“I guess I should have mentioned something before I invited you to breakfast. I have a superpower.”
She put her fork down and readied herself to bolt.
“I can feel other people’s emotions.” When she only squinted at me, trying to figure out my game, I continued. “I can tell when someone is afraid. Or when they are guilty of something. Or when they’re mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“But you are afraid. I could feel it from a block away.”
“For reals?”
“For reals.” I spoke as unthreateningly as possible, keeping my tone light and my actions slow, as though totally uninterested in the fact that she was constantly about half a second away from rabbiting. “And you’re not eighteen.”
“What’s it to you?” she asked, suddenly defensive.
“You’re making it hard for me to breathe.”
“What?”
“When someone is as scared as you are, all the time like you, it tightens my chest and crushes my lungs. It makes it hard to breathe.”
“Like asthma?”
“Very much like asthma,” I agreed, even though I was certain asthma was a thousand times worse, but it was a good analogy. “Your food’s going to get cold.”
She scoffed. “Cold food is still food.”
“Good point,” I said, laughing softly.
It was enough to set her at ease. She picked up her fork and continued eating.
“Nine?” I guessed, purposely insulting her.
She shook her head. “Twelve.”
Damn. Even younger than I’d thought. The thought of a twelve-year-old alone on the streets of Albuquerque shocked me.
“So, this superpower,” she said as she stabbed at an egg. “You use it for good or evil?”
Oh yeah. I liked her a lot. “It kind of depends on the day. I vacillate between the two depending on the weather. I will say evil is more fun.”
She laughed, the sound a little too breathy, her voice a little too husky, like she’d recently been ill.
“Now on to the tough stuff. Why are you scared?”
“I’m not,” she said, her barriers rocketing into place around her.
“My lungs don’t lie, and you’re on the verge of suffocating me.” I grabbed my throat with both hands. “Seriously. Not. Much. Time.”
As I slowly sank into my chair, she frowned. Took another bite. Then asked, “Are you messing with me?”
“Nope.” I straightened. “Maybe a little, but I won’t lie to you. Go ahead. Ask me anything.”
She sat back, gave me a thorough once-over, then nodded toward another patron. “What’s that guy feeling?”
I looked at him. He was an everyday sort, a nerdy college student but handsome as heck with a body to match, and the girl he was sitting with was more beauty queen than science geek. They were studying. He was most likely tutoring her. “He’s into the girl.”
“Too obvious,” she said, disappointed.
“Give me a sec. I’m working here.”
She grinned and waited.
“He’s really into her, but what I bet he doesn’t know is that she is even more into him.”
“Get outta here.”
“Totally.”
The woman leaned into him as he showed her how to find the area between two curves, whatever the hell purpose of that was. The odd thing about that situation was that she wasn’t learning anything. Like she already knew what he was teaching her.
“Holy SpongeBob,” I said, blinking in surprise when I got the whole picture. I leaned into Heather and whispered, “She doesn’t even need his help. She hired him because she’s in love with him. I can feel it oozing out of her.”
“No way,” Heather said, as shocked as I was.
But the more I looked at the guy, the more I understood. He was a doll. “They are going to make beautiful, smart babies together one day.”
“You can see the future, too?”
“No. That’s just an educated guess.”
“Oh,” she said, even more disappointed than before. She’d started playing with her food, her mind a thousand miles away.
“There’s something else I didn’t tell you. I’m a private investigator.”
She looked at me, and I saw panic set in.
“Nobody hired me to find you,” I hurried to explain. “My office is right down the street. Like I said, I can feel your distress, and I have resources. Whatever, or whoever, is frightening you, I can find a way to help.”
Her laugh, more like a scoff, sent her into a fit of coughs. When she recovered, she said, “Nobody can help me. It’s too late.”
Concern shot through me. Was she dying? Did she have a disease? Or worse, cancer?
“Can I at least try?” I asked. “I’m really good at helping people.”
“You’ll think it’s stupid and send me back.”
“Back?”
She bit down and slumped in her chair. “To the home. I’m number ten. I’m next, and I’m going to die soon.”
13
I’m fairly certain that, given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world.
—TRUE FACT
I guess I should’ve been thankful we were getting somewhere, but her imminent death was a tad disturbing. Did she have access to an assassin’s hit list? A serial killer’s project board? A psychopath’s scrapbook? How could she know such a thing?
“What makes you say that, hon?”
Her fist tightened around her fork, and I could only hope she wasn’t the violent sort. I eased back just in case. I liked the number of holes in my face at the moment.
“It’s the curse,” she said, coughing again. “I got sick like all the others.”
“The others?” I asked. This was going nowhere good.
“I live in a children’s home. Nine other kids have gotten sick and died. Nine in the last seven years. And now I have the same symptoms. That’s why I ran away.” Tears threatened to push past her thick lashes. “We call it the Harbor House Curse, and I’m next, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” She looked up at me. “Not even you.”
Fear so palpable, I could taste it pour out of her. I reached out and put my hand over hers. She didn’t pull away, which surprised me.