The next morning when Jewel woke up, the conversation with Charles and Lucas still rolled through her head. They’d talked for an hour, until Hurricane had finally ushered them out. She’d protested that they didn’t need to leave, but everybody had apparently seen the fatigue in her face and had ignored her. Even as she lay here in her bed, she wondered at the odd feeling coursing through her right now.
The fact that she’d woken up was great, but still something was off. Waking up to an odd feeling was an even odder feeling. Waking up was now something Jewel had to be curious about, apparently after being dead for a while. And being dead-dead to the point that she had been in a body bag was enough to make her worried in that way. Thank God those memories weren’t in her brain. She couldn’t imagine waking up in a body bag, all zipped up, wondering what had happened to her. That would have been horrific.
Almost immediately after she thought about it, she determined that she needed to talk to someone in the morgue. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know what he could possibly tell her, but it just seemed to be one more piece of the puzzle that either she needed to know, or she was torturing herself about that could put her mind to rest. She slowly got up, realized that her body was more or less pain-free, and headed for a shower.
She steadied herself, as the water and soap bubbles ran over her body, and noted that some of the bruising was easing back. Seemed her body was on some delayed response, after whatever had happened, with the bruises showing up many hours later, and now were slowly going away again.
She didn’t even know whether she was healing faster than normal or this was really just what normal looked like. She snorted at the word being applied to her. Dressed and somewhat ready to face the day, she headed downstairs, moving quietly, in case Hurricane was still sleeping, but instead she found him sitting at the kitchen island, sipping coffee.
Without looking up from his phone, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she murmured. “At least I think so.”
He turned and looked at her, then smiled and nodded. “I’d say you’re looking better.”
“Which just means that I was looking pretty horrific to begin with.”
He chuckled. “The fact that you’re even worried about your looks from back then says you’re feeling better.”
“I’m not a vain person,” she stated, with a shrug. “So I can’t say that I was particularly bothered about it at any point in time.”
“Good, because, for a while there, you looked like death warmed over.”
“That’s not funny,” she scolded him.
He again smiled at her. “There’s coffee, if you want.”
“Now that would be good.” She walked around, snagged a cup, and asked, “I suppose you heard no new developments, huh?”
“What developments? If you mean on your case, no, absolutely nothing. And I’m not sure that the detective has gotten anywhere with your phone records.”
“I suppose, if he’s not allowed to, is that part of the problem?”
“I think there are some laws about checking someone’s phone records. It’s possible that it requires approval from a judge or something. I can’t imagine the detective would be in a big hurry to stand in front of a judge, while trying to explain this mess.”
“Right. What if I signed a form or paid something for it?”
“Maybe.” He quickly sent off a message. “I just asked him about that.”
As it turned out, there was a way to get it done, but she would have to send in a request. With that done and the paperwork digitally signed, she sat down with her coffee and noted, “It would be nice to know that I haven’t missed a big chunk of my world because of this.”
He nodded. “Do you remember anything about the art show?”
“I remember feeling like it was very important, and I would be devastated if I didn’t get to participate in it. But now I don’t even know what it was about and couldn’t care less,” she murmured.
“Until the memories come back, and then the art show will come back with all that emotion.”
“Maybe I’d be better off if knowledge of the show doesn’t come back,” she said.
“You can’t assume that you didn’t get it, since you really haven’t been available or able to get a phone call or even an email,” he reminded her.
“No, but it does feel to me that maybe it’s something that isn’t or shouldn’t be as important as it apparently was to me.”
“Life is like that. Sometimes things are important, and then you get a paradigm shift, and you realize it really wasn’t that important at all. And, right now, something else has happened to you that’s put it into perspective.”
“I guess. It’s that necklace.”
“I noticed that you didn’t mention it to anybody.”
“No, and I waited to see if they brought it up, but nobody did.”
“Is there a chance that you didn’t tell anybody you were working on it? Were you in the habit of telling people about jobs you were working on?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “It doesn’t seem like something I would do. Especially repair jobs, you know? It’s not like a new piece I’d created and wanted to share with my friends.”
“So, we have to consider the possibility that nobody knew about the necklace.”
