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The man picked up the gun. Mr. Peterson looked up at him. “Now, wait—” Peterson began.
The gunman, a tall, thin white man with a blond crew cut, looked down at Peterson and calmly pulled the trigger twice.
Madison felt the force of the bullets ripping into her chest. She didn’t cry out, but she clutched her breast, feeling the impact.
And the cold. The awful cold assailing Peterson as his lifeblood began to drain away…
And still she saw. Saw the killer turn with his shadowy companion and race across the street into a heavily overgrown vacant lot.
The killer paused and started to run back, but his companion stopped him, urging him forward again. Madison saw them run again, saw until the icy fingers of death eroding Peterson’s vision turned the picture to black.
Jimmy was at her side, helping her up, trembling himself. “I shouldn’t have done this. Jesus, look at you. You’re soaking-wet, shaking…”
She shook her head vehemently. “I’m all right. I’m all right. Honestly.” She hesitated. “I can give you a description of the killer.”
Jimmy ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not sure I believe this myself. How am I going to get anyone else to believe that you can…see things?”
“Cops do make use of…of…” she began, but broke off, wincing.
“Psychics,” Jimmy supplied.
She shook her head. “I’m not psychic. This has only happened to me twice. But I can give an artist a good description of the killer.”
Madison did give the police a description, and an artist created a damned good sketch of the man.
Through the sketch, they found the man and brought him in for routine questioning. Thinking that the police had more on him than they did, he broke down and confessed to the killing of Earl Peterson. After that, Jimmy made Madison promise to call him anytime she had strange dreams.
But the next time she had such a dream, it was far more personal. And it changed her life.
Madison graduated from high school with honors. She intended to go to school in Washington, D.C., and major in criminology—just like Kyle, who had recently acquired his master’s degree and gone to work for the FBI.
Kyle came to her graduation. They hadn’t seen much of each other in recent years; he had been away, and Lainie’s death had more or less split up the “family.” But he came to her graduation, along with all her other assorted siblings.
He brought his brand-new wife. Her name was Fallon, and she was perfect for Kyle, being perfectly beautiful. He was so tall, dark, well-muscled and good-looking; she was petite, blond, amber-eyed, slim and hourglass-shaped. Madison was surprised to find she wanted the woman to turn out to be a bimbette; however, she wasn’t. She, too, had just gotten her degree and had taken a job with the Smithsonian. She was sweet and charming, and Madison had to admit to liking her very much. She told herself that she would have been incredibly critical of any woman clinging to Kyle’s arm, because he was her…No. Because he was Kyle. And though she told herself that she didn’t have a crush on him, she did. She was jealous.
That night she slept with Darryl Hart for the first time. Darryl was madly in love with her and intended to follow her to the same university. She was the envy of all her friends.
He did everything right. And though it was slightly painful, it wasn’t horrible. It just wasn’t what she had read about, though Darryl assured her that it got better for women.
She certainly hoped so, though she tried very hard not to let him know just how disappointed she was. Darryl was a good guy.
She dated him for her first three years of college.
Then…she had another dream.
She had known that Fallon was expecting a baby. She and Kyle lived relatively near one another—she in Georgetown, he in a suburb in Maryland, just outside downtown D.C.—but she avoided him. She and Darryl and Kyle and Fallon had met for di
Together, they were perfect.
She was with Darryl when she had the dream about Kyle and Fallon.
It was terribly uncomfortable. It was almost as if she were with them. In their bedroom.
Fallon was on her side of the bed, tossing and turning. She was hugely pregnant, round as a tomato, yet still beautiful, her blond hair a tangled fan around her delicate, pinched features. She was racked with pain.
Kyle, at her side, was up, trying to help her, support her. “It must be the baby. We’ve got to get to the hospital.”
“It’s too soon, almost two months too soon!” Fallon cried.
“But you’ve been sick. We’ve got to get you there now.” He stood, naked. Muscled, ta
He dressed hurriedly, eschewing socks and underwear, slipping into his jeans and a T-shirt, and sliding his feet into his loafers while he dialed the phone. Fallon was distressed that he’d called for an ambulance, but he told her, “Babe, you’re burning up. We need some help, fast.”
Madison felt Fallon’s heat. She was burning, burning, burning…like a fire. But there wasn’t pain, there was just heat. And Kyle was there, holding her hand. Fallon was happy to feel his hand in hers, it was just that the heat was so terrible, and then she was shivering, hot and cold, hot and cold….
“Madison, Madison!”
She started, her eyes flying open. Darryl was shaking her awake, looking concerned.
“Madison, honey, you’re having a nightmare. You have to wake up. Madison, what is it? What’s wrong?”
She was soaked. She’d kicked the covers away. Darryl had his arms around her, and instinctively she clung to him in return.
“Want to tell me about it?” he asked her.
“No, no, it was nothing. I’m okay. I, uh, thanks. Thanks, Darryl. You’re great.” She kissed him. But when he wanted to take it further, in his efforts to soothe her, she curled away from him, a nagging sensation of worry refusing to leave her.
Three days later, a message from one of Kyle’s buddies at the FBI on their answering machine told her that her dream had been real. Fallon had died as the result of complications from a virus, along with her premature, stillborn daughter. The funeral was Friday, in Manassas, Virginia.
Madison’s entire family attended the funeral. Her own father had always gotten along exceptionally well with Kyle and Rafe, and Jordan Adair and Roger Montgomery still remained friends. Darryl, naturally, attended with Madison.
Kyle looked like hell. He wasn’t quite twenty-six, but he’d already acquired a few silver strands of hair at his temple. His grief was terrible. Madison felt numb.
In church, she remained on her knees, head bowed, through most of the ceremony. She wondered if she might not be a terrible human being, if her jealousy might not have killed Fallon. The logical side of her brain tried to assure her that it couldn’t be so, but she still felt somehow responsible, and it was an incredibly bad feeling. She wanted to run away.
She had only a few moments alone with Kyle. He came to her while she was kneeling by the coffin during the family’s last viewing.
He knelt at her side, and she tried very hard not to cry while he adjusted the prayer book in his dead wife’s hands. “At the end, she told me that you knew,” he said suddenly. He stared at her in a way that gave her chills. “She said you were with us, that she was glad you were there. She told me I should look out after you.”