“Yeah, I know. But I just met him by accident, and we had coffee this morning and he took me to the girl’s house, which happens to be in his neighborhood.”
“Did you see where she is?”
“Sort of, but it was kind of vague. I could sense the little girl, but all I could see was darkness. Maybe she’s in a dark room?”
“Did you get dizzy after that? You came home in a car.”
“Yes, Luca, the cop I met with, took me to his parents’ house, and they were home and gave me some soup. They were very kind.”
“But there’s more to this…” Annette reached for Dawn’s hand. Her eyes widened, as she seemed to sense what Dawn had been through. “You had another vision, didn’t you? About the young man.”
“Yes, I saw him covered in blood.”
Annette nodded. She’d seen enough bad stuff in her lifetime; Dawn knew that for a fact. Nothing shocked her grandmother anymore.
“You get into bed and get some rest. I’ll wake you when it’s dinner time. I’m making a casserole for dinner.”
“Grandma, what am I going to do? I can’t miss work every time I have a psychic vision.”
“You need to figure out how to keep the visions from affecting your heart, mind, and body. You can still help people without making yourself sick. You need to train your body to do that.”
“How? How do I do that?”
“Practice, sweetie. When you get a vision, write it down and date it. Don’t hang onto it emotionally like it’s part of you. That vision doesn’t belong to you. It’s not about you. You’re like a radio transmitter or a TV set. And you have to learn to step back and allow it to come through and then record it and move on. That’s what I was told to do.”
“Did you faint?”
“Not really. I’d get dizzy sometimes. But right now, I want you to get some rest. We’ll talk more about it later over dinner, and I’ll tell you some tricks you can use to keep yourself grounded.”
Dawn hugged her grandmother and went to her room. She wished she’d told Annette about her abilities years ago. Her grandmother had probably figured it out anyway but had waited for Dawn to come forward. Annette was like that. She’d learned not to interfere, just to offer wisdom when asked. Dawn hoped Gram could help her through this inner turmoil she felt every time she had a vision, especially one involving blood.
Chapter 5
Thursday night—or was it Friday morning? Luca was having a hard time keeping his days straight, because he left for work on one day and returned home the next, even though it was just an eight-hour shift.
He and Joe were getting breakfast before the commuters began clogging up the fast-food lines. He took a bite of his breakfast sandwich and dropped the rest of it onto its paper wrapper. All this grease wasn’t doing his stomach any favors.
“You okay, kid?” Joe asked.
Luca thought about that. Was he okay? Police work wasn’t what he’d thought it would be, but something else was bugging him. Something important was missing.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“You’ve been quiet all night. What’s eating you?”
“Besides the ulcer all this fast food is going to give me?”
Joe laughed. “You don’t get ulcers from burgers, Fierro. You get them from stress. Are you feeling stressed? Or more stressed than you should be from your first week on the job?”
“I…uh…it’s hard to put into words. I guess I had hoped the job would be more fulfilling. I mean, yeah, we answer a robbery call, but when we get there, the perp is long gone. And he’s always medium height, brown hair and eyes, wearing jeans and a black hoodie, no scars or—”
“Look, kid, it’s easy to get discouraged. You can’t win ’em all. Some days, you can’t win any of ’em. But you gotta be ready. I know this job comes with long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. There aren’t a lot of people who’d put up with the shit we do. But if we weren’t here, the rest of the population would be defenseless. And there are always people out there who’ll take advantage of chaos. Sometimes, just by our presence, we’re stemming the tide of chaos, and we don’t even know it.”
Luca nodded. He hadn’t quite thought of it that way. Even if it wasn’t very exciting, there was the very real possibility they were deterring crime just sitting here in a fast-food restaurant with their cruiser outside.
“Help!” A woman burst into the restaurant, glancing around wildly until she found them. “Police! A guy just snatched my purse.”
