“Thanks, Mommy,” Lacey said quietly, taking the candy and then humming a little tune as she opened the packet and took the first bite. Laura watched her silently for a while. Sometimes it felt like there wasn’t much to her life beyond being a mother and being an FBI agent. If she lost those things, who would she be? Did she even have an identity of her own anymore, or was she relegated forever to just her job and her family roles?

  Her phone buzzed in her hands, and she somehow wasn’t surprised at all to see that the only person who thought it was worth calling her was her boss. Chief Rondelle’s name was flashing up on the screen, and she answered it with a sigh.

  “Chief,” she said, keeping an eye on Lacey in her peripheral.

  “Agent Frost,” Rondelle said. Thankfully, there was an edge of softness to his voice today. Far too often lately, he’d been in such a foul mood that when Laura and Nate went in for briefings they’d felt like they had to run and duck to avoid being targeted. “I’m sorry to disturb you on a weekend, I know it’s an important time for you. Are you with your daughter today?”

  “Yes, I am,” Laura said. “But what is it?”

  Rondelle hesitated, but he clearly didn’t let it stop him for long. “I have a case for you and Agent Lavoie,” he said. “Something that fits your specialties.”

  Laura resisted the urge to sigh. That meant more than one body, it meant weird and unusual details, and it meant a case that ‘normal’ agents would take months to solve.

  But Laura wasn’t normal, and that was why they had gained a reputation for being able to tackle those difficult cases.

  “How many dead so far?” she asked.

  “Two,” Rondelle said. “It’s tough, according to the local police. There’s no connection between the two women apart from the murder weapon. They -”

  “Alright,” Laura said, cutting him off. She didn’t know how much of the conversation Lacey would be able to overhear from this proximity. It didn’t matter, anyway. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

  She could have pretended that she wasn’t going to go. Tried to turn Rondelle down. Only, if she did, she knew exactly what would happen. Rondelle would tell her that the case was really important, that only she and Nate had the experience and skills to take on a case like this.

  And truly, what else was she going to do? Spend another week sitting around, going into the office to do paperwork and prepare statements and testimonies for upcoming trials, thinking of clever ways to cover up her abilities under cross-examination? Sit around at home on her own in the evenings, stewing over the fact that Chris still hadn’t talked to her? That she was alone again now that Zach, the only other psychic she had ever met, had gone back home for the good of both of their abilities?

  No. The last thing she needed was more time alone with her thoughts.

  She put the phone down, then looked at Lacey. Her daughter was already looking back at her with a serious, pouty face. “I’m going back to Daddy, aren’t I?” she said, sulky enough to be a teenager already.

  “Yes,” Laura said, and hesitated. “That was what you wanted, really, wasn’t it? To go play with your new toys at Daddy’s house and eat whatever he lets you eat?”

  Lacey shrugged and went back to her coloring, and Laura took that as confirmation.

  Even her daughter didn’t want to spend the weekend with her when Laura was feeling this way.

  It felt like all she ever did was let her daughter down. But what was she supposed to do? There was no one else who could save these lives. No one else who could do what she did and get the results so quickly. If she didn’t go, she was sentencing someone to death – someone’s daughter, or sister, or mother, or wife, or girlfriend. Someone who was loved and cared for just as much as Lacey was.

  And Lacey wasn’t in danger. In fact, out of all the various disagreements they’d had, one thing Laura couldn’t fault Marcus for was being a great Dad.

  Laura picked her phone backed up and dialed. As if he’d been worried that something would happen to his daughter while she was away from him, Marcus picked up immediately.

  “Marcus,” Laura said, not letting him start. “I’ve been called in for a job. I need to drop Lacey off with you.”

  She bit her lip, calculating in her mind all the steps she needed to get to the J Edgar Hoover Building – the FBI headquarters – in time for her briefing.

  She would make it – she always did. When lives were on the line, Laura wasn’t going to hang around.

  They had a case to solve, and she wasn’t going to let it slip out of their fingers to go to a less competent team.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Laura got out of the car with a kind of shaky feeling in her legs and arms, a nervousness that reminded her of being a teenager. She’d made exceptionally good time in packing Lacey up and dropping her off with Marcus, who had met her halfway since he was already out of the house. It had given her an extra fifteen or twenty minutes, depending on traffic, for the last leg of her journey.

  An extra fifteen or twenty minutes that had turned her wheel in this direction, to stand in front of the same door that had made her feel a similar level of nervous a couple of weeks ago.

  She hadn’t been able to get in touch with Chris since that day. She was sure he was reading her messages and seeing her calls. They weren’t so much missed as ignored. But she had to try, at least, before she left for some other state for who knew how long. There was always a chance she could be out working on a case for months, though with Zach gone she thought she might be able to rely on her visions coming back to make it quicker.

  She’d already had a few that seemed stronger and more predictive than before. They only warned her about a vase about to get knocked down from a wall and a burned turkey on Christmas Day, but at least they’d been strong, clear visions of the kind that she used to have before Zach appeared in her life. It was a good sign.

