Alex Trudeau's life is turned upside down when she learns
she has psychic powers called empathy. If she has skin-on-
skin contact with someone who has been through a traumatic
experience, she relives that experience herself. Her sister
also has it and tries to guide Alex through this mind-
boggling world.
As her cop boyfriend, John Logan, is being hunted by the
brother of someone he killed in the line of duty in
Detroit, Alex gets caught in the middle. She is kidnapped
by serial killer Butch MacGee, "brother" of the man Logan
killed. With every touch from Butch, Alex relives his
horrible childhood experiences and understands why he is
such a madman. She also learns the true "brother"
relationship, which leads to Logan understanding why he is
being hunted.
This paranormal thriller will hold you spellbound. Splashed
with just the right amount of romance, you will keep
turning the pages to see where the unexpected twists and
turns lead next. This is the second in Joyce Lamb's
True trilogy. If this is your genre, you will really enjoy
this story.
Alex Trudeau has everything she ever wanted. She takes
pictures for the local paper, she’s rescued a family of
mutts, and hot police detective John Logan has finally asked
her out. But then a near-death experience unearths an
intense psychic ability she never knew she had…
John Logan moved to Lake Avalon, Florida, to escape a
lifetime of hardship. When his darkest secret comes to town
with revenge in mind, Logan lands the woman of his dreams in
a serial killer’s crosshairs…
With their lives on the line and Alex’s hallucinatory
flashes dragging her deeper into the twisted mind of a
maniac, Logan and Alex face the ultimate test. The tension
is electric, but to survive they’ll have to look more than
skin-deep—they just might not like everything they find…
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Alex Trudeau spotted the flashing lights of a police cruiser
and pulled onto the shoulder of the beach road. She’d heard
the call for emergency vehicles over the scanner when she’d
been only a mile away. Hopping out of her dark red Jeep
Liberty SUV, she dragged her camera equipment out then took
off at a jog toward the scene of the accident.
The heat of the Florida sun baked the asphalt under her
feet, but she barely noticed as she ran, dodging the drivers
and passengers who’d pulled over and gotten out of their
cars to gawk. As she neared the mangled wreckage of a silver
minivan upside-down in the ditch, she started snapping shots
even as her stomach clenched. Could anyone have survived an
accident so violent that it shattered the windshield and
caved in the roof?
Her heart skipped, and she lowered the camera, watching in
awe as Lake Avalon Police Detective John Logan delivered a
hysterical woman from the wreckage to bystanders who ran up
to help. With blood pouring from a gash at her temple, the
woman screamed, “Get my baby! Get my baby!”
Alex’s journalistic instincts snapped back into gear when
Logan, tan and muscular in his khaki police uniform, turned
back toward the van that had started to smoke. Big, black
clouds, the kind that looked like a precursor to a fiery
explosion, billowed upward. She could tell by his determined
stance that he was going back for the driver’s baby.
Where the hell were the fire trucks? At least firefighters
were experts at this kind of thing. Yet, she’d known John
Logan for two years, considered him a good friend, and he
wasn’t the kind of man to stand around and wait for someone
else to show up and do what he could do right now.
“Her back tire blew,” a bystander said. “I saw it explode
just before the van flipped.”
Alex listened only vaguely, heart slamming against her ribs
as Logan plunged into the billowing smoke.
The driver continued to scream, “My baby girl! My baby girl!”
Alex counted the seconds as she waited for Logan to
reappear. Sirens sounded in the distance, but they seemed so
far away, her focus having narrowed down to the spot where
she’d last seen Logan. She should have been taking more
pictures of the chaotic rescue scene, but fear for him had
constricted her chest muscles so much she could barely breathe.
Come on, Logan, where are you?
This can’t end in tragedy, she thought. Logan was too good,
too kind. She accepted that bad things happened to good
people. Not this time, she prayed. Please.
And then he stumbled out of the smoke, a small child of
maybe two or three years old cradled in his arms.
Alex released her held breath on a gust of air and brought
the camera up to take the picture, already knowing it would
make headlines. There was nothing newspaper readers loved
more than a ragged hero streaked with blood, carrying a
crying, soot-smudged child away from wreckage that looked
like no one should have survived. Especially a hero as
good-looking as John Logan, his eyes even more blue in a
face blackened by smoke, the child looking tiny and helpless
in his large, muscled arms.
