Page 8 of The Psychic

Shana was alone when Ronnie entered, pressed up against pillows, awake and almost as pale as the white pillowcase and bandage that ran over the gash on her forehead and covered her left eyebrow.

Her breasts pressed against the hospital gown.

Ronnie had a moment of recalling the image she’d had of her kneeling in front of Galen’s chair, but pushed it aside.

Galen was history. Her pride might be bruised that he’d only chosen her because she was Jonas Quick’s daughter, but hadn’t she really suspected that all along at some level?

If she really wanted to drill down on it, she would find she’d wanted to get married and Galen had crossed her path at the right time …

and, lame as it was, one small reason she’d wanted to wed was to abolish that damn prediction she’d made about marrying Sloan Hart.

She scowled at the thought as Shana gazed up at her blankly.

“You’re Veronica Hillyard,” she said, as if they’d just met.

“Veronica Quick,” Ronnie corrected. “You got it right the first time. Hillyard’s my soon-to-be ex’s name.”

A bit of color swept into Shana’s cheeks. Guilt, maybe, over her intimate knowledge of Galen? If that vision was accurate?

“You’re the psychic,” she stated.

“I’m an assistant in my father’s law firm,” she corrected.

“And psychic.”

“Not completely accurate.” If she could count the times she’d had to say that …

“I’ve had some … success in predicting things.

But it’s more about studying human nature than any real ability.

” What a load of crap. She sounded like she was launching into a TED Talk.

But it was still easier than admitting she occasionally had episodes, fugue states, lost time … whatever …

Luckily, Shana had lost interest. “Looks like I’m going to be okay. They were worried about my head. I am having a little trouble remembering things, but I remember being at your apartment.”

“Serving me divorce papers.”

She grimaced, then sucked a bit of air between her teeth at the pain that moving those muscles in her face apparently gave her. “Yeah.”

“I heard the crash after you left my door and I went to investigate. You collapsed while we were talking at the crash site. I wanted to stop by and make sure you were okay.”

She blinked. “We were … talking at the crash site?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No …” She carefully reached a hand up to her face to trace the white bandage.

“You took quite a hit,” Ronnie commiserated, knowing that even without a blow to the head it sometimes took time to recall things that happened during extreme stress.

“I remember … being mad.” Her fingers dropped from the bandage to pluck at the white covers of her bed sheets.

“Being mad?”

“Being mad about everything.” Her gaze grew belligerent. “Things turned out for you, didn’t they? But they sure didn’t for me. That’s the way it always is, isn’t it? The rich get richer. The rest of us … eat shit. But you wouldn’t know because your daddy’s a big deal.”

Ronnie felt a spurt of annoyance but held it back.

“My father is part owner of the law firm where I work. We all have something that’s not always perfect.

” Twice in one morning her relationship to her father had come into play.

She felt the urge to explain that she and Jonas really didn’t get along, how she was sick of him tinkering in her life, how she’d dropped out of law school primarily to rebel, how she felt he was trying to relive his own life through hers.

Never mind that she was “only hurting yourself.” She’d heard that one more than a few times, too.

“I was happy to serve you divorce papers.” She lifted her chin a bit. “I did it as a favor to Galen.”

“You know him well?”

She seemed to collect herself. “He’s an asshole. Sorry. I know he’s your husband.”

“Something we agree on.” Had she got it wrong about Galen and Shana? She was glad she hadn’t said anything on the subject.

Shana shot her a sideways look. “What are you doing here?”

I don’t really know. “As I said, just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Unbidden, a recollection of Shana and Sloan Hart came to mind.

It was around the time the two of them were graduating high school.

Ronnie had been in middle school and the year was just ending.

She was with her father and they’d just pulled into the parking lot of the River Glen Grill.

Shana and Sloan were standing by his car and Shana was crying, mad crying, ugly crying, looking up at Sloan as if he’d utterly betrayed her.

Ronnie had stared out the passenger window at them, eager for a glimpse.

River Glen High’s hot couple. Miserable.

She’d certainly felt a bit of schadenfreude at seeing the supposed lovebirds in a big fight.

Then Shana hauled off and slapped Sloan, right in front of Ronnie’s eyes, and she’d gasped aloud. That wasn’t okay!

