She’s got the touch

He hated calling her, but his captain liked the good press she brought the department when solving difficult cases. He couldn’t deny she got results, but it confounded him how she did it. He was follow-the-rules analytical, black and white, right and wrong. She went into the in-between, walked in the creases where light was dim and reality faint.

Like a blind woman’s fingers drifting over a page of Braille, she could read emotions that sat on the surface on someone’s skin. Patterns that made no sense to him, she deciphered as easily as he read his case notes written in his precise, black ink block lettering.

Chynna was an empath. Through the merest touch, she felt the inner nature of another. Images flashed through her mind, like clicking through a 3D View Master. The first case she assisted the police with was a missing wife. Chynna had brushed up against the woman’s estranged husband in the local grocery, and scenes of her death exploded in her head. Instead of driving home with her bag of fresh peaches, she went to see Lt. Griffin Vaughn, special victims’ chief investigator.

To help contain her visions, Chynna wore long, custom-made kid leather gloves. Skin tight, and the color of butter, five small pearl buttons ran down each wrist. She had tried cotton gloves, even silk and satin, but the only material that worked to shield her was leather.

She had a theory why the only barrier between her and other people had to be flesh, but she didn’t like to think on it too hard.

The gloves were a quirk the news outlets picked up on when she was involved in investigating a crime, but the fact she removed them during suspect interviews was never part of the department’s press releases.

The lieutenant had a new case, and a suspect that seemed to have an airtight alibi, but he knew she was guilty. His perp, a college coed, had killed her romantic rival. She had run the other girl off the road, causing a fatal wreck, only he couldn’t prove it. He needed Chynna to help him find that one weakness in the girl’s story that would break her defense.

Vaughn met Chynna outside interrogation with the case file, then went into the observation room to watch her work. In less than 30 minutes, she had a confession. Despite his reserve, Vaughn had to admire Chynna’s questioning skills.

He joined the beautiful empath in the hallway, wanting to thank her for her help. He didn’t remember her having such brilliant green eyes. Vaughn shook her bare hand, and a jolt like being hit by a taser rushed up his arm, leaving it numb to his elbow. A smile played at the corner of Chynna’s mouth, as a blush of surprise pinked her cheeks.