“I don’t know. Not for sure.” She turned and looked at the wall safe. “From here it does look like it’s closed off.”
“It does,” he agreed. “Of course the pearls are back in there again.”
She looked at him, startled. He shrugged. “I removed them, and you put them back in. I don’t know when you put them back in, but you did.”
She let her breath out slowly. “I don’t remember putting them back in,” she cried out.
“I know, and I was afraid you would say that,” he stated, his gaze ever watchful.
“Then you get that look in your eye, and it feels like you think everything I say is a lie.”
He shook his head. “I’m not calling you a liar at all, but something is obviously going on, and those pearls are at the heart of it. Do you have any history on them, any emails or anything?”
“If I had a computer, then I could let you know. Why would they take my laptop?” she asked.
“You tell me. What was on it?”
“My whole world.” She stared blankly at him. “Everything. I mean, isn’t everybody’s life on their computers these days?”
“Their computers and phones, and, yes, they did take both of those. I, however, do have a laptop. I got it out of my vehicle last night.” He pointed beside her. “Maybe that’s when you put the necklace back in the safe.”
She immediately snatched up Hurricane’s laptop and then stopped, looked at him, and asked, “May I?”
“Absolutely. Do you know all your logins?”
“I think so,” she murmured. “As long as I can remember my email.” And, with that, it took her just a few clicks, and she had her email up. “Oh, thank heavens for that,” she whispered.
She sat down on the bench beside him, with her hot coffee, and started going through everything. “Here it is! The communication with my client about the pearls,” she said and pushed it over, so he could see it.
He leaned forward to read the email and then asked, “If you have a printer, can you print that off?”
“Sure.” She quickly sent it to her printer, and, off to the side, he heard a printer whirring away, behind a bunch of canvases. “There’s just a couple of them.”
“How did you receive the pearls?” he asked.
“They came by courier, and that’s how they were supposed to be sent back.”
“Have you ever had any communications with this guy before?”
“No, not at all, but then I haven’t really been doing very much online recently.”
“Any idea why?”
“No reason, it’s just that I’ve been busy with my own designs,” she explained. “That whole art show thing again.”
“Like pieces of jewelry? And yet, you didn’t look for any of those here.”
Startled, she looked at him. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why is that?”
She got up and raced up to the safe, had it open as he came behind her. “They’re not here.” She looked around the safe again. “I didn’t even remember about the show.”
“Wait. When is the show? Could it already be in progress?”
She stopped, then slowly nodded. “Yeah, setting up at least,” she replied. “My God, could I have sent them out for the show?” Then she turned and looked back at her front door. “But, if the show was on, I would have told Charles and Lucas, wouldn’t I?”
“Would you? Or are you the type to make it a surprise and take them there?”
She and Hurricane returned to their seats near his laptop. She slowly nodded in response to his question. “That is something I would do.”
He smiled. “So let’s not think everything is negative here,” he stated. “Maybe this is all good news.”
“Maybe,” she murmured. She returned her attention to her emails, then let out a sigh. “The contract’s right here. The show is happening, but it doesn’t start for another three days. I had to send in all the pieces, so they could set it up.”
“There you go. So that’s some good news. Having access to your emails is important, and you can recapture some of what has been lost. That’s pretty important, and congratulations on the show.”
“In a way it’s groundbreaking for me—for my work, I mean. It’s the first show I’ve ever had.”
“Why is that? You’re obviously very talented.”
“I’ve deliberately avoided everything to do with shows,” she said, with half a smile. “I’m not a very public-oriented person.”
“And yet you seem to be quite excited about the show.”
“It’s because of who and what it is,” she murmured. “It’s huge for my name as an artist, so, of course, I’m excited. And I was invited to attend, to participate. I wasn’t just submitting material, hoping they would think it was good enough. I was invited to show some of my work. The process was fairly complicated to get it to them.”
“But you did it, right?”
“Yes, everything’s ready to go. I remember now. I can’t believe I didn’t tell Charles and Lucas about it.”
“It’s interesting that you didn’t,” he agreed cautiously. “Does it say something about your relationship?”
“I don’t know.” She pondered that. “It seemed totally normal last night, like no reason to be at all upset or worried. I think you were right. I think I might have just planned on surprising them.”