Sloan didn’t react apart from a thinning of his lips. He turned away and immediately Shana ran after him, grabbing for his arm, begging for him to, “Look at me! Look at me!”

Jonas had been getting out of the car at that moment and missed the scene entirely, except for Shana’s screaming pleas.

“What’s going on there?” he asked, looking around, but Ronnie had whipped around the car and placed herself in front of him, deliberately blocking her father’s vision of the scene.

“I don’t know.” A breakup of some kind, she thought— hoped?

Jonas made a disparaging sound. Though he didn’t say it, she could read a snide— Teenagers— in his expression as he strode toward the restaurant, Ronnie on his heels.

Ronnie had glanced back before she followed her father inside, but Sloan and Shana had disappeared into his car.

A lot of years since then , she thought now.

“You’re the one who said she was going to marry Sloan Hart,” said Shana.

Clearly it didn’t amuse Shana, even after all this time. “Yes, unfortunately. And I’ve gotten a lot of grief about it over the years.”

“Really.”

“Yep.”

“So did Sloan.”

“I was ten. It was just a dumb moment.”

“Yeah, sometimes those stick with you.” Shana looked away. “Does Galen know?”

“Come on. It’s not worth knowing about.”

“But does he know? I just was wondering, if that’s why he pursued me.”

“He pursued you?”

“That’s what it feels like. We met at a bar.

I was with friends and I swear he knew who I was already.

He said he was married to Veronica Quick, the psychic.

I didn’t tell him about that day at The Pond, but now that I think about it, I think he knew all along.

He wanted to”—her dark eyes swept upward—“get to you.”

Ronnie didn’t like the sound of that. It was too … petty … and weird. Did Galen know about what she’d said to Sloan? She’d never mentioned it. She’d told him about nearly dying at The Pond, but she’d left out the part about Sloan because it was pointless and had embarrassed her.

“We’re all just lucky we survived,” she said.

“It bothered Sloan. I mean, really. We all teased him … well, I didn’t think it was so funny, but his friends did. And then there was Evan.”

Evan. He’d survived the trauma of the fall, but afterwards was confined to a wheelchair.

Ronnie could remember everything that had happened that day in excruciating detail—her embarrassing blurt about marrying Sloan, Evan’s near-death experience that had stolen his ability to walk, her own heart-stuttering fall, and the laughter and jeers after the marriage prediction—it was as if it were outlined in her mind in black Sharpie.

“He was never the same afterwards,” Shana said matter-offactly.

Ronnie nodded. “I think Evan’s a whiz on the computer. That’s kind of what he said, when I saw him—”

“Not Evan,” Shana cut in and rolled her eyes as if Ronnie was a complete idiot.

“ Sloan . Right from that moment at The Pond. He was never the same. We were never the same after that day. And everything went to shit after that. You know he’s a policeman now?

He’s a detective, happily married to that— well, I don’t know her.

Her name’s Tara. They met when he was working in Los Angeles. ”

“I thought he was divorced.”

“Really?” She perked up. “Where’d you hear that? Is that new?”

“I don’t know if it’s even true. Just something I heard.” Ronnie backpedaled. She was getting in way too deep with Shana over a secret crush on Sloan that should have died out years before.

Unexpectedly, Shana’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I’m … just getting by, and that’s why I let Galen talk me into serving you. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. Here.” Ronnie leaned over and grabbed a tissue from the box on the rolling table beside the bed, handing it to her. Shana just held it in a limp hand, her eyes focused on the past.

“Evan told me it was because of what you said. Everybody laughed so hard when you said it. It was so … just so stupid, but it bothered Sloan a lot. All of a sudden he didn’t want to hang with us anymore.”

“That’s not because of me. That’s … I don’t know what you’re thinking but that’s too ridiculous.

Your class was horrified about what happened to Evan.

He nearly died that day. It was totally traumatic for anyone who was there.

I was barely even aware of what was going on. We all were all traumatized and—”

“We never really broke up, you know. Sloan and me. We fought, but … we never really ended it. But then high school was over and he was just gone. If he really divorced Tara, I sure would like to see him.”

