went back to probing the guy. He was still occupied with the two men. Whoever they were, he wanted to get away from them. He didn’t want any of the patrons to get hurt or killed if anything went down. Karen’s eyes widened. She needed to know more and concentrated harder, trying to search deeper into the man’s brain.

Names flashed through Karen’s mind. Places old and new. The man seemed to be recalling past events, but there were so many. She saw a battlefield where men with muskets fought each other. Horse and buggies traveled along dirt roads. She saw Model-T Fords and steam-powered riverboats. Tanks and a Nazi platoon being blown to bits. The guy was a war nut, a real wacko. He truly believed he’d been in all those places, fighting in all those wars. Maybe an escaped mental patient. He’d looked so normal before the two men in black entered; now she read the thoughts of a violent and deranged man. As she readied to break her link with him, he turned and faced her, staring into her eyes with the ferocity of a lion.

Karen felt a chill run over her and tried looking away, but felt trapped by his gaze. She stayed locked eye to eye with him, unable to move. Focusing her thoughts, she heard him asking who she was and what had she been doing to him?

Are you prying into my mind?

The man blinked and Karen was able to break away. The need to flee had never felt so strong. Had that man really felt her prying? Or was he simply thinking that she was probing him because he was a psycho? She
had
been staring at him intently.

Karen tossed two twenties on the bar, finished her drink, and hurried out of the place.

She skirted the rear of the building where her car was parked. The back lot was surrounded by dense woods and consisted of a few parked vehicles and a dented green dumpster. Karen wished she’d parked out front where she’d be more visible to patrons coming and going. She glanced behind her, seeing if the men from the bar had followed. The way was clear. She began fishing in her purse for the car keys when someone called her name.