Twisted Miracles (3 page)

It’ll just be a few days
, I told myself, knowing it probably wasn’t true.

It had been five years since I’d been in New Orleans, five years since I’d used my powers—consciously, anyway. It had taken me three of those years to start living anything close to a normal life, and I still trashed my bedroom in my sleep every time I had a bad dream. Going back, letting my abilities loose again—was I going to have to start all over?
Don’t think about it.
Just don’t think about it.

I stayed in the bathroom until the panic ebbed away. I don’t know how long I was in there, but when I came out, Shane was still waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He must have heard everything I’d been thinking, but he didn’t comment.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“Then let’s go.”

* * *

We didn’t talk much on the plane. Shane gave me the window seat, and I was grateful. I didn’t want to sit with my leg crammed next to the guy in the aisle seat, who was playing some sort of first-person driving game on his phone. I’d never be able to block out his thoughts if I was touching him, and I sure didn’t want to hear them. Men really did think about sex every seven seconds.

As it was, I was working as hard as I could to avoid Shane’s mind. He took up too much space in the seat beside mine, his thigh brushing my leg, his arm grazing my shoulder. We shifted away from each other in silent mutual agreement, but each brief contact was enough for me to catch a flash of his mood—anguish like a deep pit of black water, spikes of white-hot fear, ripples of anger and annoyance. I didn’t know what was for Mina and what was for me.

I wanted to know more about what happened, but I knew better than to mindspeak. It took practice to keep your mental voice from wandering. It took practice not to pick up things you’d rather not see.

Eventually, I fell asleep slumped against the bulkhead with a flimsy airplane pillow wedged under my neck. I don’t know whether Shane slept, but when the plane started its descent at 4:00 a.m. and I woke up with stiff joints and a cottony mouth, he was watching me. I looked out the window at the oil refineries lighting up the swampy land to the west of the airport, sodium lamps and occasional flames decorating the blackness. Neither one of us spoke.

When we landed, Shane carried my bag through the airport. Everything was closed up and dark—the praline shop, the frozen yogurt stand, the fried chicken place. Even the security guards were quiet. In the long-term parking garage, Shane’s red ‘67 Camaro was the only car in the lane.

Christ, I’d managed to make myself forget that car.

We’d had our first kiss in it—my first kiss. Spring of my junior year of high school. Shane was fixing the Camaro up himself at the body shop where he worked, and every week something new showed up—vinyl upholstery on the seats, a fresh coat of paint, the trash bag on the back right window swapped for glass. The night it was finished, I snuck out to see him. We parked on the lakefront, mentally warming the air inside until we had to take our jackets off.

“See?” he said. “It’s easy.”

“Sure, once you know how.”

“You picked it up fast.”

I traced a line through the condensation that collected on the cold window glass. “You’re a good teacher.” For once, I hadn’t looked away when he met my eyes.

That was the night my adolescent crush gave way to something bigger, something I hadn’t dreamed he shared. It was everything those moments usually are, all lust and fumbling, but with Shane there was more, his hands and his mind both running over me hard and fast, me gasping and pulling him closer, feeling the first twinges of real desire in the pit of my belly. I’d been certain I’d never feel that way again. Turned out I was right.

I looked up to find Shane watching me where I’d frozen in the middle of the walkway.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Embarrassment made my tone sharp. I followed him to the car.

“We don’t know.” He stowed my bag and slammed the trunk a little harder than necessary. “She went out fishing. I dropped her off at Ruddock before sunrise on Thursday. I was supposed to pick her up that afternoon, but I never heard from her.”

“You tried to contact her?”

“Every half hour. Nothing.” His voice was even, but fear and exhaustion were whipping around him. Mina was his twin sister. They could hear each other through sleep, through storms. She’d gone off on her own before, sometimes for days, and no one would worry, but if she wasn’t answering Shane, something was wrong.

“Where have you looked?”

“We’ve been all over the Northshore. But you know how much ground there is to cover.”

I thought of the spiderweb of rivers and creeks that fed Lake Pontchartrain from the north. So many isolated places, so many ways she could have been hurt. Mina’s powers kept her from minor troubles, but being telekinetic wouldn’t help you if you got hit by a speedboat or had your leg torn off by an alligator. Gruesome images flooded my mind.

