She shrugged. “Okay. I was walking barefoot in the snow by Witch Creek, and birds were flapping high above me, squawking in a way that wasn’t natural.” She wrapped her arms around her waist as if chilled.
He flicked the heater up higher in the truck.
She looked back out the window. “My feet started to freeze and I couldn’t move. All of a sudden, frozen black dahlias began to fall from the sky, hitting me in the head and knocking me to the ground. I knew somebody was coming, and I knew they had a hammer and were going to hit me. There was no way to get free.” Her voice trailed off at the end.
He fought every instinct in his body to keep from taking her hand. They weren’t that kind of friends. “Sounds like a pretty normal dream after the scene we witnessed yesterday.” Her vulnerability and naïveté was such a contrast to her devastating intelligence that he wanted to know more. Wanted to get inside her head. It was a fascinating place. “You’re a woman, a professional woman like the victim, so it isn’t a surprise you’d identify with her.”
“Thank goodness,” she whispered.
He jolted. “What?”
A light pink filtered beneath her smooth skin. “I’m always afraid I’ll identify with the killer.”
Whoa. Not what he’d expected. He glanced into the back seat to see if Aeneas had caught the anxiety in her voice, but the dog was snoozing happily. “The killer has to be some sort of psychopath, right? You’re not a psychopath.”
“We don’t know if the killer is a psychopath or not,” she countered, her voice stronger now. “But we both know I’m unusually intelligent, and brilliance and insanity are but one click away on the clock of life.” She still didn’t look at him.
What the hell? “You think you might go insane?”
“No.” Finally, she smiled. “But you won’t find many people who’ve been categorized as a genius who haven’t thought about it.”
Her smile was natural and pure. She was correct that she brought out a protectiveness in him he thought he’d abandoned after leaving the service. But he’d seen her survive a car crash and jump out into the snow to fire at her attacker. She had an impressive strength. “What’s your IQ, anyway?” Was it rude to ask?
“I don’t know the number.” She hunched her shoulders. “I was tested when I was young, and my mother always destroyed the results, figuring that my knowing the number would influence my decisions. Looking back, she was correct. I don’t think an IQ can be truly measured, and a number would just be arbitrary. While I’m curious about many things, an indiscriminate number that’s supposed to define me is not one of them.”
“Genius must be inheritable, right? Considering you and your half sister are both prodigies.”
She stiffened. “I suppose so, but I’ve never met our biological father, so I can’t say.”
“Are you still searching for him?”
“Yes.” Her chin firmed and her eyes sparked. Her father had been the preacher at a local church, but he’d disappeared on a walkabout a few years ago. “The FBI has an active file on him since the current preacher filed a missing person’s report.”
This was none of Huck’s business, unless the man had met with foul play. “Do you think he’s alive?”
She reached forward and turned down the heat. “I don’t know if he’s alive or not. I do know that he met with my half sister when she returned to town and then left shortly afterward. If she feels anything toward him like I do, I’m not certain she’d let him live.”
Huck swallowed. “I didn’t know you had bad feelings.”
“I do. Very.” She paused as if trying to decide how much detail a friend should be given. “He raped my mom when she was seventeen, and she had me. My uncle Carl fought him and sustained a head injury that still plagues him to this day.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Me, too. In the span of one month, I discovered the identity of my father, who needs to be held accountable for his crimes, and the existence of a half sister who’s at least as intelligent as I am, if not more.”
Huck nodded. “I know we can’t prove it, but I think she helped cover for her brother’s crimes until she shot him to save you.” He sighed. “Based on her past—being taken from her father, who’s apparently a bad guy, then being thrown into college at a young age by herself—I can see her wanting to protect family.”
“Yes. She didn’t have the security and love that I did.”
“You feel sorry for Dr. Caine?” He liked to keep Abigail in the doctor category because every instinct in his body told him she was dangerous.
“Yes. I often wonder who I’d be if I’d grown up alone like she did,” Laurel said softly.
He glanced her way. “You’d be exactly who you are. You fight evil, Laurel. That matters.”
She fiddled with her earring again. “Don’t you wonder why I chose this field? I do, and I haven’t delved deep enough to really understand my motivations, if they can even be understood.” For a second, she sounded lost.
The bewildering complexity of the woman made him feel relieved that they’d decided to just be friends, but he sympathized with her unease about Abigail and the pastor. Both were the kind of brilliant that could lead to crazy. He pulled to a stop in the parking lot of a luxury condominium complex. They’d have to continue this discussion later.
