Whispers After Death: A military psychic thriller (Mind Stalkers Book 3) Page 2

  Fresh mown lawn, onions, and musty earth—calming aromas which normally induced an aura of peace—didn’t compare to the warm scent of Conner surrounding and filling her mind with memories she couldn’t handle. A time of innocence and unspoken promises that would shred her insides like glass if she allowed those long-ago images to surface.

  Harsh breath in her ear preceded rough hands on her arms, holding them behind her back in one meaty paw. One hand banded her wrists before he hauled her upright with her back against his solid chest. Her fingers, bound behind her, skimmed soft denim over steely thighs.

  It felt like security despite the restraint.

  Genetics gave her the right height.

  Rage gave her the requisite attitude.

  Fate threw her the specific scenario.

  She leaned back into his frame and issued the small noise of a wounded animal. His grip loosened as breath from his shushing murmur brushed her ear.

  “You’re gonna be all right, sweetheart.” More soothing words.

  Right moment.

  Years of guitar practice added strength to her endeavor. Seizing as much semi-soft groin tissue as she could grasp, she squeezed with all her might.

  His choice of expletives rivaled anything her mind could ever hope to conjure. En route to doubling over, he shoved her forward, which gave her a few yards head start.

  Like a released rabbit, she took off.

  Still, he was faster.

  She didn’t get far before he hauled her back against his hard frame, careful this time to maintain a little distance between her hands and his prized bits.

  “Do that again and you won’t sit comfortably for a week, sweetheart.” The endearment was a curse, halting words forced through clenched teeth.

  She struggled against his hold until he gripped her shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. The next minute, he’d turned her to face him, pressing her head against his chest, and brushing his lips across her hair.

  “I’m not a criminal. You’re not a cop. Let me go.”

  “Not until you hear me out. We are going to my office, and you will listen. I have things to tell you. What the hell have you been doing on the streets all this time?”

  “Anything I damn well please.” His heart thumped hard under her cheek while heaving breaths warmed her forehead and cocooning heat stretched her nerves. She wouldn’t cry, not in front of Conner.

  His flipping the switch to gentleness forced like in kind in her. Daeron had taught her there was always more than one way to fight a battle. There was no contest with strength.

  To gaze at him now would destroy her. She shifted to absorb a little more of his warmth, the slight arching of her back forcing her breasts against his granite-like chest.

  Strung-out caffeine junkies moved slower than Conner when he recoiled and eyed her like an infected leper. As if taking the offensive to hide his reaction, he added, “Do you know how long it’s taken me to find you?”

  “Street rats become invisible.” Her mutinous glare had no apparent effect.

  “Huh.”

  His nudge in the club’s direction signaled her temporary defeat, but she’d grown hard, no longer the sweet kid he’d labeled her long ago. Like the cichlid fish lurking in muddy lake water, she’d roll over and play dead, biding her time and planning.

  He wouldn’t be so easy to fool in round two.

  “Especially when you have such loyal friends.” His voice was rich and deep, blending admiration with affection, beguiling and all-consuming. His mood flashed from pariah to friend with a swing of the pendulum, a sharp blade that eviscerated with one stroke.

  “Yeah, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? Your friends followed you right into hell.” Her intended barb hit its mark.

  He flinched. If she hadn’t known him so well, she’d have missed the tightening of his torso and narrowing of his gaze.

  “You okay?” As if needing physical confirmation, he ran his hands up and down her arms.

  “You hurt me, you big oaf.” She didn’t need his tenderness or close proximity. Even in the wide-open space, he seemed to suck up the very air she needed. Surely her heart raced from exertion and her scrambled brain couldn’t easily sort his words because his presence blindsided her. “My right hand.”

  “Come on, we’ll take a look at it inside where I can see better.” Dirty, leaf-filtered light dissected the shadows to reveal a sadness she’d never witnessed. The years may have been kind to his body, but his spirit failed to conceal a poignant heartache universal to human suffering.

