True Colors Part 13

He nodded, his grin widening to the point that it resembled the Joker's freakish leer. "It's my lucky day."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Logan sat with his elbows braced on his knees and his head spinning. None of this is happening, he thought. It can't be happening. How could these apparently reasonable people believe the implausible words coming out of their mouths? Especially Noah. A fellow cop. A fellow devotee to truth and logic. Or so Logan had thought.

"You'll adjust," AnnaCoreen said softly. "Give it time."

Logan tried to wrap his brain around the facts, such as they were. "But how . . . why now? I mean, Alex wasn't always . . ." Jesus, he couldn't say it. That would acknowledge that he believed it. And he didn't. He couldn't. Not without letting go of logic and reason and . . . and reality . "Wouldn't I have known? I mean, it's not like we just started seeing each other. We've been friends for a long time."

"Alex and Charlie both had latent tendencies," AnnaCoreen said. "It took their respective traumas to awaken them." She glided to her feet with an almost supernatural grace. "I'm going to refill the tea pitcher and give you some time to absorb everything."

He watched her go, wanting to dismiss her as a crackpot. Wanting to get up and walk away. It was just so . . . far-fetched. Yet, he stayed put. If they'd been talking about anyone besides Alex, he would have harrumphed his way out the door long ago. But this was Alex.

Logan glanced at Noah to find him sitting quietly, elbows resting on the arms of his rocking chair as he gazed at the sparkling tips of gentle Gulf waves. The man's pores oozed serenity.

Logan didn't get it. "You accept all this?"

"I do," Noah said with a confident nod.

"How can you? You were a cop."

"I've seen Charlie in action."

Logan sat back, his chair rocking back on its rails. "Jesus." He kept saying that. But . . . Jesus. "They can see inside our heads," he said. "No one should have that power."

Noah shifted as though Logan hadn't just ruffled his feathers but plucked several. "It's only a big deal if there's something inside your head you don't want Alex to see."

"Aren't there things inside your head you don't want Charlie to see?"

"Not anymore."

"Then you're a perfect man, and I'm not."

"It's not that black-and-white."

"Isn't it? She gets to know what I'm thinking, and I don't get to know what she's thinking. How can it possibly be a balanced relationship?"

"Sounds to me like you've got a lot to hide," Noah said.

"She should have told me. I wouldn't have . . ." He trailed off and tried to swallow the bitterness. "I wouldn't have touched her." He closed his eyes tight. f.u.c.k.

"There's more that AnnaCoreen hasn't told you yet," Noah said.

"What more can there be?"

"It's important. For Alex's safety."

Logan pushed up out of the rocking chair and stalked to the side of the porch. Bracing his hands on the white railing, he glared at the glittering water. He wanted to go back to two days ago when everything with Alex had been perfect and promising. Not a conflict in sight. No unexpected visits to the dark recesses of his past. No worries about how much it would take before the woman he was falling for started to hate him.

Behind him, Noah said, "These flashes Alex gets . . . they can be debilitating. You're going to have to keep an eye on her, make sure she limits her contact."

Logan faced the other man, a new kind of dread slithering inside his gut. "What are you talking about? Debilitating how?"

"Charlie calls it flash fatigue. Too many trips into people's heads, and . . . well, she gets migraines. A couple of times, she's had seizures."

"Seizures?!" Logan had to stop himself from hauling Noah out of his chair by the front of his shirt. "Are you kidding me? Seizures? Like, put a piece of rubber between her teeth so she doesn't bite off her tongue seizures?"

Noah raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Everything is controllable."

"Really? Because it all sounds very out of control." And he couldn't handle out of control. Not when it involved Alex and seizures and the threat of losing her because of what he kept buried deep inside him. "You know what? This is too much. I'm out of here."

He turned toward the door into the house but stopped when he saw AnnaCoreen standing there, a full pitcher of tea and ice in hand.

Her softly wrinkled face wore an expression of sympathy. "You're confused," she said. "Overwhelmed."

"It doesn't take a psychic to figure that out."

One perfectly shaped eyebrow ticked up. "Angry, too. Interesting."

Logan resisted the urge to brush by her, rudeness be d.a.m.ned. Yeah, he was p.i.s.sed off. Why was that a news flash? "What's interesting about it?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"The reason for your anger."

He crossed his arms and c.o.c.ked his head. "And what's that?"

"You're afraid she'll find out."

"Find out what? Just spit it out. I'm not a twenty questions kind of guy."

"Logan," Noah warned.

"No, hang on," Logan said. "I want to hear what the psychic has to say. Looks like she's going to psychic-a.n.a.lyze me."

AnnaCoreen's lips curved. "Amusing."

Logan returned her smile but felt more like he'd bared his teeth. She had no idea what made him angry. No, infuriated. He wanted to rip something apart with his bare hands.

"You care deeply about her."

