Wicked Lies by Lisa Jackson, Nancy Bush

a key. He handed it over to Justice and the deed was done. Justice determined he would stay in the room above the bait shop as long as he needed. Days . . . weeks . . . months . . . But he would be vigilant. If the sheriff’s department came looking for him, he would know it.
    Climbing the outside stairway, the steps teetering a little, he let himself into a one-room space filled with cobwebs and worn linoleum flooring whose scarred and blackened surface looked like a permanent stain. He thought longingly of the sleeping bag in Cosmo’s van, but he’d sensed that people would remember him more later on if he were seen as a hiker of some sort, the guy with the sleeping bag. . . . No, that wouldn’t do. So he’d left the bag.
    No matter. Justice was an accomplished thief, and he could gather things as needed. He was no good with conversation. No good dealing with people. He was too odd. Said too little. He caused people to remember him without even trying.
    But he was a wraith. She had once said that about him. “You’re in the shadows. A listener. A plotter. A wraith.”
    It had not been a compliment, but it had been accurate.
    Dropping Cosmo’s backpack in the center of the room, he unzipped it and rooted through it. The hippie had a few interesting items, one of them being a jackknife. To go along with the box cutter. Moving the knife to his pocket, Justice also pulled out a pack of beef jerky, a picture of a woman holding a baby and the hand of another child, and two joints. He stuck a piece of jerky in his mouth and chewed slowly. The joints he transferred to an inner pocket of his coat. Nothing he planned to use himself, but they might be collateral. The picture of the woman and kids he tore into tiny pieces and shoved the pieces in the pocket of his pants. Later, he would scatter them to the wind.
    He left other items in the backpack, planning to examine them more closely later. For now, he needed to sleep, and he lay down on the floor and put his head on the backpack, staring toward the cobwebbed joists above his head. Soon, he would have to get rid of all the rest of the evidence he’d taken from James Cosmo Danielson, deceased.
    Then she came to him again, her heavy, vile scent wafting through this dingy room in thin, but distinct waves.
    Sissstterr . . . I can smell you. . . .
    His nerve endings jangled again. His eyes opened more widely.
    She was close. Within a ten-mile radius. Maybe she was even with them at their lodge.
    He smiled as he sent the message: The scent of your devil’s spawn is a beacon. . . . I’m coming for you. . . .
     
     
    Saturday morning Laura stood motionless under the spray of her shower, her face turned upward into the hot needles, eyes squeezed shut, his words branding across her mind as she slammed the door to him once again.
    He could really smell that she was pregnant?
    Could that be true?
    When she herself barely knew.
    It was surreal and disturbing, and as she caught the fury and hatred in his message, her entire body quivered, not just with fear, but a building rage. The only person who knew she was pregnant besides herself was this deadly and strange psychotic who was bent on destruction!
    Not on your life, bastard, she thought, twisting off the taps, then grabbing her towel and drying off. She was dead on her feet, having gotten home at dawn, but she dared not sleep and allow even the small chance that somehow he would find her.
    She didn’t doubt he would; she’d grown up understanding that like herself and some of her sisters, Justice had his own special “gift,” what she considered a curse. While others, people who had grown up outside the walls of Siren Song, would find his heightened senses, his ability to communicate his raging thoughts, outrageous and unbelievable, she knew in the darkest part of her heart that he was hunting her down with the guile and patience of a bloodthirsty predator. That he was communicating with her was a gift. Yes, he did it to