Authors: Chris Redding
“Don’t know, but I think it’s the father of her baby.”
“Don’t go near my former boss. He’s a respectable man.”
“You’d be surprised what respectable men can get up to.”
“Not Kent Winger. He wouldn’t. He loves his wife. Oh they had a bad patch, but they’re back together.”
“Men can be seduced.”
“You seem pretty confident in that.”
She frowned and looked ahead. “Not personally or at least I’ve never done it.”
He mulled that over and decided she probably hadn’t. But he’d bet someone had seduced an ex-boyfriend. The hurt in her eyes spoke volumes. “So what’s with the phone call?”
“A friend called me drunk.”
“They do that sometimes. She just get dumped?”
“He, and I don’t think so. He doesn’t drink usually and to hear him drunk worries me.”
Especially because she knew he was probably in town. The why of his presence she could not figure out.
“Is he close by?”
“California. I think. His phone went dead at the end of the conversation and he hasn’t answered me yet.”
“Call the police out there.”
“I don’t know where he lives. He moves around a lot.”
“Doesn’t sound like a steady friend,” said Zach.
He knew he’d be on the internet looking into this guy when he got home.
“Oh, he is. Or at least has been in the past.”
“And now?”
“Now, I’m not so sure.” She took in a deep breath raising her shoulders. Her shirt lifted up from her belly to hint at what was underneath. He looked away enjoying the sight too much.
Who was this stranger, this woman who had somehow wheedled her way into his thoughts? What was it about her that was different? Maybe because she wasn’t hanging all over him because he was a cop.
Grace stood. “I’ve gotta go.”
Before he could say anything, she strode away from him.
He caught up to her before the parking lot. “Let me walk you to your car.”
“Not a safe place?”
“Too many hiding places.”
She said, “Goodbye,” when she slid into her car. Zach didn’t press, just let her go.
Chapter Fifteen
Celia was sitting in his car when Zach turned to open the door. Her uncanny abilities always unnerved him.
“She’s the one, Zach.”
“You said that about Dolores.”
He started the car.
“No, I didn’t. I said you’d marry her.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Her head shook, sending her curls dancing around her head. “No, it didn’t stick. This Grace is the one. And she has powers.”
Zach closed his eyes for a moment counting to ten. His sister could try his patience. “Stop. Please. Can I drop you home?”
She frowned. “Sure.”
He put the car into gear wondering when this woman would ever get a life.
***
Mark appeared on her doorstep at three in the morning. Grace wasn’t asleep anyway. The clock was ticking, with less than twenty four hours until her birthday. Not even a full day until she’d lose her powers and Dolores was gone for good. The loss had sent her mother into a bottle then into a wall at ninety miles an hour.
Grace shuddered thinking that she wanted to be done with these powers, but only if she could save her landlord first.
This time Dolores must have called the police. And Mark didn’t run.
He staggered. Grace heard him coming down the driveway. He was singing. The police car pulled in illuminating her friend as she stared out the window.
Her robe thrown on, she raced down the steps to catch him before he fell or got arrested.
“Mark. What are you doing here?”
The officer moved to help her with the drunk. “Is everything okay, ma’am?”
“I think my friend had too much to drink. Could you help me get him upstairs?”
“Sure.”
Mark grabbed her face. “Gracie, Gracie, Gracie. You just don’t know what’s going on.”
She almost passed out from his breath. She and the cop managed to get him upstairs and in her bed. He kept singing.
Obviously reassured she had a handle on the situation, the police officer left without taking a report. A light burned in Dolores’ so Grace called to apologize. Dolores sounded odd, but she didn’t say anything to make Grace check on her.
Mark became silent. “Butterfly effect, Gracie.”
Assuming he was babbling, Grace just took off his shoes, then threw covers over him. “Guess I’ll sleep on the floor.”
A knock startled her. “Who now.”
A rumpled Zach leaned on her doorway. “Dolores called. Said there was trouble.”
“You some knight in shining armor? I’m fine.”
