a Touch of TNT (An Everly Gray Adventure) (22 page)

“It doesn’t matter about the plastic being between my fingers and his body, Chief. It won’t stop the images.”

My mind went into panic mode and dissolved into an internal rant.
No way are you touching that body, Everly. Eeuww. Seriously. Not necessary. But if it
were
necessary, you could do it. Civic duty and all. Nobody goes around touching dead bodies, unless they’re a mortician—or totally bonkers.

I squatted, reached out, and rested my fingers against the black plastic. Nothing. Had my fingers stopped working again? Panic zapped my common sense. “Open the bag.”

A fresh-faced officer grasped the edge of the Velcro and tipped his head in my direction. “He was shot. Clean, professional hit through the forehead. There’s decomposition. Just wanted you to know what to expect.” And with that he exposed Applegate’s head and upper chest.

I held my breath and gritted my teeth to keep from spewing cinnamon latte, but I did it, let my fingertips brush against his shoulder.

And promptly landed on my ass.

“Bloody, bloody hell,” I shrieked.

Adam grabbed me under the arms and lifted me away from the body. “What the hell, El?”

My gaze slid to the chief. The air tingled with his unspoken words—amateurs, crazies, idiots, nut cases—every possible adjective raced across his face.

I’d lost a lot of respect with this one, and worse, didn’t have a clue how to tell him what I’d seen.

I shook my head. “Oh, boy.”

Adam’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “El?”

I broke away, noticed my fists were clenched, and purposely relaxed my fingers. “Okay. You’re not going to like this. This guy—” I nodded toward the body bag— “Jerry Applegate, he was at the shopping mall site.”

The chief spun on his heel, paced away from me.

Adam’s face turned an alarming shade of red. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Remember the first day we worked together on this demolition thing?”

“Got that part.”

“I went back to the site later, called you and reported on the guy who set off the explosives.”

“And?” Adam’s growl raised the hair on the back of my neck.

“Jerry Applegate set off the explosions.”

SIXTEEN

The chief hunkered over Applegate’s body,
then stood, crowding my space. “You better be damn sure about that accusation, Ms. Gray.”

Doubt clouded my mind, and I snuck a peek at the body bag. Maybe one more touch, just to be absolutely sure. But they had the body on a gurney and were wheeling it away.

I tensed my muscles to keep from flinching. “The energy and the images match. I can’t get a lot from…him. Not now. Whoever shot him did it from a distance, so there’s no energetic imprint. I’m not sure how he got in the dumpster, but it wasn’t the shooter who put him there.”

Hayes nodded, eyes glazed over. Uncertainty gnawed at my belly leaving an ugly hollowness behind. Energetic imprints weren’t his thing, I got that. But did it make me…useless?

He tasked a uniform to take me home. And that was that. End of discussion.

It took less than a half hour for me to shower off the smell of death and curl up in my favorite chair on the deck with a cool glass of Rock Rabbit Sauvignon Blanc. It slipped down my throat, a faint trace of spice lingering on my tongue. It was good to be alive and not a crumpled, fly infested body that had been tossed into a dumpster.

Now if I could just put the pieces together about this Applegate dude and the TNT and the construction demolition…”

Something tickled my cheek. Scared the heebies out of me, and I bounced out of my chair hitting Pierce squarely in the jaw with my very hard head.

“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, did I break your jaw? And what the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that?”

“I was going for a gentle wake up. And no, you didn’t break my jaw.” He eased his fingers along his chin, and crooked his neck back and forth a couple times.

Something cracked.

Probably time to change the topic.

“So, um, why are you here?”

“Not the warmest welcome, Fingers. Thought you might like to break into North’s office with me.”

“Fingers? That was Pudgy Pick Lock’s handle. How dare you compare—”

“Point. Not comparing you to the miscreant who killed Hunt’s friend. Although, that mishap got you a new belly jewel…Belisama.” His finger traced the edge of the diamond—through my t-shirt, but still.

I huffed out a breath and slapped his hand away. “Belis… Wait! You want to take me on an op?”

He scrubbed his palm over his face. “Looks like Blaine or North tried to kill you. I want to know why. Thought you had a right to come with me seeing as how it’s your ass they kicked.”

This was a no-brainer. “Let me change into some B and E clothes. Be with you in a sec.”

He was laughing his ass off, but I needed the diversion. And the illegal entry gig would give me a chance to run the afternoon’s events by him. I pulled on lightweight black slacks and a black t-shirt, tucked my hair under a black ball cap, and slipped into black sneakers. Could I dress the part or what?

“Into black I see.” His grin was insufferable.

I turned my palm in his direction. “Have you checked a mirror lately?” We looked like twins except he’d added a black windbreaker.

He twitched his shoulders—almost a shrug. “I haven’t done laundry for a while. Ready to roll?”

My turn to smother a grin. “Yep. Absolutely. Um, good news. My hinky touch gift came back today—”

He whirled around. “Good and bad. Useful in North’s office, but I’ve been places recently that I’d rather not share.”

“So…you’re telling me to keep my hands to myself.”

He cracked a smile. “Not by choice.”

“Right.” Best to let that comment slip by without discussion.

Pierce flipped on a pair of sunglasses. “Heard about Applegate.”

I stopped, dead. “Not my fault. I had nothing to do with…anything.”

He opened the car door and flashed me his pearly whites. “Two bodies. Two weeks. You’re stackin’ ’em up.”

I opened my mouth, snapped it closed. He had a point.

“You’re coming with me because the office is closed, both Blaine and North are out of town, and because I owe you a lock picking lesson. Probably won’t happen again.”

My mind latched on to a singsong refrain about famous last words, but I managed to keep my mouth shut for the entire ride to North Construction.

