Page 19 of The Psychic

Ronnie felt Sloan behind her as they headed out of the squad room.

He reached around for the door and the heat of his arm lifted the hairs on hers.

She had a moment of thinking about her relationship with Galen and realized with a kind of annoyed pang at herself that she’d never been so attuned to Galen as she seemed to be to Sloan Hart. What a cosmic joke.

“You work at your father’s law firm,” he said as they both prepared for the rain, Ronnie tossing her hood over her head, Sloan stretching his arms through his gray coat.

“You do know about me.”

Did he also remember she was the same girl he’d saved at The Pond?

She was trying to figure out how to ask him, when he did it for her. “Glad you and Evan both survived that day on the river.”

Ah, yes. He did know. Shana had described his embarrassment at all the teasing he’d endured because of her. But this was an opportunity she’d missed when she was ten. “I never got to really thank you for saving my life, so thank you.”

His smile appeared genuine and she felt herself melt a little inside, which pissed her off anew. She’d never gotten over that day, either, and she’d apparently almost granted celebrity status on Sloan, at least where she was concerned, which really pissed her off.

“I’ll let Detective Verbena know you want to talk to her,” he said as he walked toward a black Bronco parked two slots away from her Escape, both spaces empty.

Did he remember what she’d blurted out that day? Did he? It had been so embarrassing for both of them. “How is Evan?” she heard herself ask, knowing she was just trying to keep Sloan from disappearing so soon.

What she’d said was wild, but people came out of dreams, comas and fugue states and often said strange things.

But … you said you were going to marry him …

And then you screamed your head off when you saw Evan’s “evil ghost” rising from his body.

She shook her head against the memories, wanting to physically push them away. They were the first and worst of her prediction failures.

“You okay?” he called to her as he reached his Bronco.

Still skirting puddles, she glanced over at him. “I’m fine.” Kind of a lie, she thought as she unlocked the Escape remotely. “Thank you … Detective.”

“Good. And as for Evan, he’s doing all right, I guess. I ask him for help sometimes.”

“Help?”

“He’s … good at computer research.” Sloan held up a hand in goodbye.

The dryness of his tone held a wealth of unspoken information.

Evan’s a hacker , she thought, sliding into her Escape.

She forced herself not to look back at him as she drove away.

Her cell phone rang as soon as she was out of the parking lot.

Same number as before. The double call suggested someone needed her immediate attention, so she picked up, touching the button for speaker phone as she set the cell in her cup holder.

“Veronica? It’s Shana.”

“Shana,” she repeated, then asked, “How did you get my number?”

“Oh. Galen. Can you come back to the hospital? I think they’re going to release me and … my car was towed? I don’t know where it is. I need a ride.”

Galen. It figured. Did Shana have no one else she could depend on? She’d mentioned Evan as a friend, but maybe picking up Shana and driving her around was beyond his scope. “They’re releasing you tonight? Not tomorrow?”

“I don’t have insurance. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

For several moments Ronnie stared silently at the rain drizzling down her windshield.

It was dark as pitch. No moon. The clouds were low, obscuring the view beyond a few yards from her headlights, turning the sharp edges misty.

She really didn’t want to take on the responsibility of Sloan’s high school girlfriend. What a weird set of circumstances.

“We’ll have to check with the police to find out where your car is.” We’ll? “ You’ll have to check with the police. Where do you live?”

“It’s not far from you. Closer to the river.”

She wanted to tell her to call a cab, hire an Uber, phone a friend … but she already sensed that if Shana could possibly do that, she already would have. Somewhat reluctantly, she said, “Okay, I can be at Glen Gen in ten minutes and drive you home.”

“Thank you,” she said, sounding more sincere and heartfelt than she had at any moment when Ronnie had seen her earlier. Maybe that’s what desperation did to you.

Ronnie drove back to the hospital, whose parking lot pole lights cast large pools of misty illumination through the dark, over the soggy asphalt and dreary greenery.

She parked as near as possible to the front doors, tossed her hood over her hair again, and walked determinedly forward, head bent to the rain.

She didn’t know what she was going to do about the woman in the clearing.

“Now would be a good time for some real help,” she muttered aloud to the powers that be who’d blessed her with this curse.

As she entered the building, she stood a moment just inside, wondering if it would be inopportune to shake herself like a dog to throw off the water. She dropped back her hood and headed for the elevator to the fourth floor. When she exited she nearly ran into Brandy again.

