The Touch (8 page)

“Ever?”
h
e blinked.

“No, not for a long, long time,” she replied in a subdued voice.

“Why, what happens when you touch a person?”  Gabriel frowned, dropping his own hand back to the counter again.

“
The devil is in that girl… a sign of my sins… should never have taken up with he
r daddy… this is my punishment…
”
  The words spilled into Lexi’s mind as she looked up at her mother, impossibly tall from the little girl’s vantage point. 

“Don’t say that momma, I’m a good girl,” Lexi protested, tugging at the hand she was holding.  Her mother recoiled from the confirmation of her thoughts, pulling her hand free
,
eyes filled with suspicion and not a little bit of fear. 

Lexi swallowed back the wave of
discomfort the memory produced;
it hadn’t been an isolated incident
from
her childhood.  “
I’ll get a rush of what they’re thinking and it’s usually not pretty, believe me
.”
 
An
awkward silence
sprang up
between them
and she felt the need to fill it.  “So anyway
,
that’s why I wanted to get into Neil’s office, so I could see if I could pick up anything that would tell me where he skipped off to.”

“And that’s how you knew about Monica?”
h
e
nodded slowly
, obviously still processing
.

“Yeah, but all I got from his office was that he was looking to beat traffic on the commute home, so nothing of use.”

Ryan nodded again, an
unreadable
expression on his face.  After a moment, his posture shifted, and Lexi didn’t have to be a psychic to tell it definitely had that “I gotta get outta here” vibe to it.  Sure enough, the next words out of his mouth were, “
I should ah, probably get back to the office.
”

“Right, of course you do,” Lexi nodded
.  I
t was
,
after all
,
the middle of the work day for most folks. 
S
till
, it
stung a little at how quickly he wanted to get out of there. 

“
Thanks for the coffee
,” he nodded back. 
She
noted
his full cup and he seemed to realize at the same instant that he hadn’t had any yet
,
and raised the mug to his lips, downing a big swallow of black coffee
before he looked for the door
.

“
Yeah
,
don’t let me keep you from your detectiving
,” she replied, following him to the front of the house.

A faint smile returned to his lips.  “Actually
,
t
hat would be either detecting or investiga
ting.”

“
I like detectiving better
,” she shrugged
, undeterred
.

“Alright, detectiving then,” he replied equably.
 
“
I’ll let you know if we hear anything on Neil’s disappearance
.”

“
Thanks, I’ll tell Allison what a great help you were today
.”  Lexi meant it; she
never
would
have gotten in to Neil’s office without his help. 

He paused by the front door as though he felt the need to say something else.  “
I have to say my initial impression stands.  You’re definitely not anything like the girls I usually run into
.”

“
Is that good or bad
?” Lexi leaned against the doorframe.

The hesitation was longer this time and she got the impression that he honestly wasn’t sure, not just looking for a polite way to blow her off.  “It was nice to se
e
you again
,
Miss Morgan,” he replied finally.

Message received.
  “It was nice to see you too
,
Detective Ryan.”

A
maroon Dodge Stratus
pulled into the driveway
just as Gabriel was walking back to his car and the men nodded to each other faint
ly in passing.  “Who was that?
”
Paul
asked as
he came up the walk.
 

The detective was already pulling away at a fast clip, tires crunching on the uneven pavement that badly
needed
repair.  “Oh
,
just a cop,” Lexi replied, trying to keep her voice even.  It shouldn’t bother her that she’d been rejected by a man she hardly knew and likely wouldn’t ever see again, but it did. 

“He was here about your brother in law’s case?”  Lexi nodded in response, and Paul stopped on the porch beside her to watch the vehicle pull out of sight.  “It seems like he was in a hurry, did he get a lead?”

“No, I just told him about these babies
,
” Lexi waggled her gloved fingers at him, offering a broken smile when she saw the look of recognition on his face. 

“I’m sorry sweetie,” Paul wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.  “You want me to go find him and rough him up? Beat some sense into him?”

Lexi couldn’t help but laugh at the image of Paul trying to chase Gabriel down to teach him a lesson.  Though Paul was
taller than she was and well muscled for his frame, the detective still had a good couple of inches and at least ten pounds of muscle on him
,
besides some
form
of cop training that w
as bound to
give him an edge in a fight.  By contrast
,
Paul had never been in a fight in his life as far as she
knew.  Friends since college, he’d always been more of the cerebral type, given to writing in his journal and talking about philosophy. 
Lexi
was pretty sure Gabriel would wipe the floor with him in a physical confrontation.  “No, but thanks for the offer though.  His loss, right?”
s
he tried to shake off the conversation.  “Did you come home for lunch?”

