Not a Moment Too Soon

But this wasn’t about her.

She turned to watch the man sitting beside her. It was about him. His posture was stiff and taut, as if he maintained such discipline over himself that moving a muscle except to steer the car would snap him like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.

His expression was as bleak as the rolling desert vista that abutted the highway, and he kept his eyes straight ahead, not even glancing toward her.

She struggled to think of something to say that would not sound too much like psychobabble, yet be of some help to this man who had once meant so much to her.

But what was there to say? His daughter had been kidnapped. A five-year-old child. And whether or not Hunter believed her, she had already told him there could be no happy ending.

And despite his earlier apology, she knew he somehow blamed her for this, as he once had blamed her for another situation she had written about that had gotten so terribly out of control.

She had packed and changed clothes quickly before leaving home. Now she wore a pink buttoned shirt tucked into navy slacks, a matching navy vest and sandals. L.A. wouldn’t be as warm as Arizona, so she’d stuffed a sweater into a small suitcase with a couple of changes of clothes and her night paraphernalia.

She considered turning on the radio, for the only sounds were the growl of the engine and the unending road noise of tires humming on pavement.

First, though, she needed to make a call. She pulled her cell phone from the bottom of the burlap tote bag that doubled as her purse and pressed buttons until the number she called most frequently showed on the display screen.

It was answered on the second ring. “Fantasy Fare. Hi, Shauna. Are you okay? Where are you going?”

“Hello to you, too, Kaitlin.”

Shauna smiled to herself in bittersweet irony. Kaitlin Verona, a lithe and exuberant dynamo, was her closest friend, and the manager she’d blessedly hired to assist her with running Fantasy Fare.

Kaitlin had dropped in one day when a child had fallen at the restaurant and his father was threatening a lawsuit. Not only that, but food deliveries were late. In short, when things had been particularly hellish.

Kaitlin had simply taken over, made both the kid and his parents laugh, and used her sense of humor to persuade the superintendent of the food warehouse where Shauna bought supplies to send her order after hours.

Later she had told Shauna she’d heard her cries for help and responded. Of course, Shauna’s pleas had been strictly internal.

As they’d gotten to know each other better, Shauna understood that they had something in common: they shared abilities that most people would believe bizarre and unreal, though each one’s manifestation was unique.

They both perceived when someone else’s emotions roiled.

Shauna’s abilities translated to her fingertips, from which her stories spilled onto computer keyboards.

Kaitlin simply knew and reacted. Like now.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Kaitlin demanded over the phone. “That guy from your past, Hunter.”

This was one time Shauna wished Kaitlin didn’t have her uncanny perception. “Yes,” she said briefly.

“You wrote a story about him and now you’re back together.”

“Not exactly. Look, I need for you to—”

“Manage Fantasy Fare on my own for a while. Yes, I’ve got that. But tell me what’s going on.”

“Some other time.”

“You’re with him.”

“Yes,” Shauna acknowledged.

“And it’s not because you want to be. Oh, heck, it’s really bad, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, Shauna. Can I help?”

“Just take care of things for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Okay?”

“Sure. You take good care of yourself, you hear? Don’t take any unnecessary risks. And call me when you can talk.”

As Kaitlin hung up, a shower of shimmering rainbows suddenly appeared in Shauna’s mind, gently tumbling toward the ground. As they fell, they turned upside down till they formed a myriad of colorful, happy smiles.

Despite herself, Shauna laughed aloud. That was one ability she didn’t share with her friend. Kaitlin had the power to implant images into the minds of those whose emotions she sensed, the better to soothe them. Shauna had frequently enlisted Kaitlin’s help in the therapy sessions she held to assist those whose stories she had written.

But where had that warning come from? It wasn’t characteristic of what Kaitlin usually did. Did she see something that Shauna—

“What was that all about?” came a chilly masculine voice from beside her.

Shauna glanced toward Hunter. He still sat stiffly as he watched the road, gripping the steering wheel, as if by manipulating it he could reverse the diabolical incident that had suddenly taken control of his life.

“I had to tell my manager at the restaurant that I was going away for a while and that she’d need to take care of things.”

He finally darted a look at her, his green eyes quizzical but not as icy as before. “It didn’t sound like you did much talking, let alone giving directions.”

Shauna replayed her end of the conversation in her mind. He was right. But knowing Hunter’s antipathy toward anything that smacked of extraordinary abilities, she said simply, “I’m sorry you haven’t met Kaitlin. She’s been my manager for a couple of years, and we’re good friends. To other people it might sound like we talk in code, but we’re close enough that we understand each other.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound convinced, but Shauna doubted he’d push this issue further. She had known Hunter to be intelligent and intuitive in the past. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made such a good cop. He had also been stubborn, refusing to acknowledge what he chose not to accept or understand. Right now, she suspected he’d gotten the gist of what she wasn’t saying.

But at least he was talking to her again.

“We’re not far from the airport now,” she said, eager for some conversation—any conversation—to avoid their former uncomfortable silence.

He nodded. “I haven’t been away long enough to forget my way around.”

Just long enough to forget her, Shauna thought. Or so he must have wished.

If only their reunion could have been under other circumstances. But there would have been no reunion between them if she hadn’t written that horrifying story.

And now they could only both wish they had never seen each other again.

The plane was finally in the air. The trip to Los Angeles International Airport, abbreviated LAX by most Angelenos, would take about an hour.

An hour too long.

Ignoring the aircraft’s typical loud engine noise, Hunter forced himself to lean back in his narrow seat that, despite the height of its backrest, was too short to cradle his head comfortably. He had to concentrate on something other than his edginess. He had become an adopted Angeleno, like so many other immigrants to the sprawling urban complex. Yet, despite his reason for being there, he’d felt a sense of nostalgia visiting Oasis and his mother. And—though he despised himself for admitting it—seeing Shauna again.

L.A. was home now. His business was there.

His daughter was there…