True Colors Part 2

"I was hoping you hadn't noticed."

"How could I not notice? You used to hug me every time you saw me, and then you just stopped. I thought at first that you were afraid you'd hurt me, because of the . . . you know. But I'm fine now, and you still make an effort not to touch me."

"I . . . I don't . . ."

"You flinch, too. When I get too close. You flinch away."

"Alex-"

"I hope you know that I don't blame you for the shooting. It was an accident. He was a psycho, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Charlie held up a shaking hand. "Alex, please."

Alex fell silent, worried now. Her sister wasn't one to tremble. She reached out to grab her hand, to stop it from shaking, and Charlie jerked back so violently she ended up on her b.u.t.t in the gra.s.s.

Alex stared at her in shock. "What the h.e.l.l is going on with you?"

Charlie pulled in an uneven breath as she pushed to her feet and swiped at the loose gra.s.s clinging to her shorts. "It's not me."

"Well, it's not me," Alex countered. "Look, I know how you are, how you're all about protecting me from stuff you think might hurt me, but this is getting ridiculous. We used to be so close."

"We're still close-"

"You won't touch me." Alex took a step toward Charlie, only to watch her back away. Like she had the plague. Hurt burned in her throat, and she put her hands up and did her own backing away. "Fine, whatever. Keep your secrets, as usual. I'll catch you later."

She turned away, ignoring it when she heard Charlie come after her. "Alex, wait."

"Forget it, Charlie. I can take a hint."

"Alex, d.a.m.n it!"

She paused and faced her reluctantly. "What?"

"Let's just . . . can we go inside and have a drink and talk?"

Alex kept her face impa.s.sive. "Don't do it to humor me."

"I'm not."

"Good. I could use a margarita."

In the kitchen, surrounded by sunlight, the lemon-fresh scent of dishwas.h.i.+ng liquid and a tense silence, Charlie got out margarita gla.s.ses and the necessary ingredients.

"I was just kidding," Alex said with a small smile. "It's kind of early for booze, don't you think?"

"We're both going to need it," Charlie replied, far too serious as she filled the gla.s.ses with ice and then splashed in tequila and margarita mix. After setting one gla.s.s in front of Alex, she took a seat across from her sister.

Alex picked up the gla.s.s and drank with a clink of ice cubes. "Mm, good one."

Charlie didn't smile as she toyed with her own gla.s.s instead of drinking. "I'm not sure how to do this."

Alex sat back. "If you're breaking up with me, just say it." Her attempt at humor didn't even register on her sister's tense face. "Okay, how about this? Let's talk about something else for a bit, ease into it."

Charlie nodded, looking way too relieved.

"I talked to Mac this morning," Alex said. "He sounded . . . good."

"Wasn't it my turn to check on him?"

Alex shrugged. "We had business to discuss."

Charlie's lips twitched into a smile. "You used the photo of Logan as an excuse to call him."

"Busted. But the good news is Mac didn't sound as stressed. At least, he sounded less stressed. And a bit like he might be tired of us hovering."

"I wish he'd just get out of town for a while," Charlie said. "He went back to work too early, in my opinion."

"We could let him use the cabin. It'd get him out of town for a week or two."

Charlie thought that over. "That's not a bad idea."

"He probably just needs more time. Head injuries take time to heal."

"Working twenty-four hours a day doesn't help."

"He's better, though. I can tell," Alex said.

"Or maybe he's just getting better at hiding it." Charlie sighed and shook her head. "And maybe I'm channeling your thing about rescuing the wounded."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Charlie laughed. "Awesome shot of Logan, by the way. Really amazing."

Alex smiled despite her anxiety. She never tired of compliments from her big sister. "Helps that I had such a gorgeous subject."

"Helps that you know how to take a great photo. What's up with you and that gorgeous subject anyway? Rumors are flying all over work that you two are an item."

A warm wave of antic.i.p.ation for their date tonight flooded Alex's stomach. "We're working on it."

As Charlie nodded her approval, her forehead creased. Apparently, she'd started stressing again about the conversation they weren't having.

"Come on, Charlie. What's going on?"

Charlie drew in a breath. "Have you felt different? Since you were shot."

Alex gazed at her for a long moment. So it was going to be one of those conversations. Where Charlie fished for information on what Alex was feeling or had felt or might feel tomorrow. A maddening habit her sister had picked up since the shooting, as though she expected Alex to be different in some way. And she was . . . different in some way. But putting it into words . . . h.e.l.l, Charlie was the writer. Alex expressed herself in pictures.

"Yeah, I do feel different," she said finally. "How could I not? I died in the ER."

Charlie flinched at that but moved on. "I don't mean physically. I mean, it is physical, but it's mostly . . . emotional. Well, h.e.l.l, maybe it's mostly physical. I don't know."

"You're not making any sense. You know that, right? It's kind of funny, really, coming from you. You're the one who always knows what to say and precisely how to say it."

"You're giving me way too much credit on that."

"Just say it, Charlie. Lay it out for me, and we'll go from there."

Charlie closed her eyes as though to gird herself. Alex felt so bad for her that she reached across the table and grasped her hand.

The world turned inside out . . .

