Partner-Protector

He adjusted his tie as if donning a suit of armor.

Then he opened the door.

BROOKS BROTHERS. Ten o’clock.

Kelsey kept her body facing straight ahead, but turned her eyes to watch the man approach.

Khaki slacks. Navy tweed blazer. Maroon silk tie. Dark blond hair cut too short for any strand to be out of place. Chiseled features cleanly shaven and devoid of humor. Trim, evenly-proportioned build from broad shoulders to slim hips. A coiled strength to his stride to hide the hitch in every step.

The little frisson of awareness that shimmied down her spine was inconsequential.

This guy was too neat. Too clean. Too buttoned down and under control to be open-minded at all.

Ho boy.

He was the worst kind of cop to tell her story to. Not that any of them in her limited experience had been gung ho about taking her talent seriously.

Still, that woman last night had been so alone.

For a few seconds last night, Kelsey had shared her stark, hopeless terror.

That woman had no one but Kelsey to help her. To remember.

As the detective neared the desk, she guessed him to be about six foot, maybe half a foot taller than herself. And despite the slight smile that touched the corners of his mouth, she didn’t sense that he’d gotten any friendlier since stepping out of that office. Kelsey rose to meet him, instinctively clutching at the crystal pendant hanging beneath her sweater and camisole, warming her skin.

“Detective Banning?”

He nodded and extended his hand. “Ms. Ryan.”

Since she still wore her turquoise gloves, she didn’t hesitate to clasp his hand and exchange a polite, professional greeting. It might be the only civility she’d find here this morning.

“Have a seat.” He gestured to the straight-backed chair beside his desk, then sat in his own chair and pivoted to face her. “So you found out something about the Holiday Hooker murders you’d like to report?”

Kelsey glanced down at the black leather backpack propped beside her chair and thought of the box with its well-wrapped doll tucked away inside. She wanted to hand over the tragic object with all its hate-filled psychic residue and get its poisonous influence out of her life.

But that would be disloyal to that sad, frightened woman whom she’d gotten to know so well in her last few seconds of existence.

Kelsey’s grandmother had taught her to use her curse as a gift. Grandma Lucy Belle had said that by helping others who couldn’t be helped in any other way, her inherited talent would feel less like a burden. Kelsey’s grandmother had been so wise. So loving. She wouldn’t disappoint the faith Lucy Belle had had in her.

Detective Banning was watching her with more politeness than patience when she looked up. Letting the calmness of the blue crystal pendant her grandmother had given her work its spell over her nerves, Kelsey took a deep breath. She rested her elbow on the corner of the detective’s desk and leaned in, dropping her voice to a whisper. “You understand that I don’t always see evidence in the same way you do, Mr. Banning.”

His green eyes filled with skepticism. “So I’ve heard.” He thumbed through some papers on his desk, but she had a feeling he wasn’t reading any of them. “Captain Taylor tells me you had a dream about a murder last night, and called it in.”

Kelsey sat back, disappointed, but not surprised by his misinformation.

“I don’t dream this stuff up, Detective.” She adopted her most succinct, teaching-the-uneducated voice and explained. “I possess a psychic ability to sense things. When I put my mind to it, or when my guard is down like it was last night, I can see things especially clearly. When I touch people or objects, I pick up emotions, memories—”

“You predict the future.”

Kelsey bristled. “No. It doesn’t work like that. I can’t help you win the lottery. Sometimes I can sense what a person is thinking or feeling about the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. I have better luck reading the residue of something that’s already taken place in the past.”

“Luck, huh?”

Poor choice of words. She’d set herself up for that one. “Look, Banning, do you want to know what I saw or not?”

He nodded, but she didn’t see any glimmer of understanding lighting his eyes. “Okay. So you touched something last night, got a little freaky sensation and called the cops.”

Crude and suggestive, but basically accurate. Kelsey decided to let the lesson drop and continued on. “I believe I’ve accidentally come across an object that has something to do with one of those prostitutes who’ve been murdered around Christmas and New Year’s over the last decade.”

“Nine murders in eleven years,” he clarified. But he didn’t ask about the object.