Logan's shock set him back a step. That wasn't what p.i.s.sed him off at all. No way. He acknowledged that he cared deeply for Alex. She was his lover and his best friend.

But now his best friend was psychic. Now he had no defenses. Any time she wanted to tiptoe through the tulips in his head, she could, and he couldn't do a d.a.m.n thing to stop her.

"But you don't deserve affection, do you?" AnnaCoreen said. "You don't deserve Alex."

He opened his mouth to respond. He should have snorted his disbelief. Should have flipped the woman the bird and stomped the h.e.l.l out of there. But he couldn't move, nailed to the spot by AnnaCoreen's shrewd gaze.

"You did something dreadful that haunts you," she went on. "You fear that Alex will see firsthand what you did, experience it as if she did it herself, and then she'll know the man you really are. You're powerless to prevent her from seeing it, and you've convinced yourself that once she finds out the truth, you'll lose her." Her eyes softened. "But you're forgetting something."

"What?" It came out a croak. He didn't bother to tell her she was wrong. She wasn't. G.o.d help him, she wasn't.

"You and Alex have been friends for months now, and it appears that she's flashed only on your dream. Is that correct?"

"As far as I know." He'd shared as many details of said dream with AnnaCoreen as he had with Noah, which was zip. She'd still figured out, or perhaps knew, that the nightmare was a.s.sociated with a terrible memory.

But then another memory struck him. Alex had flashed on something else: when he'd stumbled away from the burning wreckage of a minivan, a little girl clasped in his arms.

For a minute there, it was like I knew exactly what you went through trying to get that baby out of the van. Like I was there . . . or like I was ...

Like you were what?

Like I was you.

But why would she flash on only that and his dream and not- AnnaCoreen's voice interrupted his whirling thoughts. "Perhaps her ability manifests itself differently with you, because of your closeness."

"How so?"

"Charlie's flashes with Noah are more powerful because of the intensity of their relationship. She shares certain . . . feelings with Noah that she doesn't with anyone else. Alex's empathy could be damped for the same reason but with the opposite effect. Because you're both so in sync, so to speak, her ability doesn't acknowledge that your electrical pulses are separate from her own."

Logan frowned even as hope flared. Being that in sync . . . that'd be a good thing, wouldn't it?

AnnaCoreen went on. "It's also possible that you're in such deep denial that when you're conscious, your body suppresses the electrical impulses a.s.sociated with your bad memories. Alex tapped into the dream you had only because you were relaxed enough in sleep to allow it the opportunity to surface from your subconscious. If that's the case, I would a.s.sume she could also tap into your energy during circ.u.mstances in which your defenses have been breached." She paused to smile softly. "It's actually quite promising that you can let your guard down with Alex. That shows how much you care for her."

Logan said nothing as he processed this new possibility. That he cared for Alex wasn't news to him. That sleeping with her, or letting his guard drop during other intense situations, such as saving a child from certain death, could expose things to her he didn't want exposed . . . well, that was just . . . disturbing. He didn't know if he could handle such vulnerability. And would Alex continue to care about him once she knew- "A word of caution here, if I may."

At AnnaCoreen's softly spoken words, he refocused on her face-and the censure in her otherwise kind expression. "You appear very concerned about how Alex's ability affects you. If you truly care about her as much as you seem to, then perhaps you should spare some thought for how it affects her."

He sat down heavily, a sick knot forming in his gut. He saw Alex in his mind's eye, pale and exhausted, trying hard to hide her anxiety, trying hard to explain something she herself didn't quite understand.

She'd been thrust into her own worst nightmare, and all he could think about was what it meant for him. He'd walked out on her, left her to deal on her own. He'd all but called her a liar. He was such a p.r.i.c.k.

"You're human," AnnaCoreen said, soothing now. "I'm sure you'll make it up to her."

He looked up, thinking at first that he'd spoken aloud. But he hadn't.

AnnaCoreen gave him a knowing smile and lifted the tea pitcher. "More tea?"

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Butch's heart raced with antic.i.p.ation as he knelt on the cool concrete floor and tied the final knot securing his captive's bare left ankle to the leg of the wooden Queen Anne chair. He'd scored the piece on the way to his newly rented, garage-sized storage unit. A kitschy little antique store on the side of the road with the catchiest name-Mimi's Old Stuff-had leapt right out at him. Thinking of how much fun he and Alex Trudeau were going to have very soon, he'd charmed the matronly woman running the store into cutting the already attractive price of the chair in half. He'd oohed and aahed over everything from her yippy toy poodle-the Mimi in the shop's name-to the gaudy faux-diamond ring on the owner's right hand. She'd had overbleached hair and an overgrown a.s.s, and he'd flirted like she was Meg Ryan in her When Harry Nailed Sally days.