I yank on my hands, but they're tied, and there's pain, oh, G.o.d, pain in my temples, behind my eyes, rippling in waves. I try to talk, forcing the words out through lips that don't want to move.

"You need help." Nausea cracks my voice. "You're hurt. You're probably bleeding internally. I can help you. Get you to the ER."

The man wavering before me, pale and sweaty, takes a step back only to double over with a harsh groan. "This is your fault," he says. "You broke something inside me."

I jerk at my wrists. What if he pa.s.ses out and I'm stuck here like this? "I can't help you if you don't untie me."

But he drops to the gritty concrete floor and starts to retch.

Desperation races through my blood like fire. I'm going to die here, like this, tied and helpless and alone.

"Untie me."

I'm begging now, knowing this is it, this is the end. And then lightning blasts behind my eyes- Alex's head snapped back, and for a moment, she felt it loll, weightless yet incredibly heavy.

"Alex!"

Charlie's frantic voice broke through the confusion, and Alex managed to lift her head and open her eyes. The Herculean motion made everything around her swim, and the next thing she knew, she was on her knees on the floor, her stomach heaving.

Charlie jumped back with a shout but quickly recovered and helped Alex to her feet and down the hall to the bathroom. Tears squeezed out of her eyes as she vomited until nothing more came up.

She leaned back against the side of the bathtub and tried to get her breathing under control, conscious of the sweat running down the sides of her face and her spine.

Charlie handed her a washcloth, and Alex pressed its cool wetness to her face. She winced at the flare of pain in her cheek, as though someone had struck her.

Breathing easier, Alex looked up at her deathly pale sister. "Did you hit me?"

Charlie knelt before her and grasped Alex's ankle as though to ground herself. "You weren't answering me. I didn't know how else to snap you out of it."

Stomach-clenching horror slid through her. "Snap me out of what?" She'd blacked out? Had an epileptic seizure? What?!

"Alex, you had an empathic flash."

CHAPTER FIVE.

Butch McGee settled into the rental Mustang in the parking garage at Tampa International Airport and unfolded the road map the nice girlie at the Hertz counter had given him. She'd batted her eyes at him more than once, but as much as he'd been tempted to flirt back and score a little afternoon delight, he'd stayed on track. He had a destination: Lake Avalon.

He couldn't deny his antic.i.p.ation of the moment when he had John Logan on his knees and begging for his rotten life. The thing he loved most about his art-and there were plenty of benefits to choose from-was the begging.

He found Lake Avalon with the tip of his finger. An easy drive, he decided. Straight shot down Highway 41. He'd be there in a few hours, maybe even have John Logan squinting against the glare of his favorite Bowie blade by morning, if he was lucky.

And Butch McGee was always lucky.

CHAPTER SIX.

Whistling softly, Logan ambled down the alley that separated a restaurant and a bar. It smelled of Mexican food and cigarettes. He found what he was looking for squatting with his back against a lime green stucco wall, cigarette smoke creating a cloud around his shaved head. The teenager-Logan a.s.sumed he was about sixteen-went by the name Justin Parker. Not his real name, though, as Logan had discovered when he'd tried to track the boy's parents.

"You again," the teenager said. His voice rasped as though he'd smoked since coming out of the womb.

"Yep, me again," Logan said with a nod. "Brought you something." He held up a McDonald's bag that held four double cheeseburgers and the three Krispy Kreme doughnuts that he and Alex hadn't devoured.

The boy snorted and blew twin streams of smoke out his nostrils. "You do know that c.r.a.p will kill me, right?"

Logan shrugged as he balanced the bag on the kid's knee. "So will starving."

Justin pressed his lips together as he eyed the bag. Promises of tasty goodness floated out of the bag, somehow overpowering the offensive alley odors. He looked ravenous, his dark-rimmed blue eyes intense with hunger, his cheeks pale. Already thin to begin with, he'd lost weight since Logan had met him the first time a few weeks ago, his cheeks beginning to get that hollowed-out look. Logan hoped that sickly pale appearance didn't have anything to do with drug use.

Logan waited him out, hands in his pockets as he nonchalantly studied the ugly green stucco that belonged to a Mexican restaurant. The Green Iguana. Good, inexpensive margaritas. Salsa exactly the way he liked it: strip-the-skin-off-the-roof-of-your-mouth hot.

The rattle of the paper bag drew his attention down, and he watched Justin plunge a hand inside and pull out the first paper-wrapped cheeseburger. "Is it a double?" he asked as he unwrapped it like a precious birthday gift.

"You bet."

Justin sank his teeth in and rolled his eyes with ecstasy.

As Justin ate, Logan leaned against the stucco across from him, this one a mustard yellow. It belonged to a bar that Logan suspected turned into a strip club after hours. One of these nights, he planned to stop in and flash his badge. That should be enough to scatter the ne'er-do-wells into the night, at least for a while.

"So," he said, hands still pocketed. "What're you up to today?"

Justin grunted as he swallowed a huge mouthful, already ripping into a second sandwich. "What do you think?"

"I'm guessing a bunch of feeling sorry for yourself."

Justin nodded and chewed. "Sounds good to me."