Though he dreaded it. Dreaded it. And he didn’t know why, other than that it had something to do with that freakin’ psychic.
It had turned out that Lori Star was an aspiring actress, as well as a supposed psychic. No wonder she’d been so good in front of the camera. But there would be those out there convinced that it was no act, that she was right, that the accident had been no accident.
Even if she was right—and he sure as hell didn’t see how she could be—he was sure that all she had done was look at a few facts and take a lucky guess. She was definitely not a psychic. She just wanted her fifteen minutes of television fame.
And he was so angry because…
Because he had known Leslie. And he hadn’t believed in her at first, when she claimed to talk to the dead. But she had been legit.
And this girl sure as hell wasn’t.
He opened his eyes. He wasn’t at home, but he already knew that. He was at Genevieve’s. She hadn’t let him take a cab; she’d insisted he stay on her couch. Lacking both the will and the physical coordination to find a cab willing to go to Brooklyn at that hour, he had shrugged and agreed. And fallen asleep. Or passed out. One or the other.
He’d been doing all right last night, considering what he’d gone through with Leslie and her ability to commune with the dead, until that damned psychic had shown up on television. And then he’d started calling for the beers hard and fast.
Now, of course, he was ashamed of himself. Only cowards drank because they’d been spooked. And what a fool he’d been, besides. As far as talking to a dead man went, there was surely a logical explanation for what had happened. One, maybe the EMT had simply been wrong and Brookfield hadn’t died on impact. Or maybe, as Freud might have suggested, Joe had created the man’s voice as a tool to tell him to look for survivors in the car. There. That made sense—so long as he didn’t think about the fact that his inner voice had known the girl’s name.
And the fact that Lori Star was an annoying fraud seeking the spotlight. Well, hell, that made sense, too. She was just trying to get work.
So here he was, having had way too much to drink, sleeping on Gen’s sofa. It was a nice one, too. Antique, but restuffed and reupholstered. She loved things that were old and had a story. She and Leslie would have been great friends.
The thought made him wince and shut his eyes.
When he opened his eyes again, his face lined with tension, she was there.
Gen, not Leslie.
Thank God he was seeing the living, at least.
That caused a moment’s guilt to trickle down his spine. Leslie…I would love to see you. Your face…
But that wasn’t really true. He didn’t want to see ghosts.
No problem. This was Gen in front of him, and she didn’t seem to be judging him for his night of imbibing, even if she probably didn’t understand it.
He didn’t intend to explain.
Let her think that it was because he had been a witness to such an awful accident, or because he could have died when the car blew up.
“Good morning,” she said gravely, handing him a glass and a couple of aspirin.
He looked at her, arching a brow.
“Trust me,” she said. “They work for a hangover.” She shrugged. “And no, I don’t spend my life fighting hangovers. A lot of people thought I’d wind up on drugs or alcohol after the kidnapping, and this was a tip my doctor gave me.”
“Thanks,” he said briefly, swallowing the pills with the glass of water she’d provided.
He didn’t really want to look at Gen. He felt too much like the dregs of humanity to want to face her.
There wasn’t anything not to like about her, of course. Genetics had made her beautiful—Eileen, at forty-plus could still turn heads. Gen had the same perfect features, perfect skin and more-than-perfect build. She had rich auburn hair that looked more lustrous than silk and more wicked than sin. And her eyes…
Just saying they were blue didn’t do them justice. They were the blue of the infinite sky, the blue of the deepest sea. Blue that could hint at darkness, blue that spoke of wisdom, even though she was only twenty-odd years old.
They were eyes that had seen a lot. The child of privilege, she had wanted to help those who hadn’t been born with silver spoons in their mouths. She hadn’t jetted around the globe, hobnobbing with the rich and useless. She had gone to school, gotten a degree and gone into social work.
She had survived for weeks in the underground lair of a psychotic killer.
She was strong. She was…
She was alive because Leslie had taken the bullet meant for her.
He pushed that thought from his mind. Genevieve sure as hell hadn’t wanted that to happen, and he knew it. And Leslie had been gone nearly a year now. He liked to think that she was back with Matt, at last, but he didn’t really believe it. He could have sworn that he had once seen them together on a little rise in the cemetery where they were both buried.
Again, Freud would have helped him out.