A Deep and Dark December(52)

“Not as far as I know.” But he could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

The obvious question lay between them so he asked it, “Can you call up Deidre’s murderer again, maybe see his face this time so we know who we’re dealing with?”

“No.”

“No, as in you tried and couldn’t or no, you won’t?”

“I tried, but there’s a…block. I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t know who he is so I can’t access the vision that way. When I tried going back to the day of Deidre’s murder there’s nothing to grab onto. It’s blacked out.”

“You said you can feel your dad and aunt in your head and purposefully block them. Is it possible for someone with another kind of ability to know when you’re using your ability on them?”

“If they can, they’ve never told me.”

“Would they tell you though? I would think that would give them an advantage they’d want to keep to themselves.”

“How very cynical,” she accused. “Is that what you would do with your own family?”

“Probably not, but with anyone else—”

“Anyone else?”

“Most anyone else. Look, I’m just trying to work through how whoever’s manipulating your family’s abilities is able to target each of your specific talents. And how they seem to know about your secret ability.”

He exited the freeway and turned onto the two-lane highway that led to the center of San Rey. Lightning flashed, illuminating Erin’s face for the briefest moment. Even with the frown creasing her brow, she was so lovely, his next breath stalled in his chest and he had to force his focus back to the road ahead.

“I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I just don’t know.”

He reached for her hand and found it clenched in her lap. She resisted at first, then relaxed, slipping her fingers into his.

“I’m sorry,” he said, offering useless words instead of pulling the car over and clutching her against him, as he really wanted to do. “I know none of this is easy.”

“That’s my life…not easy.”

Her laugh, full of worry and fear, fisted his gut. He held onto her tighter and pressed a little harder on the accelerator. They came over a rise and the lights of San Rey sparkled in the distance as the first raindrops hit the windshield.

“How long have Mabel and your father been seeing each other?” he asked to shake loose the mood that had settled over them like the storm clouds outside.

Her laugh was real this time. “Close to ten years. They think no one suspects.”

“Seemed obvious to me.”

“My aunt and I have known for years, but pretend we don’t. I think they like the illicitness of their off and on affair.”

“Wasn’t she still married to Calvin Hobbs up until a couple of years ago?”

“She married Calvin when she and my dad were in an off phase,” Erin said. “She does that when she gets mad and frustrated because my dad won’t marry her. Breaks up with him, marries someone else, gets a divorce and then takes up with my dad again.”

“Why won’t your dad marry her?”

“He’s still waiting for my mom to come back,” she answered quietly.

“Do you think she’ll come back?” he asked, just as quietly.

“No. Never.”

“You’ve seen it.” He didn’t have to ask, he just knew. “But you haven’t told your dad.”

“No. We don’t talk about her.”

“I’m surprised he’s never asked.”

“He had his chance to make her stay and he didn’t.”

“By using his power, you mean? How would that work? He puts the thought in her head that she should stay with him and then what?”

“Why not? What good are our abilities if we don’t use them?”

“What kind of victory would that have been?”

“Victory?” She tried to tug her hand free, but he wouldn’t let her.

“You know what I mean. He would always know that she stayed because he forced her to, not because she wanted to be with him.”

“And what about me?”

Her question threw him. He suddenly had an image of Erin as a child, growing up with rumors and pitiful glances instead of her mother. Maybe. Maybe if he were in Donald’s place he’d have used his ability to spare his child. Everything in him immediately argued against that thought. He’d just as soon wait out the rest of his life, as Donald had, for a wife who was never coming back than live with the artificiality of a forced relationship. He’d always know, in every look, every show of affection that none of it was real. And it would shame him.

“Maybe if he’d made her stay she might’ve gotten past…things,” Erin said. “And I wouldn’t have had to grow up without her.”

“It’s no different than using your visions of the future to alter it. Just because you have an ability doesn’t mean you should use it every chance you get.”

“You sound like my aunt.”

“Cerie’s a very smart, very scary woman.”

“Are you saying that if you had an ability you’d never use it?”