Pierce pulled into a secluded parking place, shut off the engine, and slipped his shades down his nose. “You don’t say something soon bad things are gonna happen to your insides.”

“I’m fine.”

“No. You’re thinking. From now until we get back to the car I want you to focus on me and what we’re doing.”

I couldn’t stop my grin. “No problem.”

He grunted. Typical Pierce.

When I got out of the car he handed me a small cloth packet. “I’m gonna disable the alarm. You’ll take care of the lock. Don’t rush. You have time.”

I pressed my lips into a tight line. Couldn’t seem to find my tongue. He wanted me to pick the lock on the outside door—in full view of anyone who happened to stroll down the alley. No way. He knew something about this lock or the circumstances I didn’t know. Damn how my fingers itched to touch him, see if I could pick up any images to help me figure out what was going on in his head.

I held tightly to the cloth packet. Pierce wouldn’t take it well if I touched him when he’d specifically asked me not to. He’d never done that before. My curiosity spiked.

“Focus.” His voice, harsh, shivered down my spine.

“Okay. Sorry. Focused, here.”

He stepped aside. “You’re up.”

How the hell was I supposed to do this? First thing: open the packet of tools. I stared at them, and for a second my mind blanked. I’d used these tools, knew them. No need to panic. I took a breath and ran my fingers over the metal. Several images of how they’d been used in the recent past flickered through my mind “Okay. Fingers working.”

Now, about this particular lock. I ran the pad of my index finger over the keyhole and a clear picture of a mechanism exactly matching the image I’d gotten from one of the tools in the packet settled in my mind’s eye.

I rolled my eyes at Pierce. “No wonder you’re letting me do this.”

“I wouldn’t put you in danger, Belisama.”

“What’s with the Belisama? What’s it mean?”

I selected the hook pick and turning tool I needed, stuffed the cloth packet into my back pocket and laid my fingers against the lock. I could clearly see the doohickeys, how to insert the hook, push against the pins, and use the turning tool. It only took a minute before I heard the snick of the lock releasing.

A beautiful sound.

“Irish. Goddess. Connected with fire, crafts, and light. Fits you.”

Huh? Pierce was comparing me to an Irish goddess. Warmth flashed in my belly. So. Not. The. Time.

I pushed the door open, but Pierce stopped me from moving with a touch. “After me.”

No problem. Better him than me to face blazing guns and scary people. He always came out of those situations without a scratch, and I always ended up in the emergency department.

As we slipped into the building, I kept my hands to myself. Nothing here would be pertinent to the case, and I didn’t need extraneous stuff mucking up my head. We took the stairs to North’s office, Pierce nodding at me open the lock.

This one was different. I touched the mechanism and images flowed through my mind. “It is so great to have my sense of touch back,” I mumbled as I selected the tools I needed.

Two deep breaths, a wiggle and a push, and the lock sprang free. No point in mentioning my sweaty palms or shaking fingers.

This time Pierce held the door for me to enter first. “Nice work,” he said, resting his hand on my shoulder. “My contribution to getting the ESP back in your fingers.”

“So that’s why you asked me to tag along. A pity lock picking.” Anger simmered, but died a sudden death. Pierce was right, damn it. I needed to trust my fingers, and this was the perfect situation to build my confidence.

“Not something you could do on your own.” He squeezed my shoulder, headed toward Marcy’s niche, and made himself at home in front of her computer. “Give me a minute to see what we’ve got here.”

I took the time to wander into North’s office, my fingers hovering over his desk. No gloves. Pierce had gloves, but hadn’t offered me any. I whirled to face Marcy’s workspace, hands on hips, and attitude on hot. “How come you have gloves and I don’t?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Because you’ve been here touching things, and your fingerprints are legal. Come here and look at this file. Are these the addresses Marcy gave you?”

I shook my head. “Nope. None of those were on my list.”

He pushed back his chair and stood. “Okay. Let’s check North’s computer. See if he—”

“No,” I interrupted him. North wrote the addresses on a piece of paper and handed it to Marcy. She would have made the change after he wrote them down. His computer would only have the…well, I guess there could have been a mix-up in his files. But you’d think he would have noticed. Unless he really was trying to kill me. But why? At that point I was an anonymous yuppie who wanted to spend a bunch of money.”

“How come North didn’t just hand you the piece of paper?”

“It was scribbled. Mitch and I were potential big spenders. I’m sure he wanted the information to be on engraved letterhead—with his phone number and address. A scrap of paper wouldn’t be professional. Besides, Marcy added the directions.”

“I want to take a walk through his computer anyway. See if anything turns up.”

I watched over his shoulder as he zoomed through files. “You speed read?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” he grunted, clearly focused on the task at hand.

Boredom and curiosity kicked in at the same time. A bad combination that had me searching for something to get into. I paced North’s office, allowing my fingers to brush against whatever looked interesting. I’d plucked a tissue from the box on North’s desk to use in place of the gloves Pierce neglected to give me. Fingerprints didn’t seem like a good idea when I was touching things I hadn’t been anywhere near in my prior visit.

Nothing was sending out “touch me” vibes and there were only murky images around his bookcase and filing cabinet. I tucked the tissue in my pocket and picked up a stack of papers from his desk—began to rifle through them. Since I’d been sitting at the desk earlier, I figured fingerprints would be expected.

Some images came through, mostly of meetings with anonymous people who weren’t connected to our case. I stacked the papers, placed them back on his desk the way I’d found them and decided to go through Marcy’s desk, see if I could find anything more interesting.

Her top drawer held the usual lip-gloss, comb, hair doohickey, hand lotion, and breath mints. A steno pad sat under the comb. I slid it out of the drawer and thumbed through the pages. It was blank. As I went to put it back, a flutter of paper tumbled to the floor. I bent to pick it up, then jerked my hand back. “Pierce, come here.”