Chapter 1: Chapter One: Tyson
Chapter Text
Tyson’s High-Speed Heart-Thumping Pursuit
Chapter One
Tyson
I sipped the last of my protein smoothie, put my travel mug back in the driver side cup holder, and locked up the SUV, heading into BNA’s main terminal.
Berry Field Nashville only had one airport terminal, but four different concourses led into it, heading both to departures and from arrivals. I kept an eye on the floor as I made my way to the southern end of the main terminal, then loitered near the juncture of concourses C and D, not sure which gate the domestic flight from San Diego would exit from.
Things were pretty quiet this time of the morning, though several other people were also standing around, waiting for early flights to come in. When I looked, different scenes ranged around the terminal, like a series of movies each playing on its own screen.
A businessman in a suit holding up a sign, waiting to pick up a professional contact.
Old friends slapping each other on the back in greeting, sharing a joke that had them both nearly doubled over with laughter.
Grandparents kneeling down to embrace the grandkids who raced towards them, full of energy while their weary mother trailed behind them.
My gaze was drawn to the opening of concourse D, where a reunited couple laughed in pure delight as they came together, swaying gently in place while hugging each other close, pressing tender kisses to tear-stained cheeks. The sight made me smile, though I had to push down the usual pang of longing.
I might look like a tough guy on the outside, but underneath I was a softie and a hopeless romantic. Despite loving love, I had been single for a long time now. As much as I got a warm glow from seeing happy people in love, it made me wistful seeing what I had always wanted for myself.
I focused my attention on watching both concourses, snapping into work mode. Today I was one of those professionals picking up a work contact, though I was dressed in my usual smart-casual clothes that afforded me ease of movement rather than a stuffy suit.
As well as a colleague, the person I was picking up was akin to family, though I had never met her in person before.
Carol and Sharon, two of my colleagues who were sisters, had a cousin coming into town to stay a few weeks. Technically it was a social visit, but Libby had accepted my boss Jim’s offer to act as a consultant, helping us out with our ever-growing caseload. The arrangement would no doubt be profitable for Libby, and the business would benefit from the opportunity to employ a rare set of skills, if only for the two weeks she was visiting.
Even in our business, Libby’s gift was unusual. And that was saying something.
Psy, the detective agency I worked for, specialised in cases that required psychics. Only two of our actual employees had psychic abilities. The rest of us supported them as anchors, or did the additional groundwork involved in working psychic cases, or had our own specialities.
I personally found psychics intriguing. During my time working for Nashville PD, I hadn’t had much experience with psychics, though I had known plenty of police officers who disliked working with them. Some folks were sure that psychics were nothing but scam artists whose ‘proven’ abilities were faked and based on spiritual bunkum. Others, who had more ego than sense, believed psychics cut corners and used cheats to speed up the investigation progress, making old-school gumshoes obsolete relics of the past.
I had seen far too many positive results to disbelieve the ability of psychics. And it was stupid to feel like my job security as a detective was threatened. Sure psychics could pluck leads out of the ether that would take us mere mortals months to grasp, if we ever did; but someone still needed to follow up those leads and do the actual legwork. Psychics just meant the difference between going in completely blind, or starting already knowing which direction we should be looking in. Anything that improved success rates and helped ensure the safety of the general public was more than fine in my book.
Of our two psychics, I tended to work with Carol most often. As a Reader, she could work remotely from Psy’s meditation rooms, which held all the tools she needed to scry for clues. Carol’s ability made me wish I’d been able to work several dozen of the PD’s cold cases with her. She could pinpoint an object or person’s location within a colossal range and with incredible accuracy, so long as she had some source to focus on. A few fabric fibres, a crumpled document, a blood sample - I had seen her find perps or victims with no starting point other than these seemingly mundane objects. She could do multiple readings in a row, tracking a person on the move or verifying facts based on multiple bits of evidence, before she began to tire and her anchor Sharon declared she needed a break. Watching her work was fascinating: she used ordinary maps, but her aura would mark them in glowing red with trails and directions until the inevitable x would pinpoint her target. It was almost like watching someone perform a magic spell.
Despite also being a Reader, Jonathan’s psychic ability was very different, but no less impressive. Though he may not have an outwardly visible psychic aura, what he could do was incredible: he could see the auras of others, reading their emotions and personal history as though they were an open book. He was like a human polygraph and the world’s greatest psychological profiler all in one. As possibly the most powerful Reader in the country, he could see guilt at a glance, detect falsehoods in the most innocent-faced testimony, see old crimes in meridian lines that had never been reported. A criminal hotline with its own extensive protocols had been setup just to accommodate how effective Jon was at detecting crimes before anyone else knew about them besides the perpetrator. When I wasn’t verifying readings for Carol, I was investigating leads generated by that hotline, or following up Jon’s interviews by procuring physical evidence to support his testimonies.
In the early days of my employment here, I had sometimes accompanied Jon to interviews. Given what he could do, a lot of people had it in for him. When I first met him as a PD officer, he’d had a knife sticking out of his side*. He had been stabbed by his own partner, so I could well imagine all the worse things actual criminals he had caught would love to do to him. I was pretty sure at least half the prisoner population in Nashville’s various correctional facilities would rejoice at the chance to scratch his eyes out.
That wasn’t happening any time soon though, not with Donovan now accompanying him everywhere.
Psychics typically had an anchor: someone who put their best interests first, took care of them and protected them. I had originally been hired as police consultant, but I had acted as Jon’s bodyguard plenty of times, when the need arose (as it often did). Though I was more than happy to keep him safe as much as I could, I wasn’t his anchor.
Being an anchor wasn’t the same as being a partner, not in a professional sense. Anchors were bonded to their psychics on a soul-deep level, so psychic/anchor pairings tended to be between romantic couples or close family.
I liked Jon as a good friend, and I knew he was gay, but we had never been interested in each other like that. Sure, as a somewhat heteroflexible guy, I could admit he was attractive. But I had no inclination to romance him, nor did he have any desire to romance me, and being good buddies wasn’t enough justification to sign up as a lifelong soulmate.
It was just as well, for two reasons.
One: Jon’s ability was death to all electronics in his vicinity. He had killed four of my phones, three computer monitors, two fitbits, one smart watch, and a pair of expensive noise-cancelling headphones in the time I had known him. He was always extremely apologetic and offered to replace what he broke; but I wasn’t prepared to live like a technophobe for the sake of hanging out with him, no matter how good of a cook he was.
Reason two: Donovan would likely squish anyone who got in between himself and Jon. That was particularly true now that the pair were engaged, and after Jon had been kidnapped by serial killers during a recent case. Once they got back from McMinnville, Donovan had followed Jon around like a puppy, ready to spring into attack dog mode if anyone so much as looked at him sideways.
It was both beautiful and bizarre, how deeply attuned to each other those two were. They were like the sickening stereotypical star-crossed couple from the schmaltziest romance novel. They moved around the office as a single unit, communicated with each other through their eyes alone, doted on each other adoringly when they thought no one was watching, snuck off to the storage room to make out when business was slow (I had learned to check to see if they were in their shared office before going to get a manila folder or a box of paperclips, having walked in on them one time too many).
And they weren’t the only ones who were amorous around the workplace. Garrett, our other police consultant, had been dating our IT guy Sho for almost a year. They were getting pretty serious; they had moved in together a few months ago, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they announced their engagement any day now. They were both short in stature, but big in attitude: Sho, though slightly more reticent, had a biting wit that he unleashed around people he was comfortable with; while Garrett was well over two hundred pounds of army badassery and irrepressible attitude contained in a pint-sized frame.
They were a close second behind Jon and Donovan in the schmoopy stakes.
Having a few loved-up colleaugues round the office, my inner romantic reacted much like it had to the happy couple at the airport: it swooned over the lovey-dovey displays of affection, then sulked that it didn’t have someone of its own to be affectionate over.
I didn’t begrudge Jonovan and Shoett for getting together, but I was starting to feel like the odd man out.
Carol and Sharon had one of those uncanny sibling bonds, so they tended to hang out together during break time as well as working hours.
Marcy and I had been on one date back just after I was first hired, but we had figured out we were better off as friends. We regularly regaled each other with war stories from our respective dating lives; though Marcy had a lot more of them since unlike me, she seemed to revel in the unpredictable nature of the dating scene, enjoying meeting new people all the time and perfectly satisfied with keeping things casual.
That left Jim, who had been married to his high school sweetheart for nearly four decades now. He and his wife Debra were verging on becoming empty-nesters, having raised three wonderful kids together.
Some people had all the luck, huh?
Ah, well. My luck could still change. I was in my late thirties, so I still had plenty of time to meet the love of my life.
And I shouldn’t depend on having a romantic partner to complete me. I was healthy, had a job I found fulfilling, worked with good people who I considered to be friends, lived in a great house in a nice area, earned enough to be pretty comfortably well off. Sure it would be nice to have someone to share all that with; but since I didn’t, there was no denying that what I had was still really good.
A few people started to come down concourse C, shouldering bags or wheeling suitcases. I perked up, getting my head back in the game as I looked out for Libby.
Carol and Sharon had said that she resembled them enough that I shouldn’t have any trouble recognizing her. I was sceptical, as I saw more than one woman with brown hair come off the flight, though none of them seemed to be our visiting psychic.
Then a tall, slim woman appeared round the angle of the walkway. As soon as I clapped eyes on her, I realized she must be Libby.
She had Carol and Sharon’s colouring and the same heart-shaped face. However, her chestnut-brown hair was straighter and pulled up in a ponytail that was still sleek despite coming off a five-hour flight. Her skin was a few shades darker than her cousins and her hair had lighter gold highlights, as if she spent more time out in the sun. Her cheekbones were more prominent, and her hazel eyes had a slight upward tilt at the outside corners.
She was dressed in a similar smart-casual style to myself: a blazer over a simple white t-shirt, woven trousers that were form-fitting but looked like they were stretch material. The whole outfit looked easy to move in.
I approved; I did enough fieldwork that I prioritised comfort over style. When I was with the PD, I’d worked with consultants who did little more than push pencils, turning up at the precinct in over-tight pencil skirts or three-piece suits that cost more than a month of my salary. I had more respect for someone who dressed to do some actual work, rather than wore their pay check in a pretty effort to impress.
And it wasn’t just the choice of practical clothes that impressed me. The blazer was tight enough that I could see the biceps beneath them were toned. The trousers were tailored enough to show off the shape of a defined calf. And the shoes peeking out from under the pants cuffs were some very high-end running shoes, a bit beat-up and out of place compared to the rest of the outfit. Those were definitely not athli-leisure sneakers; those were some serious running gear. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them on the feet of an Olympic-level marathon runner.
Seeing those shoes reminded me of what I had read in Libby’s professional profile: she was a Kinetic Tracer.
Her psychic ability made sense as I watched her stride out of the gate, an oversized duffel bag slung over her shoulder. The way she moved was lithe, almost elegant, but what was arresting was the sense of purpose in each step. This was a person who was meant to move. She cut through the crowd of dawdling passengers like the prow of a ship through waves, each pace measured and assured. Her posture was relaxed, but there was a sense of rangy power within it. I imagined she could take off from a languid walk into a flat-out sprint in two seconds flat if she needed to.
As she approached along the concourse, she slowed, for the first time looking uncertain. She must have been told that I would be here to meet her, but she hadn’t spotted me yet.
Remembering what Carol and Sharon had told me in preparation for this meeting, I walked toward her, waving to get her attention, then stopped when I was still three feet away from her.
“Liberty Palmer? Hi, I’m Tyson Parata. Welcome to Nashville.”
* The stabbing incident was mentioned in 'Jon's Downright Ridiculous Shooting Case' by AJ Sherwood; see my previous fanfic, 'Jon's Severely Stabby Partner Pandemonium', for my own take on how Jon first met Tyson.
Chapter 2: Chapter Two: Libby
Notes:
TW: past character death mentioned, suicidal thoughts briefly mentioned
Chapter Text
Chapter Two
Libby
It was nice to finally be out of the pressurized airplane cabin.
Sure, the BNA terminal wasn’t exactly a sweet-smelling field. But after a five-hour flight, anything was better than breathing the same stale air all the way from San Diego to Nashville. Accustomed though I was to travelling, I still found the necessity of sitting in a seat for the mind-numbing duration of a cross-country trip almost unbearably stifling.
I was born to move. No one quite knew how psychic abilities worked: whether my particular talent developed out of who I was as a person, or if my personal habits were shaped by the ability I happened to have. Either way, as a Kinetic Tracer, I had always lived my life in motion. My family joked that I was like a shark that needed to keep moving in order to absorb oxygen out of the water that passed over its gills: I had to stay in constant motion, or I would risk suffocating.
Needless to stay, having to sit on a plane for extended periods was torture to me.
I much preferred to drive, but with the distance I needed to travel, the bike was out of the question. And with gas prices high as they were, it had been more economical to fly in, much as it pained me to leave my custom-fitted fully tricked-out SUV parked beside my RV back in Sacramento.
At least I had a family reunion to look forward to once I reached my destination. And I promised myself a nice long road trip afterwards, to get the wind back in my hair and my heart beating in time with the thrum of wheels on open road.
Entering the arrivals gate and walking down the concourse, I enjoyed stretching my legs. Coming into the main terminal though, I slowed my pace. Carol and Sharon had promised a colleague would be here to pick me up. My psychic/anchor cousins were in the middle of a case and had to be in town to lodge evidence this morning, so they had sent someone named Tyson to collect me and drive me to their workplace. They had sent me his picture so I’d recognize him, but I couldn’t see him yet.
As usual, an undeniable compulsion urged me to keep going forward, even though I had no idea where I should be going. So many people walked through this terminal on a day to day basis. The place was practically lousy with traces, old and new, which I was one misstep away from fixating on. Strong emotions buffeted the edges of my perception, tempting me to latch on to a stranger’s past footsteps and experience what they had. Though I had lived all my life compelled to walk in other people’s paths, I still got easily disoriented.
I slowed down as much as I could, taking small steps while keeping in motion, hoping I would spot Tyson or he would spot me before I had to figure out which way I should go while hundreds of conflicting footfalls demanded that I follow them.
“Liberty Palmer? Hi, I’m Tyson Parata.”
I turned towards the voice, finding a man standing a few feet ahead of me. His hand was raised in greeting, but he made no move to approach any closer. Huh, that was nice. Carol and Sharon had obviously briefed him on how my ability worked and what he should do when he met me.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed smartly but comfortably in a sports coat and button-down paired with jeans and sensible-looking boots. The jacket and jeans were fitted enough to hint at muscle underneath.
It was my professional habit to look people over, and I was impressed. He looked fit and toned without being a gym junkie, more like incidental exercise kept him in shape.
I respected that people came in different shapes and sizes; I would never scoff at someone whose fitness level didn’t match mine, especially when my status as an incurable fitness freak put me in the upper echelons of the protein-sipping pavement-pounding crowd. I had worked with plenty of administrative staff and office-based professionals before. I respected what they did, and had no inferiority complex about being the one out in the field doing their legwork; nor did I feel in any way superior because I was personally sweating it out while they stayed in their climate-controlled conference rooms.
Still, when I met someone who looked like they could keep up with me, I couldn’t help feeling impressed.
It was fortunate, since I had been told that Tyson would be my liaison and accompany me round town during the professional aspect of my stay. I knew I unwittingly wore people out with the pace I lived at, and though I tried to make allowances for company, I had a lot of trouble making myself slow down. I hoped Tyson was up for a few weeks in the fast lane, as I intended to fully earn my pay check while I was with Psy.
His hair was dark, but some spots near his temples and the edges of the scruff on his chin were tinged lighter, as if he went out in the sun a lot. That was a good sign; he seemed like my kind of person. He was only supposed to stick by me during work hours, but I wondered if he could at least point me at some good local hiking trails while I was in town.
I had seen the photo Sharon had sent me, but it had showed Tyson sitting at his desk, unaware that he was being photographed as he frowned at his computer monitor. With his hair buzzed in at the sides to form a faux-hawk and his steely gaze trained straight ahead, he had looked kind of intimidating, as an imposing officer of the law should. But in person, I could see the way his tanned skin softened at the corners of his mouth as he smiled, and laugh lines creased the edges of his warm brown eyes.
“Welcome to Nashville,” he said across the distance between us.
I came to a complete stop, adjusting the bag strap over my shoulder. I was glad he had appeared when he had; his presence allowed me to get my bearings. “Please call me Libby. I’m happy to be here, and it’s nice to finally meet you in person, Tyson. Thanks for coming to pick me up.”
“No problem. I’m glad to meet you, too. Carol and Sharon have already told me so many stories about you, I feel like I almost know you already.”
I smiled, looking forward to seeing my cousins again. We had grown up close, but with all the travel I did, we didn’t see each other in person often enough. “Only good stories, I hope.”
“All good, I promise. The one about the childhood fashion show you put together with the cat walking the catwalk in doll clothes is one of my favourites.”
Tyson’s smirk told me he was teasing, but there was nothing malicious in his expression. Even if the incident from my childhood he had just mentioned was mortifying for me as an adult. I was supposed to be here in a professional capacity, yet my over-sharing cousins had already pulled out the metaphorical embarrassing photo album before I even got here.
I huffed in annoyance, though I couldn’t help but smile with affection for my family, even if they did occasionally drive me up the wall. Maybe I also smiled a bit in answer to Tyson’s mischievous smirk. The way the light dusting of freckles on his face shifted slightly as his nose crinkled was impossible not to smile at. “Of course Sharon shared that little titbit. I’ll have to make sure everyone hears about the time she lost her bathing suit mid-swim at summer camp to pay her back for it.”
I felt a little bad for shit-talking my cousin in front of her colleague, but Tyson’s outright guffaw of laughter erased a lot of my guilt. “I’ll be a willing audience for your revenge embarrassment, and any other entertaining stories you want to tell. I’m parked nearby, once we collect your luggage we can head into town.”
“This is all I have with me,” I informed him, lifting my duffle by the strap to show him it was the entirety of my luggage. Some folks claimed that women couldn’t travel light, but I proved them wrong all the time. Even with all my possessions packed up in the RV with my bike on the back, I wasn’t a pack rat. With all the travelling I did, it was convenient to be economical with what I owned.
“Great, shall we go then?”
“Let’s go.” I paused however, and he likewise made no move towards the exit. Evidently we both knew the next step. I was grateful that my cousins had briefed Tyson before sending him to collect me. “Did Carol and Sharon explain about me? It would be easier for me to step on your trace before we go any further, if that’s alright.”
“Of course. They told me what was involved, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it in action.”
“It’s not much to see, though it would help me out to get a feel of your trace from the get go, especially if we’ll be spending time together at work over the next few weeks.”
“Makes sense. Do you need me to do anything?”
“No, just stand where you are, please. I’ll let you know when I’ve got your trace and I’m ready to move on.”
He patiently watched as I came forward, turning to keep me in his sight as I stepped around him. “I walked along the seam between those two lines of tiles,” he said, “if that helps at all.”
I stopped a moment, touched by his consideration. Sharon and Carol had instructed him well. “Thanks, that really does help.” I wouldn’t have to criss-cross the floor searching for his path, making onlookers think I was behaving like a restless cat pacing until I found just the right place to sit. Given how my ability sought out invisible tracks on the ground, it wasn’t an inaccurate comparison.
I approached the line of tiles from the side, then deliberately set my foot down on the seam between the rows, upon which Tyson was still standing.
Like the yellow brick road appearing at my feet, Tyson’s path sprang up in my awareness, glowing faintly. I could track where he’d walked in reverse order, dodging a family coming the other way laden with suitcases, bypassing the coffee kiosk near the entrance, traipsing five rows through the parking lot to where he’d left his SUV.
His errand was a simple one, so his emotions as he had walked this trail were calm and sedate. Practically soothing. Given how in my professional life I often pursued either guilty criminals with nefarious purposes or desperate people in a panicked state, it was nice to step on a trace that didn’t induce urgency or endangerment. I had gotten used to experiencing second-hand trauma; most Tracers had to learn to lump it in the line of duty. So intentionally stepping on a trace that gave me nothing but a sense of purpose and anticipation - both sensations centred around my arrival, I realized - was a very welcome change.
Welcome, that was it, I felt welcomed by his trace. Safe, even. Not surprising, given how his trace held no hints of danger like the ones I usually followed. But that sense of safety seemed to come from him, not just the situation around us.
Carol had told me that Tyson often worked as protection detail. She had told me all about the case they had worked in McMinnville, hunting down a family of serial killers who targeted psychics and mediums. Two of my cousins’ colleagues had been captured by the perpetrators and only narrowly escaped with their lives, from the way Carol told it; since she wasn’t the type to embellish stories, the reality of the case had horrified me. She had told me that the police liaisons on the team, Tyson and Garrett, had been tasked with escorting two psychic kids to safe houses so they were out of the line of fire. I couldn't imagine what kind of monsters would take sick pleasure in hunting down a pair of innocent children.
Stepping on a trace told me where a person had been, as well as giving me a sense of who they were. Tyson’s trace felt… steady. Standing on his path somehow made me feel safe and protected. Even though his path only led a relatively short distance through a casual setting, that still felt somehow… significant. He must be good at his job, and I wondered if his co-worker Garrett had a similar trace. If the people whom Tyson escorted to could feel the sense of ease his trace emanated, they would definitely feel protected with him around.
I looked up at the man who owned the trace I stood on. He was watching me with curiosity and some amusement in his eyes. “Catch any embarrassing stumbles in my trace?”
I appreciated his humour, though he wasn’t mocking what I did and letting me take my time getting accustomed to his trace’s signature. What I did often confused people or made them uneasy: they thought my tracking of their past whereabouts was a violation of their privacy, or that it showed me all kinds of guilty secrets from their past. My ability didn’t work like that, and being subject to inaccurate assumptions rankled with me. He seemed unbothered by what I did and open to learning about it, which was always a nice attitude to encounter. Made sense when the business he worked for was built around psychics.
“Nope, nothing embarrassing here. You didn’t trip over your own feet or drop a full cup of coffee on your way in. You didn’t even have coffee, in fact. Are you not a caffeine addict, or did you get your morning dose before you drove out here?”
He chuckled at my words. It wasn’t the most impressive show of my abilities - it really was a short trace from his current location to the parking lot - but he didn’t seem disappointed or disgruntled about my lack of insight. He was used to working with psychics, so hopefully he wouldn’t treat me like a one-trick pony, as so many other people I’d worked with did. “I had a cup o’ joe at home, then made myself a protein smoothie for the drive in. I need at least one coffee to get going in the morning, but too much caffeine makes me jittery.”
What he said reminded me that I hadn’t had a proper breakfast yet. “Mm, a smoothie sounds so much better than coffee! Though I wouldn’t mind either right now. I refuse to drink the overpriced swill they serve on airplanes, so all I’ve had since I left San Diego is a granola bar. Mind if we stop at the coffee kiosk on our way out so I can get my caffeine hit?”
He laughed outright at that. I had only just met him and had only a small measure of his trace, yet his presence already felt so… comfortable. “Trust me, I know from experience that the kiosk also serves overpriced swill. How about I drive you into town for some proper coffee? I know a good place where you can get coffee, a smoothie, tea, breakfast, whatever you need after such an early flight.”
His suggestion was music to my ears. “Sounds perfect. Lead the way.”
He really was briefed on how I worked, as he took my instruction in the literal sense I meant it. He walked toward me until we were level, paused to take my duffle for me, then began to walk toward the exit. He glanced over his shoulder to check I was following, then continued on, outwardly not bothered that I trailed behind him like a creeper.
My ability was always seeking out past trails to latch onto, so when I was walking with company, it was easiest if I let them lead the way and followed in the wake of their trace. I could feel Tyson’s amusement at playing follow-the-leader with someone he had just barely met, and his focus on navigating the terminal, which was now surging with people as a new flight disembarked along concourse D.
I strolled along behind him, approving of the pace he kept, casual but not too slow. I hated having to restrain myself to keep from running into the back of someone because my natural pace was to get wherever I was heading as fast as possible.
With half my ability’s awareness on keeping track of where Tyson led, I let my conscious mind drift to my upcoming visit. I had gifts in my bag for my cousins, family news to swap with them, promises that they would take me to the best Italian place in town for dinner tonight…
Panic. No time. Find the car. Someone should be here with the car, where are they? Time is of the essence, don’t they know that? An actual life is at stake, where the hell are they? Find the car, any car, there has to be a taxi rank, get there, have to be there in time, time is running out-
A strong hand caught me by the elbow and bodily hauled me away from the curb. A car horn blared; a cab streaked past, the driver glaring and gesturing pointedly at me.
No wonder he did so. I had nearly stepped right out in front of him.
“You alright?” Tyson asked, looking down at me with concern in his eyes.
So much for making a good first impression. This had happened so often, I should be used to it by now. Normally I would be more alert, but the effort of packing for a weeks-long trip straight after wrapping a case, combined with the early-morning flight, had eaten away at my concentration levels. Damn, he was so professional; by comparison I looked like a ditzy, clueless out-of-towner.
I patted my jacket down and tried to look calmer than I felt, my heart rate still slightly elevated from the near-miss. “I’m fine. Sorry, I should have been paying more attention. Another trace crossed yours and I started following it without realizing.”
Tyson took in what I said, cocking his head as he considered the implications. He hesitated a moment, perhaps wondering if he was appropriate to ask, then asked anyway: “What were you following?”
It wasn’t a client case and I hadn’t learned anything of consequence that was personal, so I had no qualms about answering. “Another passenger, probably from a late flight last night. I didn’t pick up an identity or many details, but whoever they were, they had someone close - probably a family member or spouse - in a critical condition at a hospital somewhere in the city. They came out of the terminal frantic to find a car that was supposed to be here to pick them up, and when it wasn’t there they went to hire a cab instead. It was likely much quieter here last night, and they stepped out onto the street, desperate to get an unoccupied cab to stop for them. Hence why I almost involuntarily stopped one the same way.”
“Yikes. I hope they got there in time.” Tyson glanced around, as if expecting to see the back of a frantic person still trying to hail a cab, though the trace was from hours ago.
Then he turned back to me with the same concern evident in his expression. He looked like a tough guy with his buzzed-in hair, masculine style of dress and built physique, but I was starting to see evidence that beneath the tough exterior, he was a bit of a softie. “Sorry, did I walk too fast or get too far ahead? I know you were supposed to follow me, but I should have paid more attention to you instead of just forging ahead. I only looked back to ask if you wanted to stop by Sharon’s place to drop off your stuff before we go get coffee, and saw you were about to step into the street. I should have walked closer and been more aware-“
“No, you were fine.” I smoothed my hand over my ponytail, trying to appear unruffled and wishing I could sooth down his distress with the pointless gesture. “I tend to pick up the most urgent trace I come across, so even though I was following yours, I automatically switched to theirs when I crossed it. It was just a freak unlucky incident. If I had coffee in my system, I likely would have noticed what was happening in time and jumped back onto your trace. You didn’t do anything wrong, neither of us had any way of knowing I’d walk over the path of the most distressed person to have passed through here in the last 24 hours.”