“They didn’t mention anything about that last night though.”
“No.” She frowned. “I’m not sure whether I was leaving it until the show started or what.” And then she sighed. “The show is running for two weeks, so I would probably wait until it was actually live and then send them the link and show them.”
“Would they be happy for you?”
She looked up and smiled. “They would be ecstatic for me.” She nodded. “I guess I was just … It just seemed so weird to see them yesterday and to feel so, I don’t know, distant and separate from them.”
“Understood,” he replied. “I think with so much going on in your life right now that it’ll feel that way for a little bit. Especially with your memory coming back in such a seemingly random way. So don’t judge anything about it. Just be accepting right now.”
“I’m working on it,” she said, looking at him seriously. “Listen. When I woke up, I had this thought that I wanted to talk to the morgue attendant or whatever it’s called. The one who found me alive inside the body bag.”
“Why?” he asked, staring at her.
“I want to know the details. Like, was I sitting up inside a body bag? Did I get out of the body bag? Did he see the body bag moving around? What happened?”
He continued to stare at her. “Does it matter?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. I guess it’s all the missing pieces that bother me.”
“I can ask the detective, if you want.”
“Would you mind?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head. “No, I wondered myself how that played out.”
“It just seems off somehow.”
He chuckled. “A lot about this is off, so we can’t really blame anybody yet.”
“No, I’m not trying to blame anybody. I just would like to know what that was like, in my mind.”
“Good enough.” And he quickly sent off a couple text messages.
She sighed. “Thanks for being so helpful.”
He shrugged. “Hey, nothing about this is normal. This isn’t a situation where somebody else will go, ‘Hey, that happened to me a while ago too.’ I mean, right? It’s unique. It’s different, and, therefore, nobody really knows how to help you.”
“Except you,” she stated, looking at him steadily. Yet she saw absolutely no change in his expression, absolutely nothing that said he was bothered in any way.
“It’s not even that,” he added, looking at her. “That necklace is something that I really need to know more about.”
“Right,” she murmured. “I didn’t tell anybody about it.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it terrified me,” she replied bluntly.
He nodded. “That is what I need to hear more about too. Specifics, like why, how, and in what way? How do you remember? Because I can’t have you making it up or assuming you felt a certain way. Yet, if you have something concrete you remember about it, I need to know.”
“What will you do when you find out?” she asked him curiously.
“I’ll have to track down the information and figure out whether what you’re feeling and saying are for real or not. We need that distinction.”
She asked, “The … possessed necklace can’t be for real, can it?” But that fear in her voice revealed that, deep down, she thought it was all too real.
“You want to tell me what you felt?”
She stared at him, took a long slow breath, then bluntly said, “Every pearl gave off a weird energy. I always try to infuse my work with love, joy, and peace,” she explained. “I want the wearer of my pieces to feel that love when they have it on. But this necklace? I didn’t notice anything odd at first. I don’t know why, but the more I worked on it, the more I kept getting these creepy images, creepy feelings. Then I realized that it seemed like, with every pearl, I was getting images of a different woman who had died, and the woman somehow seemed to match a pearl,” she shared. “I know that makes no sense, but I don’t know what else to say.”
“No, that’s fine. Let’s not worry about whether something makes sense or not. The more I work in this field, the more I realize that nothing really makes sense. You just go with the flow and accept the energy as is.”
“I’m not sure how accepting I’ve been up until now.”
“Maybe you haven’t been, but nothing quite like this stuff to send your belief systems into a tailspin. So, back to the necklace. Were there any names that went with these images?”
She gave him an odd look. “Yes, but I’m not sure I remember them.”
He pondered that. “If you held the pearls again, would you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking back at the safe. “I can tell you the necklace is dangerous.”
He grimaced. “It absolutely is dangerous, and I’m doing my best to minimize the danger. What I don’t know is why it’s dangerous now and yet not when you first got it—except, from what I can understand, it’s somehow been … activated.”
“You said something about that before. Triggered I think was the word.”
He nodded. “Something you did, something that happened to you while you had it, has charged the necklace in a way that I don’t think it’s been charged in a very long time. So, now that it’s charged, a lot more energy is around it than was even there to begin with.”
