Page 28 of Kill Me Again: Psychics

He was gone a while, and when he came back, it was with a slight frown on his face. “Everything okay?” My mind was racing, trying to work out what could have triggered him in the bathroom. Had I purchased coffee-scented shower gel without realizing it? Did such a thing even exist?

“Your bedroom door was open,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. “And I couldn’t help noticing a distinct lack of bed. Is that a new thing?”

“Recent…ish.”

“How recent?”

“Erm…”

Baxter let out an exasperated sigh. “Where did you sleep the other night when I was on your sofa?”

The question was too direct to avoid the way I might have wanted to. “On the floor.”

“And you usually sleep on the sofa?”

“I usually sleep in a bed.”

Baxter stared intently at me. Instinct told me he’d grown tired of pulling teeth and was reading my mind, even as I still rebelled against that being possible.

“Carl took it,” he said. “The man you chased after the other night. No wonder you chased him. He took most of your furniture. What kind of man steals someone’s bed?”

“A desperate one,” I offered.

Baxter’s look of disbelief would have pleased Verity. “You shouldn’t have given up the sofa for me.”

“You needed it that night more than I did.”

“Maybe,” Baxter admitted. “But don’t do it again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You said ‘he’ earlier when you talked about being stabbed,” I pointed out. “How do you know it was a man?”

“Did I?” Baxter seemed surprised. He’d removed his shoes and sat cross-legged on the corner of the sofa. It made him seem more child-like, more vulnerable. “I guess I just assumed it had to be a man. Most murderers are.”

I was sitting at the other end of the sofa, laptop open at a blank document, ready to take notes. I shook my head. “Not good enough. We work on facts, not assumptions. What did you see? What did you hear?” I stopped myself from asking what he could smell, not wanting to catapult him back to thinking about coffee.

He closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously as he swallowed. “A dark figure running away.”

“Tall? Short?”

A furrow appeared on his brow as he thought hard, eyes still closed. “About my height.”

“So probably too tall to be a woman,” I suggested. “Which is why you assumed it was a man.”

“Heavy footsteps,” Baxter added. “And… I only saw them briefly, but they didn’t move like a woman.”

“Fat? Thin? Muscular? Stocky?”

“Average.”

“Did you see their face?”

“They had their back to me. They were running.”

“I suppose you’d hardly saunter if you’d just stabbed someone.”

Baxter opened his eyes again, the blueness of them stunning after not seeing them for a couple of minutes. The twitch of his lips said he’d plucked that thought right out of my head. Jesus! How were you supposed to deal with someone who knew exactly what you were thinking? Especially when you found them incredibly attractive. Except he’d probably read that thought as well.

Clearing my throat, I concentrated on the laptop, reading back through what I’d written as an excuse not to look at Baxter. If I didn’t look at him, perhaps I could go two minutes without thinking about his lips or his eyes or his cheekbones—none of which was remotely appropriate when we were talking about his murder. “Did you see the knife?”

The silence said Baxter was thinking about the question. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Everything’s fuzzy.” A long pause followed. “I think…” He let out a strained laugh that sounded little like a laugh at all. “I can barely believe I’m going to say this, but I think I need to go back there.”

I stared at him. “Back to the…?”

“To the car park,” Baxter said. “I need to stand in that exact spot.”

“Are you sure?”

“You were the one who said I had to face up to things.”

“Yeah, but…” I trailed off, unable to think of a good way of finishing the sentence. Given his reluctance, I wanted to tell him it wasn’t necessary. Unfortunately, though, it made a twisted sort of sense. Returning to a place often triggered hidden memories. “I’ll call a cab.”