True Colors (33 page)
Alex felt a swell of pride, loving him more than she’d loved him before, assuming that was possible. He believed Justin without hesitation and jumped right to his defense.
A flutter of bitterness followed, though, because while he trusted Justin, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to believe her. Perhaps with time . . . but she couldn’t deny that his apparent doubt in her, when he professed to love her, caused some damage. She couldn’t imagine spending her life with a man who didn’t wholly believe in who she was and what she could do.
“I don’t want to leave you unprotected,” he said near her ear, and she flinched at how close he’d gotten without her realizing it. “Would you mind coming with me to make the arrest?”
She recovered quickly and nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
She sat in the passenger seat of Logan’s truck, her hands clasped between her knees. The headache still throbbed in her temples, but a gingerly exploration of her jaw with the tips of her fingers had let her know the bruises had gone. It had taken a little more than forty minutes.
In that time, Logan had said nothing, though he kept throwing her concerned glances, as though he worried about her but didn’t want to acknowledge why. She’d noticed when he realized the bruises had vanished, because his eyes narrowed and he peered more closely at her face before closing his eyes and shaking his head.
Must be some powerful denial flowing with his blood, she thought. Not that she could entirely blame him. If it weren’t happening to her, she’d have trouble believing it, too.
“We need to talk,” Logan said into the tense silence. “I know this isn’t the best time, but . . .”
The weight on her shoulders lifted some. He wanted to talk about the empathy. Finally. Maybe they’d be okay after all. God, she hoped so. She didn’t want to face the future without him. He was the only thing that kept her head from exploding.
Logan began to drum his thumbs on the steering wheel. “I need to know more about your time with Butch McGee. There might be something he said or did that can help us track him down.”
Her heart sank. “Okay.” She swallowed against the tightness of her throat. “What do you want to know?”
“I just need more details beyond the surface information you’ve already shared. I won’t know what I’m looking for until I hear it. Can you start at the beginning?”
Alex closed her eyes and breathed through her nose. She didn’t want to relive any of that, especially not with this throbbing headache. But she understood why he needed to know. “He rang the doorbell,” she started. “I checked the peep hole, but he looked so . . . harmless that I opened the door. I know that was stupid, but my neighborhood is—”
“It’s okay, Alex. I don’t blame you for opening the door to him.”
She laughed under her breath. She wished he could be so understanding about her high-powered empathy. “He zapped me with a stun gun.”
Angry air whistled through Logan’s teeth, but he said nothing.
“When I came to, I was tied up in the storage unit.” She paused, remembering that she hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of Butch McGee’s face before the stroke of his hand on her cheek had catapulted her into the dark, dirty-sock-stinking closet where he’d tried to hide from his own kidnapper.
“And?” Logan prodded.
She skipped the part she knew he would have trouble believing. “I got sick, and he left to get supplies to clean up.”
“He didn’t say anything to you?”
“Not that I remember.”
Logan thought about this for a long, silent moment. “And when he returned?”
“He told me that he picked me because he wanted to punish you for something you did to his brother.”
“That’s when he told you his brother’s name is Brian.”
She hesitated for an instant. Butch hadn’t told her anything about Brian, not directly. But she saw no other choice but to lie. “Yes.”
“What happened after that?”
She chewed her lower lip. “He left me alone, and the next thing I knew, you were carrying me out.”
“You were unconscious when Noah and I found you. How did that happen?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Alex—”
“I don’t remember,” she repeated.
“When did he tell you about Tyler Ambrose?”
She struggled with how to respond. She was not good at manipulating the truth, never had been. “He told me that was his real name.”
“He
told
you? Alex, come on. I can tell you’re lying. You’re terrible at it.”
told
you? Alex, come on. I can tell you’re lying. You’re terrible at it.”
Her face heated in a heartbeat. “I’m giving you the information in a way that I know you’ll accept it.”
“I’ll accept the truth.”