My explanation seemed to reassure him. Had he actually thought that my hop into oncoming traffic had been caused by his negligence? “That was an unlucky break. My car is just a few rows over, let’s get you safely in the passenger seat and on your way to coffee before we stagger upon anyone else’s drama. It must be difficult, getting drawn into someone else’s stress all the time.”
I heaved out an exasperated huff. “You have no idea. I thought I would never have to deal with this again once I anchored. But ever since-“
I stopped short, as if I’d just followed a trace straight into a brick wall. I might as well have walked face-first into something, and that something was my grief.
Every time I thought I was dealing with Cally’s loss, I got blindsided by it all over again, the pain of losing her as fresh as it the moment I had seen the semi-trailer bearing down on her. Every time I remembered, I relived how those first weeks had gone: vacillating between the hope she would pull through and the despair of knowing she’d likely not make it, repeatedly feeling the disconnected anchor bond where she was still connected yet unresponsive. The severing of the bond had been more painful than losing a limb would have been. Having to go through that, then relive it multiple times after the fact, made me wish more than once that I’d been the one to go under the semi.
I knew it was disrespectful to Cally to wish that, but I couldn’t help it. Missing her never got less painful, and there were times when I’d do almost anything to make the hurting stop.
I managed to scrabble my composure back together, glancing over to find Tyson watching me. One look at his face showed me that he had been told about my past. About how I’d had an anchor, a kind and funny gloriously lovely woman of an anchor, and I had lost her thanks to a reckless driver paying more attention to his radio than the road, who had plowed into her motorcycle head-on.
How did I stop being a grief-stricken wreck? I wish I knew. But I also didn’t wish I’d never had Cally. I didn’t wish I could forget ever knowing her, having her in my life, loving her. I just wished it would stop hurting. But the only way for that to happen would be to have her back, and that was impossible.
Thankfully, Tyson didn’t treat me like the wreck that I was. Though his expression clearly told me he knew what I had been about to say, he didn’t address it out loud. Instead he just said: “This way, you can put your bag in the trunk. This time of morning, we should be able to beat the worst of the traffic into town. We’ll get you that coffee in no time.”
He turned in place, heading towards the parking lot again at an easy even pace, walking along the line where the edge of the curb met the pavement. Since he was following the visible line, it was easy for me to step back onto his trace again.
Instead of someone else’s panic or my own grief, I felt his concern. Sympathy. Compassion. A spike of protectiveness and a determination to do what he could to set me at ease. A sense of comradery, which I could feel was already very close to developing into friendship.
I pushed a renewed wave of emotions down and started walking after him again. Damn lack of caffeine, making me fall to pieces. At least now I was back on Tyson’s trace, I felt safe again, reassured that where we were heading, everything would be alright.
“Thank you,” I said to his back.
He didn’t respond other than to half-glance back and dig his car keys out of his pocket, but I felt his reassurance surge along the trace between us.
Libby’s ability is based on the main character from the book series ‘The Stranger’ by Max Frei (author pseudonym of Ukrainian author Svetlana Martynchik, the series is also known by its original title ‘Labyrinths of Echo’). One of the many magical powers Sir Max has is to ‘step on the trace’ of a criminal and follow their footsteps until he catches up with them. I thought that would be a cool power for a psychic in the Jon universe to have, and gave it to Libby.
Thanks again to AJ for letting me play with her characters, and even giving me a photo of how she envisaged Tyson to look. I adjusted my writing slightly to suit it; this is what Tyson looks like, but with darker hair:
Chapter Text
Chapter Three
Tyson
At the brunch spot I had picked out, Libby ordered a chicken-avocado panini melt and a large flat white. I insisted on paying - despite her numerous protests - and waved her away from the counter to grab us a table.
We’d managed to time our drive into Nashville with the tail end of the work rush, and now the stampede for coffee was over, we only had to share the café with a few older couples enjoying a leisurely late breakfast.
I was glad the place was fairly quiet. Seeing how Libby had accidentally gotten pulled onto a trace at the airport, I figured she could use a moment to catch her breath at a spot where she only had to deal with minimal foot traffic. Hopefully, none of the traces in this place contained anything more distressing than disappointment that the last hummingbird muffin sold out. They always sold out very early. At the office, we joked that only the early worm got the hummingbird. More than once, Sharon and Marcy had begged Donovan to pick up a dozen muffins on his morning run and bring them when he came in to work.
We were a bit of a foodie bunch at Psy, though with all the amazing local options, we could hardly be blamed. Especially when one of our psychics was an amateur gourmet chef, and his anchor’s mother seemed capable of single-handedly feeding an entire army regiment.
It was a bit early in the day for me to have lunch. But I’d only had a light breakfast, and since Libby was fuelling up, I figured I should too. I got myself a kale, pumpkin and pepita salad, light but tasty, and a bottle of sparkling water.
I noticed Libby lifted an eyebrow at my choice as I brought the tray over. Oh? What was that about?
We were quiet as we both tucked into our food. The drive in from the airport had been fairly quiet, the pair of us chatting about Libby’s flight and things to do in Nashville. It hadn’t been awkward, exactly. But we had only just met, and were still getting to know each other. At least we seemed to have already broken the ice.
Perhaps it would break a little bit more if I could get Libby to confess why she kept side-eying my salad.
She was about halfway through her panini and three-quarters through her coffee before she commented on it. “You actually eat kale? I didn’t think anyone actually ate it.”
“What did you think people do with it?”
“Post photos of it on Instagram, boast about how healthy they are for eating it. I can’t imagine anyone actually enjoys eating something that looks like pond scum.” I didn’t need Jon’s eyes to see her disdain as she wrinkled her nose at my bowl.
So Libby was a salad-snob. And we’d been getting along so well up until now. I was willing to give her a free pass, since she had only just got some coffee and proper food into her; she was likely caffeine-deprived and hangry.
I gave her the pass, but also took another forkful of my salad.
“It’s actually really good,” I said, once I had chewed and swallowed my mouthful. “If you wanna try becoming a kale convert, get Jon to make you his kale and walnut salad. He made a big bowl of it for one of his dinner parties, and Garrett started off teasing him about serving rabbit food, but he changed his tune after actually trying it. He even asked Jon if he could give him the recipe for the creamy dressing, and while he claimed it was because he wanted to make it for Sho, he brings a kale salad to work for lunch pretty often now. Every time Donovan catches him eating it, he teases him about having a ‘bunny brunch’.”
The teasing usually resulted in two grown men tussling among the cubicles, until Jim called out at them to knock it off. Garrett really was a long lost member of the Havili clan. He and Donovan reminded me so much of me and my own brothers, even more so when Brandon was in town and the three of them got up to typical brotherly antics.
I wondered if Libby would take offense to my defence of kale, but instead she looked sheepish. “Sorry,” she said, playing with a piece of fancy lettuce poking out of her panini. I noticed she tended to fidget a lot, usually when she had to stay still. I had seen her fiddling with the strap on her bag while we spoke at the airport, and she had been toying with the buttons on her jacket during the drive in. “Whenever I go out for a meal with other people, they tend to comment on what I eat. Because I need to be in shape for my work, everyone tends to assume I live on lean chicken and cucumber crisps. I make sure I keep in top form and eat right, but I’m not a masochist.”
So it wasn’t so much an anti-salad stance, just a dislike of judgements and assumptions. I could handle an inverse fitness-snob; I was a bit of one myself. “I get that. I’ve gotten it from both sides. On the one hand I’ve had folks at the gym try to draw me into conversations on which protein powder to use, or how many calories ranch dressing has compared to vinaigrette. On the other hand, as a former cop, I’ve had more digs about living on donuts than I’ve issued road violations.”
Libby chuckled at that. “Nothing wrong with a good donut,” she declared, with an obstinate toss of her head. “Not so much the chia puddings set in a circle mould with kombucha glaze and grated carrot ‘sprinkles’ that I recently saw in a cake display cabinet.”
I put down my fork, pausing eating so I could be properly aghast at the notion. “Please tell me that wasn’t an actual thing.”
“Sure was. People eat all kinds of so-called ‘food’ in California. Real Californians don’t just order a burger. They’re on a no-carb diet, so they have a burger patty between two leaves of lettuce. Or they’re keto, so they have salad sandwiched between two beef patties. Or they’re vegetarian, so instead of a regular patty they have a slice of grilled mushroom. The first time I went out in Sacramento and ordered a plain old burger - with bun, meat and everything - I thought the server was going to keel over from shock. Especially when I asked for a side of fries.”
“Good on you for eating for pleasure, not punishment.” Sure I mostly ate healthily, but I wasn’t about to deprive myself of the occasional treat. I wasn’t vain enough to worry that I would downgrade myself from eight-pack abs to a mere six-pack if I ate a couple of fries. “There are plenty of good places to get burgers around here, if you want recommendations. I know Carol and Sharon are planning on taking you out to the best Italian place in the state tonight. Jon has been talking about having you over for dinner at his place while you’re in town. And if she gets wind of that, Donovan’s mother will likely insist you come over and put out a spread for you. I’ve never seen a dining table actually groan under the weight it held up until I went to a Sunday dinner at the Havili household.”
Libby chewed her melt thoughtfully. I was glad she seemed to be savouring it, and proud of the local Nashville cuisine for trumping Cali’s low-calorie fare. “I hope your boss has a lot of cases for me that keep me moving. Otherwise, I might have to do some extra running so I don’t put on several pounds while I’m here.”
“You’ll be fine, though I can point you in the direction of a good gym and some nice walking trails if you’re interested. But you definitely won’t go hungry while you’re here. If I ever hear anyone claim they didn’t eat well in Nashville, I usually tell them ‘something smells, and it should’ve been fried chicken.’”
Libby laughed outright at that: head thrown back, eyes sparkling, ponytail swaying as she shook with mirth.
It was good to see. I wanted to make sure she enjoyed her time here, set her at ease.
I didn’t know her well, but Carol and Sharon had told me her background. What had happened to her former partner and anchor. I had noticed what direction her words had been taking before she had abruptly stopped talking.
I had never had a long-term partner who I had loved like that, let alone lost them under such terrible circumstances. I couldn’t imagine what she must have gone through, being there when her wife had been struck, having to make the decision to turn off her life support. I could understand her grief, empathise with it, hope I’d never have the misfortune to ever feel like that myself.
If I could stop Libby from looking like that again, I’d do whatever I could to distract her and make her feel comfortable here. I kept seeing again the look on her face when she’d snapped her mouth shut. She had looked… lost. On a woman whose profession was all about finding locations and knowing where to go, it had looked so wrong to see her standing there, alone and untethered, as if she might drift off and disappear into the back reaches of the airport parking lot without my trace to follow.
Which was a ridiculous notion, of course. I knew that Libby regularly worked solo as a psychic, was experienced and had travelled thousands of miles on her own.
But I had seen how much Jon had struggled before he got Donovan. I had done what I could to shore him up when I wasn’t working one of my own or Carol’s cases. I knew how to be a makeshift stand-in for an anchor.
As a relatively free agent with a lesser caseload and a more adaptable schedule, I had offered to be the one to shadow Libby during her stay. Carol and Sharon had cases they were in the middle of, same for Jon and Donovan; Sho had his specialty, and Garrett increasingly prioritised chasing up leads for him over general investigative work. It hadn’t taken much reorganisation to free myself up to play native guide for the duration of Libby’s visit. I’d taken pointers from both Sharon and Donovan on what I should do and what Libby would likely need from me. Having seen firsthand just how my support could help her, I was determined to put myself fully at her disposal for the two weeks she was here.
Garrett might have to take on some cases that I would normally have handled. But he was used to covering for me when work required me to take extended trips out of town. It might mean he got to hang out at the office with Sho slightly less, but he could suck it up for a few weeks. And I was sure Sho would make it worth his while when they went home together.
“So you used to work for the local PD before you joined Psy?” Libby asked, drawing me out of my mental reallocation of office duties.
“Yeah. I’ve been with Psy for almost 5 years now.”
“It’s not often that a police officer switches to working exclusively with psychics,” Libby observed, idly playing with her napkin as she spoke. “The police force tends to stay separate, and most agents who anchor or partner with psychics are specialists, either with one of the alphabet agencies or private psychic practices.”
“I quite often hear that,” I admitted. People were often surprised or curious when I said I was former PD and now worked with psychics. Hearing it from Libby, who had an insider’s perspective, made me realize what an oddity I apparently was. “Psy works a bit differently. We’re pretty integrated with the local PD. We occasionally get invites to work with other police forces in neighboring states; otherwise, about sixty percent of our cases come from the Nashville precinct directly. We often have cases initiated by private clients which eventually require police involvement, so the benefits go both ways. Our main liaison at the precinct, Detective Harry Borrowman, has been great to work with. I’ll often link up with him on cases, though by now he’s worked with Jon and Carol enough that he can consult with them without me having to get involved. Mostly I follow up leads uncovered by our psychics or our IT guy that require some regular detective work to turn them into admissible evidence. Psychic testimony only counts for so much in court-”
“Unfortunately,” Libby interjected, giving her excellent coffee a sour look.
I nodded in agreement, having heard the exact same complaint from many other psychics many times over. “I support their findings with my investigative work. Plus, not every case we get requires psychics. Often I get lumped with the cast-off cases for which one of Jon’s or Carol’s readings would be overkill, but a regular PI like me will suffice.”
“I’m sure you’re a bit more than a ‘regular’ PI,” Libby said, giving me a kind smile. I hope she stuck by that evaluation after we’d been working together. I was proud of my work and considered myself fairly good at it, even if I wasn’t an all-seeing psychic.
“What made you decide to switch over to Psy from the PD?” she asked.
“Jon did,” I explained, huffing at the memory. The incredible nature of the story never got any less, no matter how many times I re-told it. “I actually came upon him purely by accident, while I was off-duty. I was driving out to one of my favourite walking trails when I came across some folks by the roadside who appeared to be in distress, so I figured it was my duty as a good citizen to stop and see if I could assist.”
“So civically-minded,” Libby teased, smirking at me over the rim of her coffee cup.
“Always. It was a good thing I did, because it turned out the guy on the ground was Jon, and he was bleeding out of a knife wound in his side.”
“Oh my god!” Libby exclaimed, making a couple at a nearby table glance our way.
That about summed it up. “It gets worse. He’d been stabbed by his newly-assigned work partner, who apparently had some shady things in his past that he was afraid Jon would see. He decided his best break for it was to plunge a knife into Jon and dump him in a ditch.”
Libby shook her head at me, apparently beyond words. Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Criminals were one thing, but a partner taking a stab at Jon? When I’d heard the full story behind his injury, I had been just as incredulous.
“It was doubly good that I stopped, as there was already a good Samaritan there trying to help. But he had pulled out his phone to call paramedics, and-”
“Jon’s abilities fried it,” Libby finished for me. “I’ve been warned about that. Numerous times.”
That was a relief. Making sure Libby left with all her electronics intact after two weeks was one of my major tasks. “Remind me to hand over the EMP-shielded case Sho gave me for your phone before we get to the office. Anyway, when I pulled over, I tried to call as well, and my phone also bit the dust. Luckily, I had an Airwave radio I kept in the trunk of my car for emergencies. Once I figured out what was happening, I backed off a safe difference and got a call through. Ed - the first guy who stopped - managed to staunch Jon’s bleeding, while I found his investigator’s license and psychic permit in his wallet, with instructions to phone Jim if he were in trouble, and for the love of all that was holy keep him away from any ambulances.”
Libby grimaced at the idea of a decommissioned bus; those things were valuable, both in monetary terms and how essential they were to public safety. “Good detecting.”
“One of the best finds of my career. We finally got Jon to a hospital in a tech-free ward, patched up and sworn off work partners. I dropped in a few times to see how he was doing. We got talking. His job and the agency he worked for sounded interesting, I was looking for a change from the PD. When Jim called me up to formally thank me for preventing his employee from bleeding out by the roadside, I offered my services. After some negotiating we came up with a work contract that suited both me and the business. I’ve been there ever since.”
Libby pondered my story for a moment. “Must have been quite a change from police work. Positive change for the most part, I’d hope.”
Since Libby regularly worked with the police, she would well know how gruelling, stressful, and sometimes soul-destroying working on the force could be. “Sure, the hours are a lot better, our offices are a fair bit nicer than the precinct, I don’t have to do patrols or handle all the bureaucracy bullshit that comes with progressing through the ranks. Though it wasn’t like I hated what I did before. For the most part I liked it, and I knew what I was getting into when I enrolled at the academy. After all, policing is something of a family business.”
Both Libby’s eyebrows went up. “Really? I didn’t think you could set up our own precinct like a shopfront. We tend to refer to that kind of privately-owned enforcement as ‘mafia.’”
I chuckled at the joke. “Not like that. My dad was a police officer too, up until he retired two years ago. He originally came over in his twenties from New Zealand to take a shot at acting.”
“He was hoping to be the next Russell Crowe or Sam Neil?”
“That was his plan, but it didn’t quite work out for him. The couple of small roles he did manage to land kept casting him as police officers and detectives, since he was this big tough-looking guy who looked imposing in a uniform.”
“You obviously inherited the tough-guy gene from him,” Libby teased.
I pretended to smooth my hair back into a red-carpet-worthy quiff. “You bet I’m genetically blessed. I may not look it, but I have some Maori blood on my paternal grandfather’s side. Descended from a race of noble warriors, I am.”
Libby snorted, in what sounded more like amusement than disbelief. It was all true; I did have some Maori in me. My skin was a bit fairer than my dad’s but not as pale as mom’s. I tended to tan as well as freckle in the sun, so I had some alternate combo of their skin types. I could do the Haka as well as any Kiwi. Though if it didn’t look quite as impressive compared to when Donovan, Brandon and Garrett did the Tongan equivalent Sipi Tau. I may be genuinely descended from a warrior culture, but I felt like a fraud compared to those three shouting at the top of their lungs what they were about to do to their enemies. I fully believed Brandon when he said doing Sipi Tau had intimidated more than one demon he had dealt with in the field. If only doing the Haka at criminals was enough to subdue them, would have saved me a lot of running and tackling. At least I likely would have still made the All Blacks proud of my work methods.
“My Dad figured since he kept getting cast as cops, he might as well have a go at the real thing. Once he enrolled in police academy, he became friends with my uncles, who were also on the force. Through them he met their sister, my mom. The rest is history.”
“Wow.” Libby pushed aside her empty plate, stacking her now equally-empty coffee cup on top of it. “So you have multiple uncles who are police as well? Are they all with the Nashville PD?”
“Ah, no. I actually originally come from Portland. One of my uncles who is about the same age as Dad retired when he did. The other two are still there, both senior officers now. Two of my brothers are also on the force; that’s all of us except for Clay, who had to buck the trend and join the fire brigade instead.” I couldn’t help but smile as I reminisced about my parents’ fortieth anniversary celebration last year. The photographer had had me and my three brothers line up for a photograph: we were captured standing in a line, smiling in our black suits, all of us wearing police-regulation blue dress shirts under our jackets; except for Clay, whose shirt had been fire-engine red.
“So there were seven of you, all from the same family, working there all at once?” Libby sounded almost awed. I suppose it was quite an achievement.
“Yep, though Kyle, my youngest brother, didn’t graduate from the academy until after I’d transferred. I worked in Portland with everyone else for just over seven years, then switched to Nashville PD for two years, before I joined Psy.”
“Huh. That was a pretty big move from Portland to here, practically across the country.”
“Yeah, I guess it was.” If there was irony in the Kinetic Tracer who travelled constantly for work and was only just now visiting her cousins for the first time thinking I had moved far away from family, I didn’t mention it.
I also didn’t mention why I had transferred to Nashville.
I screwed the cap back on my bottle of water, deciding I wouldn’t get into the full explanation behind why I had moved. I didn’t like to pull that story out too often with people I didn’t know well. I didn’t want to look like I was trotting out a sob story for sympathy. Or show off how pathetic I was. Had been. It wasn’t like I was ashamed of it or anything. I had been young and foolish back then. Too willing to give my heart away. Though I had put the pieces of my heart back together and built a life for myself here, I didn’t particularly like reliving that part of my past.
Maybe I’d tell Libby the full story later in the week, when we were pressed for conversation during a stakeout or something. If she asked about it. If I felt like sharing.
“Much as it would be nice to be closer to family, I’ve got roots here too now,” I said instead. “The folks at the office are close-knit, we all feel kinda like found family in a way. Besides Carol and Sharon being actual family, of course.”
Libby grinned at the reminder of the cousins she had flown in to see. “I’m so looking forward to catching up with them. It’s been too long since we last saw each other in person. Thanks again for offering to act as my liaison during my time here.”
“My pleasure, I’ll be glad to help out.” Pleasant though this brunch had been, I thought it was about time to bring things back round to the professional aspect. “Before we head over to Psy, can we run through what you need from me during these next two weeks? I know different psychics work differently and have their own requirements, and Sharon took me over the major points. But I’d like to hear it from you, to make sure I’ve got it right and know what I should be looking out for when we’re in the field together.”
Libby moved her plate and cup to the side so she didn’t have to look at me over the top of them. “That’s a great idea.”
I likewise pushed the debris from my meal aside so I could lean my elbows on the table and give Libby my full attention. I knew from experience and Donovan’s reiterations that my support in sticky situations could make or break a psychic’s wellbeing. I took my duties as protective detail very seriously.
Plus, there was no way I was letting anything happen to Sharon and Carol’s cousin during their stay. Carol would find the perfect remote location to hide my body, and Sharon would help her stash me there. If one of my other co-workers or the extended Palmer family didn’t get to me first.
“So, you’ve already seen an impromptu demonstration of how my ability works.”
I nodded. “Do you often get drawn to a random trace like that?”
“Sometimes, though today’s incident was a bit out of the ordinary. That mostly happened because I was in a high-traffic location, and happened to come across an insistent trace.”
“You said you fix on the trace that has the highest urgency? What did you mean by ‘urgency’?”
“The highest emotional charge would be another way of putting it.”
Hang on a moment. “Does that mean that you can feel what the person you trace was feeling?”
Libby looked uncomfortable at my question, which I hadn’t expected. Was my asking some contravention of psychic etiquette I was ignorant of?
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at the patterns she was tracing on the tabletop instead of at me. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy when I asked to step on your trace earlier. It’s just, if we’re spending time together at work, I would have accidentally stepped on your trace sooner or later, and I usually ask for consent from whoever I’ll be working, so I can get to know their trace before that happens. Did Sharon and Carol not tell you-”
“No! No that wasn’t what I meant,” I hastened to explain. “Sharon did tell me you’d do that, and I knew what was involved when you asked if you could step on my trace.” I chuckled wryly. “After five years of working with Jon, I’m used to being an open book to the resident psychic. I didn’t mind you reading me. That wasn’t why I was asking.”
“Oh.” Libby seemed taken aback by my response. “Right, that’s… well, that’s good, that you didn’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, good. What did you mean, then?”
“I was just curious about what you were experiencing when you trace someone. Whether you need support for just the physical effort of chasing down who you’re tracking, or if there’s an emotional load as well. That trace you stepped on outside the airport, you said you could feel the person’s panic?”
“Yeah, I could sense how stressed and desperate they felt. Not like I was actually feeling what they were feeling, as if they were my own emotions; more like a general impression, paired with some internal dialogue.”
“Wow.” That correlated with the gist Sharon had given me, but it was still pretty amazing to hear it from Libby herself. I knew from my career, the emotional toll constantly dealing with second-hand trauma could take on investigators. Even if Libby didn’t experience the person’s emotions directly, since she made a career out of chasing down perpetrators or their victims, that had to be a tough gig at times. “Gives new meaning to the expression ‘walking in someone else’s shoes.’”
“That’s almost exactly what I do,” agreed Libby with a laugh.
“That’s a pretty rare psychic talent.”
“It’s not exactly common. Readers like Carol make up far more of the psychic community, though not all Readers work exactly like her either. You know that Carol and Jon are both Readers, but their methods and perceptions are completely different?”
“Yeah, I had wondered about that.”
“It’s because even within psychics of the same category, there are two further subcategories: Searching and Sensing. Readers like Carol will use a focal point to ‘search’ for a target person or object. Her ability is unhindered by distance, though she is reliant on her tools and having a physical source to focus on. Meanwhile, Jon is a ‘sensing’ type of Reader. Carol can get a fix on a person from the opposite side of the country; but she can’t tell you anything about that person’s personal history, situation or actions, no matter how hard she looks. All she can tell you is where they’ve been, and where they currently are. Jon, on the other hand, has to be looking directly at his target; even looking at a video feed from the next room-”
“While standing a safe distance away from the screen,” I couldn’t help interjecting. We’d all had it drilled into us to keep our tech babies safely away from Jon. When that tech was a work item and not personal gear, that also meant avoiding Sho’s wrath.
“Yes, even then, trying to read someone through a screen won’t work. But when he does get access to his target, he can see practically everything about them: their age, profession, medical history, personality traits, whether they have a guilty conscience, what they are feeling or have felt, in only a few glances.”
“That’s pretty much an exact description of what he does,” I agreed. When I thought about what Jonathan Bane the psychic could do, separate from him being Jon my friend, I understood why some people were a little afraid of him. To the point that some would even try to stab him.
“Well, my ability is actually a combination of Searching and Sensing. I get both physical location and personal data on whoever I’m tracing.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you could easily replace both Jon and Carol?” I asked playfully. “Once you show off your talents to Jim, I’ll help you clear out their stuff; I’ll take whichever office you don’t want, so long as I’m allowed to install my own personal coffee machine.”
Libby laughed that lovely unrestrained laugh again. “I don’t think Jim should release Carol or Jon from his payroll any time soon, not only because between how well Carol knows me and what all Jon can see, they would very easily blackmail me into giving them their jobs back. I have my own limitations. Much like Jon has to look directly at his target, I have to be on the same ground they trod. While Carol can give you an accurate location instantaneously, I have to follow the trace left behind in real time, so I’m always trying to catch up to whoever I’m tracking.”
“You can make a guess from where they’re headed based on their trace though,” I pointed out.
“Sure, I can plot the route they are likely to take, informed by whatever impressions I pick up through their trace. It’s a bit more like guesswork, though. My target might decide they’ll head to the right as they’re going along a straight, then change their mind and head left as soon as they hit the corner.”
“Ah. Hence why you do a lot of running.”
“Yes. Staying on the physical trail is the best means of getting accurate results, though it does take more time.”
“You’d be able to provide both kinds of data that Jon and Carol could all at once, though.”
“Yes, which is required on some cases. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Grantland Walker?”
