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Elizabeth said to Tara, “I owe you for dinner.”
“God, no. Forget it.” Tara suddenly reached over and hugged Elizabeth and Chloe. “I’m so glad you’re safe. When you ran out like that . . . and then we heard the crash . . .”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was scared. I just saw what was happening, and I had to get there.”
“I thought you heard it.”
“I did. I heard it.” Elizabeth clasped Chloe’s hand. “Thank you. So scary. We’ve gotta go.”
Tara nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Us, too.”
“I’ll call you.” Elizabeth didn’t have to tell Chloe to hurry as her daughter was practically dragging her away toward their car.
Chloe climbed into her seat and buckled herself in. “Mommy, I’m scared.”
Elizabeth could feel herself trembling as she adjusted her own seat belt and switched on the ignition. “We’re okay.”
“But that man in the car . . . he’s going to die, isn’t he?”
Elizabeth gazed at her sharply. “Not necessarily.”
“He is,” Chloe said, a hitch in her voice. “I saw it, Mommy. I saw it. . . .”
An hour and a half later, Elizabeth lay beside her daughter in Chloe’s twin bed, her arms around her, her cheek resting on Chloe’s blond crown as her daughter fell into a deep sleep. It was early, but Chloe had gone straight to bed, which said a lot about her frame of mind. Elizabeth stared through the soft darkness that was kept at bay by the night-light.
For years, she’d managed to stop the visions of pending danger by keeping a tight rein on her own emotions. At least, that’s what she believed. She could get mad, but not too mad, scared but not too scared, frustrated, but not too frustrated. It was something she’d learned as a child, a way to combat the strange sensations that had overwhelmed and frightened her, and it had worked most of the time.
But when she’d seen the footbridge collapse, she hadn’t yet learned to hide her ability. She hadn’t realized how people would react. She hadn’t known they didn’t possess the same ability, so she’d shouted and shouted about it. No one listened until it actually fell, but when it did, her father and mother looked at her closely in a way that frightened her. She overheard them talking.
“Who are her parents?” her mother had demanded in a quivering voice. “We didn’t ask enough questions.”
“You’re making too much of this,” her father had answered, but Elizabeth heard the awe and concern in his voice.
Her father started questioning her, and then he wanted her to do it again . . . to predict something, anything. That had sent her mother over the edge and the fights between them escalated until her mother moved out and left them. She made a half-hearted attempt to take Elizabeth with her, but Elizabeth didn’t want to leave her school and truthfully, Joy Gaines seemed just as happy to leave her.
Her father had wanted her with him, seeing some get-rich-quick scheme with his psychic daughter, but she never saw another vision, as far as he knew. He grew impatient with her. His money-making scheme had gone up in smoke and she’d sensed that he’d grown to resent her. Whether he knew that she’d purposely started hiding her reactions to such visions, she couldn’t say, but he definitely lost interest in her as a person . . . if he’d ever really had any.
She’d stayed with him because she didn’t know what else to do, and even through community college and the last two years at UC Irvine, she’d kept in touch with him. But after that they drifted apart. He didn’t want her unless she was special, and she didn’t want him.
Court wooing her with no knowledge of her past had been like throwing a lifeline to a drowning person. She’d loved him for it. Or at least thought she had. She wondered if it had been more gratitude than love, but it didn’t matter. Their union had produced Chloe and as soon as she was born, everything had been better. Court had wanted to meet her father, and though Elizabeth had been reluctant, she’d made the effort. But the two men hadn’t liked each other.
Takes one to know one, she thought.
Elizabeth hadn’t had a vision throughout most of her marriage and she’d begun to think she was cured of the ability. But then Little Nate had nearly fallen off the jungle gym and she hadn’t been able to sit by and let that happen. Jade had known Elizabeth couldn’t have seen Nate falling from her angle of vision, especially seconds before it happened, and had mentioned it in front of their friends. But Elizabeth had brushed it off and everyone thought Jade was making too much of it.
All was well again, but then the deaths started occurring. And now the car through the restaurant . . .
Slowly, Elizabeth removed her arm from beneath Chloe’s sleeping form and eased herself from her bed. She tiptoed out of the room and paused in the doorway, looking at her for long moments.
But that man . . . he’s going to die, isn’t he? He is. I saw it, Mommy . . . I saw it. . . .
She sees things, too, Elizabeth thought, her arms prickling with gooseflesh.
Knock, knock, knock!
Elizabeth gasped and her heart lurched. The sharp staccato sound made her damn near jump a foot. It came from her front door. Someone was on her porch. A hand at her chest, she glanced at the kitchen clock and saw it was only a little after eight. God, it seemed like a year since the accident at the restaurant and she and Chloe had raced home.
She walked quickly toward the door before they could knock again and peered through the peephole. Her heart lurched in fear. Detective Thronson stood on her front porch again. For a moment, Elizabeth thought about not opening the door, but she had a feeling Thronson knew she was home. Being cowardly wasn’t going to help. She would just be putting off the inevitable.
