Page 5

5

What. The. Hell?

Did this lunatic just come into my own home and tell my fiancée that I’m going to kill her? This is horseshit.

Quillizabeth is standing rigidly in our living room, her entire body shaking. It’s almost like she’s having a seizure. I’d call an ambulance, but then we’d never get her out of here.

“He’s going to stab you with a kitchen knife.” Quillizabeth points a shaky finger at the rug beneath our feet. “It’s going to happen right here . I saw a vision of him crouching over your body, watching you bleed to death.”

I look over at Krista. All the color has drained from her face. Is there a chance she’s taking this woman seriously? She’s literally wearing a tinfoil hat .

“Okay then.” I place a hand on Quillizabeth’s back to lead her out of the living room, but she leaps away like I just seared her with a hot poker. “You need to go.”

“Please believe me, Krista.” Quillizabeth reaches out a gnarled hand for my girlfriend. “Be careful. My visions…they are never wrong.”

“I’m sure,” I say through my teeth as I step between Quillizabeth and Krista. “But I’m not planning to murder her today, so I think you’re good to go.”

I will pick this woman up and throw her out if I have to.

Quillizabeth lets out a cry of protest, but finally, Krista shakes her head. “I’m fine,” Krista assures her. “You…you should go.”

It is Krista who leads Quillizabeth back to the front door. All the while, the older woman is pleading with her and grabbing on to her arm. I hear her repeat the word “dangerous” and then “get out.” It takes several minutes of quiet conversation before Krista shuts the door, and by that point, Quillizabeth is practically sobbing.

Jesus. I should have let Krista sell the stupid ring.

I allow myself to collapse onto the sofa. Krista returns to the living room, although she looks several shades paler than she did before.

“Wow,” I say. “That woman was out of her mind.”

“Yeah,” Krista mumbles.

I look up at her. She’s wringing her hands together the way she does when she’s upset about something.

“You didn’t really believe her, did you?” I ask.

“No, of course not.” But Krista hesitates a beat too long before saying it. And when she sits down beside me on the sofa, she leaves a little more space between us than she usually does. “But you have to admit, it was a little…jarring.”

“Not really. She was nuts.”

The left side of Krista’s lips quirks up. “You’re just skeptical of everything because you’re a Scorpio.”

I am?

“Look,” I say, “skeptical or not, I’m not going to stab you in our living room. I mean, you don’t really believe I’m capable of doing anything like that, do you?”

“No,” she says, although again there’s that weird hesitation .

“I’ve never done anything to make you distrust me,” I point out.

And that’s true.

Well, as far as she knows.

“I’m a good guy.” I reach for her hand, and I can’t help notice that, like Quillizabeth, she is shaking. “You know I am. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you or anyone. You know that.”

Krista looks down at her lap. She takes a breath. “Blake, where did you get the money for the down payment on the brownstone?”

“What?”

She raises her blue eyes slowly. “When you bought this place six months ago. You told me you didn’t have enough cash for the down payment. But then all of a sudden, you found the money.”

What is she saying? Does she think that I did the awful thing Wayne Vincent accused me of? Does she think I’m some piece of crap who sold out my company to get the money to buy this brownstone? Is that what she’s implying?

“I cashed in my retirement,” I say through my teeth. “That’s how I got the money.” When she doesn’t say anything, I add, “I’ll show you the receipts if you don’t believe me.”

“No,” she says softly. “I believe you.”

Does she though? Krista and I have been together for two years, but our relationship is still relatively young. It’s apparently early enough that a New Agey quack in robes and a tinfoil hat could say the right things and sow doubts in her head. And let’s face it, it’s not like I’m batting a thousand lately.

I rack my brain, trying to think of what I can say to reassure her. But before the words can come to me, the doorbell rings.

Oh God, it’s another one.