Free Nick: Justice Series by Kathi S. Barton Page A

Stark.” He nodded and watched her as she sat up on the bed. “I don’t want anything for pain. Where are my things? I had…how did I get here?”
    “What do you remember?” It was a question they asked of all the dead they encountered. It helped them gauge how much they knew about why they might be dead. “You were found in a barn. But other than that, what do you remember?”
    She looked around the room. “I ran away. A while ago. I’ll have to take off again soon if he’s still looking. Which I have no doubt that he is. Are you still being bothered by the nightmares? You do know that that man isn’t real, don’t you? And that he only kills me to get at you. But I’m pretty sure that it’s just a dream. A bad one for both of us, but a dream all the same.”
    “I kill you.” Addie shook her head. “I see it as clear as day. I’m the one that runs you down, I’m the one that took you to that restaurant. I’m the one—” She cut him off by sticking her hand up. “I know what I see.”
    “Nope. You might think you do, but that’s not what I see. This dream that we have? Do you know why we can remember so much of it in great detail and that we’re both in it?” Nick sat down and tried to think how to answer. “And that man? What does he have to do with things? I have no idea who he is or why I’d be dreaming about him. And by the way, he’s a prick of the first order.”
    “He’s my stepfather, and he’s dead.” Addie nodded and looked away again. “So is Joel Delaney.”
    That got her attention. “No. He’s a young man. I’ve…he’s got a lot of money. People like him—bastards too, by the way, and they never die young. They linger and linger around until you want to…. Anyway, he has money to afford whatever to fix whatever is wrong with him. Physically. Not mentally, that’s a done…. Not that I don’t, but he’s…. I’m babbling. And where is my money, anyway? I’m assuming you found it if you found me.”
    “It’s in the safe. Steele put it in there as soon as he found it. We didn’t even know it was money until one of the gh…the others told us about it.” Addie only stared at him. “We’ve contacted your grandmother too, as you asked me to do.”
    “Have you talked to her, really?” Nick nodded and handed her a slip of paper with a phone number on it. “I don’t know this number. Is this…have you contacted Joel and he’s coming for me? That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve told him where I am and now he’s coming for me. Well, I won’t go. I won’t marry that bastard no matter—”
    Nick got up and retrieved the paper that he’d been saving for her. Before he handed it to her, he felt he should explain. “He’d gone to your grandmother’s to find you, apparently. He thought she was harboring you or she knew where you were. There was an altercation. He was killed by falling backward onto a tea trolley. He died almost instantly, and his funeral is in a few days. I guess there has to be an autopsy performed first.”
    Addie took the paper and read it over. When she was finished, she looked up at him. He could see her fear and disbelief. Sitting down, he waited for her to talk, to say something that he could help her with. He didn’t have long to wait.
    “I remember what happened, I think. I was in our house. The one that you and…. There was this woman there, and she tried to kill me. You remember which one I’m talking about, right? Anyway. She was with these two men. One of them was Peter; the other, I don’t know if she ever said his name or not. But I was in the barn by then.” He asked her why she was there. “I was living in the house—I have been for a while—when someone pulled up in the drive about, I guess it was about a week ago. I had this cubby hole in the attic that I would hide in should anyone come by. Anyway, they came to the house, the two men, and they talked about setting up some equipment, something about catching some