Oracle Seeing (The Phoenix Files Book 2) (13 page)

Maura moved aside, but remained within arm’s reach just in case.

“How do you know it’s Dale Plunkett?” Bishop asked, studying the woman.

“I’m a psychic. I was sent here to save this town and help Lucian. We need your help to do it. You have a gift, just like Lucian and myself.”

She could feel the man watching her.

She wouldn’t look at him.

Bishop couldn’t.

If she did, she’d go soft over the idiot. There was something about him that turned her inside out and upside down, each and every time she saw him.

It always had.

Lucian called to her. Bishop vividly remembered watching him as she pulled courthouse duty. She wanted to meet him so many times, but after each time she’d get up the nerve, he’d walk right past her to meet his trash bag fiancée, and they’d head off together.

Still, when her path kept crossing, she wanted to know more about him.

For years, she’d been curious.

In fact, she was still curious.

“Like I said, you have twenty minutes to get this figured out. If I don’t like the answers, I’m screaming foul.” She glanced over at the two Feds. “You might want to have your boss give me a call. If I even suspect you’re not legit, I’m going to hang your asses on that gate next to Dale Plunkett, and he’s going to look the best out of the three of you when I’m done.”

She pulled out her card and handed it to Nate as she walked past him. “I’ll be waiting.”

Then she focused on the man shrouded in secrecy.

“Lucian, you have nineteen minutes. Be ready, and this time, I’ll be the one dropping the profanity and the one in complete control.”

With that, she headed out.

They could hear the large door slam.

“So, you personally know the sheriff?” Nate asked, dialing his phone. That might have been handy to know earlier. They’d assumed he knew the woman’s father better, but from the sexual tension in the room, it was clear that something was there.

Lucian laughed, and it wasn’t a funny one either.

Did he know her?

Hell yes, he did.

He’d fallen in love with Bishop Killion the day he’d first seen her at the courthouse. When he woke up, to find his life destroyed, he’d had to make the biggest sacrifice of his life.

He had to pretend to hate her to give her the life she deserved, Lucian had to push her away. He was a monster, and he had to hide.

Yet, he regretted it every single day of his miserable life.

“Yes, I know her.”

He wished she was his for the last ten years, but he knew the truth.

It couldn’t happen.

Because Lucian Monroe was cursed.

Again, here was his proof.

       
                
* * *
  O R A C L E   * * *

He watched from the crowd of people who had begun gathering down the road from the house. The speculation was already flying.

This had been perfect.

He’d picked the perfect spot to leave the body.

It was working out better than he had originally planned. The judge had been found, the defense attorney, who was the scum of the earth, had been found too.

Next, he would hit a little closer to home.

He was going to make sure that Lucian Monroe realized that he wasn’t safe.

Yes, he had the huge house.

Yes, he could buy his safety and from the looks of the strangers moving around him, he had.

But he’d never be free.

He was no better than the rest of them. It was only a matter of time before he figured that out.

When he did…

It would be too late.

As he stood in his big mansion, he hoped that he was shaking in his boots. The next two victims would be perfect.

They would set the stage for what was coming. By the end of the week, Lucian, and the rest of the law in town would know what it felt like to lose everything.

They’d know what it felt like to weep bitter tears.

Cry rivers of pain.

They would see that by letting people get off, or not doing your job, you created one hell of a mess.

This was that mess.

Ravenswood was about to come clean, and he was going to make sure everyone knew the truth.

Everyone saw what happened when justice was so blind, that it let the guilty walk out the back door without an ounce of punishment—while the innocent suffered in the wake.

Blood was coming.

There was going to be more.

If he had his way, there would be weeping in the streets. Tomorrow, he’d start tracking the next victim.

Earl Thorpe was going to find an ugly end coming his way. He was going to suffer like Dale Plunkett, Arron Abrahms, and the rest.

No one was safe.

No one was protected.

In the end, it would be justice that would prevail, and the bloody hand of vengeance would make it right.

It was how it had to be.

Ravenswood was a crooked town.

And he was going to prove it—
once and for all.

       
                
* * *
  O R A C L E   * * *

Twenty Minutes

Later

Normally, Bishop would be joking around, making light of the situation. She had to when a case was this grizzly. When you had a killing like this, you couldn’t let it bring you down.

You had to stay focused.

She and Roxy had a way of making it tolerable. From the outside, it looked like they didn’t care. The truth be told, they did care.

A lot.

So, as she crouched by her friend at the gate, they were going over the last moments of the man who was now on the tarp on the ground.

He was a mess.

Holy shit!

Someone went nuts up in here.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life,” Bishop stated, pulling on the latex gloves her best friend had handed her.

“I wish I could say the same,” Roxy offered. “When I did this job in Miami, there were bodies like this all the time. I wish this were the first or fiftieth time I’d see something this horrible. I’ve gotten good at meat puzzles.”

She patted her friend on the shoulder in sympathy. Roxy liked the challenge, and that’s why she job-hopped all over the states. It was only a matter of time before she ran again.