Logan delivered the bawling little girl to her mother, his
eyes streaming from the smoke. Sweat made his short, dark
brown hair spike. He was filthy, yet he’d never looked more
gut-wrenchingly handsome. Then, surprising Alex, he walked
over to her, his teeth flashing white in his streaked face.
“You got here fast,” he said.
A thrill raced through her that he’d noticed her among all
the bystanders. Maybe that meant something. “I heard the
call on the scanner.”
“Does this mean you’re back at work at the paper?”
She managed to prevent a hitch in her smile at the reminder
that she’d technically died three months ago. A man gunning
for her sister had shot Alex by mistake. Three zaps from
defibrillator paddles in the ER had revived her.
“Been back for a while,” she said. “Guess we just haven’t
run into each other.”
His grin widened. “I find that unacceptable.”
She shivered at the heat in his starburst-blue eyes. He made
her nervous. In a good way. A very good way. Before the
shooting, she’d thought they were gearing up for their first
kiss. After the shooting, he’d visited her in the hospital
and had dropped by her house a couple of times after her
release, armed with the makings for hot fudge sundaes and
DVDs of old, quirky, dog-themed movies like Best in Show and
Beethoven. That he’d known her well enough to cater to her
love of sugary treats and animals had thrilled her. She’d
thought, This is the man of my dreams. But then he’d pulled
back, and she’d thought maybe he’d lost interest. She had to
admit she was pretty pathetic after taking a bullet to the
chest. No doubt, her inability to carry on a conversation,
or watch an entire movie, without drifting off had been a
huge turnoff.
But she was better now, and here John Logan stood, grinning
at her after saving a helpless child from certain death.
Things were looking up.
“What’re you doing for dinner tomorrow?” he asked.
Now we’re talking. “I’ve been craving some of that tasty
grilled shrimp they serve at Antonio’s Beach Grill. You?”
“What a coincidence. I’ve been craving that, too. Shall we
make it a date?”
A big, dumb smile spread through her entire body, more
intense than anything she’d felt in a long time. In fact,
ever since the shooting, she’d felt different. She figured
death did that to people, made them more aware of the people
around them. Made them feel emotions—compassion, pleasure,
pain, anticipation—on a deeper level. Or maybe her senses
just seemed sharper, like a head that felt lighter, and
better than before, once a blinding headache faded. Whatever
the cause, she thought she might have a serious crush on
this man.
She nodded. “It’s a date.”
He thrust out a hand. “Shake on it?”
She laughed, low and breathless. Could the man get any more
appealing?
The instant their fingers touched, everything around her
made a dizzying shift …
I’m choking on smoke, eyes tearing as I fumble a door open
and lurch inside the van, drawn by the cries of a small
child. I’m not losing this one. Not this time.
Where is she? Can’t see a damn thing.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m coming. Talk to me, kid, talk to me.”
The inside of the van is hot, too hot. Just give me time. A
little more time … and then something warm and soft brushes
my fingertips.
I close my fingers around a soft, pudgy leg, trying to be
gentle even as the need to hurry, hurry clenches in my gut.
I use the leg to guide me to a car seat. Strapped in, the
seat and the kid. Glimpse of pink flowers on a white
T-shirt. A little girl. Small and helpless and counting on me.
This child’s not dying, damn it.
“Just hang on. I won’t let you down.”
I can’t see, can’t find the mechanism that releases the
straps. And I smell hot metal, burning plastic and rubber,
hear a weird, ominous crackle. Flames? Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus.
Still no straps, hands frantic as they move over the
screaming, squirming kid, searching, searching. Finally,
there it is. The latch. Jesus, the metal’s hot.
Everything is so hot, making the sweat pour into my eyes,
stinging along with the smoke. Two more seconds, and the
latch is free, the girl all but sliding out of the seat into
my arms.
I crawl backward, out of the death trap, into humid,
smoke-choked air. My lungs ache, burn, my throat raw.
But I’ve got the girl, this sweet, warm, wriggly child, in
my arms, and nothing else matters. This time, I saved the—
An explosion shook the world.
* * *
Logan scrambled to Alex’s side and leaned over her, not
caring that the van had burst into a ball of fire. The
concussion had knocked them both to the ground and sent
bystanders screaming and running. But his sole concern was
why Alex had gone catatonic when he’d taken her hand and no
amount of calling her name had snapped her out of it.
