Athena Force 8: Contact by Evelyn Vaughn Read Free Book Online Page A

artists. He did portraits and was particularly skilled with charcoal and pastels, though he could do caricatures for a quick ten bucks as well.
    The humid August air smelled of grass, azaleas, coffee and beignets as Faith crossed the sunny square to her friend’s purple umbrella. “Hey.”
    “Hey there!” He stood from the canvas camp-chair where he’d been sitting, sketching on heaven knew what, as he saw her. Evan had been raised an old-fashioned southern gentleman, by a Garden District family that expected him to become a doctor and marry a debutante. His decision against either option had caused something of a rift in his family, though they still invited him for holidays. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
    “They threw me out,” she admitted, sinking onto the cement base of the fence so that he’d feel comfortable sitting as well. “My boss is calling it bereavement leave, but what that really means is, they’re uncomfortable having me so close to the evidence.”
    Evan’s eyes widened. “They don’t suspect you, do they?”
    “I doubt it. But most murdered women are killed by someone they know. Since we knew Krystal, we might know her killer. So there’s always the chance I might try to cover something up, you know? Why take that risk? Although…”
    Evan resumed his seat and turned the page in his sketchbook. “What?”
    “Were you aware that Krys was seeing anybody? Even sleeping with them?” Usually, Faith could catch a whiff of other people off her roommates, if they’d gotten close. But not always. She tried to give them their privacy.
    “Not that I know of.” Evan shrugged. “So are you going home now?”
    “No. What I want to do…This may sound weird.”
    Evan grinned. “No. Not that. Anything but weirdness.”
    “You know the community better than I do. Are you aware of any readers who are good at finding things that are lost?”
    “Like what?”
    “Krystal’s murder weapon.”
    Evan gulped, his hand slowing on the page of sketch paper. “Oh.”
    “The bastard used some sort of cord or rope, and he didn’t leave it with her body. When you pull that hard on something, then some of your own tissue is rubbed off. So if I can find the cord, we might be that much closer to finding the killer. Assuming he didn’t take it with him, of course. Or wear gloves.”
    Evan looked kind of green, but he forged on anyway. “I do know of one person who’s good at psychometry. She can touch something and tell you all kinds of things about it, like who held it last, and how they were feeling, and where they were. Nose like a bloodhound, too.”
    Her recognition of his sarcasm had everything to do with the pitch of his voice and the slight change of his body temperature and scent, and nothing to do with paranormal abilities. “I’m not a psychic.”
    “Sure you are. You’re just a different kind of psychic than most of us.”
    “No! Moonsong’s a psychic—she can look at a person’s palm and tell all kinds of things that have nothing to do with how their heart’s beating or how they smell. And Absinthe, with her horoscopes. Even Krystal. She could shuffle those cards and lay them out and tell you things nobody could have guessed. She could predict—”
    She stopped, tilted her head, met Evan’s eyes.
    “She could predict the future,” he said softly, guessing or intuiting or maybe even reading what she’d just thought.
    “So why couldn’t she predict hers?”
    “Well, some readers believe they can’t see their own destiny, that they’re too subjective to have any clarity.”
    “Or maybe she did predict it,” supposed Faith, “and just didn’t tell anyone.”
    “Or maybe she predicted it, and just didn’t tell us. ”
    “Absinthe,” said Faith, standing.
    “Absinthe,” agreed Evan. Neither of them imagined that a frightened Krystal would go to Moonsong. Moonsong, for all her innocence and kindness, was one of the protectees of their little group, not one of the