Chapter Eighteen
SARATOGA, Wyo. (AP)—Authorities are searching for suspects in the death of a 65-year-old woman. Evidence at the scene indicates the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, but investigators are not yet releasing any details found at the scene or persons of interest.
Not exactly the MO Draven had used with her parents or anything similar to the vision Jade had described, but Katy flagged the location on the map she’d printed, jotted down a few notes and punched the back button on her browser session. As research options went, Google probably wasn’t the most sophisticated method out there, but at least she was doing something. Which was more than what she could say about how she’d spent the last week.
Some daughter you are.
She clicked the next link down in her search results and scanned the news article for any nuance that might resemble her mom and dad’s murder. After what Jade had shared, she’d been shocked she managed to talk Priest into her leaving the house, but she’d needed a new environment even more than she needed to blow off steam. Finding out Priest had the whole floor above his shop tricked out as an office and art space? Well, that was just an added bonus. Especially with a birds-eye view of the main drag on a Friday night and unfettered high-speed internet access.
“Did you get ahold of David?”
Startled at the sound of Alek’s booming voice, Katy jolted a good two inches out of her chair and nearly knocked over the mega Starbucks she’d never finish. “Jesus, Alek. You’re as bad as Priest.”
He grinned, clearly taking the comment as a compliment, and sauntered toward her. “So? You give David the info the seers found?”
“I gave it to him, but he said tracking the kind of data we’re after would take at least a week.” Not seeing anything worth capturing on the current search result, she backtracked again and went to the next one on the list.
Alek peeked out the open window beside the desk and scanned the street below. “It takes whatever it takes, but we’ll get what we need when we need it.”
“Says the once irritable and fight-ready guy who’s suddenly found his inner Zen.” The next article wasn’t even a homicide. More of a homicide report for Wyoming as a whole. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were running down some possible leads with some of the other guys.”
“Katy, it’s ten o’clock. I left six hours ago.”
The clock at the top corner of Priest’s laptop confirmed it. Although, now that she thought about it, it had been a while since Jade and Nanna had been by with dinner. “Shoot. Is Priest still downstairs?”
“It’s Friday night on Main Street in a town known to be a biker hangout and Priest owns a tattoo shop. So, yeah. He’s downstairs.” He cocked one hip on the edge of Priest’s desk and crossed his arms. “A better question is what the hell you’ve been doing up here all afternoon and most of tonight.”
She shrugged and scrolled down on the page. “I thought I’d see if I could come up with something.”
“Come up with what?”
“I don’t know. Anything.”
Before she could track what he was up to, Alek shifted the laptop to face him and toggled the cursor. “You’re searching homicides?”
“In Wyoming.” She pulled the map of Colorado she’d put together after her talk with David out from underneath the new one for Wyoming and handed it over to Alek. “It’s probably not the most scientific way to go about it, but I thought if I mapped out other violent murders, something might pop out at me.”
Alek shut the laptop, took the map and tossed it aside. “You know we’re already working on this stuff. Several of us actually.”
“So, what? One more won’t hurt. It’s better than me sitting around doing nothing.” She shoved to her feet and paced to the wide art table set up at the far end of the room. Like Priest’s desk, it was anchored near the window with loads of natural light and ample inspiration from the comings and goings of people below. Given the number of pencil sketches tacked on the wall around it, he’d spent considerable time there.
“You’re not doing nothing. You’re learning. And considering how little we knew about who we are less than two weeks ago, I’d say that’s pretty damned important.”
“I didn’t come here to learn about who we are. I came here to find the man who killed our parents.”
“You can’t do one without the other. And has it occurred to you we might need the things you’re learning about our clan once we get a solid lead?”
She had. But the logic didn’t do much to ease her guilty conscience. And why the hell was she so antsy? Like a living current had been piped into every muscle and circled her body in an endless loop. She braced her hands on the window sill and leaned out. The temps had dropped since she’d ridden to the shop with Priest, easily hovering in the lower fifties with the promise of even colder temps before the night was through. A stubborn reminder of winter on the last day of March. “Something’s wrong with me.”
The confession slipped out as little more than a whisper, but perceptive as ever, Alek caught it. “Something’s wrong with you, or something’s changing?”
On the street below, a trio of men ambled down the street, their deep laughter bouncing off the old buildings. They reached the pub just catty-corner to Priest’s building, pushed the door open and let the live music underway inside filter out into the night. The answer to Alek’s question was as elusive as knowing anything about the strangers she watched. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do know. You’re just not ready to admit it yet.”
