Wherever She Goes (Psychic Seasons, ReGina Welling [novels to improve english TXT] 📗

“Forgot to give you the final clue. One plus two plus three equals four.” Julius nodded as he made his nonsensical pronouncement.

“Six.”

“Four.” Julius emphasized the word by using a firm voice and trying to communicate something more with his expression.

He had faded away before she realized he was talking about the final clue for what remained hidden in Hayward House.

Chapter 12

Zack opened the door and ducked under the yellow crime scene tape with Kat and Amethyst hard on his heels. Kat wasn’t certain how useful she would be, psychometry, or getting psychic information from physical items was not her strong suit but to put an end to this mess, she was willing to try anything.

Stepping into Logan’s last known residence, Zack kept his face carefully blank then ducked to the left side of the doorway. “Just give me your impressions as you get them. I’ll stay out of your way.” There wasn’t time for her to try and figure out why he seemed so locked down. Kat shrugged it off and began to walk around the apartment while Amethyst stayed near the door.

Clearly, this space represented Logan before the Earthwalker had gotten hold of him. Clean lines, modern, everything in shades of white or gray. Even the art on the walls provided little in the way of contrast. A triptych of canvases hung above the fireplace, their stark whiteness broken up by a series of squares shading from palest gray to black that marched across from left to right.

The main living area was a large, open floor plan with the kitchen to the left and a great room on the right. Every piece of furniture had been chosen for visual impact over comfort. Sharp lines and angles while interesting to look at appeared uninviting. The entire place felt to Kat as though it was a veneer. The thin covering that disguised the lie underneath. Logan may have called this place home for a time but he had never lived here.

She strolled toward the bedroom, lost in thoughts and impressions. Much as she had hoped to be helpful, there was nothing of a psychic nature jumping out at her. Logan had not left anything of himself in any of the rooms she had seen so far.

“Are you getting anything?” Kat made her way back to where Amethyst stood.

“It’s clean. Almost too clean, you know? Like his aura has been scrubbed completely away.”

“Could Billy do that?”

Amethyst shrugged. The two women moved toward the bedroom.

“Once he chose a look, at least he committed. Very matchy-matchy. Could have used a pop of color.”

“I know, all this white is so clinical.”

“Call it a bust?” Kat asked.

“Afraid so.”

Zack locked the door behind them with a vicious twist of the key.

Logic screamed that this was a colossal waste of time while his gut insisted Kat and Amethyst would turn up a lead. For the first time ever, he was tempted to ignore his gut. Instead, he drove them to the storage facility. There was a better chance of finding something there, something personal.

Only ten city blocks separated the two locations but the short drive was steeped in tension making it seem longer and unnaturally quiet. Even at his most impassive, Zack was unable to hide his impatience or his lack of faith in her, in Amethyst. Kat burned to prove him wrong.

Pulling up to the storage facility, Kat’s stomach turned over twice then erupted into flutters of dread and excitement. She glanced over at Amethyst and saw matching misgivings. This was not going to be a repeat of what had just happened, this time they would find something.

Before Zack had time to pull to a stop, both women pointed to unit 1206.

“There.”

“That one,” they spoke together. Gooseflesh prickled up Zack’s arms. They had chosen correctly. Unit 1206, now with its police issued lock box, had indeed belonged to Logan Ellis. He had already been through the contents several times himself and found nothing to provide a solid lead. If they found anything natural or supernatural—he cringed at the thought—he would be surprised.

The storage room door rolled up on its hinges with a screech of protest that made both women shudder. Kat immediately sensed the pervading, cold darkness that signaled the earthwalker had spent time here. Amethyst didn’t have to rely on similar emotional perceptions; she could see the blackness lingering on the surface of every item like an oily cloud.

Logan had created the perfect bolthole here. A small table holding a battery operated lamp, rested beside a camp cot covered with a sleeping bag. Two plastic bins sat on the floor next to the table held an assortment of foods that could be eaten cold: granola bars, snack-sized containers of applesauce, cans of tuna. The other was nearly empty though it had once contained a stack of forged documents: driver’s licenses in various names, passports, birth certificates. Those had all been logged into evidence leaving only a pack of matches and a length of ribbon behind; these had been considered too negligible to be of consequence.

Amethyst stepped a couple paces into the unit and turned slowly in place. Whatever Billy the earthwalker may have done to the apartment to cleanse his aura had not been repeated here. Blackness dripped from the cot and oozed around the plastic bins. Anywhere she could see Logan’s lighter colors, they were overlaid by Billy’s darkness except for one spot. High up on the back wall, where the corrugated metal wall met the open raftered roof, there was a flare of color that could only be Logan’s alone.

She pointed, “Logan hid something there, but I can’t reach it. Zack, see that tiny ledge where the wall meets the roof?”

Zack pulled a penlight from his pocket and shined it into the crevice before reaching in to pull out a coin. Roughly the size of a fifty-cent piece, it was a commemorative coin with a Santa head on one side and the name of a small theme park on the