The Touch (13 page)

“I might… but not for the reasons that
Lexi
wants me to.”

“Why does she want you to?”

Not wanting to get into it with Cooper, Gabriel shrugged it off.  “It doesn’t matter.  Look the
point is
, we’re the ones running this investigation
.  N
ot her, not the mother, and God willing, not the media.  So let’s just go by the book
,
and hope we can pick up Neil before he gets too far with her.”

“So you’re gonna stick with it?”

Gabriel looked up towards the house, unable to keep from feeling that it looked more ominous now
,
and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the rapidly fading light.  “Yeah, I’m gonna stick with it.”  One way or another, he was going to find that girl.

Chapter
Seven

Paul’s car was conspicuously absent when she pulled up to the house, but it
looked like
Maddie was home, and Lexi was glad that she wasn’t coming home to an empty house.  It felt good to see the cheery light shining out from the windows; she was definitely relieved to be leaving Allie’s gloomy house behind.  During the entire drive home, she hadn’t been able to shake the growing feeling of dread; something terrible had happened to Chloe.  The rational side of her could accept Gabriel’s explanation
,
that
it was a dream she
’d
picked up on,
but it
had
felt so real…

“Hey grumpycakes, dinner’s gonna be here in two shakes.  I hope you’re hungry, I think Paul was planning on trying to drown your sorrows in garlic hot sauce,” Maddie
called out from the kitchen
.

Lexi dropped her bag off in the living room and wandered in to join her. 
“King Chwan’s?”

“Of course.”

Ordinarily that would set a smile on her face, but now all Lexi could think of was that the last time she’d seen Chloe
,
they’d gone to King Chwan’s for dinner. 

“Not in the mood for
Szechuan
?”

“No, it’s fine.  I’m just kinda tired,” Lexi yawned for emphasis
, blinking when it made her ears pop
.

“I was surprised to get
the
text that you were coming home; I thought you would
be staying
at your sister’s house tonight.  Not that we’re not glad to have you home where you belong,” Maddie gave her a pat before
getting
the kettle going for tea.  At least once a week they ate dinner together and they frequently went for Chinese food.  Each of them had their roles down pat.  Maddie made the tea, Lexi set the table and Paul went to pick it up.

“She wanted to be alone,” Lexi shrugged, getting down the little delicate cups and the teapot.

“So you just left her there?”

“What was I supposed to do? Move in?” 

“Well… yeah.” 

Maddie was
adorably naïve about the
oddest
things; it always cau
ght Lexi off guard
,
given
her roommate’s usual tough as nails approach to things.  “You don’t know my
sister;
I think I make her uncomfortable sometimes.”

“But she’s your sister.”

Blood might be thicker than water, but
her relationship with Allison wasn’t as close as
she was to Maddie or even Paul
these days
.  “Says the only child
,” Lexi gave her a pointed look.  “Just because she’s my sister
doesn’t mean she can’t think these babies aren’t creepy,” she waggled her fingers.

Maddie took insult on her behalf.  “But she called you to help her.”

“Yeah, and that’s one of a handful of times she’s called me in the past year.  She calls me when she needs a free photographer or a baby sitter for Chloe, but only as
a
last resort.  Maybe she thinks i
t might be catching?
” Lexi tried to make light of it
.  S
he was long past the years when she felt any bitterness towards her sister
’s attitude
, a
nd now that Gran was gone, Allie and Chloe were all she had in the way of family.

Maddie however was feeling less charitable.  “Evil troll,” she muttered
irritably, twin spots of color appearing on her cheeks
.

“Maddie!”

“What?  I know it’s shitty what’s going on with her
,
but come on, she’s always been kind of a bitch.”

“Yeah well, she doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her or Chloe.”
  Nobody deserved that, especially not Allie who couldn’t help it
if
she ended up a little narrow minded. 

“Who’s hungry?” Paul called out, kicking the front door shut with h
is foot
.

“Don’t take this the wrong way
,
but you smell good enough to eat,” Maddie grinned
when he entered the kitchen
, eliciting a grin and a wink from Paul
. 

“Not in front of Lexi, she’ll get jealous,”
he
teased,
setting
the bags down on the kitchen counter.  “How are my girls?”  He pressed a kiss to each of their foreheads, lingering a fraction longer on Lexi’s head.

“Better now that you’re home with dinner,” Maddie replied, going right for the fragrant bags of food. “Did you get the broccoli?”

A roll of the eyes was given.  “Don’t I always?”

Lexi smiled over the exchange between her best friends, still feeling a bit subdued over the day’s events, but enjoying their company. 
It felt
a little like she was going through the
motions as
she set the table, listening to their chatter until they were all seated together.

“So, what did I miss today?  What
’s going on with your family?”
Paul asked, going straight for his fork while Lexi and Maddie opted for the disposable wooden chopsticks provided by the restaurant.

It didn’t take long at all to fill them up to speed on Chloe’s disappearance, her conversations with Allie, Gabriel and even Detective Cooper and more importantly, what she’d seen in Chloe’s room. 

“Wow, talk about scary, are you okay?” Maddie asked; concern etched on her delicate features. 

“Yeah
,
of course,” Lexi nodded with more confidence than she felt.  The vision had really spooked her and it wasn’t so easy to shake off its effects.  “The only thing is, I don’t know if what I saw was real or part of a nightmare.”

