She shrugged. “Up until we leave, everything here is going to cause problems for me. I’m just waiting for it to hit the fan.”
At that point, Butch jumped out of my bag into her arms. She caught him with a startled laugh. He was simply the best dog ever; he seemed to sense that she would derive comfort from snuggling him instead of thinking about her troubles.
I rubbed my hands against my denim-clad thighs, trying to scrub away the residual filth of poking around that bathroom. To me, Farrell’s home hygiene suggested he didn’t believe he had long to live, and thus, saw no point in keeping up the place. But I wasn’t sure I could profile someone, based on slovenly ways.
“Then I’d say a church social is what we need to scope out the local color.”
“This won’t end well,” Jesse predicted.
We didn’t find anything else of interest, not even that closet weed farm Shannon expected. I was starting to get frustrated with all the separate pieces not coalescing into a recognizable shape. There’s a reason I hate jigsaw puzzles. I don’t have the patience to find all the border pieces, especially when they’re all the same shade of gray.
When we left Farrell’s house, we took the Bible. I’d handle it later, but it didn’t seem wise to hang around Farrell’s place longer than necessary. If Sheriff Robinson found us here, the consequences would be unpleasant.
“Let’s take one last look around,” Jesse said.
Shannon cocked a brow. “What’re we looking for?”
“Anything that offers a hint at who’s been hanging around,” he answered. “Corine learned a lot from a button, as I recall.”
That much was true. Any small object that might’ve dropped when people were coming and going might tell us something. Right now we had no clue why Curtis Farrell had decided to trade a life of petty drugs and making change for one big felony.
Chance nodded. “Better to be sure we don’t miss anything. Somebody will be along to shovel this place out, so we probably won’t have another shot at this. Corine, you want to take a look around back?”
I nodded as they divided up the rest of the small yard. Shannon kept Butch, and he showed no signs of minding the attention. I circled the house. Near the back door, I found some weird impressions in the dirt behind Farrell’s garage. It would take a tracker to make anything of the morass of churned mud, unless—
I’d never have attempted, or even considered anything like this in the past, but since dying, my gift seemed to have stretched into unknown dimensions. Before, I wouldn’t have tried to read a whole house. I knelt, studying the ground: torn earth and grass pulled up by the roots. I wouldn’t be able to do anything with the plants, but what about dirt?
The others were searching the front and sides. If Chance or Jesse had been there, they probably would have tried to talk me out of it. I gazed at the new brand on my palm, the smooth, unscarred skin around it, and felt a cold, eerie certainty. I could do this. I didn’t know what the mark portended, but it signified change. Though I had no way to prove it, I suspected I’d received more of my mother’s power. Instead of passing to me cleanly during her spell, something must have gone wrong and it had wound up in the necklace instead. Now that I’d touched it, I’d absorbed the rest, but there was no way to know how it would affect me down the road.
But it had made me a more powerful handler, no question.
Without hesitation, I sank my fingers into the dirt. It felt like bathing my hand in chemical fire, but I gritted my teeth and held on. Nobody died here; it wasn’t that bad, but it was awful enough.
I became two men at once, locked in a life-or-death struggle. That had never happened to me before because objects belonged to one person. Not dirt—it belonged to everyone, no one, or whoever trod upon it.
Their conflicting emotions swamped me: greed, anger, terror, exhilaration, desperation. I seesawed between the apogee and the abyss while they grappled and tore the earth. I’d have given a lot to hear what they were saying, but it never worked like that for me. I imagined the grunts and gasps of breath while pain washed over me in waves of red fire. Though I tried, I couldn’t jerk my hand out of the soil until the vision ended. Immersion, immolation; I hovered but a half step away from one or the other.
Finally, the older man shoved the younger to his knees, both hands on his throat. He spoke, saying something I couldn’t hear. I strained to read his lips and failed, not for the first time. For a heartbreaking moment, the man on his knees clawed at his captor’s hands, desperate. His fear poured through me, sour and rancid. He didn’t want to acquiesce, but he’d die if he didn’t. He felt it, believed it, and so did I.
When the beaten man turned his face upward, I recognized him.
I came to on my side, gasping for air. My throat burnt as if someone had been strangling
Through sparks in my vision that meant I was close to passing out again, I stared at my fingers, focused on wiggling them, and saw they were fire engine red but possessed no new marks. I lay there, breathing and reflecting. It was all I could do right then.
Dirt was less dangerous than metal. But no wonder the tracks didn’t look like much of anything. Two men fighting over the same space created the look of a monster rampage.
Jesse came upon me a few minutes later. “What the hell, Corine—did someone attack you? What happened? Can you talk, sugar?” He did a visual inspection of my injuries, lingering at my throat.
Christ, did I wear marks
I managed to push to a sitting position, but standing was beyond me. Oxygen deprivation sent tremors through my limbs; I couldn’t seem to convince my body I hadn’t been choked. He swung me up into his arms before I could tell him not to, and my stomach whirled in response.
“Slowly,” I whispered, sounding hoarse to my own ears.
Jesse called to the others and carried me to the Forester, but he modulated his step so as not to jar me. He smelled of plain Ivory soap and a tangy citrus scent. I breathed him in, trying to identify the cologne, and then gave up, closing my eyes.
Jesse slid into the vehicle with me on his lap, and I didn’t try to get away. Then again, I wouldn’t have tried to escape unless a killer had a hold of me; I was that tapped out. Two doors slammed, and Shannon and Chance got in the front.
“Drive,” Jesse told Shannon, who started the engine on command.
She pulled out, gravel spinning beneath the tires. In making our getaway, we didn’t encounter any law enforcement types who’d ask awkward questions about why Chance was hanging around the house of the man he’d killed last night.
“What’s going on?” Chance asked.
Jesse answered, “At this point? I’m not sure. But take a look at this.”
I felt him angle my head, and then I did open my eyes. Chance swore in an entertaining mix of English and Korean. Mildly curious now that my nausea had started to subside, I lifted my left hand and touched my neck.
I couldn’t remember ever taking an injury apart from my hands.
“Did someone attack you?” Chance demanded.
I shook my head slowly to make sure that much was clear. There would be no point in Shannon stopping the SUV so they could comb the area for someone long gone days before. Concentrating, I mimed writing.
Chance got it right away. He delved into Jesse’s glove box and found a pen and scrap of paper for me. I scrawled what I’d done, what I’d seen, and then passed it to my ex. His jaw tightened as he read, and he slanted a look over the seat that could’ve cut glass. Before he said a word, I could tell what he thought of my pushing my power.
“You’re out of your mind,” he bit out. “Are you
“Stop,” Jesse said quietly. “She’s been through enough at this point. She doesn’t need you yelling at her
