First Touch Page 7

  He’d probably come to pay his respects like I had.

  “He’s right, you know,” Shannon said in a low voice. “Apparently, Grendel was also responsible for the death of his only sister five years ago. We found her buried at a property he owns in Mexico. If not for you, he might have gotten away with killing both girls. And more.”

  I tried to hit a mocking tone. “So I guess you didn’t come to arrest me?”

  He gave me a smile that was every bit as mocking. “Not this time. You were in Kansas last week, as you said, and we’ve found no connection between you and Grendel.”

  Was he serious? He’d checked? “Just when I think you’re starting to be human,” I muttered, collapsing into the nearest chair.

  To my annoyance, he settled next to me. “What?”

  “Forget it.” It was his problem, not mine.

  “Anyway, we’ve already linked him to at least two assaults on young teens before he kidnapped Trina Ball. All of it together means they’re going to seek the death penalty. Regardless, he’s never getting out of prison.”

  “Good.” I’d been against the death penalty before this week, but the utter lack of remorse in Grendel’s imprints was a convincing argument for the sentence.

  “You deserve credit on this case. It would be within your right to talk to the media.” He jerked his head toward the woman who had spoken to me earlier. “There’s a reporter right there. I’ll back you up.”

  “No. Keep me out of it.” Reporters had already mentioned an unnamed psychic and while I could use the business in my shop, I didn’t want to be part of a media circus because of my gift.

  Or was it my curse?

  My refusal seemed to surprise him. He let several minutes go by before picking up the conversation. “Look, I stopped by your shop this morning, but you weren’t there. Your boyfriend wouldn’t tell me where you went.”

  By boyfriend, he must mean Jake. “He didn’t know.”

  “After the funeral, can you take a ride?”

  “Don’t tell me you need me to solve another case.” The queasiness of my stomach belied my smirk.

  “Okay, I won’t.” He cracked a smile. “Just come along.”

  “All right. But I have my car. I’ll follow you.”

  Less than two hours later, we ended up at the hospital, where the floors felt cool and welcoming against my bare feet after the heat from the sidewalk outside. I began to suspect what Shannon intended.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “She woke up yesterday. Doctors say she’s going to be fine. She’ll need counseling, but I’ve talked with the parents, and they’re already on top of it.”

  “Good.” Suddenly, more than anything in the world, I wanted to see Trina Ball awake and doing well.

  Shannon paused outside a door. “Look, you should know that we have more than enough to convict Grendel a hundred times over, but we’ve found zero connection between him and the cabin. Whatever deal he had with the owners, he’s hidden it well. They may have paid him abroad. It might have been months before we tracked his path to the cabin, if we ever did. No matter how you look at it, Trina’s alive only because of you.”

  Before I could react, he turned into the room. Trina’s room. She lay in bed, each of her hands held by a parent. “Here she is as promised,” Shannon announced. “This is the woman who found Trina.”

  The parents jumped up and came toward me, gratitude shining in their faces. “We can never thank you enough,” the mother said. “Never.” The father nodded, repeating his wife’s thanks. I shook their hands and mumbled words I didn’t register.

  “Come closer,” Trina called.

  I moved past the parents until I was standing near the bed.

  “You were in the car,” Trina said. “I was so cold. I was floating away. You called me back.”

  “I hope that’s okay.” Back meant dealing with what had happened to her.

  She nodded, grinning through her tears. “It’s okay.” Her eyes sought the faces of her parents. “I’m home.”

  Her mother rushed back to the bed and took her daughter’s hand. “We’re going to be with you every step of the way.”

  I removed the button from my pocket and quickly dropped it on the blanket in front of Trina. “I found this. I can throw it away if you’d rather, but it seemed special. You might need it . . .” On tough days. To remind herself that she was strong.

  Trina snatched up the button with her free hand, running her thumb over the rounded side. “I thought I’d lost it. Thank you for finding it—and me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The helpless anger I’d been holding in dissipated. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d used my gift to save lives.

