Contact
Her anonymous tips to the New Orleans police had helped to crack some of their toughest cases. But the cops didn't know that this elusive contact worked in their own evidence department–or that Faith Corbett was psychic.Faith had no idea her gift was the result of genetic engineering and part of a twisted heritage her mother had kept from her–until a serial killer started hunting for psychics and chose Faith as his next target. To catch the killer, she'd have to reveal her identity to a skeptical detective whose faith in her could mean the difference between life and death….Athena Force: The adventure continues with three secret sisters, three unusual talents and one unthinkable legacy….
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The ties that bind may be the ties that kill as these extraordinary women race against time to beat the genetic time bomb that is their birthright….
Lynn White:
With enhanced senses, and superspeed and strength, this retrieval specialist can breach any security—but has she been working for the wrong side?
DECEIVED by Carla Cassidy
Faith Corbett:
This powerful psychic’s secret talent could make her the target of a serial killer—and a prime suspect for murder.
CONTACT by Evelyn Vaughn
Dawn O’Shaughnessy:
Her superhealing abilities make her nearly invincible, but can she heal the internal wounds from years of deception?
PAYBACK by Harper Allen
ATHENA FORCE: The adventure continues with three secret sisters, three unusual talents and one unthinkable legacy….
EVELYN VAUGHN
has written stories since she learned to make letters. But during the two years that she lived on a Navajo reservation in Arizona—while in second and third grade—she dreamed of becoming not a writer, but a barrel racer in the rodeo. Before she actually got her own horse, however, her family moved to Louisiana. There, to avoid the humidity, she channeled more of her adventures into stories instead.
Since then, Evelyn has canoed in the East Texas swamps, rafted a white-water river in the Austrian Alps, rappelled barefoot down a three-story building, talked her way onto a ship to Greece without her passport, sailed in the Mediterranean and spent several weeks in Europe with little more than a backpack and a train pass. While she enjoys channeling the more powerful “travel Vaughn” on a regular basis, she also loves the fact that she can write about adventures with far less physical discomfort. Since she now lives in Texas, where she teaches English at Tarrant County College SE, air-conditioning remains an important factor. Feel free to contact her through her Web site, www.evelynvaughn.com, or by writing to: P.O. Box 6, Euless TX, 76039.
For my sisters at Silhouette Bombshell.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 1
I t was sensory overload. Especially for her.
“You been here before?” shouted the bartender over the noise. He was a gruff old Vietnam-vet type with a long cowboy moustache and tattoos, but Faith didn’t sense any threat off him. Of course, in this chaos, he’d have to come at her with a switchblade before she sensed a threat.
Maybe noise created its own kind of pseudo-silence—a benefit to partying with her new roommates that she hadn’t expected.
“Here, New Orleans?” she shouted back from the sanctuary he’d allowed her on his side of the bar, out of the worst of the crowd. “Or here, DeLoup’s?”
With a bottle of tequila he pointed at her green crop top which read, Tulane University. Ah, proof of her previous life. He could see she’d been in New Orleans awhile now. He grinned. “DeLoup’s.”
Faith shook her head and grinned back while, ever in motion, the bartender set some tourists up with shot glasses, lemon and salt. She usually avoided places like DeLoup’s. She wouldn’t be here now except that she hated to back down from a challenge.
Like she’d told her mom in that last, ugly argument before she’d moved out, she was through hiding in the shadows. Faith wanted people in her life, even if only people on the margins of society could really accept her. And people—social people—went dancing. And drinking. And…
And other things she’d avoided.
On that determination, she said, “It’s fun!”
And despite her enhanced senses, inexplicably keen for as long as she could remember, it was. Fun. In a throw-you-in-a-blender-and-hit-puree kind of way.
Jazz music bounced off walls hung with crooked neon beer signs and dented license plates. It mixed with laughter and shouted conversation—and heartbeats, the vibration of dozens of thudding heartbeats. Bare, multicolored bulbs dangled from ceiling fixtures, not quite reaching some of the bar’s intense shadows, but Faith could see in the dark almost as clearly as she could in the light. Frigid air-conditioning fought a losing battle against the hot, humid Louisiana night that poured into the bar every time the doors opened, not to mention the heat rolling off of its gyrating patrons. The aromas of beer and rum, sweet fruit drinks and fried appetizers mingled with colognes, breath mints and sweating, pressing humanity.
Faith could also smell the emotions, almost like perfume, could hear them on intermingled heartbeats. Currents of attraction. Patches of jealousy. Pockets of lust. From more than one area she smelled the decay of unhappiness and uncertainty.
And a whiff of…fear?
Faith frowned. Surely she’d imagined that amidst all the confusion. But real fear had its own scent, cold and acrid like metal. She did a quick head count of the roommates who’d brought her here.
Absinthe, a kohl-eyed Goth, dirty-dancing with a frat boy.
Evan, the unassuming, sandy-haired boy-next-door type, dancing with the kind of wiry, sharp-eyed guy who never pledged a fraternity.
