a Touch of TNT (An Everly Gray Adventure) (14 page)

We made it out of the hospital a little after seven, and Annie drove through Mickey D’s for McMuffins. After a few bites, some of the numb left my brain, and I noticed a distinct glow surrounding Annie. “What’s going on with you?”

She slid a look in my direction. “Nothing. Why? What could be going on?”

“I may be out of touch, so to speak, but numb brain notwithstanding, I still have all my regular senses and excellent intuitive abilities. You’re flushed, glowing actually, you can’t stop smiling, and you’re bouncing all over the car. You got some lovin’ last night, didn’t you? After you left me, Sean showed up. Damn. What a time for my ESP fingertips to go on the fritz. The timing on this is just wrong. You would never have gotten that by me if—”

“Something to be thankful for,” she cut in. “We should try to look at the bright side of this temporary touch setback.”

“And that would be?”

“I can keep secrets from you—”

“Annie, we don’t keep secrets about that stuff. Your work, my work, yes. Men, never. So spill. What happened?”

“He was waiting on my deck when I got home from the hospital. Wanted to know about you and fill me in on the preliminary report from explosion. One thing led to another and we woke up together this morning.”

“I’m thinking you left out a few of the details. Let’s start with waking up this morning. Still think you’re in love?”

“Yes. We’re good together. Really good. It’s like I’ve re-connected with a part of myself that’s been missing for a long time. I don’t know a lot about this kind of thing, but whatever it is, it feels right.”

“When do I get to meet him? I mean I know I met him the night of the Molotov cocktail, but that doesn’t count because I didn’t know he was The One. Actually, I suspected the potential for a great fling, but with the deck being on fire and all, I got sidetracked. Besides, looks like it’s more than a fling from the way you’re glowing.”

“I do feel, ummmm, like a glass of really good champagne, bubbly and sparkly, all that kind of stuff.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe that sentence just came out of me. Me.”

“I don’t believe it either, but since it did—”

“No. End of topic. Moving right along to when you get to meet him.”

“Un-huh,” I grunted.

“Seriously. I think now that Sean and I have finally connected it’ll be easier to catch time together, to slide in and out of each other’s lives without specific plans.”

I rubbed at the bump on the side of my head. Didn’t help my headache. “So, that means I’ll get to interrogate him soon?”

“Other way around. He wants to question you about the explosion.”

I scrunched up my face. I was more in a mood to listen than talk. “Right. He was called to the scene last night. Did you know he was training for arson investigator?”

“We’d talked about it. I didn’t know he was working on the same case, make that cases, as you and Adam until we got to Summer Woods Manor.”

She pulled into my driveway, helped me out of the car, and followed me upstairs. It was good to be home.

I sank down into the cushions on my sofa and covered my legs with a blanket. Crazy, mixed emotions were running through my head and I needed to figure out what was going on with the touch thing.

Annie handed me a mug of tea. “Think you’ll feel up to meeting with Sean this afternoon?”

“Sure,” I said, hesitating as a fresh wave of nausea clogged my throat. “What time?”

“He suggested early afternoon, around one o’clock.”

I was able to swallow several sips of tea before an overwhelming fatigue rolled through my body. “Fine,” I mumbled, and barely managed to set the mug down before I dropped into a deep sleep.

“El?” Annie rubbed my shoulder,
and the rich fragrance of beef, broth, and vegetables saturated my brain.

“You’ve slept five hours, and Sean’ll be here soon. Figured you’d be hungry since you didn’t eat last night. I heated up some soup.”

My stomach rumbled in agreement. I took inventory of my body. Aches and pains, but not nearly as pronounced as they’d been this morning. Best of all, no nausea. “Good call. I’m starving.” Didn’t take more than a couple minutes to wolf it down.

Annie cocked her head. “You want more?”

I started to shake my head, thought better of it. “No, thanks.”

“So, maybe you want to tidy up before Sean gets here.”

I must have looked pretty bad for Annie to suggest I needed help with my appearance. But then I was about to officially meet Sean. “Hey,” I said as I stood and took a few steps. “This isn’t half bad. I can balance, and the pain is only about a four instead of off the chart.”

Things were definitely looking better—until I got to the bathroom and glanced in the mirror.

Holy crapola, I could compete with a hellhound for ugly beast of the month. Cuts, scrapes, bruises. I looked like the poster child for spouse abuse. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, covered the worst of the bruises with concealer, and tamed my hair into a heavy-duty clip. Better. I stripped out of the sweats and dropped a long, sleeveless sundress over my head. It was a deep fuchsia that added some brightness to my cheeks.

“Hey, you look better,” Annie greeted me as I eased into a chair at the kitchen table. “Do you feel any better?”

“Actually, I do. What kind of questions do you think Sean’ll ask?”

“Why you were there. What happened prior to the explosion, anything you sensed or saw. You know, the usual.” She rubbed her lower lip with her thumb.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Adam’s coming with him. I thought you’d rather get it over with all at once instead of talking to each of them separately.”

“Good idea. And?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. “And it’ll be the first time I’ve seen Sean since we woke up together this morning.”

That explained it. “Love is complicated.”

“I didn’t think—”

“That it would happen to you,” I finished for her. “Wonder why I don’t connect ‘falling in love’ with Mitch. I care about him, deeply. But love is serious.”

Annie lips quirked into a smile. “I think you do love him, just haven’t worked it all out in your mind yet. New topic—are you going to talk to your spiritual teacher about losing your gift?”

“Not yet. I haven’t had time to process it myself.” I reached over and tentatively rested my fingertips on Annie’s arm. “Fog. It looks like fog. I’m hoping that means the wisps of energy I’m seeing will coalesce into actual images soon.”

“That’s been going on for a while, right?”