  As we said goodbye and left the room, Shannon wore a smile that seemed less mocking than his usual smirk. “What?” I said.

  “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Really good, but I wasn’t going to admit how much I’d needed to see this family happy. “Have you been home to sleep yet?” I asked. “You do know that you need a shave, right? I didn’t think cops could have beards.”

  “I slept last night,” he conceded. “Overslept, in fact. No time to shave.”

  “Aw, that explains both the beard and why you aren’t as grouchy.”

  He blinked at that. “I prefer to think of it as driven. Look, Ms. Rain . . .” He brought a plastic bag of small items from his suitcoat pocket. “I was hoping you could check a couple objects for me. Nothing too serious, I just need to verify a hunch that a suspect is telling the truth.”

  I blinked. “So you do need my help.”

  He winced, which told me he wasn’t all that happy about it himself. “It’s the last time,” he said.

  I sincerely doubted that. We lived in the same city, after all, and he was “driven.”

  “Fine,” I said, “but you might as well call me Autumn, because no matter what you say, I’ve got the feeling we’ll be seeing more of each other.”

  In a totally platonic way, of course. Which was fine because I couldn’t respect a man who didn’t respect me. Besides, there was Jake.

  “And you have to buy me lunch,” I added. “I haven’t eaten yet, and reading imprints on an empty stomach always makes me cranky.”

  “I’ve noticed,” he said. “Okay, you’ve got yourself a deal. I even know a place I think you’ll enjoy.”

  “Then I’ll let you drive. You can bring me back here for my car later.”

  “Only if you promise to keep your hands off my stuff.”

  “Fine.” I didn’t want to read his stuff again—especially his steering wheel—any more than he wanted me to.

  But just for that comment, I would order the most expensive thing in the restaurant. No, make that two of the most expensive thing. I deserved double.

  NOTE FROM TEYLA BRANTON: Thank you for reading this introduction to the characters in my Imprints series featuring Autumn Rain and her friends. If you enjoyed First Touch, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated. For your enjoyment, I have included in the next section a chapter of Touch of Rain, the first full novel in the Imprints series. This sneak peek is follow by a bonus preview of The Change from my contemporary urban fantasy series. You can see all my books on the About the Author page, or sign up for new releases here. Thanks again!

  THE END

  Sneak Peek

  Chapter 1

  My breath came faster as I stared into the shoe box sitting on the counter at my antiques shop. None of the items inside was exceptionally valuable or remarkable in any way—a kaleidoscope of bric-a-brac and childhood keepsakes that had once made up a young woman’s life.

  A missing young woman.

  I met Mrs. Fullmer’s swollen, tear-stained eyes, small and brown inside the fine scattering of wrinkles that were evidence of her suffering. Her hands tightly gripped the edges of the box holding her daughter’s possessions, though t
he box sat on the counter between us and needed no support.

  I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t have to. If I refused, Jake would escort the couple quickly outside and make sure they didn’t return. I was very near to fainting as it was, though more with fear of what I would discover than of what the box contained. I’d learned the hard way that some emotions left imprinted on random objects were better off undiscovered.

  “You okay, Autumn?” Jake’s voice was both worried and curious. He smiled tentatively, his teeth white against his brown skin.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  A soft snort came from Mr. Fullmer. “Maybe we should be going.”

  An unbeliever. I didn’t blame him. I hadn’t believed in psychometry myself when the imprints had begun, and I hadn’t told anyone about my strange gift for months after. I’d confessed to Tawnia first, and that my practical sister believed me was a testament to the connection between us—despite our having spent the first thirty-two years of our lives apart.

  Jake Ryan was the second person I’d told. Solid, reliable Jake, who was gorgeous despite—or perhaps because of—his chin-length dreadlocks, or locs as he called them. When he was at the counter in my store, women bought more of my antiques just to see him smile or to have an excuse to talk to him. He had increased the sales in the Herb Shoppe considerably since I’d sold Winter’s business to him. Winter Rain, my father.

