Page 60 of Shattering Dawn
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
“There’s no point going inside. Too much light. But there are some prints over there. I need to take a closer look.”
“All right, but let’s try to make it seem as if we’re just getting out of the way.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not about to tell Richards that I’m looking for paranormal footprints. I’m well aware that law enforcement doesn’t welcome input from people claiming psychic talents.”
“There are a few exceptions, but generally speaking, you’re right.”
They moved into the deep shadows behind the lights. He heard Amelia take a sharp breath.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered.
“See something important?”
“Yes,” she said. She swung around. “Let’s get out of here. I need to make a call and there’s no service out here.”
He did not argue. They went back to the SUV and climbed inside. He started the engine and drove toward the main road.
“What’s the rush?” he asked.
“I know the identity of the man who escaped tonight, the one who was in charge,” Amelia said. She clutched her phone in both hands as if she could will the bars to appear. “He’s dating my neighbor.”
Chapter Thirty-three
“…Irene, this isAmelia. 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 herlate 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.”