She stared at him. “I’m not sure I know what that means, but what could possibly have charged it?”
He hesitated and then replied, “You said you tried to put loving energy into it?”
“Yes, of course. I do that with everything I work on or create.”
He nodded. “In that case, you would have opened up whatever energy lock was on it, and you are the one who charged it. The question now is, what happens next?”
*
Hurricane could tell that he’d shocked Jewel.
She sat back, such a confused, dismayed air about her that he immediately reached out with one hand and said, “It’s not your fault.”
But her glare immediately turned on him. “Really? Then whose fault do you think this is? Was anybody else playing with this necklace at the same time?” she argued. “Therefore, it is my fault.”
He waited until some of her emotions had subsided, and then he murmured, “Were you aware ahead of time that it was a full-on negative-energy piece? I know you well enough to say that you did not,” he declared. “So, let go of feeling that you’re responsible, and let’s get back to finding a solution.”
At that, she looked at him, startled. “What solution? Is there anything we can do about it?”
“There are always things we can do.”
Her shock reminded him that she was relatively new to all of this energy work. She might have been working in the field, but she was working as somebody who came from the heart and was trying to do good things for the people around her. She wasn’t somebody who had worked with or had even been around the energy workers he had worked with. She didn’t see the negatives and was naturally drawn to that which was good. She really was an innocent in all this. He slowly ran his hand through his hair, trying to figure out how to explain it.
“I’ve never had any exposure to this stuff before,” she murmured, then stared at him. “I mean, when I phoned Stefan, I had no idea what I was even getting into.”
He smiled at that. “Honestly, unless you know Stefan, you really don’t understand what you’re getting into.”
She gave a quiet, quick flash of a smile in his direction. “Most of this appears to be completely foreign to me.”
And yet Hurricane had to wonder because she had the presence of mind to understand what the problem was and to contact somebody who was in a position to help her. That’s the part that confounded him because that versus the person in front of him appeared to be very different and that brought it back to the fact that she didn’t have the same memories.
When his phone rang a few minutes later, she waited expectantly for him to answer it.
“Stefan?” Hurricane greeted him. “You’re on Speaker.”
“Any change?” Stefan asked immediately.
“No, nothing yet. We met a few people from her world. We accessed her emails, and we’re working on trying to get clearance to get a copy of her phone calls. The detective’s been brought in on that,” he added for clarity.
“Yes, and I heard from him too. He’s working on it.”
“It would be helpful if we could get that information,” he murmured. “Health-wise, I think she’s doing okay. She’s had some sleep, and we’ve got some food down her.”
At that, Jewel heard Stefan’s relieved sigh, and that confused her.
“Did she eat well?” he asked, his tone almost noncommittal, as if he didn’t care, but Hurricane knew just how important it was.
“She didn’t eat a lot, but she did have a few bites. I’m hoping she’ll have a better appetite today.” He looked over at her, and she shrugged.
“Depends on what you’ll offer me.”
“What is it you want to eat?” Hurricane asked her.
She stared at him for a moment. “Bacon, eggs, and pancakes,” she announced.
His eyebrows shot up. “That’s interesting.”
“Why? Last night you weren’t happy when I wouldn’t eat, and now you don’t sound happy that I want to eat everything.” Jewel now sighed.
He chuckled. “I’ll take this over the other. We can go out for breakfast, if you want.”
She looked around and nodded. “I guess we have to, unless you want to go shopping and bring it back and cook.” And then she winced. “Honestly I don’t even remember if I know how to make pancakes.”
He burst out laughing and returned to his phone call. “Stefan, if you have nothing else now, I’ll call you back. I guess I have an army to feed.”
“Do that,” he replied, “and be watchful.” And with that warning and no explanation to go with it, Stefan hung up.
Her next comment really surprised Hurricane.
“So, is Stefan concerned about me or about the necklace?”
“Both,” Hurricane stated, choosing his words cautiously. “Stefan has an invested interest in any energy worker.”
She snorted that. “If I was any kind of an energy worker, I would have understood what I’d done.”