  Silently, I met Mr. Fullmer’s gaze and saw him notice my mismatched eyes, his mouth opening slightly in surprise. People are always surprised when they look at me long enough to actually see my eyes. I didn’t give him credit for seeing, though, as we’d met already once before and because he’d been staring at me for the past five minutes, searching for obvious flaws. He took a step back, which I regarded as defeat.

  “If there’s any chance Victoria left a clue,” Mrs. Fullmer said in her breathless voice, “we have to try. She’s been gone for months.”

  When no one spoke further, I slowly removed the four oversized antique rings from my fingers and handed them to Jake, the comforting, pleasant buzz they gave off ceasing the moment I released them. Wearing them wouldn’t prevent me from reading other imprints, but it would soften them, and I didn’t want that now. I reached for an object. A hairbrush. I held it in one hand, running the fingers of my other hand over the polished length, pushing at the hair-entwined bristles.

  A face in a mirror, a narrow, pretty face with long, blond hair. There was a sound at the door and a flash of an angry man staring down at me, words falling from his lips: “You are not going tonight, and that’s final!” The urge to throw the brush at his face, an urge at least nine months old.

  I shook my head and set the brush back in the box. I’d recognized the girl as Victoria from the picture they’d shown me and the man as Mr. Fullmer, but the scene hadn’t told me anything except that once last year Victoria had been angry enough to want to throw the hairbrush at her father. She hadn’t done it, though, and the memory was already fading. Mentioning it now wouldn’t help them find her. I moved to the next item, passing purposefully over the new-looking socks and worn swimming suit.

  I’d learned by touching everything of Winter’s after his death that distinct feelings or imprints remained intact only on belongings connected with great emotion. Objects a person treasured most or held while experiencing extreme levels of joy, fear, worry, or sadness. Items that weren’t often washed or forgotten.

  For Winter that meant the colorful afghan my adoptive mother, Summer, had crocheted, the first vase I’d made on my wheel when I’d gone through my pottery stage, his favorite tea mug with the sad-looking puppy on it, his plain wedding band. And of course, his cherished picture of Summer, the one I’d dropped in shock and surprise on the day of his funeral eleven months ago, causing the glass to shatter. It was the first object that had “spoken” to me.

  Other objects gave off a muted sensation, a pleasant low hum, but no clear images or scenes I could relive when the burden of missing Winter became too great. I never found anything among his possessions that contained angry or hateful imprints. He must have long ago come to terms with those feelings. My adoptive father had been an exceptional man.

  My hand settled on the journal from the Fullmers’ box, but I could tell right away this hadn’t been a real journal for the missing girl. No emotional imprints, except perhaps the barest hint of old resentment. If she’d written in the book at all, it hadn’t been willingly.

  I picked up the prom pictures instead. Victoria was a slim, pretty, vivacious girl, and her date equally attractive, but though he was nice enough, the girl hadn’t been attracted to him. The feeling had been strong enough to leave a faint residue of distaste on the picture when she’d held it in her hands as recently as six months earlier, which would have been mid-December, several weeks before her disappearance. I set it down.

  The sea shell hinted at the ebb and swell of the ocean, the girl’s possession of it not long enough or felt deeply enough to make an imprint. An old compact mirror with jeweled insets radiated a soothing tingle. Most of my antiques were like that, the emotions clinging to them soft and old and comfortable. I believe that feeling is why I went into the antiques business. Perhaps the objects had quietly hummed to me all along, though I hadn’t yet understood their language.

  Even in the old days there had been attractive items I’d never wanted to bring to my store, and now that I was conscious of my gift, or curse as I sometimes thought of it, I suspected those were the antiques that had fresher, negative imprints, perhaps even violent ones. A cast iron statue at an estate sale last month had flashed a terrifying image of crushing a human skull. No way had I wanted that statue in my shop. I didn’t care that my markup would have been phenomenal.