She nudged her backpack with her boot, grateful for all the layers separating her from the doll’s frightening aura. “I don’t know if this is something that belonged to one of the victims or to the killer.”

His gaze dropped to the backpack, as well. “Don’t tell me you found the murder weapon?”

“No. But it’s something one of them touched. I’m sure of that.”

“So you found some object that somebody touched, and you think it will solve the case for us?”

Mr. Uptight Suit-’n-Tie wasn’t going to give her a break. “Look, I don’t presume to do your job. But since the murders haven’t been solved yet, I assumed you might appreciate a little help. I’d like a chance to explain what I know.”

He was already standing up by the time she finished her lecture. “So this could take a while, right? Why don’t I get us some coffee. How do you take yours? Black? Cream or sugar?”

Kelsey tipped her gaze up to his, refusing to be so easily dismissed. “Both, please.”

With a curt nod, he strode across the room. Kelsey watched him move. While she regrouped her tranquility and determination with some deep, even breathing, the analytical part of her mind strayed. She wondered if Detective Banning, with more control than grace in his movements, had one leg shorter than the other. And whether the stiffness of his right knee was the cause of his limp or the result of it.

She knew one way to find some answers.

But touching Merle Banning, skin to skin, wasn’t an option she wanted to pursue. Hadn’t she freaked out enough men over the years by holding hands or sharing a kiss?

Of course, she could always think about her disastrous relationship with Jeb if she ever needed a reminder about why she had no business getting involved with a man. His cruel jokes and abusive words should have been enough to kill any interest she might have in the male species.

Speaking of…

The distinctive sound of deep, male laughter diverted her attention to the break room. With the door propped open and windows forming the wall from waist to ceiling, she could see a short, bulky, uniformed officer resting his hip on the counter beside Banning and the coffeepot. Another blue-suited cop and a pair of plainclothes detectives sat at a table. Someone must have said something funny. Something teasing, something low-brow, no doubt.

The stout officer’s gaze connected with hers through the glass. Oh, no. His leering grin mocked her. As if a man with only four or five strings of hair to comb over his bald pate had any right to make fun of someone else. He took his leisurely time and finally turned his back to her. Maybe he didn’t care that he’d been caught, or maybe he felt he’d already had the last laugh at her expense.

And was that…? Yes. Kelsey’s stomach twisted into a self-conscious knot. Someone was singing an off-key rendition of the theme from The Twilight Zone.

Cute.

Not terribly original, but cute.

All the hurts and insults and accusations she’d endured throughout her life burned with a molten intensity in her veins. Some days, it seemed that defensive anger was the only thing that could keep her warm.

Today was one of those days.

She watched the interchange unfold in the break room without hearing the words. But she didn’t need to. One didn’t grow up different from everyone else without knowing when someone was calling you “The Flake” or “crazy” or “delusional.” It was too easy for people to ridicule what they didn’t understand. Most of the time she was patient with them, but not today. Not after what she’d seen and felt last night.

She’d been so cold. So scared.

She’d felt that woman’s death.

Kelsey tugged her coat together at her neck and shivered inside, trying to hold on to her anger. But the fear was more powerful. She had to do something. She had to tell someone.

As if sensing her fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, Detective Banning turned. Green eyes met brown through the glass. For a few unguarded seconds, Kelsey held on to his gaze, wanting to answer the question there, wondering if she was imagining the concern.

With a blink, his gaze moved past her. Kelsey’s breath seeped out on a sigh. She felt strangely bereft, as if denied something precious almost within her reach.

Banning said something to one of the detectives at the table. The singing stopped amidst another round of laughter. To his credit, Banning wasn’t laughing. A champion? He barely knew her. Just a nice guy, telling his buddies not to make fun where she could see them? Small consolation. Or was he embarrassed that they could see her sitting at his desk, linking them together, no matter how impersonally?

Jeb had been embarrassed.

Just like that, the anger was back. Screw this. There had to be someone else in this city she could talk to.

Kelsey stood, adjusted her skirt down to her calves. She slipped her backpack over one shoulder and started buttoning her coat as she zigzagged between the desks and headed straight for the bank of elevators that would take her back down to the street and out into the freezing cold.

