Oracle Seeing (The Phoenix Files Book 2) (28 page)

It had started out a good day.

And went to hell pretty damn fast.

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

The team was up and working when Avalon wandered her way down to the kitchen. She’d slept in, and Nate hadn’t minded at all.

She was growing him a child, and that mattered.

The second he heard her, he was up and out of his seat to greet her.

She’d had a restless night.

The dreams and visions had kept her busy all night long.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“No. I’m feeling a little icky.”

He kissed her and held Avalon against his body. “The baby?”

This time, it had nothing to do with it.

“No, he’s got another victim. He’s getting ready. It’s coming.”

They all stopped moving.

“What?” Luke asked. “How do you know that he has another victim. Lucian isn’t around.”

Yeah, Maura didn’t like the sound of this.

“Lucian needed a night off, so I’m trying to cut the visions off for as long as I can.”

“Avalon,” Nate warned.

“He needs this. I’m keeping them on track. He needed one night of peace. I can’t hold them back for long, but I can buy him some well-deserved peace.”

He wanted to ask her when she would get the well-deserved peace, but he knew better. Avalon wanted to run this her way, and they were going to do what she asked. Lucian and Bishop’s fates were joined, and she was doing her thing to keep it that way.

“Where is he?” Maura asked.

“He didn’t come home last night,” Avalon offered. “He’s on his way here now, and he’s angry.”

Uh oh.

That wasn’t good.

Maura placed a cup of tea before Avalon. “Here. Drink this. You look pale.”

She placed her hands around it, and no one missed that they were shaky—especially Nate.

Luke gave him the look.

Somehow, he managed to say nothing. It looked like his best friend was learning.

“Are you seeing the killer?” Maura finally asked. While Lucian only got flashes, maybe she saw more.

“Not completely. I can see the inside of a trunk. The victim is inside.”

Luke began making notes as she described everything she saw.

“Do you know who it is?” Nate asked.

Avalon focused as hard as she could. Finally, she tuned into the man screaming and yelling for help. She could hear him shouting at the killer.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she whispered over and over again. “I’m Earl Thorpe. I’ll bury you. I’ll see you locked in a cage. Do you hear me? A goddamn cage!”

Maura began running the man’s name.

As Avalon sat there, beads of perspiration forming on her brow, they all felt helpless.

“He’s taking him out. I can see his hand. He’s white. A male. I see a silver watch.”

None of it was anything that would help.

“Come on, Avi, hang in there,” Nate said, touching her cheek. She was ice cold and hot at the same time. Her skin was burning but clammy.

It scared him.

She was at risk, and now so was their small little life. When he thought there was nothing that could scare him more, he’d been dead wrong.

He now had two people to lose.

She gasped and opened her eyes. “He knocked him out. Lucian is back.”

The switch was flipped.

She was back.

“I’m okay,” she offered. “He won’t be.”

“He who?” Luke asked.

“Lucian. These visions are going to be bad. The killer is angry. He’s very angry.”

She wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know. This killer was brutal, crazy, and insane.

“Who is Earl Thorpe?” Nate finally asked.

Maura glanced up.

“He’s an attorney. Want the connection?”

They did.

“The case Lucian was working on when he was nearly blown up, he had a co-counsel.”

They knew where this was heading.

“Thorpe?” Luke asked.

“Yep. Lucian is in the middle of this, but how?” she asked.

It was a damn good question.

And they were going to ask.

When they pulled up to the gate, she stopped her truck. “Can I have the code, or do you want to put it in?” she asked.

It was the first thing she’d said to him on the drive there. Frankly, she was afraid to make him even angrier.

“Twelve, twelve, twelve.”

The lumbering gates opened.

As she drove up the drive, she reached for his hand.

He pulled it away.

Shit.

“Can we talk?”

“Not now, Bishop.”

His dismissal was getting on her damn nerves. While she wanted to tell him off, and that he was angry with the wrong person, she let it go.

She’d give him time.

Then she’d kick his ass.

As she parked her truck, he hopped out, and he didn’t wait for her. It was more proof that he was beyond pissed. He’d been sweet, gentle, and very loving.

Now he was back to being cold.

Wendy was going to get her ass kicked. Bishop was going to make her pay.

She chased after him, and at the door, he headed in without saying a word.

He made it ten steps before he grabbed his head and hit the floor on his knees.

Shit!

A vision.

“Lucian!” she shouted, racing toward his side. Gently, she placed his head in her lap as the Feds and Avalon came rushing in to see what was happening.

“He’s having the vision. I’m sorry, Lucian, I couldn’t hold it back.”

He writhed in pain.

“What’s wrong with him?” Bishop asked. It looked like a cross between a seizure and a stroke. Seeing it made her want to be sick.

“He’s seeing the killer harming the next victim,” Nate said as his fiancée took a spot on the floor beside the man.

Avalon glanced up, reading the two auras.

“Bishop, hold his hand. He needs you to help him.”

She would do anything she could for him.