This time when he said her name, though, she blinked open
brown eyes that reminded him of dark chocolate.
“What happened?” she asked, clearly disoriented.
“You tell me.”
She shook her head, then squinted as though the movement
made her dizzy. “It’s too weird.”
“What?”
“For a minute there, it was like I knew exactly what you
went through trying to get that baby out of the van. Like I
was there … or like I was …” She trailed off, her expression
puzzled.
“Like you were what?”
“Like I was you.”
Before he could respond, she sat up. He helped her, not sure
she should even be sitting up, and brushed at ashes that
floated down onto the shoulder of her emerald green polo.
Her shoulder-length, reddish-brown hair had curled further
in the Florida humidity, sticking to the perspiration
dampening her skin. He smoothed it back from the side of her
face as he searched her eyes for lucidity. Damn it, they’d
just had a breakthrough. He’d finally asked her out on an
actual date. Defying death could boost a man’s confidence.
But his heart had rammed right into his throat all over
again, just like it had after she’d gotten shot.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
“I don’t know.” She coughed and looked around, dark eyes
widening at the chaos. “What the hell?”
“Van exploded.” He slipped a hand under her elbow to steady
her when she took it upon herself to get to her feet. “Maybe
you should—”
She was already up, swaying toward him at the same time that
she grabbed at the camera dangling from her neck. She looked
it over as carefully as a mother checking a child for
injury. Then, apparently satisfied, she stepped to the side,
trying to peer around him for a look at the burning
wreckage. “I need to get—”
“Alex—”
She lifted the camera, heading straight for the inferno.
Logan sighed and let her go. That was Alex, after all. Give
her a camera and breaking news, and she became utterly
focused on her job. Part of being a photojournalist, he
supposed. And he guessed that focus meant she was okay.
He kept an eye on her, though, watched as she snapped photo
after photo from every angle possible as firefighters
sprayed down the van and paramedics tended to the little
girl and her mother.
Alex Trudeau at work was something to behold. She wasn’t a
glamour puss in the least and had to keep shoving her hair
out of her face as the wind picked up. After a while, she
hastily secured it with a band she dug out of a pocket. The
ponytail-securing pose knocked him right in the gut. With
her toned arms up, quick fingers at work in the thick,
unruly curls, her scoop-necked knit top clung to palm-sized
breasts, emphasizing her flat stomach and the subtle flare
of hips in khaki slacks.
Freckles dotted her nose and cheeks, and her chin sported
the most adorable, subtle cleft. She was captivating as
hell, he thought for the thousandth time since he’d met her
two years ago. As he watched, she threw her head back and
laughed at something one of the firefighters called out to
her, and she was so stunningly beautiful that Logan’s world
shifted under his feet.
He wanted her. Yearned for her. But he’d taken a step back
after the shooting for fear of rushing her. Or taking
advantage. Or myriad other ways he would have been a jerk if
he’d made a move on her at such a vulnerable time.
She wasn’t vulnerable anymore, though, and his pulse
ratcheted up a notch at the possibilities.
As long as she never had to know what gave him nightmares.
Chapter 2
Butch McGee wiped the bloody knife against the thigh of his
new Levi’s as he flipped open his cell phone. Who was
calling him at five in the fucking morning? He didn’t like
the interruption in the adrenaline rush of watching the
light die out of the eyes of his latest conquest, so when he
spoke, his voice had an edge. “Yeah.”
“I’ve found him.”
He grinned as he heard the familiar voice. They didn’t get
to talk nearly enough. “Found who?”
“John Logan. His picture’s in fucking USA Today.”
Butch dropped his Bowie hunting knife next to the bound body
on the bed as the thought of finally, finally getting
revenge chased all resentment from his brain. “Where is he?”
“He’s a cop in Florida.”
“No shit? Where in Florida?”
“Lake Avalon. Podunk town between Naples and Fort Myers.”
A mere hour-and-a-half airplane ride from Atlanta. Butch
could be in Lake Avalon in a matter of hours. “You got any
information on him? Like where he lives?”
“Nope. I’ll have to leave the detective work up to you.”
Butch studied his fingernails, noting that blood outlined
them like tiny black-red picture frames. He’d gotten carried
away this time, let the passion of the kill drive him to new
heights. A small grin touched the corners of his mouth. He
had yet new heights to explore. “Any special requests, my
brother?”
“Yeah. Make him suffer.”
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