Carnal Sin

TWENTY-EIGHT

Grant was more than a little worried about Julie.

For a few minutes the jackhammer in his head slowed to a steady pounding. Maybe the aspirin he’d been popping finally kicked in. Or maybe it was just focusing on something other than his own problems.

Grant couldn’t get the image of Nadine’s tattoo out of his mind because it looked exactly like Julie’s tat. It was uncommon, and exquisite. He remembered kissing the small of her back over and over, savoring the soft, unusually erotic spot.

For a detective, he realized he was an idiot. He didn’t know much about Julie Schroeder or her friends. Everything Fern said made sense. Designer drugs. Julie had never seemed as though she’d been on drugs, at least when he was with her, but Grant also knew from his two years on Vice that major dealers rarely used, and never the heavy junk. They were in it for the money and power, not the drug high.

Grant could not believe that Julie was a drug dealer.

But he also realized that he hadn’t asked her or Wendy the hard questions about Nadine. Why? Being tired was no excuse. Was he worried, maybe subconsciously, that Julie was involved with something illicit? Was he worried that she wasn’t who he thought she was? Why did any of that matter when they were just off-again, on-again?

But it did matter. He cared deeply for Julie. Hell, he might even love her, but it was a warped kind of love wrapped in physical lust, not emotional need. Normal? Hell, no, but he wasn’t normal. Never had been, not since he lost his virginity with his eighteen-year-old babysitter when he was fourteen. He’d told his twice-divorced mother he was too old for a babysitter, but when Sylvia Nelson went out of town on business, she refused to leave him alone overnight.

Little did she know what he did with Monica Jergens those nights. Monica had seduced him at the beginning-he’d been a mature kid, responsible for his little brother because of a busy single mom-but he’d also been a kid who liked video games and sports. But after the first time, Grant had never looked back at his childhood. Surprisingly, this fact now saddened him.

He drove down Sepulveda, where even now, the lunch hour on Saturday, hookers strolled. He wasn’t a child anymore; he’d seen too much in life and on the job. These hookers were women who didn’t care how hard he fucked or how long he took-they’d take it because they got paid to take it.

Grant slowed his sedan to a crawl. The hookers glanced over, but he looked like a cop and they moved on. He was a cop. He couldn’t screw around with a hooker. He’d never paid for it before, so why would he now? Why did he have this overwhelming urge to fuck someone-anyone-without thought of the repercussions? His career was no small thing, and neither was his health.

All he could think about was sex. And it wasn’t normal. He was a guy, he thought about sex many times a day, but not this constant barrage of images, these fantasies that wouldn’t leave his mind. Fantasies he’d never lived out because they were illegal or because he’d never get a woman to agree.

Agree? Why ask? Just take what you want. Take it.

He slammed on his brakes, almost running a red light and nearly hitting two teenagers in the crosswalk. Grant barely noticed when the shorter kid flipped him off; he was frozen and distraught. He’d never raped a woman in his life, never came close until last night, but that was Julie, his Julie. He hadn’t raped her. He’d just … been rough. Uncaring. He hadn’t cared about whether she was comfortable or enjoying it, he just wanted to take. The idea that he was so close to finding it acceptable to force a woman made sweat bead on his brow, had his hands shaking.

He put his head down on the steering wheel. Something was wrong with him. He was sick. Maybe he had a fever and was hallucinating. That might explain his foul, perverted thoughts.

Cars honked behind him and he jumped, looked around. The light was green. He spurted through the intersection and pulled over to the side of the road, breathing heavily. He had to get it together. This sense of unease, of pain, the migraine, the visions of his first lover, of hookers, of Julie, of Moira O’Donnell-this wasn’t him.

Grant rested his head back on his steering wheel and willed the pain to stop. His penis was still hard and uncomfortable; he squirmed in his seat, but that only made his migraine worse.

Home. He just had to go home and sleep this off … whatever it was. He needed to meet Moira in … the digits on his clock blurred. It was already two; he was late.

What if Julie was really in trouble? The idea that she’d die in a horrible, gruesome way, like Nadine, terrified him. He didn’t want to lose her like that. He didn’t want to watch her rip her hair out, falling apart in front of him, flailing about until being run over by a bus.

He called her. Maybe if he talked to her, she’d meet him at her place. He couldn’t walk into the Palomar feeling like this.

On the third ring he almost hung up; then she answered. “Grant.”

It wasn’t Julie’s voice. He frowned. “Who’s this?”

“Wendy. Julie is really upset with you. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Acid burned in his stomach. He knew it. He’d hurt her, no matter what she’d said earlier.

“Please put her on. I need to talk to her.”

“She’s working. Leave her alone.”

“Dammit, put her on the phone!”

Wendy hung up on him. She hung up the damn phone!

But at least Grant knew Julie was at the club, so he could go talk to her in person.

