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He smiled back.
A
‘Flowers?’ She placed her book on the coffee table and stood up. ‘What’s the occasion?’
Garcia looked at her, and A
A
Because of Garcia’s new aversion to grilled steak, A
‘Can I ask you something, babe?’ he said casually, without locking eyes with her.
‘Sure.’
‘Do you believe a person can see things that happened to other people without being there?’
She frowned at the question. ‘What? I don’t follow.’
Garcia finished washing the last plate, dried his hands on the flowery dish cloth and turned towards his wife. ‘You know, some people say they can see things. Things that happened to other people. Sometimes people they don’t even know.’
‘Like a vision?’ She said the words slowly.
‘Yeah, something like that, or a dream of some sort.’
A
Garcia took a seat next to A
Seventy-Three
A
‘Do you remember a girl called Martha?’ she asked, leaning back on her chair.
Garcia squinted.
‘Strange girl from high school. Short chestnut hair, thick rimmed glasses, awful dress sense. She was a bit of a loner, always sat by herself right at the far end of the canteen.’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ Garcia admitted.
‘She was one year below us.’ A
‘Damn, I remember that,’ Garcia said, widening his eyes. ‘Poor girl. She was covered from head to toe.’ He hesitated for a second. ‘Didn’t you help her out that day?’
A
‘Anyway,’ Garcia urged A
A
‘This is April 1994, two days before our girls’ basketball team was due to play the quarterfinals of the California High School Tournament.’
Garcia felt a knot rise in his throat. ‘Against Oakland?’ he asked tentatively.
A
Garcia leaned forward, his interest growing.
‘Martha looked at me and freaked me out. Her eyes were different – cold, emotionless, like two black pits filled with nothing.’ A
Garcia saw A
‘I asked her what she was talking about. The game was advertised everywhere. You couldn’t walk five steps in our school without seeing a poster. We had the best girls’ basketball team our school had had in years, and that was our big chance.’ A
This time the goose bumps were on Garcia. He remembered that year very well. The Oakland girls’ basketball team was supposed to arrive one day before the game. Their driver fell asleep at the wheel somewhere on Westside Freeway. The bus was involved in a head-on collision with an eighteen-wheeler. No one made it out alive.
‘Jesus,’ Garcia whispered, squeezing A
‘The day before it happened.’
‘You’re kidding?’
The temperature in their kitchen seemed to have dropped all of a sudden.
‘That’s why you quit the team,’ Garcia said, finally realizing it. ‘It wasn’t because of the accident itself. It was because of what this Martha girl told you.’
A
‘You never told me that.’
‘I never told anyone.’ She had another sip of her wine. ‘Somehow Martha knew it before it happened, Carlos. A whole day before it happened. I don’t know if she dreamed it or saw it in a vision or what. The fact is, she couldn’t have guessed it. No one could.’
Garcia let go of A
‘In answer to your question,’ she said, softly touching his arm. ‘I do believe there are some people out there who can see or sense things that the vast majority of us can’t. But not the ones you see advertised in the back of some magazines. People promising to tell you your future for a few hundred bucks. Those are just conmen. If they really could see the future, they’d all be living in Vegas making a killing at the casinos.’
Garcia smiled. ‘You do have a point there.’
‘What’s this about, babe?’
Garcia shook his head, his eyes averting hers. ‘It’s nothing really.’
Somehow, she knew that was all the answer she’d ever get.
Seventy-Four
Hunter rolled over in bed uncomfortably. No position was a good one. His eyes grazed the digital clock on the bedside table and he cursed under his breath. It was 4:55 a.m. and he’d managed less than two hours’ sleep. It was already hard enough falling asleep in his own bed; in a stranger’s bed it was damn near impossible.
He stretched his body and massaged his gritty eyes, but the sandy feeling just wouldn’t go away. The darkness of the room was spoiled by the weak light that came in from the corridor, courtesy of a small glass lamp on the telephone table.