Page 85 of Ruled By Fate

She looked away from Matthews for a moment. “I’m sorry, Denise, I was—”

“Sherry told me. Sorry you caught one on your day off.”

“Yeah. Just can’t stay away, I guess.”

Brie craned her neck to see where Matthews had gone. She caught sight of him across the waiting room, near the exit to the back parking lot. He was talking to that blonde woman again, holding the strange briefcase between them like protection. But Denise and about a dozen other people and conversations were in the way, and she couldn’t hear what they were saying at all.

She couldn’t say what possessed her to do it. She could never tell Cameron what prompted her to try something so ridiculous. Not even when he asked her later, many times. She closed her eyes and tried very hard to hear what they were saying.

Her heart slowed down, then started racing. She focused even harder. She felt a faint prickle on the back of her neck. Then all at once, her eyes flew open, and the rest of the room melted away. With the focus of a magnifying glass, she zeroed in on Matthews and the mysterious woman, observing the conversation at both a volume and distance that made it feel like she was standing right beside them.

“—must know this isn’t our arrangement, and this doesn’t buy you time.” The blonde held up two fingers. “I’ll be back. And you know what better be waiting for me when I get here.”

He trembled before her, clutching the case. “But I was hoping—”

“I will be back.”

Brie blinked quickly, then snapped back to the present, doing the unthinkable and reaching out to grab Denise by the arm. “Who is that?” she asked, pointing frantically at the pair.

Denise looked, then turned back with a frown. “Dr. Matthews.”

“No, I know. Who is he talking to?”

Denise glanced again, then looked at her strangely. “He isn’t talking to anyone, Weldon.”

Brie looked again, shocked. The blonde woman was gone.

? ? ?

Sherry and Brie were quiet in the car. Despite his natural affinity for investigating everything, Mike had the emotional wherewithal to let them keep to themselves. They dropped Brie off at home and waited until she opened her front door before driving off with a wave.

Cameron swept over her the moment she stepped inside. “Are you okay? I was getting worried.”

“I’m sorry, there was no time to call.”

“Time to call?” he repeated, placing his hands on her arms and checking her over for damage. “Are you alright? What happened?”

Brie recounted the morning’s events in as much detail as possible, omitting one vital part. Cameron’s eyes clouded with concern when she mentioned the man with the heart attack and grew darker still when she described what she’d seen with Matthews, the dead body, and the blonde.

“And you still have no idea who this woman might be?”

She shook her head. “The same way I have no idea why he’d be carrying around a gothic-looking, glowing sculpture to put on the bodies of the dead.”

When did I start talking like this? When did this become my life?

His brow was knit together. “I have never heard of such a thing in all my days.” He glanced at her face again. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

She nodded, staring at the ground for a moment. “Cam, the conversation I overheard between them. It was on the other side of a crowded ER waiting room.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “They were close together. They were speaking softly. There’s no way I should have been able to watch them or hear them like that.”

She hesitated before voicing the thought that had been plaguing her the whole ride home. “No human way.”

? ? ?

“What do you mean you were afraid of this?”

Cameron sat on the couch as Brie stood by the fireplace and shouted. He’d been sitting there for five minutes, regretting his initial choice of words. When she finally quieted, he chose his next more carefully, trying to pacify her as best he could.

“I only meant, as I told you before, any contact with life force energy changes you. Prolonged contact? Well, it changes you a lot. Look at me.”

---