Chapter 23: Ep 6 - Part Two: Not So Subtle

Nash handed Doctor Sterlington the hair and toothbrush from the missing girl’s apartment. The doctor smiled at him with a knowing smile and went back to work. Nash eyed the woman for a moment, then shrugged and left the lab.

“Where’s Airianna?” Smitty asked when Nash walked up to their desks.

“At home with her father. She’s going through her paintings; she wants to check her other paintings for clues while we wait on the DNA results.” Nash sat in the chair at his desk, leaned back, and placed his hands behind his head.

“Are you going to let her follow us when we figure out where the missing girl is?” Smitty asked, watching Nash.

Nash sat forward. “Hell no.”

Smitty smiled. “Good, I’m glad to see she hasn’t completely wrapped you around her finger.”

Nash snorted and stood from his chair. “I’m going to go see if Doctor Sterlington is finished.”

Nash could hear Smitty laughing as he headed toward the Pathology lab. A grin slowly spread across his face. Of course, his partner is correct. That little sphinx has him wrapped tightly around her finger.

~🔮~

“Airianna?” Jeremy Williams whispered as he entered his daughter’s art room.

He found her in her closet, searching through her old paintings. He walked to the door and tapped her shoulder. The fact that she should be used to him interrupting her; made him worry when he startled her. Her scream made him angry that the detectives have changed so much in their lives.

“Oh, Papa. You startled me,” she said, holding her hand to her chest.

“That detective has you fearing your own shadow,” he growled.

Jeremy could tell she read his lips because her face fell into a frown he had not seen since her mother was murdered. He felt guilt stab him in the chest. He had sworn he would never see that look on his daughter’s face again.

“Papa, Detectives Jackman and Smitt are helping me. I finally have someone who can help me solve my dreams. I was busy searching through my paintings and seeing if I could find the clues I never knew were there before. My mind was concentrating, so when you tapped me, you startled me out of my concentration. Please don’t speak so foully of the detectives. Besides, I like Detective Jackman.”

Jeremy noticed the blotch of pink on his daughter’s cheeks and closed his eyes. He took deep breaths to avoid offending his daughter again by offending her new friend and apparently new boyfriend.

Not that his daughter had ever had a boyfriend before.

Except for that boy in the ninth grade, but Jeremy didn’t count that twerp. He had only done it as a bet with his friends, to see if he could get the deaf girl to… he didn’t want to think about that time in his daughter’s life.

“Papa?”

Airianna’s soft voice brought Jeremy instantly back to the present. He smiled at her and touched her cheek.

“I’m sorry, dear one. I know you’re an adult and want your own life; it’s just hard for a father to let go.”

She smiled at him, and his heart soared. She has grown into a smart and beautiful woman; her mother would be proud of her. Even if Britney didn’t believe in the gift of sight, there is no way she could deny her daughter her dreams. Even if they included a hard-headed detective who hurt their daughter before he made her happy.

“Have you found anything yet?” he asked, making sure she could read his lips before he looked at the paintings in the closet.

Airianna smiled at her father. “I have. A couple of them have obvious clues, but some I’ll have to look at for longer than a minute or two.” She pulled out the painting she was looking at when her father startled her and placed it on an easel.

She stood back and stared at the painting. Something was familiar about it…

“Oh my God,” Airianna whispered, her hand covering her mouth.

“What is it?” her father asked.

He looked from her to the painting.

“Look there.” She pointed to the corner of the painting.

“Is that a compass?” her father asked, moving closer to the painting.

Airianna barely caught his words as he turned from her to get a better look at the painting.

“It is the same one in the other two paintings.” She lifted her newest painting off the floor and looked at it. “Look.” She pointed to the compass in the painting.

“This makes three,” her father said, looking between the two paintings.

“What?” she asked, watching her father as he studied the two paintings.

Her father turned to her and repeated his words so she could read his lips.

She nodded. “It does.”

Airianna looked at the painting on the other easel—the one of the missing girl.

“The background looks different,” her father observed.

Somehow, Airianna caught her father’s words, and her heart started to race. She was meant to find this; it must be another clue to finding the missing girl.

“It does, but not that much.” She pointed to the far corner of the painting, where the building that was closer in the other two paintings was further away.

“Same location, different area,” her father grumbled.

Airianna had to bend a little so she could read her father’s lips, but she got the gist of what he was saying. The paintings are in the same location but on opposite sides of the property—wherever that may be.

“I think you should let your detective know about this,” her father said, ensuring she read every word he said.

Airianna smiled. He called him her detective; she liked the sound of that. She nodded and pulled out her cell phone.

“Airianna? Is everything okay?”

Her phone texted her what the detective said, and she smiled. Smitty had downloaded a device into her phone that caught every word the person on the other line said and spelled it out for her in text form, so the person talking to her didn’t have to text it themselves. Where he’d gotten such a device was beyond her, but according to Smitty, it was classified, and she couldn’t let anyone know she had it. But she wasn’t sure if he was yanking her chain or telling her the truth.

