Oracle Seeing (The Phoenix Files Book 2) Page 13

  She had a point.

  “Okay.”

  Luke stared at him.

  Did his boss just back down?

  Did Nathaniel ‘Take No Prisoners’ Carter let someone else win?

  Jagger was trying to take a coroner for a joyride, and Nate was playing nice.

  What the hell was next? Maura in a dress?

  “Just take it easy on her. She’s my fiancée, and she’s pregnant.”

  The woman relaxed the second he spilled the rest of the details. That cheered her right up. The woman wasn’t cozied up to Lucian.

  The knot in her chest loosened, and she didn’t feel like kicking the shit out of someone.

  “I promise I’ll be gentle. She’s the only one I’m not pissed at, since she’s the only one who didn’t lie to me about what she was doing here.”

  And it was true. Now she’d use kid gloves on Avalon Miller. If she genuinely had a gift, and the FBI used her, she would have an advantage over this killer.

  That worked for her.

  Nate had to trust the woman.

  Avalon seemed to, so this was going to be her call.

  “Thank you, for that.”

  When the sheriff left, Luke punched him in the arm—hard. “Really?”

  “We have to play nice.”

  He punched him again.

  “Knock it off! You’re hanging around Maura too long. Why did you do that?”

  “You’re having a kid, and this is how you tell us?” he asked, pointing at his ear.

  Crap.

  Yeah, that was shitty.

  “Sorry? I was going to tell you at breakfast, but we had a body turn up.”

  “You better hope it doesn’t get back to Callie, or she’s going to boot your ass around Damascus for not giving her the news first. You know she told you first when she was pregnant.”

  Yeah, his sister had.

  “Okay! I’ll send her an email.”

  Luke laughed.

  Maura laughed over the com.

  Hell!

  Even Jagger laughed.

  “A text?”

  “Nate!” Maura stated. “You know better than that. You and our dead guy will both be crucified.”

  He started laughing. “I know! I’ll call her as soon as I can. Let’s start pulling information on this case. Maybe the media published something interesting about the two dead men.”

  “So we’re trolling the tabloids?”

  Sometimes, you had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and this was likely going to be it.

  They needed gossip.

  They needed the dirt.

  Inside, she found the woman sitting on the couch and Lucian nowhere to be found. The woman in camo was not far away, and she was polishing her gun.

  “If that’s meant to scare me, I can take you.”

  Maura laughed. “I’m a Marine. I’d have you down before you even got to your weapon. I’ve killed three men in less than a minute when they’ve moved at her. The hardest part about taking you out will be hiding the body.”

  She didn’t think the woman was kidding, so she let it go. This was no time for a pissing match.

  “Can I talk to you, Avalon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alone?”

  Maura laughed. “Yeah. No.”

  Avalon blindly glanced over. Since Lucian was nowhere to be found, she was going to have to use the women’s auras to navigate around the room. “Please, Maura? I’m safe. She’s a good person. Her aura is clear.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Maura could hear Nate over the com. He was giving her the order to take a hike.

  She didn’t like it, but she’d do it.

  When she was gone, Bishop pointed at the coffee on the table. “May I?”

  “May you what?”

  “Have some coffee?”

  Avalon scanned blindly. “I can’t see, so you’ll have to help yourself.”

  Bishop waved her hand in front of her face.

  “Well, that I can see. I read auras. The coffee doesn’t have one. Yours is all pissed off and frustrated. Nathaniel gets like that a lot. I’m very familiar with it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m angry with this whole situation.”

  “You should be. I don’t blame you.”

  Her body went still. In her head, the static came to life, pushing through the barriers. The message had to be delivered, and she was helpless to stop it.

  “Are you okay, Avalon?” Bishop asked, staring at her. The woman’s body went rigid, her eyes seemed to get more misty, and she was staring at her.

  It was damn creepy.

  “You fight for justice as your father did. You were meant to carry on.” She blinked. “You love him.”

  “My father? Who didn’t? He was a damn good guy, and my dad.”

  She shook her head. “Lucian. You love him and want to strangle him. Mostly, you want to climb all over him.”

  Well, this was awkward.

  “Uh…”

  Avalon touched the watch on her wrist. Without the sheriff knowing, she pushed in the pin. She was well aware the team had her mic’d now. After the episode last night, she was on to their game.

  As soon as she was sure it was just them, she continued, “When you saw him, you fell in love.”

  She didn’t speak.

  “You’ve always tried to help him. You’ve been compelled by something you can’t explain to be near him.”

  She was right.

  “I care.”

  There.

  That was about as deep as she was getting with a stranger. She wasn’t spilling her guts to a psychic when she didn’t spill them to her best friend.

  “He’s going to die.”

  That had her attention.

  Avalon watched the woman’s aura change. She was worried, angry, and scared.

  “The killer is going to target him at some point. You already know this is all connected, and it is. When he’s ready, Lucian will be marked. He needs you.”

  Bishop didn’t like this.

  As angry as she was with Lucian for the way he treated her all those years ago, she didn’t want to see him hurt.