Paul let out a low whistle.  “
That’s gotta be a mind scramble.
”

“Could you maybe try again with another object of hers?  Something that isn’t associated with bedtime?”  Maddie suggested.

“That’s a good idea.  I’
ll have to try again tomorrow
;
see what I can come up with.  It just took a lot out of me today.”

“Do you think the house is really haunted?”

Lexi knew that Maddie was on the skeptical side, in fact
,
they both liked to watch those ghost hunter shows on TV and laugh over how ridiculously melodramatic they were in their supposed brushes with ghosts.  “Maybe?  All I know is
,
the place is starting to give me the
heebie jeebies
big time.  I don’t know how Allie can stand it there by herself.”

“Do you want me to come
with you tomorrow?”

Maddie’s offer was appreciated but Lexi shook her head. 
“No, that’s sweet of you
,
but I’m not gonna let a little creepy feeling scare me away from doing everything I can to find Chloe.  Wherever Neil is, he deserves to be sent up the river for taking her like this,”
her
lips pressed together into a grim line. 

“To tell you the truth, I’m more concerned with this detective guy, showing you that stuff with his tie,” Paul changed the subject.  “That’s sexual harassment.”

Laughter bubbled up out of nowhere as Lexi tried to imagine what that complaint would look like.  “I’m thinking that’ll be kind hard to prove in a court of law, Paul.”

“Still, you should complain about him, that’s hardly professional behavior the police department would want their employees displaying, is it?”

“It’s not that big of a deal, it just surprised me is all,” Lexi insisted.  “But maybe Maddie can think of something to do to him?”  She flashed her friend a mischievous grin.

“Oh I’m sure I can come up with something,”
she
returned the grin, blue eyes sparkling.  “Do you think your friend Detective Ryan would be on board for a little payback?”

That was harder to answer.  Sometimes Lexi thought Gabriel was a by the book kind of guy and other times he caught her off guard with his lopsided grin
and willingness to include her in the investigation
; he was difficult to read.  She expected the skepticism with regards to her hands, hell she was used to it, but the way he held her after she’d been so f
reaked out in Chloe’s room… he
acted like he believed her.  Apart from Paul, he was the only man who hadn’t
run for the hills
after finding out about her hands and she wasn’t sure if that was because he accepted it or dismissed it.  “I don’t know.  I guess it couldn’t hurt to ask,” she
shrugged
. 

“We’ll come back to this,” Maddie promised, picking up her plate from the table.  “I’ll catch you two
later;
I’ve got a date with my computer.”

“Online dating?” Lexi raised a skeptical brow.

“I wish,” she snorted.  “Work.  But who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky later and have to call tech support and I can live chat with a sexy computer geek,” she waggled her eyebrows playfully.

“Later Maddie,” Paul smiled, pushing the leftover water chestnuts on his plate around.  “What about you?  Are you going back out to the studio tonight?  There’s a couple of good movies on tonight if you feel like some company,” he looked up with a hopeful smile.

Tha
t smile was hard to resist, but Lexi wasn’t sure she was in the mood to be social
.
  While Paul would give her that solid, comforting presence she craved, she knew he often had work to do in the evenings too, and he was probably just being nice by offering to spend the evening with her.
 
Or worse, it was pity
,
which was the last thing she wanted. 
“Thanks
,
but I’ve got to get some pictures emailed to the detectives and it might take a while, I don’t know how many I can send at once without it hanging.”

“Okay
,
but after that…”

Lexi met his gaze across the table,
silently
willing him not to push too hard at the moment.  “I’m
just
gonna go to bed early.  It really took a lot out of me today.  But maybe some other time…”

“Yeah, some other time.”  That smile appeared on his face, the one that made her
wonder if it
was
something other than pity motivating him after all. 
Still, Lexi was glad that he
dropped it for
the moment
.  It was her turn to clean up
,
but Paul took the plate from her hands before she could set them down.  “I’ll take kitchen duty tonight, you go take it easy.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah
,
no problem.  I’ll see you tomorrow,” he nodded easily, running the plates under the hot water. 

“Okay, goodnight Paul.”  Feeling a little guilty, she
pressed a quick kiss to his
cheek before heading to the stairs.

***

Lexi loved her bedroom.
O
ne of the first remodeling projects
to tackle on her own,
it had taken the better part of six months before she’d been satisfied, wanting to take
the
time and get it just right.  The first thing she’d done was strip down the peeling wallpaper, adding a texture similar to old fashioned plaster rather than
boring
drywall.  Each wall was a different shade of muted purple going from light to dark along the same color palette, and the effect ranged from subtle to dramatic depending on the light.  The ceilings were high, as were the windows, letting in plenty of light; a big window seat piled high with pillows offered a perfect spot for sketching or reading a book.  (It had taken her the longest time to figure out how to hinge the seat for storage inside) 

Most of the furniture in the room were castoffs from her Grandmother’s house that
she’d taken with her when she
moved out.  A small desk in the corner held her laptop and not much else.  The
antique white
bed tucked into the o
pposite
corner was the same b
ed she’d slept in
a
s
little girl
,
though she’d splurged on a new pillow top mattress last year.  A matching white dresser nearly overflowed with clothes since the closet was so small and she supplemented her storage space with plastic bins tucked under the bed.  Built
-
in
bookshelves held favored books,
although the majority of her collection was housed in the
dilapidated
study downstairs.