I shut them down. “I’ll help however I can.”

“I won’t ask you to do anything you don’t want to do.” His voice was hard. He pulled out of the parking garage and headed for Veterans Boulevard.

“You know I’d do anything for Mina,” I said, stung. I owed her that, at least. When I’d been fumbling through the first surges of real power, she’d taught me how to recite the ABCs to keep my errant mind occupied. She’d even shown me how to lock my feelings for Shane away. Back when I was fourteen and hopelessly in love with him, I’d needed that more than I’d needed food.

Shane just nodded and kept staring straight ahead, one hand on top of the wheel, the muscles in his jaw tense. The skin on his knuckles was scuffed and scarred, and grease blackened a crack in the pad of his thumb. I still remembered everything he could do with those hands. I turned to look at the houses rushing past the passenger-side window, and it took me ten minutes to notice we were headed in the wrong direction.

“Aren’t we going to the B&B?” Shane’s uncle Lionel, my former foster father, had a place in the Quarter, Tanner’s Bed and Breakfast. Shane and Mina still lived there and helped run the place.

Shane shook his head. “We’re going straight to Ruddock. Janine’s meeting us.”

“Hasn’t she looked already?” I asked, surprised. Janine was like me and the Tanners—a shadowmind—but she wasn’t a converter; she couldn’t move things with her mind or create light or heat. You could never tell how the gift would manifest in different people, and Janine had an ability none of us had. If she had enough of a connection to something—a person, an object—she could pin down its location within inches. She was like a human GPS tracker with unlimited targets, a little like what used to be called a dowser. If she’d lived a few hundred years ago, she might have been finding water sources or oil deposits. Now there weren’t enough people who believed those kinds of things were possible, so she married a converter from New Orleans, raised two kids, and never lost her car keys.

“She’s searched three times now, but Lionel thinks it’s worth trying again with another set of memories.”

“Of course I’ll try,” I said, but I was fighting down panic. I’d known this was coming, but I’d thought I’d have more time to prepare. The sedatives I’d taken the night before were still in my system, and they’d make my powers sluggish, if I could use them at all.

Shane must have felt my anxiety, but he didn’t say anything. His hand rose as if he was going to reach out and take mine, but he checked himself and put it back on the wheel.

It took us another half hour to ride out to Ruddock as the sun came up over the elevated interstate, the Spanish moss-draped cypress trees lining the road dark against the lightening sky. As Shane pulled into a dusty parking lot just off the exit, I saw Lionel there, leaning against his blue-and-white pickup.

Shane parked the car on the edge of the lot and looked over at me. “If you don’t think you can do it, it’s all right. Just tell me.”

I looked back at him. “I’ll be fine,” I said, and got out of the car.

Chapter Two

Lionel walked up to meet us, and before I could say hello, he had me in a bear hug. I stiffened automatically at the contact, but being near Lionel was as comforting as always, and I relaxed as I breathed in the smell of him—soap and coffee.

“Welcome home, sugar,” he said, pressing a rough kiss on my cheek. The lines around his mouth were deeper than I remembered, and gray stubble showed starkly against his dark skin. “How’s California?”

“It’s okay.” I blinked back tears. Shane was hanging back, leaning against the side of his car, giving me a moment with his uncle.

“You can tell me about it later, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay.” I pressed my lips together and looked toward the boat ramp. Janine Tooley was there, helping her son Ryan get their aluminum-hull fishing boat into the water. I waited until they were done to walk up and greet them.

“Been a long time.” Janine pulled me into a fierce hug. “I wish the circumstances were better.”

“Me, too.”

Janine was one of the first shadowminds I’d met after Lionel. She had the plump, comfortable figure of a woman who loves good food, and her light brown hair was always a little unkempt. The sight of it coming loose from its ponytail was so familiar I almost cried. Janine squeezed my arms. “Well, I’m glad you’re back anyhow. We’ve all missed you, hon.”

An awkward silence followed, and I tried not to look at Shane. I was relieved when Ryan came up and passed out faded orange life preservers, breaking the tension. When he got to me, he lifted his baseball cap to kiss me on the cheek, and his mind brushed against mine, handshake-casual. It was just common courtesy for a converter, but I stiffened and shut down. I realized belatedly that Shane and Lionel must have known not to make mental contact with me.