  So, maybe she would be back in town sooner rather than later. But leaving without at least trying to say goodbye wasn’t a chance she wanted to take.

  She took a breath and knocked hard on the door, trying to sound confident and authoritative. The sound echoed just slightly through the hall of the house behind it, and Laura strained her ears for footsteps. Even the sound of him coming to the door, seeing her through the peephole, and leaving again would be fine. Anything, to give some indication of what she could expect from him.

  If she thought he was there, she could at least shout her goodbye through the door.

  But there was nothing, and long minutes stretched out into silence. Laura stood on her tiptoes and tried to strain to see through the decorative glass panels at the top of the door, putting out a hand onto the door itself to steady her as she did so. A headache pulsed through her head, and she dropped down onto flat feet –

  Chris was in medical scrubs, wielding a scalpel with a look of intense concentration on his face. Laura watched this side of him she had never seen, the thin sliver of his face visible between his mask and the cap he wore, both of them blue. His eyes were darting around sharply, utterly focused on the task at hand.

  There was a loud beeping noise and his eyes shot up, a frown on his face. Laura felt herself moving back a little as if zooming out a camera; she saw him poised with the scalpel, other people rushing around him, forced into motion by the beeping, calling out medical terms she didn’t understand.

  “What’s happening?” he asked. “He shouldn’t be reacting like this. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” someone else replied.

  “Did you check his notes for allergies?” Chris asked, in the tone of someone having to ask whether a person had remembered to wash their hands before eating or put on their underwear before their outer clothes.

  “We didn’t have the notes,” someone else said. “He came in through emergency already unconscious. We didn’t even know his name until right before we started.”

  Chris stood back from the table as someone shouted “clear,” his scalpel held high in the air to avoid injuring anyone or getting in the way. The man on the table in front of him was shocked by another member of staff – Laura, with her vision centering on Chris, couldn’t see who.

  “The records have just come through,” someone said, bursting into the room. Chris turned to look, along with a couple of others. They bent their heads over printed notes.

  “Who do we have?” Chris asked.

  “George Elwood,” one of the nurses said, but he was already halfway down the document, reading ahead.

  “There,” Chris said. “Damnit! We have an atropine allergy!”

  There was more chaos and movement then. Even Laura, who was used to being around first responders, had no idea what was going on. Several members of the medical team were shouting back and forth at one another, listing the names of different medications and procedures at such a rapid pace that her head spun.

  Chris had put down the scalpel and seemed to be scrambling with the rest, though what he was doing, Laura couldn’t name. “Come on!” he shouted from time to time, but as time ticked on, it began to be clear that what they were doing wasn’t working.

  “I’m calling it,” one of the other team members said, the others all seeming to stand back, shocked, and weary.

  “No!” Chris exclaimed. “How are we going to explain to this man’s family that we gave him the wrong drug and killed him? We can’t give up.”

  “He’s gone, Chris,” the other man replied, sadness in his voice. “It’s too late. Even if we bring him back now, the level of brain damage…”

  “No,” Chris said hoarsely, shaking his head. “God. This man… he came to us for emergency help.”

  “We let him down,” the other man said. A bloody glove rested on the side of Chris’s scrubs, on his upper arm. “But it’s over.”

  Laura blinked, the vision dissipating from her mind like smoke. It had been clear. So clear. And so long. No tendrils of darkness obscuring faces or details, no blink-and-you’ll-miss-it duration. A real vision. And by the way her temple was throbbing lightly now, she knew it was a vision for some period in the future: perhaps a day, two days, even three.

  She thought about it. She could say nothing. Go on to her case. Chris didn’t believe her, anyway. And Nate had expressed a fear that even if Chris did believe her, he would want to study her rather than support her.

  But then she would be partly responsible for a man dying. And if she could help, she should. And more than that: if Chris saw her vision come true and realized she was telling the truth, they might be able to continue having a relationship.

  It was a big risk. If he did believe her but still didn’t accept her, he could still go to her commanders, try something that would cause her to lose her job.

  All Laura had to ask herself was this: Was Chris worth it?

  He hadn’t been answering her texts. Maybe he wasn’t even reading them. But Laura knew he didn’t work on Sundays. He was out somewhere, probably with Amy. He would have to come home before tomorrow when, she guessed, the vision she had seen was going to take place.

  She delved into her pocket and pulled out her notebook, finding a blank page and quickly writing on it. She tore it out, then studied her message for a moment before pushing it into the crack between the door and the frame until it was wedged there. Chris would have to see it when he came in. Then he would know.

  She turned and went back to her car, taking one glance at the door and giving herself the chance to change her mind once she was behind the wheel. She didn’t want to change her mind.

  She started the engine and sped off towards HQ, trying not to think about Chris anymore and focus on the case instead, knowing that whoever had died deserved her full attention.

