Free The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) by Jody Klaire Page A

Sometimes I could sense his immediate feeling, but it wasn’t any more than ordinary people could sense.
    One thing I had known was that my father did not believe that I had murdered Jake. He had disowned me yes, but because I had lied, I had run away from the scene and all the stupid nonsense that I believed in. That was in spite of the nonsense helping him catch a killer and gain a promotion.
    “Evenin’,” I said as cheerfully as I could.
    My father looked ready to explode. Glaring at me, he ripped his brimmed hat off his head. “You’ve been here two minutes . . . two damn minutes!”
    I shrugged. “Not my fault Abe can’t raise his offshoots.”
    Abe narrowed his eyes at me, I narrowed mine back. “Get her out of my shop!”
    “If you hadn’t been a drama queen, I’d have left ages ago,” I said.
    “I want her charged,” he ranted.
    “What for?” my father asked, looking like he wanted to head for the whiskey.
    “Criminal damage. She broke Uri’s phone.”
    My father looked at me with the same look I had seen a million times. The “why did you have to be my daughter?” look. It stung like acid to my heart every time.
    “Did you?” he asked.
    “I warned the kid not to take pictures of me. He didn’t listen.”
    “So that gives you the right to assault him?” Abe protested.
    I laughed, finished off my chips, and threw the wrapper past his head into the trash can. “Look at me. If I had assaulted the little brat, he’d be dead.”
    I knew the second I had said it, it would be seen as a threat not an observation. I had no intention of hurting a soul but I was a murderer so my intentions meant diddly squat and sweet applejack as Nan would say.
    Seconds later I was in the back of the police car in handcuffs.
    “I was merely pointing out that at my size an assault would have been pretty noticeable,” I said.
    My father slammed the door and started the car. “I know.”
    I’d lasted less than twelve hours on the outside. That had to be some kind of a record. “Y’know, if you’d answered the doc’s letters, this wouldn’t have happened.”
    My father scowled in the rear view mirror. “So, it’s my fault again, is it?”
    “Partly. The doc told y’all I was coming. I could have been at Nan’s hours ago.”
    “You think I wanted to be seen with you ?”
    I bit down my anger, my stomach already unsettled from the upheaval was now churning, my hands clenched in frustration. “Well, now you get to prove I don’t mean nothing to you. Just lock me back up and forget I exist.”
    He said nothing as we drove past city hall where the police department was tucked into a corner of the first floor, one of the original buildings in town made of rough sandstone. Expecting him to swing into the parking lot, I frowned when he carried straight on down the road. His eyes were focused on the black top as we headed past the shops selling fishing and hunting equipment.
    We neared my parents’ house which was one of the newer buildings nestled back in their own private world. I stared up at the too-neat hedges cut into pretty shapes. They were all too perfect and ordered for my liking, like all the folks were terrified of breaking free of the uniform neighborhoods. I’d always felt happier in Nan’s cabin.
    “Will she be there?” I asked, hoping like hell my mother wouldn’t be. I’d had enough drama for one day.
    Again, my father didn’t say a thing. He kept on driving, out over the planked bridge across one of the creeks that flowed into the river. The forest hugged the road on either side, the waning sunlight flickering through the green. Maybe he was just going to drive me straight on back to prison. How many years was it for freaking out a snotty brat?
    We turned off and headed down a narrow lane that opened up to freshly furrowed fields on either side. To the right, Mrs. O’Reilly’s farm sat on the horizon, a dark smudge against the glowing sunset. I could see for miles that way, nothing