CHAPTER EIGHT
Laura got behind the wheel and then breathed, wishing she’d thought of a better way to put the conversation off than waiting until they had privacy.
Then again, she knew full well it was important that they have the conversation. It was just that the first one was going to be hard – and she hoped that somewhere, distantly down the line, it wouldn’t be this awkward or stressful to go against her own nature from the last thirty years of her life and actually explain a vision.
“So?” Nate asked. “Did you see something?”
Laura nodded, starting the engine to give her hands something to do. “When I touched his hand. I told you that’s how it triggers, didn’t I? Through touch. Sometimes I can try and concentrate and breathe deeply and be in the moment to help it along, but I’ve always got to touch something meaningful for the vision to come through.”
“What was it?”
Laura hesitated, toying with the GPS. “What was the address the Captain gave us for the other victim’s family?”
“It’s already programmed in there on the list of favorite spots,” Nate said, almost in a growl. He was impatient. He knew her well enough to know that she was stalling for time. “What did you see?”
“That girl,” Laura said. “The one who answered the door. That’s who he was cheating with.”
Nate frowned. “But how do you know that? Maybe she’s someone he met since.”
Laura saw the issue: he was thinking that she’d seen a vision of the future. “No, no, it was a vision of something that happened before,” she said. “He didn’t have the tattoo on his arm yet. It was from the past. A few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months.”
Nate shook his head in confusion. “You saw the past? But I thought…?”
Laura bit her lip. Once again, she was faced with a dilemma that would be hard to solve. How could you explain something to someone if you didn’t understand how it worked yourself? And yet, a nice, easy explanation would be the only thing that would really put Nate at ease. It was what he needed, to help him navigate this weird world that she had introduced him to. To make him feel like everything he knew about the universe wasn’t being turned on its head.
Laura set the car into motion and pretended for a moment she had to focus on not hitting any other cars as she pulled out, but she knew it wasn’t going to give her much time. All too soon, she had to answer him. There was no other way.
“It’s a new thing,” she said, wishing she could be clearer about it. “It only started recently. I just get these little scenes from the past. This one was pretty hazy, but I saw her face for a second. Long enough to recognize her.”
“Anything else you can do that you haven’t told me about yet?” Nate asked.
Laura winced.
“I don’t…” She took a breath, fighting the urge to be defensive. That wouldn’t help right now. She needed to show him she was still the same Laura. Still his friend. Not someone who would snap and yell at him for asking questions. “I’m doing my best to be open. I just didn’t want to overwhelm you right at the beginning with all these different things. For most of my life, it’s been true to say that I only get visions of the future. And you’re only the third person I ever saw an aura of death for.”
“Why?” Nate asked.
“I don’t know why,” she said, wishing yet again she had something else to say. Anything else. But all she had was the truth. “Maybe it’s because I care about you. The first person I saw it for was my father. The second was Amy, after we’d already rescued her the first time. I felt a lot of responsibility for her at that moment, a lot of relief that we’d prevented her from dying. Maybe that was strong enough to trigger it. Or maybe, I don’t know, I just haven’t been around enough people who had that strong of a threat of death hanging over their heads.”
Nate snorted. “In this job?”
At least that sounded a little bit more like him. “Well, I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is, it’s a horrible feeling and I don’t want to experience it again if possible. Knowing someone you love is going to die, but not how or when, is awful.”
There was a pause.
“You love me, huh?” Nate said slyly, looking at her sideways with a half-grin.
Laura took her hand off the wheel for just long enough to hit him on the shoulder. “Shut up.”
Nate laughed, and just for a second, everything felt like normal.
“We’re not far from the house,” Laura said, checking the GPS. “John Wiggins, right?”
“Right.” Nate pulled out the file again to double-check what they knew about him. “About ten years older than Kenya. He’s married, no children. I guess we’re going to the wife.”
“Hmm,” Laura said. “No, I don’t think so. Didn’t the message from the Captain say Mr. and Mrs.? Like if it was his parents?”
“Let me check,” Nate said, grabbing her phone. Again without looking, Laura stuck her thumb out for a moment, allowing him to unlock the screen. “Yeah, that’s what it says. I guess that’s our first question.”