She bristled at the idea of someone coming to save her. She’d been saving her own neck for a long time.
“Is this your friend?” Zach indicated the inert form on her bed.
“Yes. At least I know where he is.”
“Thought he was in California?” He shifted to lean his shoulder on her door frame. She debated asking him in, but with her bed open she felt vulnerable to him.
“So did I.”
“Some friend. He lies, He worries you and now he’s had the police here.”
“He’s just going through something.”
“Mm.” His hand snaked out to run a finger along her jaw line.
Colors and objects exploded in her vision. She grabbed the door to keep herself steady. A warmth spread through her, but left when he stopped touching her.
“You okay?”
She shook off the vision. “Fine. Tomorrow I go to your boss.”
Zach stiffened. “Why?”
“Because I have to do everything I can to prevent this murder.”
“Grace, you can’t save the world.”
“I’m just trying to save Dolores.”
“Maybe she’s beyond saving.”
His gaze bore into her as if he were searching for her soul. She pulled the robe tighter around her. She didn’t want him to see her. But if he could see into her soul, maybe he’d believe her. And then maybe he’d run screaming from her like so many men. “That’s not nice to say.”
“I don’t mean to sound that way, but I’m tired of Dolores and her messes.”
“Especially the baby?”
His jaw line softened. “No, that may be a good thing.”
“Even if it isn’t yours?”
“It is, Grace.”
He stepped away from the door. An impulse had words streaming out of her mouth. “Zach, tomorrow at ten a thunderstorm will roll through here.”
“You the weather man now? The forecast called for sunny skies. A little humidity.”
“There’ll be a storm. If it comes through will you help me?”
“I’ll try, Grace, I’ll try.”
***
Zach stood by the window across the room from his desk. His watch read, “10:03.” Sure enough a storm was now tap dancing through Glen Hills. “Damn.”
When he’d told Grace he’d help her he never expected to make good on that promise. Now he owed her an apology.
Ignoring his case load and the blinking answering machine, he grabbed his suit jacket and went down the street to the hospital as soon as the storm left town. Grace and her partner had just come in from a call and she looked a little ragged.
“Tough one?”
She nodded, her eyes hollow.
He walked her to the cafeteria for coffee. She moved through the hallway as if in a daze. “Yeah. We should have saved her. We did last time.”
“Last time?”
Grace put a hand over her mouth as if she’d said something she shouldn’t. Shaking her head she said, “Never mind.”
Silence for a few steps. Then her gaze traveled back to his. “The storm. You’re going to help me.”
He frowned, but didn’t respond until they had settled at a table with coffee. “I guess I have to.”
Her finger traced a line around the outside of the cup. “Not if you don’t want to.”
Her tired voice struck him and he wanted to hold her for a moment. Not an affectionate person by nature, his reaction to her puzzled him.
“It’s going to happen tonight. I feel it. I took a half day. I’ll leave when we get the truck back in order.”
“And then what will you do?”
“Stay with Dolores.”
“She’ll be at work.”
This small woman couldn’t possibly protect Dolores. Besides, his ex-wife wouldn’t want to be protected. She was just that way. He knew that well enough. She turned on and off the fragility like a faucet.
“I’ll be there when she gets home.”
“You are not making any sense.”
“I realize that. You just have to believe me. Can you have a patrol car go by a few times this afternoon?”
“I can pull some strings, call in a favor or two, but not for no reason.”
“Unofficially?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.”
She shifted sideways in the booth her eyes closing. Her hair, pulled back in a pony tail, was trying to escape the band. She finished her coffee in a gulp. “I better get back.”
***
Dolores’ car was in her driveway when Grace arrived home. Not a good sign. During the ride home, Grace wondered why Dolores hadn’t lost the baby this time. Why were things going in a different order?
Something niggled at the edge of her brain, but she couldn’t catch it. If she could see it, she knew she’d have the answer.
She knocked on the back door, not even bothering to go up to her apartment first.
“Oh, Grace, hello.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m just feeling under the weather. I’d invite you in, but I’m about to go down for a nap.”