I knew him by name, though I hadn’t met him. He’d been in the reports from the McMinnville case, had provided the psychic reading which had originally brought us in on the case, and been crucial to locating Jon and Mack after their abduction. I’d been on a road trip to Maine at the time, escorting Abigail Moore to safety. She had been a good kid, apparently a very good Reader - hence why we had to drive her out to her grandmother’s place rather than flying - and so awestruck by Jon, she could barely stop talking about his promise to mentor her the whole way there. I had spent an enjoyable 35-hour drive alternating turns behind the wheel with her father, answering her questions about detective work and singing along to the radio between naps in the backseat. Meanwhile, the rest of my colleagues had been dodging bullets and putting a family of deranged killers behind bars.
I’d read all about it after the fact; without Grant, we wouldn’t have uncovered the Whites’ latest victim which led to the discovery of others, and the rescue of Jon and Mack wouldn’t have been nearly as timely. Since Grant was now training Donovan’s cousin as a prospective anchor, I was pretty sure it was only a matter of time before I got to meet him in person.
“The Dreamwalking psychic?”
“That’s him. He works with various police forces and government agencies. His ability is even rarer than mine, so he tends to get called out on cases where a people-finder is specifically required, wherever and by whomever it’s needed. We’ve actually been paired up by an FBI agent we both formerly worked with and advised to talk at regular intervals, since our abilities are somewhat similar and we can offer moral support to each other based on our shared experience. When he works, he doesn’t need to physically follow his target; he can remote-view like Carol, so long as he has a focus to scry with, and he can put himself in a subconscious state in order to track them across the dream plane. But the way he reads both physical location and psychological profile from his target is very similar to the way I perceive things.”
That was a very interesting take on psychics that I hadn’t heard before. And I was sure I wasn’t the only one who would find it fascinating. “You should repeat all of that verbatim to Grant’s new anchor, Alan Havili. He’s writing a book on psychics, and he’d probably make what you just said into a whole chapter on its own.”
“If he’d find any of that useful, sure, I can repeat it to him. Likely he’s already heard it all from Grant.”
“Possibly. But he’ll probably still want an extra opinion, seeing as his book is a field-guide for psychics who want to collaborate with other psychics or non-psychic investigators, which is exactly what you’ll be doing while you’re in town.”
“True. If you mention it to Donovan and he thinks his cousin might want to talk to me, you’re welcome to give him my number.”
I nodded, making a mental note to bring it up with Donovan next time I got the chance. Perhaps we’d even run into Alan at a Havili gathering during Libby’s stay. If Alan did get Libby’s input for his book and wanted to thank me for providing him with another primary source by giving me a finder’s fee in the form of Alani’s cooking, I certainly wouldn’t turn it down. No one in their right mind turned down Alani’s cooking.
“So what do you need me to do to support you while you work?” I asked, pulling my mind away from future meals, remembering that since we had both finished eating brunch we should head into the office soon. I now had a much better understanding of how Libby worked, but I’d like to know what specific duties she wanted me to perform for her.
“There are a few things. The first is acting as my on-road support. While I follow a trace, I’ll usually be travelling on foot, sometimes over significant distances. I need someone who will shadow me, much as if I were a marathon runner: monitoring my progress, providing food and drink when I need to hydrate or refuel, keeping in contact with me over comms, acting as intermediary between me and whatever agency we might be collaborating with.”
“I can do all that,” I assured her. “I’ve run a few marathons myself and supported buddies who did, so I’ve done all that before without the psychic element.”
“That’s great, you know just what to do then. The person acting as support needs to stay close by, in case I need something at short notice. I sometimes wear a GoPro; and I am aware of my situation during a trace, so if I suspect I might need something in the near future, I can warn you over comms.”
“That explains why Sho pulled out a very sophisticated set of earwigs earlier this week and got me to test them out.” I had enjoyed the opportunity to play with a new toy - making sure I didn’t wear it anywhere near Jon - and I was used to using similar devices.
“The other important thing I need in the field is someone who can watch out for my personal safety. I’ll be following a trace that is likely at least a few minutes old, and conditions can change. I can slow myself down enough to open doors that my target ran through before they were closed, and if I have to, I can bail by jumping off a trace. But sometimes, if a trace is particularly insistent, I can have trouble slowing or breaking my momentum. There have been instances where I have nearly run into cars that weren’t parked there when my target ran through and were now blocking the trace I was trying to follow.”
I winced at the thought of running face-first into a parked car. “Did you do a ninja-like flip over the roof of the car without breaking your stride?”
“I wish. I managed to get off the trace in time, or I warned my support that it was coming up and someone pulled me off the trace before I hit it. Sometimes, I might need someone to physically lift me off the trace. Once both my feet are off the ground and no longer locked onto the trajectory, the psychic link to my target is broken. I can then navigate around obstacles before re-finding the trace and following it again.”
“Good to know that the amount I can bench-press will come in handy.” I jokingly flexed my arm, impressive muscles unfortunately hidden under my jacket, and gave Libby an assessing look. I reckoned I could lift her easily; though she was reasonably tall she was very trim, I shouldn’t have too much trouble picking her up. Especially if the circumstances suddenly called for it in the middle of a case, and I had a shot of adrenaline plus necessity lending me strength.
“Just don’t expect me to follow you to the gym so you can practice hefting me around like a barbell. I can give you my bodyweight and other specifics if you want to check that I am within your lifting range, but I don’t think I would exactly be pushing up against your limit.”
“I doubt that,” I agreed. I wasn’t exactly a muscle-bound power lifter - not like Quinn, an FBI anchor I’d seen photos of when Mack and Brandon had been visiting - but I was no slouch at the weights bench. As long as Libby didn’t expect me to launch her into the air, I figured I was capable.
“Great. That’s everything, I think. You okay with all that?”
“Totally fine. The fact you’re not threatening to zap my phone at five paces is an added bonus.”
Libby chuckled. “I don’t know if I should be intrigued or fearful at the prospect of meeting Jon.”
“A bit of both is the standard response. Until he cooks for you the first time; then you’ll be considering asking him and Donovan to adopt you.” Speaking of our resident phone-killer, my phone started trilling inside the EMP case I had packed it into before slipping it in my pocket. I had an unread text.
Shaz: Where r u Ty??? Did u abduct our cuz or is she leading you on a trace across town?
I chuckled, then tapped out a response.
Me: Just fed her brunch, on our way now
Shaz: No hummingbirds left? :(
I chuckled harder. Our offices really did run on caffeine and sugar. Jon alone could probably keep a kindergarten class hyped for hours on the constant supply of cupcakes Donovan got him.
Me: No hummingbirds, but will pick up mixed muffins for u guys
Shaz: Thanks ur the best :D
“We have been tasked by your cousin with bringing in elevenses for everyone,” I informed Libby with a roll of my eyes. “Let me get a tray of muffins to go, then we can head over to Psy.”
Notes:
Sorry to any Californians who were insulted by Libby's scorn towards the local delicacies.
Her description of Californian burgers is based on this comic strip:
https://www.blogilates.com/blogicomics/eating-with-friends-in-l-a/I wasn't sure what kind of psychic Carol is; in Jon book 1 she is described as a 'more traditional Reader', while is book 5 Jon refers to her as a Tracer (or at least says he can't track a missing person because he's not a Tracer but Carol can). Since Carol's ability seems different from Gonzalez's, I made her a Reader, but a very different one from Jon. All of Libby's spiel about different types of psychics is my own speculation and nothing established by AJ, so don't take it as gospel.
It is also not word-of-god that Tyson is part-Kiwi with Maori heritage, that was my own invention and can be taken out if AJ objects to it. I'm just an Aussie and wanted to write a Southern Hemispherer into the story; plus I like the idea of someone capable of doing the Haka round the office.
Of course Garrett would get the Havilis to teach him Sipi Tau so he can do it alongside his brothers.I also apologize for any police jargon I got horribly wrong.
Tyson recounts how he met Jon; as mentioned earlier, Tyson's involvement in Jon's stabbing is entirely my invention, you can read Jon's take on event in my fic 'Jon's Severely Stabby Partner Pandemonium'.
Chapter 4: Chapter Four: Libby
Chapter Text
Chapter Four
Libby
People think that because I’m a psychic, I can see anything coming and never get any nasty surprises.
How wrong they are.
A few seconds ago Sharon, Carol and I were in full flight, talking up a storm. Mid-sentence, without any real awareness of what I was doing, I took a half-step to my right, shrieked ‘yeowch!’ and jumped a foot in the air.
I spent a lot of my life playing a complicated game of ‘the floor is lava’. For me, the ground really was sometimes literally too hot for me to handle.
My cousins knew that, and they had obviously been drilling their co-workers before I arrived. When we pulled up at the office, Tyson had led me around to a side entrance that was apparently an emergency fire door, leading directly into Psy’s meditation room. I appreciated that they went to the effort of temporarily unhooking the fire alarm so I could come in this way instead of the main entrance, where the barrage of old traces entering and leaving the building might have overwhelmed me.
I appreciated it, right up until my foot hit something that lit me up like a live wire.
“Holy shit!” I yelped, trying to shake off the sensation of suddenly being plugged into a wall socket. It was just as well we were in a sound-proofed room. Between our round of hugging, squealing, talking a mile a minute upon our reunion, and my outburst just now, we would have well and truly disrupted what was a thriving business in the middle of a work day if we’d done this in the middle of the cubicles. “What the hell was that?!”
I lifted my gaze from my still-tingling ankle to focus on Sharon and Carol’s startled faces. They knew I sometimes reacted to traces I unwittingly stepped on, but they’d never seen me jolt like this, not even the numerous times they’d seen me step on the trails of serial killers.
They turned to face each other, then in unison said: “Jon.”
That kind of stunt was what led a lot of people to mistake Sharon and Carol for fraternal twins. They weren’t - there was a two-year age gap between them - but they were deeply attuned to each other as psychic and anchor. Growing up, the three of us had always hung out together. Carol and I had displayed signs of psychic ability early on, so we had been put in our school’s special program. Sharon had tagged along, partly because she and her sister were inseparable, partly because she had to potential to become an anchor for one of us.
As if there were ever any doubt. I had always known that Sharon would be Carol’s anchor as soon as they finished their training. They were so perfectly in-step with each other from the time we were all tiny kids, forming an anchor bond with each other was just a formality. I had never felt left out. Sharon knew me well enough to act as my stand-in anchor when the need arose, and Carol also helped me out however she could.
Then I had met Cally, and it had been the four of us, two balanced sets of psychic-and-anchor pairings. I had visited Nashville briefly a few times, stopping in on my way to other cases in neighbouring states, and I’d met my cousins on other jobs where we had all worked together. They had loved Cally, quickly accepted her as one of the gang and an addition to the family. We had joked that we were the Psychic Musketeers.
I had never felt like the odd one out. Until now.
I hadn’t seen much of Sharon and Carol in person since Cally’s funeral. They had Skyped me several times, been there to listen to me when I’d had a hard day or woke up in the middle of the night desperately needing someone to talk to. I hated to burden them with my grief when they had their own lives, their own anchor bond to support, and their own grief over Cally’s loss to deal with. But the comfort they had given me was unlike any I could find anywhere else, not even from my therapist. They knew what having an anchor bond was like, knew the enormity of what I had lost. Carol had talked me through severing my bond at Cally’s bedside, though even through my devastation I had seen how the process had distressed her almost as much as it did me.
That was just who my cousins were: they were both using their psychic expertise to help others. Sharon was experienced enough to know exactly what psychics of all kinds needed. She was occasionally called to consult in her own right, on past cases she had supported other visiting psychics and stepped in when an unanchored one needed backup. More than once during our Skype chats, I had heard how Sharon had stepped in to help Jon come down from a difficult case before he had anchored.
Speaking of.
“Was Jon in here recently?” I asked, shaking out my foot. I swore I could still feel phantom tingles sparking somewhere in my right shin.
“He was in here a few days ago,” Carol said apologetically, as Sharon went to a side cupboard and started rummaging for something, clattering about with spare crystals and vials of sand. “He had a big case. There was an attack on a local building, and he was called in to find the perpetrator.”
I could tell Carol was speaking carefully, trying to explain the situation to me without giving away too many details. I got client confidentiality, had filled out scores of NDAs - or had Cally fill them in for me when I could sufficiently bribe her - and well knew the sanctity of professional discretion. I suspected it had something to do with the attempted arson attack earlier in the week. I had flipped through a recent edition of The Tennessean on the flight in, partly to distract from my twitchiness at having to sit on a plane for several hours, partly to get a sense of what the Nashville scene was like and scope out some possible cases I might walk into if I got called in as a consultant. I had read a fleeting article that merely stated an attempted arson attack had been committed in the business district and a suspect had been detained. It made no mention of Psy’s involvement, but for a suspect to have been apprehended by authorities so quickly, it made sense.
I was glad that case was already solved. I had little fear of chasing after criminals face-first; but running on the trace someone who might set fires in my path was not a prospect I particularly relished.
“Once the danger alert had been cleared, they locked down the building with dozens of people inside,” Carol continued. “They hastily called Jon in to scan the suspect pool. He covered about a dozen rooms, pulling out likely suspects, then singled out the perpetrator within three hours.”
Carol and I shared a grin. As psychics, we both occasionally encountered opposition to our work, people who were prejudiced towards us or doubted our abilities. It was always satisfying to hear stories of psychics who solved cases and made a difference. Given the wild stories I’d heard of Jon’s particular talent, this was probably just a typical Tuesday for him. It was pretty gratifying to hear about nonetheless.
“He came in here afterwards,” Sharon said, picking up the tale and wielding a spray bottle. The scent of sage filled the room as she gave the floor a few squirts. “After hours of staring at hordes of frightened and outraged people, his eyes were pretty well fried. Donovan wanted to bring him in here to recover, and rightly so. We had planned to leave this room clear for you, but we could hardly refuse when Jon needed the downtime, and his anchor would only insist upon it, as he well should.”
I nodded to show that I more than understood and agreed with Sharon’s assessment. An overworked psychic who was reaching their limit and on the cusp of overwhelm always took precedence. It was unethical to leave a psychic under duress, and I would never begrudge giving up a clear room to someone who needed it more than me. Especially when all I had to do to switch off was literally put my feet up. From what I heard, I assumed Jon giving his eyes a break until he recuperated left him effectively blind.
“He was only in here for a little over an hour,” Carol went on, as Sharon bent down and began swiping the floor with a cloth, spreading the scent of sage. “Sharon cleaned the floor after him, and Donovan cleaned it again to make doubly sure, but I guess Jon leaves a stronger impression than we realized.”
“He sure does,” I agreed, giving the patch of floor I’d previously been standing on a wide berth, not just because it was now damp and strongly sage-scented.
“He was still running hot when he came in,” Carol explained. “The culprit apparently felt vindicated in what they did and their guilt was hard to pick out, especially with at least ten other suspects who had it in for the owners of the building. Jon ended up having to go level two in order to pick the right guy out before the PD were forced to release everyone who had been detained, so they were in a race against time. Jon certainly sped up the process, but he had a splitting headache afterwards.”
I winced in sympathy. The way I read auras was mostly passive, but I’d heard from Sharon’s and Carol’s explanations that Jon could extend himself to read people on a deeper psychic plane. Just the thought of grappling with energies on that kind of exposed level made my inner psyche recoil.
“He’s fine now,” Sharon assured me, having seen the face I pulled. “And his trace isn’t always as intense as that. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
“Is he in the office right now?” I asked. “If he’s left trails around the place, I’d rather get a feel for his trace sooner rather than later, so I don’t stumble on booby-traps like that again if I can help it.”
“He should be in today, unless something urgent suddenly came up.” Sharon put the spray bottle away and hung the cloth on the edge of a bench to dry out. “Come on through, we’ll introduce you to him and the rest of the team. I’m pretty sure everyone else is here today.”
“Thought we’d bring them all in for you rather than have you chase them cross town one by one,” Carol joked.
“How thoughtful,” I jibed right back at her.
I was still a bit leery of walking in Jon’s footsteps. I knew it was better to go through the internal door leading from the meditation room to the main office than to take my chances with the main external entry, but I didn’t know which step might give me another zap from Jon’s electrified trail.
“Stick close to the right-hand wall,” Sharon advised me, noticing my hesitance. “Jon avoids that side, since it’s where the light switch is."
I did as she said, sidling through the doorway close enough to brush against the switch on my way through. I shot Sharon a grateful smile once I made it into the corridor without further incident. I kept sticking to the right side, since I could see there was a photocopy machine up ahead that Jon likely also avoided.
“We’ve got mats at home, and I’ll get Marcy to order some more for the office,” Sharon said, as she and Carol followed me out. “Garrett or Tyson should be able to pick them up later today. We can use them to mark out a spare cubicle as a safe haven for you, and you can put down mat pathways to different parts of the office - the break room, bathroom, supply closet - if you need to. Or just get Tyson to fetch stuff for you while you’re here.”
I rolled my eyes at her. My cousins knew I preferred to do my own leg work over having someone run around for me. I didn’t take sitting down well and always liked to have an excuse to move around, even for errands as simple as fetching a stapler. “Oh, I’m sure Tyson will be thrilled by the chance to sling me over his shoulder and carry me to the ladies’ room every time I need to powder my nose.” We chuckled at that, mostly because we all knew I hated the idea even more than Tyson would.
When we came out into the main open-plan office area, I automatically did a sweep to see how many people were around and where they were all located, so I could get a sense of where their traces might lie.
Tyson was standing at what I assumed was the front desk. He must have heard us come in, as he looked up from the form he was filling in, gave me a brief smile and wave, then turned his attention back to the paperwork.
The woman behind the desk, however, turned in our direction, gave a reverberating shriek of excitement, and bustled over.
“Ohmigod, you’re finally here!” she squealed as she made a beeline for me.
I recognised Marcy from our Skype calls. Sharon and Carol often invited Marcy along with them to get coffee or have a girls’ nights out. They had introduced us over video call and we had talked quite a bit, so we knew each other pretty well already, though we had never met in person before now.
Which was evident in the way that Marcy rushed in as if to hug me, then remembered some instructions she must have been given to not do what she had been about to do, screeching to a halt suddenly enough for her shoes to squeak loudly on the linoleum floor.
“Sorry,” she said, smiling apologetically as Carol, Sharon and I chuckled at her antics. “I was so excited to finally meet you, I almost forgot the protocol your cousins have been drumming into everyone for the past week.”
“That’s okay,” I said, smiling. Marcy really was as lovely and bubbly in person as she had been over Skype. “I’m happy to finally meet you in person too. Mind if I step on your trace?”
“Sure, go for it!” All of us laughed at Marcy’s excited response. Tyson joined in the laughter from the desk, and I was pretty sure I could hear at least one other man laughing somewhere behind me. “I’ve been hanging out to see this in person, the way your cousins describe it makes it sound so cool!”
“It’s going to be pretty anti-climactic I’m afraid,” I warned her. “There isn’t anything to see at your end, just mine.”
“Still, being present while such a rare psychic type is in action is a pretty exclusive experience,” Marcy insisted, practically bouncing in excitement. “How should I do this?”
“Just walk towards me, stop at least a foot away, then step back again so I can come forward and stand on your trace.”
Marcy did as I instructed, slowly walking forward, then lurching to a stop and backing up carefully, her expression focused as if she were carefully counting each step in her head.
“I feel like I’m learning the world’s simplest square dance,” she murmured, smiling sheepishly as another round of laughter went up.
“You don’t want to take me on an actual dance floor,” I assured her. “Makes me feel like I’m on one of those spinning teacup rides. Okay, here goes.”
Having carefully monitored the distance away from me where she had stopped, I came forward and stepped on her trace. I got a slight frisson of nerves, a whole lot of excitement, and the unadulterated joy at seeing someone who was both a new acquaintance and a familiar friend. I was touch by how genuinely happy Marcy was to have me here. Sure, we had talked multiple times online, but she apparently liked me enough already to consider me a friend rather than just the family of some co-workers.
“Okay?” Marcy asked, having given me a few seconds to sort out her trace with my psychic perception, the anticipation in her trace growing with each passing second. She was like a puppy who had just been unleashed at the dog park but told to stay before she could run off to play with the other pups, it was kind of adorable.
“Okay. Come here and give me a hug before the anticipation makes you pass out over there.”
She gave another happy squeal, not hesitating another moment before she enveloped me in a hug strong enough to rock us side to side.
I tamped down a sudden onslaught of emotions.
I had travelled place to place constantly after the funeral, though my family had offered to let me stay with them long enough to find my feet. But I’d had to take some time away from everyone. Stepping on the traces of loved ones, feeling their sadness and worry for me, had been too much. I had been on the road solo non-stop for months, going places where no one knew to feel sorry for me, away from familiar surroundings that might have triggered old memories. I had networked everywhere cases took me, made friendly acquaintances, some of which bordered on becoming friends. But I hadn’t had this, the warmth of friendship and the physical contact that went with it, for such a long time.
Having Carol and Sharon hug me when I arrived had been like sinking into a warm bath after hours spent out in the freezing cold. To get such a welcoming hug from Marcy as well, a woman who I knew I liked but had only just met, unexpectedly almost had me choked up. It was hardly an intimate touch compared to what I had shared with Cally and lost after she passed, but the contact was something I had apparently dearly missed. I’d had no idea I was so touch-starved.
Carol and Sharon joined in as Marcy finally let me go. There was more squeaking and exclaiming and chattering, only now with Marcy contributing along with myself and my cousins.
Another laugh came from behind me. “You four are lighting up brighter than a Christmas tree,” a tenor voice with a teasing Southern drawl proclaimed. “If you’re all going to go through this ritual every morning, I’m going to have to start wearing sunglasses indoors again.”
We all turned towards the voice. It belonged to a slightly-built blonde man who was standing in the open doorway to what must be his office. His crisp shirt and trim waistcoat subtly pinged my bi-dar. His eyes, which were a vivid shade of blue, crinkled with amusement as he watched us.
“It is a festive occasion,” Sharon retorted with a fake huff. “It’s not every day our cousin comes to visit. Stop lurking in doorways, Jon, and come meet Libby.”
So this was the infamous Jon. Even without my cousins knowing him personally, his reputation preceded him in the psychic world. He was becoming increasingly high-profile thanks to his uniquely powerful ability, his proficiency as an investigator, and the speed with which he wrapped up his cases. I had been told that the heavy security door at Psy was there largely thanks to the loonies who tried to take revenge on him.
The Humvee I had seen taking up two spaces in the parking lot out back was apparently one of the few cars resistant to his tech-killing touch. If my psychic ability necessitated having a ride like that, I’d take advantage of it too. I had practically drooled over the off-roading potential of those extra-wide rims and that beefed-up suspension, though the gas bill a beast like that would wrack up on the distances I travelled made my bank account whimper.
Jon sauntered over with a self-deprecating grin. With eyes no longer scrunched up with laughter, he turned his full gaze on me.
Whoa. His reputation was apparently not the only thing that preceded him. Those eyes seemed to assess me at a dozen paces, penetrating and discerning.
I was used to being the one with the insight, picking up clues from the traces I stood on. But Jon could scan me from a distance with sight alone, and I didn’t particularly care for the sensation.
I didn’t want to show off the grief which I knew must be flaring in my aura. It was too private, too raw for me to share with in words with people I considered my closest family, let alone having a complete stranger take it in with a single glance.
Jon stopped advancing towards me, paused with a considering head-tilt, then met my eyes directly and gave me a miniscule nod. I thought I saw a shadowed furrow briefly appear between his brows, but I either imagined it or he schooled it out of his expression almost immediately. His face didn’t give away having seen anything untoward in my aura.
I felt a surge of relief and released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
My cousins had reassured me that though Jon would likely see all my secrets with a single look, he wouldn’t blurt them out to all and sundry. I had known that, knew that Jon would operate under the psychic’s inherent code of right to privacy, just as I did. But it was still a reassurance to have him scan me like a psychic x-ray and hold his peace, to the point of not even letting his expression flicker at what he saw in me. He was obviously good at what he did, and knew how to be considerate in the face of how much his ability revealed to him.
He smiled at me, obviously seeing my reaction to his discretion in real time. Wow, that was weird, and more than a little impressive. The stories about him obviously weren’t exaggerations. I could see why criminals were terrified of him. I could also see that all the people who'd said he was a good man besides being a powerful psychic had spoken the truth.
“Jon,” Carol’s stern voice broke through our silent exchange. “Did you have to leave such potent trails of psychic energy around the office? We brought Libby in through the meditation room so she could avoid stepping on the intense trace from a client or suspect, only for her to shoot off the floor like she’d just stepped on a land mine where you’d been skulking around back there.”
“I’m sorry.” Jon spread his hands in a supplicant gesture, looking genuinely apologetic. “I needed a few moments to recuperate after that big case earlier in the week, and the office was slightly closer than home. Besides, I didn’t have much choice. My anchor hustled me in there before anyone could protest, me included. I had intended to steer clear of the room until this case suddenly cropped up, if I'd had prior warning I would have made plans to ride out the recovery at my place instead. I didn't mean to give you such a rough welcome, Libby, and I sincerely apologize.”
“That’s alright, Jon.” I gave him a smile to assure him I had no hard feelings, though he could likely see that for himself. Okay, this whole seeing-what-I-feel thing took some getting used to. “I get the need to recover after nearly busting your limits. I just hope you don’t run that high all the time. It’s not like wearing sunglasses would help me, and I don’t think they make even platform shoes with soles thick enough to insulate me from how hot your trace is at level two.”
“It’s not often I have to read at that level, so I’m afraid you were just unlucky enough to catch my trace when it was nearly at its worst. You’re welcome to take a new baseline reading, if you need to.”
“More like if I dare to,” I teased, Jon and I sharing a companionable grimace while the others laughed. “I’ll brave it I guess. If I can handle stepping on the trace of serial killers, a beacon of justice like yourself should be a walk in the park.”
Everyone laughed at my comment as Jon mimicked Marcy’s moves, taking several paces forward then backing into his doorway again. I walked forward and, bracing myself, stepped onto the spot where he’d stopped.
It was intense still, but not in the way I had expected. Instead of feeling like I’d been zapped with a cattle prod, this time I felt like I had been plugged into the circuitry and could see the entire network buzzing around me. It was a lot to process, but I was vaguely aware of the auras of everyone present and monitoring them constantly, colours shifting in their lines like the view through a kaleidoscope.
Was this how Jon experienced the world all the time? My cousins had told me that Jon was constantly ‘on’ as his ability had no ‘off’ switch. He was likely used to it if he had lived his whole life like this, but after a few seconds I found the constant visual feedback exhausting. No wonder he often had headaches. I certainly didn’t begrudge him using the meditation room after experiencing what he did, and I shuddered to think how much more disorienting this would have been before his anchoring gave him proper shields.
Speaking of his anchor, I could see another trace alongside Jon’s, so closely entwined with his that it could only belong to Donovan.
I looked up from where I had been examining the office floor, learning a new trace that was visible only to me - or so I thought - and found Jon was also staring at the ground, his surprise reaching me along his trace.
“You can see it?” I asked, gesturing at the trace which, to me, looked like a gigantic glow worm stretching between me and Jon.