“Hey!” She pretended she didn’t recognize the voice, and that he wasn’t calling to her. He’d be glad if she could slip out and never darken his desk again.

She had the elevator button in sight when a band of fingers closed around her arm, just above the elbow. Kelsey jumped.

“Whoa.” Banning quickly released her, holding his hand up in surrender as she jerked around. She didn’t bother with a Don’t touch me. He probably got that idea loud and clear from her startled, chest-clutching reaction. “Where are you going? We’re just getting started.” He held up the two steaming plastic cups he balanced in his left hand. “Coffee?”

Kelsey stared at the cups for a senseless moment, then tipped her chin to look up at him. “No, thank you, Mr. Banning. We’re finished.” Her voice sounded surprisingly succinct as she pushed it past the pounding pulse in her throat. “Hard as this might be for you to believe, my time is valuable. I’m here for a legitimate reason. I saw a woman murdered. I do not make up stories, and I will not be ridiculed by you, your friends or anybody else.”

She spun toward the elevators, but he brushed past her in an eclectic whiff of wool and spice and overbrewed coffee to block her path. “Then let’s get out of here.”

Kelsey stopped short, lifting her gaze above his starched white collar and the jut of his chin. “Embarrassed to be seen with The Flake?”

He didn’t deny the nickname or the embarrassment. But he did offer an unexpected argument. “Well, that hair does draw a lot of attention. I’m assuming it’s not your natural color?”

Was that a serious question, or was he teasing her? The confusion was enough to defuse her temper. She simply explained the color choice. “I get good vibes from red.”

“I always wondered why women dyed their hair. It’s the vibes, huh?”

He thrust his wrist from the end of his sleeve and checked his watch. His jacket veed open, giving her a glimpse of the brass and blue enamel badge clipped to his belt beside the brown leather holster at his hip. The weapon inside was a sobering reminder that just because he was curious or teasing or polite, he was not her friend.

“You eat lunch?” he asked.

“On most days. I am human and do require sustenance.”

He grinned, subtracting years from the serious set of his mouth. The unexpectedly sexy result was almost as disconcerting as when he’d grabbed her arm. “I meant, have you eaten lunch today?”

“Oh.” Kelsey quickly gathered her composure. She had to think of Merle Banning as a cop, not a man. Certainly not an attractive one. “No. I haven’t eaten since last night.”

She hadn’t had the appetite to stomach food.

“Well, since I require sustenance the same way you do, let’s go grab a quick bite to eat. We can continue our conversation someplace without the audience.” He nodded his head toward the break room. “Away from those yahoos.”

Kelsey looked over shoulder and spotted the pudgy bald guy watching her again. Did he think he knew her? Should she know him? Being stared at like that, without any apology, like some sort of sideshow phenomenon, gave her the willies. The barrel-chested man, standing in the open doorway to the Captain’s office and eyeing the interaction between her and Banning like some sort of watchful guardian didn’t help, either. She quickly turned away.

She’d love to get out of here.

Kelsey nodded. “Okay. That’s fine. I need to eat before my afternoon class, anyway.”

“All right. Let me ditch these and we’ll head out.”

Kelsey refused to turn around to see where he dumped the coffee and retrieved his coat. That bald cop might still be staring at her. Well, he could look all he liked. She didn’t have to give him the satisfaction of knowing how his unwanted attention rattled her.

Going out to lunch. That almost sounded like a date.

But it wasn’t. Kelsey knew better. Men didn’t ask her out. Not ones who knew about her talent. Whether Merle Banning believed her or not, this would be a working lunch.

The weight of the bag on her shoulder multiplied with her resolute sigh, bearing down with the burden of so much more than that doll. She carried the memory of last night’s murderous vision, the responsibility of her curse—along with the crippling knowledge that, more likely than not, she would always carry that burden alone.

Chapter Two

The Jukebox, just east of the Plaza in downtown Kansas City, was a 1950s-style soda fountain and burger joint, complete with twirling bar stools, vinyl booths and waitresses with handkerchiefs pinned beneath their name tags. The decor was airy and nostalgic, the food plain and simple. The clientele was mostly retirement-age patrons revisiting their high school years, and young families with kids on Christmas vacation looking for a fast meal served on a plate.