At that, he smiled. “Ninety-nine percent of energy workers wouldn’t have had a clue what you did, not to mention how to do it. I’m also amazed that you recognized a problem, and that is another huge plus in your favor.”
“But I didn’t do it consciously,” she murmured. “I didn’t know anything about it. I don’t understand,” she said. “How does Stefan keep track of people like me?”
“That is a hard thing because how is he supposed to know you even exist, if you don’t pop up to the surface somewhere?”
“The surface?” she asked, with an odd look in his direction.
“If you don’t contact him, if something doesn’t happen to put you on his radar, how is he supposed to know that you are even out there?”
“That’s exactly what I meant,” she murmured.
“You did contact him in this case, so that’s an easy answer.”
“Nothing about this is easy.” Then she got up, walked over to the front door, turned to look back at him. “Are you coming?”
Startled, he hopped to his feet. “Sure. Where are we going?”
“I need food,” she demanded, her tone defiant. “And I need to get out of here.”
Stepping up beside her, he nodded. “Good. We can also pick up some groceries while we’re out.”
“Are you staying that long?”
“Yes.” And this time there was nothing unequivocal about his tone. He watched, as she let out a slow breath, then he nodded. “I told you that I wasn’t deserting you.”
“You can say all kinds of things, but I have come to realize that people are complicated. Words don’t always match actions.”
“No, they sure don’t,” he agreed, with a smile. “However, we’re way past that. I won’t desert you, so you can relax.”
She shrugged at that. “Just because you say I can relax doesn’t mean I’ll turn around and immediately drop my guard.”
“Oh, heavens no, don’t drop your guard.” His words held a sharper tone than he intended, and, when she froze in front of him and slowly turned to look at him, he winced. “I didn’t mean that quite the way it came out.”
“Somehow I suspect you meant it exactly that way,” she stated, staring at him. “You want to explain?”
“Outside of the fact that you’ve quite likely been attacked and that you were left on the side of a road nude with absolutely nothing to identify who you were and what was going on in your life? Do you need more than that?” He felt her searching gaze, as if she was looking to see the validity of his words. Then he gave her the gentlest of smiles. “I meant it. Don’t drop your guard. For all we know, somebody out there is still after you.”
She winced. “That is not a thought I want to dwell on.”
“Of course not, and it’s not a thought I really want you reminded of, but, since the police have no leads, and nobody has any idea what happened, you are the best lead we have to find out what happened to you. And the best way to do that is to always be vigilant. Look around. See what’s going on. See if anything, any people, any faces, anything at all triggers a reaction and causes you alarm. Anything at all.”
Locking up the loft, they headed outside. He led the way to his truck and opened up the passenger door for her.
Jewel stopped to eye him. “Are you always this chivalrous?”
“Maybe. Definitely something about you makes me feel that way.” Her frown was something he almost expected. He laughed. “It’s all right. I’m not a threat to you in any way.”
“I wouldn’t let you be,” she snapped. “And besides, after what I’ve been through, it’ll take a lot for me to trust anyone.”
“Yes, until you find the one person you’re used to trusting, and then all bets are off.”
“Considering the fact that I don’t know anybody anymore, and I have no clue what happened, I’m not likely to trust easily, am I?”
“I hope not,” he said, with as much sincerity as he could infuse into his voice. “Because it is important. It’s important that you don’t let somebody close enough to hurt you a second time.”
And, with that, he hopped in, started the engine, and asked, “Where to?”
She had no idea what to make of him. Friend or foe? Time will tell.
*
Stefan was in the studio, studying his latest work in progress. He smiled at his wife, as she brought him a cup of tea, blew him a kiss, and disappeared out the door. “Thank you,” he called out.
She just waved a hand in acknowledgment.
Something was so full and so refreshing and so joyous about his life right now that made it easier to dip into the dark side and to come up still intact, whole, and healthy when done. But he knew that he had to take a look at Jewel’s energy. What he didn’t know was what kind of reception he’d get. Maddy hadn’t gone back in, neither had she talked to Jewel since, and honestly Stefan was just coming off a pretty ugly criminal case, and those often left him more than drained.