“Yes I can,” he replied, not lifting his eyes from where he gazed at the floor in fascination. “Is that what a trace looks like to you? I feel like I’m standing on a giant glow stick.”
I laughed at his description. “That’s pretty apt. Wow, it’s amazing that you can see it. I’ve never had another psychic who was able to see what I see without linking up.”
“That’s why Jon’s eyes pay his bills and make a good dint in ours,” Sharon stated proudly. “He’s always said that Carol’s ability looks like a model of a city power grid lighting up, which is pretty ironic coming from him.”
“It’s because I can see the energy that I fry electronic stuff,” Jon shot back, heaving a frustrated sigh that must be habitual by now, as everyone else only laughed again in response. “On the upside, occasionally I get to see sights like this, which is pretty cool. Not many people get to see how another psychic works from their point of view.” He examined the ground again. “How come there’s a second trail?”
“You tell me. My guess is it’s your anchor’s trace, and he’s in the office behind you.”
“That he is.” Jon shot a fond smile over his shoulder. “We didn’t want to overwhelm you with too many people at once, so he thought it best to stay out of sight when you first arrived. We weren’t sure how you’d react to my trace, so it’s fine if you need a break before meeting him and the others.”
“I’ve already gotten a glimpse of you at your worst,” I teased. “If I can handle that, I think I can handle meeting your partner. I trust his trace won’t make the soles of my feet go numb like yours did, and I don’t want him to stay cooped up in your office on my account.”
Smiling good-naturedly at the slight ribbing I’d given him, Jon turned back towards the room behind him. “You hear that, Donovan? Libby says you can come out.” Turning back to me, he introduced the man who appeared at his shoulder, “This is my anchor and fiancé, Donovan Havili.”
I had taken a step off Jon’s trace, but I didn’t need my psychic sense to see the affection he had for the man who appeared in the doorway beside him. The eyes that saw all were also quite expressive, and they practically turned into hearts when he caught sight of his man.
I expected someone Donovan’s size to lumber towards me, but for such a big guy he was surprisingly light on his feet. The ease with which he moved only added to how badass he looked, and my detective instincts told me to be wary despite my better judgement. I tamped down my automatic fight-or-flight response as Donovan gave me a somewhat shy smile.
“Nice to meet you, Libby,” he rumbled in a rich baritone. “You’re welcome to step on my trace, though we can hold off if you need a breather.”
“Good to meet you, Donovan. And it’s fine, if you can step up I’ll check out your trace now.”
Donovan repeated the step-forward-step-back manoeuvre - he likely watched Marcy and Jon do it from his doorway - and I stepped on his trace.
Huh, this was why I should never judge a person before I traced them. I got an impression of martial arts prowess and stealth training, which tracked with what my cousins had told me of his army background. But all of that was minimized, as if Donovan had tried to shove it to the back of his psychic profile and make it as inconspicuous as possible. I could feel that Donovan was anxious to make a good first impression, aware of how intimidating he appeared, and hoped he could somehow make himself less threatening. It was rare that I encountered such a large man subconsciously trying to make himself smaller. Usually men of Donovan’s stature in his profession tried to dominate a room with their size, throw their weight around and show off to everyone how powerful they were. Yet there was something almost apologetic in Donovan’s aura. It caught me off-guard, but I couldn’t help finding it endearing.
Jon caught my eye, an unspoken understanding passing between us. Aware that he could clearly see my aura, I hoped I looked as accepting and non-judgemental as I felt.
It must have been reflected in my lines, because my trained eye saw Jon’s posture relax and the nervous tension flow out of him. He turned to Donovan and placed a hand on his arm. At his touch, I saw Donovan also settle into an easier stance, his insecurities flowing away instantly at that small gesture of reassurance.
I found myself swamped by rogue emotions again. I averted my gaze, but that didn’t help, as lowering my eyes to the floor again only showed me how closely interwoven the two men’s traces were.
It reminded me of myself and Cally. Our paths used to be like that, so close they were practically overlaid, proof to my eyes that we travelled through life together as a single unit.
Like most psychics, I had trouble reading myself. Since my ability relied on me being able to stand on a trace, and I was constantly standing atop my own trace while picking up others, I had trouble discerning mine. That was a big part of what Cally’s anchoring had done for me: I couldn’t see my own trace, but hers had been so intrinsically linked to mine, I could find my trace by following hers. These two men were similarly so close, they practically shared the same path.
More than that, I could feel their awareness of each other, how each of them subconsciously scanned the other’s aura and safeguarded each other by looking out for threats, both physical and mental. Jon’s concern about my judgement of his partner reverberated in my senses, comfort and reassurance echoing between the couple in a repeating feedback loop until I couldn’t tell which of them it originated from. They likely weren’t even aware of it, as it was second-nature for experienced psychics and anchors to guard each other like that, even when they didn’t work in a hazardous industry like these investigators did. The danger they regularly encountered just strengthened the protective bonds between them.
I rarely saw anchor bonds as strong as this. The pair easily put some of the most devoted couples I’d ever seen to shame.
And it just rubbed my face in what I had lost, what I would never have again.
I quickly took a stern hold of myself. Much as I still dealt with my grief, I could hardly begrudge others for having a loving relationship. I didn’t want to be bitter like that, especially not when Jon would clearly be able to see it.
I hopped back a few steps, which took me off Donovan’s trace and also allowed me to not have to tilt my head back so far in order to make eye contact with him. I schooled my expression into something I hoped was neutral, keeping my gaze on Donovan, not daring to peek at Jon to see how he reacted to what he must have just seen in my aura. “Thanks for letting me step on your trace, Donovan. No wonder Jon feels well protected with you around, your trail is very steady.”
Donovan flushed slightly at my words, making me glad that I had pulled myself together.
I was going to keep seeing happy couples around, unless I became a total hermit, and there was no way I could stay in one isolated spot long enough to become a completely recluse. I needed to learn how to be happy for others, instead of constantly feeling sorry for myself. Sure, my therapist said I would likely still undergo the grieving process on some level throughout the rest of my life. But that was no excuse for being a self-centred asshole.
Especially where the famed eyes-that-saw-everything could clearly see it all.
"There are a few more on our team you haven't met yet," Sharon said at my elbow. "We should probably introduce you to the boss next. Are you up for meeting Jim? After you've checked in with him, Carol and I need finalized some paperwork from the case we just finished. Once we hand it over to Marcy, we can take a break for lunch. If Sho and Garrett are around, you can meet them before we head out for a proper cousins' catch-up session. Sound good?"
"Sounds great. Let's go see Jim next then." I was used to meeting large multi-personnel teams and full departments on my cases, so stepping on so many new traces in quick succession wasn't too arduous for me.
Luckily I'd also managed to wrangle my composure back into place. It had been a while since I worked a case with other psychics, and even longer since I had encountered a psychic-anchor pairing who were also a romantic couple. Combine that with my cousins bringing back all kinds of memories of times I had spent with them back when Cally was alive, and the surprise trace I had stepped on at the airport that hinted at an urgent hospital visit - no wonder I was feeling all over the shop. I should probably call my therapist sometime in the next few days to talk it out, much as I was loathe to do that.
Following Sharon towards the office that had the business' founder Jim's nameplate by the door, I mentally centred myself as I had trained myself to do, focusing on the emotions I felt in my own trace, letting them ebb away with every step I took.
It had taken me a long time, and a lot of therapy, to find a sense of calm in my singular trace, where once I'd had Cally's beside it to guide me with her steady presence alongside mine. But now I could ground myself on my own trace, find motivation in walking my own path.
It was a solitary trail I walked these days, but that was fine. Everyone knew I was momentum in human form: no matter how rough the terrain I had to travel over, no matter what bumps and blips I stumbled over along the way, I would always just keep moving. As long as I could keep carrying myself forward, I would be fine.
And if I could hold myself together for the rest of my stay, I might even enjoy my time in Nashville, before it was time to move on.
Chapter 5: Chapter Five: Libby
Notes:
I changed the story title! This one is a lot better :)
Chapter Text
Chapter Five
Libby
Somehow, my quiet catch-up dinner with my cousins turned into a group affair, with everyone at Psy deciding to tag along.
I didn’t mind. I’d be working with these people for the next few weeks. I liked having the opportunity to get to know them outside of a professional setting right off the bat.
When I was in the midst of a high-stakes case, every interaction I had with colleagues, however nice they were and however friendly we were with each other, was usually fraught with stress and urgency. By the time the investigation was wrapped up, I might not even have the chance to grab coffee or dinner socially with my workmates before I rushed off to the next place I had to be. Accustomed as I was to living life on the fast track, this change of pace that allowed for a leisurely get-together was actually rather nice.
Besides, these were not just colleagues; these were Sharon’s and Carol’s friends. If my cousins deemed these people worth knowing, I wanted to get to know them too.
After a long day, it was lovely to be able to relax, take the weight off and put my feet up - literally and figuratively. Sharon had put a request to one of the wait staff, who had brought out an empty crate for me to prop my feet on, preventing me from accidentally putting my foot down on any stray trace that might lurk under the table. With a belly full of excellent food and a few glasses of wine turning everything slightly soft at the edges, I was feeling about as mellow as I ever got.
It seemed everyone round the table wanted to chat to me. Throughout the evening, people wandered about with plates and glasses in hand, dropping into the seats Carol and Sharon had vacated on either side of me, reintroducing themselves or just shooting the breeze until someone else came by claiming it was their turn. It was much easier for me to stay put while they came to me, what with all the traces created by foot traffic in a bustling restaurant and my dining companions constantly circling the table. Everyone seemed to have figured that out by unspoken agreement.
I really should make more friends with psychics and psychic-adjacent professionals. It was nice not having to explain myself and my ‘special requirements’ to anyone for a change.
“-and it still functions perfectly at a submerged depth of forty feet,” Sho was saying in the seat beside me.
I had been introduced to Sho and Garrett just before lunch. Garrett had arrived at the office close to midday, having spent all morning out on some professional errand. With a quick quip and a lot of swagger, he had let me step on his trace.
Despite his relatively-small stature and every-man looks, this was a very interesting individual. In terms of physical strength and training, he was like a full version of Donovan shrunk down to condensed form. Aside from his torn ACL, which had healed as well as any career-ending injury could, he was in absolute peak condition. I seriously think some sumo wrestlers were less sturdy than this guy. He also had some of the best spatial awareness I had ever seen. Like Donovan, he was near-constantly scanning the terrain and evaluating for threats. I felt like I could stand between those two guys and they would shield me from a hurricane with the power of sheer determination alone. Despite being a soldier through and through - a career that was always more than a touch grim - he had a lightness and humour about him that no doubt eased his way through life. He was both the kind of guy you’d trust to guard your back, and the guy you could expect to always be the life of a party.
Military training wasn’t the only similarity between him and Donovan. Noticing that he also had a secondary trace that was twined with his, I had asked Garrett who had the far office near the front door, as he had practically worn a psychic groove in the floor headed that way. His reaction had been to delightedly call me the best psychic in the profession - causing Carol and Jon to bristle in protest - and accompany me down the hall to meet his boyfriend.
Similarly pint-sized and obviously whip-smart, Sho was far more sedentary in nature than the man he dated. He had an even slighter frame than Jon with less height, fine features, and minimal muscle tone under the oversized hoodie that swamped him. But I certainly didn’t underestimate him due to his lack of athleticism. Through his trace, I could feel his mind working a mile a minute. His smarts were his weapon of choice, and I bet he had put away scores of criminals who never even knew he existed. He had plenty of other people who could chase down criminals and snap on the handcuffs for him, but few others in the country had the same expertise that Sho carried around in his impressive brain.
All the speed and stamina in the world meant nothing without a trail to chase or a location to stake out. I had no doubt that Sho was able to track anyone he wanted to, down to their exact IP address. Since I likewise made my living as a human bloodhound, I had full respect for Sho’s ability.
His bond back to Garrett was equally strong, their traces weaving together like a metaphorical love-knot. If one of them had been born with any psychic ability, I had no doubt that the other would have been his anchor. Even without that aspect between them, I sensed that the way they supported each other was practically anchor-like. I wondered if they were like that because they were emulating what they had observed between Jon and Donovan, or if their protective instincts regarding each other were just naturally high. I sensed a past relationship that had gone bad at Sho’s end, far enough back to be a blip in his rear-view mirror by now, meaning I could barely sense it at all; but at some point, it had seriously scared him. That bond was cleanly severed now, and Garrett’s influence was wrapped around the separation, strengthening any residual weakness that might have been left in its wake. These two had weathered some kind of incident in the past, and it had played a role in bringing them together.
They were certainly tight-knit now. As Sho sat next to me, waxing lyrical over the latest in personal heart-and-vitals monitoring technology, Garrett sat on his other side, watching him natter away animatedly with a besotted look on his face.
Nashville was like the Southern city of love. The place seemed determined to show me as much lovey-dovey coupledom as I could handle, and I’d only visited five locations here in the twelve hours since I had arrived. If I was wearing one of those sophisticated monitors right now, it might show that my heart was practically sore with envy.
“Damn, that is impressive,” I swallowed my bitterness down to say, once Sho had finished reciting all the features of this gadget he highly recommended. “I wish I’d had something that resilient when I was out on a case two years ago.”
Sho’s eyebrows went up. “You need something that can withstand pressure that far below sea level? Do you do forensic diving as part of your work?”
I shuddered at the thought. “Hell no. My talents reach their limit where solid ground ends. But I have had a few too many incidents where technology met bodies of water, with disastrous results.” Glancing about, I saw others ranged round the table were listening with expressions of interest, so I pitched my voice loud enough so everyone could hear over the background restaurant chatter. “That particular case, I was hired by a firm in Miami to track a perp who they suspected had disposed of evidence. I traced him to the marina, found the spot where he threw a bundle of incriminating material into the water. Unfortunately, he had then gotten spooked by something and quickly leapt into a boat that was no longer moored in the berth by the time I got there, so when I followed his trace…”
There were sympathetic groans as everyone pictured me flinging myself off the edge of the pier, which was very nearly what had happened.
“I had to grab onto a bollard and tip myself off the trace before I could throw myself into the water. I managed to stay dry, but my wrist got caught on a mooring, and the strap of my Fitbit was wrenched loose, making it go splash. A police diver managed to find it when he recovered the evidence I was hired to find, which was quite a feat since the GPS was well and truly kaput.”
Across the table from me, I saw Tyson wince and rub his bare wrist. A pronounced tan line that resembled the shape of a Fitbit or smartwatch was visible just below his sleeve cuff. I had noticed that when we had pulled up at Psy this morning, he had put his phone and other devices into an EMP case and tucked it in his messenger bag, which likely had additional shielding, before we left the car. Since Jon currently sat two seats down from him, that precaution was probably wise and well-learned from experience.
Sho shivered as if he felt someone walk over his grave at the mere mention of ruined electronics. “Please try to keep any gear I loan you from getting a similar dunking. Though you are likely already more than aware, I would like to remind you that the primary menace to technology round here is seated at the end of the table.” He didn’t look in Jon’s direction, just smiled serenely while radiating mischief that I didn’t have to be standing on his trace to feel.
Across the table and three seats down, Jon glanced our direction out of the corner of his eye, then whipped his head round. “My ears are burning,” he said, eying Sho with suspicion.
“So long as you don’t have my earphones that are worth the same amount as your car over them,” Sho teased back. Once everyone was done laughing at Jon’s expense - including a rather amused-sounding huff from Jon himself - Sho turned to me with a slightly more business-like expression. “I have a few things for you and Tyson to trial out in the field. I’ll brief you on how they function first thing tomorrow. I’ve already talked Tyson through the basics of how to use them, and Garrett did me the favour of giving your set a test run.”
Garrett reached around his boyfriend to clap me companionably on the shoulder. “I like having you here, Lib. It gives Michael an excuse to break out the fun stuff, and I get to make Donovan jealous with all the secret agent gear I can have but he can’t.”
Donovan must have a constant ear out for Garrett’s shit-talking, because without missing a beat he called down the table: “Some of us graduated from playing with toys long ago, Wilson.”
“So says the man deprived of play things, Havili,” Garrett called back with a shameless smirk, obviously pleased as punch with the innuendo he put behind his words. “My bedside drawer alone would make you green with envy.”
Donovan flushed slightly and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Jon, whose face was slightly pink but otherwise looked far from hesitant, shot back: “Maybe some of us have more than enough fun going analog, Wilson.”
Everyone cracked up at that. Everyone except Jim.
The boss of Psy was what I would describe as a ‘stoic’ type. He gave the impression of someone who was no-nonsense and unflappable. He had a dour façade and gave away few of his feelings outwardly, but his trace showed that he was constantly mentally patrolling the premises of Psy as much as Donovan or Garrett, tracking where all his people were, whether they were safe and well, where the progress was on each case, what needed to be done to make sure everything ran as it should. He was like the conductor in charge of a symphony: he didn’t express as much outward passion as the lead soloist, but he was just as invested and undoubtedly in charge of the whole production.
Now, without so much as cracking a smile, Jim glanced back and forth between the men who had been half-yelling this conversation across him.
“I’m not nearly drunk enough to be hearing these things about by employees,” he muttered, downing what was left of his glass of grappa in one gulp.
Everyone except him practically fell out of their seats with laughter, me included.
Jon looked set to say something more, but Donovan diverted him with an impressively-muscled arm slung round his shoulders, leaning in to say something close to Jon’s ear even as he poured his boyfriend a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. Jon settled against him, eyes hazed and posture relaxed in a way that suggested his joints - the hinge of his jaw particularly - had been well-oiled with something stronger than water.
I was a bit surprised that Jon was so tipsy. I’d seen him put away as much pasta as anyone - for a place called ‘Little Italy’ the portion sizes ran contrary to their name - and as far as I could tell, he’d only had a few glasses of wine. Then again, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was on a sugar rush. I had seen him eat a huge slice of the excellent citrus cake we’d had for dessert, plus Donovan had let him pilfer all the corner bits off his piece. You could tell a couple were truly devoted to each other when they openly swiped food off each other’s plates. This counted for extra when a man of Donovan’s size had the appetite of a power-lifter (if said power-lifter deigned to ingest sugar and carbs along with their whey powder and lean protein).
I wondered if Jon’s psychic ability always running ‘hot’ somehow affected his metabolism? Could he literally ‘burn’ off excess calories? Would he consider it rude if I asked him about his diet and weight, one psychic to another? Or perhaps he kept slim by chasing criminals, or running away from criminals who chased him? I had caught some martial arts training in his trace - krav maga, Donovan’s influence most likely - and though he certainly wasn’t jacked, he had some muscle tone on those slender limbs…
Garrett apparently noticed that I was eying Jon speculatively.
“You think he’s fun when he’s tipsy, you should see him straight after a level three reading,” he piped up. The devious grin on his face told me that wherever this story was going, Jon would be the punchline. “Last time he went level three was my first day at Psy, and I’ve been to less-entertaining open mic nights. He was so loopy, he was saying things that could make me blush. He had Donovan in the back of the car with him while I drove them, and from what I overheard I’m pretty sure he wanted Don to-”
“Garrett, nix it.” Jon barked curtly across the table.
“Sir, yessir!” Garrett instantly replied, giving him a practiced military-grade salute and dutifully falling silent.
Yeah, if I spent every workday around someone who could see all my deepest darkest secrets, I’d refrain from talking smack about him too.
Jim sighed the sigh of a man who realized he was one of few left at a gathering who qualified as a responsible adult. “Donovan, you’d better be driving home tonight.”
Donovan fished a set of car keys out of his pocket and held them up for Jim to see. Okay, so not everyone had lost their focus courtesy of alfredo pasta and pinot noir. “I sure am.”
Jon made a half-hearted grab for the keys to his Humvee, then settled again as Donovan easily held them out of his reach, laughing and stroking Jon's back placatingly when he pouted.
As if this was her cue, Carol pushed her chair back from the table. “On that note, I think it’s time we took Libby back to our place. She’s had a long day, having been saddled with the shenanigans of you lot straight after an early flight and a day of briefings.”
It had indeed been a long day, though one of the most pleasant days I had spent in recent memory, thanks to the people around me.
“It was really good to meet you all,” I said as I got up from the table, putting my crate-footstool down on the seat of my chair so it could be easily found by wait staff without anyone tripping over it. I meant my words from the bottom of my heart. I hadn’t felt this welcomed at any place in a very long time.
“Yeah, be polite for now, you can tell us what you really think of them all when we get home,” Sharon teased as she shrugged her jacket back on and reached for her purse.
Somehow, everyone had wrangled it so I didn’t have to pay a cent for my meal. Tyson had bought me early brunch, and my cousins paid for the light lunch I'd had with them. If this ‘Southern hospitality’ kept up my entire stay, I was going to end up spoiled as a well-fed house cat.
Marcy got up to hug me again, then moved round the table to say goodbye to Garrett and Sho. Everyone began draining glasses and donning jackets as if they meant to head off too.
“Libby,” Tyson said, suddenly standing by my elbow; when last I’d seen him, he’d been on the other side of the table. “Don’t forget to send me that list of supplies you require. If you can shoot it through tonight, I’ll pick up everything I can get on my way to work tomorrow. If there’s anything I can’t get, I’ll see if I can track it down in the next few days, so put whatever you want on the list. Whatever I can’t get locally, we should be able to order in.”
“Make sure you jot down a few diamond rings, a winning lottery ticket, and ten dozen hummingbird muffins,” Sharon jokingly suggested.
“Fine by me,” Tyson deadpanned right back at her. “Libby’s rider is a company expense, so it’s all going to be funded by Jim’s expense card. I’ll just make sure to keep the receipts.”
Jim shot him a warning look that was just as funny as anything he had said out loud.
“I’ll text it through once I get back to the house,” I promised Tyson. I had a pretty standard list of requirements - the same energy drinks and power bars I preferred, all of them popular brands that were fairly easy to source no matter where I was. “Thanks for offering to pick them up. Once I familiarize myself with the city and find out where the nearest supermarket is, I can grab more myself.”
“No problem,” was Tyson’s easy reply. “I’ll definitely pick up snacks for me while I’m at it, so buying myself a few extra candy bars on the company account is hardly an imposition.”
The ease with which he fielded my requests surprised me. While most people I worked with managed to be professional, when I asked some folks if they could source my essential snacks for me in an unfamiliar city, they gave me resentful looks, as if I was a hangry tantrum-throwing toddler demanding sweets.
Before I could get over my surprise in time to thank him again, Tyson shot me a wink, then ambled round the table to say his goodbyes to Jon and Donovan.
Since Sharon and Carol looked ready to leave, I retrieved my shoulder bag and checked I hadn’t forgotten anything, then waved one last goodbye to everyone and followed my cousins out of the restaurant.
An hour later, I was freshly-showered and tucked away in Sharon and Carol’s guestroom.
I hadn’t had time to transfer my clothes from my duffel to the dresser and closet - honestly I tended not to bother to unpack, I was usually here and gone that quickly - so I dug in my bag for a set of warm flannel pyjamas and a pair of thick socks.
I always felt the cold. It was an on-going joke in our family that I was cold-blooded. My cousins quipped that I was one of those lizards that was capable of running on its hind legs so fast it could scurry over the surface of water (I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or flattered by that comparison). I had done numerous tests over the years, but I could never get a definitive answer as to why I got a chill every time I stopped moving. It might be that my psychic ability ‘powered down’ when I was still, the lack of excess energy flow leaving me cold, as if my aura was an internal gas heater that switched off when I wasn’t using it. Maybe my circulation was so efficient, the dip in blood-pressure when I wasn’t engaged in physical movement made me lose body heat at a faster rate.
Whatever the reason, I was grateful for the spare throw blanket my cousins had draped over the foot of the bed, wrapping it round my shoulders as I settled myself against the stack of pillows piled against the headboard.
I eyed my bag speculatively as I burrowed in. I had packed like I usually would for a typical work trip, including a few smart professional outfits for days spent at the office, along with multiple sets of the streamline sweats I wore out in the field. If there were more casual brunches and group dinners in my near future - there likely would be, since everyone at the office seemed more than willing to use my visit as an excuse to eat out together as often as possible - I might need to shop for a few nicer going-out things to wear. Otherwise my new colleague would soon notice that I wore the same few outfits both in conference rooms and out to cafes.
Now that I thought about it, it had been quite some time since I had last bought myself anything to wear for a night on the town. Cally and I had gone out plenty, but both of us were the no-fuss dressed-down types who wore things for comfort rather than style.
The only clothing I really invested in were the high-performance athletic gear I wore for ease of movement when I was running on a trace. Given how much my running shoe brand of choice cost and the rate at which I went through new pairs, it was little wonder that constantly replacing my ‘work clothes’ ate up most of my wardrobe budget.
Making a mental note to ask someone to direct me towards the local mall next time I had a free afternoon, I made myself properly comfy and grabbed my phone from the nightstand.
Before I forgot, I found Tyson in my contacts and shot him my ‘rider’ list. It was so habitual by now, I had a template I could just copy and paste into a new text.
Only a minute after I had hit send and was checking my inbox for unread emails, I was startled by my phone dinging. I had a reply:
Tyson Parata: Got it. Sounds like a tasty list, might have to pick up duplicates for myself P:
I was surprised he had bothered to look at his phone this late, let alone respond, after having to pick me up from the airport so early and fit chaperoning me around his regular work duties. Though I was starting to fade a bit after a long day of travel and a large meal, it seemed polite to shoot a reply in kind.
Me: If you want to try out the best snacks known to man (I have great taste) and put it on my company tab, feel free. You’ll need to get your own tho, I don’t share ;)
Tyson Parata: Fair enough. I know better than to get between an elite athlete and their fuel (u saw at dinner how much a Havili can put away)
Me: If I’m going to be fed like a Havili my entire stay, I’ll need directions to a nearby gym or athletics field. If I weren’t so sluggish with carbs right now, I’d have enough fuel in the tank to run a marathon
Tyson Parata: The Nashville Rock n’ Roll Run isn’t on during your stay :( But there are plenty of cycle ways and running trails in the area if ur interested
Did he mean these running paths would be places where I could get some solo exercise, or was he offering to take me on extra outings outside of work? Deciding I didn’t really mind either way - I was yet to meet anyone who could outrun me, despite many foolhardy souls making a genuine effort and inevitably getting left in my dust - I went for a noncommittal answer.
Me: Sounds good
Tyson Parata: Great :) Let me know when you want to break out ur trail running shoes, I’ll bring snacks
Me: Sounds like a plan
Tyson Parata: Just checked the store website, they have most things on ur list. I’ll pick em up tomorrow before work
Me: I’ll be very happy to see u in the morning then ;)
Tyson Parata: Likewise :D Night, Libby
Me: Good night
I took a moment after sending that last text to stare at my phone screen.
That had been… unlike most phone exchanges I had with colleagues. Sure, if I hit it off with someone I was working with, we’d be cordial towards each other, maybe even joke around a bit. But this was different.
