a Touch of TNT (An Everly Gray Adventure) (21 page)

I jumped in the car almost before it came to a complete stop. “I’m so glad you’re here. That we have work. Quiet is not what I need right now.”

“Should I ask?” He gave me a raised eyebrow.

“No. Mitch spent the night, and I’m a basket case—possibly working up to a complete meltdown.”

“Table that. No meltdowns on my watch. We’re headed for the house you exploded.”

Adrenaline fueled panic had me reaching for the door handle.
No, El. You cannot jump from a moving vehicle.

I spun around to face Adam, and the clip flew out of my hair, landed in my lap. There was no expression on his face. A blank slate, open for me to assign any motive I wanted to his announcement.

“Why?” My question hung between us, a shard of ice in the charged silence.

He tapped the steering wheel a couple times, then shrugged. “Return to the scene of the crime. Don’t you read mysteries? That’s what all the bad guys do.”

“What?” I struggled to wrap the clip around the loose ends of my hair.

“Okay. Enough.” He made a sharp turn into the drive-thru at Starbucks and ordered an iced cinnamon latte. “I need you to be functioning and obviously you’re not up to speed. Experience tells me caffeine will fix the problem.”

“Yeah,” I answered as my taste buds started to tingle in anticipation of the cinnamon, “but, Adam, I don’t think going back there is a good idea. Makes me queasy. I-I almost died there.”

“Uh-huh. And your fingers haven’t worked since.”

“You’re…are you trying to
fix
me?” It came out a crazy-woman screech.

“Yeah. I am. You got a problem with that?” He turned to the teenager manning the take-out window. “Add a tall black coffee to that order, please.”

Adam shook his head, and I could practically hear things rattle into place. “I’ve seen it work with cops. Reality clears…issues.”

I punched him in the arm. “You’re saying it’s all in my head.”

His lips tightened. “Yeah. I am. And I need your fingers to work.”

The psychologist in me knew he was right, but my inner child—not at all happy about Adam’s plan. I sucked it up. “Okay. It didn’t occur to me to go back there. Check things out. I guess because with my fingers on the fritz I pushed all that to the back of my mind. Didn’t know what good it would do. You know?”

He nodded. “And then there’s the adoption thing.”

I sipped my latte, trying to figure out what I’d missed. “Adoption?”

“You’re my unofficial little sister.”

Gobsmacked. My heart squeezed with a happy ache. “Well, bro, guess we’ll play this your way and see what happens. I can’t deny I’ve been acting a little strange lately.”

He glanced at me over the rim of his cup. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Un-huh. Right. Maybe you can pull that on some people, but there’s no way the innocent act will fly with me.”

“Got me,” he grinned. “Okay. You’ve been acting damn strange. That better?”

“Yeah.” I licked a mouthful of whipped cream off my latte. “Honestly, I think this return-to-the-scene-of-the-crime plan is a fantastic idea. Who knows what will happen to my brain when I face the…damn, what if something even worse happens? What if—I don’t know—I get amnesia or something?”

“Unlikely.”

As we turned into the desolate non-development, sweat coated my palms and the back of my neck. I set my latte in the cup holder, the movement too precise. Too careful.

Adam pulled to a stop in front of the pile of rubble. An antenna stuck up from the pile of debris, blackened and twisted.

Pain flooded my body. No, my soul.

Adam circled to my side of the car, reached in, and yanked me out.

A strangled sob tore from my throat when his arms closed around me. Couldn’t breathe. My skin prickled, so sensitive the breeze hurt.

Adam’s voice came from somewhere above my head, steady and rough with love. “And you thought this wasn’t a good idea. There’s nothing like having a retired sniper for a sister to teach a guy when to use the old shock treatment.”

He was right. The tears passed, and my muscles relaxed for the first time since the accident. “Damn it. I hate when I miss the obvious like this.”

“Mop yourself up,” he said, pressing several neatly folded paper napkins into my hand.

“Y-you were p-prepared.” My smile shook, but it was genuine. “Best brother, ever.”

“Let’s look around, see what we can turn up.”

So much for big brother comfort time. “Give me a sec. Thirsty.” I blew my nose, drank most of a bottle of water, then gathered up the debris of my meltdown and headed for the construction dumpster. Time to go to work.

Except that the closer I got to the dumpster the worse it smelled.

“Adam?”

“Yeah, over here,” he yelled from the edge of the house that used to be.

I stopped about ten feet from the dumpster.

“Adam?” I shivered, and my heartbeat kicked up.

No way was I getting any closer. I knew that smell, and rotting bodies were seriously not my thing.

Adam came up behind me.

“Well shit. Maybe it’s not human.”

“Un-huh,” I said, backing away.

He edged up to the dumpster checking out the surrounding area. A flash of white blazed in the afternoon sunlight as he covered his hand with another of the paper napkins.

I back-pedaled a couple more steps, stumbled to a stop when I bumped into the pile of debris.

Adam lifted the dumpster lid, and a swarm of flies escaped. The noxious odor intensified to gag level. Ferocious buzzing filled the air and crawled along my skin.

He dropped the lid with a loud, metallic crash. “Right. Human it is.”

I cleared my throat and raised my voice to reach Adam. “Do you recognize…?”

“Yeah. Damn it. “

He unclipped his cell from his belt, punched in a number, and described the scene to whoever answered. Apparently, the body belonged to one of the rookie cops who worked for Adam.

He snapped the phone closed and looked through me. “What the fuck is this all about?”

I didn’t have an answer, so moved on to question him. “Who is it?”

“Rookie. Just started a few months ago. What the fuck was he doing out here? His assignment was to shadow, be a pain in the butt to his partner. Nothing else. Killing a cop. What the hell does that have to do with this construction racket?”

