They slid shut, and Nate turned to her.
“He’s even worse than last time,” he said, which wasn’t bad as far as icebreakers went.
Laura sighed. “I’m running low on sleep and patience,” she said to excuse the fact that she had stormed out quite so obviously.
“You said you were at the hospital?” Nate frowned.
Laura nodded as the elevator dropped them down toward the parking lot underneath the FBI headquarters building. “Someone I know. It happened yesterday evening and I was in the waiting area half the night waiting for news. I haven’t even been home since.”
Nate gave her a sympathetic look. “Want to fill me in on the way? I’ve got my bag with me. I can take you home to get changed.”
Laura shook her head. “My bag was already in the car. Let’s just go to the airport.”
“Got it.” Nate led her across the parking lot; they’d parked next to each other, which was how Laura had known he was there before her. Laura went to her trunk and grabbed her bag, throwing it onto Nate’s backseat as she got in next to him.
Nate started the engine as she was reaching for the seatbelt, giving her a sideways glance. “You didn’t argue with me about who should drive. Are you feeling alright?”
Laura laughed weakly. It was almost embarrassing to admit it all, but Nate was the only person she could really talk to about this kind of thing, especially now that he knew about her visions as well—and she needed someone to talk to right now. “Last night, I kind of put my foot in it with Chris. Not just kind of, actually.”
“What happened?” Nate asked, shooting her a concerned look before reversing out of the space.
“I’d been having this vision,” Laura said, shaking her head at the memory of it. “It was so vague and fuzzy, but I saw it over and over again. Chris sitting over Zach and stabbing him in the chest.”
“What?” Nate exploded. “You didn’t say anything about that to me!”
“I know, I know,” Laura said, rubbing her forehead. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t know how to understand it and I didn’t want it to be true. I couldn’t imagine Chris doing something so violent. I still can’t. It’s just… the visions. They don’t lie, you know. Sometimes they’re hard to interpret, and sometimes I can intervene and stop something from happening, but they don’tlie.”
“So, what happened last night? Did you tell him about it?” Nate asked, raising an eyebrow as they pulled out onto the road.
“No, no,” Laura said. “I still haven’t told anyone else but you. And Zach.”
“Zach?” Nate repeated. “Who the hell is this Zach?”
Laura winced. “Okay,” she said. “So, I’ve been a little behind on telling you things.”
“I thought we said no more secrets?”
“Okay, okay. But it’s not really secrets, it’s just…things I didn’t get around to telling you yet. I was going to. Eventually.”
“So, who is Zach?” Nate repeated, his hands flexing against the steering wheel in emphasis.
Laura cleared her throat lightly. “He’s another psychic.”
“What?” For a second, Laura thought Nate was going to crash the car. “There’stwoof you? I thought you said…”
“I know, I said I didn’t know anyone else like me. And I didn’t. This is very new. He found me recently, out of nowhere. He said he had a vision that led him to me.”
“Alright, let’s accept that there’s another psychic and move on, but I’m going to need to come back to that later,” Nate said, flexing his hands on the steering wheel again. “So, Chris was stabbing Zach. And Zach is also a psychic.”
“Right.” Laura took a breath. “I’ve been trying to stop them from meeting. I figured if they never met, it could never happen, and Chris would still be…Chris. A nice, safe, and warm guy. Not violent like his brother. But last night, Zach came over unannounced and then Chris showed up to check on me—you know, because he knew I was on medical leave.”
“So, they met when they showed up at the same time.” Nate was clearly eager to get to the conclusion of the story, egging her on faster.
“And then it happened.” Laura took a breath. “Zach had a heart attack right in front of me. Chris went to plunge a needle of adrenaline into his chest, but all I could see was that image from my vision. Somehow, I just thought that he was going to hurt Zach. I pulled my gun.”
Nate stared at her for so long that she really did think they were going to crash. He pulled his eyes back to the road before anything happened and shook his head. “You pulled your gun while you were off-duty?”
Laura swallowed. It was a bad habit. She wasn’t even supposed to carry it when she wasn’t working. And when Lacey was in the house, she didn’t.