“Uh, what? Like hell I am,” I say, rushing after him. “I’m coming with you.”
Near the front door, Blake stops dead and squares up with me, “What kind of training do you have?”
His eyes are deep, dark pools of serious desperation. There’s something hidden there—something buried deep and separate from this case. If my abilities were working with him I’d know instantly what he was trying to hide.
I blink back in surprise, “I, uh…”
“That’s what I thought. Stay here and leave this to me. You’ve done your bit, assuming you’re telling the truth. Aiden’s already calling in backup. The last thing I need is you getting in the way—or worse, getting yourself into trouble. I’ll have enough to worry about going in.”
Suddenly, my brain kicks back in.
Who the hell does he think he is?
I’m freaking Diana Hawthorne. I’m not some pretty face incapable of handling myself. I’ve seen more than this man will ever witness in all his years—and then some.
“Look, Blake, I may not have any specialized training I’m assuming you’ve undergone, but I’ve assisted on over a dozen cases in the past two years alone. All of them ended up with good results because I was with them. I don’t need you to save me, or worry about me. I can handle myself. But Esther—I can help you locate her. I’ve seen where she’s playing—where he’s hiding her,” I say, grabbing his arm. “What if you get there and it’s not obvious? And I’m sure as hell you don’t have a warrant to search the premises—unless you happen to have a cop in your back pocket. I can get the dude to invite us in and never even know what hit him.”
Blake looks down at my white knuckled grasp clutched across his forearm, and sighs.
“You’re not gonna take no for an answer, are you?”
“Nope,” I say, jutting out my chin.
“Fine,” he concedes, “you can come with—but you’ll stay in the Rover until I need you. Got it?”
“Whatever you say,” I say, nodding and holding my hands up.
What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Right?
“Change of plans Aiden—she’s coming with,” Blake calls out as he opens the front door.
His eyes flit back to me as concern creeps across his features.
In the distance, Aiden calls back, “Got it.”
Grinning, I march out the door and head back to the front seat of the Range Rover.
Blake slides in the driver’s seat, turning the vehicle on, and plugging in coordinates into his in-dash GPS. Within seconds, the vehicle is in motion—swerving along the curvy drive with ease. His focus reminds me of my own.
The confusion from earlier is waning and my senses heighten, as they always do when I’m helping with a case. Of course, I’ll probably sleep for days after we’re done—but it will be worth it if we can find the little girl before anything truly bad happens.
I can’t imagine the kind of hell she’d have to deal with if we fail.
Turning to Blake, I whisper, “Who was it?”
“Excuse me?” he says, not taking his eyes off the road.
I eye his every move, trying to figure him out. It’s curious—I’ve never had to read someone solely based on body language before. It’s an interesting, almost refreshing twist.
He shifts in his seat.
“Who did you lose?” I ask.
Even though I got the details about Aiden’s parents, I’m not certain that’s the entirety of it.
Blake snorts, “What makes you think I lost anyone?”
He shoots me a sideways glance, but again his perfect little ass shifts in the seat.
“Hmmm,” I mutter.
“Hmmm? What’s hmmm?”
I shrug, casting my gaze out to the road in front of us. Trees fly by far faster than they should, as he presses the limit on how quickly we should maneuver the bends.
“You’re an odd one for me,” I finally admit. “On one hand, I can’t get a read on you—but on another, I get these impressions. Just calculated guesses really because they’re not based on my insights—or gifts. Whatever you want to call it. Christ, is that how you have to go through your life? Watching for patterns and making guesses, hoping they’ll pay off?”
“Huh, never thought of it that way before,” he says, his lips tugging downward as his eyebrows flip up.
“It’s excruciating,” I whisper.
“C’mon. You’re telling me you’ve never had to make a calculated guess before?” he snorts. “I’m sure even self-proclaimed psychics have their moments.”
I shake my head, letting the snide remark slide.
“No—never for the things that mattered. I’ve always been able to see the past, present, and future accurately.”
Well, okay, that’s a lie.
The only other blind spot has been my past, but we won’t get into that.
“Never? Then why would I be so different?” he asks, glancing to me.
“No idea. To be honest, it’s kinda annoying. I don’t know if it’s me—if my abilities are on the fritz, or if it’s you. Just you. You know? Have you warded yourself?” I ask.
He throws a glance my direction and snickers.
“Like, with witchcraft and stuff?”
“Sure, if you wanna be an ass about it,” I say, throwing my hands up in exasperation.
“Well, c’mon. Wards? Are you even using English?”
“It means using something to protect yourself from being read. Well, in the reference I’m using it, anyway. You can call it magic or witchcraft if you want. It’s another form of energy work,” I say, biting my lip.
“Nope. No warding happening here. Just me, in all my ordinary glory,” he chuckles.
“So weird,” I mutter, shaking my head.
“Well, so far, supposedly you’ve been able to see other stuff pretty well, right? Until it happens more frequently—don’t worry. I’d consider it an isolated incident. Then again, that’s just me,” he shrugs.
The Rover swerves to the left and I have to put my hand out to avoid smacking into the door.
“Nearly there,” Blake says, more for himself than me. Even without the GPS dictating our course, I can sense we’re getting closer.
Such a weird sensation—it’s a tingling playing at the back of my neck, like someone’s there, breathing against my