Everyone at Psy already felt almost familiar. Having heard plenty of stories about them from my cousins, this was never going to be ‘just another job’. But I had felt embraced as part of the team from the moment I arrived. Even before my cousins had welcomed me back into the fold, Tyson’s reception at the airport had set me at ease. He’d worked around my need to watch my footing, pulled me off the trace I’d latched onto by pure instinct, asked questions to find out how he could best act as my support during my stay, bantered back and forth with me as if we were already friends.
That text he’d sent about him being happy to see me in the morning… I had jokingly said it because he would be bringing me snacks, but he’d said it right back. Had that been… flirting?
I frantically lurched away from that thought like it was a pothole in the road ahead of me.
I had never been one to flirt, and I certainly wasn’t about to start now. I had shot down anyone who had tried after Cally died, and I avoided the dating scene like the plague. Even if I’d been contemplating finding love again - which I was not, loving and losing once was more than enough heartbreak for my lifetime thank you very much - the way I was constantly on the move meant there was no chance of me forming a relationship with anyone I might be interested in.
And I wasn’t interested in Tyson. The idea was preposterous. I had just met him. I was leaving in two weeks anyway. And no one could ever take Cally’s place.
A knock at the bedroom door offered a welcome distraction. Shoving away my previous thought like the nonsense it was, I hopped off the bed to open it. Sharon was standing behind it.
“Have you seen it yet?” she asked without preamble.
“Seen what?”
“I told you she wouldn’t have yet,” Carol said, popping up over her sister’s shoulder. “Let her take a breather for a few minutes, she’s been on the go all day. I’m sure she hasn’t had a chance to look at social media yet.”
“But she has to see this!” Sharon sidled past me into the room and Carol followed her, rolling her eyes behind her back. “I sent you a link on Instagram,” Sharon went on, snatching up my phone from where I had left it on the bedspread and tapping on the app icon, typing something into the search bar once it opened. “Here, let me show you.”
“Ever heard of ‘personal boundaries’, cuz?” I drawled, more amused than genuinely annoyed.
“Never met her,” Sharon rejoined cheerfully, intent on scrolling through search results.
“She’s heard of it plenty,” Carol muttered from her seat on the bed beside her - why were they both sitting on my guest bed while I was standing? - “but it’s never become more than a fleeting acquaintance.”
“Why would I need to make friends with ‘personal boundaries’ when they would only keep me away from my sister and cuz?” Sharon’s face lit up triumphantly as she found what she was looking for and tapped on it with a flourish. “Here, look!”
My phone was thrust into my hands. I fumbled with it for a moment before I got a proper grip on it and focused on the screen long enough to realize I was looking at...
… a very well-defined set of deltoids, bracketed by bulging biceps and firm-looking triceps. Not overly pumped up to the point of looking inflated, but well-corded and impressive enough for me to feel an involuntary flash of admiration. The owner of these handsome arms was in the middle of executing a textbook pull-up, his head out of the video frame but his toned torso on full display. When he dipped down, engaged muscles controlling his descent and tensing for the next repeat, his face appeared in shot.
I realized I recognized that skin tone, though I certainly hadn’t been treated to the sight of his chest’s complexion when he had picked me up from the airport.
It was Tyson.
Tyson shirtless and lightly dewed with sweat, performing another pull-up with relative ease, made more impressive by the high number on the rep counter in the corner of the screen.
“Not bad, eh?” Sharon asked, with an impish grin. Her question was not rhetoric, paired with an expectant look.
“His form is pretty good,” I said cautiously, aware that my response was being tested and not sure what the correct answer was. “A close grip like that can potentially put unnecessary stress on the brachialis, but he doesn’t look like he’s straining, so it seems to be working for him.”
Sharon was the one rolling her eyes now; apparently I’d failed her test. “Trust you to say something like that. Don’t you reckon he’s your type? You’re both fitness nuts. You both enjoy working out. You have a love of exercise in common. He’s a nice guy, and very easy on the eyes. You’ll be spending lots of time with him at work, so why not take the chance to get to know him a little better outside of work as well?”
Did I say I was happy to see my family again? I took it back. I forgot how much they tended to meddle. It was in Sharon’s nature to take care of everyone, and sometimes she would insist that you needed whatever she suggested for your own good, whether you agreed with her or not. I had just decided before she barged in that I needed a potential romantic partner like I needed another hole in my heart. I had to shut her down fast, unless I wanted to hear more about this. On incessant repeat.
“I’m sure we’ll get along fine as friends,” I said pointedly, hoping she’d take the hint.
Carol was looking at me in that concentrated way that said she was examining my aura. If she couldn’t see the blatant NO! I was shouting with every fibre of my being, her psychic sense was broken.
“I’m sure you and Tyson will get along fine - in whatever capacity that might be.” She gave her sister a not-so-subtle nudge. “We’ll let you get some rest, it’s been a long day. You know where everything is in the kitchen, help yourself to anything there or from the linen cupboard. We don’t have anything planned for early tomorrow, we’ll head to the office at the usual time. We don’t have any big cases that I know of, so you should have a few days to properly settle in. If an emergency crops up, we’ll let you decide whether you want to take it on or not, no obligation to hit the ground running.”
She said that as a considerate hostess, but Carol knew me. She knew without looking at my aura that I would be champing at the bit to prove myself, and more than eager to move. Unless I was well and truly exhausted, I always was. I’d likely be up early enough in the morning to fit in a lap round the neighbourhood before we headed in to work. After sitting on a plane, at a desk, or in a dining chair all day, I had some running to catch up on.
“Thanks, Carol. I have everything I need, I think. See you in the morning.”
“Night, Lib.” After another prod from her sister, Sharon hauled herself off my bed and followed Carol out into the hall. “There’s a spare key on the hook by the front door, if you want to take yourself out on a run when you wake up at the crack of dawn like you always do. There’s a gym within walking distance, or you could ask Tyson to give you a lift over. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to join you for a workout.”
Giving Sharon a half-hearted swat as she darted out of the room with a cackle of laughter, I shut the door behind her and re-entered my blanket-burrow.
The video of Tyson doing pull-ups was still playing on the phone in my hand. After a few more reps, the footage cut to him standing by the pull-up bar, talking through the technical points of the exercise and demonstrating different grips as he listed their pros and cons. Intrigued despite myself, I scrolled through his posts, seeing snippets of what looked like more instruction videos. And, incidentally, more shots of him shirtless, or wearing loose-cut tank tops that still showed off plenty of bare, smooth skin over rippling muscle.
It wasn’t like I had never seen a pair of pulsating pecs before. Sharon had that right: I was a fitness junkie. Ripped gym rats strutting their stuff was all just part of the background scenery to me by now. I was usually focused on my own workout routine, seldom impressed enough to have my attention drawn to anyone else.
But thanks to Sharon, I noticed Tyson. Probably because he wasn’t just flexing. In his pinned post, he stated that he did demos so that people could learn proper techniques to use in their workouts, making the moves accessible and easy to learn for anyone who wanted to start exercising, no matter what level of proficiency they were at. He wasn’t talking down in his videos, wasn’t boasting about how much he could lift or shaming anyone who wasn’t at his level. I liked that he was motivated to give out tips not out of an egotistical need to be ‘correct’ or get attention, but by an apparently genuine desire to help others and share the enjoyment he found in movement.
That was something we both had in common.
I wasn’t a fan of Sharon’s implications, though. I knew she meant well, just wanted me to have a little fun with someone whose company I was likely to enjoy. And I would enjoy Tyson’s company, already did. As nothing more than friends.
My love life was already over, and platonic connections were all I had to offer post-Cally. Perhaps Tyson and I would hit it off. But I’d be leaving in a few weeks anyway, so it was pointless to foster anything more than a casual friendship.
I had to admit, though… he did have some very nice obliques.
Chapter Text
Chapter Six
Tyson
With a travel mug in each hand, I hooked one finger under the handle of the fridge door and managed to pull it open.
Yep, all these muscles were functional, even the ones in my right pinkie.
I stashed the mug in my left hand inside the fridge, checked I hadn’t accidentally gotten them mixed up - the one in my right was already half-empty - and took a long sip.
Ah, nothing like sweet, nutritional goodness to start the day. Copious amounts of caffeine would pull me out of a mid-afternoon slump later on, but I liked to start off feeling virtuous and well-nourished.
I sure hoped Libby did too.
Since she and her cousins weren’t in yet, I left the break room and headed for Donovan’s office. I had forgotten to ask him about his cousin’s book. If he was in, I would do it now before I forgot again. Last night at dinner he had looked too busy wrangling a tipsy Jon for me to ask.
Speak of the devil, when I stuck my head in the office door and knocked against the frame, there was no Donovan, but Jon was there. He was slumped slightly in his seat, looking a little morose, but otherwise much the same as usual.
“Morning, Jon,” I greeted him. “How are you today?”
Jon’s eyes passed over me, seeing the question that I wasn’t asking in my lines (as I knew he would). “Morning, Ty. I’m fine, not really hungover. Just waiting on my coffee.”
Ah, that made sense. Jon was seldom a grouch, but he skated pretty close to grumpy when he hadn’t had his full caffeine fix. This was compounded by the fact that he was absolutely not allowed within a five foot radius of the office coffee machine. The time he had attempted to use it and accidentally given it the touch of death, I think he was more upset with himself than the rest of us were. He had paid for a replacement, despite Jim assuring him the work account could cover it, and had exiled himself from the break room ever since. He used to buy or bring a second cup from home, but now he had Donovan, his anchor usually got it for him, saving him having to dodge a technological obstacle course first thing in the morning. Since I hadn’t seen Donovan in the break room, he must be out on a Starbucks run.
“That’s good. You were throwing back a fair bit of wine last night.”
Jon rubbed his neck sheepishly, his pale Irish skin tinting slightly pink. “It was a long week. We finally got word from Borrowman yesterday that they charged the man behind the building attack with attempted arson. It was nice to wrap up a tricky case, so I decided to cut loose a little, and Donovan agreed to be designated driver. It just happened to coincide with Libby’s welcome party.” He leaned forward in his chair a bit, the better to see my lines. “How’s it going, partnering with Libby?”
My detect-y sense was tingling. I suspected that the question was meant to divert my attention from the things Jon had said last night while under the influence. Jon was always friendly, but usually a bit more reserved and less prone to overshare than he had been in vino veritas. I could tell the witness was evading my line of enquiry, but since I am a nice guy, I gave him a free pass rather than teasing him about it, and let him change the subject.
“It’s still early on, but I think we’ll be okay. I picked up the snacks and energy drinks she requested on my way in this morning. Sho said he’d be here first thing to run us both through the comms we’ll be using when we go out in the field. Not sure when that will be, since I wrapped up all my cases except for the final paperwork, and I cleared my schedule this week so I could spend the time getting Libby settled in. Likely we’ll have something for her to do sooner rather than later - Jim intends to make the most of her visit - but there’s nothing on the docket so far. We get along pretty well already and she’s talked me through what she needs from me, so we seem to be all set.”
“That’s good.” Jon nodded in approval at my answer, but then he got that look on his face that I recognized. That I-know-something-you-don’t-and-am-not-sure-if-I-should-say-anything look. I’d seen it on his face often enough for my instincts to perk up.
“What’s on your mind, Jon? You can tell me if you want, it will stay strictly between us.”
Jon vacillated a moment more, then said slowly, “Just… be careful with Libby, okay? You know what she went through with her late anchor?”
“Oh, yeah, I know.” Sharon and Carol had taken me aside when I had been assigned as Libby’s temporary work partner. Though most of the discussion had been about Libby’s requirements in a work capacity, they had briefed me on what had happened with her former anchor and spouse, the fatal accident that had taken her life and how Libby was still dealing with the fallout. I realized what they had meant at the airport, when Libby had abruptly stopped talking as soon as she mentioned anchoring. I had seen enough grieving people in my line of work to know I should tread very carefully around the issue and avoid putting my foot in my mouth.
Jon looked relieved. “It’s good that you’re aware. Sharon and Carol helped Libby immediately after the accident. Libby had to break the anchor bond before they turned off life support. Carol assisted her through the process.”
Ouch. I had heard that Carol had advised Jon’s mother Lauren when she severed her anchor bond with her douchebag ex-husband. That explained why. Jon and Donovan had taken personal leave in the middle of the Sevierville case to help Lauren through the aftermath of severing the bond. Alani, who would later become Lauren’s new anchor along with her husband Kanye, had turned up at work for a week after with food parcels for Donovan and Jon to pass along to Lauren (plus she had brought food for the rest of the office, which we all very much appreciated). I had seen Lauren at a few gatherings since her divorce was finalized. I couldn’t help but notice that though she appeared to be coping, to my trained eye she had still looked a little ragged and despondent.
Come to think of it, she had looked a bit like Libby had looked outside the airport yesterday: lost and directionless.
Lauren had been visibly affected by the bond-severing, and that was with a man whom she had come to despise. I couldn’t imagine how it felt to break a bond with a loved one who was terminally ill. No wonder Sharon and Carol had been very sombre when they discussed it with me, and moved on to the next topic quickly.
As I came out of my thoughts, I saw that Jon looked just as pained as I felt by the idea. He and Donovan were one of the closest couples I had ever seen; they made Hallmark movies look prosaic compared to their epic star-crossed love. I knew he was thinking about what it would be like for him to lose Donovan in a similar way, and the mere notion devastated him.
Smiling slightly - probably at my visible concern for him - Jon confided, voice lowering, “You really need to treat Libby with kid gloves. Not obviously coddling her, but… with consideration. Being here is difficult for her. Her wife was good friends with her cousins, so seeing Sharon and Carol again for the first time since the funeral is dredging up all kinds of memories. And being in the presence of a happy couple is practically torturous for her. Her lines had a tinge of envy when she watched Garrett and Sho together, but because Donovan and I are also a psychic and anchor, just like she and her wife were… seeing us reminds her of what she lost, causing a lot of suppressed pain to rise close to the surface.”
Christ. Jon’s revelation alarmed me. The last thing I wanted was for Libby to be in a constant state of anguish while she was here. I hadn’t noticed anything off about her while she was at the office yesterday or at dinner last night. Even if she had the world’s best poker face, it would have still been obvious to Jon’s sight, especially if the feelings were as strong as he described.
“What should I do about it? Try to avoid you and Donovan with her when we’re all in the building?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Jon drummed his fingers against the surface of his desk, pondering. “She’s trying hard to lock her emotions down and not give away what she’s feeling around me, pointless though that is.” We shared a wry look over that. Psy’s reputation was mostly built on Jon’s eyes, which could see everything. “I don’t want to draw attention to the fact that I can see how she feels by actively dodging her. Just… be mindful, and try not to say anything that might prompt her to relive past trauma. I know that’s a difficult ask when you can’t possibly predict what might trigger it, so just do your best to be tactful around her. I know you’re good with people-”
I gave an involuntary snort at that. Sometimes I was too good with people. Back when I was with the PD, I used to get drafted into breaking tragic news to families because I was good at being ‘sympathetic’. It had been rough on me, seeing distraught folks mourning loved ones lost to homicide, traffic accident, or some other tragedy. Having to be the bearer of bad news on a near-daily basis, experiencing the bereavement of people I keenly empathised with, was just another thing I didn’t miss about being on the force.
“-so I know you’ll do fine,” Jon finished with a smile, likely gleaning what my reaction to his words had meant. “Maybe take her out for some distraction when you have down time, show her the local hiking trails or something.”
“I already offered that,” I admitted. “She wanted to know where she could go running round here, I promised to show her the best spots. Might take her out to Mossy Ridge Trail this weekend if she doesn’t have any other plans.”
Harpeth Wood Trail was also an option, but it tended to be a bit busier. Libby would probably prefer a place with less foot traffic; the last thing she’d want after a long work week spent chasing petty criminals was to follow the trace of a stressed parent juggling five kids, their bikes, and a hyperactive dog. There were some hilly sections on Mossy Ridge, hence why it was less-frequented than the easier paths, but Libby would probably like the challenge. I could just picture her, sprinting through the hardwood trees with that sleek ponytail streaming behind her, steady pace easily eating up the incline. It had rained a bit last the week, but the ground should have dried out enough that it wouldn’t be too muddy, and with luck there would be plenty of flow going over the pretty little waterfall surrounded by wildflowers partway along the trail. I could take a backpack with water and snacks, let her set the pace for an hour or so, find a spot to have a picnic at the top of the hill, put down a blanket so Libby could have some time to take in the peace and quiet…
I zoned back in to find Jon watching me speculatively. What all from my thoughts had shown up in my aura for me to earn that look from him?
“What?” I asked, since he was continuing to stare at me like a prime specimen.
“Nothing,” Jon said, in that infuriating tone that said it was something, but he wasn’t about to share with the class, damn him. “Just… I think you and Libby will get on well together.”
“Um… okay…”
Mr All-Seeing Psychic was giving me weird vibes. Surely he could see that I was no serial killer who would take a woman out to a remote wooded area for nefarious purposes? The way he eyed me significantly seemed to suggest that I had ulterior motives for taking Libby out hiking, when my own mind was a complete blank, aside from the possibility of seeing some woodpeckers flitting about and snowdrops coming out in bloom. Was sharing the wonders of nature with a colleague some kind of social faux pas?
“Oh, hey Tyson,” Donovan said, his built frame filling up the doorway. “You on duty with Libby today?”
He had a grande-sized takeaway cup in hand. Jon took one look at it and lit up, making pleading little ‘gimme’ gestures with both hands. Donovan chuckled fondly and sidestepped me to pass his boyfriend his coffee.
“Hi, Donovan,” I said, pitching my voice louder over Jon’s sigh of contentment as he slurped up his Starbucks order. Caffeine addict. “Yeah, I’m shadowing Libby today. That’s what I came to ask you about, actually. I mentioned your cousin’s book to her, and…”
Five minutes later, I had gotten Donovan to promise to ask his cousin if he was interested in interviewing Libby for his upcoming book. Donovan seemed to think that Alan would be thrilled to have another subject for his study into the investigative processes of professional psychics. Personally, I was pretty sure he would be, too. I thought Libby’s ability was fascinating, so I could well believe that Alan’s readers would want to know all about it.
I was just leaving Donovan and Jon’s office when I heard voices coming down the hall from the direction of the meditation room. Moving quickly, I nipped into the break room, coming back out again just as Carol, Sharon and Libby passed by.
“Morning, Ty!” Sharon greeted to me. “Are you ready to be released into Libby’s tender mercies?”
“Shouldn’t that be the other way round, since I’m the one who will be putting her to work?” I asked, matching her deadpan humour.
“I can assure you that you won’t be the harsh taskmaster in this partnership. Libby has a reputation for out-pacing anyone who is foolish enough to try to keep up with her.”
Libby didn’t say anything, but her eyes flashed from Sharon to me. She appeared to size me up head to toe with a glance, then lifted her chin, the toss of her head suggesting an unspoken challenge.
Oh, it was on.
“Just as well I’m fuelled up on protein this morning,” I declared, meeting Libby’s gaze steadily. I was no slouch in the fitness department - I even had my own Instagram account that shared basic workout tips - and while I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I could keep up with Libby, I’d give it my best shot. Even if she left me far behind, at least I’d know that I had been outclassed by the best. “Speaking of protein, this is for you, Libby.”
I passed the second travel mug, which I had just taken back out of the fridge, over to Libby. She took it, giving it a quizzical look.
“What’s in it?”
“Magic beans and Madagascan vanilla,” I quipped, making all the girls laugh. “Try it and tell me what you think.”
With a shrug, Libby took a small sip from the cup. Her eyes widened in a gratifying way.
“That is damn magical!” she declared, taking another, longer drink.
“Glad you like.” I took a gulp from my own mug, smacking my lips in satisfaction. You had to put the good stuff in to get the good out, and this protein drink recipe was my go-to for both optimum performance and yummy taste.
“Wow, Tyson is sharing his secret brew with you,” Sharon said, looking back and forth between me and Libby in a calculating way that reminded me disturbingly of Jon. “He must really like you!”
“Just making sure we start off at the same mark,” I retorted. “I’d hate for anyone to claim I had an advantage. If Libby and I both have the same fuel, it’s only fair.”
“It will take more than a fancy drink to give you a head start over me, Parata,” Libby declared, eying me like a cheetah that was about to take off running after prey.
“I wouldn’t want anything other than an even playing field, Palmer,” I shot back, enjoying the byplay.
I gestured at Libby to follow me as Carol and Sharon went into the break room, starting their morning routine of making tea before Carol’s first reading. Since Libby and I had all the fuel we’d need to start the work day right, we should head to Sho’s office so he could get her fitted out with all the necessary tech before our first case. And maybe some unnecessary tech as well, because Garrett had been right last night: secret agent gadgets were cool as hell.
“Seriously, Tyson, this is delicious.” Libby saluted me with her cup. “If you ever want to start a protein-shake stand, you would never lack for customers. What’s in this ‘magic brew’ of yours?”
“Stardust and spirulina,” I teased, prompting her to whack me lightly on the arm as I chuckled. “The blue spirulina does give it a fun colour, along with blueberries, cherry pieces and-”
“Attention, everyone!”
We had no sooner reached the main office area when Jim’s voice rang out. He waited until Carol and Sharon came out of the break room clutching tea mugs, Donovan and Jon emerged from their office, and Garret and Sho appeared near reception.
“We have a case,” Jim announced gravely, “and this one is all hands on deck. That includes you, Ms. Palmer,” he added, facing Libby squarely. “From the intel I’ve got so far, this might well require your tracking ability.”
Libby regarded him silently for a moment, then took a long swig of her protein smoothie.
“Well,” she said, “I should probably go change into my work clothes.”
Half an hour later, I was very glad that I was driving. If I hadn’t had to watch the road, I would have had a lot of trouble keeping my gaze pointing forward.
Libby was in the passenger seat. She had changed into what she called her ‘work clothes’: a pair of sleek athletic leggings and a close-fitting pullover. Both were made from some shiny, expensive-looking material that was, Libby informed me, specially ventilated and moisture-wicking.
Thankfully, she seemed to interpret my sideways looks as curiosity about her gear. In actual fact, I could barely take my eyes off her.
The tailored pants and crisply-cut jackets I had seen her in previously had accentuated her figure, but not shown of her physique as blatantly as the sweats were doing. Everything about her looked long, lean and toned. The leggings were knee-length, baring the sinuous curves of her powerful calves. I doubted there was so much as an ounce of fat on her thighs. Her glutes… yeah, my scrutiny of her glutes was probably slightly indecent before I caught myself and wrenched my gaze elsewhere. Her torso was slim, the clinging fabric hinting at the contours of washboard abs. The swell of her bust was small, probably compressed by a top-of-the-line sports bra, the straps of which peeked out the neck of her sweatshirt. Her collarbones looked fragile compared to the strong sweep of her shoulders. She was obviously a runner rather than a weightlifter, with most of her strength in her legs, but the smooth fit of the full sleeves suggested more than enough muscle for her to easily lug her own bags in and out of airports. I wondered if she did pull-ups, and what kind of grip she used…
“What’s our case?”
Libby’s question snapped me back to the present. Right, case. Be professional and stop drooling, you idiot. The woman sitting next to you is not a fitness geek’s thirst trap, despite appearances. She is a psychic investigator and elite-level tracker, as well as your colleagues’ cousin and a widowed woman. Imagining how those damn thighs might feel tightly clamped around my hips was the very last thing I should be doing.
“Missing persons,” I said, clearing my throat and hoping to god my voice didn’t come out husky. Such a shame I had finished my protein smoothie before Libby emerged in her work clothes and my mouth went dry.
I snapped into work mode as best I could. I had read the copy of the intake form that Jim had handed out while Libby was getting ready, having changed into my own set of sweats in record time. Thank goodness I had a cop’s quick retention of the facts, otherwise all thoughts except how those leggings clung to her ass would have been knocked clean out of my head.
“Four women went missing from a holiday resort in Old Hickory. The suburb is out east, used to be industrial, mostly made up of residences for workers at the DuPont rayon plant. Since the factory scaled back operations, the area has been gentrifying. The resort is situated close to a golf course, wineries, and a trampoline adventure park.”
I glimpsed Libby’s raised eyebrow out of the corner of my eye. “Is that what you Tennesseans do for fun?”
“Bounce around eighteen holes while swigging chardonnay? That’s the Southern way.” I did my best impersonation of Jon’s signature drawl. More than seven years out here, and I still wrung every last vowel out of my words like a true West Coaster. Still, it was a close enough approximation to make Libby laugh.
“So, four women missing. What’s the time frame?”
“Six weeks. For the first two, the cops were notified when their abandoned belongs were found still in their rooms, which had been paid for in advance, but there was no record of them ever checking out. The family of the third reported their daughter missing when she failed to return to work after her vacation. Her luggage was gone and her signature on the guestbook as having checked out, but she was unreachable to family and hasn’t been sighted since. The fourth was reported missing by her brother after he went three days without hearing from her. In every instance, there was no solid proof of foul play and no indication that the women left against their own volition, until a fifth woman went missing.”
“Oh? Something unusual about the fifth?”
“This time it wasn’t a guest at the resort, but a local woman. Her sister called it in when she failed to turn up for their planned lunch date yesterday, phone kept going straight to voicemail.”
“A break in the pattern,” Libby said thoughtfully. “But still another woman missing within the same area. That number is too high to be coincidental.”
I nodded in agreement. “One of our first tasks will be determining if all the disappearances, or any, are related to one another. But if someone is targeting women around the vicinity of the resort, the probability of them nabbing mostly guests is high. Could be that they were targeted for a reason other than where they were vacationing. Nashville PD pulled us in fast because the last woman, Cynthia Kincade, was only officially declared missing this morning. They want us in on it as early as possible, to increase the chance that she’ll be found alive.”
“Makes sense.” I was sure Libby had worked plenty of cases similar to this in her time. “It’s not certain, then, whether I’ll be able to trace any of the women with my ability. Even if I pick up a trace from one of them - and the chances I'll be able too after six weeks is pretty slim, the more recent traces I might have more luck - I’ll only be able to follow the trace so long as the person moved under their own steam and had awareness of where they were. If they were rendered unconscious at any stage, their trace will end at that point. I might then be able to switch to tracing the assailant instead, if there is indeed an assailant in this case.”
“Good to know.” I hadn’t known that Libby could only follow a trace while the person it belonged to was still conscious and moving independently. “Do you have a limit on how many tracings you can perform in a single day?”
“Not really. As long as I’m not so exhausted that I can’t move, I can keep going. Carol could probably perform readings for each woman using their names and any personal items they left behind, but she’s only good for four or five before her psyche starts to feel the strain. Because my ability shares the load across both my psyche and physical body, I can keep going for longer. One of the perks of being a Kinetic Tracer is better-than-average stamina.”
“Huh, that’s… good. Impressive.” Now my voice sounded strangled instead of husky. If my brain didn’t get out of the gutter soon, I was going to throttle it down there.
