Laura dared to glance at Nate. He was looking at her with a raised eyebrow, an almost contemptuous expression. Only almost, because she knew it came from a place of respect. A respect he wanted to be mutual, rather than having her lie to him and expect him to buy it.
“It was just a hunch,” Laura said, looking down at her hands. “You wouldn’t have picked up on it. I’m a mother. I have a feeling for when a little girl isn’t saying something. I knew something was off.”
Nate made an offended noise deep in his throat. “Assuming that’s even true,” he said. “How did you get away with just walking out of there? Jones told me the whole state police was marching into Rondelle’s office to look for you, and you had to have the Director intervene.”
Laura closed her eyes silently. Jones. She should have known he would gossip. “I found video footage of the abuse on Amy’s cell phone,” she said. “There wasn’t a whole lot the Governor could say to that. Amy’s being taken into foster care, and if he tries to get her back, there will be hell to pay.”
“A video?” Nate repeated incredulously. “Amy told you she’d filmed it? What, on purpose?”
“No, no,” Laura sighed. The idea of a six-year-old collecting evidence of a crime was, she agreed, a bit of a far-fetched story. “She filmed it by accident. The phone was on when he went for her. Neither of them knew it was even being recorded.”
“Well, then…” Nate paused, as if trying to answer his own question but finding no way to do so. “How did you know it was there?”
Laura’s eyes snapped to his. He was looking at her not with confusion or suspicion, but with a kind of knowing expression on his face.
He knew that she was lying, that she was covering something up. Of course, he did. They had been partners for three years, and they’d become good friends in that time. Of course, he could tell when she was just trying to fob him off.
“I just looked on her phone,” Laura said, looking away from him. “It was luck, that’s all. I was kind of surprised a six-year-old had a phone in the first place. Marcus won’t let Lacey get one, and I think he’s right, even though it would make it easier for me to call her.”
Nate regarded her silently for a moment as Laura grabbed the in-flight magazine, something to look at so that she could pretend she was busy and get out of the conversation. A moment later, his hand landed on her arm, making her jump.
“You don’t want to tell me. Fine,” he said, his voice calm and not at all unkind. “But I have to know what’s going on, sooner or later.”
Laura wasn’t paying much attention to his words, even though she heard them on some level.
She couldn’t pay attention. Because as soon as his skin came into contact with her skin, the feeling flooded over her again: the dark shroud that came with the shadow of death. It was strong, swirling around her with an almost physical presence, pressing in on all sides. Laura could barely breathe. She felt as though if she had sucked in air, she would also have consumed some of the shadow, drawing death into herself.
Nate let go, and the sensation flooded away, leaving Laura to turn and stare out of the window so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
The sense of death was still only a sense, not a vision. The shadow had not yet solidified into anything concrete. It had when she had foreseen her father’s death; she had eventually begun to see images of him flashing through her head, dying in a hospital, in a cancer wing. So far, though, she had no hints of what might happen to Nate, of why the feeling of death was so strong around him.
Maybe a vision would never come, and that was what scared her. If she couldn’t see what was going to happen, she wouldn’t be able to save him.
Laura couldn’t help but wonder. Was it really possible that her decision to tell him – or not tell him – about her ability would change things? Would it save his life?
If she had proof, if she knew for sure, then she would do it, she knew. She would tell him everything in a heartbeat to save his life, even if it meant he would turn away from her.
But if he turned away from her because of what she could do – and then he died anyway – what kind of a waste would that be? For him to die hating or fearing her, when she might otherwise have been able to save him?
Laura looked for answers through her window, but she saw only blank white space.
She closed her eyes, tucking her head against the side of the seat. She needed to sleep. When they landed in Seattle, they needed to hit the ground running – and she couldn’t let a murderer get away to kill again just because she was distracted.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was just past ten in the morning as Laura stretched her arms over her head and blinked in the sun, scanning the front of SeaTac Airport with a squint in her eyes. Fall was in the air, but it was still warm and sunny. They had arrived to no fanfare, no escort, and no local police officer wielding a badly-spelled sign with their names on it.
“Do you think they’ve remembered we’re here?” she asked Nate, her words coming out with a bit more of a snap than she intended. A nap seemed to have made him much more calm and malleable. It had made her t
ouchy.
“I’d say so,” Nate said, and when she looked up to catch his grin, he nodded off to the side.
Laura turned to see a harassed-looking policeman in uniform, hurrying across the tarmac towards them. He wore the insignia of a Captain, and there was another officer – a Sergeant, as far as Laura could see – trailing behind him.
“Special Agents?” he panted, clearly having clocked them from far enough away.
“Yes,” Laura said. “Agent Laura Frost. This is my partner, Agent Nathaniel Lavoie.”