I capture a bit of sleep in the few lulls of our conversation. A true miracle. Sleep might be an overstatement. I can’t stop thinking about communal underwear. Really, everything that touches my father’s skin has been shared and probably soiled with every form of bodily fluid.
After the inmate’s wife complained about his skin infection, I researched protocol for laundry in prisons. I came across a past inmate’s blog. He said a lot of prisons send out their laundry to services that also do laundry for other businesses, like restaurants. Now, I can’t use a cloth napkin at a restaurant without wondering if it was washed in the same machine as soiled communal underwear.
CHAPTER THREE
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I’m drawn to anything out of the ordinary, the crazy, the eccentric. I’ve been this way all my life.
“Come on. We’regoing to the same place.” Nolan pins me with a don’t-be-ridiculous look as I pull my bags toward the taxi queue along the curb. After a tiring trip, including two connecting flights, we’re finally at Hilton Head Airport.
“I didn’t want to be presumptuous.” I grin, following him to his car, relishing the warm Savannah breeze kissing my face. And the sun—it’s bloody amazing!
“Scarlet, please, be presumptuous.”
The pictures of Savannah don’t lie. I can’t stop staring at the curvy oak trees with their saggy branches draped in Spanish moss. Oscar said my mum fell in love with Savannah and as the picturesque scenery flashes past my window, I can see why.
“Are you feeling well?”
My head jerks back. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I have this…” He taps his hand on the top of the steering wheel. “I don’t know how to explain it in a way that you’d understand, but I sort of…sensethings.”
I nod slowly. “Well, you’re human, so I hope yousensethings. Contrary to what has been taught for years, humans have at least nine senses that most researchers agree on; some scientists believe we have over twenty senses.”
“Wow! You’re good with human biology.”
I shake my head. “I’m good with random knowledge. I had an insatiable curiosity as a child—I still do.”
“Well, my sense is a little more rare than the average five, nine, or twenty that you speak of.”
“Oh, really?” I try to act curious, yet casual, but if I’m honest, he’s got my nipples erect and not in a sexual way. “Like what? You see dead people?”
“No … well, potentially.”
“Potentially, wow, that would be killer on a CV. ‘I speak three different languages, volunteer twelve hours a week… oh, and I can potentially see dead people.”
“I sense pain.”
“Pain.” I nod over and over like I’m bobbing to a beat but there is no beat.
“Yes.”
I clear my throat. “What kind of pain? Emotional? Because if you must know, I left behind my fiancé—ex-fiancé. It was for the best, but I still love him so—”
“No.” Nolan shakes his head, a frown and wrinkled forehead marring his pretty face. “Physical pain.”
“Like… a heart attack?”
“Yes.”
“Some dogs can sense health conditions too.” I shrug. So he’s part dog. No big deal. It was only a matter of time before scientists crossed that line.
“Yes. I’ve read a lot about it. That is through smell. They can detect the slightest shift in hormones, even cancer which lets off VOCs. But I don’t have a heightened sense of smell. I can just…feelpain that’s not mine, but it feels like mine. It took a while to discover that I wasn’t dying every day of something new. I was feeling the ailments of the people around me.”
Another laugh escapes me because this is absurd. It has to be. I prefer the he’s-part-dog scenario. “So, I’m causing you pain?”
He nods. “Some, yes.”
“Well, your senses are off today, because I’m feeling fine.”
