with nowhere to hide.

Strength drained from my legs, and I sank to the edge of the couch, my fingers plucking at the cushion. “It won’t help you.”

He crouched in front of me, not touching me. “It won’t, or you won’t?”

“That’s two questions,” I muttered, avoiding his gaze.

“Put it on my tab.” Then he waited, giving me time to find my waning

courage.

Maybe I should’ve considered my Q&A dare a little more thoroughly as

things were about to get FUBAR. Fear slithered low in my belly. My ability was

the furthest thing from a gift you could get, and what I shared next could send

me to therapy, and therapy and I were not good friends. When I was a kid, everyone’s answer to my strange behavior was pills.

Needing distance from both the man and his questions, I pushed to my feet

and resettled the cushion. “Sometimes I can see what happened in the past.” No

exclamations of disbelief sounded from behind me, and when I turned around, he

didn’t stare at me like I was bat-shit crazy. Strange.

“Post-cog.” His answer raised something old and hungry. At my raised

eyebrow, he explained, “The official term is retro cognition, the ability to read the past of a person or object.”

“Just people, not objects.” Granted, sometimes certain objects could help my

focus, but they never automatically triggered my ability. A shudder ran through

me at the prospect of how much worse things could be if the objects around me could drag me into the past. Guess I should be grateful for small blessings.

Speaking of objects. I rounded the sofa, determined to find the missing gun.

“How do you know this?”

“Is that really the question you want to ask?”

Was it? No, but asking what I wanted meant I was seriously considering working with him again, willing to join the hunt for the monster who turned my

world upside down. And how stupid was that? Rubbing the dull ache under my

scar and along my jaw, I dropped to my knees to peer beneath the sofa and continue my search. I wasn’t hiding. “Maybe.”

“You sure?”

Dignity be damned, I leaned down until my cheek pressed flat against the cool floor and scoured the forest of dust bunnies. And there toward the far end,

just out of reach lay the gun.

From somewhere above me, Kayden asked, “What are you doing?”

“Looking for a gun.”

“You generally keep one under the couch?”

Snorting in this position would result in a never-ending chain reaction of sneezing. “No, smartass.” Sitting up, I found him standing over the back of the

couch. I nodded toward the far end. “Do me a favor and lift that, would you?”

While he got into position, I couldn’t help but add, “By the way, your tab o’

questions is now at four and counting.”

He sank into a squat, gripped the edge of the sofa, and lifted, making it look

easy. Guess those muscles were more than ornamentation. “Actually, three,” he

grunted.

“Uh?” Realizing I was staring instead of getting the gun, I gave myself a mental slap and dropped to the floor. I shifted my shoulder, snagged the black matte grip, and sat up, determined to stick to our conversation.

He set the couch back in place. “Your request to lift the couch? Took my tally back down to three.”

Appreciating his willingness to play along, which gave me a chance to get my bearings back, I checked my gun. Ejecting the magazine, I racked the slide,

emptying the bullet from the chamber. “Fine, three then.”

I counted the bullets in the magazine—fourteen. Kelsey never got a shot off.

“So, Ellery took Kelsey to get to me, and now you think playing Peeping Tom

with the past will help you catch him?”

He settled beside me on the floor, his shoulder brushing mine as I re-inserted

the magazine. He rested his arms on his upraised knees. “I don’t think so, I know

so.”

The surety in his answer scared me, enough that I gave up keeping score on

our question-and-answer game. “Why?”