“Yeah
,
are you hungry?  I thought I might whip us up a little pasta.”

Paul was a fantastic cook and could throw together a meal in the time it usually took her to make a simple sandwich
but her appetite wasn’t up for anything just then
.  “No thanks, I’m not all that hungry, but you go ahead.”

“Lexi…” he gave her a pointed look.

“No I’m se
rious, I’m not hungry right now;
I had a big breakfast with Maddie before our big attempt at corporate espionage,” Lexi grinned.  “I’ll tell you all about it later
though;
right now I need to get back to work.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely, but I’ll have some leftovers later, I promise.”

“Alright,” Paul relented, loosening
his tie as he stepped over the threshold, heading for the kitchen.  “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

“I do.  And you know where to find me if you need me.”  Her studio. 
Thanks to a small annuity she got from Gran’s estate and the low rent Paul charged to share the house, Lexi was able to focus primarily on her art
and photography
as a main source of income, supplementing from time to time with a part time job for extra cash.  Though she hadn’
t enjoyed a huge success, Lexi
usually sold a few pieces a month
which was enough to keep her above the poverty line.  Maddie was even helping her put together a website to both display and sell her art.

The art studio was
set up in
the detached garage on the rear of the property that Paul
was
generous enough to allow her to use
.  He’d helped her build a workbench along one wall and a set of drying ra
cks along another.  Lately she
dabbled
a bit more with sculpture than her original love of painting, but as she stepped into the studio,
none of her half finished projects called to her.  Instead
,
she sat before the easel, a blank piece of paper staring back at her while she planned her next piece.

The image of the woman in Allison’s house returned to her; the owner of the earring.  Her face loomed clear in Lexi’s memory,
so full of sadness and longing but unquestionably a great beauty.
 
The more she thought about it, the more she felt the pull to drop her other projects and paint the woman.  Lexi’s paintings usually followed after a series of sketches to help her find the right positioning and perspective but she wasn’t thinking much about perspective as she started putting
inspiration
to paper. 
The pencil moved with quick, light strokes over the
piece
, slowly taking form
until she stood back to stretch and the woman’s face
stared
back at her from the easel
.  “I wonder who you were…” Lexi murmured,
adding a touch of shading and detail she didn’t normally add to the rough sketches. 

Pulling out a fresh canvas,
Lexi started to sketch out the basic layout she had in mind for the portrait, intending to place the woman at her dressing table, just as she’d seen her in the vision.  Oblivious to the passage of time, she set to work until the sound of her name being called from the house caught her attention.  “Out here!”
s
he yelled back, not particularly caring if it reached the house or not. 

Paul wasn’t content to
just
hear her voice though, knocking lightly at the door before entering.  “
I was worried I was go
ing to
have to send out a search party for you
.”

“
Why?  You knew where I was
,” Lexi replied, still focused on the canvas. 

“
Yeah
,
but that was six hours ago
,
Lex.
”

“
It was?
”
 
Turning to the ancient clock radio on the shelf behind her
, Lexi
saw he was
right;
she’d been too caught up in her work to notice. 
It wasn’t that unusual of an occurrence when she picked up something new.  Her stomach gave a loud rumble, corroborating the time of day. 
“No wonder I’m so hungry, is there any of that pasta left?
”

“
Yeah
,
tons.  What are you working on?
”  Paul came up behind her to study the work in progress. 

Some artists didn’t like anyone to see their work until it was completed, but Lexi wasn’t one of
them.  “This,” she stepped back to let him get a better view of it.

“
You just started this today?
”
h
e sounded impressed.

“
Yeah
,
what do you think?
”

“
I think it’s amazing, who is she?
”

“
I’m not really sure.  I saw her when I was at
A
llie’s house.  I think she used to live there a long time ago
.”

“
Cool.
”  Paul
moved to the
discarded
sketches,
picking up the one she’d done just before starting on canvas.  “
I still think you should sell these too, they’re beautiful
.”

“
Those?  Nah, they’re just rough work to figure out how I want the painting to work
,” Lexi shook her head.

“
I don’t care what you say, I think they’re fantast
ic.  Can I have one of them
?
”

“
Sure, knock yourself out.  In fact, feel free to go through the recycle bin for all
the
cast offs
you want,
”
she grinned
.

“
Maybe later
,” he grinned back.  “
Right now, I think we need to get you washed up and some dinner in you before you pass out
.”

Lexi gave an inelegant snort at the notion of passing out, but she gathered up her brushes to set in the sink, her eyes resting on the half finished painting for a moment.  “
Paul, d
o you believe in ghosts?
”