She sank onto the sofa, hugging her knees as she watched Jake standing uneasily a few feet away. After he had come to her rescue, they’d been intent on getting to safety. Now that they were alone together, it seemed everything had changed.
As she watched him standing awkwardly in the living area, she asked, “Sorry you brought me here?”
“No.”
“Your face says otherwise. You look like you’re going to fly apart with tension.”
“I’m thinking about the guy who barged in on you. How did he know you knew Evelyn?”
“He said my name was in her day book.”
“That solves one mystery.”
“But you’re thinking about us, too.”
“Okay. Yeah.”
She swallowed. She’d been avoiding Jake Harper because of what she’d sensed between them. Maybe that had been the wrong approach.
“You might as well sit down,” she said.
He waited a moment then took the gun from the waistband of his pants and set it on the table before lowering himself to the other end of the sofa, still eyeing her.
“What are you thinking now?” she asked as she studied his uncertain expression.
“That I’ve had a lot of weird experiences in my life, but I’ve never run into anything like this.”
“Which part?”
“The whole deal. Evelyn Morgan. Her murder. The mind reading stuff.”
The mind reading stuff--which was triggered by touching, as far as she could tell. She felt a strong compulsion to reach out and touch him now–for a lot of reasons--but she thought it would be better to keep her hands to herself. For the time being.
Trying to fill the silence, she said, “I have more experience with psychic . . . phenomena than you do. Murder, not so much.”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“I was afraid to find out what was between us. Maybe that’s a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Because when the guy was getting ready to handcuff me, I had the strong feeling that you were going to show up to rescue me.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “Well, at least I knew something was going to happen to change theequation. I didn’t know for sure that it would be you until I saw you standing in the doorway. Why did you come rushing over to my place?”
He blew out a breath. “I’d been thinking about you all day. I told myself that I should ask you some questions. I guess that was an excuse to see you. On the way to your shop, I felt . . .” He stopped and shrugged. “I don’t know what to call it. Anxious, I guess. Like I knew something bad was going down. Specifically, I was sure you were in trouble.”
“Lucky for me.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “Thanks for being honest. Did you ever feel something like that before?”
“I’ve had hunches that turned out to be right.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes when I’m negotiating, I have a sense of how far the other guy’s willing to go.”
“That could just be experience.”
“When I was a teenager on the streets, I was pretty good at picking places to sleep where I knew I’d be safe.”
She nodded, thinking that none of that was exactly evidence. “Did you ever have mind to mind communication with anyone else?”