“Shana, I don’t know if they’re divorced. Don’t trust what I said.”

“I’ll ask Evan. He should know.”

“You’re still friends?”

“Yeah.” She made a face, felt the pain again, sucked air. “Damn it,” she whispered. “Did you know he’s in a wheelchair?”

“Yes.”

“He hit his head or something on a submerged rock. We talk sometimes … He looks out for me some. We commiserate. Two losers, I guess.” She sighed.

“I don’t believe that.”

Ronnie had run across Evan a couple of times through the intervening years and knew he lived in an apartment complex on the south side of River Glen, a nice place with a pool, which he used for physical therapy, or at least he had.

She didn’t know if he still resided there.

Sloan had moved on long ago. Someone in the law firm had mentioned he was with Portland P.D.

, but that, too, was news from a few years back.

“They want to do more tests on me,” Shana complained, moving uncomfortably beneath the sheets. “I just want to get out of here.”

“They want to make certain you’re okay and that your collapse was a onetime thing.”

“What collapse?” She regarded Ronnie with vague alarm, which was probably echoed on Ronnie’s own face as they’d already gone over this. “What?” she demanded.

Ronnie dodged the direct question and said, “They’ll send you home when they’re sure you’re okay.”

There was something vaguely exotic about Shana even now, even with deep lines on her face that seemed like they belonged to someone much older than herself.

Ronnie explained further about how Shana had gone down at the crash site, practically falling at her feet.

“I’m sorry,” Shana said again, when Ronnie finished.

Ronnie nodded. Time to put their shared history back in the past where it belonged and head to the office.

She was probably already going to be late if she got going.

Not that anyone paid much attention to when the boss’s daughter showed up.

She couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Maybe she should care that they just assumed she could do whatever she wanted.

Jonas certainly didn’t feel she had free rein.

He was, and always had been, very specific about what he did and didn’t want from his daughter.

“Do you ever see Sloan?” Shana blurted as Ronnie shifted toward the door.

“I don’t even know him, Shana,” she answered truthfully.

“What about Clint? You were friends with his sister, right?”

“Brandy and I were friends in elementary school.”

“Not anymore?”

“School was a long time ago.”

“I thought you might still be connected to them. I’d like to get in contact with Sloan again.”

“Well, as you said … Evan,” Ronnie pointed out.

“He’ll razz me about wanting to see Sloan, and I don’t feel strong enough to take it.”

“Well, I can’t help you there. I’ll look over the divorce papers and talk to Galen. Thanks for bringing them to me,” she added a bit awkwardly.

“He used to work at your dad’s firm, and I knew you were there, so … I said I’d do it. Bring the papers to you.”

“Okay.” Ronnie wanted to just edge out the door. She was already regretting stopping by.

“I always kind of thought you were the enemy,” she threw out in a rush. “So, I listened to Galen.”

“Your enemy? Why? You can’t … this can’t go back to that day at The Pond … ?”

“You ruined my life with those five little words.”

Ronnie snorted. There was no way, no way , any of that could matter to anyone but herself. “Come on.”

“It’s true. And by the way, your husband’s a real piece of work. He says you’re a crazy bitch. Like … Cray. Zee. Psychic weirdo.”

That, she believed. Galen was a name-caller.

Something she’d learned after their marriage.

Feeling her temperature rise, she teetered with the urge to lean in to the Cray.

Zee. She would love nothing more than to pop out with some amazing nugget of information from Shana’s own past to impress her with awe-inspiring psychic skills.

Give her some dire prediction about her future.

Freak her out with words of caution and symbols of death.

But … nothing good ever came of fooling around with her uncertain psychic skills. If she wanted to be believed … and the vision of the dead woman in the clearing was definitely something she wanted to be believed … then she had to rise above Shana’s baiting words.

“You never got with Sloan?” Shana asked now, really looking at Ronnie.

“You’re kidding.”

“I just thought that, after your prediction, you’d follow him around.”

“Why is this even a conversation?”

“Okay, well, I get why you’re getting a divorce.”

“Galen’s all yours,” Ronnie said lightly.

“I just told you what I think of him.”

But was that the truth? “Glad it looks like you’re going to be okay,” she said, slipping through the door and into the outer hallway.