Eyes to the Soul Page 15

  And that was his best clue. She’d never been wrong yet.

  “I’ll see if I can find out more. I’ll bring it home tonight.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice stronger as she distanced herself from the vision. “I’ll be waiting.”

  “I’ll only bring it if you have a swim and try for a nap later today.”

  “I planned on it.” She laughed. “I’m fine, you know.”

  He grinned. “You, my beloved, are more than just fine.”

  And with that he hung up, her laughter still ringing in his ears. God, he was blessed. The smile fell off his face as he returned to hunt for any information on her latest vision.

  *

  Jacob felt like an idiot.

  He was lying on top of his body, sprawled like a lumpy blanket. And no matter what position he tried out he couldn’t get back into his body. He remembered Lissa’s words about needing to find the reason why he wasn’t in there, but for the life of him – and didn’t that phrase made him wince – he couldn’t come up with a good reason.

  He loved playing for the orchestra. He loved his friends. Sure, he had some problems with his family, but nothing major. He was close with Celina, and that brought him up short. He’d taken her to the restaurant that night. Had she been injured? He hoped not. She had enough to deal with. He couldn’t remember anything about the accident.

  There’d been something important then. Something important.

  What was it?

  Chapter 17

  A weariness Celina hadn’t felt in a long time swept over her system. She knew Stefan’s sharp eyes would notice. Fine. She was too tired to care.

  “Why don’t you lie down?” he suggested.

  She smiled. “I plan on it after you leave.”

  A slight whoosh of air drifted toward her as he said, “Except I’m not leaving.”

  She froze. Damn that smooth voice of his that made everything seem so reasonable. So easy. But not this. And not this easy. Keeping her voice light she said, “Why?”

  “Because I can see energy, and I want to see what goes on here while you’re asleep. You have several ghosts in here now but they are distant. Wanting to communicate but not able to.”

  Ouch. She wasn’t sure she liked him being able to pick up so much.

  “Tell me why they are there in that state.” His voice, so soft, was controlled and determined.

  She shrugged. Well, it wasn’t a big deal. “I was overwhelmed. Somehow with the accident it seemed like any and every ghost could call on me at will and I couldn’t handle it. I closed a door and let only a few in. And no, don’t ask me how I closed it. I just did.” She gave a small shrug. “As it was, several still managed to get in.”

  “Were they persistent?”

  “No, I just think they were more capable.” She turned to look around her room, knowing where everything was and where her ghostly visitors usually were. “It’s an odd thing to consider that some ghosts are more conscious, more adept than others. But it’s the same with people. I just hadn’t considered that the same traits would show up between ghosts.” She stood up. “This conversation would have normal people running for the hills.”

  “I’m not normal people.” There was a hesitation in his voice.

  Celina stopped and waited for him. When he didn’t speak again she said, “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s stupid.”

  “What’s stupid?” she said, frowning.

  “I was going to ask if you need any help, but you are obviously very competent and don’t need it.”

  She paused, hearing a note in his voice that said he’d like to help regardless. As in he wanted more from her than she was giving at this point. She had to think about that. Her life was a mess. She really didn’t need anyone else adding complications. She opened her mouth to make that clear.

  She sensed his indrawn breath, as if waiting for her to say something he wasn’t going to like but damn it, the words wouldn’t come out. Because in spite of all the problems, in spite all of the people in her life, real and ghostly, she didn’t want to go it alone. Didn’t know if she could. But she knew this man would never want to be anyone’s crutch. He’d want a partner. In every sense of the word.

  Could she be that for him? That was the dream she’d had with her fiancé. And that had gone up in a puff of smoke.

  She couldn’t sense any eagerness or pushiness in his voice or actions. In fact, she had to wonder if she’d imagined his tone. She’d shut down so much of her life after Peter’s death that it was impossible to know if she were interpreting the signals correctly. She really wished she could see the answer in his eyes. The truth on his face when she asked him.

  The thing was she was interested herself. And too damn afraid to go down that pathway.

  Tired and frustrated with the constant double questioning, she made her way to her bedroom. “I’m going to lie down. You do what you want.”

  “I’ll stay then.” The humor in his voice hit her as she entered her room.

  Inside she leaned back against the closed door and shut her eyes for a long moment. Thank God he was.

  *

  He couldn’t imagine a more prickly character to have fallen in love with. Not that he had any choice, of course – but still it was the universe’s way of making him work for what he wanted. He’d just once like to have something come easy. So many people saw his gifts and ignored the pain and difficulty they’d brought him over the years.

  For years he’d been dealing with women’s unwanted attention. A man should be so unlucky. But as he could see the women’s energies he knew what was behind their actions. And that was a huge turnoff. He didn’t want to sleep with a woman who wanted the cachet of sleeping with a psychic or that came from sleeping with a person with certain notoriety. Too often his looks were the reason for the instant attraction, and that was difficult and often made him – almost out of necessity – blunt as he brushed them off. The last thing Stefan needed was someone who judged by the cover.