  That, more than anything, brought the full weight of their shared past down around her shoulders. “Let me go, Conn. There’s nothing you can say that I’d want to hear.”

  Surprised he’d let her jerk away from his touch, she shivered from the cool air washing across her long-sleeved t-shirt, damp from her tumble on the dew-covered lawn. Quivers rattled her teeth in the all-consuming presence of Conner and the aftermath of their encounter.

  “It’s about your brother. And you will listen regardless of what it takes.” A shrug and twist slid his jacket down his arms before he placed the supple leather around her shoulders.

  Heat from his fingers lingered at her neck as Conner’s scent filled her mind. A tremor ran from shoulder to shoulder.

  He smiled.

  At least his coat covered her damp shirt. Tears pooled in her eyes as she mounted the steps again. When the door swung open this time, she knew what waited on the other side. One man remained in the vestibule, nodding at Conner as they passed.

  Just as they entered the great hall, the top-heavy blonde who’d voiced her contempt now radiated a thinly veiled hatred, as if every evil ever perpetrated on the planet originated from Kendra. The promiscuous shrew tallied one more thing on the long list of things to avoid.

  “Hmm, I see you didn’t go far and collected a little trash while gone.”

  Whether the bitch referred to her as trash or the dirt that smeared her face, didn’t matter.

  Regardless of the circumstances, Kendra’s dignity remained intact. “I’ll be with you in a minute, cur.” Leaves clinging in her hair, dirt and grass staining her shirt, she portrayed the criminal, back-alley urchin condemned by the bitch’s arrogant gaze. It didn’t subordinate the rock-hard defiance filling her soul.

  “Her name is Cindy, and she normally knows how to comport herself. Tonight is an absolute exception.”

  Conner’s husky voice in her ear prompted fantasies from long ago she could no longer contemplate. Given no choice as to direction, her stiffened frame shuffled into a smaller hallway where several closed doors likely gave way to large offices. The closest one on the left opened when he leaned around her to nudge it wide.

  Chapter Three

  The massive executive desk fit Conner’s lifestyle, but not the deep leather sofa and side table bearing an intricate medieval lamp. Bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes lined the adjacent wall. What took center stage—a large expanse of pictures taken long ago.

  Emotional waterworks threatened again as she jerked away to pad closer to the largest photo, one where her brother and his unit all wore camouflage and sported wide grins. Mixed in among the shots were pictures of the Crofton brothers, Billy, and herself standing in front of a Ferris wheel at an amusement park. It’d been one of the best days of her life.

  Billy’s eyes condemned her for withholding the secret she couldn’t reveal. His last letter, posted from overseas, contained a time bomb that, if acted upon, would threaten her very sanity.

  “That was taken just before he left.” Her stomach contracted violently in its attempt to refute the serenity radiating from those paper smiles.

  Years of anger had denied her tears release, but seeing Billy beside Conner and his team sporting that trademark grin, induced the urge to cry until her soul lay desiccated.

  “Yeah, I’ll never forget that day.”

  Venting in front of Conner wasn’t an option. She fought the pressure
behind her eyes, since the restrained torrent could fill a moat around his castle.

  Conner turned her, pulling her against his chest as his hands smoothed down her arms, removing the jacket and tugging her close. “You’ve never cried for him, have you, sweetheart?”

  “N-no. He left me. He left me to go back to hell, and you.” Throwing a solid strike at his stomach felt good—until her injured wrist struck a solid wall of muscle. “Ow, damn it.”

  He didn’t flinch, a sigh the only indication of her outburst.

  “You have to grieve in order to come out whole on the other side. Otherwise, the darkness will fester like an infected wound, growing and spreading until it consumes you then turns you into someone you’re not meant to be.”

  A pointed look around reinforced her recognition of his insight. “So, I see. Always setting the perfect example.” Had Billy’s death consigned Conner’s soul to the same sludge-filled nightmare that comprised her existence?