In short, the choice was more laid-back and less uptown than she’d expect Merle Banning to make.

Either he was trying to keep things fast and easy so he could be done with her as quickly as possible, or he’d purposely taken her to an out-of-the-way place so there’d be no chance of one of his cop buddies coming in and seeing him with her.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been cast aside or hidden away.

At least the food was good. Hearty and filling. She couldn’t exactly say her appetite had returned, but now that she was actually doing something about the doll and the dead woman, practicality had kicked in. Her visions could be draining, physically, mentally and emotionally. She couldn’t stop the headaches, and the emotions would always haunt her. But she could maintain her physical strength, keep her body healthy even when everything else in her life was royally screwed up.

Although the thermometer registered in the single digits outside and the graded snow stood thigh-high or taller along the edges of every street and sidewalk, she’d ordered a milk shake served with the chilled metal cup it had been blended in. In between bites of her steak-burger with cheese, and thin, crunchy fries, she’d drunk and spooned her way through every last delicious drop.

She was paying for the indulgence, though. Even with the sleeves of her wool sweater pulled down to her knuckles, and her coat draped over her shoulders, she shivered with the pervasive chill that hadn’t left her since she’d crawled out of bed last night. At this rate, she wouldn’t be thawing out until summer. But she’d needed the reinforcing medicinal properties of chocolate and ice cream to sustain her.

Especially since Detective Banning’s idea of lunchtime conversation was to question every detail about her account of the psychic impression she’d shared while they’d waited for their order to arrive.

“Like a log cabin?” he asked, picking up his last onion ring and popping it into his mouth. While he chewed, he pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and carefully wiped his hands.

Kelsey swallowed her impatience. While he was being Mr. Clean and acting politely interested, she was reliving the scratchy sensation of rough wood cutting into the skin on her back. “No. It was more like a building under construction—or one being torn down. The latter, I’m guessing, because of the smell.”

He wadded up the napkin and tossed it onto his empty plate. “The smell?”

Of foreboding. The smell of dead bodies and buried secrets. But that sort of metaphorical description would surely elicit a laugh, so she stuck to more scientific facts.

“Rot. Decay. Like when the cold seeps in between the cracks and condenses. It turns moldy before it can evaporate. Slimy. This place was dark and horrible. She wasn’t familiar with it. I’m sure it wasn’t her regular place of business.”

He responded by adjusting his tie unnecessarily. His straight nose and square face reflected few lines beyond the squint marks beside his eyes. But he dressed older than his youthful face might dictate, with affluent materials and a tailored fit to his clothes. He acted older than a man of twenty-nine or thirty. Conservative. Wary. Politely distant. He carried himself older, too. Not just in the slight limp he camouflaged with a quick, rolling gait, but the way he sat across from her—straight backed, never leaning in to show trust or acceptance, never lounging back to relax.

With her self-protective need to be constantly aware of the people around her, Kelsey couldn’t help but notice other incongruent details about him.

Despite his relatively young age, Merle Banning’s hands had seen something of life. They were clean and neatly taken care of, to be sure, but they were also nicked up with scars around the knuckles and callused enough to show hard physical labor of some kind. They moved with precise efficiency at every task, from opening the front door for her to cradling his mug of hot coffee.

He seemed unaware of her subtle perusal. Or perhaps her opinion just didn’t matter to him.

“Those are pretty specific details for a crime you haven’t really seen.” He sipped his coffee, then frowned at the mug as if something about it didn’t please him.

She had a good idea it was her report which didn’t please him.

“But I have seen it,” she insisted. “That doll triggered something. Either it’s from the crime scene, or the victim touched it somewhere along the way. It carries her residue.”

“Her DNA?” Banning’s moss-colored eyes flared with mild interest.

“It’s not that concrete, Detective. It’s more of an imprint of her psyche, her consciousness. I can sense her thoughts and emotions. She was scared for her life. And I don’t think she suspected the man who killed her had that kind of violence in him. Not toward her at any rate.”

