Page 39 of Shattering Dawn
“Don’t tell me you weren’t feeling sorry for me earlier tonight when you practically had to carry me across the restaurant parking lot. Do you think I liked that? I was mortified. Humiliated.”
“I was trying to be supportive.”
“Bullshit,” she shot back. “You felt pity for me.”
“That is not true.”
“Your talent might have a dark side but mine is downright embarrassing. Do you know what it’s like to become a recluse at night because you’re afraid of the dark? Try explaining that to a potential date or your friends. You start making up excuses, but they don’t work. Everyone tells you that you need therapy but what they’re really thinking is that you’re weak-minded. Prone to phobias and fears.”
“Have you considered that you may be overreacting?”
“After a while your friends stop calling. Stop visiting. Stop inviting you to join them for drinks at the neighborhood tavern because they know you’ll say you have to wash your hair instead. My talent is ruining my life. And I don’t like knowing people feel sorry for me any more than you like knowing they feel sorry for you.”
She shut the door of the vehicle with a forcefulker-chunkand stalked toward her room.
He closed his own door and went after her. “Hang on, we need to talk about this.”
“Some other time.” She jammed the key into the lock of her room door. “I’m not in the mood. I prefer to wallow in self-pity.”
She moved into the room, flipped the light switch, and shut the door in his face. He heard the bolt slam into place.
Clients. Can’t live with them. Can’t run an investigation business without them.
Chapter Twenty
Gideon was right.She was overreacting.
Amelia went to the connecting door and yanked it open. She heard the sound of his key in the lock of the parking lot door just as she looked into his darkened room.
An ankle-deep fog of murky energy seethed on the floor. The spectral mist created by the layers of paranormal radiance was similar to what she had glimpsed in her own room a moment ago before she switched on the lights. It would disappear as soon as Gideon turned on the lights.
She was not surprised to see his prints glowing hot and silver in the fog. She would know them anywhere.
She pushed the door all the way open, crossed the threshold into room ten—and stopped, frozen with shock.
The large pool of luminous dark energy seethed on the carpet near the entrance to the small bathroom. The radiation wasn’t fresh but she knew the cause; knew that it would take a long time to fade—years maybe. She had occasionally viewed similar stains inhouses she had photographed for her real estate clients. She hated those jobs.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered.
Gideon got the outside door open, moved into the room, and hit the wall switch, flooding the space with normal light. The fog of paranormal energy and the unnerving stain on the carpet disappeared.
“Amelia?” Gideon came toward her, his eyes tight with concern. “What’s wrong?”
She took another breath. She was not alone and the man with her did not think she was mentally unstable. He believed she was merely having a little trouble learning to control her other vision. He seemed to think it was perfectly normal for her to be unnerved from time to time. Hey, it could happen to anyone.
Control.
She wrapped her arms around her midsection. “I think something terrible happened in this room.”
He did a quick, thoughtful survey of the space and then looked at her again. “What did you see a moment ago when the lights were off?”
“Hang on, I need to be sure.”
She unfolded her arms and went back into her room. Opening the camera bag, she took out the old Nikon. Immediately her nerves steadied. She could do this.
She went back to the doorway. “Please turn off the lights again.”
Without a word, Gideon moved to the wall switch and flipped it, plunging the room into darkness. The gray fog flooded back, drifting low across the worn carpet. The terrible stain near the bathroom radiated an eerie light.