He needed time, respite, a chance to turn around and to cleanse his soul. Thankfully, being with his wife was a true joy for him. He sat down cross-legged in front of the empty canvas, which rested on the floor beside him. He didn’t want the easel. He didn’t want anything to do with it. He just wanted to have it nearby … in case.
As soon as he opened up his senses, he sensed why. Images flowed toward him, women’s faces, most of the time in a horrible distortion of their regular features, as if screaming for help or even now crying out for somebody to talk to them, to reach them.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up his charcoal and let his senses open wider. Immediately his hand started an erratic pattern of chaotic movements on the canvas. He kept his eyes closed, having been through this process more than enough times to know that his mind would only interrupt the energy flow. He couldn’t see anything except a kaleidoscope of faces emerging.
He hoped they were ones who would help, but he had no way at this point to be sure. All he knew was that he had to do something, whether his own psyche needed to be refreshed or something else needed to be released. Regardless this need within him pushed him to do this. He slowly shut down his consciousness and let his arm move at the speed it needed to.
Some hours later he finally slowed and stopped. He’d heard the door open once, twice perhaps, but never interrupting.
That was the thing about having a partner who knew and understood. She knew when things were something he could talk about and understood when he couldn’t. Slowly he let his arm rest on his leg, and then, even slower, with careful movements, he stretched his bent knees out in front of him. He wasn’t exactly sure what this was and what had just happened, but he knew that whatever it was had been incredibly powerful.
Opening his eyes, he stared down at the canvas and grimaced. Incredibly powerful did not always mean nice, particularly with his skill set. The faces that stared back at him were indescribable. He’d given an image to the voices, and yet the result on the canvas was not a kindness to anybody else. They were all screaming, their eyes open, some appearing to be tortured, others appearing to be in some hellish bondage.
Something evil had them in its grip. He released his breath, as he tried to pull back from the horror in his consciousness and to remind himself that this was only an image. He knew it represented the energy of souls, but he didn’t know that they were in this condition at this time. That would be a little hard to recognize.
Still, a complex image, a set of images really, and he stared at them for a long moment, hoping that there would be recognition on some level of who these people were, offering some way to track them, to trace them. And when there wasn’t, he sighed, took several photos of it, and immediately sent it off to Grant and to Maddy.
Maddy phoned him within minutes. “Did you just do that?”
“Yes,” he replied, his voice soft and faint.
“Make sure you cleanse from this one,” she stated. “That’s what I was seeing before.”
“Great,” he murmured. “Is Jewel one of them? Or is she slated to become one of them?”
“I don’t know. I just know that to have had this many victims, … it’s been going on for a very long time.”
He gave a broken laugh. “How is it that these guys continue to operate, and we only barely scratch the surface of who’s out there and who’s capable of doing this?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, her voice equally soft, gentle. “We can only deal with the ones who we know about.”
“Yes, but, as you mentioned earlier, with this one, it’s very strange. Something’s off about all of it.”
“There always is,” she agreed. “That’s one of the things that I came to understand. Always something is off about these cases. We’ll never solve them if we try to fit them into the boxes that we already know.”
“How about new boxes?” he asked, a note of humor entering his voice.
“Wouldn’t that be nice? At least that would mean something we had a box for. I don’t think we do in this case.”
Stefan sighed. “Are we really suggesting that some madman has killed these women and somehow captured their souls inside these artifacts?”
“That in itself isn’t terribly new, unfortunately. Yet it’s the energy tucked just behind the veil in Jewel that has me worried because I can’t get any clarity on it.”
“Right,” he whispered.
“You need to rest,” she said. “Disconnect and go spend time with Celina.”
“That’s the plan,” he replied, his voice gaining in strength. “I just came out of this and wanted to show you right away.”
“Thanks,” she said, with a note of humor. “Now my nightmares are yours.” Just before she hung up, she added, “You need to send that to Hurricane. We don’t know, but it’s possible that somehow those images might yet save her life.”
“What about her soul?” Stefan asked softly.
“I’m not sure. I’m worried it has already been acquired in a way.”
“Then he can damn well unacquire it,” Stefan declared, his voice gaining in volume.
“I agree with you, but we have to figure out how.” And, with that, she hung up.