The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [57]
He was crying harder now, small hiccupy sobs. He pulled his left hand out of the robe pocket. It was pale, bony, whole. I took a deep breath. Thank you, dear God.
“What did you think I’d done?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask.”
He was looking at me now, really looking at me. I did have his attention. “I’m not that crazy,” he said.
I started to say, “I never thought you were,” but obviously I had. I had thought he had cut his hands off so he wouldn’t have to touch anymore. God, that was crazy. Seriously crazy. And I was here to ask him to help me with a murder. Which of us was crazier? Don’t answer that.
He shook his head. “What are you doing here, Anita?” The tears weren’t even dry on his face, but his voice was calm, ordinary.
“I need your help with a murder.”
“I don’t do that anymore. I told you.”
“You told me once that you couldn’t not have visions. Your clairvoyance isn’t something you can just turn off.”
“That’s why I stay in here. If I don’t go out, I don’t see anybody. I don’t have visions anymore.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
He took a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around the doorknob. “Get out.”
“I saw a three-year-old boy today. He’d been eaten alive.”
He leaned his forehead into the door. “Don’t do this to me, please.”
“I know other psychics, Evans, but no one with your success rate. I need the best. I need you.”
He rubbed his forehead against the door. “Please don’t.”
I should have gone then, left, done what he said, but I didn’t. I stood behind him and waited. Come on, old buddy, old pal, risk your sanity for me. I was the ruthless zombie raiser. I didn’t feel guilt. Results were all that mattered. Ri-ight.
But in a way, results were all that mattered. “Other people are going to die unless we can stop it,” I said.
“I don’t care,” he said.
“I don’t believe you.”
He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and whirled around. “The little boy, you’re not lying about that, are you?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah.” He licked his lips. “Give me what ya got.”
I got the bags out of my purse and opened the one with the gravestone fragments in it. Had to start somewhere.
He didn’t ask what it was, that would be cheating. I wouldn’t even have mentioned the boy except I needed the leverage. Guilt is a wonderful tool.
His hand shook as I dropped the largest rock fragment into his palm. I was very careful that my fingers did not brush his hand. I didn’t want Evans inside my secrets. It might scare him off.
His hand clenched around the stone. A shock ran up his spine. He jerked, eyes closed. And he was gone.
“Graveyard, grave.” His head jerked to the side like he was listening to something. “Tall grass. Hot. Blood, he’s wiping blood on the tombstone.” He looked around the room with his closed eyes. Would he have seen the room if his eyes had been open?
“Where does the blood come from?” he asked that. Was I supposed to answer? “No, no!” He stumbled backwards, back smacking into the door. “Woman screaming, screaming, no, no!”
His eyes flew open wide. He threw the rock fragment across the room. “They killed her, they killed her!” He pressed his fists into his eyes. “Oh, God, they slit her throat.”
“Who is they?”
He shook his head, fists still shoved against his face. “I don’t know.”
“Evans, what did you see?”
“Blood.” He stared at me between his arms, shielding his face. “Blood everywhere. They slit her throat. They smeared the blood on the tombstone.”
I had two more items for him. Dare I ask? Asking didn’t hurt. Did it? “I have two more items for you to touch.”
“No fucking way,” he said. He backed away from me towards the short hall that led to the bedroom. “Get out, get out, get the fuck out of my house. Now!”
“Evans, what else did you see?”
“Get out!”
“Describe one thing about the woman. Help me, Evans!”
He leaned in the doorway and slid to sit on the floor. “A bracelet.