Only this time Brandy noticed her and looked very surprised. She stopped short and smiled back at her old friend and classmate. Her eyes were lively with interest.

“Ronnie,” she said on a note of discovery.

“Hi, Brandy.”

“Wow. You look exactly the same. Well, almost. Are you eating anything? There’s a lot less of you.”

Ronnie looked down at herself. Was she that skinny? “I’m basically the same.”

“Okay, maybe you are. I didn’t see you as much in high school. How are you? I was … believe it or not, I was just thinking about you.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. And here you are.”

“Maybe you’re the psychic.”

Brandy bit off a laugh. “Not even. I can hardly tell what time it is when I’m working.”

“You’re a nurse at Glen Gen?”

She nodded. “I just moved from cardiac. A lot of cranky old people in cardiac. I’m over it.”

Ronnie smiled. Brandy hadn’t changed.

“Have you got a minute?” she asked.

There was a tension about her that Ronnie recognized had been there when she’d seen her earlier, too, even in those few moments that she was getting on the elevator.

Her dark hair was bound back from her face in a tight bun at her nape.

Her makeup was faintly smeared, as if she’d been rubbing her eyes, and there were lines of strain around her mouth.

Ronnie pulled her cell from her purse and checked the time. “I think so. I’m here to pick someone up, but I don’t know what time she needs to leave.”

“Who? This is kind of late.”

“I know. That’s what I said. I don’t know what the reason is, I’m just … picking her up, but sure, I guess.”

“Good.” A half a pace ahead of Ronnie, Brandy led her past a central nurses’ station toward an alcove at the end of the hall.

Four tan-colored chairs and a table and artwork on the walls filled the niche.

“Wait a sec.” Brandy, as if an idea had just struck her, stopped short near the alcove and abruptly turned.

“You’re not picking up Shana Lloyd, are you? ”

“One and the same.”

“Huh.” She sounded nonplussed.

“I know. It’s … surprising how much involvement I seem to suddenly have with old classmates,” Ronnie admitted.

“Okay, well, I don’t want to get in the way of that. Can we get together, though. Soon? I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“Sure.” They exchanged numbers and then Brandy frowned down at the floor, as if she were working herself up to say something else.

“What is it?” asked Ronnie. She had a spidery sense of something coming, so strong that her skin raised in goose bumps. She waited, but Brandy just shook her head and said, “Tomorrow’s my day off. Want to meet for coffee? Or lunch?”

The moment passed. It wasn’t a premonition, exactly, but it had grabbed Ronnie’s attention. “Coffee’s fine.” Her day was fairly open. “Any hint of what you want to talk about?” Brandy was practically bursting with the need to get something off her chest.

For a moment it seemed like she would unburden herself, but instead she settled for, “It can wait till tomorrow. Let’s just say I may need your help.”

“Legal help?” Ronnie asked carefully.

“More like your special kind of help.” Brandy shot her a weak smile and Ronnie tamped down her disappointment that her old friend was as much a user as everyone else. She wanted something to do with Ronnie’s “gift.”

All for one, and one for all.

“Okay,” said Ronnie, and Brandy seemed to breathe easier.

Ronnie’s last good deed for the day was dealing with Shana. It turned out the hospital hadn’t really released Shana yet, but she was panicked about her rising medical debt and was determined to leave.

Wearing her blood-splattered clothes from the night before, Shana was seated in a wheelchair when Ronnie entered her room.

Shana wasn’t happy about it and argued with the aide who insisted on pushing the chair to the front doors, despite Shana’s insistence she could walk on her own “just fine.” Nonetheless she grudgingly accepted the ride to the portico beyond the sliding glass doors where it was left to Ronnie to make sure Shana made it into her SUV.

“Geez, I’m not that bad,” Shana insisted, though it seemed that maybe she was, as she struggled to buckle her seat belt. When it snapped into place, she said, “You think we could stop for coffee on the way?”

Why not?

Ronnie drove through the nearest Starbucks with a drive-through window where holiday lights twinkled around the windows of the shop. They each ordered a small coffee, Ronnie’s black, Shana’s with cream.

“Thank you,” Shana said, cradling the warm cup and sipping in the few minutes it took to drive to her apartment complex, a run-down group of buildings several rungs down in the “deferred maintenance” column from Ronnie’s.