“I am fine. But I found another painting with a compass.”

“Shit,” Nash growled.

Airianna snickered silently to herself when the word popped up on her screen.

“Is it the same location?” he asked.

Airianna read the words, nodded, remembered he couldn’t see her, and her cheeks turned bright pink.

“Yes, but it’s not the exact same spot,” she answered.

She explained to him the painting and how it’s in the same location but at a different point of the property.

“I will be there in ten,” he said, then hung up.

Airianna read his words, then placed her phone in her pocket. She looked at her father and smiled.

“He will be here in ten minutes.”

“I know; I heard him.” Her father observed her closely.

Airianna felt funny—like she was being held under a microscope.

“Papa?” she whispered.

Jeremy smiled at his daughter and pulled her into a hug. She’s growing up, and soon she won’t need her papa anymore. He leaned back and told her so.

Airianna shook her head. “No.” She looked at her paintings, then back at her father, a smile stretching across her face. “A girl will always need her father.”

Jeremy smiled and kissed his daughter on the forehead. He would love to believe that—even just for the moment.

~🔮~

Nash and Smitty stepped onto the porch of the Williams house.

“So, a third victim,” Smitty said for the seventh time since Nash told him what Airianna had found.

“Seems so.” Nash nodded as he rang the doorbell.

Jeremy Williams answered the door, looked the two detectives up and down, then stepped back and let them in.

“You better not hurt her again,” the man practically hissed at Nash.

Nash looked at the older man. “I thought we’ve already been through this. I have no intentions of hurting your daughter ever again.”

Mr. Williams snorted. “That’s what they all say.” He closed the door and walked to the kitchen.

Smitty chuckled, and Nash turned to his partner.

“You find something funny?”

Smitty grinned at him. “Very. But I did warn you about doing something you will regret for the rest of your life. I just didn’t know it was going to be in the form of an angry father.”

Nash took a deep breath, let it out, and then headed down the hall to Airianna’s art room. His partner was right, of course.

“Nash,” Airianna said when they stepped into her art room.

Nash smiled and pulled her into his arms, planting a soft kiss on her lips, then backed a few inches away so she could read his lips.

“You found something connected to this case?”

She nodded and turned her head. He followed her and saw the painting she spoke of. He let her go and moved closer to the painting. Smitty moved beside him, and the two of them absorbed the painting.

Smitty turned to Airianna. “When did you paint this one?”

Airianna read his lips and moved to the painting. She pointed to the right bottom corner of the painting where she’d signed and dated it.

“A year after the first one,” Smitty said, reading the date.

“That means he didn’t stop and restart.” Nash looked closer at the painting. “Airianna just hasn’t caught all of his handy work.”

“Why these three?” Smitty asked.

“Who knows? Only fate knows why they only let their seer see these three paintings….” Nash stopped talking, a light bulb flashing on and off in his head.

‘What the fuck?’

“I need to talk to Mr. Williams,” Nash said, then was out the door as if hell hounds were on his heels.

“What happened?” Airianna asked, looking at Smitty.

Smitty shrugged. “He said he needs to talk to your father.”

Airianna’s heart pounded in her chest. Something was wrong with her detective—she could feel it. She scrambled from the room and headed for the kitchen, where she knew they would find her father. She didn’t hear him, but she could feel Smitty close behind her.

“Daddy?” Airianna asked as she entered the kitchen.

Nash sat in a chair, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. Airianna rushed to his side and gently touched his arm.

“Nash?” she whispered.

Nash looked up at Airianna and smiled; he could see the worry in her eyes. He pulled her onto his lap and placed his chin on her shoulder. She sighed as he breathed in her floral scent. His mind and body calmed as he breathed her in.

“Airianna.” Mr. Williams tapped his daughter’s shoulder. “I need to call my mother, and I don’t want you in the room while we talk to her. We will tell you everything that goes on, but please, don’t listen in on the conversation. My mother is getting more and more impatient with me….”

“Because you won’t let me be a true Williams seer,” she whispered.

Mr. Williams sighed and touched his daughter’s cheek. “You are a true Williams seer. But I don’t want you a part of that side of the family. I want you to have a real life.”

Mr. Williams looked at Nash. Nash could tell the man was having trouble accepting his daughter in the detective’s arms. But too bad, he’s going to have to get used to it.

Mr. Williams sighed and looked back at his daughter. “And a genuine relationship. If you were a part of the family like my mother wants you to be, they would choose your mate, and he would take your name.”

Airianna looked at Nash, then back at her father. Nash held his breath and waited for her to speak.

“Fuck that,” she said, making each man’s mouth drop open to hear her speak with such vulgar venom.

Airianna got up from Nash’s lap, kissed his lips, then turned and headed out of the kitchen. She turned back to them and smiled at Nash.

“I’m going to choose who my mate is. No one but me.” She winked at Nash as she exited the kitchen.

With a kick in her step, she headed for her art room.