“You don’t trust the truth. Not when it’s not what you want to hear. And apparently you don’t trust
me
.”
me
.”
He started to respond but shut his mouth when he steered around the corner into a cul-de-sac jammed with police cars and an ambulance. “Shit,” he said under his breath. “I guess the backup I requested got here before we did.”
“You called for all of this?”
“Not quite,” he said in resignation.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
L
ogan flashed his badge at the officer keeping curious bystanders at bay in front of the sprawling, Spanish-style, yellow stucco mansion on prime beach property. The Gulf’s waves splashed in the background, and the fronds of palm trees rattled in the breeze. Amid the tranquility of the beach, what should have been paradise for a snow-beaten tourist, something ominous hung in the air.
ogan flashed his badge at the officer keeping curious bystanders at bay in front of the sprawling, Spanish-style, yellow stucco mansion on prime beach property. The Gulf’s waves splashed in the background, and the fronds of palm trees rattled in the breeze. Amid the tranquility of the beach, what should have been paradise for a snow-beaten tourist, something ominous hung in the air.
“What’s the situation?” Logan asked.
“Looks like a homicide, sir,” the officer said.
Logan kept his expression impassive. Damn, shit, fuck.
“Detective Culver’s inside, sir,” the young officer said. “He told me to tell you to go in when you got here.”
In other words: Let’s not discuss what happened in front of the onlookers. Logan nodded and grasped Alex’s elbow. He turned toward her, his mouth close to her ear so as not to be overheard. “Maybe you should wait in the car.”
“Forget it,” she said, lips moving as little as his had.
“I don’t know what’s inside. It might be . . . ugly.”
“I’m a news photographer. I’ve seen ugly.”
“Alex—”
“Stop trying to protect me, Logan. I’ve seen some horrific stuff just in the past few days. I can handle it.”
The soft words, spoken with no hint of melodrama, hit him square in the chest. After the conversation they’d had on the way over, the way she’d hedged even simple questions, he . . . just didn’t know what to think. She’d said,
You don’t trust the truth. And apparently you don’t trust
me
.
But he
did
trust her. He just couldn’t trust the unbelievable. The supernatural wasn’t reality, not in his world. He couldn’t fathom how Alex and the people who cared about her could believe it all so easily.
You don’t trust the truth. And apparently you don’t trust
me
.
But he
did
trust her. He just couldn’t trust the unbelievable. The supernatural wasn’t reality, not in his world. He couldn’t fathom how Alex and the people who cared about her could believe it all so easily.
He studied her, and the knot in his stomach tightened. Only an hour ago, her jaw had been swollen and smeared with purple. Exactly like Justin’s. Empathic stigmata, AnnaCoreen the psychic had called it.
Jesus, it just wasn’t possible.
Yet, he’d seen it with his own eyes. It
was
possible.
was
possible.
“Well?” she asked, nudging him out of his thoughts. “Are we going in or are you going to haul me over your shoulder and put me back in the car to wait?”
He let a small smile curve his lips as he imagined having her firm behind so readily available to his hands. “That certainly sounds tempting.”
She must have recognized the naughty direction of his thoughts, because she returned his smile with a slight one of her own, though it appeared strained. But then she looked away instead of batting back a teasing response.
It struck him, like a fist to the temple, that he was losing her, and that thought turned his stomach inside out. “Alex—”
“Shouldn’t you do your job?” she asked.
He sighed, frustrated and not even sure who he was frustrated with. Not her, not really. Himself, definitely. He needed to find a way to accept the unacceptable. No, he corrected himself. He needed to find a way to accept
Alex
. That shouldn’t be nearly as difficult as he was making it. It was
Alex
, after all.
Alex
. That shouldn’t be nearly as difficult as he was making it. It was
Alex
, after all.
He focused on her face, so pale and punctuated by dark circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there even a month after she’d died in the ER. He’d thanked his lucky stars every day since then that she’d survived, that he still had her in his life. And now what was he doing? Being a stubborn asshole, obsessed with finding logic where logic didn’t exist. And petrified, if he did accept it, of what she would learn about him.