Christ, he loved women. Spring chickens. Old hens. Willowy housewives. Plump executives. If they had b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he wanted nothing more than to get into their pants, or skirts. He loved making them scream. Loved how they shook and shuddered and keened. Loved that instant when they went still and breathless, right before the hot, wet-safe-place inside them accepted the heart of him.

Resting his damp palms on the thighs of his jeans, he raised his head and gazed at his captive. While she was relaxed like this, he could appreciate the things about her, about women in general, that made him ache with antic.i.p.ation. She wore navy cotton shorts that left her long, pale legs vulnerable, and he had to resist the urge to stroke his fingers over her skin. Swallowing hard, he lifted his gaze from her legs to the white tank top that conformed to the perfect shape of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-no bra, lucky, lucky, lucky. He wished that her eyes were open and looking at him, and wondered about their color. He'd had only a glimpse of them-deep and dark and curious-before he'd zapped her with the stun gun.

She'd gone down like a hooked largemouth ba.s.s landing in the bottom of a fishing boat on Lake Michigan. She hadn't twitched nearly as much as he'd expected . . . antic.i.p.ated. Rather, the zap had knocked her cold. He'd worried at first. Had he set the voltage too high? But, no, he'd used the same setting on other women, and they'd merely dropped and twitched, then stared at him with dawning horror widening their lovely eyes.

Alex Trudeau, though, hadn't regained consciousness as he'd carried her out of the house to the Mustang parked at the curb. Not a peep had escaped her as he'd charmed his way around her concerned neighbor. She hadn't stirred when he'd pulled behind an abandoned gas station outside her neighborhood and transferred her to the trunk, where he tied her hands and feet, just in case. She'd remained just as insensate while he'd fireman-carried her through a side door into the closed storage facility. Stupid teenager running the place hadn't even noticed him messing with the door when he'd given him the tour of the place.

Unit 4410 resided on the fourth floor, accessible by elevator. The empty storage compartment was big enough for a car and smelled of new plastic, courtesy of the fresh sealant lining the edges along the floor. Florida bugs, the stupid teen had told him, could be persistent critters. That sealant would stop pooling blood, too, Butch had noted. So convenient.

Butch trailed his fingertips, light as a feather, over Alex Trudeau's delicate ankle and around and up the gentle curve of her calf, marveling at such unblemished skin. No scars, not even on her knees. She apparently hadn't been a clumsy child. He almost regretted the marks he would soon make. Maybe he would have given it a second thought if the antic.i.p.ation hadn't sent blood rushing down between his legs.

Pulling in a calming breath, he closed his eyes and focused on breathing and counting. Don't rush. Take your time. The payoff will be worth it. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen . . .

The tension bled away in slow degrees. Ahhhhh.

Before he got started, he had a phone call to make. He pulled Alex's cell out of his pocket and flipped it open.

Logan didn't understand at first why his teeth hurt so much, but when a pang shot through his jaw, he realized he'd been clenching his teeth hard enough to crack fillings. It didn't take a rocket scientist-or psychic-to know the source of his apprehension. He was an a.s.shole. When Alex had stood there in the bedroom, telling him something that had to terrify the c.r.a.p out of her, he'd stalked around like a bully, accusing her of messing with him and refusing to believe her. Then he'd walked out on her.

Christ, AnnaCoreen was right. He didn't deserve Alex.

But as much as he admired her, as much as he adored her, he just couldn't completely accept what Noah and AnnaCoreen had told him. He had to keep at least one foot planted in reality, even if they didn't.

The way he saw it: Alex was a photographer by profession. She saw the world in ways that people who weren't photographers didn't. She intimately understood light and shadows, black and white and all colors of the spectrum. It was her job, her talent. She was d.a.m.n good at it. And perhaps, somehow, her intense awareness, her profound understanding of how things fit together to create a stunning photo, sometimes transcended the normal perception of the average person.

She was special, no doubt about it. So special that he was already falling for her. But empathic to an extreme . . . or at all? Come on.

How she knew about his nightmare he couldn't-and didn't want to-figure out just yet. Clearly, she knew more about his past than he'd ever shared.

He couldn't blame her if she'd researched him. He wasn't one to talk about his past, or even spend much time dwelling. It was over. Done. Buried. He preferred living in the present. He only wished that she had asked him about it instead of doing her own digging. They were a couple now, so that meant they needed to trust each other.

"I can hear your teeth grinding," Noah said from the driver's seat.

Logan glanced sideways at him. "And that surprises you? Considering."

"I'm guessing it bothers you that Alex can see inside your head. If it's any consolation, it's not that easy. Like Charlie, she can't control what she sees. And it has to be a trauma of some kind, something that ramps up the body's electrical impulses."

"And you're okay with Charlie poking around in your head?"

Noah sighed, shrugged. "It sucked at first."

"Just at first?"

"I did some bad s.h.i.t back in Chicago, but I told Charlie about it, and we're good."