His cop instincts told him something wasn’t right about this-the close circle of people who were dead, the others involved with all of them. Except for George Erickson, though his wife knew Wendy Donovan. The pictures. Which made it all …

His head exploded in another burst of pain. The evidence was all right here-he felt it, but he couldn’t put it together.

He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been drinking all night. His face was haggard and pale, his light brown hair dark with perspiration.

His phone rang. It was Moira O’Donnell. He didn’t want to talk to her, but dammit, he was supposed to have been at the Palomar five minutes ago.

“Nelson,” he said.

“On your way?”

“I’m running late. We can do this tomorrow.”

“I have information you need. Just ten minutes.”

He didn’t want to do this. “Fine,” he agreed, “but I have a stop to make. It’ll be another hour.” He hung up before she could protest.

“First, I need to find Julie,” he mumbled to himself.

Without looking, he started his car and abruptly turned into traffic. The horns of cars he nearly hit didn’t faze him. With the thought of seeing Julie, his headache began to ease, from intolerable to simply excruciating.

Her astral projection invisibly resting in the passenger seat, Julie listened in horror as Grant believed what Wendy told him. That bitch was leading him into a trap, and using Julie’s possessed body to do it! Julie had been trying to talk to Grant ever since he had gotten into his car-to communicate somehow without her body, without her voice-but he didn’t hear her, he didn’t feel her.

He was dying, his face hard and grim, unable to mask the pain. While Moira O’Donnell was waiting for him, he was playing right into Wendy’s hands.

His cell phone was vibrating in the passenger seat, but Grant was either ignoring it or didn’t notice. He was so focused on whatever dark thoughts filled his mind that Julie feared he’d crash, killing himself and others.

Julie used the intensity of her emotions to gather enough energy, then she pushed a directed pulse to move the cell phone. It flew across the seat and hit Grant in the arm.

“What the fuck?” he exclaimed as he swerved, corrected the car, then picked up the phone.

The simple telekinetic trick wore Julie down even more. After the ghosts at the morgue, and now using her limited energy reserve, she was growing weaker with each passing moment.

She didn’t want to die, and she especially didn’t want to die like Nadine.

Grant answered the phone on speaker. “Johnston?”

“Where the hell have you been? You haven’t answered your phone for two hours.”

Two hours? Julie frowned. Had that much time passed?

“I was at the morgue.”

“You left at noon. It’s nearly two-thirty. We have a problem.”

“What?”

“I ran Moira O’Donnell’s prints. The report came back. She’s bad news.”

“What did she do?”

“For starters, she’s illegal. Her visa expired years ago. Her prints popped up in six open investigations of grand theft auto, and get this-Interpol has her passport flagged. If she attempts to fly to any European country, she’s to be brought in for questioning.”

“For what?”

“It doesn’t say. She’s a ‘person of interest.’”

“Shit. I’m in the middle of something, but-don’t put out an APB on her. Call that sheriff from Santa Louisa and see what she has to say. I’m meeting O’Donnell at the Palomar in an hour or so-I have to stop at Velocity first.”

“I don’t like this, Grant. Something is going on.”

“Head to the Palomar and keep our friend company until I get there.”

“Will do.” Johnston paused. “Are you okay? You don’t sound well.”

“I’m fine,” Grant snapped. “This has been a fucked week. Why is everyone asking if I’m okay? I have a migraine from hell and a girlfriend involved in God knows what and a new dead body every day, connected to the last dead body.”

“Grant-”

“Just meet me at the Palomar, okay?”

“Alright. One hour.”

Grant jammed the off button and tossed the phone on the backseat.

Julie knew he was going to die if he showed up at Velocity, but how could she tell him to go straight to the Palomar and meet with Moira?

At least now Julie knew where Moira was. But there was no way Moira could intercept Grant before he reached Velocity, where Wendy-and very likely the demon in Julie’s body-waited for him.

How could she stop him? They were approaching the on-ramp to the Ventura freeway. Twenty minutes and he’d be at Velocity. Twenty minutes and his fate would be sealed.

Julie ascended from the car and flew above it, looking for anything she could control to stop Grant. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, and she didn’t have enough energy or control to steer his car off the road. Moving the cell phone had been difficult enough.

They were approaching a park where kids were playing baseball. The idea came instantly-when the kid at bat hit the ball, Julie sent out a pulse of energy that pushed the ball off its intended course. The velocity of the ball coupled with her energy directed it, and it slammed directly into the windshield of Grant’s car.

He slammed on his brakes and skidded, hitting a parked car. Stopped. He wouldn’t be driving to Velocity now. That bought her time.

With a final glance at the tortured man she loved, her spirit flew to Moira’s hotel. By the time she arrived, she had almost no energy left. She felt her body trying to pull her back, the psychic leash strong. She used her remaining energy to stay rooted on the astral plane.

She had one chance to save Grant, and that was to lead Moira to him. Find some way to communicate. The effort would likely kill her.

And maybe, Julie conceded, she deserved it.