“Maybe.” Zach gave her a sad smile. One that said,or maybe not. “We’ll experiment. With any luck, you’ll start to recover as soon as I get on the plane.”
“Do you think this is why it was so hard to find each other?” Laura asked. “If there are other psychics near to one another, they might not know it.”
“You could very well be right,” Zach nodded. “I think you’ve spent so long honing and forcing your visions that you’ve managed to build up a lot of strength. I think someone who had never explored their visions before might find themselves unable to see a single thing in proximity to another psychic.”
“You’re right,” Laura nodded. She sighed, pushing her hair back from her face and then resting her head in her hands. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
“I’m not.”
She looked up in surprise to see Zach giving her a gentle smile.
“Like you, I never thought I’d meet anyone else who could do this for the rest of my life,” he said. “I thought it was a curse that I bore alone. Now I know that it’s not just me. And more than that. Thanks to you, I can see that it’s not a curse. It’s a gift. My only regret is that perhaps I didn’t use it as well as you do. You’re saving people all the time. You’re like a real-life superhero.”
Laura grimaced, shaking her head. “I’m hardly that,” she said. She thought of all the people she hadn’t saved. All the lives that were lost before she had a chance to get there.
“Yes,” Zach said firmly. “You are. And the people of this country are lucky to have you. They’ll just never know exactly how lucky.”
Laura gave him a half-smile. Mostly so that he would have the reaction he wanted and then stop going on about it. She couldn’t believe him—not really. She’d failed too many times to believe that.
“I’ll be going, then,” Zach said, standing up. “But don’t be a total stranger. Call me. Email me. Write me a snail mail letter if you want. But let’s stay in touch if we can. Let me know if your visions get better.”
“You too,” Laura said. She stood to see him out, but he waved a hand.
“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to his throat again. “You’ve got to recover. Get strong again for your little girl. I’ll see myself out.”
Laura sat, feeling strange as she watched the old man walk away.
The first time they met, she’d been suspicious. Angry at the intrusion into her life that she had never asked for. She’d felt it odd that they had never met before, while at the same time being glad that her lifelong search for another psychic was over.
She’d just started to get used to having Zach around. To being able to ask him for help and advice. To having someone to share the trials and tribulations of her visions with, someone who would really understand.
And now he was leaving forever.
He looked back at her for one moment with a sad, grandfatherly gaze, his hand on the door, ready to step over the threshold. He nodded, just once, and Laura nodded back.
And Zach stepped outside, closing the door behind him, and Laura closed her eyes.
One more person gone from her life, just like that.
Laura thought about tonight, about what would happen when she met Chris at the end of his shift. Maybe she was going to lose two people today.
Laura desperately, fervently, hoped that she could limit it to just one.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Laura stood at the door nervously, glancing down at the simple black dress that she had chosen and hoping it struck the right balance. Enough to impress Chris and make him remember what he liked about her, but also not too much to seem inappropriate and over the top.
She took a breath, waiting for him to answer the door. She had the eerie sensation of standing inside her own dream. This was what she had been doing when she had that nightmare about him having her committed. She’d been standing on his doorstep.
But this time, it was different. She was coming here to talk and to do it properly. She was here to tell him everything. And if she needed to, she had very clear and concrete examples she could give him. Things she had seen that had had a direct impact on his life. On Amy’s life, the little girl he was now the guardian of.
She’d thought about having Nate come with her, someone to back her up. But this was about her and Chris—about their relationship. At the very least, they needed to deal with this between the two of them.
And she was an adult. Bringing a friend to hold her hand seemed childish. She had to be strong enough to do this on her own.
The door opened sooner than she was ready for, even though she had been the one to knock.
The sight of Chris almost took her breath away. It wasn’t that he was scrubbed up in any particular way: he looked as he always did, wearing a casual pair of slacks and a sweater, albeit the kind of sweater that Laura could never even have dreamed of affording these last few years as she rebuilt her life.