True Colors by Joyce Lamb Read Free Book Online

it’s unlikely he’s a closeted superhero.”
    Logan smirked. “Or maybe he just likes the sound of Parker.”
    Noah sat back and began tilting his half-empty soda can from one side to the other. “You got a vested interest in this kid?”
    “You could say.”
    “Care to share?”
    “Not really.”
    “Mind if I make an observation?” Noah asked.
    “There’s nothing to worry about here.”
    “I don’t know about that. You get tense when you talk about him.”
    “Kids living on the street make me tense.”
    “It’s more than that. Charlie’s friend AnnaCoreen would say there’s something dark inside you.”
    Logan snorted as he tossed his crumpled napkin onto the wrought-iron table. “Please.”
    “You haven’t met AnnaCoreen. She knows things.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?
    “She knows things.”
    Logan cocked his head, ready to laugh, until he realized Noah was serious. “You mean, like a psychic? That’s such bullshit.”
    “You’d be surprised.”
    “No, I don’t think I would. Don’t tell me you buy into that crap.”
    Noah said nothing as he drained his Coke, but it was clear that he disagreed.
    “Why are we even talking about this?” Logan asked. “I’m just looking out for a homeless teenager I caught Dumpster diving behind the Iguana a couple of weeks ago.”
    Noah slipped his notebook back into his pocket. “You didn’t have anyone to take you in, did you?”
    Logan stiffened. He shouldn’t have gotten defensive, damn it. He should have let the “there’s something dark inside you” roll off his back. Like a damn duck. But, no, he’d had to let his feathers ruffle, and now he looked like a pitiful jerk. “Just forget it.”
    “Does Alex know?”
    “There’s nothing to know.”
    “She should know. Guy like you has issues to work out. Intimacy issues.”
    Logan opened his mouth to tell the man to fuck off when he caught the glint in Noah’s eyes. The bastard was trying his damnedest not to laugh.
    Logan let his shoulders relax. “You’ve been rifling through Charlie’s Cosmo s, huh?”
    Noah leaned forward and dropped his voice. “I read it for the pictures. Did you know that there’s a position called the Amazing Butterfly?”

CHAPTER NINE

    A re you kidding me?”
    Charlie flashed Alex an amused, albeit grim, smile at her reaction to the hot pink shack with its rusted tin roof. “If you’re nice to her, she’ll read your palm for free.”
    “Charlie, come on. A beachfront psychic is going to explain this?” Alex glanced down at the bruises and red skin on her wrists. Were the injuries already fading? A fingertip dragged over a particularly purple mark returned an answering twinge that did indeed feel less intense than it had only minutes ago. What the hell?
    She started to shake again. She must be dreaming, in a sleep so deep that her subconscious had visited an insanely lucid world, where everything was turned upside down and crazy. Or maybe she was dead. Maybe she’d never recovered from the gunshot and this was hell.
    “It’s not.”
    Alex jolted. She’d completely lost the thread of conversation. “What?”
    “It’s not a dream,” Charlie said.
    “What, are you psychic, too?”
    “No. I’ve just been there.”
    “God, Charlie. God .”
    Charlie craned her neck to look at the rundown shack through the window on Alex’s side of the car. “AnnaCoreen is waiting for us.”
    Alex turned her head to see a petite older woman in blue jeans, a blousy white top and flat sandals waving from the sidewalk leading to the shack. She had short springy strawberry blond hair and, even from the car, Alex could see she wore simple, if any, makeup. That woman was a beach psychic? Not the garish character she’d expected.
    “Come on,” Charlie said and pushed open the driver’s door.
    Alex followed Charlie reluctantly. She knew the polite smile she offered the psychic as they approached couldn’t get any stiffer. This was going to be such a massive