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“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to help finance the podcast, Dad. I know how you feel about it.”
Trevor grunted. “Working as a freelance assistant doesn’t cut it, either. No benefits, no future.”
It wasn’t Trevor’s fault that he was under a misconception about what, exactly, she did as a consultant these days. She had thought it best not to go into the details. If he found out she was working as a psychic who specialized in locating the dead he would start lookingfor a way to get her committed to a psychiatric hospital for observation.
“I like to call it consulting work, Dad.”
“Call it whatever you want—you’re wasting your time. At your age you should be on a clearly defined career path. Your future is slipping away.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”I’ll get right on that, just as soon as I find out who stole a night of my life and used me in an illegal and dangerous experiment.
“I’m serious about this, Talia. You’ve had more than seven months to recover from that incident in Lucent Springs.”
“Seven months and twelve days.”Not that I’m counting.
“Whatever. My point is that you need to get your act together. Look, I’ve got to go. Isabel says the car is here. Think about what I said.”
“I will.”
“Happy birthday.”
The call ended before she could say thank you. Talia took the phone away from her ear and put it back down on the table.
“Sorry about the interruption,” she said. “That was my father.”
“It’s a little early for a phone call. Everything okay?”
“Oh, yes, fine. Dad and his family are on their way to Hawaii. He wanted to get the happy birthday phone call out of the way before they left for the airport.”
“Today is your birthday?”
“Uh-huh. My mom will check in next, but she will probably just send a digital birthday card, because she and Ron are on a world cruise. She says it’s a pain trying to figure out the time zone stuff for phone calls and video chats. Just as well. I don’t need another lecture on getting my act together.”
“Do your parents know about your psychic investigation work?”
“Nope. Trust me, it’s better that way. They didn’t believe me when I tried to tell them what happened during my lost night. They think I did some drugs with friends and hallucinated the whole thing. If I told them I was convinced that I now have a knack for finding dead bodies they would panic. Again. They mean well, but I don’t need the stress.”
“I understand,” Luke said.
“Families. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
Luke nodded and drank some coffee.
“Do you get helpful lectures, too?” she asked.
“No.”
“Count yourself lucky.”
“I’ll do that.”
She got the ping that told her she had missed something. “I just screwed up, didn’t I?”
“No.”
“Where is your family?” she asked, deciding to face the situation head-on.
“There are some distant relatives in Oregon, but I’ve never met them. My parents were killed in a boating accident when I was thirteen. I went into the system.” Luke paused. “It would be more accurate to say that I was in and out of the system.”