  “He won’t let me help him. I’ve tried. He’s the most stubborn man in the world.”

  “He’s afraid.”

  “Of me? Great, because I’m scared shitless of him. I only wanted to help him. I only wanted to…”

  She’d nearly said ‘be his’.

  That boat had sailed, and Captain Lucian didn’t want her anywhere near his vessel.

  Avalon understood. She could see the past and the present when it came to the two of them.

  “I’ll make you a deal.”

  Bishop sat back and sipped the coffee, and then she realized the woman didn’t have any. “Would you like some?”

  “I would, but I’ll spill it if I try to make a cup.”

  Being blind had to suck.

  “What do you take in it?”

  “Lots of sugar.”

  Bishop made her a cup and held it out. “It’s right in front of you. Put your hand out and I’ll make sure you get it.”

  She did.

  “Thank you.”

  “This has to be hard,” she offered, referring to her blindness. She couldn’t imagine.

  “It is but then it isn’t. I have people around me all the time. You must have scared them if they’re laying low.”

  She laughed.

  Yeah, she tended to come across like that, and it was fine by her.

  “I like you, Avalon. I think you’re the only one on your team. You’re honest. I dig that in a person.”

  “I like good people, and you’re one, Bishop. I was told to get you to help him.”

  “Yeah, about that.”

  “Let’s talk deal.”

  Bishop was curious. “Okay.”

  “I’ll tell you everything every time you ask, if you promise to save him. He needs you, even if he pushes you away. I know what’s coming. That’s my curse—o
r gift—and he’s in danger. If the team won’t help you, I will. They may think they’re in charge, but Nathaniel isn’t the boss. This is my team.”

  She liked that deal. “So, I help him, and you help me.”

  “It’s fair, right?” Avalon could see her aura, and she knew the woman before her wanted to be near Lucian. It was her destiny. She only had to get them back on track, so they could save him. She had yet to tell them that he was in danger.

  “It’s fair.”

  “No one knows he’s a target. I just picked it up earlier. You have to protect him.”

  “Why me?” she asked.

  “You’re the sheriff. I’m just the Oracle.”

  She had a point.

  “Okay, so if I do what you ask, you’ll keep me in the loop? They won’t put a gag order on you?”

  She laughed. “No, they won’t. My team knows better.”

  And they did.

  The last case Rhett Longfellow nearly died because they meddled in the Oracle part of the case.

  “Deal.”

  She held out her hand and Avalon shook it.

  Avalon felt it the second they touched. She stared into the woman, and saw it all.

  “Your father is dead.”

  “Yeah, someone shot the sheriff, but they didn’t shoot the deputy.”

  Bishop laughed. It was her coping mechanism.

  Avalon didn’t get it. In fact, she looked confused. So, Bishop tried to clue her in.

  “You know…the song?”

  Nothing.

  She was a tough audience.

  “He was murdered.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “It’s related.”

  That stopped the world around her. The second Bishop heard that, everything went silent. Normally, she had static on the brain, but that one tidbit was enough to rock her universe.

  “What? Why do you say that? He died two years ago.”

  Avalon got up and began pacing. She bumped into a few things. She was in some sort of trace.

  Bishop didn’t know what to do.

  She headed out of the room to find the Marine. When she saw the woman, she whistled. “You need to get in here. She’s acting odd.”

  Maura hustled in from her seat on the stairs. When she got in there, she spotted Avalon.

  She calmed down.

  This wasn’t odd.

  That was simply how Oracle rolled.

  “She’s fine. She’s picking up details, and she’s using them to sort things out.”

  Then she saw the two cups of coffee. “You didn’t give her caffeine, did you?”

  Bishop didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to. “Uh, yeah, why?”

  Maura sighed. “You don’t give her caffeine. It makes her go haywire.”

  She didn’t understand that.

  When Avalon turned, she was facing the two women. “You need to go to his house, you need to find the files, and you need to start working on that. He was murdered. His soul isn’t at rest.”

  Bishop was getting creeped out.

  “Uh, okay. I have the files. I know what he was working on when he was killed.”

  “It was a bullet through the head. Miles died at his desk. He wasn’t aware. It happened so fast.”

  Avalon began talking fast, rattling off information.

  “Did you give her sugar?”

  “What the hell? She’s not a Gremlin. It’s not like there was a note pinned to her chest that said she couldn’t have any!”

  “He was on the track. He was almost there. You have to find his killer. It’s all tied together. It’s all linked. I need peace, Bish baby. I need peace.”

  She was freaked out. Her father called her ‘Bish baby’, and he was the only one who ever uttered those words.

  It was like she was channeling him.

  The wound with her father was raw, but this was opening it up. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she offered, backing out. It was time to escape.

  “He’s upstairs. You need to keep your part of the deal.”

  The sheriff would. She’d rather face Lucian down than hear more about her father.

  It was tripping her up inside.

  It always would.

  As she got the hell out of there, she couldn’t help but think about what the woman had said.

  Was her father not at rest?