Bishop was waiting for it.

“So, what can you tell me?”

“That someone worked him over with lots of different implements of torture. I’ll have the CSI’s pull trace, but it’s going to be slow moving unless you have an idea on how to commandeer more money and a bigger lab.”

Oh, she did.

The FBI was going to be useful. She’d already gotten the call from some woman named Elizabeth Blackhawk. She’d googled her, just to make sure, and she was, indeed, who she said she was.

It seemed that Nathaniel Carter wasn’t yanking her chain. Now she only had to figure out who Avalon was, and how she knew everything about the victim, her, and Lucian.

Surely, he didn’t tell her.

Could she actually be telling the truth and a psychic? Was that a possibility?

Then again, they could be lovers. Maybe Lucian had decided to settle down, and Avalon was his new bedmate.

Yeah, her blood pressure spiked through the freaking roof. Apparently, he liked redheads, just not her.

“You okay? You just went seven shades of angry,” Roxy stated.

“I’m fine. I have good news and bad news—which do you want first?”

“I hate this game, Bish. It’s never really good news. It’s always your version of good, which is just shy of shitty. I’ve got two bodies, a backed up lab, and a mess brewing. My grandfather is going to ride our asses. Don’t let the gray hair fool you. He’s been mayor for far too long to let this slide.”

She was aware.

Silas may love them both, but he also loved the fact that he’d been mayor for over thirty freaking years. Ravenswood didn’t believe in term limits, and he was the reason. The man ran the place with an iron freaking fist.

Plus, everyone loved Silas.

EVERYONE.

He was a God among men there and for a reason. The man took care of business. He was tough, family came first, and no one screwed with Silas Reed. There were whispers that he had…connections.

And not legal ones.

Oh, the irony.

“Well, it’s not really bad,” she offered. “I have a mess too. Inside, we have the FBI, and they’re helping Lucian Monroe.”

The woman looked up at her friend.

“Lucian Monroe?
THE
Lucian Monroe from ten years ago?” Roxy asked.

“Yeah, the one and the same.”

“Uh oh.”

She could say that again.

Ten years ago, when he’d been hurt, she’d stayed by his side because she’d fallen for him. When his fiancée showed up, dropped the ring, and called him a monster, Bishop wanted to kick her ass.

She’d believed that she’d have a chance with him. After the bitch bailed, Bishop believed that it was her open door to the man.

Yeah, she’d been dead wrong.

Lucian hated her freaking guts.

“Is this a good idea?” she asked. “Don’t you two have some sordid history?” Roxy asked.

Yeah, they had something.

She’d been obsessed, and he’d been full of rage and couldn’t see that she didn’t pity him. Bishop felt connected, and she didn’t know why.

She always went with her gut, and that’s why she tried to talk to him for two years after he cussed her out, tossed her from his private hospital room, and called her every name in the book.

Yeah, they had history.

A bleak and short lived one.

“You don’t look so good.”

She wasn’t feeling so good. “I’m fine. I have to ask him some questions. They’re hiding something, and I need to get to the bottom of this. I can feel the BS meter going off in my head.”

Roxy stared into her friends eyes. “Bish, be careful. When Lucian is involved, nothing good is going to come of it. The man is cursed.”

She didn’t believe that.

Bishop knew the truth.

He needed help. Like that Avalon chic had said, he had a gift, and it was calling to hers. It was crazy, but she couldn’t deny it was there. She’d learned a long time ago not to discredit anything in life.

It was a huge universe.

People had gifts.

“Want me to talk to him?” Roxy asked. “I can do your job. Make a list of questions. You can do mine.”

She held out the man’s ear.

Bishop stared at her in horror. “You’re insane. There is something seriously jacked up with you.”

She was well aware.

Her friend made her laugh.

Bishop saw movement heading their way. “Heads up. Here comes the FBI, and they brought someone else I’ve yet to meet. It’s like they keep coming out of the freaking woodwork.”

The two women stood up.

“Oh, Jesus H. Christ,” muttered Roxy.

“What?” Bishop asked, glancing over.

“I’ve just met the man of my freaking wet dreams. Who the hell is he, and can I get into those pants?”

Bishop glanced over at the three men coming their way. There was Nathaniel Carter, Lucas Mars, and some redheaded commando.

“Seriously? The blonde?”

“No.”

“The brunette?”

“No way.”

“The redhead?” she asked. “The one with the tats?” Bishop added.

“Oh, yeah. My panties are never going to be the same. I think I found my next sexy plaything.”

Bishop had to fight not to laugh.

“Well, then you’re going to like this, Roxy. That’s the FBI, and you’re going to get to hang out with the man of your fantasies.”

Roxy faced her best friend and kissed her square on the mouth, uncaring what anyone thought.

“I seriously love you.”

Bishop slapped her. “Knock it off! People talk about us as it is.”

“I’ll give you my liver if you make him spend time with me just so I can check out that ass of his. I bet I can bounce four quarters and my lips off it from here.”