“Speaking of impressive,” Libby said, in a teasing tone that made my heartrate jump, “last night Sharon showed me an Instagram account that she was sure I would be interested in following.”
Ah. I probably should have expected that. “She showed you my Instagram account? The traitor.”
“Why? It’s a public account, and she wasn’t wrong. I did find it very interesting.”
This was embarrassing. If I hadn’t been driving, I would’ve been tempted to pop the door of my SUV and bail out of this conversation. “I’m an amateur compared to you, though. The walk-throughs I do must look like child’s play to you.”
“That’s why I like them. You turn each exercise into a basic set of steps that is clear and easy to follow. You don’t talk down to your audience, whatever level they’re at. You don’t just show off for the attention, you want to get people involved and help them get moving. You’re great at giving clear instructions and motivating people. You’d make a very good personal trainer.”
Was I blushing? Sure felt like I was blushing; both because Libby had praised me so sincerely, and because I was just now remembering how many of my videos showed me shirtless. “I’ve actually offered to talk some people through their workouts over webchat. A few folks asked me questions in the comments, and I didn’t want them to hurt themselves if they tried to follow what I filmed but didn’t get it quite spot on, especially since they were at beginner level and hadn’t ever used gym equipment before. Plus I volunteer at Donovan’s self-defence class sometimes, then hit the gym with whoever wants to stay on to learn how to use the different machines and stations. Kids treat it like a playground, but they could easily get hurt if they don’t have proper instruction. I did consider doing a personal training course back when I was with the police, before I switched to Psy.”
“Is that still your backup plan?”
“Oh, yeah. Once I get sick of chasing crooks, I’ll hit the treadmill.”
Libby laughed again. I loved coaxing that sound out of her.
I took a break from talking and focused on driving as I turned off Lebanon Pike onto Old Hickory Blvd.
“There’s the trampolines.” I pointed at a sign half-obscured by a gas station that read ‘Urban Air Adventure Park’.
“What are the chances that our missing women went golfing together, had a drink at the nearest winery afterwards, and are still sleeping off their over-indulgence on one of the trampolines?”
“Unfortunately low, though that would make for a fun investigation.”
Pretty much every cop I knew had some form of gallows humour. Going to work each day knowing that we would be constantly reminded that horrible things happened to innocent people could take its toll. Sometimes you just had to joke a bit to take the edge off. I was glad Libby was on board with that. Civilians would look at you sideways when the only way for you to get through a multi-car pileup with your sanity intact was to make a stupid joke about the traffic.
The gable-front houses along the boulevard gave way to a stretch of greenery. We passed a winery, a row of stores, and more suburban streets. I turned down one, following it until a gap between properties brought the Cumberland River briefly into view.
“The resort backs on to the river bank,” I explained, as the water disappeared again behind more houses.
“So there’s a possibility that the water police will be involved?”
It was never a good day when we had to call on river patrol to dredge waterways for possible body dumping sites. “We might do, unless you got one of those water-proof monitors Sho was flogging. I’m sure we could find a pair of fins for you to wear instead of those fancy trainers.”
Libby hit me on the arm - only lightly, I was driving - and raised one foot off the floor so I could more easily see it past the gearshift. “The amount I paid for these trainers, they should allow me to walk on water.”
I admired what was without doubt the most sophisticated running shoe I had ever seen. “Biblical price tag?”
“Not quite, but close. There’s a celebrity-endorsed limited-edition variant that make these look like name-brand sneakers. I’ve been telling Sharon and Carol for years that I wouldn’t mind a pair for my birthday, but they still haven’t taken the hint.”
“How dare they refuse to mortgage their house in order to buy you special shoes,” I said in a scandalized tone, making Libby crack up.
She was funny, feisty, and just as into fitness as I was - practically my ideal woman. It was kind of a shame she was securely off-limits.
That, and the last time I had tried to seriously date, I had gotten burned so badly by 'love' that I had sworn off getting involved with anyone who would only leave me eventually. Since Libby was only in Nashville til the end of next week, she fell very firmly into that category.
Notes:
Thank you Google Maps and All Trails website for letting me research Nashville locations without having to hop on a 19 hour flight. I apologize to any Tennesseans reading this for liberties I took with Nashville's geography and any other inaccuracies I might have committed.
Chapter 7: Chapter Seven: Libby
Chapter Text
Chapter Seven
Libby
The scenery along the road we followed changed from rows of houses to groves of trees, then terminated in a cul-de-sac. At the end, a set of security gates stood open, with a large sign that read ‘Riverside Lodge’ next to it. The short driveway took us to a parking lot beside a low, sprawling building, the frontage covered with panels of rough-hewn logs to create that ‘rustic’ effect (a bit contradictory, given we were barely twenty minutes out from the city centre of Nashville).
Jon’s car was already taking up two car spaces near the entrance. As we pulled in beside it, I spotted Sho waving to us from the passenger seat of what must have been Garrett’s truck. I noticed that they parked a row over from Jon’s vehicle, which was probably a safe precaution for them to take, if Sho was bringing over a load of electronic gear.
I assumed that one of the other cars in this row belonged to Jim, since he had given Sharon and Carol a ride over. Jim, my cousins, Jon, and Donovan were standing in front of the entrance to the lodge, talking to a man I didn’t recognize.
“Do you want your coat, Libby?” Tyson asked me.
I had tossed my jacket and go-bag on the backseat before we left Psy. I was dressed ready for action, but I should probably put my jacket on over my athletic clothes. If we were going to talk to witnesses, it was a good idea to try to still appear somewhat smart and official. I had found from tiresome experience that people took me less seriously as an investigator when my clothes gave them the impression I had stopped by on my way to the gym.
“Yes thanks, I’ll wear it until I need to start running.”
Just the thought of getting to run soon had me wanting to prance on the spot like a thoroughbred who knew she was about to be led to the starting gates at the Kentucky Derby. As I heard Tyson slam the door shut and his shoes crunch on gravel as he came round the car, I bent down to prop my hands on my right knee and flexed my foot back, then did the same on the left side. Stretching helped settle my excess energy, and got me limber ready for when I did start moving.
I straightened up and turned to take my jacket from Tyson. He was standing behind me, making no attempt to hand it over. His eyes were trained significantly lower than my face.
Had he just been… checking out my ass?
I turned fully around and reached for my sport coat. “Thanks, Tyson.”
Tyson’s gaze snapped upward and he jerked in surprise, like he had just broken out of a trance. He glanced away, looked me in the face with deliberation, then glanced away again rapidly. Was he blushing? I was pretty sure his face was flushed slightly. He was trying to act nonchalant but failing miserably, shuffling on the spot like a kid who’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Cute.
“No problem.” He cleared his throat, turned abruptly on his heel, and waved at me over his shoulder to follow him without looking at me again.
I followed after him, unable to contain my smirk. I knew what I looked like, a lot had gone into honing my body to its current condition - being in good shape was basically a bi-product of my profession - so this was far from the first time I had caught somebody staring appreciatively at me. More often than not, the unwanted attention creeped me out. But Tyson wasn’t a typical leering alpha male. The fact he caught himself and was trying to be respectful made his reaction all the more gratifying.
Since fair was fair, I allowed my gaze to drop as I walked behind him. His joggers fit him very well.
Tyson only got a few paces before he froze and half-turned back toward me. “You’re not on my trace right now… are you?”
“No, I’m not,” I answered breezily. “Why, should I b-”
“No! No,” Tyson all but shouted, then modulated his tone, going back to failing at acting casual. “I mean, if you need to at any point in the investigation you can, I just…”
I pretended to be serious for a second. “I wouldn’t intentionally step on your trace without your permission. I respect your privacy. Just like you were very respectfully looking at m-”
“Okay! Sorry, I should have been more professional than that.” Tyson threw both hands in the air, still refusing to look at me properly. Wow, his neck was turning red now too. “Can we just… pretend that never happened, if I promise to keep my eyes to myself from now on?”
“Sure.” Much as the incident tickled my humour, it wasn’t like I wanted to prolong it. I sure as hell didn’t want my cousins to get wind of this, it would just start Sharon completely on the wrong track again.
With a visible sigh of relief that failed to completely undo the tension in his shoulders, Tyson stalked off again with me following, taking care to walk a half-foot to the left of him so I didn’t end up on his trace. I really did intend to give him his privacy. I’d long ago learned the necessity of not putting my feet where they didn’t belong.
As we approached, Jon glanced our way, then did a double-take. His all-seeing eyes flitted from Tyson, to me, and back again, then his face split into a shit-eating grin that likely mirrored my own.
With his hand low near his hip, Tyson extended his middle finger, aiming the gesture at Jon and covering it by casually folding his arms across his chest. This made both Jon and I chortle, then hastily smother our laughter as the others looked at us curiously. I shot Jon a wink, to let him know I wasn’t offended by Tyson’s perusal of my assets - though he likely read that clearly from my aura - making him wink cheekily right back.
Sharon and Carol nudged each other, doing that twin-telepathy thing where they seemed to be having a private conversation between themselves, but otherwise didn’t comment. Jim didn’t react at all, but Donovan and the man next to him looked on with baffled expressions, their confusion just making the whole thing even funnier.
I really had to make friends with more psychics; this whole situation was fun as hell.
“Ms. Palmer, come on over,” Jim said, breaking through the jovial atmosphere with his business-like tone. “I’d like to introduce you to a close associate of Psy.”
As Tyson and I drew nearer, I made the unknown man as a cop. His well-worn but presentable and practical trench coat, the set of his shoulders that suggested he wore a holster beneath it, and the pronounced circles under his eyes all suggested as much.
“Liberty Palmer, this is Detective Harry Borrowman. He’s a long-time collaborator of ours, and the lead investigator on this case.”
Yup. What can I say, I’m psychic; I can read things without even having to step on a trace.
“This is Libby Palmer,” Jim said, as I took Borrowman’s outstretched hand to shake. “She is Sharon and Carol’s cousin, and a visiting psychic who will be working with us for the next few weeks.”
At the word ‘psychic’, Borrowman’s hand abruptly stopped mid-shake. Uh oh, don’t tell me this was some kind of anti-psychic bigot? I had met more than enough of those, though given he regularly worked with Jon and my cousins, I wouldn’t have thought he would be like that.
“Psychic?” Borrowman repeated in a pleasant baritone. “Should I be concerned for the safety of my watch and my phone?”
At his words, Jon gave an audible huff, though I noticed he stood a safe distance away from the detective, with Donovan between them as a human buffer. Borrowman pointedly ignored him. Evidently he was familiar enough with Jon to tease the way a friend would, so he must be good people. Everyone sure liked to give Jon a heap about the consequence of his ability though, didn’t they? Since everyone liked to comment on my level of fitness, I got what that was like.
“Your electronics aren’t in danger from me, Detective,” I assured him, likewise pretending I didn’t see Jon’s pout out of the corner of my eye. “I’m a different kind of psychic to Jon and Carol. I’m a Kinetic Tracer.” Since Borrowman looked blank at that, I explained, “I can stand on someone’s ‘trace’ and track their whereabouts while getting impressions of the actions they took and what they experienced while they were on that spot.”
Borrowman gave a silent whistle. “That sounds mighty handy, and could be useful on this case. If you’re a professional investigative psychic and specialize in tracking, you know how time-sensitive these cases can be.”
I did know. And something about what he said tickled my memory, reminded me of a case I had read about in an article my cousins had sent me. “Aren’t you the one who caught the ‘Bouquet Killer’?”
Borrowman looked slightly abashed, clearly surprised and flattered that I recognized his name from the report. From what I remembered of the article, he had caught the guy who had killed several women after cyber-stalking them and leaving bunches of roses on their doorsteps. I was glad someone had put that sicko away before anyone else could become his victim.
“I just oversaw the case and conducted the interview that got his confession,” Borrowman insisted, looking meaningfully across at my cousin, Jon and Sho, who had just walked up with Garrett while we spoke. “Carol, Jon and Sho did all the real work.”
“Don’t believe that,” Jon interjected. “That interrogation was a masterpiece. He went all Mephistophelian and prompted me to spill the guy’s secrets over the intercom, cowing him into a full confession.” He sighed happily at the memory. “Between us, we put genuine fear into him. I’d never felt so intimidating in my life.”
Borrowman, Donovan, Tyson and Garrett all snorted at that, so there was obviously an in-joke there. Though I almost pitied the crook who underestimated Jon. Between his sight and his krav maga moves, he could hold his own. That, and he was surrounded by people who were more than ready to throw down on his behalf. If he couldn’t intimidate someone himself, he could always outsource the task to Donovan, who was more than capable.
We gave Borrowman a quick rundown on how my ability worked, and I got his permission to step on his trace, for elimination purposes when we worked the scene together. The guy was dedicated to his job, genuinely caring about making a difference to the community, as well as being very good at what he did. But he was run nearly ragged by both his professional duties and his busy home life; despite the grueling hours he worked, he also made an effort to be fully present in his kids' lives. The shadows beneath his eyes made a lot of sense. Despite my higher-than-average energy levels, standing on his trace made even me feel tired.
Once I was done, the detective turned to Jim. “How do you want to do this? We have an interview with a key witness queued up, and I’ve been assured we have use of the resort’s conference room. How many people do you want in on it?”
Jim considered a moment. “I’d like Jon with you for the interview, that’s his specialty after all. I’d prefer to have Libby present as well, since she’ll probably be primarily responsible for determining the whereabouts of our victims, and might have questions relating to that to put to our witness. The rest of us can watch over the recording. Sho has all the usual equipment, and you said there was a backroom where we could set up a screen to watch the feed?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Sounds like a solid plan, I approve of all that. Let’s go in and get situated.”
Sho, Garrett, Carol and Sharon headed back towards the parking lot - likely to gather the equipment they would need for recording and readings, respectively - while the rest of us followed Borrowman towards the entrance to the lodge.
Though Jim had just named Jon as an agent he wanted at the interview, Donovan prowled along at his side, as if it was a given that wherever his psychic went, he went (which was likely true). I also had Tyson shadowing me, his presence at my elbow strangely reassuring.
I had forgotten what it was like, knowing I had an anchor to watch my back on the site of an active investigation.
Before my thoughts could stray down memory lane and go all maudlin, I snapped myself into professional mode, keeping my mind firmly focused on the present.
I had missing women to find.
Sho and Garrett set up the recording equipment in no time. The easy way they unfurled cables and danced around each other within a confined space demonstrated that they had done all this before many times over.
Donovan stayed firmly planted at Jon’s side, making sure his psychic didn’t accidentally get too close to anything electrical. I had to hand it to Donovan, rarely had I ever seen an anchor so meticulously alert and dedicated to his job. A lot of anchors I saw were far more lax, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some psychics didn’t really require that much support, except in extreme circumstances. Carol was perfectly capable of doing readings without her anchor hovering, hence why Sharon had her own role in legal and accounting at Psy. But Jon was a special case. I couldn’t imagine how exhausting it must be for him, having to constantly monitor his surroundings and dodge electronics. The way Donovan shielded him for potential pitfalls like it was second nature must make life so much easier for him.
I now understood why the FBI agents I had worked with a few months ago had joked that every field agent should have their own Havili.
Like Donovan stuck to Jon, Tyson was likewise sticking to me. So far that just meant sitting in the seat beside me at the long conference table. It wasn’t like I needed anything from him right now, likely I wouldn’t until we were out following a trace. But it was still nice to have him with me. And I was sure he was far happier to be here in the actual room, rather than watching the live feed over the screen and speakers set up in the cramped storeroom-cum-back-office like everyone else was.
Our interviewee was Andrea Willis, a front desk receptionist at Riverside Lodge. She was a Caucasian woman of average height and medium build with a fairly light complexion, dark hair neatly pulled up in a bun, manicured nails painted a deep shade of royal-blue, sapphire studs in each ear, and a thin gold chain peeking out of the collar of her crisp teal polo shirt with the resort’s logo insignia embroidered over the breast pocket. She looked calm and composed for now, but she was watching us set up with a certain amount of wariness in her gaze. Which was not exactly unusual for someone about to be questioned by a team of investigators.
Once said investigators had all dutifully recited their license numbers for the camera one by one, like a bunch of kids at a numerical spelling bee, Borrowman took the reins.
“Thank you for speaking with us today, Ms. Willis.”
“Of course.” She gave a smile, turning her head so it was aimed politely at each of us in turn; it looked only slightly forced. “I want the missing women to be found, so anything I can do to help. And please, call me Andi.”
There didn’t appear to be anything initially distrustful or suspicious about our witness. I glanced across the table at Jon, wondering if he was picking up anything yet. I probably could have stepped on Andi’s trace in order to pick up any dishonesty or evasion during her interview - it’s what I would have done if I had been the only psychic on the case - but since Jon was in the room and he was the master at this, I deferred to him. I assumed that if he couldn’t tip the rest of us off during the interview itself, he would tell us what all he saw afterwards. Getting to see a psychic of Jon’s calibre in action was a rare treat; investigation and missing persons aside, I was feeling quite privileged to be witnessing this.
“Well then, Andi,” Borrowman said, getting right into his questioning, “when did you notice that women staying at the resort were disappearing?”
“Not for a long while, which is embarrassing to admit. It’s actually not that unusual for us to find luggage abandoned in rooms. You’d be surprised the number of people who purchase new items while they’re on vacation, then leave their old things behind, figuring we can dispose of it for them. Or they make plans to leave the city for the next stop on their trip, and race off without their stuff in their excitement. People can be a bit scatterbrained when they travel. It’s amazing how many mothers check over and over to make sure all their kids haven’t forgotten anything, then leave their own bags sitting at the foot of the bed. We figured the first two women to disappear had just skipped town. When we couldn’t reach them by phone, we put their bags away in storage and dismissed it as lost property yet to be reclaimed.”
“Would we be able to see those bags?”
“Yes, of course. You can take them away with you if you need.”
“We might do that, forensics will want a thorough look at them. So was it the third woman to go missing that made you realize something was amiss?”
“Yes, it probably was.” For the first time, Andi showed slight signs of distress, fiddling nervously with the chain around her neck. “We get two or three abandoned bags in a year, but so many in the space of two months gave me pause. When I checked our guest records, I noticed that Tahlia Stevens was listed as having checked out, and when I checked the room her belongings were gone. But I was working the front desk on the day she was listed as having departed, and I didn’t remember processing her when she left.”
“Would you have noticed her in particular among the other guests you served that day?”
Andi shrugged noncommittally. “I had started taking notice of our female guests, in case we were getting a reputation as a dumping ground for hoarders to leave their unwanted junk, or something of the like. It was unusual enough to get my attention.”
Jon stirred slightly in is seat. I realized I was watching his reactions to Andi’s words more than I was watching the Andi herself. I casually turned my gaze away from him, not wanting to draw the witness’ attention to him, and unable to glean what he had noticed anyway.
“Could someone else have checked Ms. Stevens out without you knowing?”
“Not likely. I’m normally on the desk all morning, unless I take a break to get coffee or use the restroom, in which case I’d get Julie from accounts to sit in for me. Even then, she’d make a note of anyone who checked out and I’d enter it into our records myself when I got back to the desk. We get guests who checkout out to sign our guestbook, then I type up an entry for them in our digital database. Ms. Stevens’ signature was in the book and she had a digital entry, but I didn’t remember either of those records being made, and I should have done if I was on the desk that day. On a hunch, I had housekeeping check her room and her bag was gone, but she had left most of her toiletries in the bathroom drawer, including medication that she would be unlikely to just discard on a whim.”
“You didn’t report it?”
Andi’s gaze dropped to the table in front of her. I didn’t need to see her aura in order to detect waves of remorse coming off her. “I should have done, but I felt silly jumping to any conclusions. I had no evidence anything was amiss other than a few unclaimed belongings. The families didn’t start ringing us until later, when Jessica Fields failed to turn up at work when her paid leave ran out, and Serena Cullen didn’t meet with friends at the final stop on her trip like she had planned.”
“I see. So it was before those calls from the families came when a fourth woman went missing? What did you do then?”
“Something that was probably foolish. When Alicia Tennant checked in, I moved her records. We take scans of our guests’ photo IDs for booking validation purposes. I took the scans for Ms. Tennant and a few other guests out of our system and saved them in another location. When I noticed Ms. Tennant was listed as having checked out, I compared her guestbook entry against the scanned copy of her driver’s license. The signatures on them didn’t match.”
Borrowman pounced on the implication. “Meaning someone forged her signature in the guestbook?”
“That was my guess.”
“Who would have access to it to make a forged entry?”
“The guestbook is sitting behind the desk all day, though I moved it to a lockable drawer when I started noticing the discrepancies in entries. Guests might be able to grab it, but I would likely notice. The only people who really have open access to the administrative areas are me, Julie, Louise, and the day manager, Lenard.”
Jon, who had been sitting with his arms folded, dropped his hand to rest on the table, placing it within Borrowman’s line of sight. The detective instantly fell silent, his air of deferment indicating that he was passing control of the interview over to the psychic.
“Andi,” Jon said in his gentle tenor, making her head whip round to face him, surprised to find him speaking when no one other than Borrowman had contributed to the questioning so far. “Why are you afraid of Lenard?”
Andi sat bolt upright in her seat. Evidently Jon was right on the money. Wow, Jon really was good.
“How did you…? Oh, you said earlier that you are a psychic?”
“Yes, I’m the kind of psychic who can read auras. When you mentioned this Lenard, your aura indicated fear and… revulsion?”
Andi did indeed currently look like an unpleasant smell had just wafted under her nostrils when Jon repeated the manager’s name. “That’s exactly how I feel about him. Wow, you’re the real deal.”
Obviously remembering our opening spiels, she turned to me.
“I’m a psychic too, but I’m not reading you right now,” I assured her. I didn’t want her getting so spooked she clammed up, or assuming we could see all her answers for ourselves without her saying anything. Neither Jon nor either were mind readers - unfortunately for our work, fortunately for our personal lives and our sanity - plus we needed a spoken recording for evidence. “Still, I’d like to hear your answer to Jon’s question. Don’t worry, we won’t tell this Lenard you said anything, and if it’s not related to the case we’ll disregard it.”
Andi drew in a bracing breath. “It feels shitty to make an unfounded accusation, but… he gives me the creeps. He leers at female guests and staff, makes inappropriate comments. He once told me that he would gladly proposition me, except I wasn’t his type.”
Even if Lenard was otherwise blameless, he was certainly crass, tasteless, and possibly blind. Andi was a gorgeous woman. Anyone who could look this beautiful while being eaten up by concern - not to mention style a teal-blue work shirt so well that it actually flattered her - was nothing short of stunning. Though I was glad he hadn’t had any real interest, for Andi’s sake. If he wasn’t somehow involved in the women’s disappearances, he was at the very least a disgusting lecher.
Andi went on with her statement. “Louise, who works the desk mornings on the days I don’t, got hit on by him constantly, to the point she was considering reporting him to the resort owner for harassment. I offered to arrange it so she could work days when he wasn’t on duty, since he mostly doesn’t bother me other than to occasionally look at me in a shady way. He takes off Friday to Sunday, so we arranged our work schedules that way.”
“I see.” Borrowman took the lead again. “Do you have any idea why he showed inappropriate interest in Louise, but not to you?”
Andi had crossed her arms over her body, looking unnerved. “Louise, and all the women who disappeared, have blond hair.”
Borrowman's brow was furrowed in concentration. “You noticed that after the third woman disappeared,” he guessed. “That’s why you pulled the records?”
Andi flinched like his question was an accusation, but nodded. “I felt so foolish, like I was inventing this crazy conspiracy based on how much I disliked him. But by the time Alicia Tennant went missing, I couldn’t deny there was a pattern. I was just psyching myself up to go to the police about it. And then Cynthia…”
Jon swung forward in his seat, obviously seeing something that the rest of us didn’t. “You knew Cynthia personally?”
Andi nodded, looking miserable and radiating worry. She had to momentarily clamp her lips together, like she was holding back tears, before she spoke again. “She lives just down the road. She came by the first time while I was on the desk, asked if she could use the resort’s private path along the river bank to do her morning run. We aren’t really supposed to let anyone other than guests on the premises, but I figured since she was a local resident, there was no real reason why she shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We got to chatting on days when I was working and she passed by before her run. She even started bringing me coffee in the morning, since the stuff in the breakroom is swill, while Cynthia makes coffee bean elixir with a French press.” She smiled fondly. The two really must be close.
“Is that how you recognized that as hers?”
Borrowman gestured towards a non-descript stainless steel water bottle, which stood on the table in a clear evidence bag.
“Yes. It’s the same as the ones we use at the resort - we have bottles filled with our own filtered and purified water standing in the common area outside the on-site gym, for guests to help themselves - and Cynthia asked me where she could get one. She took a tumble during a bike ride a few weekends ago and dented her old bottle. She liked the size of the ones she saw resort guests using, asked me where we got them. They’re just from a generic sport supply store, so she could get one easily. I know this one is hers because after she had her fall, she didn’t want having a bottle in her hand while she ran to put her off balance, so she got a strap she used to attach it to her belt bag, leaving her hands free.”
Sure enough, the bottle had a strap made of white reflective material wrapped around it. The fabric at one end was torn.
“This was found along the riverside path?”
“Yes. A guest came in with it just after eleven yesterday. They found it on the ground and assumed it was from the resort so they ‘returned’ it to me at the desk. I realized right away it was Cynthia’s. I thought maybe she had just dropped it while she was running, but then her sister called the desk around two o’clock to ask if anyone had seen her, since she didn’t turn up for the lunch they had planned. She… She’s blond too. That’s probably why she…”
Andi trailed off as her lower lip quivered, a single tear sliding down her cheek. “I should have said something to Cyn. I knew that women were going missing, knew they were all blond. If I had warned her…”
I held up a hand to get Andi’s attention. I didn’t want her beating herself up, or getting lost in self-recriminations instead of giving us as many useful facts as she could. “You couldn’t have known this would happen. As you said, all you had were vague suspicions and circumstantial evidence. The other women weren’t officially reported missing until a few days ago, and the news wasn’t made public.”
“That’s right.” In an instant, Jon transformed from a focused psychic investigator into a concerned Southern gentleman. “Miss Andi, you couldn’t have known this would happen or that there was any real underlying danger. It is a blessing that you aren’t one of the people who has disappeared, and are able to aid us so much in our enquiry. You’ve given us a lot of useful intel so far, we are thankful for anything that you tell us to help us find Cynthia and the rest of the women.”
Andi nodded, gamely trying to blink back her tears. I grabbed a tissue from the dispenser on the table and handed it to her. She took it with a nod of thanks. “I’ll do all I can,” she said as she dabbed at her tear-wet face.
Borrowman gave her a moment to compose herself before asking his next question. “Did all the women go for a run along the riverside path while they were staying here?”
“Probably? I didn’t really notice. Guests have to pass from the rooms through reception to get to where the path starts, just to the right of the parking lot. I try to nod and smile at anyone who passes the desk, but I can’t remember everyone, it’s very popular with the fitness types who stay here.”
