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“Okay, color me curious. Let’s start with your lawyer. I get that your hands were tied when you were a kid, but you’re an adult now. She did her job, and I know you feel like you owe her for that, but she was paid a fuck-ton to do it. She isn’t your friend, honey. She never was. I know that because she could have stepped up, but she didn’t. She did what she had to do for her, not you. If you were anyone else…” He drifts off, but I know what he was going to say. If I were anyone else, he would have had me removed from that house a long time ago. But my situation made everything a fuck of a lot harder.
“She knows a lot. She could go public with it all. And if she does, your name might come out.” Which is the main reason for my call.
“I don’t think she’ll say anything because it’s against the law, and she’ll get crucified. But even if she does, I’m not a detective anymore.”
I blow out a breath. “So, the rumors were true. I tried to follow you online, but you don’t have much in the way of social media.”
“I’m too old for that shit. I’ll leave that to my grandkids. I’m a private investigator now, specializing in cold cases.”
“Really? Do you like it?”
“I do. Less bureaucratic bullshit, and there is something really satisfying about giving a family closure. But enough about me. I say fire the lawyer. Get a new one to handle your estate and all the shit from your parents. Hell, you should hire an assistant while you’re at it. If you’re anything like the girl I remember, you’re still running yourself ragged.”
I chuckle because he’s not wrong. “Okay. And thank you. I needed to know you’d be okay before I pushed Mandy any further.”
“Push. I’m tougher than I look and mean enough to push the fuckers back. If you need me, say the word, and I’ll hop on a plane.”
Goddamn, these tears are relentless. But seriously, he doesn’t even know where I live. After everything I’ve been through lately, this is exactly what I needed. To be reminded that I matter.
“Thank you.” I sniff. He’s quiet, letting me have a moment to get myself together.
“Now, let’s talk about these men, shall we?”
“We don’t have to. They don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. It was stupid to wish for something normal anyway, right?”
“Not stupid, honey, but unrealistic. Do me a favor. Don’t aim for normal. Aim for exquisite because you, my dear, are far too good for normal. You deserve something magical—something breathtaking. They had the whole world in the palm of their hands. They have to be class A jackasses to let you slip away.”
I sigh. “There is a part of me that thought they’d come looking for me. In the deepest parts of my heart, I wanted them to track me down and tell me they were wrong, that they made a mistake, and that they chose me. It’s stupid, I know. But for a little while I…”
I hold my hand to my chest, feeling my heart beat methodically beneath my palm despite the cracks in it.
“I almost had everything I wished for,” I whisper.
“I still have connections. Do you want me to track them down and shoot them for you? Because I will,” he growls, making me smile.
“I’ll be okay.” And I will. This conversation is just reinforcing everything I’ve been thinking about since I made it home two weeks ago. “But thank you. Nobody has ever cared enough to commit murder for me before,” I tease. “But I wouldn’t want you to get arrested for me. Trust me, it’s no fun.”
“Please. I’m an ex-cop. I know how to get rid of a body,” he deadpans as the buzzer for the gate rings. I ignore it because I’m not expecting anyone.
“Good to know. That kind of leads me to what I was going to say next. I had an idea about how we could help each other.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Help each other how?”
I lean my head against my knees and remind myself that this is the right thing to do. It’s time. “I still get my visions, but convincing people of them is even harder than watching their deaths play out.”
Needing air, I climb to my feet and walk over to the glass doors and push them open. The heat envelops me immediately, banishing the cold that has been seeping into my bones at the memories of my visions, and I take a deep breath.
“I saved a woman from getting raped.” I let that hang between us as I walk across the deck, the wooden planks hot beneath my bare feet.
“All my visions usually come true. Do you know what that’s like? To see evil at work and be helpless to stop it? When I would say something, nobody listened. So much fucking hate comes my way that the actual guilty parties end up looking innocent. After I moved here, I thought it would be better. I hid away a lot, and when I did go out, I was careful to avoid contact. After a while, I almost convinced myself that my gift was gone, that whoever cursed me with it realized I was too weak, so they took it back.”
“You were never weak,” he chastises, his voice gruff, giving me comfort. “I don’t know why you can do what you do, but I wholeheartedly believe it was given to you because you might just be the only person alive strong enough to handle it.”
“I almost didn’t, though, did I?” I whisper.
“Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. You did not fail anyone, Astrid. It was the people around you that failed. Maybe that’s why things played out the way they did. They were tested, and they were found lacking.”
I suck in a breath at his words. He curses and apologizes, but I shake my head, gazing out at the stillness of the pool.
