Part 7 (1/2)
”I'm going to have to ask you to come in tomorrow,” he said, ”for elimination prints.”
Maris agreed too fast. She should have acted confused or indignant or something other than guilty.
”And to ask you some questions about your whereabouts,” he added.
Maris rubbed her eyelids. ”Did you follow me here? Why are you bringing this up now? Shouldn't you have just waited until you were ready to haul me down to the station?”
s.h.i.+fting in his seat, Dan reached to take the second gla.s.s of water from the blond server. He swallowed a mouthful before setting the gla.s.s down. ”Maris, it's routine. And I'm done poking at you. Let's eat and chat about other things.”
Like what? The fact that death surrounds you, clinging like a second skin?
Tears p.r.i.c.ked at her lids, shocking her. She turned away, pretending rapt interest in the descending plate of steaming food. Her stomach growled. She slapped her hand to her abdomen.
Beside her, Dan chuckled. ”You kill me.”
Don't. Don't use words like that. Don't pretend they don't matter. Not with me. Not with someone who sees your doom as clearly as you see that fork in your hand.
”Maris, you okay?”
”Yes.” She shoved a forkful of mashed potato into her mouth, and her next words slid around it. ”Hungry, like I said.”
”I think I'm getting that. And I'm not even psychic.”
She shot him a look from beneath lowered lids, glad to see the aura of shadow had retreated to the thinnest outline, as if it were an ill.u.s.tration in a coloring book and filled in with life. She studied him, storing the images of his sandy hair and his thick, brown lashes, watched the way he cut his food, spreading pieces across his plate and then eating them one by one, because one day what she remembered of him would matter.
”You're staring at me, Maris Granger. What on earth are you looking for?”
”I'm not looking for anything.” She speared a piece of meatloaf and popped it into her mouth.
”What is it you see, then? You talk about seeing things. What are you seeing when you look at me? I realize I just told you not to go there when you asked me how I was feeling, but now I want to know.”
She swallowed. ”Nothing.”
”At all?”
”I see you.” She placed another mouthful of meat on her tongue.
He laid his knife and fork on the edge of his plate. She lifted her gaze to his face.
”You're not exactly lying, Maris, but you speak in half-truths, don't you? Is that all part of the presentation? The fortune-teller performance?”
The little bit of food she'd eaten turned in her stomach. His words were designed to ridicule, perhaps even to hurt, but he spoke them softly, gently, as if trying to provoke candor rather than anger. Maris sighed, lowering her utensils as well. ”It's not a performance. This isn't a sideshow act.”
”Then what is it?”
”Life. My life. My reality. It's not a show, not a trick. It's both gift and curse, and I've tried for years to disown it, but it won't let me. I was born with a cowl over my face. Right there in the ocean tide. Do you know what that means?”
He shook his head, his inner energy stilled and listening.
”I can see things, as you said. I have the Sight. And that ability has shaped me. It's who I am. What I am.”
Dan shoved his plate aside, signaling to the waitress with his other hand. ”May I have the check, please? And box the food to go. We'll be back for it.”
Maris looked from her meal to Dan. ”Back for it?”
”You and I are taking a walk.”
Chapter 8.
Maris walked with her hands shoved into the pockets of her wooly sweater, the hood pulled up over her head. The weight pressed her dark bangs against her forehead. She kept blinking to chase the hair out of her lashes.
Dan had never known a woman like Maris, and he'd been acquainted with many. Enamored of a few, sure, and in love once. With the exception of his former wife, he'd never felt as connected as he did right now to Maris. And without exception, he'd never felt the nearness of a woman fire his blood the way Maris did. Yeah, she was hot, but it was something else, too. Stupid, foolish nonsense, all of it, but even nonsense had its place in a person's life.
”I don't even know you.”
She glanced aside at him through fine, black strands. ”What?”
”Sorry. Thinking out loud.”
She went back to looking ahead along the road. He slowed his pace in order to watch her stride, the sensual tendency of her movements. She didn't walk with the conscious aggression of a model's runway saunter, but with the pacing of a feral cat. After a moment she looked back over her shoulder, her smoke-gray eyes dark in the growing gloom. ”Am I walking too fast for you?”
”Of course not.” He hastened his step, falling in beside her again.
”So, Dan, why exactly are we taking this stroll?”
”I needed to clear my head”-which was becoming more befuddled by the minute-”and I wanted to talk to you alone.”
”About?”
”About what you said back there.”
”Oh.” Her breath plumed in the air. The temperature had dropped since he'd gone into the bar for dinner. Perhaps a walk outside hadn't been the best choice since neither of them wore a coat. But he had no desire to turn around and go back. The sensation of being locked inside a bubble with her, separate from the world, was strong, and he didn't want to give that up just yet.
”Not about your aunt and not about...” About the fact he should be considering her a suspect. He couldn't say that. Not right now. ”I want to talk about this thing you call the sight.' You really believe it.”
”I believe it because it's true.”
With no sidewalks on the outskirts of town, they had been walking along the shoulder of the roadway. Through the trees, he saw the gleam of headlights approaching the curve and took Maris's arm, tugging her into the gra.s.s. She stood next to him, her shoulder against his bicep. The car sped past, tires growling on the blacktop.
”How you do you know it's true? What definitive proof do you have?”
She stared across the street at the burgundy sign marking the entrance to Alcina Cove's nature preserve. ”A lifetime's worth. Can we go in there? It's not dark yet. Don't those types of places close at sundown?”
Amused by her abrupt and somewhat childlike distraction, he took her hand and pulled her across the road to the lane leading into the preserve. Once on the gravel, he released her. Their footsteps crunched on stone.