Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files)
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Authors: A.J. Aalto
Copyright 2012 A.J. Aalto
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.
ISBN 978-1-935961-57-4
EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-061-0
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2012943463
This book is dedicated to my mother,
Lynda, for always calling me a writer,
even when the words wouldn't come,
and to my father, Marc, the best damn
storyteller I know.
Contents
MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the support of some amazing people, whom I am blessed to know and honored to mention here. A huge thanks to Berenice “Machinery” Jones—editor, inspiration, mad genius and treasured friend, always ready with a red pen and a cup of Earl Grey—and to Jason Jones, for not being afraid to apply a judicious layer of Painful Truth when and where it's needed, and for being the most entertaining person I know. Life's so much fun when the Joneses are around.
I owe an enormous debt to my Thursday Morning Beta Reader and personal assistant, Heather Goldie, whose laughter is the best ego boost a writer could hope for, and whose honest criticism I can count on at every step of the journey. What would I do without you, Miss H? I offer a warm thanks to Rob Goldie, my photographer and graphic artist, who knows all about techie contraptions. When I was lost and needed someone, he snorted and said, “Hey dummy, I can do that.” I dig that guy.
To my kids, Jenny and Derek, I want to say thanks for understanding when mom's distracted, thanks for cooperating when I need just a bit more quiet time, thanks for being wildly sweet and totally amazing, and filling my life with giggles. To Daxon and Sara Flynn, thanks for reading and giving me feedback and encouragement, and to my delightfully nutty sister, Robin Landry, for always “getting me” even when I tilt way past weird.
But most importantly, I want to thank my absurdly patient husband, who has supported my broke ass while I pursued this dream, and fully expects to continue supporting my broke ass until book equals profits, no matter how long that takes. For the overtime he works, for the artistic tantrums he benevolently ignores, for the thousands of cups of tea he has lovingly tiptoed into my office, for the many “let's go for a bike ride, kids, and let mummy work”, I owe him more than these few lines can express. Probably I should buy him a sports car. Probably I should give him a kidney. Probably I should save half this Twix bar for him. Not gonna, but I should. He'll understand. He always does.
I love you, Jason.
ONE
I didn't have enough eyes for this job, counting the two in my skull and the thirteen eyes of newt in a jar of alcohol on the corner of my housemate's antique ebony desk; when you track killers the way I had, vision and clarity take on layers like you wouldn't believe. I say “had” because I retired from my position as a consulting forensic psychic for the FBI six weeks ago, after my first and only case.
My name's Marnie Baranuik, and most of the time I'm OK with being a one-fail wonder. The case had gone wrong in every possible way, and blame-the-psychic is a convenient fallback position. While I'm the first to admit my failings, proudly in some cases, I like to think it wasn't entirely my fault.
My reasons for retiring at the tender age of twenty-seven haven't gone anywhere: they're the choking miasma of other people's sins, and they're out there, waiting to show me their worst, strangers forever rubbing me with their prickly, often-horrifying inner selves. Sadly, the reasons for my breakdown haven't gone anywhere either. This morning, two of them sat across from me in my home office, a forty-five minute drive outside the city of Ten Springs, Colorado. One of them was politely ignoring the goggling newt eyeballs and drinking my espresso. The other was glaring at me expectantly while the relentless tick of hail pelting the window filled an increasingly awkward silence.
To borrow a cliché, Supervisory Special Agent Gary Chapel—the Polite One—was the silver lining on the black cloud that was his subordinate, Special Agent Mark Batten. Long-jawed with a receding hairline of short sandy curls, Chapel wore beige in varying shades that complemented both his hazel eyes and the tortoise shell frames of his glasses. He'd always been patient with me, unobtrusive and
gentle, his all-forgiving gaze and agreeable nature veiling a past in behavioural science studying the most abhorrent criminal minds in the nation's prison system. How anyone could be so pleasant, knowing what Chapel knew, was beyond me. They didn't make chairs to fit his lanky frame; he sat tall in my office chair as comfortably as possible, reminding me of a Great Dane secure in his alpha-status, quietly confident. There was no fight in his eyes: there was no need.