“But you know that Cynthia usually runs along that path every morning?”
“Oh yes. Every morning before work without fail, unless it’s pouring torrential rain. She ran it yesterday, and no one has seen her since.”
The head of every investigator in the room swivelled round to me.
“Well,” I said to the four expectant faces trained on me - and one confused from Andi - “looks like I’m up.”
Chapter Text
Chapter Eight
Libby
As I came out of the conference room, I was already formulating strategies in my mind.
My ability was always pushing me to run; but now I had the facts and knew exactly who I was going to be seeking, it was champing at the bit to get on their trail. Because I was not the only investigator working this case, though, I stopped and made myself take stock of where the rest of the team was at.
A pretty woman with auburn hair was sitting behind the front desk in the lobby. Based on what Andi had said, I assumed that this was ‘Julie from accounts’ who usually covered for her when she was on a break. I also noted that Andi had agreed to speak to us at her workplace on a day when Lenard wasn’t scheduled to work. Though Andi had been reluctant to make unfounded accusations - which was a sensible approach on her part - that fact spoke volumes about just how much this Lenard unnerved her.
Garrett was leaning against the front desk, talking to Julie. Likely taking her statement, as he had a notepad in hand and appeared rather subdued for him, though still open and friendly. Julie certainly looked comfortable enough talking to him. Sho wasn’t in the lobby and I couldn’t see him through the doorway to the back office either, so he must have gone out to the truck to fetch equipment. Likely under normal circumstances, Garrett would be out there helping him, while Tyson would have been taking witness statements.
I felt a bit bad for disrupting the team’s established dynamic. However, I was glad that I’d had Tyson with me. He was going to be with me out in the field very soon, so I was glad he had been directly part of the interview process, for chain of evidence reasons if nothing else. If Tyson later acted on data he had garnered from Andi’s statement while we were out, there would be no question on where he got his intel, or how much of the case detail he was privy to.
Andi made a beeline for Julie. Jon and Donovan obviously noticed who Garrett was talking to, as the pair also headed that way, likely so that Jon could ask a few questions of his own to corroborate Andi’s statement.
Jon really was worth five times the amount that appeared on his invoices. Without him seeing cues in Andi’s aura and following up on them, we likely would have taken a lot longer to establish Lenard as our first suspect.
Donovan was deserving of a pay rise too. As I watched, Jon stopped at the edge of the desk, carefully avoiding getting too close to the bank of computers, while Donovan continued forwards, beckoning Julie over with a few words. She, Andi and Garrett ambled over to meet Jon and Donovan, the five of them forming a powwow as Jon started asking his questions.
Watching the interview must have given Jim some idea on how to proceed. He was standing outside the back office that had been set up as a surveillance room, talking animatedly on his phone. When he spotted Borrowman, he beckoned the detective over to join him.
My cousins came out of the back office, deep in discussion. They perked up when they saw me and Tyson, coming over to us.
“Lib, I know as the tracker on the team you should take point on this,” Carol said, “but is it alright if I take a reading from the water bottle first?”
“Of course.” Much as I was ready to run, I wasn’t territorial about cases, nor so self-centred that I would demand to play the big damn hero just so I could add extra hours to my billing form. “Do you think you’ll be able to get a read?”
“I’m not sure. How long did Andi say Cynthia had that water bottle for?”
“She said she got it within the last few weeks,” Tyson answered, bless his former cop’s memory. “She didn’t give a more exact time frame than that.” A frown furrowed his brow, as if something had just occurred to him. “Carol, it’s also possible for you to do a reading using Cynthia’s name, right?”
“Yes, that would be the most exact way to determine her current location, considering she likely hasn’t had the bottle long enough for it to have formed a psychic imprint of her.”
“Can you take a reading from the bottle anyway? Since Cynthia only disappeared yesterday, I assume that Libby will have the best luck tracking her, not one of the other women who went missing a week or longer ago.”
“That’s right,” I confirmed, wondering what he was getting at. “If I can get the route that Cynthia usually runs from Andi and the last time she went that way was yesterday morning, I should still be able to pick it up. With all the foot traffic in a busy hotel like this one, I have no hope of picking up any older impressions.”
Carol tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lips, eyeing Tyson sideways. The pair had been working together for years now, likely my cousin had some inkling of what he was getting at. “You want me to eliminate the bottle as evidence?”
“Or use it to verify how many victims we are looking for. Andi’s working theory is that all the missing women were targeted for their hair colour, but if Cynthia bought the same kind of water bottle that the resort uses, that is another common factor. If our assailant is targeting women staying at the resort, he might have mistaken Cynthia for a guest. If that bottle doesn’t belong to Cynthia - those reflective strips are common on chain brand athletic gear, I’ve seen plenty of bags and clothing with something similar stitched onto them - it might have been dropped by a legitimate hotel guest.”
“Who might have no bearing on the investigation, or might be another as-yet-unidentified missing person,” Sharon added, exchanging looks with her psychic. “We’ll do a reading on the bottle first then, to determine whether or not it can be lodged as evidence. After that, Carol can do readings using the names or belongings of the women who went missing earlier, while Libby focuses on tracking down Cynthia.”
“Sounds like a fair division of labour to me,” I agreed.
With a nod in confirmation, Sharon crossed the room to get Andi. After a few words exchanged, they headed for the conference room with Carol in tow. It made sense to do the reading there, where the camera was already set up to record.
I was about to ask Tyson whether we should wait for Carol’s results or start preparing to pick up Cynthia’s trace right away, when Sho calling out from the lodge’s entrance diverted me.
“Libby, Ty, come get geared up,” he said, holding a bulky case that looked like it had some serious gadgetry inside. He gave Jon, who was still at the service desk talking with Julie, a sideways glance, then ushered us outside. There was an unobtrusive alcove just along from the main entrance, partially shielded from sight by the rustic log panelling, where we could hopefully get kitted out without drawing too much attention from resort guests.
“Here, this is your ear piece, Libby.” Sho reached into the case Garrett held up for him, lifting out a futuristic-looking headset consisting of an ear bud and a mic mounted on a slender framework. I had already tried it on the previous afternoon, Sho having requested a quick trial before he did the final calibrations, so I knew for a fact that the fancy headgear was ultra light-weight. “The mic can be adjusted so it is unobtrusive while still being in range enough to catch everything you say. The auto anti-distortion feature should filter out any background noise, so don’t worry about breathing into the mic as you run. Both an optimised and a raw version of the input will be recorded, plus the audio will feed into Tyson’s headset and our operations centre in real time.”
As he spoke, Tyson was putting on a device almost identical to mine. I smoothed my hair out of the way, settling the bud a bit more comfortably in my ear. “That sounds great. I might have to buy this off you before I leave town, if it does everything you say.”
Sho grinned at me. “I thought you might want that. We have limited situations at Psy where we’d need a setup like this - Carol rarely ventures out in the field, and it is completely wasted on our other psychic-anchor pairing - so you’re welcome to it. The price is actually very reasonable, considering all the capabilities and potential applications it has for you.”
“Write me up for it, and be sure to add a finder’s fee.”
Sho seemed strangely taken aback by my suggestion. “Of course not, your cousins would have my balls if I marked up the price.”
“No they wouldn’t. You’ve spent time researching this and finding the best setup, not to mention the personalized calibration and extensive testing I’m sure you’ve done. Sharon, of all people, will see the fairness of making sure you are reimbursed for the hours.”
Sho looked set to protest, but Garrett put a placating hand on his arm. “Just accept and say thanks, babe. You deserve to be rewarded for your hard work and brilliance. Besides, we can put it towards getting a headset for our own personal use. You can use it to talk through one of your strategy games to me while I’m at the gym, make me feel like I’m navigating hostile territory or infiltrating an enemy base while I’m running on the treadmill, for old time’s sake.”
Tyson snorted at that. Sho gave Garrett a look that was half-exasperated half-indulgent, but he stopped arguing.
“Libby, your headset contains controls that sync to your smart watch,” he went on. “You can set it to obey touch or voice commands, depending on whether or not you’d prefer to have your hands free.”
“I should be right to touch the screen if I need to, and it will be less confusing if there are no voice commands on the recording.”
“You’re good to go, then. Your device also contains a GPS. Tyson, you installed the app on your phone, right?”
“Yeah, let me just start it up.” We all waited a few moments while Tyson dug his phone out of his pocket and opened the app. “Yep, looks like it’s working perfectly.”
“The app will plot Libby’s path in real time. If for any reason you need to backtrack, Tyson will be able to see your current location in relation to the trace you followed, so he can guide you over his mic to either find a specific spot on the path again, or avoid the trace entirely, depending on what the situation calls for. If you need to plot a point along the trace that you want to mark for later inspection, double tap the watch screen, the app will save the location. If you need emergency assistance, hold your finger down on the screen for three seconds, it will send a distress signal to Tyson and automatically contact the local authorities. A Nashville PD rapid response team is connected to it at present, equivalent organisations in some major cities are already programmed into it.”
I was slightly stunned by just how ingenious Sho’s setup was. “That is… wow. Garrett, I’m tempted to steal your boyfriend and take him on the road with me.”
“I don’t blame you,” Garrett practically purred, slinging a possessive arm around his boyfriend. Sho flushed slightly at the praise, but melted into Garrett’s side with a self-satisfied grin.
“Sho, you’ve really excelled yourself with this,” Tyson agreed. “If I didn’t know full well it would cost me an arm and a leg, I’d want one of these for trail running.”
“You’re about ready to hit the trail?” Jim appeared at my elbow, having obviously overheard Tyson’s words. He looked pleased by my nod to the affirmative. “Good, we’re going to need you to pick up the trace. Carol couldn’t get a viable reading. Both the bottle and the strap that was used to attach it to Ms Kincade’s pack were too new for them to have an inherent sense of ownership that could connected them to the person’s current location.”
I winced at the news. I had expected as much, though it was still a bit of a letdown. I bet Carol was disappointed, and it put added pressure on me to get results.
Good thing I literally ran at my best while fuelled by pressure.
“Carol will do readings for the other women next, while you trace Ms Kincade,” Jim went on, having obviously conferred with my cousins and agreed with the plan we had decided upon. “I spoke to one of my contacts at the courthouse. Since there are grave fears for Ms Kincade’s wellbeing, we have been authorized to enter private property in search of her. As soon as we have a location, we can go there directly and take any necessary actions to ascertain her safety.”
“Nice job,” Borrowman said, having sidled up to Jim while he was speaking. “Who granted you those provisions so quickly?”
“Judge Truman.”
“I thought so.” To the rest of us, Borrowman said conversationally, “He issued me the warrant that allowed me to get a conviction for the Bouquet Killer. I may have mentioned to him that the latest missing woman had last been seen entering the same park where his daughter likes to jog.”
“I may have mentioned that our missing person was a young woman about his daughter’s age who had last been seen on her morning run,” Jim said drily, the closest thing to a twinkle in his eye.
I stifled the evil cackle that wanted to escape my throat, it would be inappropriate under the circumstances. Still, taking advantage of a father’s protectiveness in order to ensure other young women got the justice they deserved? That was devious, and I thoroughly approved.
“Sho, are you maintaining communications with Libby when she heads out?” Borrowman asked. When our IT guru confirmed as much, Borrowman said “I’ll call up the precinct then, get one of our people to start investigating Lenard Hutchens. Andi was reluctant to outright accuse him of anything other than unprofessional conduct, but her description raised a few red flags, and as of now he’s the best suspect we have. I want to get some background on him so we can determine whether he is likely to be somehow involved or not.” So saying, Borrowman pulled out his phone and paced back towards the resort, intending to give some police lackey a research assignment.
“The comms are linked to the feed we have set up in the back room?” Jim asked Sho; at his nod, he said “Good, looks like everything is set for you to get underway, Ms Palmer. Do you require anything else before you get started?”
“Can you please send Andi out here? It will be much easier for me to latch onto Cynthia’s trace if she can give me a more definite spot to seek out her trail, save me having to criss-cross the entire parking lot looking for the exact right spot.” Since I was taking point on the search for Cynthia and her life just might depend on how quickly I could catch up to her, time was of the essence.
“I’ll send her right out.” With that promise, Jim waved everyone else back towards the building.
“We’ll be listening in on the feed and I have my laptop set up in the room, so if you need anything looked up while you’re on the move just ask,” Sho told us, before he turned to follow the others.
“What do you want from me?” Tyson asked, once we were alone. Seeing that I was once again going through my warm up stretches, he started doing the same while we talked.
“Best option is for you to shadow me,” I told him as I bent one knee and stretched out the opposite leg in front of me, reaching for my toe in order to properly stretch my hamstring, then switched sides. “It doesn’t look like there is any car accessibility beyond the parking lot. I doubt either our missing person or our suspect will still be in this area, but I could use some backup and a second set of eyes all the same. Plus it gives me a chance to see how well you keep up,” I added, teasingly nudging him with my elbow.
“I kind of wish that I’d worn my outboard motor today,” Tyson joked. “I hope Cynthia Kincade wasn’t a competitive sprinter. If she is, I get the feeling I’m about to eat the dust of not one but two fast-paced women at once.”
“Surely her daily morning workout is no more strenuous than yours. Unless you’re nothing more than a weekend warrior.”
“More like either a pre-breakfast brawler or a post-work paladin, depending on my schedule. Though on particularly lazy days off, I become a deserter and a pacifist switching allegiance to my gaming console,” Tyson quipped back, making me chuckle. “I already know you’re a nine-to-five ninja. Do you ever actually stop and put your feet up?”
I pretended to have to think about it. “Occasionally. Though usually only long enough to re-tie my shoelaces.”
Before we could do any more bantering, Andi came out of the lodge. As she came towards us, I noticed she looked a little wide-eyed and shell-shocked.
Tyson obviously noticed it too, because he asked “Are you alright, Ms Willis?”
“Yes,” Andi said, pausing a moment and shaking her head, like she was snapping out of a stupor. “Yes, thank you, I’m alright. I just came from seeing your colleague do a reading on Cyn’s water bottle and… wow. I’ve never even met a psychic before today, let alone seen an actual reading.”
Ah, that was understandable. It helped that Carol was almost exactly what everyone pictured a typical psychic to look like, thanks to movie depictions. Glowing crystals, symbols spontaneously appearing on maps, names mystically writing themselves in sand. I had grown up watching Carol do her thing, so I was pretty immune to it by now, but to a newbie it would be pretty impressive. Especially compared to us other poor psychic types, who were less cinematic. Jon was operating psychically all the time, but he just appeared to be looking at people, until he opened his mouth and started spilling their darkest secrets. Me, I just looked like any old fitness fanatic going for a run, right up until I chased down a criminal or stopped on a location of interest.
“Just a shame the bottle couldn’t tell us where Cyn is now,” Andi added, looking downcast. “Carol said that you could do another type of reading to try to find her?”
“Yes, we’re about to start that right now.” I didn’t think anyone had explained yet to Andi how I operated, so I gave her a quick rundown. “I’m a Kinetic Tracer, I can hopefully find Ms Kincade by forming a link to her through the ground she trod on, reading a history of her movements yesterday, starting from where you last saw her. Can you show me a spot where she would have likely stepped? I was hoping she might have walked over a patch that other runners would not have covered, so we have a better chance of quickly picking up a clear trace.”
If not, I’d just have to run along Cynthia’s usual path and hope that if something had gone down during her run; the intensity of it would hopefully cause her trace to leap out at me.
“I don’t know if she did,” Andi waffled a bit, following us over to the start of the running track and scanning the ground, as if she could pick out visible footprints where her friend had passed. “She ran the same path as our regular lodge guests, I don’t…”
She stopped short as her eyes fell on something of interest. It was a post sticking up out of the ground in the middle of the path; it acted as a bollard, stopping motorists in the parking lot from mistakenly driving down the pedestrian-only lane.
“Cyn always puts her foot up on that to check her shoelaces are tied tightly enough.” She gave the post a fond, reminiscent smile. “She got blisters once, when her shoes were too loose but she didn’t bother stopping to tighten them. Now she always checks them and tightens them a bit before she starts jogging.”
Smart woman. It only took one time of me not tying my shoes properly, getting pulled along a trace with no time to stop, and ending up with my heels rubbed raw to always make sure my shoes fit properly. The mention made me tempted to double-check my shoes right now, but I resisted, knowing that they really felt fine. I settled for doing a few last stretches instead.
“Great, that is a really good tip. If Cynthia is the only one who does that, hopefully her trace will be the only one on the post, and I’ll be able to pick it up right away.” I turned to Tyson, who had been standing by and taking in everything Andi said. “You ready to go?”
He gave me an affirmative nod, bouncing on his toes to show his muscles were properly warmed up to run. He looked just as anxious to start as I felt. “Ready.”
Only thing left to do was to check in with Sho. I tapped the button on my Bluetooth earpiece to activate it, fiddling a bit with the microphone to ensure it would pick up my voice as clearly as possible. “Home Base, this is Traveller, do you copy?”
“Traveller, this is Home Base, reading you loud and- no, Garrett, they have obviously decided on their codenames already, I am not convincing them to call themselves ‘pitcher’ and ‘catcher’ just because we are ‘home base’. Besides, babe, that innuendo was obvious and unprofessional. Sorry, Traveller, just had to put this joker in his place. If you heard all that, comms are working perfectly, over.”
“I caught all of that Home Base, over,” I said while trying to stifle my laughter. Given the way Tyson was snickering a foot away from me, he had heard it all too. He checked himself in over comms, calling himself Support.
This was it, we were all set.
The usual frisson of adrenaline went through me as I tapped the screen of my smart watch, starting the live recording.
“This is Liberty Palmer, freelance psychic, license number 1098237, currently working in conjunction with Psy Consulting Agency. I have been requested by Nashville PD to trace missing person Cynthia Kincade.” I didn’t have to state the time, date and my location, thanks to the auto tracking system. I was definitely buying this setup off of Sho. Instead I told the recording, “Accompanying me is PI Tyson Parata.”
Tyson dutifully rattled off his license details for the recording, followed by Sho and Garrett. Sharing one last glance with Tyson to check he was ready, I stepped up to the bollard.
“Attempting to step on Ms Kincade’s trace in three, two, one.”
So saying, I put my foot up on top of the bollard.
It took me a moment of shifting around, miming like I was propping my foot up to better see how my shoes were tied.
A moment of nothing, then… that swooping sensation behind my navel, like I was a cable car sitting in a side shunting, and I had just been hooked up to the line that would tow me onto the main track.
“Got it,” I said, unable to help the triumphant smile that spread across my face.
The others made eager noises, quickly aborted so they wouldn’t clutter up the recording with their celebrations.
I was getting tugged firmly along the riverside path. I motioned for Tyson to follow me without looking to see if he did, already shifting my focus fully onto the invisible trail my feet told me I had to follow.
Cynthia Kincade was out there somewhere, and we were going to do our very best to find her.
Notes:
Sorry, I meant to include Libby's reading in this chapter, but ended up writing more prep than I had planned. I decided to give Sho's cleverness its proper due :P
Fun fact one: if you are particularly eagle-eyed, you might notice that Libby's license number is one up from Carol's number. I imagine they might have gone together as a family to be evaluated and register as psychics.
Fun fact two: Cynthia's and Libby's habit of checking their shoelaces is a thing I do, my family give me a hard time for lacing my joggers tight enough to leave imprints on the top of my feet when I take them off, but it beats having massive blisters on my heels XC
Also I read Jon book 6 twice in a row, loved it, am gonna stay here writing fics because you will have to drag me out of this fictional world kicking and screaming
Chapter Text
Chapter Nine
Libby
People often think that my ability makes me act out every little thing that the person I’m following did along every point of their trace.
That is not the case, thankfully. I’d look pretty goofy out in public, miming using invisible props and talking to people who aren’t there. That would be tedious, in some situations dangerous.
It was true I had to run the same ground that the person I traced had trod, but it was only their feet I followed, not every single action they had done. I wasn’t even constrained by the timeframe they had done it in. It was more like watching a video recording: I could speed up or slow down playback, pause before going on to the next scene, even skip sections if I got off the trace then hopped back on it further along.
It was only when urgent emotion was imbedded in the trace that I felt compelled to follow it as fast as the person had run it. And honestly, it was pretty rare for me to follow someone who could outrun me. I trained hard to make sure that most traces I followed were within my physical capability.
So far, Cynthia Kincade’s trace was easy. She started off at a brisk walk, just warming up, then graduated to a gentle jog. I matched her pace easily, not speeding up yet so I had time to get a feel for the trace and establish a baseline. I needed to know what were ‘normal’ emotional parameters for Cynthia, so I’d be able to tell if there was any deviation. I also didn’t want to rush things and miss a crucial clue. If she had been kidnapped, we had no idea how early the sicko who’d done it had started stalking her. Any awareness she’d had of her surroundings could tell us volumes.
I didn’t turn to look at him, but I could hear Tyson’s footfalls slightly out of sync with mine, behind me and slightly to my left. Though I didn’t really anticipate any danger, it was good to know he had my back. An extra pair of eyes was always good, especially a pair of former-cop eyes that could scan for clues while I focused on the trace.
Being on someone’s trace gave me an insight into who they were and impressions of what they had felt. The same way Grant Walker could connect to a person through the dream plane, I connected to them through a physical point of common contact. It was less direct and immediate than Grant’s link, since I was covering ground they had passed over hours ago, while he could hone in on wherever a person currently was and what they were feeling in the present. Still, my abilities let me reconstruct a crime and the events leading up to it, a handy thing if we had no living witnesses.
I always hoped our witness wouldn’t be deceased, and what I picked up would only be used to corroborate their statement after we found them.
I began narrating what I picked up of Cynthia Kincade’s thoughts for the recording.
“This is her daily run, so she was treating it pretty casually. She was just warming up at this point, wasn’t anxious, hadn’t spotted anything alarming. She was thinking back on the conversation she just had with Andi back at the lodge’s front desk, they were talking about the upcoming Nashville Rock n’ Roll Run. She was wondering if she could convince Andi to run it with her, or perhaps just go get coffee together. She-”
Oh. Huh. Well, this was a bit awkward. Though certainly not the first time I had come across private thoughts while running on a trace.
Cynthia liked Andi. Really liked her. Wanted to ask her out for coffee, get to know her better, liked her. She hadn’t asked her out yet because she wasn’t sure if Andi would be interested the same way, and though she enjoyed the casual morning meet-ups, not knowing if she could possibly have more was starting to wear on her nerves.
I was sincerely thankful that I had bypassed the whole stereotypical sapphic dilemma of ‘does she like me or is she just being friendly’ when I met my wife. Stepping on a trace had been extremely useful in that regard.
Now I really, really hoped I found Cynthia Kincade alive. I would be so disappointed for her if she never got the chance to ask Andi out. Plus, I’d have to figure out whether I should tell Andi or not, and I did not want to be the bearer of that news should the worst turn out to have happened.
I didn’t voice those thoughts of Cynthia’s out loud. She deserved her privacy, and I doubted it had any bearing on her disappearance, though I would mention it if it ever became relevant. No need to put it on a recording that would later be reviewed by police officers and possibly used in court.
“She was thinking about the day ahead,” I went on after that momentary blip. Thankfully, Cynthia had moved on without dwelling on her crush for too long. “She was doing her run a bit early, she worked from home and usually could set her own schedule, but she had things that needed to be done before she met up with her sister at lunch. She was mentally running through her errands list: the bank, post office, dry cleaner, groceries, though she was going to save the grocery run till after lunch so she could pick up milk and take it straight home to the fridge. She was looking forward to lunch with her sister, reminding herself of the gossip she had to share, remembering what was on the restaurant menu and deciding what she wanted to order.”
All of this sounded trivial, but it was worth putting on record. It proved that Cynthia hadn’t been a suicide risk, hadn’t had plans to meet up with anyone before seeing her sister, hadn’t had any reason for distress or suspicion that something was about to go wrong. Yesterday had just been a typical day for her, up until she went missing. Whatever had happened, it had taken her by surprise. Wherever she was now, chances were high that she hadn’t gone willingly.
The walking path curved slightly, clearing the end of the lodge building. From behind the log-panelled wall on the right and a grove of trees on the left, the river came into view, glittering under the mid-morning sunshine.
“She admired the view,” I reported into the mic. I admired it as well: the ripples in the river flowing smoothly by their edges flashing in the sunlight, the picturesque houses lining the opposite bank. It must have looked just as lovely when Cynthia ran by, though it would have looked a bit different hours earlier, a fact that was confirmed by the next thought I picked up. “It looked pretty to her, atmospheric with all the mist over the water- huh.”
There was flat silence over the comms. Tyson behind me, Sho and Garrett in the control room, every investigator listening over the speakers, were likely all thinking the same thing.
“I can check forecasts,” Garrett’s voice said in my ear after a few more moments of speculative silence, “see if the dates the other women were signed off as having checked out correlate with mornings when there was fog.”
Brilliant idea, give that man a cookie (a real one too, no an oat and carob bliss ball or other such ‘healthy’ rubbish). Since we had two investigators manning home base, Garrett could do his side quest while Sho remained on the line to provide any real-time support we might need.
It was nice, being part of a reliable team. I could easily get used to this.
“Traveller,” Tyson said, catching me slightly by surprise. I could hear him faintly in person over the sound of our pounding feet, clearer through my headset. “Was Ms Kincade wearing headphones?”
That was a good question. If someone had gotten the drop on Cynthia thanks to the low visibility afforded by the fog, they could have run up to her from either direction and she wouldn’t have noticed them coming if the sound was also masked by her workout playlist.
I focused for a minute, parsing through Cynthia’s memories for any audio input. “No, I don’t think she was,” I said at last, sure of myself. “I don’t pick up any sensation of earphones she wore or memories of music playing from her trace. Actually, now that the path is running closer to the river, she was picking up the sound of water. She heard it every day so her thoughts don’t remark about it much, but I definitely detected it for a second there.” It had been a nice idea though. “Good question, Support.”
“Thanks, Traveller.”
“Let’s see if you can think on your feet,” I teased. “She’s picked up speed a bit.” The path was flat and straight, running parallel with the river. Cynthia had warmed up and found her rhythm by now, going up a gear. Nice and steady, made me curious about her running form; I got a sense that she had a pretty good length on her stride.
Evidently, Tyson did too. “Let’s go then,” he retorted in my earpiece. When I sped up a bit, he matched my speed barely a second later.
“Don’t wear yourselves out too soon, you speed demons,” Sho teased. “The section of path is clear ahead of you, nothing on either side of the path until a stand of trees about seventy yards up on your left, and a shed at about one hundred yards.”
Huh, there it was. Almost as Sho said it, I got close enough to the cluster of straggly trees to just make out the small, squat building beyond them.
“What’s the shed for?” Tyson asked. “Does it belong to the resort?”
