The guy was completely surrounded in red, almost as if the very air around his body had been stained with the bright color.
He had his hands stuffed into a black coat, a hat on his head, and his chin tucked into his chest. I guess he looked pretty ordinary, if you didn’t count the flaming ring of color. I watched him for long moments; I watched the people around him. He didn’t speak to anyone and no one spoke to him. No one paid him any attention at all. It was like he was just another student hurrying to class. I blinked my eyes, thinking they were playing tricks on me. But no matter how hard I blinked, the red was still there.
I watched him until he was completely out of sight, and then I noticed my hands were still shaking and I still felt sick. I swallowed, turning on the car, and with one last glimpse where the man had been, I pulled away. I drove slowly, staring at everyone through the windshield, watching for someone or something else bathed in red. But everything looked normal. When I turned out of the parking lot and onto the main road, the cramping in my stomach loosened and my shaking hands began to steady.
What was wrong with me? Was I going crazy? Or could the nagging feeling, my illness, and now my eyes playing tricks on me be linked to Piper? Or was it something else? What if it was this body? Maybe it was somehow rejecting me. I didn’t know if it was possible, but after everything I’d experienced since I died, it wasn’t that far of a stretch.
Chapter Fourteen
“News - interesting or important information not previously known or realized.”
Piper
“Tell me already,” I begged Frankie as I sipped the hot tea, into which she dumped half a bottle of honey.
“Not until you promise me that what I saw back there wasn’t you having some kind of psychotic break.”
“Said the girl with a piece of pie, a cinnamon roll, and a caramel coffee sitting in front of her.”
“Hey, there’s a salad too. Didn’t you see my salad?” She pointed to the lettuce and carrots covered in dressing being ignored in favor of the cinnamon roll. “Besides, the craziest people I know are the ones who don’t eat sugar.” She stared pointedly at me.
I saluted her with my cup full of honey.
“I just want to be sure you’re okay,” she said seriously.
“I am. Really. I just thought I saw something that wasn’t there.” I sighed. “It’s just been a long few days. I’ve been waiting desperately to hear what you would find out.”
I hoped the reminder would finally get her to spill the beans about what she learned about the guy from the diner.
“You eat; I talk,” she said, pointing to my turkey on wheat. I dutifully took a bite and she dug out a slip of paper from the pocket of her coat hanging on the back of her chair.
“You probably aren’t going to like what I’m about to tell you,”
“He’s married,” I said, a hard knot forming in my stomach.
Frankie looked at me strangely. “I find it very telling that the worst news you could get from me is that this guy is married. I think you’re interested in him more than just because of”—she wagged her eyebrows and leaned in—“you know.”
I just stared at her. She sighed dramatically. “Because of your vision.”
I leaned in and whispered, “Yes, I know.” Then I straightened. “And I amnotinterested in him that way. I’m not interested in men that way at all right now. I’m too busy with school and trying to get my life together.” I didn’t want to live in a tiny apartment in the worst part of town all my life and since I had no family to help me, giving myself a better life was solely on me.
“Then why do you care if he’s married?”
I really didn’t have an answer for that.
“Just give me the paper already,” I said, flustered, and snatched it out of her hand.
I looked down at it, then back up at her. “Dexter Allen Roth.” I read and then looked back up.
Frankie nodded sagely. “I told you it wasn’t good.”
I burst out laughing. “It’s not that bad.”
Dexter Allen Roth.So that was his name.
“Only a girl with a massive crush would think that name was anything but a mouthful.”
I suppressed a smile and looked at the paper in my hand again. “Is this his address?”
