Read Online Sizzle and Burn by Jayne Ann Krentz - Free Book Online

you’ve missed a hell of a lot by growing up outside the Society. How many other people with genuine psychic abilities have you met over the years, aside from your aunt and your father?”
    “I tracked down people who claimed to be psychic,” she admitted. “Some worked as consultants to police departments. A couple made their living as fortune-tellers. One wrote a book on how to get in touch with your psychic side through your dreams.”
    His teeth flashed in a brief grin. “I read that one. It was pure crap.”
    “Yes, it was.” She smiled suddenly. “Good to know someone else came to the same conclusion.” She hesitated. “The book was on the best-seller lists for several weeks.”
    “There are a lot of gullible people out there and lots of frauds who are only too happy to take advantage of them.” He regarded her with a thoughtful expression. “I’m getting the feeling that, with the exception of your aunt, every so-called psychic you’ve met as an adult has been either a fake or a flake.”
    “My aunt was a major exception.”
    “I know. And I’ll bet every time you looked into her eyes you wondered if you were seeing your own future.”
    The intimate knowledge in his expression was a little unnerving. She wasn’t accustomed to being around anyone who understood her this thoroughly. She couldn’t think of a response.
    “I’m going to tell you something that is not in that file,” he said, glancing at the envelope. “One of our analysts constructed a psychological profile on you. The conclusion was that it was a miracle that you weren’t confined to an institution or heavily medicated when you first came into your parasenses.”
    Ice formed inside her but she managed to keep her face politely expressionless. “Does that mean your analysts think I’m going to end up in an institution, like my aunt?”
    “Hell, no.” There was easy, absolute certainty in the words.
    She held her breath, afraid to trust. “Why are they so sure of that?”
    “Statistically speaking, psychological problems associated with parasenses kick in early, usually around the time the talents start to appear. Mid to late teens. If you were going to end up in a psychiatric ward or on heavy-duty meds because of your clairaudient abilities, you’d know it by now.”
    “But Aunt Vella didn’t start having serious problems until she was thirty-two. The same age I am now.”
    “I won’t kid you, no one knows why your aunt ended up in an institution. But it is extremely unlikely that it had anything to do with her talents. She managed those just fine into her early thirties.”
    “But you said your analysts were amazed that I haven’t been confined to a psychiatric hospital?”
    “Clairaudient psychometry, especially when it reaches the level-ten category of power, is one of the most difficult of all talents to handle because the sensation is so intensely disturbing. Without someone to guide you through the learning curve, it’s easy to believe you’re going crazy. Other people around you usually come to that conclusion immediately and send you off to a series of doctors. You end up on a lot of drugs or in an institution. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
    She gripped the arms of the chair so tightly her nails dug into the upholstery. “It’s as if some stranger has invaded my mind. It’s so horribly intimate and it’s so evil. It makes me feel as if I’ve been…violated.”
    “Trust me, catching a glimpse or two of what that stranger experienced when he shoved a dagger into someone’s chest is just as bad. It’s as if I did the deed myself. For a while afterward, I feel—” He broke off abruptly.
    She sensed that he hadn’t expected to confide that much to her and wasn’t sure he wanted to add to it.
    Then, very deliberately, he tapped his fingertips together again. Once. Twice.
    “I feel contaminated,” he said quietly. “As if some of the darkness inside the killer has seeped into me.”
    She