He calmed the second Avalon began readjusting his aura with her own energy. The reds, blacks, and oranges went to cool blues.

He calmed.

“Jesus,” muttered Bishop. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Yes.”

“Who is being killed?” she asked. The cop in her kicked in as soon as he wasn’t in danger.

“Earl Thorpe,” Lucian muttered. “He’s being tortured.”

That didn’t sound good at all.

In fact, the idea that Lucian was watching that horrified her. “And you’re seeing it?”

He struggled to nod.

“God! It hurts,” he muttered.

Avalon understood. She was feeling it too.

“Can you get me to my room,” Lucian asked, wanting to get away from Bishop. He was angry, raw, and didn’t want her seeing him like this.

Luke and Maura helped him up.

Bishop didn’t want to release his hand. Only she didn’t have a choice.

He pulled it away.

She helplessly watched as Luke helped him up the stairs and Maura escorted Avalon. When they were gone, she glanced over at Nate.

“What the hell?”

“He’s seeing the crimes. That’s how his gift works. Avalon’s able to tune into it.”

She wanted to be sick.

That had to suck for poor Lucian. He was having one hell of a day. First, the Wendy ambush, being called a beast on camera, and now this.

She wished he could catch a break.

“Do you know Earl Thorpe?” Nate asked, as they headed into the sitting area of Lucian’s home.

“Yeah, I do. He works at the courthouse.”

Nate was curious. “Did you know he took over for Lucian after his accident?”

She was aware.

“Yeah, I know. Only he wasn’t nearly as good at his job as Lucian was. He’d had his ass handed to him a few times by Dale Plunkett. Before the explosion, Lucian had won every round against him. He was unstoppable.”

Yeah, because of his gift.

“They’re all connected—a judge, a defense attorney, and a district attorney.”

She knew what that meant.

“Lucian’s in danger.”

She was probably right. Why he was targeted, was the only thing they could focus on at that moment.

That would give them the edge.

They had to find an answer.

“Likely. If this killer is leaving little clues, all pointing at Lucian, he’s likely the end game.”

That did not make her happy.

Bishop began putting the pieces together. There was no way the media just happened to show up at her place. This had to be part of it.

They were being watched.

That made her want to protect Lucian even more. First, Nate Carter needed to know what had already happened before they arrived at Graymoor.

She told him everything about that morning in her front yard.

“That’s not good,” Nate stated. The killer was screwing with them.

“Yeah, I know. Lucian is going to be distracted. Can you keep an eye on him? He’s safe here. As long as he stays behind the gate, the killer can only torment him in his mind.”

Nate was impressed that after what she’d just seen, she wasn’t even fazed. Sheriff Bishop Killion was more than ready to keep pushing on with what needed to be done to solve this.

“I can do that.”

“What about DNA? Did the FBI lab get anything?”

He pulled out his phone and handed it to her so she could scan the reports. “I’ll send you a hard copy.”

She read.

“There’s a blonde hair on both of the bodies that doesn’t belong there?”

“Yes.”

“No root ball? Shit!”

Yeah, he’d seen that. Basically, because of that, they had no way to get a DNA match.

“I swear I’m batting a big fat zero today. Do we have anything that might bring my average up?” she asked, thinking about Lucian. She wanted to go upstairs to see him in the worst way, but after the media, and what he’d been forced to let her see, she didn’t think he’d handle it well.

He was on the verge of a freak out.

She could tell.

“We do have one thing other than that hair found on both men.”

“What?”

“While digging in the files, one name popped up. Do you recall a Nolan Parker?”

She knew the name. “My father put him in jail. I remember the arrest. Parker was nothing more than a little shit who liked stealing cars, money, and burglary.”

He had the police report.

She had a good memory.

“How is he connected?” she asked.

“Your father arrested him. Judge Abrahms was presiding over the case, Lucian was the DA, and guess who was the defense attorney?”

“Dale Plunkett?”

“Yep.”

“What about Thorpe?”

“I’ll have to go through Lucian’s files to find out. We didn’t know he was taken, so we’ll have to backtrack to see.”

Speaking of which…

She pulled out her phone and put out a BOLO for Thorpe. She hoped no one asked her why she was looking for him, or she was going to have one hell of a time explaining that a team of secret Feds and two psychics told her.

She’d be going to the nuthouse for sure.

“I think Parker served eleven years,” she said, after hanging up the phone.

“He did.”

“I haven’t seen him since. Is he out?” Bishop asked.

“He got out two months ago. I think he should be on our suspect list, even if I can’t tie him to Thorpe yet. We might get lucky.”

Yeah, at the rate the day was going, she wouldn’t bet on that. When she heard footsteps, she glanced up. It was Luke and Maura.

No Lucian
.

“Is he okay?” she asked, standing up.

“He’s better, and Avalon is helping him. He didn’t want us in there with him.”

She understood why.

He hated when anyone pitied him. That would be his breaking point, and she knew it.

“We at least have a starting point,” Nate offered. “You can focus on Nolan Parker.”