Page 35 of Psycho
“No. Not even close. If you see him around, just let me know. But stay away from him. He’s a really bad guy. Okay?” Lucas held up a twenty dollar bill and placed it in the cup.
“Damn, you and your not-boyfriend are paying my rent this month.”
Lucas gave her a smile but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. He’d known this would happen. It was only a matter of time. Still, some part of him had hoped Kohn would be too afraid to try it. Hoped they would have at least taken some of Lucas’s visions seriously.
Had Kohn taken a break from stalking and killing women to chase down Lucas? Was his partner picking up the slack while he was gone? The thought of women being hurt because Lucas couldn’t convince the right people he wasn’t crazy made him feel like he’d swallowed battery acid. If he could have just found one solid piece of evidence, anything that could have backed up his vision…
But Kohn was too good for that and had used his position to create a safety net between the authorities and his victims. Unlike most serial killers, he was cunning as well as sadistic. Lucas knew if Kohn had a partner, that partner was much less likely to be the ringleader. They would have a lower IQ, defer to Kohn. They were basically a subordinate or acolyte. Somebody who almost worshipped Kohn.
But then there was the mask. Was that who Kohn was truly hiding from? Maybe his partner didn’t know who he really was? That would afford him a level of safety. Still, Lucas’s vision never showed a third party when he was in that room with his victims. Maybe he was filming himself? But even then, why hide? Most serial killers were notoriously proud of their kills. It wasn’t like he was sending the videos to the police. No, Lucas was his sole focus.
August was right. Lucas needed help. He was no closer to unraveling this mystery and he no longer had the FBI’s resources. Whoever this Calliope was, she had to have better access than Lucas currently had. He’d ask August tonight. The thought of seeing August sent a bolt of lightning through his dick. He tried not to think about August and his insanely talented tongue or the way he’d held Lucas’s wrist as he’d sucked him off.
“Morning.”
Lucas pulled himself from his dirty thoughts to look around for the voice. It was the woman whose office was across from his. Belinda? Bianca? Something with a B. She was locking up her office, bag thrown over her shoulder, probably heading to her morning class. She studied him with an eerie intensity that made him want to cover his crotch, like she could see his dirty thoughts about August.
“Morning,” he managed.
She gave him a tight smile and a curt nod before taking off down the hall, her low heels clicking as she walked. Lucas listened until the sound faded away entirely before fishing for the key to his office door. When he turned the key in the lock, he realized there was no click. His door was unlocked.
He frowned, pushing open the door. Everything was as he’d left it, not a thing out of place. He hung his bag on the coat rack behind his door, doing one more sweep across his office, before finally dropping into his leather chair, gaze falling to a message scrawled on a yellow sticky note.
I MISS YOU.
Lucas rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop smiling. Of course, August had broken into his office. It was entirely something he would do. He left the sticky as it was, opening the bag from the coffee shop and taking a bite of the huge muffin. He was suddenly starving. He was about halfway through his breakfast when he saw it: August’s scrawled message on his cup.
Lucas’s gaze fell to the note, then back to the cup. The handwriting was not the same. Not even remotely. The sticky note was written all in caps, with a heavy hand. August’s writing was as chaotic as he was, words slanting, letters crowded. The ink on the cup wasn’t Cricket’s either. She wrote in funky block letters, nothing like either of the notes before him.
Lucas couldn’t tear his gaze from the note. He stared at the yellow sticky like it was a venomous snake, poised to strike. He wanted to crumple it up and toss it in the trash, forget about Kohn and his crimes. Nobody believed Lucas anyway. Maybe he should just let August do what he did? But that wouldn’t stop Kohn’s partner or rescue any possible victims they might be holding—hurting—even as he sat there. He couldn’t sacrifice them out of some sense of greater good.
As Lucas gazed at the Post-it, he wondered...could he pull anything from it if he dropped his shields? If Kohn’s feelings or emotions were strong enough, even if he’d only held it for a moment, it might be enough for him to see something. He glanced at his closed office door. Nobody was likely to disturb him.
After another bite of his muffin and a sip of his lukewarm coffee, Lucas dropped his shields, opening himself, taking a few deep breaths so he was relaxed enough to see even the slightest shred of evidence left on the Post-it. He hated how badly his hands shook as he reached for the stupid piece of paper.
The moment he touched it, a gasp ripped from his lungs. Screaming. Terror. Pain. So much pain. Blood. The buzzing of something electrical. That weird fucking red glow. A girl strapped to a chair, leather binding her wrists and across her forehead. Letters carved into her skin. Three letters. I-C-U.
I see you.
“Lucas? Lucas!”
Lucas’s eyes snapped open to see August on his knees before him. They were both on the floor. How had he gotten on the floor? August’s hands were cupping his face, and they felt cold against his heated skin. Pain flooded Lucas’s senses, making him feel dizzy and feverish. It hurt so bad. Everything hurt. His muscles, his skin, his insides. But more than that, his heart hurt. The girl had been filled with this overwhelming sense of dread and despair. Resigned to the rest of her short life being filled with agony.
“He set me up,” Lucas managed between chattering teeth.
“What? Who did? Kohn? He was here?”
Lucas couldn’t answer. When August sat beside him, Lucas curled against him, tucking himself under August’s arm. His mouth was so dry, his lips cracked and bleeding. His eyes hurt. Why did his eyes hurt? He couldn’t feel his hands. It was the straps. The ones across his forearms… They were cutting off his circulation. There was so much pain, his brain tried to reject it, losing consciousness, only to drag him to the surface of that pain once more.
August squeezed him against him. The pain began to fade, his hammering heart slowing as the dingy box of torture was replaced with a frozen lake and silence. Blissful silence. He could feel the frigid air on his face, the stillness of the space. It was vast and isolated, nothing around for miles, except for the occasional whistle of the wind through the empty branches of the trees.
“What did you do?” Lucas mumbled.
“Is it working?”
“Yes,” Lucas said, still looking out over desolate wilderness. August was there, standing behind him, arms around him, chin hooked over his shoulder. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“Why?” August asked, his breath hot against Lucas’s ear. “If you receive impressions from the things you touch, there’s no reason why I can’t control what you see when you’re touching me. It’s just science.”
