Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [109]
“You don’t want me here,” she said. She cast a quick glance in his direction, then looked at her hands. “You wish I would go.”
He put down the mugs he was taking from the cabinet, banging them without meaning to.
“Wow,” he said. “I’m impressed. You really are psychic.”
He didn’t bother to look at her again, let his eyes rest on the calendar tucked behind the phone. He had an appointment with his shrink in a few hours, something he dreaded. When he finally gazed back over at her, she was regarding him with a wan smile.
“A skeptic,” she said. “Your wife and mother-in-law offer more respect.”
“Respect is earned.” He poured the coffee. “How do you take it?” he asked. He thought she’d say black.
“Light and sweet, please,” she said. Then, “And what should I do to earn your respect?”
He walked over with the coffee cups and sat across from her.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Montgomery?”
It was nearly noon. Maggie’s last morning session would end in fifteen minutes, and then she’d come out for lunch. He didn’t want Eloise sitting here when she did. The woman could only bring back bad memories for Maggie, everything they’d suffered through in the last year and long before. He didn’t need it, and neither did his wife.
“Do you know about my work?” Eloise asked.
Work. Really? Is that what they were calling it? He would have thought she’d say something like gift, or sight. Or maybe abilities. Of course, she probably did consider it work, since that was how she earned her living.
“I do,” he said. He tried to keep his tone flat, not inquiring or encouraging. But she seemed to feel the need to explain anyway.
“I’m like a radio. I pick up signals—from all over, scattered, disjointed. I have no control over what I see, when I see it, the degree of lucidity, the power of it. I could see something happening a world away, but not something right next door.”
He struggled not to roll his eyes. Did she really expect him to believe this? Really?
“Okay,” he said. He took a sip of his coffee. He didn’t like the edgy, anxious feeling he had. He felt physically uncomfortable in the chair, had a nervous desire to get up and pace the room. “What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re getting a reputation around town, you know. That you’re available to help with things—checking houses while people are away, getting mail.”
He shrugged. “Just in the neighborhood here.” He leaned back in his chair, showed his palms. “What? Are you going on vacation? Want me to feed your cat?”
She released a sigh and looked down at the table between them.
“People are going to start coming to you for more, from farther away,” she said. “It might lead you to places you don’t expect.”
Jones didn’t like how that sounded. But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of reacting.
“Okay,” he said, drawing out the word.
“I wanted you to be prepared. I’ve seen something.”
When she looked back up at him, her eyes were shining in a way that unsettled him. Her gaze made him think for some reason of his mother when he found her on the bathroom floor after she’d suffered a stroke. He slid his chair back from the table and stood.
“Why are you telling me this?” He leaned against the doorway that led to the kitchen.
“Because you need to know,” she said. She still sat stiff and uncomfortable, hadn’t touched the coffee before her.
Okay, great. Thanks for stopping by. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. Let me show you out. Instead, because curiosity always did get the better of him, he asked, “So what did you see?”
She ran a hand through her hair. “It’s hard to explain. Like describing a dream. The essence can be lost in translation.”
If this was some kind of show, it was a good one. She seemed sincere, not put on or self-dramatizing. If she were a witness, he would believe her story. But she wasn’t a witness, she was a crackpot.
“Try,” he said.