His eyes iced over as he looked at me. “And you?”

“Me?”

“I think the Chief needs to retire you from the department, effective immediately.” He reached for his cell again.

I grabbed his hand. “No. We don’t know enough about this, and it would be a mistake to, um, retire me until you’ve made use of my fingers. Much as I do not want to get near that dumpster, I should…touch it.”

The look on Adam’s face would have frozen boiling water. “You will not go near the dumpster. You will sit in the car until someone gets here to take you home.”

I shook my head. “No, Adam. We came here to shock me into getting my sense of touch back. Let’s see if it worked. Sure as all hell, if this didn’t do it, ain’t nothin’ gonna work.”

I snagged a handful of tissues, and got out of the car with determination. At least that was my plan. Since I was still a little wobbly, the “attitude” didn’t come off quite as well as I’d planned.

Fortunately, several cop cars pulled up at exactly the right time to cover my sudden lack of enthusiasm. While Adam talked to them, I resolutely headed for the dumpster.

Not to look inside.

Oh, no.

Talk about disgracing myself. That would do it. No, un-huh, bad plan. I wrapped a couple tissues around my fingers, ignoring the trembling that had taken over my body. My plan was to touch the dumpster, see what I could pick up.

Only there seemed to be a slight problem.

I couldn’t see anything. Black. Nothing but black out there. Just as I gave serious consideration to conjuring up a full-blown panic attack, Adam come up next to me.

“If you’re going to do this, you have to open your eyes.”

“Right.”

I knew that.

I had to open my eyes. Now if I could just remember how to get those lids to raise up. Adam poked me in the ribs—hard. My eyes flew open, and I glared at him. “I’m going to touch the dumpster.”

“Got that.” He grinned.

“You’re not going to argue with me?”

He blew out a sigh and shook his head. “No. You’re right. Someone has killed a cop. Much as I want to, I can’t protect you from this. I can’t, won’t, stop at anything to find the killer. Even if it means walking you over to that dumpster. Just not right now.”

He grabbed my shoulders and turned me around so I was facing his Crown Vic. “The crime scene unit has to do their thing before you contaminate the site. Wait in the car.”

I nodded, headed back to the car, then changed my plan and veered toward the rubble. The cops would be busy for a while so why not warm my fingers up on something else? I tucked the wad of tissues in my pocket and circled the perimeter of the debris. Memories came crashing back—the noise, the shock, dust clogging my throat. I pressed my hand against what was left of a wall, and my mind flooded with images.

“Well, shit.” Sharp pain stabbed my temples.

A slower, less traumatic influx of information would have been nice. Not that I didn’t want things back to normal. Only this wasn’t exactly normal. More like super fingers. Guess I was making up for lost time.

I sucked in a couple of dusty breaths that ended in a coughing fit. When the world stopped spinning, I carefully brushed my fingertips against the rough, charred wood. This time the images moved through my mind slowly enough that I could make out the blossom of orange heat as it ate the framework of the building—like a scene from a movie.

Woohoo, the fingers were back.

I ran toward Adam. This had to be shared. Immediately. Except they were removing the body from the dumpster, and it stopped me cold. Seriously bad timing for my announcement. I took a few tentative steps toward the scene and caught Adam’s eye. He shook his head and jabbed his finger at me. I got the message. Was more than happy to oblige—except my curiosity kicked in. For some inexplicitly stupid reason my feet kept moving toward the body.

Damn I hated when that happened.

I caught sight of dead guy’s face, and my vision tunneled.
Not the time to faint, Everly
.
You’d be the brunt of cop jokes for the rest of your life.

Chief Hayes headed me off, gripped my shoulders in his strong hands, and held me steady. “Take a minute. Get your feet under you.”

I exhaled. Stepped away from him, and rubbed my hands along my thighs. “I’m okay. It’s just that—”

“You’re where you shouldn’t be. Your assignment does not include impeding officers working a homicide.”

I took another step back. “Chief—”

“Wait in Adam’s car until I can spare an officer to take you home.” He spun away from me.

“No. Chief, I—”

He whirled back to face me. “What?”

A lesser woman would have needed immediate therapy to recuperate from the razor sharpness of his glare.

Not me.

Nope, I grabbed his sleeve.

“I recognize him,” I explained, my hands waving in the direction of the black body bag.

“And?” he growled.

“He was in your office. When we met.”

The chief’s nostrils flared.

“The rookie. He lied to you. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything, especially since the information came through my fingers—when I tripped on your carpet—”

“Your fingers are the reason you’re working for me.” He leaned in, crowding my space. “Now what exactly are you trying to tell me?”

“Whatever he talked to you about. He thought it was great you believed him, that you bought his story. The impression he left was smug, nasty. Guilty. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone—” I nodded toward the dumpster— “but whoever he is, I think it’s connected.”

The chief’s brows drew together. “Officer Jerry Applegate. You were heading over there to touch the body?”

“Um, no.” But ignorant of my words, my feet moved toward the body bag. A shudder wracked my body with enough force to register on the Richter Scale. What in the bloody hell was I thinking? No way was I going to touch the remains of Officer Applegate. I didn’t even like him when he was alive.

The chief glared at me, hands on hips.

Words poured from my mouth. “My curiosity overcame my common sense.” I forced myself to take a step back, away from the body bag. “It’d be best if I—”

The chief’s fingers circled my wrist. “Let’s get this over with. If you can offer any information to get the bastard who did this…”

I swallowed.

Hard.

Trailed behind the chief until we reached the smelly black bag. He bent, reached for the Velcro. I grabbed his hand. “No!”

His eyebrows hiked.