  Only a slight frown declared she’d nailed him. He was intuitive and would now understand she blamed him for her brother’s death.

  “He did what he needed to do, Kendra. We all did. Here, sit with me on the sofa.” More of a command than a request, he gripped her waist as if she’d fly off at the first chance, and then sat, pulling her down beside him.

  Shock and wrist pain prevented a physical reprimand.

  Taking her right hand, he examined it as the doctor once had after her attempt to climb a tree. “Just like the time you fell out of the old oak, remember?”

  Delving through her memories, he extracted a past trauma and how he’d soothed a frightened girl. The gentle touch used to examine her wrist so contrasted his earlier tackle that she questioned her judgment until the images of him carrying a gun into battle resurfaced. The man he’d grown into was nothing like the one she remembered.

  “Seems all right.” He flexed it back and forth before continuing, “If it’s still bothering you tomorrow, we’ll have it X-rayed.”

  “Dude, its fine. I’ve had worse falling off my skateboard. ’Sides, I can always punch you with the other fist.”

  The deep baritone chuckle softened her heart as much as the calloused fingers sifting through her short choppy hair. Each molten graze tightened muscles on her traitorous body which had never responded in such a way.

  “The hair cut suits you.”

  “Best I could do with my knife.” Life on the streets changed her ways she’d never imagined. Cutting her hair had taken part of her soul but made it easier to manage. The waist-length ponytail equaled one of the first casualties of street life.

  If unable to hold onto her anger, she’d end up panting after him like the bottled blonde. Inside, the quivering snarl of a long-standing grudge twined with desire and fogged her brain to leave her confused.

  “It appears we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”

  “We’ve never gotten off at all, but if your piece on the side doesn’t mind...” she said, pointing her chin toward the door and the bitch who’d be listening at its seam.

  “Enough. Don’t assume anything.” Thick brows slammed down over his gaze, warning her as he never had, not in the old days. He switched gears faster than anyone she’d met.

  “How’d you find me, and why bother?” The pleasant scent of leather, books, and Conner beckoned her to relax, but she couldn’t, not with this new and aberrant version of her previous infatuation sending her emotions skittering hot and cold, reversing on a dime.

  “With the skill set learned in the military, it seemed a natural progression to private investigator after discharge. The club is something my brothers and I started as a… stress reliever. Even so, you’ve been difficult to track.”

  “Huh. Once a dick, always a dick.” The hurt deep inside claimed him a traitor to an unspoken promise and compelled her to wound him at any cost.

  “I prefer the term private investigator. Your mouth has gotten dirty over the years.” His grin spoke of infinite evil as the swirling motions of his fingers down her arm induced a shudder. “From sass to foul mouth. Seems to me I described how I’d cure that, something involving my hand on your ass.”

  “Still a pervert, just all grown up. Of course, if you wanna give it a go, we could—” She smirked when he covered her mouth with his hand, then jerked it away before her teeth could clamp down.

  All the threats he’d delivered to her younger self and how Billy had always intervened, claiming it was the nature of a young girl coming into her own and testing limits. The image of Billy standing between them brought a wad of bitter acid to her throat.

  A sob escaped. Then another, until a flood of unspent tears overwhelmed her mind and threatened to spill into the real world. Conner’s world. He tightened his arms around her, pulling her to his chest, whispering encouraging words and stroking her back in light circles.

  She wouldn’t cry despite him wrenching her into his universe. This was temporary. Emotions bottled so tight they filled her chest to bursting forced a growl hissed through gritted teeth. Anger at her brother for leaving and at Conner for not protecting him scorched a painful swath through her soul.

  Conner soothed her as she struggled to gain control.

  From beyond the door, sounds of music and Palmer’s voice signaled the beginning of her band’s performance. She shifted her weight to stand, but Conner held her back.

  “No, hon, they’ll take care of things tonight.”