“Logan.”
He blinked, realizing he’d stared at her for too long. Amazingly, concern for him created lines on her forehead. She was concerned about
him
, when she’d been the one bleeding and unconscious little more than an hour ago. Because she’d touched Justin.
him
, when she’d been the one bleeding and unconscious little more than an hour ago. Because she’d touched Justin.
Jesus.
He had to fight to focus. “I have to do my job. Right. Stay close to me, okay?”
She nodded, and she looked more tired than before, as though the impact of what happened to Justin, and her, hadn’t quite worked its way through her system yet. Or perhaps his lack of faith in her was taking a toll. That thought twisted the already knotted muscles in his gut.
Shoving away his doubts, and concern, he led the way into the foyer of Florida state senator Preston Wells and Lake Avalon alderwoman Toni Kale Wells. The newly built home had all the upgrades of an expensive beachside house. Ceramic tile, palm-frond ceiling fans, arching ceilings and sliding-glass doors all across the back wall that displayed the beauty of Florida: a white-sand beach and infinite water that shot off diamonds of light.
The smell of blood reached Logan while he and Alex pulled on paper booties that would prevent their shoes from disturbing evidence. They didn’t have to go far to find the source of that coppery scent. The senator lay face up in the middle of the living room floor, eyes open and staring. Blood soaked the front of his formerly white dress shirt and pooled on the tile beneath him. He’d been shot in the chest.
“Fuck,” Logan breathed.
Beside him, Alex sucked in a shaky breath.
Detective Gale Culver spotted them from across the room and walked over, careful to skirt the crime scene with its small yellow placards bearing large numbers to mark evidence around the body. The gun lay near the dead man’s feet.
“Logan,” Gale said in greeting. He was a tall, rail-thin man with a goatee, bald head and crease-laden face. Logan knew him to be fifty-five, based on the big party their coworkers had thrown in the fall, but he looked sixty-five, thanks to a fishing hobby and resistance to sunscreen.
When he smiled at Alex, Logan quickly introduced them. “Gale, this is Alex Trudeau. She helped me talk with the alderwoman’s son.”
“Hell, Logan, Alex and I go way back.” Gale reached out to shake her hand, and Logan tensed. Then he noticed the latex gloves the detective wore, standard operating procedure at a crime scene like this.
Alex must have noted the gloves, too, because she accepted his hand after only a slight hesitation. “Hi, Gale. Good to see you.”
“You doing okay? I heard you had some drama the other day.”
She nodded and smiled. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
Logan watched the genuine affection between the two, reminded that Alex had a lifetime of history in Lake Avalon that he couldn’t relate to.
“How’s your dad doing these days?” Gale asked. “Enjoying retirement?”
“He seems to love it. You should stop by and say hi,” Alex said.
Gale glanced at Logan. “Her old man used to drive me nutty back in the day, always trying to pry information out of me about even the most mundane cases. A regular old newshound, that one.” He grinned at Alex. “He was tickled to death when his kids followed in his journalistic footsteps.” He looked at Logan. “He thought this one”—he indicated Alex—“would be long gone by now, though. Working for
The New York Times
or doing some Annie Leibovitz-type work.”
The New York Times
or doing some Annie Leibovitz-type work.”
Alex smiled but said nothing as her cheeks pinkened. Logan found the blush as cute as always, and a warmth spread through him that happened only around her. How could he be so all-fired stupid as to toss that away because he couldn’t buy something as simple as psychic ability? Jesus, he was an idiot.
“So you have the son in custody?” Gale asked Logan.
Logan forced his brain back on topic. “I wouldn’t call it custody. But I know where he is, yes. He says the senator’s been beating on him for the past month. I was on my way over here to haul the bastard downtown in cuffs.”
“Christ,” Gale said, shaking his head. “We’ll need to talk to the kid soon.”
“Can you tell me what happened here?” Logan asked.
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