“No. Well, yes. But not like this. The fog is different. More dense. I figured out it’s been happening because I’m tense. Officially working for Chief Hayes for the first time, I had pre-conceived ideas about what I should find at the first site Adam and I visited.”

“And has the touch thing been normal after that first day?”

“Not totally, but there’ve been a few normal images.”

“So, you’re hoping you can work this out on your own, fix the problem?”

“I’m going to try. Give my head some time to heal. Work on any potential reasons why I might not want to sense things through my fingers.”

The doorbell chimed. End of conversation.

Annie went to open the kitchen door, and I could hear the guys chatting away like good buds. Wish I’d seen her expression. Heck of a shock finding out that Big Brother knew New Significant Other. Apparently, they’d been in contact about the industrial demolition cases. Made sense.

When they stepped into the living room, my attention went right to Annie. Pale. Yep, she wasn’t ready for Adam to know about her love life.

Sean, a teddy bear of a man with sandy hair and dark honey eyes, was definitely the kind of guy I’d trust him to carry me out of a burning building. My palm warmed when our hands met in greeting. Solid. Safe. I could define the touch with words, but no images. It was so strange, empty. I rubbed at the ache in my chest. Not a good time for a meltdown.

My “normal” senses kicked in, and I catalogued the obvious. Sean was taller than Mitch and Adam, probably six feet and a couple of inches. And he loved Annie. Even without the help of images, it was evident to me in the way he looked at her, touched her. Evident to Adam, too, judging from his scowl.

I winked at Adam, and then turned to Sean with a full grin. “Pleased to meet you for the second time, Sean.”

He nodded. “We need to change the circumstances. Keep you out of trouble. Annie… speaks of you often.”

“Oh, yeah?” I shot her a glance. She arched her brows with innocence. Not a good sign.

Sean grinned. “How about if I ask you some questions?”

“Sure, but there probably isn’t much I can tell you that’ll be helpful.”

Adam stepped around Sean, his gaze sliding between them, eyebrows hiked into tight arches. A single headshake later he tucked me into his arms, the hug providing so much love I had to swallow back my tears.

“Gonna put you under house arrest if you keep this up,” he said. There was a faint catch in his voice—just enough to push the tears down my cheek.

I scrubbed them away and got down to business. Gave Sean an outline of the events preceding the explosion, and then Annie added her opinion. “You know El is going to drive everyone nuts if this investigation doesn’t proceed at warp speed.”

What could I say, she was right. I was all done with the sitting around part of my convalescence. If it weren’t for my ability to touch going south, I’d probably have been planning to break into Jacobson’s office in a few hours—when I finally got all of these well-meaning people out of my living room.

Lost in my musings, I missed the first part of Sean’s comments, but caught the last of his sentence, “…dynamite to blow up the house and El’s car. The arson team is working to connect this explosion to others around town, but before we make a definitive statement, there are more tests that need to be run.”

I pulled my mind out of my non-working fingertips and jogged my brain back into activity. “Why do you suppose North gave me that address? Did he plan to kill me? Or was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Adam stood, blew out a sigh, and then reluctantly offered his opinion. “Officially, we’re still unsure about the extent of North’s involvement. Unofficially, I’d bet he’s into this up to his uncooperative neck. I just don’t have proof…yet.”

Sean nodded. “Yeah. There’s something off with North, but like Stone, I can’t put my finger on it.”

My fingertip found the diamond nestled in my navel, and a smile touched my lips. Surely it would help me to focus my attention on my subconscious wisdom and find some answers. Just because I’d temporarily lost my ESP fingers, didn’t mean I’d lost the ability to use my mind.

“You know—” I broke into the on-going conversation— “it could be North didn’t give Mitch and me the address at all. Marcy Blaine, his secretary is the one who typed out the addresses. Could be she decided to send me to the scene of an impending crime.”

Adam tilted his head and studied me through squinty eyes. “You didn’t mention that earlier,” he said.

“I forgot. Concussion and all. North handed Marcy the prospectus sheets so she could type out the addresses. There’s no way I’d know if she switched the addresses or not. Also, there’s the chance he made an honest mistake and pulled the wrong prospectus. The man was pretty shaken over Jacobson’s death.”

Adam nodded. “We haven’t questioned North yet, thought we might get more info if we tailed him for a while. See if he does anything interesting.”

“Good plan,” I agreed.

“But now I’m thinking Marcy Blaine needs to be under surveillance too. Problem. No available manpower. Maybe I can tail her on my off-time.”

Annie hit him with a playful punch. “You’re already overloaded. Besides, it’s common knowledge Marcy and North are having an affair. If you follow one you’ll bump into the other one.”

Adam shifted his gaze between his sister and Sean again. Flipped his index finger between them, but didn’t say anything. Cleared his throat. “Yeah. But what about when they aren’t engaged in extra-marital activities?”

“Good point,” Annie agreed. “I’d offer to take one of them, but I just picked up a client and my schedule is tight.”

Annie’s gaze trailed over me. “It’s time to wind this up. El is turning an unhealthy shade of gray and—”

Adam stood, his gaze focused and cold. “And I’m going to personally take over surveillance on North. I want to be on his butt when he starts making mistakes. Looking forward to introducing him to his fellow inmates. They won’t be lookin’ anything like Marcy Blaine.”

Sean reached for Annie’s hand, and he urged her to meet him later. If Annie’s smile was any indication of her availability, the night was going to be steamy.

My response to their obvious happiness surprised me. I was happy for them, truly I was, but also sad I didn’t have anyone to turn to. Mitch’s schedule had been getting more difficult, and my heart was heavy with the secrecy between us. I understood it, even accepted it. Sort of.

“I’m leaving for retreat tomorrow morning. The best way I can help is to get my ESP fingers back in working order and that’ll only happen with intense meditation time.”