“You saw the man who did it?”

“No.” She hadn’t wanted to look that hard. She’d already felt death, she didn’t need to look it in the eye, as well.

“Do you know who the woman was?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know where the murder took place.”

Kelsey bristled at the challenge in his tone. “Apparently, you don’t know the answers to any of those questions, either, Mr. Banning, or her murder wouldn’t be relegated to the cold-case files.”

His eyes narrowed at that one.

“I know this is more of a lead than you had twelve hours ago. I’m only trying to help.” Kelsey clutched her coat more tightly around her and eyed the box she’d taken out of her backpack and slid across the table to him earlier. “I don’t know if you’ll find scientific evidence on the doll or not. But you’re welcome to keep it and send it to a lab for analysis. I certainly don’t want it anymore.”

“That’s generous of you, Ms. Ryan.” His insincerity irritated her, and it didn’t surprise her to hear him try to debunk her claim with a logical argument. “But unless you can tell me you picked that up at the murder scene, saw it used as a weapon or there’s a written confession hidden inside, it’s pretty useless to K.C.P.D.”

She sat at attention, age-old defenses rising to the fore. Lucy Belle had tried to teach her to be patient with those who didn’t understand. But she had a real problem with anyone who refused to even try. “I don’t imagine these things, Detective. I know that’s not the murder weapon. She was strangled with a long scarf.”

He nodded as if he’d caught her in a lie. “Then you’re conjuring dreams from facts you read in the newspaper and are using this doll as some sort of manifestation of them.”

“No—”

He set down his mug with a precise thud. “Or you were at that crime scene and you’re just now working up the nerve to report what you saw.”

Kelsey gripped the edge of her seat to hold on to her temper. “I have no idea where the murder took place. That’s why I tried to describe it to you in detail.”

“Or perhaps you’ve been intentionally withholding evidence on a capital crime.”

“Inten—?” She swallowed hard, then tapped out each sentence onto the table top. “I didn’t get the impression until last night. I called right after. At three in the morning I called.”

“Even if that doll was good for something, it’s so far removed from the crime scene and so tainted, it’d be worthless now.” He shoved the box back across the tabletop toward her. “So, no thanks.”

Kelsey dodged to the side, avoiding the doll as if he’d fired his gun at her. “I didn’t know it was evidence.”

“I’m not sure if you need to get some professional help, or if you just need to get a life.” He offered her an apologetic smile, arching one golden eyebrow and carving out a dimple at the side of his mouth, as if that would take the sting from his words. “But, plain and simple, Ms. Ryan, you’re wasting my valuable time on this case.”

With that, she stood up. She knocked her leather bag to the floor and spilled some of the contents. The curse she muttered was neither ladylike nor subdued. Watching her lipstick roll beneath the empty table across from them did nothing to improve her mood. This conversation was done as far as she was concerned. But so much for making a dignified, hasty exit and salvaging some semblance of her pride. Squatting down, she shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat while she snatched up her lipstick, keys and a pen.

Detective Banning slid out of his seat to help her. She noted the tight set of his mouth as he knelt beside her, and idly wondered if his knee was giving him trouble. But Kelsey fought the sympathetic urge that would defuse her temper, grabbed the last item before he could reach it and shot to her feet. One coat sleeve caught at her elbow and tangled with the strap of her bag.

Banning rose more slowly, moving more deliberately, while she struggled to free herself. “I appreciate that you mean well and want to help, Ms. Ryan. The department always appreciates when a citizen steps forward.”

When he latched on to her collar to try to help her, she shrugged that efficient hand away and dug inside her pack. Kelsey pulled a ten dollar bill out of her bag and threw it on the table. “There. That’s for my burger and fries.”

When she turned to leave, he blocked her path. He picked up the ten dollars and tried to hand it back to her. “Lunch is on me.”

Too little, too late. “Oh, no. I insist. Heaven forbid I waste a moment of your precious time or a penny of your money, Detective. Forget the data I could have been evaluating at the lab or the class I should have been prepping for. And who’s going to go home and let my dog out now? I have to be on campus in half an hour. This was a waste of my time, Mr. Banning.”