From the way Agent Batten gripped his espresso cup, dwarfing it in the palm of his left hand to keep his dominant hand free, I could easily imagine his former life as a vampire hunter. He was all hard lines, an immovable wall. Ninety percent inanimate object but carrying the underlying threat of action along the tension of his forearms. Shady from black military buzz cut, to cinnamon tan, to delphinium-blue eyes framed strikingly by dark, thick lashes. Those eyes were by far his best feature; it sure as hell wasn't his personality. His black-on-black wardrobe made a lousy attempt to disguise the brain-melting body that lurked beneath waiting to fry the self-control of innocent women. He peered at me over the rims of Oakley sunglasses with a gaze I'd classify as both cunning and wary. Unlike his boss, there was plenty of fight in “Kill-Notch” Batten, a lifeguard with a hangover presiding over an airless pool of disapproval and suspicion. Without any outward effort, Batten managed to dial my mood from uncomfortable to downright hostile.
Which man I'd less like to meet in a dark alley, I couldn't say, nor was I sure that day wouldn't come, considering what my housemate was; for a moment, despite our acquaintance, I felt intimidated. I took a bracing sip of espresso and pictured Batten prancing out in the snow wearing nothing but a sport sock, trilling Tiptoe Through the Tulips in Tiny Tim falsetto. Better. In fact, I had to work not to smirk. Judging by the further narrowing of Batten's glare, my twitching lips nudged him off balance. Much better.
Chapel leaned forward, elbows on knees, palms out. The familiarity of the gesture struck a warning bell: Chapel and his body language tricks, trying to put me at ease. If memory served, he'd use only our first names, consistently. I was about to be handled with all the determination of a Hollywood dermatologist on a starlet's rash.
“Marnie, Mark and I have already ruled out werewolf,” Chapel said.
“No bite marks?” I blurted like a dummy, kneejerk. Ugh. Point: Chapel.
“Plenty,” Batten replied. “Space between's too small. No broken bones. No tearing. Tidy.”
I hadn't expected Batten's grim tone and economy of speech to slug my chest the way it did; he never elaborated, and he rarely softened his tone. I focused on Chapel, keeping my face dispassionate.
“Then you're right, it's not a lycanthrope. Could be a young revenant, un-Bonded and solo, not running with clutch mentality, though not completely feral or you'd find tearing.” I struggled with the stirring of temper and loins, bickering Siamese twins, linked in flesh and blood at hip level. “Agent Chapel, you do understand the word “retired” and all it implies?”
Batten made a throaty noise. I refused to look at him. Childish, me?
“Mark and I understand you're on a break, Marnie.” Chapel nodded like an FBI bobble head. Behold! The world's most agreeable man. His voice warmed a degree. “You need some time.”
Only a few decades or so. “Gold-Drake & Cross represents twenty-five other federally-licensed psychics you can consult,” I reminded him. “All of them outrank me in Talent, goodwill and general friendliness.”
“Now, you know the first part's not possible,” Chapel said.
I didn't miss the implication, and smiled for the first time. Point: Chapel. An attempt to disagree with the last two would have been blatantly ridiculous and would have ended this conversation, and he knew it.
“There are more powerful psychics,” Batten hedged. “But how many have a doctorate in preternatural biology and more than a passing understanding of the Dark Arts?”
As far as I knew, I was the only one, but admitting that wasn't going to make them go away. I played with my cup and shrugged at Chapel, expression neutral. “You'd have to ask my old boss at GD&C.”
“And how many have a media nickname?” Batten drew a rolled-up newspaper from behind his back, where it must have been crammed in his pocket. For a second I thought he was going to swat
me on the nose like a misbehaving puppy; he waved it in my face, then dropped it on the desk. “Must be famous for a reason?”