True Colors (24 page)
Noah gave her a nudge at the small of her back, giving her no choice but to join Charlie in AnnaCoreen’s dimly lit kitchen.
As AnnaCoreen padded barefoot through the kitchen to the door that led to the living room and the bedrooms, she said, “Make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.”
Alex shrugged and glanced at Logan. “Personally, I think we shouldn’t have bugged her.”
Charlie hit a light switch, and Noah got busy with the coffeepot. As Charlie opened a cabinet to retrieve coffee cups and Noah started scooping copious amounts of ground coffee into a filter, Alex turned to Logan, who lingered in the doorway, and smiled. “Hey.”
His answering smile didn’t erase the concern from his eyes. “Hey.”
She went to him, snaked her arms around his waist and leaned into him, tipping her head back so she could nip at his chin. She ran her hands up under his shirt in the back, reveling in the feel of his smooth, clean skin against her fingers and palms. She’d never take this ability to touch, to caress, for granted again. “Kiss me?”
His eyes darkened with awareness of her, and relief helped chase some of the mounting fatigue from her muscles.
He granted her request, and as his warm, moist lips touched hers, she sighed and let her eyes slip closed. Like this, with him, nothing mattered but the moment. And as the heat shot through her, she pressed against him, her fingers in his hair and her heart pounding against his. If they had been alone, she would have wrapped her legs tight around his waist and ground herself against the part of him she desperately wanted inside her. She hadn’t thought she’d ever get to do this again, touch him, kiss him, love him. She wanted to revel in it.
But Logan murmured something against her lips, and his hands grasped her arms as he urged her back from him.
She stared up into his face in surprise. “What?” she asked.
“You’re scaring me a little right now,” he said softly, as though he didn’t want Charlie and Noah to overhear.
“What? How? Why?”
“You’re a little . . . manic.”
“Manic? No. Are you kidding? That’s crazy. I’m fine. Don’t I seem fine?”
When his eyes widened at the rapid-fire response, she started to laugh, only vaguely aware of how Noah and Charlie had turned to watch them.
“Okay, yeah,” Alex said, nodding, “I am a little wired at the moment. A lot wired, actually. But you know what? I’m just psyched, you know? A lot happened tonight and I survived, and the best freaking part of all is that whatever that psycho did to me
cured
me. Isn’t that wild? All those god-awful forays into his ghastly past, and now I’m all better. He’s the most screwed-up nutjob on the planet, but do I care? No freaking way. He freed me.” She whirled toward her sister. “Hey, Charlie, we should set you up with this guy. A couple of hours of his kind of shock therapy, and you’ll be giddy, too.”
cured
me. Isn’t that wild? All those god-awful forays into his ghastly past, and now I’m all better. He’s the most screwed-up nutjob on the planet, but do I care? No freaking way. He freed me.” She whirled toward her sister. “Hey, Charlie, we should set you up with this guy. A couple of hours of his kind of shock therapy, and you’ll be giddy, too.”
Charlie stared at her without saying anything, her complexion a pasty white.
“What?” Alex asked, spreading her hands in front of her and looking from Charlie to Noah to Logan. “You guys, come on. Stop looking at me like that. I’m fine. Great. Fantastic. Really.”
About then, a wave of dizziness smacked her in the forehead like she’d run head first into a steel girder. She staggered back against Logan, plastering her palm against her forehead to keep her brain from finding a way out of her skull. “Whoa,” she said in a soft, dazed voice.
Logan caught her against him. “Alex?”
A serious case of vertigo turned the world sideways, and she saw Charlie take a lurching step toward her before the lights winked out.
Logan caught Alex as she sagged and swept her up in his arms. For the second time tonight, he cradled her, limp and still, against his chest. He cast a helpless, questioning look at Charlie, but she shook her head and covered her mouth with a trembling hand.
AnnaCoreen stopped in the kitchen doorway. “Oh, dear,” she said when she saw Alex’s unconscious form.
“She passed out,” Logan said unnecessarily.
“Yes, let’s get her into bed then.”
The older woman gestured for him to follow her down a short hallway to a guest bedroom that smelled of lavender and vanilla. She pulled the covers back on the double bed and fluffed the pillows before stepping back so Logan could deposit his cargo.
“Get her shoes,” AnnaCoreen said as she rested her hip on the side of the bed and set her palm against Alex’s forehead as though checking for a fever.