  If that were the case, she had to do something.

  Anything.

  She couldn’t let him suffer like that.

  It made her want to be sick. Miles Killion deserved justice, just like the others.

  * * * O R A C L E * * *

  Holy shit!

  The house was a monstrosity. As Sheriff Bishop Killion tried to find the man, she wasn’t having much luck. With each door she knocked on, no one answered. There had to be about ten bedrooms on this one wing alone.

  Who needed all this space?

  God!

  Her townhouse was small, and there was a reason. She didn’t have to clean for hours. Whoever came here had to have one hell of a sore back when they left.

  Finally, she reached the door at the end of the hall. When she knocked, she heard him growl, ordering her to leave.

  Well, at least she had found him. Bishop knew that was going to be the easy part.

  Instead of listening to his orders, she opened the door. Inside the room, he was seated in a chair, hidden in the shadows.

  Yeah, that seemed about right.

  Of course he was going to lurk and try to hide. Bishop wanted to tell him to pound sand after the hell he’d put her through, but she thought back to what Avalon had said.

  He was going to die.

  She didn’t want that to happen, and she knew it was more than just her being the law.

  Avalon was right.

  She had fallen for him.

  The hours she sat at his bedside, ‘on duty’ weren’t the reason. It was the hours after where they talked. She’d promised him it was going to be okay, and that her father was going to find the person responsible.

  They talked about books.

  His life.

  Hers.

  He was calm and relaxed as he held onto her hand. When he asked how bad his face was, she didn’t lie. She told him he had a scar. She’d seen it when the nurse was changing the bandage. She didn’t tell him he was going to be blind.

  That wasn’t her call.

  Instead, she tried to cheer him up.

  The entire time, he held her hand, and there was something there.

  He’d asked about his fiancée, and Bishop didn’t tell him the truth. She’d been in, she’d seen him with tubes, machines, and scarred, and she’d walked out. She’d said they were done, but it had fallen on deaf ears.

  Thankfully.

  Had Lucian heard the horrible things she’d said, it would have hurt him.

  Hell!

  It hurt her. The bitch had been superficial. For that alone, she wanted to hurt her. There was a depth to this man that was alluring. It wasn’t his good looks, the money, or his career that Bishop was attracted to—it was his soul.

  It was bright.

  Beautiful.

  Gentle.

  And it called to hers.

  So, after his ex-fiancée ran away, Bishop couldn’t be the one who broke it to him.

  Then he wanted to call her to talk privately to her. Bishop knew it was going to be a mistake. She knew he was going to get hurt. That was the beginning of the end. It wasn’t like she had a shot, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted one.

  Still...

  Being near him felt right.

  Like it did now.

  When he called his fiancée, the phone was on speaker. His ears were still damaged and ringing. Bishop had prayed that he wouldn’t hear her.

  She knew the woman.

  Everyone did.

  She was an up and coming reporter who would do anything for a story. There was no doubt to Bishop that this woman was riding his coattails, hoping to make it to t
he top with the DA no one could beat.

  It wasn’t her place to warn him.

  Still, she felt guilty.

  After that call, everything changed—and for the worst.

  It blindsided him.

  When he called her and asked where she was, the woman dropped the bomb.

  She told him she couldn’t be with him. He was disfigured, a monster, and she couldn’t bear to look at him.

  The words hung there.

  Bishop could see the pain as he stared at her. She could see the wheels turning the entire time the woman tore into him, decimating Lucian with her hideous words.

  Lucian’s one good eye had focused on hers. When he hung up, everything was different.

  The switch was flipped.

  “You need to go. I need you to leave,” he’d said.

  It was all she remembered.

  He’d accused her of not telling him the truth. He believed the flaky blonde who handed him his heart. He believed her version of the truth, even when she didn’t see it the same way.

  Yes, he was a mess, but Lucian Monroe was a good man. She knew it to her soul.

  Her father knew it.

  There was no doubt in her mind that he’d heal. That he’d come back and be stronger than ever. He wasn’t a quitter—until that moment when he’d quit on life.

  And worse?

  Bishop had become the whipping boy to his anger, all because a bimbo broke his heart. He wasn’t ugly, and he wasn’t a monster.

  He was a smart man with the best intentions of helping others. She knew he had a gift. Her father had told her everything. This man supplied the police with details to bring the bad guys in, and there was only one way he could do that.

  He was special.

  That was enough for her.

  As far as she was concerned, he’d gone down in the line of duty. That meant everything.

  Valor wasn’t about beauty.

  It wasn’t about the soldiers who came home from war in one piece. It was about the men who were scarred, damaged, and carried on despite what life had handed them.

  Lucian had something valuable.

  He was a hero to her, and to the people she’d sworn to protect.

  And now it was right back to where it stood ten years ago.

  He was angry, she was left to fix it, and it wouldn’t end well. On this one, Avalon was wrong.

  But she’d try.

  She’d given her word.

  “Can we talk?” she asked.

  “In my bedroom?” he growled. “This is the last place I want to talk to you!”