  “But I need this gig to eat.” In her pocket, a bit of loose change and two one-dollar bills entailed all her worldly possessions, except for her guitar.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.”

  Of all the ways she’d earned her keep, she’d remained on her feet, refusing to sell her soul or any part of her spirit, much less her body. Images of dark corners and his secluded instigated a wide assortment of scenarios.

  “I don’t do charity. I work, Conn. Honest work.”

  “It’s not charity. I’ve hired your band for three months. We’ll consider this a little break. You and I need this time together.” His calloused fingers brushed hair from her eyes, then stroked along her cheek in a warm and casual benediction.

  “C’mon, Mongrel. This isn’t a handout, just a hand up. We all start life with nothing. I’m offering a chance with no strings attached. What you do with it is up to you.”

  “God, I can’t. I just can’t. I’m like ground hamburger inside.” Her confession cut deep, a razor-edged knife slicing pain through her heart and leaving furrows for the acid of his betrayal to burn ever deeper. For, in her mind, Conner had drawn Billy away and to his death.

  Why did life have to turn upside down?

  Despite her mind’s objection, she rubbed her cheek in circular motions against his chest and inhaled deep. If she could pull some of his strength into her lungs, maybe she could see past the pain. Maybe she could survive.

  Again, his low, whispered words comforted even as she absorbed the heat of his large frame.

  “Billy extracted a promise from me before… not that he needed to. I’d intended to look after you as soon as I got back. I thought you’d moved away with your parents. I hadn’t spoken with them since the funeral—not until a month ago.” His words caught, hitched with the pain they both endured.

  “You spoke with them?” Years had passed since she’d seen her parents. At the time, she thought they’d loved her, but they turned on her. They’d turned on each other, until her mom spoke the unthinkable.

  A sliver of hope tinged her senses in thinking perhaps, one day, she could return. Like they’d approve of the gutter rat she’d become.

  “Briefly, yeah. I’ve lacked the courage to follow up. I was supposed to protect him, bring him back to you. I failed.” Such gruffness had never entered his well-modulated tone, at least not in her presence.

  “How’d you find out I wasn’t with them?” The pain of accepting his comfort almost outweighed the burden of loss squeezing her heart. Bittersweet memories pers
isted in flooding her mind. How many times had she wished she’d been the one to die, if for no other reason than to escape the endless bite of loneliness?

  “We all made out wills before we left, a standard. However, Billy posted a package from overseas to his attorney and deliverable to me on your twenty-first birthday. I didn’t know about it until receiving the special delivery. It’s been in my safe, waiting for you.” Conner tucked a lock of straight hair behind her ear before continuing. “On your birthday, I tracked down your parents. They said you’d run away.”

  His gentle caress stroked her pain as his words gave life to the images of how Billy had died. Control of her body came in slow degrees of halting breaths.

  “When they realized you weren’t coming back, they moved, said their house held too many memories. They couldn’t bear living in a home minus their children. Your mom said she’s never regretted anything more than the things said to you.”

  “Took you long enough to find me. Some dick you are.”

  She smiled at his groan.

  “Careful, little one.” His very presence dominated the space with such a casual air he wouldn’t realize it. “I would’ve searched right away had I known you’d taken off. Why, Kendra? You know they love you.”

  “Before Billy left for his first tour, he said he’d move to an apartment when he returned and I could live with him.” Several minutes passed before she gained enough control to continue.

  “Then, when he came home, he said he had to go back with his unit, they needed him more than I did. I waited, and just before his tour was over…”

  Spicy aftershave and minty aroma permeating her senses wasn’t like the false comfort she derived in her dreams. This instigated a poignant ache sending her mind back to older and simpler times. An era when she hadn’t worried about strange men attacking her while asleep or where to find her next meal.

  “Jesus, Kendra. Why didn’t you contact me? You know I would’ve helped. I’ll always help you. Instead, I ended up chasing you from one bolt-hole to the next.” The deep rumbling in his chest filled the room.