Logan pulled Alex’s shoes off and dropped them on the floor, his attention on everything AnnaCoreen did, his heart beating in an uneven staccato. The doctor had said he found no evidence of a head injury, or
any
injuries. Still, Logan didn’t like the uncertainty, didn’t like seeing Alex, normally so alive and sparking with energy, lying so incredibly still.
any
injuries. Still, Logan didn’t like the uncertainty, didn’t like seeing Alex, normally so alive and sparking with energy, lying so incredibly still.
The older woman lifted Alex’s right wrist and held it lightly to check her pulse. After about a minute, AnnaCoreen sighed. “She’s sleeping.” She sent him a soft smile. “The adrenaline ran its course.”
“Is that why she was so manic just now? Adrenaline?”
AnnaCoreen nodded as she rose, gesturing toward the door to indicate they should take their conversation out into the hall so as not to disturb Alex.
Once she’d closed the guest-room door, AnnaCoreen said, “Alex has experienced something truly horrific, Logan. She doesn’t know how to cope with it.”
“Is it because of the . . . you know, empathy?”
Her blue eyes narrowed before regaining their serenity. “You still don’t believe.”
He sidestepped that issue. How could he
not
believe? Yet . . . damn it, he didn’t
want
to. It would change everything between him and Alex. “She said it was gone, that she was cured. And she was touching all of us, and nothing happened.”
not
believe? Yet . . . damn it, he didn’t
want
to. It would change everything between him and Alex. “She said it was gone, that she was cured. And she was touching all of us, and nothing happened.”
“It’s more likely that her ability somehow ran its course after many hours of intensity. Her body’s own safety mechanisms kicked in to protect her from further harm.”
“But Charlie needs drugs to . . . what? To”—he floundered for the right words—“to snap her out of the . . . flash stuff.”
“Perhaps if Charlie’s flash fatigue were allowed to run its course unaided, her own safety mechanisms would also kick in. Or it’s possible that the differences in Alex’s empathy extend to flash fatigue, as well.”
“So you’re saying you don’t know what the hell is happening and it’s all a big fat guessing game for you.”
AnnaCoreen’s lips tightened. “I can appreciate your skepticism, young man, but I don’t imagine it’s going to be useful for Alex. I fear your negative energy is going to have a very adverse effect.”
Logan stared at her in disbelief. Young man? Negative energy? What the hell dimension was he in?
Apparently done with him, AnnaCoreen started to walk by him, but he grasped her arm to stop her, forcing gentleness into his grip, and started to ask the question foremost in his brain.
Before he could form it, AnnaCoreen’s features softened, and she gave his arm a maternal pat. “Alex is going to be fine once she’s had a good night’s sleep.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-TWO
B
utch lingered in the frozen-food aisle at Lake Avalon’s twenty-four-hour Publix grocery store. He’d picked up a new rental car, a Ford Fusion—sangria red and quite peppy, though certainly no Mustang—then driven to the store to get dinner to take back to his new hotel room. He roamed the aisles for an hour, restless and hungry and not interested in any of the offerings, not even the fresh shrimp and king crab legs.
utch lingered in the frozen-food aisle at Lake Avalon’s twenty-four-hour Publix grocery store. He’d picked up a new rental car, a Ford Fusion—sangria red and quite peppy, though certainly no Mustang—then driven to the store to get dinner to take back to his new hotel room. He roamed the aisles for an hour, restless and hungry and not interested in any of the offerings, not even the fresh shrimp and king crab legs.
All he could think about was Alex Trudeau. He’d so anticipated some quality time with her. And felt massively cheated.
“Excuse me.”
He jolted and stepped aside as a woman in a pink linen dress and pearls reached past him to open the freezer door. The scent of gardenias washed over him. Oh, how he adored women who smelled like flowers.
She dropped her newly scored pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey into her cart, then consulted a list jotted on a crumpled yellow Post-it Note.
So very pretty. She had exaggerated curves that some might call buxom or hippy. Butch called them perfect, just like the rest of her. Straight light brown hair that brushed her shoulders. Milk white skin pinkened by the sun. Delicate hands with chewed-short fingernails.
No rings.
