And then Fia dancing in the dark, the whole vision so filled with noise and movement I can barely figure out what is happening, but the way Fia moves I know in that moment she is free and it makes my heart ache.
A guy, so handsome my breath catches, with warm eyes and broad shoulders, sitting at a polished wood desk, staring at a picture of an older woman who has his same eyes. His whole face is a mask of anguish, and I wonder who he is, who she is. I don’t see guys very often. Then I hear a voice—Fia’s!—call out, “James? Are we doing this or not? The sooner we steal your crap, the sooner I get to dance.”
James.
His face immediately resets itself into a calculatedly careless smile as he sets the picture facedown and stands.
It shifts and I see Eden, reading a book by a pool, looking up with an inscrutable expression as Fia walks by with James.
It shifts again and I see a guy, dark hair, his back to me as he stares at some sort of image of—what? It’s black and white, see-through with light behind it—and traces his finger along it. I wonder who he is, but then my vision twists and I see a woman in an office. She mutters something to herself and I recognize Ms. Robertson’s voice. It’s evening, almost dark outside the window, and there is a half-empty bottle of something in front of her. She pours another tiny cup full, splashing some over the side, and drinks the whole thing in one shot. Then she puts the bottle back into the bottom drawer of her desk.
There is a small rolling suitcase on the floor next to her desk, unzipped, with unfolded clothes half spilling out.
And then my world is black again. What can I do with that? What can I do with any of that? At least now I understand why so many of the women here fall all over themselves for James. But he’s much more than he lets them see. Fia seems…stable. Not happy but stable and healthy looking.
I miss Eden fiercely. I wish I were with her. No idea who the guy was or what he was looking at.
Ms. Robertson will at some point in the near future drink herself into a stupor. Not very professional, and I don’t see any advantage there.
Unless…she’s gone right now. On a recruitment trip. I stand, almost fall as my head spins, and stumble to the hall. “Darren?”
“Yes, Miss Annabelle. What do you need?”
“I need to talk to Ms. Robertson. When does she get back?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay, thanks.”
I go back into my apartment, a smile on my face. Between my mattresses, hidden where Fia couldn’t find them, I have an emergency stash of her old pills. The prescription was strange—it would knock her out, but you could wake her up and she’d be almost lucid. It was the only time I could get her to talk to me.
I didn’t like what she said, but I heard things she’d never tell me otherwise. It’s how I finally found out what Clarice made her do that day on the beach.
I tap out four pills into my hand. My security-free route to my daily walk around the interior courtyard of the building goes right past Ms. Robertson’s office…and her desk with a drawer hiding a bottle of alcohol she’ll be drinking out of tomorrow.
I knock on the door. No answer. Please, please let it be today that I saw. I push the door open.
“Ms. Robertson? Are you in here?”
A soft snore greets me. I smile and close the door behind me. “Doris, wake up.”
No response.
“Doris!”
Her breathing changes and I hear her chair creak; a bottle or glass shatters against the floor.
“Whoopsie,” she slurs. “Annabelle? ’Zat you?”
“Yes. I wanted to talk to you. About Sofia.”
“Sof-ya. Glad she’s gone. Hated her thoughts. Bad things. Always bad things.”
“Why does Keane want her? Shouldn’t he have gotten rid of her after she killed Clarice?”
Ms. Robertson snorts loudly. “Clarice got what she had coming. Told her, I told her, but she was always right. Going to be the first Seer that Keane promoted to his personal aide. Nobody was sad to see her gone. She was brutal.”
“Was she going to kill me?” I ask. My heart is in my throat. I’ve wondered, for so long. Was Clarice the one who was going to kill me? If she was, all Fia did was kill a killer. It would change everything.
“Who knows? You wouldn’t’ve been the first. She hated you, too.”
I frown, hurt. I always thought Clarice liked me. She was kind to me, helped me figure out my visions. “She did?”