Mind Tricks by Adrianne Wood Read Free Book Online

said.
    “You know I didn’t do it?” Crap. It
sounded more like a question than a statement.
    “Yeah. Listen, I gotta go. But
first I have to say, Jake, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the police showing up
today at my work to ask me questions. It looked bad. And I really don’t want
them showing up here, at my house, in the future. You know?”
    Jake’s teeth clenched. “Sure, Mike.
Next time I see them, I’ll make sure I tell them that.”
    “Hey, no, don’t mention me at all—”
    “Right. Got it. Bye.” He snapped
down the receiver with his finger, cutting off anything else Mike might have
said. Asshole.
    Quickly he dialed Benjamin’s
number. His girlfriend answered on the third ring. “Hi, Jake. Benjamin’s not
here right now.”
    Her knowing his name made him pause
for a moment, and then he remembered that Benjamin had caller ID. “Okay. Just
tell him I called.”
    “Sure.” But before she replaced the
phone on the wall, Jake heard a deep male voice in the background. Benjamin’s.
    Jake slowly nestled the phone in
its cradle, then leaned back against his pillow and blew out a long breath. It
didn’t do anything to cool the building disgust that was temporarily pushing
away the fog of his exhaustion.
    So much for friendship. The number
of people he thought he could count on had just gotten much smaller.
    Crap.
    God, he wished Daniel were here
right now. Talking, joking…awake. But he was locked in a coma and lying
motionless in a nursing home ten miles away. When Daniel had been injured in
that car crash, Jake had lost more than a brother. He’d lost his closest
friend.
    And then when Marcus had left only
a few weeks later, off to parts unknown for reasons unknown, Jake had thrown
himself into Woodhaven, the only thing left in his life that was reliable.
    What would Daniel say about Jake’s
not-so-stalwart buddies? Probably that Ben and Mike both deserved to have
police cars stationed in front of their homes, freaking them out every time
they looked outside.
    Speaking of which…
    Jake got out of bed and moved to
the window, which overlooked the street in front.
    Ah. There. Settled behind a white
truck was a sedan with a man in the driver’s seat, apparently reading a
newspaper. But people didn’t just sit in their cars and read newspapers. A cop,
without a doubt.
    Jake jerked the curtain closed and
threw himself back into bed. Let the police look all they wanted. Heck, let
them go through his trash, secretly break into his house while he was gone, or
even get another search warrant. He had nothing to hide.
    Nothing to hide…but nothing to
prove him innocent either. Panic began to squeeze his chest again.
    Jake shut his eyes. If the police
were going to bust in and arrest him, hopefully they’d let him get a good
night’s sleep first. The nap at Emma’s had refreshed him only long enough to
get him home.  
    Panic slowly receded like an ebb
tide, and then sleep was waving long fingers at him, coaxing him closer. But
something was bothering him, keeping him from succumbing.
    Not the police suspecting him of
murder. Not his missing memories. Not the lack of support from his “friends.”
    Something Emma had said… Are you taking any medication now? Because I
was having a lot of trouble finding your energy lines.
    He’d blown her off, imagining that
she’d come up with that as an excuse for her failure. She must have a list of
excuses as long as her arm that explained away blunders.
    But he’d been wrong: he was on a
medication, kind of. The doctor had told him that Rohypnol could circulate
through his system for days.
    A lucky guess on Emma’s part? Or
maybe she’d heard through the grapevine, or even from Mickey, that he’d been
dosed up.
    Or maybe she had had trouble finding his energy lines, whatever those were.
    He rolled over, settling into a
better position.
    In any case, he had to rely on
himself to fix this problem, not rely on the dubious talents of a pet psychic.
Tomorrow,