She pushed back from the window and met his steady gaze. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He hung his head, scratched his jaw and studied the floor for a handful of heartbeats before he sighed and lifted his head. “Look, the only person I can speak for is me. But I can tell you that—pre-soul quest funk aside—I’ve processed more emotions in the last month than I know what to do with. Losing Mom and Dad was brutal. It still is. But I’m mad as hell, too. Every day I wake up pissed off that Dad stole our heritage from us. Then I remember he’s gone and feel like a giant ass for getting pissed. It’s like an out of control emotional Tilt-A-Whirl.”
That was exactly what it felt like. Only for her, the onslaught of feelings had her mired in a swampy place so thick it gripped and sucked her in like quicksand, and the only response that felt right was to fight. “I don’t like how it feels.”
“Of course, you don’t. I don’t either. But here’s the thing, Katy. I can either let that guilt rule me, or I can own it and let it go. Because once you get through the shitty part of feeling, you get to the good part. The part that makes you feel alive and makes all the mundane bullshit worthwhile. I like this new life. I dig the hell out of our heritage and I’m proud of the things I can do. But most importantly, I’m embracing who I am. Not what someone told me I’m supposed to be.”
“I’m not afraid to be who I am.”
“Really? Because, I watched you with Dad growing up. I heard the lectures about leading with your head and not your heart. About responsibility and logic being the wiser course. But for the life of me, I never understood why you listened to it. I remember what you were like when you were little and the things you wanted. Do you?”
For some stupid reason the injured bird she’d found walking home from the bus stop when she was eight came to mind. The weather had been horrible, the front line of a predicted blizzard just starting to dump fat snowflakes on their small suburb and making the temperatures miserable. She’d shucked her coat anyway, cradled the poor thing in the center of it and carried it all the way home—only to get the mother of all lectures about the diseases she could have contracted through such an act. Whatever happened to the bird, she never knew and had been too terrified to ask. “He just wanted me to have a career that would support me.”
“You mean he wanted your life to be predictable. Not something where you flew by the seat of your pants like your big brother.”
“He was being practical.”
“No, Katy. He was scared.” Alek stood, his expression compassionate despite the sternness behind his words. “Following your gut or your emotions isn’t a bad thing. It’s just something he wasn’t comfortable doing and he pushed that belief off on you.”
Had he?
She’d always thought the way things had changed was more a case of growing up. Of accepting reality, and stowing away all her flighty ideas the way every other responsible person did.
And yet, looking back, Alek had never compromised on what he’d wanted. Not once. He’d had exceptional aptitude for the career he’d chosen in criminal justice, but he’d ditched it in favor of starting his own dojang and never once looked back—no matter how much her parents had taken him to task for what they’d deemed a foolish decision.
So, who was she? The woman who only weeks ago had been close enough to landing the coveted environmental internship she’d fought so hard to get? Or the passionate, deeply feeling woman she’d glimpsed in her dreams last night?
“What do you want, Katy? If you can figure that out, you’ll have a helluva better shot at navigating all the shit life throws at you—the good and the bad. More importantly, you’ll have a good time doing it. Which, if you ask me, beats taking everyone else’s marching orders hands down.”
She turned, drawn to the sketches mounted on the wall, those closest to the window lifting in a subtle flutter on the night’s soft breeze. One by one, she studied them. Such detail. And the subjects ranged from people to symbols she didn’t stand a prayer of recognizing.
Over six hours she’d spent in this room, but not once had she taken the time to appreciate Priest’s talent. To explore and learn more about the man who’d kept her captivated even at a distance.
All because of guilt.
Because she’d dared to feel and explore something that didn’t fit neatly in the realm of logic. Worse, she’d done it in the wake of her parents’ death, setting aside what her conscience deemed was right in favor of what she wanted.
Outside the window, the live music from the pub swelled as new patrons made their way in or out, then died once more. Although, the throbbing bass was still there. Muted, but persistent. Rather like the pulse growing inside her.
She faced her brother and took a deep breath, the muscles in her torso trembling as if it had been years since they’d had such room to do so. “Was Priest busy with a client when you came up?”
The grin that split her brother’s face was pure mischief. All male and one-hundred percent locked on the direction her thoughts had taken. “Gonna jump in the deep end, huh?”
Jump wasn’t exactly the word she’d have used. More like swan dive or bungee jump. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”
Alek chuckled and rubbed the back of his hand against his chin. “Yeah, not sure that’s gonna matter with Priest. Once you say go, my guess is you won’t need to steer anymore.” He jerked his head toward the hallway and the stairs that led down to the shop. “Come on.”
“But if he’s busy with a client, I don’t want to bother him.”
“Who gives a shit? Live a little.” He wrapped one arm around her, hugged her tight to his side in the grizzly bear way he’d used since they were little and led her to the door. “Besides, watching you two circle each other last night was funny as hell. I’m looking forward to an encore.”