Page 80 of It Runs in the Family

“I made the ingredients for a breakfast burrito,” he said as he headed into the kitchen. I followed him and watched him scoop a scrambled egg mixture into a small storage container and snap a lid over it. “Help yourself.”

“Garrett!”

He turned to face me, his shoulders tight as though preparing to defend himself. “It wasn’t easy gettin’ someone on short notice.” He walked over and placed his hands on my shoulders, looking deep into my eyes. “It’s just for today. Besides, puttin’ up with a minor inconvenience is better than bein’ dead.”

“Wow,” I said. “Framing it like that terrifies me even more. Who?”

He grimaced. “Trinity.”

I jerked out of his grasp like his hands were branding irons. “Are you kidding me?”

“You can’t be alone.”

“And Trinity and her little Sunday school army are gonna protect me?” I asked in disbelief. “Are they gonna pray the bad guys away? Oh! I know! Edward’s gonna banish them with his hex sign.” I lifted my fingers into a hashtag.

“No one’s gonna try to pull anything if you’re with a pregnant woman and her six small children,” he said, trying his best to sound perfectly reasonable. He moved to the coffee maker and filled his to-go tumbler.

Garrett definitely hadn’t seen how viciously the man in my visions had killed me. I was pretty sure a vanload of Duggar family wannabes wasn’t going to stop him.

But I could see there was no changing his mind on this, and besides, as hard as it was to acknowledge right now, he really was trying to protect me.

I let out a heavy sigh and pretended to accept defeat. “How bad could it be hangin’ out with Trinity all day? Maybe a day with her and her mini-mes will count as a year in purgatory.”

“That’s the spirit,” he sounded relieved. “I’ll make it up to you.”

He snapped the lid onto his tumbler and headed for the door.

“Why did you get called in, Garrett?” I asked, hot on his heels.

Stopping at the front door, he swung his gaze to me as he juggled his tumbler and breakfast container. “Someone called in sick.”

I might not have a gift for reading lies, but it was as clear as a crystal ball that he was lying through his teeth.

I squared my shoulders. “Can I have a vision of you?”

His entire body tensed. “What of?”

“I only want to see if I’m still murdered,” I said. “I’ll follow the rules.”

He seemed to consider it a moment, then gave a sharp nod and let me walk over to him.

After a few embarrassing visions, I’d come up with the rules for the visions I forced of my cousins. Vaguer questions had shown me things none of us wanted me to see. So, to keep things above board, I’d tell the other person what I wanted to know, and they’d come up with the question for me to ask.

“You can ask, ‘Will Iris still be murdered?’” he said solemnly.

I nodded, then took his hand in mine, and said out loud, “Will Iris still be murdered?”

The vision appeared instantly. I was in a warehouse, surrounded by sheriff’s deputies, and I was walking toward a slightly tented white tarp.

My hands were shaking and a man who stood next to the tarp gave me a sympathetic look. “You ready?”

I nodded.

He squatted next to the tarp and pulled it back, revealing Vision Iris, staring up at the ceiling with vacant eyes and a bloody hole in her forehead.

I felt like I was going to pass out. “That’s her,” I croaked, falling to my knees. “That’s Iris.”

Garrett’s face came back into view, and I said, “You identify my body.”