Cold Sight (6 page)

Her clothes—a Bulldogs hoodie, jeans, and sneakers—didn’t scream door-to-door salesperson, Bible pusher, or census taker. Despite the backpack hanging off one shoulder, she was too old to be a student. She looked too casual to be a professional, yet too determined to be a neighbor.

One thing left.

Reporter
.

Aidan didn’t give it another thought. Reacting purely on instinct, he slammed the door right in her face.

Surprisingly, the media bloodsucker didn’t waste one minute on being shocked or insulted. Instead, she immediately pounded on the door, using her fist this time. “Mr. McConnell, please, I just want to talk to you. My name’s Alexa Nolan. I’m a—”

“I know what you are,” he called from inside. “And I know what you want. Get in your car and go back to Savannah. I have no comment.”

“I’m not from Savannah.”

National media? It seemed a bit much for a ghost like him from a year- old news story, but he wouldn’t put anything past some of those scandal-stirring shows, especially with Mrs. Remington’s suicide attempt.

“Mr. McConnell?”

“Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and get a life, why don’t you?”

“That hole would be right here. I’m with the
Granville Daily Sun
.”

Oh, great. So much for trying to keep a low profile. The local yokels had jumped into the action, looking for a titillating headline.
Fake Psychic Drives Mother to Attempt Suicide
. It would probably appear in the weekend edition, below
Mayor Hooks a Ten- Pound Catfish
and above
Congregation Sick After Eating Old Potato Salad.

At least, that’s what he imagined the local paper would look like. He’d certainly never picked one up. Aidan didn’t read any papers within a hundred-mile radius of his current location, though he closely watched the crime reports in dozens of other major cities across the country. He especially avoided the rag from Savannah, and the dinky small-town ones that loved to fling innuendo while wearing the mantle of folksy human interest.

“Please, I need help.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” he said, thinking just about everyone who chose her manipulative, vicious profession needed help—of the mental variety. “Try a shrink. Or a priest.”

“Mr. McConnell?”

“Get off my porch before I call the police.”

“Good luck getting them to answer,” she said. “The inattention of the police is one of the things I want to talk to you about.”

That caught his interest, albeit briefly. Not the biggest fan of those in blue these days, he was up for hearing from almost anyone else who had similar stories to tell.

There was one exception to the
anyone
, however. Because there was one group of people he disliked even more: reporters. “The answer is no. And this conversation is finished.”

He turned and headed back into his office, sure she’d leave once she realized he wasn’t going to open the door again. Even if she did stick around and wait for him to come out, she’d be waiting for a long time. He seldom went anywhere, knowing the only place he was entirely safe from intrusion was behind his own closed doors. He’d learned that lesson well in Savannah.

But this wasn’t Savannah. No longer did he live in an exclusive condo with a friendly old doorman guarding the entrance. His new home was an old Victorian with a verandah that wrapped around three quarters of the house. He’d never quite understood the ramifications of that until he realized the damned woman was following him from the outside. She suddenly appeared at the French doors behind his desk. There she started tap-tap-tapping on the glass like a veritable raven out of Poe’s nightmare.

The woman had brass ones.

“Mr. McConnell, please, give me five minutes. I really need to talk to you. I have nowhere else to turn.”

He gaped at her, kicking himself for tearing down the filmy sheers that had been left by the previous owners. They might have afforded some privacy from the determined woman. That was something he’d remedy just as soon as he could pick up some long blinds. Hell, he might just have to tack up some old sheets in the meantime.

“I’m not leaving until you hear me out.”

Lifting the phone again, he called, “They do have 911 in this town, don’t they?”

“So I hear.”

He punched the 9 button. “How long will it take them to get here, do you think?”

Frustration washed over her face and her full mouth twisted. “Would you just shut up and listen for one second?”

He had to give her credit. She wasn’t like the typical attractive female reporters he’d dealt with—the ones who used smiles and low necklines to forward their agendas. She hadn’t started flirting, hadn’t used her pretty face or her admittedly curvy body to get a foot in the door with him. But that was about the only positive thing he could say about her so far.