There was no answer for a few beats, likely while Sho looked it up, though the optimization on the mic filtered out the sound of him typing. “No, though I can check with one of the lodge staff just in case. According to documentation, the shed is used by the local rowing team to store their gear, they regularly train on the river and launch their boats from the pier just opposite it. Wait, Garrett just asked Ms Willis about it. She says that the rowers allowed the resort to keep a few kayaks in there for guests who wanted to get out on the water, but lodge staff don’t have a key to the shed, arrangements have to be made for someone on the rowing team to unlock it for them. For insurance reasons, the resort has guests join the rowing club for boating activities rather than offering it themselves.”
Sounded like a smart arrangement. I’d done enough sports over the years to know that the bulk of gym, club, and squad fees usually went into covering insurance premiums - and the way accidents could happen, good insurance policies were definitely worth having.
“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the shed could be a point where someone might stage an ambush,” Tyson cautioned the rest of us. “Even if no one aside from members of the rowing club couldn’t gain access to the inside of it, it provides cover for someone to wait out of sight of anyone approaching, especially if it was foggy here this morning.”
He made a good point. A timely one too; we were approaching the shed at a fairly rapid clip.
“Brace for possible incident,” I warned everyone. “If someone sprung out from behind the building, or even from the trees, the trace might deviate suddenly. Be ready for sudden change in route, Support.”
“Ready, Traveller.” The sound of Tyson’s footsteps shifted slightly in relation to myself, like he was manoeuvring himself further to the side of me instead of directly behind. I was glad Sho had forewarned us. The last thing I needed was to stop suddenly because I picked up something important, only for Tyson to not stop when I did, barrel into my back, and knock me off the trace.
Proving just how canny he was, Sho gave us further warnings. “You’re closing in on the perimeter of the building, fifteen yards.” A few seconds later “ten,” we were past the grove of trees now, “five-”
The trace abruptly halted, blaring Cynthia’s surprise and panic over my psyche.
“Stop!”
I shouted the command as my feet skidded to a halt, rooting me to the ground. Cynthia must be a touch shorter than me, her stride slightly shorter as well; I stopped a hair sooner than I comfortably would of my own accord, almost overbalancing and falling off the trace before I managed to right myself. Thankfully, Tyson had reacted quickly, veering to the side of me and also stopping after just a few paces, meaning he could backtrack to me in a second.
“Something happened here,” I said, trying to sort through Cynthia’s alarm, which shrieked like a siren in my head, making immediate interpretation a bit difficult. “A man suddenly jumped out at her, she thinks he was hiding behind the shed, since she had just drawn level with it. He completely surprised her, she didn’t see any sign of him until he was right in front of her. She was annoyed at first, thinking he was some jokester pulling a prank. Then she started to get scared; he grabbed her by the arm and tried to drag her across the path, towards the water.”
I hadn’t expected that; I would have thought an assailant would try to take his victim towards the shed, hide her away from any possible witnesses. The path would have been busier that early, used by joggers from the resort before they got on with the rest of their day. Had it been foggy enough for him to be confident that he wouldn’t be observed? It didn’t seem likely. Tyson’s puzzled frown told me he didn’t think it was likely either.
“She fought him,” I narrated, side-stepping across the path, dragging my feet like Cynthia had, partly because I was compelled to stand where she had stood, partly to make sure I didn’t lose contact with the trace. “He isn’t that strong, she’s resisting him trying to pull her along, but she can’t make him let go of her. She tried to yell for help, though likely if anyone was around the fog would have dampened the sound.” I didn’t need to say that we should still search for witnesses who might have heard the scuffle; I trusted that Sho, Garrett, Jim, or Borrowman was making a note of such. “He still refused to let go. He made a grab at her; she darted aside, trying to avoid him, prepared to scream for help. Before she could, he reached for her again, pulled her off balance- Ow. A blow to the head. Then nothing.”
I was left rubbing the fading impression of a sharp ache at the back of my skull. The trace evaporated out from under my feet, leaving me alone with my own thoughts. Which were still plenty puzzled about what had just happened, even though I had experienced it almost first-hand. First-foot.
“She lost consciousness?” Tyson asked, looking as baffled and frustrated as I felt.
“Yeah, he struck her on the back of her head. I couldn’t pick up anything after that.”
Dead end. From Cynthia’s perspective, at least.
As one, Tyson and I turned to face the shed. Great minds think alike.
“Try to pick up the trace of the guy who attacked her?”
“Worth a shot.”
I ended the recording, then Tyson and I approached the boatshed.
It was tiny, lucky to be ten feet square, with a padlocked roller door facing the river. Seeing that the lock didn’t look tampered with, we circled the building, scanning the ground as we went.
Before we rounded the first corner, Tyson threw out an arm, stopping me from advancing further.
“We’ve got footprints,” he said, pointing to the ground just ahead. His eyes were sharp to have spotted them. “They’re in the shadow of the building. If it was damp out this morning, enough for there to be fog, it wouldn’t have evaporated off as quickly where the later sunshine didn’t reached the ground. Looks like it was wet enough for our guy to leave impressions. Deep ones too, looks like he stood here for quite some time.”
I could see what he meant. The details in the tread left by the shoes were very clearly distinguishable, where the man wearing them had stood motionless on the one spot for some length of time.
Tyson had been right earlier. Someone had used the shed as cover from which to stage an ambush.
“Can you step on the trace without destroying the footprints as evidence?” Tyson asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, looking at the impressions assessingly. I would prefer to get forensics out here first, get them to take a plaster mould before I stamped all over it, but we didn’t have the time. Wherever Cynthia had gone after she lost consciousness, she had been at significant risk. Catching up to her as quickly as possible was a priority. Though the footprints did still need to be documented, in case they turned out to be useful as evidence. “Take a picture of them first. Then I’ll stand on the very edge of them, get an impression of our perpetrator. Once I’ve picked up as much as I can before he moves, I’ll break the link and try to pick up the trace again at a secondary point. I’ll only walk directly over these footprints if I have trouble re-finding the trace.”
Tyson nodded in understanding, then pulled out his phone and carefully knelt down next to the footprints. Before he snapped a photo, he took a dollar bill from his pocket and carefully laid it lengthways beside the nearest impression.
“Saw this in a movie once,” he explained, seeing my look of askance. “I don’t have an evidence marker or any other means of measurement, so the dollar can act as a yardstick. The boffins at forensics can work out the relative size of the foot compared to the dimensions of a standard bill.”
I had to admit, it was ingenious. I was rather impressed. I could see exactly why Tyson was a valuable employee at Psy. Though I could hear Sho mentally adding ‘compact collapsible yardstick’ to his list of essential field gear that he should supply; even Jon would be able to have one, since it wasn't electronic.
The lighting wasn’t the best, so Tyson took several photos, then sent them off to Sho. Only once he had the tech guru’s assurance that the pictures he’d taken were clear enough for our purposes, did Tyson put his phone and his dollar back in his pocket.
I moved into position just behind the prints, Tyson hovering within arm’s reach. Actually, I should warn him about that, in case I needed his help.
“Tyson, be ready to pull me off to the side. If I’m still on the trace when the guy steps forward, I’ll end up obliterating the prints when I’m compelled to move the same way he did. I might need you to shift me off it before that happens. If it feels like that’s about to happen, I’ll put an arm out. Just give me a good tug to get me safely away from the evidence. Don’t be worried about jerking me around, I can handle it.”
Tyson gave me a thumb’s up to show he understood. I was glad he had no qualms about moving me bodily. I half-hoped he’d have to, just so I could see him in action; those muscles looked like they meant business.
Batting that rather unprofessional thought away - why oh why had Sharon thought it would be a good idea to show me his Instagram account? - I turned my attention back to the shoe imprints.
“Standby,” I said into the mic. “I’m starting a new recording.”
“Go ahead,” Sho answered. Tyson gave me a nod to show he was ready to go again.
I tapped my smart watch and repeated my spiel of name and license number, the others doing the same.
“Attempting to trace unknown male assailant. Taking a baseline reading from the trace in three, two, one.”
I tentatively edged my foot over onto the barest outside edge of the footprint.
The connection was instantaneous. And distinctly unpleasant.
“Ugh,” I couldn’t help but groan.
“Okay?” Tyson asked, coming a step closer and looking alarmed at my mutter of disgust.
“Yeah, just… there is sometimes a trace that make me want to burn my shoes after stepping on it. This is one of them.”
Tyson gave me a significant look. Knowing how expensive my shoes were and how much I valued them, that spoke volumes.
“Bad news?” Sho asked over comms.
Right, I needed to elaborate for the recording, though I was so disgusted by what I read, I hardly wanted to give it verbal form. I would, since I was a professional, and I wanted to snatch up this sick SOB before he had a chance to do any of the harm he had planned. But the words practically made me feel sick to my stomach.
“He waited here for quite a while. I can’t tell exactly how long, he wasn’t focused on the passage of time, just looking out for signs that what he was waiting for was about to appear. I can feel his anticipation, excitement, adrenaline running rampant through his system. I sense lust, plus both malicious and violent intent. It’s weird, but… though his intentions were clearly defined, his target was not. He was expecting someone to come along the path, but he didn’t know her name or any other identifying details, just that a woman would eventually come.”
“The hell,” Tyson muttered before he could stop himself. I didn’t mind that it would be on the recording; he was just saying aloud what we were all thinking.
Cynthia had had no knowledge that someone was lying in wait out here, no inkling of suspicion, no fear that she might be followed, no consideration that she might need to look out for danger. Had this guy learned her daily routine and planned his attack on her? If so, why had he attacked several other women first, guests who had only stayed at the nearby resort briefly, when Cynthia purportedly ran by here every day?
“There’s something else,” I went on, taking up the narration again, “something he was anticipating, other than her getting here and what he would do to her once he apprehended her. He was calculating the time… the time it would take her to get here from the resort. So he knew that was the starting point of her run, that she would end up here… Now I’m picking up approaching footsteps, must be her running towards this spot. His anticipation is surging, adrenaline spiking. He’s about to make his move. Ty, can you-”
I reached out a hand and Tyson took it, tugging me sharply sideways.
I had been poised to take a step forward, which would have ruined the footprints. Tyson pulled me off the trace before I could, guiding me away from them and steadying me when I stumbled off-balance for a second.
Once I got my feet properly under me again, I looked up, intending to say thanks for the assist.
My words stuttered to a stop when I realized he gazed intently down at me, concern and consideration clear in his expression. It had been a long, long time since someone had looked at me like that, and I had to reflexively swallow down the surge of grief and Cally’s face momentarily hovered before my eyes, a ghost from the past wearing the same expression Tyson currently did.
Of course, Tyson wasn’t anything like my wife. Hell, I had known him a bare twenty-four hours; he was just barely my colleague, even then only temporarily, though I hoped in time he might be my friend. Any care I saw in his regard for me was just a professional doing his job. He was a public servant looking out for the safety of someone he’d sworn to protect; if I was replaced with any member of the general public, he’d likely look at me the same way.
It was just circumstances that put us in these respective positions. Tyson might not be my anchor, but I had to admit he was damn good at acting like he was. All those times supporting Jon, observing Donovan, and acting as security detail must have prepared him well.
His forearm flexed strongly under my hand. He clasped me by the waist with his other arm briefly, making sure I could stay upright on my own, before letting go.
I was honestly a bit sorry when he did. Both the care and the casual show of strength had been enjoyable to witness.
“Thanks,” I said, patting his arm a few times in a comradely fashion - definitely some nice muscle under that sleeve - before I stepped away from him.
“No problem. Did you get much of a read?”
“Yeah, I picked up quite a bit. He was obviously very familiar with the resort, I could see memories of the interior in his memories, not just the building exterior.” Tyson raised his eyebrows at that, catching my meaning. Matched our suspected perp Lenard, who worked at the lodge as day manager. “He knew that a woman from there was going to run this way eventually. How he knew to expect her and what his link was to her, I couldn’t ascertain. He didn’t know her name, just mentally pictured her as a blonde woman. Any detail beyond her gender and hair colour was extremely vague.”
“Does that mean Cynthia being taken was a matter of mistaken identity?” Garrett mused aloud.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, considering what I had read. “I couldn’t pick up enough about his intended target to know whether he was expecting someone other than Cynthia. I don’t think he even knew anything more about whoever he was expecting.”
Seemed that Andi’s theory was right: this sicko had a fixation with blondes.
Tyson pulled a face, likely at the idea of some creep pouncing on any women of a certain hair colour. I seconded his revulsion, and felt very fortunate to be a brunette. Knowing that this guy would have fixated on me because I had his preferred hair color would have grossed me out even more.
Lenard was looking more and more likely as our prime suspect, though I unfortunately couldn’t get a definite ID off the trace. My ability didn’t work that way. A psychometric could pick a name off of anything a suspect touched, but my ability was unfortunately limited to less direct identifiers like general personality and emotional responses. Context clues, like knowing the interior of the resort, helped narrow down our suspect pool; but in order to pin it down to a particular individual, we’d need additional evidence.
The others were obviously thinking similarly. “Detective Borrowman had someone pull records on Lenard,” Garrett said over the line. “I’ll put on record now that possible motive for assault lines up with an eye witness who observed that Lenard showed an inappropriate interest in women with blonde hair.” He was paraphrasing Andi’s witness statement; we had her testimony on a separate recording, but it was a smart idea to have all the relevant facts in one file.
“Affirmative, Home Base,” I said, backing up the evidence Garrett had stated. We’d submit a recording or transcript of Andi’s statement as corroboration when the case documents were submitted - hopefully when we were prosecuting the perpetrator. I wouldn’t feel comfortable running around Nashville, or letting any other woman run alone - especially if she was a blonde - until this sicko was locked up.
I shook my foot out, trying to throw off the ickiness, though I knew I’d have to step straight back on this guy’s trace in a second anyway. I scanned the ground ahead of the footprints, looking for a likely spot.
Tyson, having apparently noticed what I was up to, circled round me, looking carefully for more trace evidence before he stepped. He stopped just ahead of the footprints and pointed at a particular clump of grass without getting too close to it. “Maybe try here?”
Taking a look, I saw what he had: the straggling patch of long grass had a depression in the middle of it where the blades had bent and then gotten stuck down, likely from being damp when they were trodden on. If the person who had stamped them down was our perp, I could step on his trace without destroying any evidence, since the turf was too long here for a clear footprint impression to have been pressed into it.
Seriously, Jon might have the famous eyes at Psy, but Tyson’s were nothing to sneeze at either. I bet this guy could tear through a Where’s Waldo book in minutes flat.
“Looks good, I’ll hop on it.”
Tyson moved aside as I restarted the recording yet again, then stepped on the trace.
Instantly, I had motion.
“He’s heard her footsteps, knows she’s coming,” I related to the microphone. “He’s edged up to the corner of the wall, can’t see her yet but he’s anticipating her arrival. Exalting in it.” I winced, trying to fight off the queasiness in my stomach. This guy’s thoughts made me want to hurl, especially when I was forced to experience his glee, accompanied by some rather disturbing images. I didn’t want to describe the nitty-gritty of what all this guy had been imagining. For now, the bare basics would do, though even that was gory enough.
“I’ve got clear ill intent here. Violence, abduction, imprisonment, rape, murder, dismemberment and disposal of the corpse. He has memories of having done this several times before - I can’t get a clear count, but definitely multiples - and he’s looking forward to doing it again to whoever is coming along.”
I heard Tyson make an aborted sound of disgust beside me. If Sho or Garrett made similar noises, the optimization effect on their mics filtered it out.
“He really had no clue who she was?” Tyson asked.
“Nope, just that she was a target and he had plans for what he’d do to her.” I was feeling increasingly antsy; both the nerves and excitement I got from the guy’s trace, combined with my own feeling of impending doom. Those poor women. I just hoped that what he planned to do to Cynthia, he had on a leisurely timetable, so we had some chance of finding her still alive. “He got a glimpse of her, her brightly coloured athletic gear was visible coming out of the fog. She came upon him quicker than he expected; he stayed out of sight til the last second, then had to rush to spring out-”
I performed the action as I spoke, darting round the side of the boatshed just as our perp had, ending up with one foot on the path, facing towards the lodge.
“He grabbed her by the arm. She cried out in surprise, tried to pull away from him. She’s… stronger than he thought, and putting up more of a fight than he expected?”
I glanced at Tyson, who looked as puzzled as I felt. This guy attacked women who were known to be active and fit, yet expected them to swoon at the first sign of assault?
“He tried to pull her to the ground, she resisted. It took everything he had to hold onto her. He thought… something about the water not working?” That didn’t make any sense. Had he meant that the fog should have allowed him to sneak up on her easier? The next image to flash through my mind clarified things a bit. “The water bottle, he saw the water bottle attached to her belt bag, he expected that to take the fight out of her, but it didn’t work…”
Tyson and I shared meaningful glances. Had this guy - likely Lenard - drugged the water bottles at the lodge? That could be why he had been timing how long it took to run from the lodge to this spot while he waited: he had been hoping that the drug had had time to work. Except Cynthia hadn’t been a guest at the lodge. She could have been mistaken for a guest, since she used the same bottle that the resort used. He wouldn’t have seen the bottle on Cynthia in the fog, but if he was expecting a blonde woman from the lodge with a bottle, and then Cynthia suddenly appeared. Perhaps this attack really was a case of mistaken identity?
“I’m going to see if I can get hold of the rest of the water bottles,” Garrett said in my ear. I assumed he was going to ask one of the lodge staff where the in-house gym’s water bottles were kept, so they could stop anyone else drinking from them and analyse the contents.
“He tried to drag her towards the river,” I continued, still reading the guy’s trace. I hadn’t expected him to try to take Cynthia that direction, and Tyson’s puzzled expression told me he hadn’t either. Best way to get an abductee to a secure location seemed to be to head back towards the road with her, though going back past the lodge would risk being seen by witnesses.
In any case, Cynthia had not given up without a fight. Atta girl. “She continued to struggle with him, he couldn’t overpower her. He started to panic, worried she might raise the alarm. He grabbed for the bottle on her belt-” which explained how someone had found it dropped by the path and returned it to the desk, thinking it belonged to the hotel “-she dodged him at first, tried to pull away. She opened her mouth like she was going to scream; he got frantic, tried to force her off her feet, managed to get hold of the bottle, lashed out at her with it in his hand… He struck her on the head with it, knocked her out.” The relief and twisted delight this sicko felt at seeing her sprawled out cold made my blood boil. And he hadn’t been nearly done with her yet.
“He tossed the bottle aside, it was evidence, he intended to deal with it later. He tried to heave her up, she was too heavy for her to carry so he half-dragged her.” I started shuffling to the side, moving slowly, like I was laboriously dragging a deadweight along with me. “He got her to the edge of the riverbank. He- huh, he had a boat moored here. I can see an old pylon sticking up out of the water, he had a dinghy with an outboard motor secured to it.
“I can see a trace of rope left from where it was tied to it,” Tyson said from where he was staring over my shoulder. Seriously, bless that man’s eyes.
This changed things. If he’d had a means of crossing the river, his escape route was pretty obvious and simple. It meant he could possibly take his victim to a car on the opposite side, from there driving her anywhere in the city. Wonderful. I’d lose the trace when he crossed the water, and we’d have to search the other riverbank for yet another trace.
I was just about to say some of this aloud, when a sense of urgency flooded the trace.
“He heard something, the sound of footsteps coming, likely another runner coming from the lodge. The fog is still there, but thinning. He’s desperate not to be spotted, has to move her quick before someone comes and catches him. He went for the b- No! No no no you fucking asshole, don’t you dare make me-”
I gave up talking, trying to fight against the trace’s urgency. But I was firmly latched on and couldn’t stop, the perp’s panic driving me to leap off the embankment into a boat that was no longer there. The water level was at reasonably low tide now, and there were some rather jagged rocks down there. Hell no, if I landed on them I would go splat not splash!
Mentally I was braking hard and trying to throw into reverse, but my feet, still driven by the trace, were determined to take me hurtling off the edge-
I had one foot already stepping off solid ground, hanging in mid-air, when a pair of arms snatched me sharply away from the edge. I oof-ed as I was pulled in against a hard chest.
The one foot I’d still had on terra firma peeled off the ground, breaking my link with the trace. I instinctively bent my knees to lift both feet as high as I could, making sure I was well clear and not in danger of stepping right back onto our jumper’s compulsion. I really, really didn’t want to take a refreshing dip in the Cumberland - especially not while still wearing Sho’s very fancy expensive headset.
It took me a moment to snap back into my own consciousness, take stock of what had just happened, and get my breath back. It took me another moment to realize that over the sound of my own gasps, Tyson was panting in my ear.
He had me gripped in a tight bear-hug round my waist, holding up all of my weight, crushing me to him with my back flat against his chest. I realized I could feel his pelvis pressing snug against my ass. There was nothing sexual about it; I didn’t mind the sudden unexpected bodily contact, was just glad he had managed to snatch me up before I could take an involuntary dive into the river.
“Thanks,” I murmured, trying to hold still and brace my weight with my hands on his forearms so I wasn’t just hanging in his grip. I couldn’t help but be impressed; he hadn’t been just blowing smoke when he said he was capable of lifting me.
“Welcome,” he huffed back, sounding a trifled winded. He could lift me, sure, but hefting my whole weight while fighting my previous forward momentum couldn’t have been too easy. “Can I set you down?”
“To the side,” I said, apologetic about making him go to the extra effort, but absolutely adamant that I wasn’t going to be put down right back on that trace so I could make attempt number two on my watery parkour.
Tyson didn’t argue or complain, just took a large sidestep and gently put me back on my feet. He arms loosened round me, then he gripped me firmly by the arm and guided me a few steps back from the edge for good measure. I was very glad to go where he led.
We both just stood and breathed for a moment, shaken by the sudden turn of events more than we were worn out by exertion. Well, at least there hadn’t been that much exertion on my part, maybe Tyson was also partly winded from slinging me around.
“Thanks for the lift,” I said, making light of it but feeling genuine gratitude.
“No problem,” he replied, leaning forward with his hands on his knees as he tried to steady his breathing. He lifted his head, fixing me with an imploring gaze. “Not that you’re that heavy or anything, but please don’t fling yourself off anything else while you’re here. If Sharon and Carol didn’t murder me for letting you get damaged, Sho would murder me for ruining the equipment.”
“I doubt there would be anything left of you to murder after those two were done,” Sho drawled in my ear.
Right, we were still micced up and recording. I hoped all our heavy breathing got filtered out by the optimization.
“You two okay down there?” Sho asked after a moment. I was thankful he’d had the presence of mind to not yell in our ears or demand explanations while we were dealing with the situation. He had just the right disposition to head a command centre. Seriously, I was considering putting him in my pocket and sneaking him out of Nashville with me when I went back on the road.
“We’re okay,” I said, part reassurance, part clarifying what had happened for the recording. “The suspect had a boat at the ready, he made to jump into it. Support got me off the trace before I could follow suit.” I gave Tyson another quick nod of acknowledgement. If I didn’t already owe him for taking me out to brunch yesterday, now I definitely owed him at least lunch. Possibly also a crate of beer and a tray of muffins for keeping me dry and not banged up by sharp rocks. “The suspect likely crossed the river, taking our missing person with him. That concludes my findings for this reading.”
I tapped the screen of my watch, ending the third recording of the day.
“Good job,” Sho said over the earpiece. “You guys gathered a lot of useful data. Come back in, we have some new information to collate, both from your readings and things that the others rooted out in their investigations”.
“Sure thing. I’m really liking this headset, Sho,” I added, feeling a little praise was in order. “It didn’t come close to falling off or even moving much while I ran, sounded crystal clear the whole time. You’ll have to hook me up with your supplier.”
“I’m glad,” Sho said, sounding gratified by the compliments. “Though if I’m to be your gateway to serious gadgetry, please don’t come crying back to me when your bank account runs dry.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him drily, “I’m used to crying over my shoe shopping bill, I can’t go overboard on gadgets if footwear has already left me broke.” Both Sho and Tyson laughed, plus I heard Garrett’s chuckles as well, he must have come back online. “We’ll make our way back to you, then. Traveller out.” I switched off my mic and turned for the path that led back towards the lodge. Tyson fell into step beside me.
“You okay?” he asked as soon as we began walking.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reassured him. Not like it was the riskiest situation I had ever been in while following a trace. I wondered if he was worried about what my cousins would have done to him if I had drowned on his watch. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to having a partner who might fling themself into bodies of water at a moment’s notice. “Thanks for preventing me from going splash.”
“Any time.” I side-eyed him discreetly; he didn’t look like he had strained anything playing catch with me. He wasn’t even breathing hard anymore. Still, the walk back to the lodge gave us both a chance to cool down. “Just please try not to get too close to any bodies of water again,” he added after a few more steps. “If you want to sight-see while you’re in town, floating down the Cumberland without a boat is not the way to do it.”
I rolled my eyes. As if my impromptu would-be swan dive was intentional. Still, I quipped back at him: “Killjoy.”
He gave me a boyish smirk that was altogether too charming. “Trust me, my SUV is comfier and a lot drier as a way to get around town. Speaking of, let’s swing by the parking lot before we head into the lodge. I have bottles of water and some of your snacks in the trunk.”
For a moment, I was taken aback by his level of thoughtfulness. “I certainly wouldn’t say no to any of those.”
Wasn’t he a sweetheart? First literally sweeping me off my feet, then plying me with snacks and keeping me hydrated.
It had been a long while since I had been attracted to a guy - I was more of a girl-ccentric bisexual - but I had to admit as far as guys went, Tyson was pretty damn attractive. It was a wonder he was still single. At least, I assumed he was, from the way Sharon had carried on last night. My cousins gossiped to me about their co-workers; they would have told me if Tyson started seeing someone, either during our regular webchats or when they gave me a who’s-who rundown of the office before I arrived for this work collaboration. From memory, last they had mentioned Tyson, they had talked about possibly setting up him with a date, speculating over what type of person he’d likely end up with.
I couldn’t help but envy that future partner a little. Tyson was a sweet, considerate, strong, dependable guy. Whoever dated him would be very, very lucky to have him.
Notes:
Tyson's trick of photographing evidence next to a dollar bill as an impromptu marker was something I saw Angelina Jolie's character do in The Bone Collector.
Sorry it took so long to post this chapter, I had it done for a while barring one last edit but had other obligations crop up before I could release it.
In case anyone is unaware: the other obigation was my own book, I'm now a published author!
My pen name is Kellen Sinclair, my only book so far is called 'Once Upon a Time'. It's the first book in the Rookton Romances series, there are six books planned, then two more series after that, with a scattering of short stories in between. Genre is contemporary small town romance, first book is friends-to-lovers; if you liked the AJ Sherwood book 'Style of Love', you might also like this.I have no idea when the next chapter of this fic will be done - I have Rookton Romances book 2 and two short stories on my immediate writing schedule - but I hope to come back to it eventually. I enjoy writing a police procedural, always happy to prologue my stay in the Jon's Mysteries universe, and gives me ideas for writing a detective series of my own
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