Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(7)

The bus was dead silent. Everyone was giving her the Look. Shrinking away as far as they could get from a crazy passenger who yelled at things no one else could see.

It made her cringe to be that girl again. With her overdeveloped capacity to visualize, combined with extreme stress, hallucinations could happen out of nowhere. The first time was when she was little, after Mom died. Since then . . . she’d had others.

She knew the difference between fantasy and reality. And it wasn’t all bad. Her freakish visual ability had given her art, masks, costume design. It had brought her to the attention of Dex Boyd of GodsEye Biometrics. Which had transformed her life.

Her body clenched instinctively when she thought about Dex. His murder had happened only eight months ago. Still a raw wound in her mind.

The bus lurched to a standstill. It was one stop too soon, but she had to get away from the sidelong glances. She grabbed the bag that held her dancing costume and headed for the exit as the door opened.

The vehicle hissed and groaned and lumbered away, leaving her in near darkness with raw wind gusting around her. Her knees still wobbled from the shock of the ugly hallucination. And now she had twelve extra blocks to walk. Great.

She was chilled to the bone when she found Bea’s boyfriend’s house. She tucked her glasses into her bag, spat out the jaw prosthesis, peeled off the wig, raking a hand through her flattened hair. She felt horribly exposed without her disguise.

She spun around. No one seemed to be lurking. So far, so good.

The house was a weatherbeaten green, the sparse lawn fenced with chain-link. She went up onto the sagging porch and pressed the doorbell.

The curtains twitched to the side. A man peered out. Her heart sank. She’d been hoping desperately to talk to Bea alone. The door opened, stopped short by a clanking security chain. A stocky, bearded guy peered out. She knew who he was. Todd Blount, originally from Chelan, Washington, a special ed teacher in elementary school.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I hope so. I want to speak to Marika.” The name Bea used in her new life.

He looked at her suspiciously, but not like he was afraid of her. Caro concluded that he knew diddly about his girlfriend’s secrets.

“What’s it about?” Todd demanded.

“I knew her back in college,” Caro improvised.

“Is she expecting you?”

“Tell her it’s Caroline,” she said. “We spoke briefly yesterday.”

He looked her over. Caro self-consciously smoothed her hair.

“Wait here.” The door closed and the chain rattled. Todd wasn’t taking chances. Deadbolt was next.

She was debating ringing the bell again when the door opened again. Bea’s big blue eyes were red-rimmed. Her formerly ash blond hair had been dyed a dull black that made her look pale and ghoulish.

“I told you no,” she whispered fiercely. “How did you find me here?”

“Bea,” Caro said softly. “Listen—”

“Don’t call me that. I’m Marika, please. And I’m not interested.”

“Who’s this person, babe?” Todd appeared behind her. He flung an arm over Bea’s shoulders.

Bea flinched at the contact and gave him a tight smile. “Just someone I used to know.”

The phone began to ring in the room behind them. They all just stood there in an awkward silence, listening to it ring, and ring.

“Uh, would you get that?” Bea asked him. “Let me talk to her. I’ll be fine.”

The phone rang two more times before Todd grunted in reluctant assent and lifted his possessive arm off Bea’s shoulder. “Be right back,” he said, still scowling.

Caro leaned forward as soon as he was out of earshot. “Did you look me up online?” she whispered. “New York City? Caroline Bishop?”

Bea’s hunted gaze caught hers and slid away.

“I see you did,” Caro said. “It’s true, what I said yesterday. I’m not out to get you. We could help each other. We both have a problem, and I think it’s the same problem. We should join forces.”

“You’re going to get me killed.” Bea’s voice was a strangled whisper.

Caro could not argue with that in all good conscience, so she just moved on. “You saw the news stories about me? Because I read the ones about your boyfriend.”

“I don’t want to talk about Luke,” Bea hissed fiercely. “None of your business.”

“Mark Olund caught Luke Ryan in the same trap he used for me,” Caro’s voice was low and insistent. “It was Mark Olund who killed Luke’s client and took all that money and jewelry last year. Luke took the blame, but he’s innocent, like I am. And you must know something, or you wouldn’t be Marika instead of Bea, and selling sandwiches out of a truck instead of finishing your graduate degree at the U of Chicago. Am I right?”

“Keep your voice down.” Bea glanced back. “I don’t know anything. And how do you know the guy who hurt Luke is this Mark Olund? How can you be so sure?”

“Mark has art pieces that they say Luke Ryan stole. A famous sapphire brooch. I saw it in his apartment. Mark also murdered my boss and set it up to look like I did it. Sound familiar?”

Bea just kept shaking her head until Caro wanted to smack her.

“Luke Ryan didn’t rob or kill anybody and neither did I,” Caro went on. “I’ve been looking for you for months.” She reached through the crack in the door, and seized the other woman’s clammy hand. “Seriously? Do you want to live this way forever?”