“It’s about a missing person.”

At the words “missing person” Aidan’s muscles tensed to rock hardness. He’d once made a name for himself off that term. Now it was stricken from his vocabulary—the mental one and the verbal one. The surefire way to guarantee she didn’t cross his threshold was to try to cajole him with that kind of bait.

“I’ve been looking into this on my own for a long time; the police don’t care that this young woman is missing. I know you’ve got experience with this type of thing. I’m not looking for an interview; I just need some help.”

Aidan hesitated, though he didn’t lower the phone. She could be lying, making up some story to get in so she could hit him with the Remington crap all over again. But something about the sheer frustration in her voice told him she wasn’t.

“I’m not lying to you, or trying to talk my way in,” she said, correctly reading his skepticism. “Her name’s Vonnie Jackson, she’s seventeen, and she disappeared while walking home from an event at her school Monday night.”

A few convincing details. She was either good at her job, or believed what she was talking about. Of course, there was one big hole in her story. “How long can you have been working on this if she just disappeared Monday?” he asked with a smirk.

She didn’t even hesitate to think up an answer. “She isn’t the first. Something strange is going on in this town, and nobody else seems to want to find out why.”

He thought for a second, suddenly remembering a few of the whispers of conversation he’d heard in passing when he’d had to make a trip to a local grocery store. There had also been some serious gossip floating that night a couple of weeks ago when he’d gone out to dinner with Julia and the other XI agents. People had been talking about some big local scandal. He’d tuned out as much as possible, but the echoes lingered.

Other echoes were louder, however. The grief of an anguished father, the helpless scream of a heartbroken mother, the accusations of an enraged public, the blame and condemnation of a city police force, and the glee of a rabid press. Yeah, those all came through loud and clear.

“Five minutes,” she pleaded.

No. Not again. Never again.

“I don’t do that anymore,” he said, keeping his voice raised, both as a self-reminder and so she could hear him from outside.

The woman stared at him, something haunted and desperate in her vivid green eyes. “It’s a matter of life and death!”

“That I
especially
don’t do anymore.”

“You did once,” she snapped. “I know you did. I’ve spent the day reading about you.”

He leaned against his desk, crossing his arms and staring at her with a jaded smile. “Then you know why I don’t talk to reporters.”

Her hand flattened against the glass door panel and he could see the slimness of every finger. “I’m not here to do a story about you. Please, I’m desperate.”

Something about the pleading tone in her voice got to him, grabbing at him, at least for a second. He’d almost swear she was telling the truth. The fear in her eyes wasn’t a simple reporter’s worry about not getting the story. She looked genuinely worried about someone else.

A matter of life and death,
she’d said. Maybe she’d even meant it.

But he couldn’t give her what she wanted, couldn’t make himself responsible for anybody’s life ever again. He simply wasn’t willing to carry the weight of one more death.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, knowing she probably wouldn’t believe him, though he meant it.

“You won’t even hear me out?”

He shook his head, resolute, certain, and forbidding.

She finally got the message. Acceptance mingled with disappointment made her shoulders sag and her anxious frown deepen into one of anger.

“Yeah. Whatever,” she said, raking him with a look of disgust. “You stay locked up safe while that poor teenage waitress disappears off the face of the earth like she was never born.”

The woman, this Alexa Nolan, turned as if to leave, but then hesitated. She reached into her backpack, dug out a sheet of pale green paper, and slid it into the crack between the doors. It hung there, half inside, half out, resting on the lock. The page flapped in the breeze, looking like a Greenpeace flag, cautionary and guilt-inducing, demanding notice.

“Try looking at her face and still getting to sleep tonight,” she said.

If only she knew. He didn’t need any more faces of the lost to keep him from sleeping. He’d waged a lifelong battle with insomnia.