  Celina was refreshing that way. His looks meant nothing to her. But he’d very quickly realized that her blindness was something she endured on sufferance, and was making no attempt to learn to live with it beyond what she had to. She’d rather see with her eyes than her fingers, and given that it wasn’t an option at this time she’d prefer to do neither. An all-or-nothing girl.

  He settled into the living room in his lotus position and slipped free of his body. He could do a lot of his work from here. Good thing, as his days were too busy and nights lately had become even worse.

  Opening his eyes, he could see the room come alive with colors and energies. He searched to see if there was anything off and found everything calm. Normal. Next he checked the security measures he’d put up, and again everything appeared fine. More confident now he slipped into her bedroom to hover over her sleeping form. She needed rest. These last couple of months – years – had been rough on her. In fact, as he looked at the old energy moving restlessly, entwined with the newer, he figured much of the last few years had been tough.

  On instinct he headed to the hospital and checked out the other survivors of the accident. He needed an eyewitness. Someone who’d heard something. There had to be a reason behind the accident. He wasn’t prepared to listen to the claim of Celina’s predator as the cause just yet.

  He closed his eyes and willed himself to the morgue.

  The icy chill hit him first. Opening his eyes, he found himself at the same part of the large, connecting rooms as he’d been in last time. The same lineup of sheet-covered bodies before him. Different bodies, he thought, as several were young women. New arrivals, considering the conversation going on around him.

  “Stabbings at the street corner. What is this world coming too? That guy there, Brown,” one of the staff pointed to a large, middle-aged male off to one side, “up and attacked without warning. He killed these three women and knifed two more. They are still upstairs.”

  “So autop
sies on all three?” Gurneys were rolled forward and backward, shifting the order of the work to be done.

  “The boss is doing the guy.”

  The other man nodded, not seeming to care either way. “Let’s hope the doc finds a medical reason for going off half-cocked and killing those women.”

  And that’s why he was here. Stefan watched as the same black energy he’d seen in the morgue before on yet another body drift around this Brown character. He had no idea how long this man had been dead, but that black mist was still here, dissipating but thick enough that he could see the layers on the body.

  He needed to be here during the autopsy if possible, and if not he needed to see the autopsy report. Somehow this man was connected to Celina’s troubles.

  That meant he had to contact Brandt.

  He smiled. No time like right now. He popped over to Brandt’s office to find him at his desk, pounding away on the keyboard. Brandt?

  Brandt’s gaze shot up. “Stefan?”

  Yes. I need to ask you a couple of questions.

  “Well, I’m alone, so go for it. What’s up?” Brandt’s voice reverberated oddly in Stefan’s head. Brandt had come a long way and his telepathic skills were getting better all the time. He just couldn’t keep doing so for long periods of time, so they didn’t talk that way unless they needed to. You’ve got a guy in the morgue I’m interested in.

  “Yeah, well, we’ve actually got a lot of guys in the morgue. Which one are you talking about?”

  A man who just stabbed several women.

  “Interesting. I should have guessed,” Brandt said, busy clicking away.

  Guessed what? Stefan asked.

  “Sam contacted me earlier. She’d connected to him and led me through the vision right up to the point he’d grabbed up a knife from the grocer and started stabbing.”

  What else did she say? Stefan asked, his voice sharp. I need to know everything she said.

  Brandt walked him through what he remembered. “If you need more than that you’ll need to call her yourself, but leave it for a bit. I keep hoping she’ll finally get some sleep one of these days.”

  She’s still not sleeping? Stefan didn’t like the sound of that.

  “No. Too many visions. That’s a problem. If there was a chance of a serial killer being involved here, there’s no way he’d be as prolific as this. There has to be something else going on here,” Brandt said. “The visions are wearing her out. In the beginning it seemed like the connections were weaker, but now she says they are getting stronger. She can now hear their thoughts and feel their emotions. She said this stabbing guy was burning up in pain, and rage was fueling his actions. She said it was a horrible rage. Deep-seated and very old.”

  Of course. Emotion is one of the best ways to gain a hold into someone. And one he hadn’t considered. You should be collecting a few more of these cases to add to the pile I have.

  “I have them,” Brandt said. “Just haven’t gotten them to you yet. I could run them by your house today on the way home if you want.”

  I might not be there. I’m keeping an eye on Celina right now.

  “As in keeping a watchful eye or keeping a physical eye?”

  A physical eye, Stefan said, hearing the humor in his friend’s voice. Glad everyone is having fun at my expense, but Celina is a long way away from having a relationship.

  “Too bad, I feel for you,” Brandt said with just enough honesty that Stefan relaxed.

  Thanks.

  “She doesn’t live that far out of my way. I’ll run by and drop the stack off if that helps.”

  That would be good, Stefan acknowledged. I can study them here. How long are you going to be?

  “Leaving soon. So I’ll print off this extra information and add it to the growing pile and be there in…” he paused, checking his watch, “in about fifteen minutes.”

  Okay, come upstairs to the apartment. I’ll be waiting.