  I let my hand glide over several more objects in the Fullmers’ shoe box, scanning for emotions that might be clues for Victoria’s mother. The letter (contentment long faded), the porcelain figurine of a ballet dancer (sleepy dream of the future), a book of poetry (whisper of an old crush). To tell the truth, I wasn’t positive any of these weak impressions were real or if my mind showed me only what I expected to find. These items had obviously been important to the missing girl at one time, though, or she wouldn’t have kept them all these years.

  Not until I reached the black velvet jewelry box did I feel a jolt. My hand closed over it, my palm covering the small object completely. Even through the box, the emotion was strong—too strong to come from even my active imagination.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Fullmer asked. “That’s my daughter’s—”

  She was hushed by her husband, who probably thought I would make something out of whatever information she might let slip. But I didn’t need anything from the mother to tell me the girl had loved whatever was inside.

  I opened the box and took out a gold chain with two intertwining heart-shaped pendants, one studded with diamonds. A beautiful piece, one that would never be outdated, and expensive enough to be out of reach for most young girls in their first year of college. I knew Victoria had loved the necklace because it had been her grandparents’ high school graduation gift to her mother and then her mother’s to her. Yet the overall feeling emanating from the piece was not love but guilt, one emotion overlying the other.

  I gently rubbed the hearts between my fingers, my eyes closed. Jewelry often retained the best imprints, which was why I’d saved the velvet box for last. “She wants to take it with her,” I said aloud, “but everything she has will become theirs, and she knows it’s not right to give them her mother’s necklace. It should stay in the family. She thinks you will give it to Stacey when she’s gone.”

  I very clearly felt Victoria replacing the necklace with a sigh. She hadn’t wanted to pass it to her younger sister, and that’s where the guilt came in. She’d wished there was a way to follow her dream and keep both her family and her necklace. With the guilt came several earlier flashes of memory, rushing like water through my hands to my brain.

&nb
sp; A college campus, a park, a man dressed in a flowing, button-down shirt with a wide, pointed collar and elaborate cuffs turned upward, the tails of the shirt untucked. He had kind eyes and longish black hair, and he was surrounded by younger people wearing white T-shirts.

  “Yes, I’m going with you,” I said to him, my hand going to the pendant at my throat. “But first I have to go home. There’s something I have to do.”

  When I opened my eyes, everyone was staring at me. “She left on her own,” I said. “Or at least she was planning to leave with a man in an old-fashioned white shirt. He had blue eyes, black hair down to his collar, a short beard. She wasn’t the only one to go with him. Did you ever see her wear a white T-shirt with blue lettering that says ‘Only Love Can Overcome Hate’?”

  Mr. Fullmer paled noticeably, but Mrs. Fullmer was nodding. “She had one.”

  “A cult then,” Mr. Fullmer sputtered. “That’s what you’re saying.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe a commune.”

  “Same difference,” Mr. Fullmer said.

  “I can’t say for sure. I do know that she believed anything she took with her wouldn’t be hers anymore. She wished she didn’t have to choose between them and you.” Almost as an afterthought, I added, “They were selling Christmas cakes at a park. Near a university, I think. That was when she met them.”

  “She came home early on break,” Mrs. Fullmer whispered. “She’d been having a hard time, but we didn’t know until later that she missed all her final exams. She never registered for the next semester.”

  That explained the despair Victoria had left imprinted on the necklace. “She was more hopeful when she met them,” I said, meaning it as a comfort.

  “It’s not only the colleges these people have targeted,” Jake said into the awkward silence that followed my statement. “I’ve seen a similar group here down by the river, selling things to the crowds who come to watch the bridge reconstruction. In fact, they’ve been there almost every time I’ve driven by the past few weeks.”