Their eyes met one more time, hers green and stormy; his, he knew, dark and unyielding. Aidan didn’t move toward the door, didn’t say a word. He merely crossed his arms and watched until, finally, the reporter shook her head, turned and trudged away. Her shadow moved past the windows in front, and her footsteps came heavily on the steps as she descended. Other than that, the only noise was the faint rippling of that single sheet of crumpled paper she’d left behind.

Damn it. He knew what was on it, knew why she’d left it. She was trying to suck him in, grab his interest whether he wanted to allow it or not. Or else she thought she could guilt him into getting involved.

“Nice try, but it’s not happening, lady,” he mumbled, crossing the room. He didn’t touch the paper she’d left, not because he expected he’d get any kind of feeling off it—his abilities didn’t work that way. He had to be focusing for it to kick in, almost to invite the connection.

Except when somebody smells gingerbread
.

He flung off the thought. That episode had been an aberration. Thankfully, it hadn’t been repeated, either. There had been no further incidents. That mental wall was still sky-high, his abilities in safe mode.

Flicking the lock, he pulled the handle, opening the door an inch, trusting the wind would take the missing persons flyer without him having to lay a finger on it. Somehow, though, the Georgia air wasn’t cooperating, or else the antilittering gods had other plans. Instead of whipping the document outside where he never had to think about it again, a gust carried it in. The page twirled and spun lightly, like a leaf riding a current of air, then came to rest on top of the mountain of manila envelopes piled on his desk.

Aidan shook his head, his jaw stiff. The cursed thing had landed faceup, right-side up, too, in the dead center of his work space. His files and other documents almost framed it. To Aidan’s eyes, it resembled the lid of Pandora’s box, just waiting to be opened.

Pressing his fingers to his temples, he felt the deepening throb of his pulse, each beat accompanied by a sliver of pain. The first hints of a headache. He so did not need this.

“Forget it,” he snapped aloud. He didn’t give it another thought before he grabbed the green menace, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it right into the trash can.

Then he froze. His breath caught and he stared down into the depths of the metal can where that one damned scrap rested alone. Not because he’d felt anything when he’d touched it, but because of the picture—the photograph of the missing girl. He’d caught a glimpse of it as he’d swooped the flyer up and the wheels and cogs in his brain processed it almost against his own will. The pieces had clicked into place even as he’d tossed the unwanted page away.

Poor teenage waitress.

He knew her. He’d met her. He’d touched her less than three weeks ago.

And if she had, indeed, been kidnapped and was being held against her will somewhere, he greatly feared he might have mentally connected with her mind. He might even have heard her scream.

Though Aidan wanted to, he knew he could no longer ignore the reporter. Not without learning more. Not without finding out whether he already had information that could, indeed, help save a young woman’s life.

Thursday, 4:10 p.m.

Though they looked identical, the Kirby twins weren’t very much alike.

Taylor was tough and gutsy, Jenny sweet natured and considerate. Taylor squeaked by with Cs, Jenny’s name had never given up its permanent spot on the honor role. Taylor routinely barreled into trouble, Jenny carefully avoided it. Taylor took crap from nobody and loved dishing it out. Jenny usually let people walk all over her and seldom stood up for herself.

So, really, it should have been Taylor who’d gotten them into this current sticky situation. Only, it hadn’t been. It had been the “good” twin for once.

“Oh God, what are we going to do?” Jenny asked, her chin trembling.

The two of them sat on the floor in Taylor’s room, behind a locked door that meant their two younger sisters needed to stay out and let them do their “weird twin” thing, as their siblings called it. The rest of the family was used to giving them their space, and even though Taylor had insisted she wanted some independence, and had moved into her own room when they’d started high school, more often than not they still spent the night together.

“Calm down. It’ll be fine,” Taylor insisted.

She didn’t like seeing such weakness on her sister’s face, mainly because it was too much like seeing it in herself. And she didn’t even want to consider being weak, not when she’d always been the fighter.