Murders & Romance: A Psychic Detective Romantic Mystery (Isaac Taylor Mysteries Book 5) by Lashell Collins (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

“Ouch.”

Isaac could hear the grimace over the phone.

“Yeah. Do better. I’d hate to have to kick your ass or something.”

Emmett laughed out loud and Isaac smiled.

“Get back to work, Fox. And call my sister.”

“Will do. Thanks, Ike.”

“Yep.”

He ended the call and turned back to Pete.

“Enough horsing around. We’ve got victim’s families to interview.”

“So did you change your mind about touching the vics to glean any useful information?”

Isaac looked at Pete and sighed. “Yeah, I think I have. At least, for now. I just don’t want to put myself through it.”

“You’ll get no push back from me. I have no idea what you go through when you do that, but I know it can’t be easy. We’ll get through this case without any of your psychic trickery.”

Isaac grinned and they stood up to head out for more questioning. Before they could take the first step, Isaac’s extension rang. He held up a finger to Pete and sat back down to pick up the receiver.

“Detective Sgt. Taylor.”

“Sgt. Taylor, this is Officer Rodney Hamilton, from the Domestic Violence unit. We spoke the other night at the women’s shelter. I took your fiancée’s statement.”

“Yes, I remember. What can I do for you Hamilton?”

“Just a courtesy call, Sgt. I wanted to let you know that we’ve picked up Donald Mowbray. He’s currently in a cell down in central booking.”

Isaac’s ire spiked in an instant.

“What are you charging him with?”

“Assault and battery. Trespassing. Violating a protection order.”

Isaac’s jaw clenched. First degree misdemeanors.

Not that they weren’t serious crimes. They all were. But it meant that the asshole who’d hit Sidney would only do about six months behind bars if convicted. And he’d most likely make bail and be back on the street within 24 hours to wait for his court date.

“Have you notified my fiancée, or the dirtbag’s wife yet?”

“Not yet. I thought you’d want to tell your fiancée personally. I can call her if you wish.”

“No, I’ll take care of it. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Isaac hung up the phone and stared at his desk for a moment.

Seething.

He wanted to go downstairs to the jail and visit Donald Mowbray. He wanted to teach the man a lesson he’d never forget. He wanted to leave the man huddled in a corner whimpering and begging for the pain to stop.

He wanted Donald Mowbray to think twice about putting his hands on a woman ever again.

“Everything all right, Ike?”

Pete’s voice cut through his anger. He looked up at his partner.

“Patrol picked up the asshole who manhandled Sidney at Hope House the other night. He’s down in a cell.”

“Ooh. We going downstairs for a minute?”

Isaac thought about that question for a long moment.

The longer he thought, the more his right hand began to tingle with the oddest sensation. He had no clue where it came from or how, but he instinctively knew that he could do some real damage with that tingling hand and his growing skills in telekinesis.

Oh, how he wanted to go downstairs to Donald Mowbray’s cell and try it out.

But Sidney had begged him not to.

“No. Let’s get to work.”

He stood and headed for the stairs. He had a killer to catch.

13

Gerri Miller smoothed a hand over her jeans and straightened her blue buttoned-down shirt. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to walk through that door and face that man with the piercing, probing eyes and the blunt questions. But she knew she had to. She had no choice.

She took a deep breath and knocked.

The door opened and Dr. Clark Newman smiled at her.

“Detective Miller. Right on time. Come in.”

Gerri stepped into his office squeezing her hands together.

“You sound surprised.”

“What’s that?”

“That I’m on time. You sound surprised about that.”

Dr. Newman smiled and gestured to the chair in front of his desk.

“Not at all. But I am pleased you decided to keep this appointment today. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come back.”

He sat in his desk chair and leveled that intrusive gaze at her, and Gerri shifted in her seat. She toyed with a loose thread at the end of her sleeve.

“Actually, I… I did think about quitting.”

“I see. Why were you thinking about quitting?”

Gerri stared past him and concentrated on the yellow in the abstract painting on the wall behind him.

“Because I… I just didn’t know if I could come back here and do this job without Curt. I mean, without seeing him everyday.”

She grinned at a stray memory of her partner.

“He was the biggest pain in my ass sometimes, but he was a good partner. A good teacher. He taught me a lot about being a good detective.”

She paused and tried to swallow around the large, jagged stone in her throat.

“You’re talking about him in the past tense.”

“What?”

She looked at Dr. Newman, hearing the puzzlement in her own voice.

“The last time we talked, you could only speak about Curt Dorn in the present tense. As if he were still here. You’re using the past tense now — ‘he was a good partner.’ It means you’re finally accepting Curt’s death.”

“Oh.”

Gerri looked down at her hands.

“It’s a good thing, Gerri. It means you’re not stuck anymore. You’re moving forward.”

A tired sigh escaped her, and she slumped back in the chair and folded her arms.

“It doesn’t feel like a good thing.”

“I know. But it is. And you’ll see that eventually. So tell me, what brought you back? You thought about quitting, yet here you are. What changed your mind?”

“I love my job.”

Gerri shrugged her shoulders and finally looked Dr. Newman in the eyes.

“I love being a detective, and I’m good at it. I worked hard to get here, and to prove that I could do the job just as well as any man. And I know Curt wouldn’t want me to quit.”

Dr. Newman nodded. “I’m glad you came to those realizations, because they’re all very true. Yes, you are a good detective. Yes, you worked hard to get here. And no, Curt would not have wanted you to quit.”

Gerri mirrored his