“Don’t forget that you know what you’re doing,” Fitz said, as he walked into the room. “Use your gift as much as you can. If you’re not getting anything, ask Ronan or I if we have any questions for Tom and we’ll take that as a cue to jump in.”
“Got it,” Ten agreed. “I just don’t want a repeat performance of what happened this morning with Kim Defoe.”
“We sent her a lovely bonsai tree, along with goodies and lunch from Cassie’s shop. It turned out that Kim used to have lunchat West Side Sweets before her sessions with you guys and Cas remembered what her usual order was. Hopefully she’ll accept our apology and then you can swoop in like a hero with news of her husband.”
“I don’t feel much like a hero.” Ten shook his head.
“We’ll give her a week or so and then we can reach out and ask if we can stop by.” Ronan wanted to smooth things over with the widow as soon as possible. He remembered what a fragile state Kaye was in for months after David had died. It was breaking his heart that he’d made the poor woman cry.
“Tom’s here,” Ten said, breaking Ronan out of his thoughts. “Cope’s bringing him back now.”
Ronan took a deep breath and tried to calm his heart rate. He had a lot of anger toward the person who’d written the letters. This person tried to make Ten think he’d started drinking again and was cheating on him, not to mention the vicious thing that had been written about Everly. He wanted to throat-punch the jerk who’d tried to ruin his marriage. It was going to take all of his will power to keep a lid on his temper and let Ten and Cope handle this interview.
“Here we are, Mr. Peters,” Cope said, ushering the man into the room. “This is Tennyson Grimm, the psychic who worked with Anita, and we’ve also got Kevin, Greeley, and Ronan sitting in with us this afternoon.”
“Are you three psychos too?” Tom asked, when he was settled into a chair.
“No, sir,” Greeley replied with a smile, not volunteering that all three were with the Salem Police Department.
Ronan studied the man, who was dressed in jeans and a blue button down shirt. His grey hair was thick and full, while his deep blue eyes were full of rage. Peters was on a short leash. He wasn’t going to let this man come for Ten no matter if his grief was still fresh or not.
“The reason we asked you to come see us this morning has to do with Anita,” Ten said. “She booked appointments with me on a regular basis and I was devastated to hear that she’d passed.”
“So devastated that you didn’t attend her calling hours or her funeral,” Tom said, with a no-nonsense tone.
“Grief is a hard thing to deal with, Tom,” Ten began. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. I lost my father a few years ago and my mother still isn’t over his loss. We didn’t want to intrude on your life when your loss was still so fresh.”
“You’re so full of shit, you stink.” Tom’s hands fisted on the table. Several of his knuckles cracked. “I don’t believe in any of this bullshit hocus pocus you all engage in. Anita was determined to come see you all for answers and I didn’t have the heart to talk her out of it. Not that she would have listened, especially where Amelia was concerned.”
“Who’s Amelia?” Ronan asked. “He’d read all of Tennyson session notes from his time with Anita and knew exactly who she was, but wanted to see Tom’s reaction to his question.
A muscle in Tom’s cheek started to tick. He leaned forward as if he were about to launch himself at Ronan, who was ready. “My wife’s daughter.” He gritted out from behind clenched teeth. “But you already know that, Tennyson, don’t you?”
Ten took a deep breath. His eyes stayed on Tom. Ronan had no doubt he was reading Tom. According to what Ten and Cope always said, it was easier to read people when they were angrybecause their guard was down. “I know that Anita had given up a child for adoption before the two of you met. She told me she was going to name the child Christina and call her Tina for short. Amelia is the name her adoptive parents gave her.”
Tom slammed his fists on the table. “You’rethe reason my wife is dead, you son of a bitch! Refusing to give her the information she needed before she drove out to that little bitch’s house! If you’d told her what you knew, that Amelia wanted nothing to do with her, she never would have gone out there. Anita wouldn’t have had her heart shattered into a million pieces, and she wouldn’t have crashed into that fucking tree! Her death is onyourhead.”
Ronan’s head was spinning. He could feel Tom’s raw pain. Losing Tennyson would crush Ronan. He absolutely understood why Tom was hurting so much, but not where the anger at Ten was coming from. “I’ve been over Ten’s session notes from his readings with Anita and there’s no mention of Amelia not wanting to meet or spend time with her birth mother. There’s nothing about Ten seeing your wife’s death.”
“Why exactly are you here,Detective O’Mara? Are you going to arrest me for being angry at your precious husband and blaming him for my wife’s death?”
Ronan had never wanted to punch someone more than Tom Peters, but he wasn’t going to do that. At least not yet. “You think it’s Ten’s fault that Anita is dead. You weren’t in the car with your wife the day of the accident. Why not?”
“That’s none of your fucking business!”
“It absolutely is our business with you using this anger to get revenge on my family.” Ronan said, his voice deadly calm. “To get revenge on all of our families.”
Tom snorted and started to laugh. “Boy, nothing gets past you, does itdetective? You figure that out on your own, or did you need to call in back up?”
“You think we destroyed your family, so you wanted to destroy our families. Makes perfect sense.” Ronan shrugged his shoulders. “Of course making an appointment to come in and see us to get to the bottom of what happened would have been the grown up thing to do, instead of writing those vitriolic letters. I’ve got one question, though, who gave you the information about my earlier trouble with alcohol, my stakeout and Jude’s accident?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Tom shoved back from the table and stood up. He was halfway to the door when Ten’s voice stopped him.
“It’s Anita,” Ten said softly. “Anita has been giving you information about all of us.” He spun himself around to face Tom. “You don’t have psychic gifts and you called what I do hocus pocus, so how on earth are you in touch with Anita and how do you know it’s really her you’re speaking with?”
“You’re the psychic. You tell me.” Tom stood tall, crossing his arms over his chest, as if he were daring Ten to come for him.
“The static,” Ten muttered. “We all heard static when he tried to figure out who was sending the letters. My daughter said it sounded like a radio station that was fading out range. Anita’s speaking to you through the radio. You drive a 1966 Caddy. It has an analog radio, not a digital tuner like in modern cars.”
