Read Online A Deep and Dark December by Beth Yarnall - Free Book Online

in the back, climbed in, and started the engine with a hard yank of the key. Something was definitely going on here. More than the deaths of Greg and Deidre, and his supposed knowledge about her ability. She didn’t know Graham well enough to know what that something was, but she had a feeling that not all of this controlling the scene business was completely on the up and up.
    “That stuff about keeping your eye on me was all bullshit, wasn’t it?” she asked.
    He hesitated. “Yes and no. I don’t want any mistakes on this case and I wanted to talk to you alone without tall, dark and grocerly hanging around.” He put the car in reverse and backed out.
    More sarcasm directed at her boyfriend.
    “What do you have against Keith? He’s a good guy.”
    Frowning, he put the car in drive. “I know.”
    He hit the gas and their car went ahead of Keith’s. She pretended to focus on the passing scenery, but the storm made that impossible.
    “Did you see something back there?” he asked after a moment.
    “I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “I think you do. Come off it. Tell me what you saw.” She didn’t answer right away, so he prodded her again. “Erin. I told you, I know . You don’t have to hide who you are from me.”
    “That would put you in the minority.”
    “Along with Keith?”
    “No.”
    After a beat he said, “Did you see something about the Lasiters?”
    How could he possibly know about her ability? He’d been hinting about knowing her lifetime-long kept secret since she came to on the floor of his office. She bit the inside of her cheek.
    “Cerie’s worried about you. She thinks you might be having problems with your your ability, too.”
    Her aunt told him about her ability? Why? Why would she—?
    That’s why Cerie had rushed out of Graham’s office. She must have wanted to get out of there before she had a collapse like Erin’s. What did it mean? Had her father been affected, too?
    “You can see the past and future.” Not a question. There was no judgment or censure in his tone. He wasn’t mocking her. Did that mean he believed in psychic abilities?
    She’d learned at an early age that the novelty factor of her ability quickly wore off once the reality of what she could do set in. No one liked having the element of surprise taken away from them. No one wanted their past examined. And no one wanted to know how and when a loved one would die. She’d learned that last lesson the hard way.
    What would happen if she told Graham about her visions? What would he do with the information? The truth was, she wanted someone besides her family to trust. She was tired of hiding, tired of pretending. She was worn thin from the pretending.
    So when he gently said tell me again, she fell headfirst into the illusion of intimacy in his darkened car. It was just the two of them, not looking at each other with miles of pitch-black road ahead of them.
    Starting out unsteadily, then gradually finding her pace, she told him about her initial vision and how it had differed from what had happened at the house.
    “Has that ever happened before?” His question was matter of fact, as though he dealt with people with psychic abilities every day.
    “Why aren’t you freaked out by what I just told you?”
    “Who says I’m not?”
    She shouldn’t have told him. This was a mistake.
    “But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe you,” he added. “Or that I’ll betray your trust.”
    “Why?”
    “That’s not who I am.”
    Tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding drained out of her. That’s not who he was. He certainly hadn’t reacted the way her mother had when Erin’s ability had first started to manifest. Not yet anyway.
    “No,” she answered his previous question. “My visions have never wavered like that before.”
    “So it only started when you first touched the file on the Lasiter property.”
    “Yes.”
    “Cerie seems to think the storm and the moon and mercury being in retrograde is