“You doing all right?” Ryan asked. He was a full foot taller than his mother, lean and tan from working on the rigs, and I had to crane my neck to meet his eyes. He was looking at me with concern, no doubt confused by my response. We’d had whole conversations in mindspeech. I shrugged and pulled on my life vest. Hopefully he’d chalk up my reaction to the news about Mina.

We packed into the boat, me a little unsteadily as it rocked under our shifting weight, and Janine took the wheel while Ryan telekinetically coiled the prow line and started the motor. He stayed on idle. The channel was lined with dusty fishing camps on wooden stilts, and we had to keep our wake down.

“When will the police get involved?” I asked as we moved through the channel, water shushing against the sides of the boat. “Shouldn’t they be out here searching by now?”

“Oh, they put her in the system,” Shane said. “They just don’t think she’s in danger. They insinuated she went off on purpose.” I could feel his anger, sharp and hot.

“It’s not like you can tell them how you know she’s in trouble,” Ryan said, smiling humorlessly.

Shane grumbled, but it was the truth. Even if the police believed us—doubtful—it was too risky to reveal ourselves. I could count on one hand the number of normals we’d trusted with the knowledge of our existence.

When we cleared the fishing camps, Ryan pushed the throttle up and took us along the raised interstate to the pass that led to Lake Maurepas. I’d forgotten how cold it got out on the water, and I shivered as we picked up speed. My hair escaped from its ponytail and whipped against my cheeks and neck.

“Here,” Shane yelled over the roar of the motor. He’d shrugged out of his black windbreaker and was handing it to me.

“I’m fine!” I shouted back, but he ignored me and sent the jacket floating through the space between us.

I gave up and slid it on backward. It swallowed me whole. Shane was a foot taller than me and twice as broad—I used to wear his T-shirts as nightgowns. The fabric of the jacket was still warm from his body, an instant relief, and I realized he must’ve used his powers to heat the air around him before he’d taken it off. It unsettled me, as though he were laying warm hands on my skin. I chanced a glance at him, but he was looking straight ahead, stone-faced.

Despite my nerves, I was glad for the windbreaker. It took fifteen minutes to get across the lake and into the tributaries, and it was another half hour before Lionel signaled Ryan to stop, saying, “This is as good a place as any.” I wondered how many they’d tried before.

Ryan took us close to the bank and tied us off on an overhanging cypress branch. This far in, the river was narrower, and the bank was clotted with scrubby underbrush. There weren’t any camps nearby, and I hoped we were far enough away from the small towns that dotted the area. Too much interference.

“Have you listened for her yet?” Janine asked me as she settled herself at the bottom of the boat. The men circled around her.

“Not really. I just got in this morning.” I took the place they’d left for me between Ryan and Shane, wincing as the cold metal of the boat bit through my thin dress slacks. Shane’s leg was almost touching mine, and I worked hard to keep my thoughts from straying.

“Well, we’ll just see what we can do.” Janine held out her arms, and we all linked hands. My pulse quickened as Shane fitted his palm to mine. His mental presence was as familiar and unavoidable as a favorite song playing in my head. He wasn’t pushing any further than my surface thoughts, but those were conflicted enough. I took a deep breath and looked expectantly at Janine.

“Just concentrate on Mina,” she said. “Whatever you can remember.”

It had been so long since I’d used that part of my brain it was like trying to do long division without a calculator. I knew how it worked, but it was hard to remember the steps, what to do first. My mind felt foggy and jumbled from the lingering effects of the sedatives, and everyone would be able to tell. No help for it now.

It was hard to think of Mina without thinking of her brother. Her chin was pointed and feminine where his was firm, but they shared the same wide mouth and high cheekbones, the same dark eyes. I needed to focus on a specific image. I searched my memories and settled on one of Mina as I’d seen her last, sitting in the kitchen at the B&B, drinking a beer and talking quietly with Shane while I snuck out the front door to take a cab to the airport. It was tinged with shame and regret, and Janine would pick up the emotions as well as the images, but this was the clearest memory I had. I got the feel of her solidly in my head, her curly black hair, her warm brown skin, the dark red T-shirt she’d been wearing. Then I focused on the quiet, tenuous touch of Janine’s mind—so different from Shane’s solid presence—and strengthened the connection.