Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-three

“…Irene, this is Amelia. I have to talk to you as soon as possible. It’s very important. Please call me as soon as you get this voicemail.”

Amelia ended the call and lowered the phone. She fixed her gaze on the strip of headlight-illuminated pavement visible through the windshield. “This is horrible. I can’t leave a message telling her I think she’s dating a killer because he might be with her when she listens to her voicemail. She might panic and he would realize why and…Shit. What are we going to do?”

Gideon did not take his attention off the road. “Are you certain those prints you saw back at the hotel belong to the man your neighbor calls Falcon?”

She summoned up the memory of the hot, unstable prints. “Yes.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Just what Irene told me. She thinks he’s exciting. Claims he’s an undercover cop working vice. I’ve never met him. He rarely visits her at her apartment. He usually picks her up in the parking lot or she meets him somewhere. But a few days ago he came by to see her late at night. I was awake, as usual. I heard him on the stairs. After he left I went outside. I could see his prints on the sidewalk.”

“How would you describe them?”

She concentrated. “They were hot but not like yours.”

“My prints are hot?” Gideon asked.

His voice was a little too even, she thought. She glanced at him. In the shadows it was impossible to read his hard face, but she didn’t have to go into her other vision to know that there was a lot of cold tension in his energy field. She could feel it electrifying the atmosphere.

“Yes,” she said. “But with a different kind of heat. His look—I don’t know—feverish.”

“How does your intuition interpret ‘feverish’?”

She thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure. My first impulse is to say there’s something wrong with the person who laid down those prints.”

“Huh.” Gideon took a beat. “Do you think he’s ill?”

“Maybe, but not in the normal, physical sense. Falcon isn’t weak. But maybe there’s something wrong with his nerves?” She broke off, frustrated. “I just don’t know. I saw something similar in the prints of the stalker. I tried to capture the vibes in the photographs I took but they didn’t come out very well.”

“Cameras aren’t built to take paranormal photos.”

She groaned and folded her arms across her midsection. “Talk about a useless talent. I’m starting to feel like Cassandra. I can point to a bad guy and tell people he’s dangerous, but no one will believe me, at least not without conventional evidence. Just imagine how Richards would have reacted tonight if I had tried to tell him about Falcon’s prints.”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of paranormal investigation, the ideal career for psychics who can’t figure out any other semi-honest way to make a living with their talents.”

She glanced at him. “Don’t you find it frustrating?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“But you keep doing it.”

“My uncle would tell you that’s how it is with a sixth sense. There’s a need to use it. Not using it would be like going through life with gloves on so you couldn’t access your sense of touch.”

“Great. I’m a photographer who is stuck with a talent that lets me see things I can’t photograph. Just great.”

“You’ll find a way to use your new abilities.”

“Since when did you become Mr. Sunshine?”

“Maybe when I realized you weren’t going to go into a coma or freak out after I slammed you into a nightmare tonight? I have to tell you, a lot of people would have some serious qualms about getting anywhere near me after an experience like that.”

“Are you kidding? Thanks to you, I got some of my memories back.”

“Tell me about those memories.”

“I remembered the men who were waiting for Talia, Pallas, and me in the lobby. They grabbed us and injected us with some kind of knockout drug. One appeared to be a doctor or someone with medical training.” Amelia paused. “Maybe that was the man who died in room ten.”

“Fulbrook?”

“He signed himself Dr . S. Fulbrook, remember? In addition to him I think there were three others. Something about one of them was familiar. I got the feeling I should recognize him but I couldn’t get a clear vision.”

“Keep in mind that you were hallucinating, Amelia. Your mind was generating scenes from a dreamscape.”

“They were real memories,” she said. “I’m sure of it. What’s more, I’m almost positive that if I go back into the dream, there’s a good chance I’ll be able to see the face of the one who looked familiar. I’ll be prepared this time. I can focus on him.”

“The answer is still no. We can’t risk it. You might not come out of it this time.”

“You’re the one who claims that managing the psychic senses is a matter of control. You sent me into that nightmare once and you pulled me out of it. I don’t see any reason why you can’t do it again.”

He glanced at her, startled. “What do you mean I pulled you out of it? How did I do that?”

“You called my name, remember?”

“Your name,” he repeated. He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“There is a lot of power in names, Gideon.”