Grace flashed to her vision of Dolores bleeding on the bathroom floor. “Are you bleeding?”
“Why would you ask that?”
She shook her head. “Just curious. You look pale.”
“Just fatigue. Too much gardening. How about I come over when I wake up,” Dolores said.
Grace nodded and backed down the steps, her instincts screaming for her to stay. The sun had gone behind a large dark cloud and she expected it would rain again. She couldn’t sit out in the yard. She needed to be in Dolores’ house.
Her mind reeling from the complications, Grace went up to her apartment. Mark sat at her kitchen table, devouring a burger.
“How’d you get in?”
She dropped her keys on the counter, then plopped her tired body into the chair opposite him.
“Your landlady let me in.”
“Why are you here?”
“I was hoping you’d know that.”
She snorted. “I don’t know anything this time.”
“This time? Why is it different?”
“Don’t know, but you said something about the butterfly effect.”
“Yeah? I’m pretty deep when I’m toasted.”
“Why did you show up here, drunk?”
“Because I feel as if we have unfinished business, Gracie.”
She stood and paced away from him. “I don’t feel about you the way you feel about me. Life would be simple if I did. Jeez, you’re the only one who knows about my thing.”
Unable to categorize her power as a gift, she’d never decided on a label.
Mark patted the table beside his plate. “Join me and tell me how it was last time.”
***
Zach maintained the speed limit to Dolores’ house, but just.
The sky had cleared, but the air still held the scent of a storm. Maybe Grace could tell him if there would be another one soon. Then he could plan a picnic.
Pulling into Dolores’ driveway he knew her car would be there. He’d already called her at work and they told him she’d gone home, sick.
Grace rushed up to him, with Mark on her heels. This guy was spending too much time with her.
“Zach, she isn’t answering.”
“I have a key.”
His heart stopped when he saw Dolores in a pool of blood. Her bathroom reeked of death, but her chest still rose in shallow breaths.
Grace commanded Mark to dial 9-1-1, while she knelt by Dolores. “I have a pulse, but it’s thready.”
“She shot?”
“No, I think she’s hemorrhaging. Maybe she lost the baby.”
Zach blinked for a moment. His heart ached for the child that wouldn’t be. Then he went back to cop mode, analyzing the scene clinically. “Why didn’t she call?”
“Maybe she woke up this way.”
“On the floor?”
“No, bleeding. She was under the weather when I saw her. She was going to take a nap.”
A siren wailed in the distance, a welcome sound to Zach’s ears. “Move,” he said.
“Leave her. They’re almost here.”
He shoved Grace out of the way, then scooped up Dolores. She hung limp in his arms and she had the coppery smell of blood about her. He raced to meet the ambulance at the driveway.
Without waiting for the crew to roll out the cot, Zach climbed into the ambulance, then laid Dolores on the white sheets. Grace appeared and gave a report to the medics.
“Can I stay here?” he asked.
The gloved medic nodded, not looking up from Dolores. The doors closed and someone patted it. The ambulance moved with sirens blaring.
Chapter Sixteen
Mark drove Grace to the hospital. She leapt out of the car just before he stopped it, then went to find Zach.
He paced the hallway outside a curtained room in the emergency room. If his shoulders were any more slumped, he’d have been walking on them.
“Zach?”
He pulled her into his arms most likely for his own comfort. Colors swirled in front of her, but she kept on her feet. He needed her now. Despite the kaleidoscope in her head she clung to his voice to stay conscious.
“Grace, she lost the baby.”
“I’m sorry, Zach.”
He let go and her vision cleared and gone was the warm enveloping feeling she experienced with the colors. Part of her sighed in relief, but another part of her longed for him to hold her again.
“Yeah, me, too.” Bitterness tinged his voice.
“You still love her.”
His sardonic smile creased his face. “No, actually I don’t. I care about her, but I don’t love her.”
He stared at her as if willing her to believe him. Why should it matter? He was much nicer this time, but would he still be interested in her? This crisis was not the time to find out. “No?”