  Stefan zoomed out of town to check in on Sam, planning on questioning her further only to find her fast asleep on the couch, both dogs ever watchful at her side. He sent some soothing energy down over both dogs’ backs, letting them know he was here. Both whined and wagged their tails.

  It’s all right, guys. I’m going to work on Sam’s energy a bit to help her sleep better. As he looked at Samantha’s aura he realized that although she’d been working at keeping her guards in place, the lack of sleep and worry had allowed the energy barrier to thin down to almost nothing. He spent a few moments easing the pain from her soul and pulling back some of the tight, dark cloud over her glowing energy.

  Sam was a beacon for violence and needed more care than most psychics. She was an apt pupil and had come a long way, but there was still that remnant of inexperience that kept getting frazzled to the point that it was hurting her. He spent long moments easing back her ruffled edges and stroked her aura into peacefulness.

  A harsh noise snapped him out of his meditation, pulling him back to Celina’s living room…and slamming him back into his body.

  When the doorbell rang again he managed to make it to the front door in time to stop Brandt from pushing the damn bell a third time.

  “I should have mentioned that Celina is asleep.”

  Brandt’s eyebrows shot up. “You really are looking after her, aren’t you?”

  Stefan nodded. “There is something beyond odd happening here. Until I can get a handle on it I can’t tell if she’s seriously in danger, or is a serious danger to others, or just what is going on.”

  He led the way to the kitchen. Brandt dropped the folder on the table. “This is the little bit I have on Joey Brown. His background is coming in from the group out canvassing. We’re trying to figure out why he stabbed the women. According to Sam it was anger, but there had to be a trigger.”

  “And that was likely the burning pain.”

  “So the women were likely just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  “Quite possible, but due diligence will need to be done to make sure he doesn’t have a connection to one of these specific women.”

  “It’s all in progress. I’ll update you when I get more. At the moment it looked like the knife was there and so were the women and he just attacked.”

  “And that makes a sick kind of sense. I’ll work on this tonight.”

  Brandt stayed quiet. Stefan looked up from the paperwork spread across the table. “What?”

  “There is something else. The blood tests came back from the blood found on Celina’s bathroom. You were right.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how but it’s Jacob’s blood.”

  Stefan winced.

  Brandt glared at him. “Do you have an explanation? One other than Celina did this herself?”

  “It wasn’t Celina.” Stefan leaned back. “Damn.”

  “Well, I know there is some freaky stuff in your world, but this is the first I’ve had a coma patient write notes on a bathroom wall in his own blood.”

  “But it’s not my first time for a coma patient to do something unbelievable.” Stefan frowned. He wondered if Jacob could have possessed someone else – and he hated to consider it, but if he’d taken possession of Celina – then the writing on the wall could have been hers. No. She couldn’t have written so cleanly with her eyesight. Unless somehow Jacob had been able to see enough to get the job done.

  He shook his head slowly from side to side. He couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t believe. He knew inside it hadn’t been her.

  “It wasn’t Celina’s energy on the wall. But I have no idea if Jacob could have done this himself. Given what Lissa can do… it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

  “Hell.” Brandt shook his head. “Well, until we figure this out, we need to keep Celina away from Jacob and hope that Jacob wakes up and can answer a few questions for us.”

  “He might not remember anything,” Stefan pointed out.

  “No. He might not, but more to the point is let’s make sure that Celina didn’t eith
er.” Brandt studied Stefan’s face. “I’m worried. You’re in really deep with her, aren’t you?”

  Stefan stared back at one of the best friends he’d been lucky enough to have in his life and said in a quiet voice, “I always have been. She’s always been a major part of my life. That has never changed.”

  *

  Celina opened her eyes to foreign sounds. Stefan. So he was still here…and he was speaking with someone. Then she heard sounds of a door closing. She lay quietly, getting used to the idea of a watchdog. And a stranger at that. How long had it been since anyone had cared for her enough to watch over her in person? No one since Peter. He’d been so possessive and careful to make sure she was looking after herself that if she didn’t he did it for her. He’d often run out to make sure there was food in the cupboard, enough of her favorite tea in stock, or any number of other little things that showed her how much he’d cared. She’d loved him to distraction.

  But that possessiveness had become confining, controlling. Enough that they’d fought over it. Enough that she’d had second thoughts…

  It was so different with Stefan. With Stefan she felt safe, cared for… without that stifling possessiveness. She didn’t understand why she’d trusted him as easily and as quickly as she had…but she did. He made her feel safe. Secure.

  Then again it was early days yet.

  Also there was no guarantee that he’d stick around for long, but she wanted what time she could have. She’d learned how dreams turned to dust, and the people she loved disappeared. Like Peter.

  Somewhere along the way the pain of her loss had disappeared and she hadn’t noticed. She carefully opened up that part of her psyche and took a long, in-depth look. There was a tiny ache for what might have been, but other than that there was no leftover grief. She’d passed that point a long time ago and hadn’t even noticed.

  She smiled. Then heard Stefan moving around in the kitchen.

  And the smile dropped away.