She glanced down to their entwined hands and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Cale, I can't imagine suffering such a huge and tragic loss, but I really don't understand how that relates to Jacques."
"Don't you?" he asked quietly. "I see the same pattern. Competition, setbacks, accidental deliveries of the wrong supplies ..."
"I had a really bad project manager. That's why I fired him," she pointed out impatiently.
"And the fire right after you bought the house?" Bricker asked.
"That was an electrical fire," Alex said at once. "It was an old house, old wiring."
"What about the attack at your restaurant?" Mortimer reminded her.
"A mugging attempt," she said firmly.
"And then the pickup that forced me off the road," Cale said grimly.
Alex blinked in surprise. "I'm sure that was just a drunk driver."
"Alex," he said dryly.
"I know there have been a lot of problems lately. Believe me I know," she added grimly. "But it's just been bad luck. I don't think anyone is behind it. No one has any reason to want to hurt me, especially Jacques. For heaven's sake, if anyone has a right to a grudge between him and me, that's me. And I don't."
"Well, someone does," Bricker said dryly.
"Why would you say that?" she asked with surprise.
Mortimer glanced to Cale. "You didn't tell her?"
"Tell me what?" Alex asked, turning to Cale with a frown.
He looked grim. "When I was being forced off the road, I started to try to take control of the other driver to get him back in his lane. I thought perhaps he was drunk or having a heart attack."
"He probably was," Alex said at once. "Couldn't you control him?"
"I didn't get the chance. You laid on your horn, distracting me, and I glanced around to see that I was headed for the concrete divide. I gave up on worrying about the other driver and concentrated on trying to avoid the crash. But while I didn't get to read the driver's mind, I did get the flavor of his thoughts before you honked."
"The flavor of his thoughts?" she asked with confusion.
"People's minds are ..." He frowned. "Think of it like a dish. You smell it before you actually bite into it, and that gives you a hint of what you're about to taste."
"Our brains smell?" Alex asked with amazement.
"No." He chuckled softly. "But they have a general feeling about them that you can sense before you actually penetrate and touch on their thoughts. For instance, you would have a general sense of confusion and unconcern before penetrating a drunk's brain, or you might get a sense of panic and pain before touching on someone having a heart attack." He waited for her to nod that she understood, and then said, "The driver didn't have either of those."
Alex felt her heart begin to sink. "What did he have?"
"It was a heavy feeling. The only way to describe it would be malice," he said quietly. "I'm pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing. He deliberately ran me off the road."
Alex frowned. "Who would do that to you?"
"I don't think he knew it was me. It was your car," he pointed out quietly.
Alex stared at him wide-eyed, floored by the possibility that anyone would wish her harm, but then shook her head again. It just couldn't be. It was ridiculous. Why would anyone deliberately try to drive her off the road?
"Bricker called around while I was healing," Cale said quietly. "No one reported the accident to the police, and no one has shown up at any of the many auto shops in town with the kind of damage that pickup must have suffered when I drove up the side of it. Do you know what kind of vehicle Jacques drives?"
Alex shook her head with a frown, and then turned abruptly and headed out of the room.
"Alex? Where are you going?" Cale asked, following her past Mortimer and Bricker. She didn't glance back to see if they were following too, but heard their footsteps as the trio trailed her down the stairs.