She glanced at him over the black rims of her trendy rectangular eyeglasses, and his heart gave an excited bump. Brown eyes. He
loved
brown eyes. Especially ones as deep and dark as hers. Alex Trudeau had brown eyes like that. But, no, this wasn’t about her. This was about this Chunky Monkey-loving woman who shopped for groceries alone late at night.
loved
brown eyes. Especially ones as deep and dark as hers. Alex Trudeau had brown eyes like that. But, no, this wasn’t about her. This was about this Chunky Monkey-loving woman who shopped for groceries alone late at night.
He grinned at her, cranking up the goofy-guy charm. “Maybe you can help me decide,” he said. “Chubby Hubby or Chocolate Fudge Brownie?”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-THREE
W
hen Logan returned to the kitchen, he found Charlie and Noah hunched over cups drained of coffee, talking in low voices, their hands clasped between them. He paused in the doorway before they noticed him and admired their deep connection. Their intimacy made him ache for what he and Alex had had so briefly before all hell broke loose. So much more than lovers, they were friends on a level that some people never knew.
hen Logan returned to the kitchen, he found Charlie and Noah hunched over cups drained of coffee, talking in low voices, their hands clasped between them. He paused in the doorway before they noticed him and admired their deep connection. Their intimacy made him ache for what he and Alex had had so briefly before all hell broke loose. So much more than lovers, they were friends on a level that some people never knew.
We’ll get it back, he thought. There’s no other option.
In the meantime, he needed to think like a cop, not like a worried, pissed-off lover.
Charlie and Noah looked up as he entered, and he answered the questions on their faces. “She’s okay.”
His voice broke on the last word. Well, shit. Alex was okay, or “fine” in her words, but he wasn’t the least bit fine. He felt wrung out and raw, yet so relieved that tremors shook his knees.
Charlie rose and pointed at the chair she’d left. “Sit. I’ll pour you some coffee.”
Logan obeyed, resting his elbows on the table and scrubbing his hands over his face. Alex had been missing for hours, yet it seemed like days.
He told himself to focus on the fact that they had found her, that she slept, peaceful and relaxed, in the next room. He itched to go back to her, to stay close in case she needed anything, but he also knew he needed to do something more productive than sigh with relief. Her kidnapper was still out there. And Logan had a score to settle with that fucker.
“AnnaCoreen went back to bed,” Charlie said as she set a cup in front of him. “She said we should wake her if there’s a change or we need anything.”
Logan nodded as he stared down at the steaming coffee.
“Who is this guy?” Noah asked.
Logan rubbed at his eyes. He’d already answered these questions for Don Walker. “I don’t know. Alex gave his name as Butch McGee. I don’t recognize that name at all, but he said I took his brother away from him.”
“Assuming he’s from Detroit,” Noah said, “I don’t suppose anyone stands out from your days there. Someone who made a threat?”
Logan grunted under his breath. “Get a pen and a note pad, the legal length. I’m a damn cop. How many people did you tick off before you left the Chicago PD?”
“Good point,” Noah said.
Logan drummed his fingers on the table, an anxiety-driven gesture he couldn’t quell. Better than punching walls. “Alex gave Don a fairly generic description, but nothing she said rang a bell. I got the sense she was on autopilot at the time, so I’ll ask her again when she’s feeling better, see if I can get more specifics out of her.”
“We don’t have to wait for her,” Charlie said. “I could—”
“No,” Noah cut in, his hand clamping hard enough around hers that she winced. “Absolutely no way in hell are you going to try to flash on what happened to her so you can see what the guy looks like.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she and Noah had a long conversation that involved only the intensity of their gazes. Finally, Noah sighed. “At least not until we know more about what happened to her,” he added.
“We have other ways to get a picture of this guy,” Logan said, annoyed that these two acted as though turbocharged empathy wouldn’t blow a normal person’s mind. Or that it was a newfangled, legit way to solve a crime. “How about some good old-fashioned detective work?”
Noah shrugged one shoulder and cocked his head at the same time, as though acknowledging that he’d gotten carried away on the superpowers. “The Mustang was rented at Hertz. I suggested to Don that he have his team check their security cameras. They were already checking the cameras at the storage facility.”
“Good,” Logan said. “Don’s a good cop. He’ll do what needs to be done.”
“So you’re not working the case?” Charlie asked.
Logan blew out a breath. “My lieutenant already yanked me off. Conflict of interest, he said, and ordered me to take a few days off.”
“Not that that will keep you out of it,” Noah said.
“Nope. And the boss knows that. But the illusion of being off-duty will free me up to do whatever needs to be done to find Butch McGee fast.”
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