  ***

  Nate looked up as he got out of the car, hearing a screech of tires that he somehow recognized. Maybe it wasn’t the sound of the tires themselves but the timing of it, and the knowledge that Laura would be arriving around now, but he knew it was her before the car took another screeching turn and zoomed over to park next to him.

  He lifted a hand in greeting, leaning against the bumper of his own car as he waited for her to get out and join him. “Hi,” he said. “I’m surprised. I thought it was your weekend with Lacey.”

  “It was,” Laura said, almost breezing right past him, her blonde ponytail snapping from side to side with the rhythm of her rapid walk. “She’s gone back to Marcus.”

  Nate wasn’t going to let her get away that easily. “Wait,” he said, grabbing her arm and making her slow down so that he could at least walk beside her. “What’s going on?”

  Laura sighed, shook her head, and shook him off. “I’m just having a bad day, maybe,” she said. “Lacey thought my Christmas was lame, and she’s probably right. Can’t compete with Marcus and his money. I just thought I’d be better off making an actual difference in the world.”

  “I’m sure you make a difference to Lacey,” Nate said. He was trying to reassure her, but he’d never had kids of his own to judge by. He didn’t know what the right advice was. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe Lacey wouldn’t remember any of this at all when she was older.

  Or maybe Laura was on the brink of losing her relationship with her daughter, and he should have told her something different, but Nate was just completely out of his depth.

  “Did Rondelle tell you anything about the case?” Laura asked, as they strode together towards the elevators up to the next floor.

  Nate gave her a sideways look. “He didn’t tell you anything?”

  “I didn’t ask,” Laura said, pushing the button with too much emphasis. “He told me it’s our kind of case and we’re the only ones who can do it, you know, the normal speech. I thought I’d cut out the time I would waste on arguing with him and just agree to come, since we all know that would happen anyway.”

  “Alright,” Nate said slowly, following her as she practically sprang for the elevator as soon as it arrived. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

  “What other way is there?” Laura asked. The elevator hummed, sending them upwards through the building.

  “We can say no,” Nate said. “Any time Rondelle asks us to do something outside of our normal agreement, we can say no. And yeah, maybe a junior agent would feel pressure to do whatever he asks of them, but we’re not juniors anymore. We’re a long way from that. We could probably pick and choose our cases as much as we wanted.”

  “Right, but if we say no, that means we’re leaving people to be murdered when Rondelle puts agents on the case that won’t work as fast as we do.” Laura sighed, shaking her head as the elevator came to a stop, the doors whooshing open. “You know as well as I do that we’re the only people who could ever find the answer to some of the cases we work on.”

  “You mean, you’re the only one,” Nate said, unable to stop a trace of bitterness in his words. He regretted it as soon as he spoke, but it was too late to take it back.

  Laura bit her lip, but he could see that she did mean that, yes. She just didn’t want to say it.

  “I have a responsibility,” she said, instead. “If I have this power, I ought to use it to save people. You know how I feel about the work we do.”

  Nate sighed, following behind her as she sped up ahead towards Rondelle’s office. Clearly, she wasn’t interested in discussing it further, because she was walking right towards the area where Rondelle might be able to overhear them talking.

  Nate kept his mouth shut. Talking about this any further would only risk getting Laura in trouble if their boss ever found out that she thought she was psychic. Of course, Nate knew now that she really was – but other people would think she was just crazy. He wasn’t going to risk anyone else hearing it because of him, especially not if it wasn’t something that Laura wanted.

  He couldn’t help but wonder what had her in this kind of mood, though. The last time they’d spoken about personal stuff, on the way back from their last case, Laura had said she was going to tell Chris the truth about her abilities. She was serious about him, Nate knew. But then there had been a break over Christmas – and they’d actually had a break, this year – and then they had been focused on getting caught up on paperwork and testimony, and then…

  And then, today.

  Had Chris rejected her? Refused to believe her?

  Nate wouldn’t be surprised. He’d done the same himself, at first. He was more concerned with Laura and how she was taking it. If she was going down some self-destructive spiral, like she had when alcoholism had ruined her entire life, he needed to do something.

  He just didn’t exactly know what, given that he hadn’t been able to stop her back then, either. He’d offered to help her with Chris, and if it came to it he would testify to him on her behalf, but she’d said that wasn’t necessary.

  Laura knocked at Rondelle’s door before Nate even finished walking over, and at his terse command, she opened the door and stepped inside. Nate had no choice but to follow her, even though what he really wanted to do was to make her stop and talk to him – and maybe persuade her to go back home, call Marcus, tell him it was all a mistake, and she could take her daughter for the rest of the weekend after all.

  He found himself standing in front of Rondelle’s desk instead, waiting with his hands clasped respectfully behind his back for their commander to speak. Rondelle was an imposing presence, despite his age and the fact that he was smaller in stature than Nate himself. The salt and pepper grayness in his hair did not take away from his impressiveness – it only underlined the many years of his life the man had given in service to the FBI.

  And as for the fact that he was smaller and wiry – that just gave Nate the impression of the kind of boxer who could easily knock out someone in the weight class above his own.