Thirty and a Half Excuses
Page 77

I sat down on the bench and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Okay, but first I’m going to try something, and it’s going to look and sound crazy.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Okay.”
I grabbed his hand and closed my eyes. This was insane. But what if Neely Kate was right? What if I could use my visions to see things that could help rather than hurt? Besides, if Jonah thought I was a loon, he’d send me away, and I could get out of this guilt-free.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You asked me if I knew things… Well, I do, and this is how. But you gotta keep quiet.”
“Okay.”
What did I want to know? If he was innocent, but also if he knew anything that would help me find Bruce Wayne and figure out who the killer was. I concentrated on Jonah and his time in Henryetta and how he’d come here from Homer. I waited for a good ten seconds, and just when I’d decided nothing was going to happen, a vision appeared in my head.
I was in a dark room. When my eyes adjusted, I saw it was a bedroom. The sound of heavy breathing filled the quiet, and it took me half a second to realize it was coming from me.
I moved to the door and called out, “Who’s there?”
When no one answered, I grabbed a baseball bat from under the bed and opened the door, my hand shaking so badly it took several attempts.
“It’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s nothing,” I mumbled over and over in a low chant as I tiptoed down the hall. Stopping at the entrance to the living room, I slowly spun around. I didn’t see anything so I let out a loud exhale, my shoulders slumping in relief until I heard a low voice from the dark shadows of the dining room.
“I brought you a little present.”
I nearly dropped the bat as I spun around to see who had called out. My heart beat against my ribcage when I saw a dark figure in the shadows, standing behind someone who was tied to a kitchen chair with rope.
The shadows hid the hostage’s face, but I could tell that she was wearing what looked like a silky nightgown dress. Her feet were bare. Her hands were on her thighs, and the moonlight lit up the diamond ring on her finger. She had to be unconscious because her head was leaning forward, her long dark hair covering her face.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked in a whine.
The person with the hood held a gun to the woman’s head. “You’ll thank me later.” Then a loud sound filled the room, and the woman’s body jerked as blood splattered against the wall. I shouted my alarm, and the murderer handed the gun to me, to Jonah. “Take it. You have work to do, Jonas.”
The vision faded, and my eyes flew open. “Someone’s going to kill a woman in your kitchen.”
His face paled. “How do you know that?”
The vision had sent an adrenaline rush through my body, but now it crashed and I started violently trembling as though it was thirty degrees outside and I was in a wet swimming suit. My stomach rebelled, and I leaned over the other side of the bench, vomiting onto the grass.
“Rose, how do you know that?” Jonah’s voice rose to a high pitch.
I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, tears streaming down my cheeks. I fought to catch my breath.
I’d just watched someone die.
I’d had visions of myself dead and Joe dying, but I’d never witnessed someone else’s actual death. As violent as it was, I knew I could have witnessed far worse things. The poor woman could have been tortured. But this was the worst thing I’d ever seen.
“Rose, how do you know that?” Jonah was panicking.
I needed to get control. Freaking out wasn’t going to do either of us any good. I took a deep breath. “I…I have visions. I can see things in the future. I saw a woman murdered in your kitchen.”
Jonah made the sign of the cross. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
I gaped. “I thought you were Protestant.”
“My church is non-denominational, but I was raised Catholic. Some habits die hard.”
Wrong choice of words. I threw up again.
Jonah was calmer. He’d gotten ahold of himself sooner than I had. But then again, he hadn’t watched someone get shot in the head. “Why would you have that vision?”
When my stomach settled, I brushed back the hair hanging in my face. “I wanted to see if you were telling me the truth about being innocent. That was what I saw.”
“So you believe me?”
I nodded, a queasy feeling still in the pit of my stomach.
“Who was the poor woman?”
I swallowed down a sob. “I don’t know. The kitchen was dark, and she was tied to a chair. Her head was slumped forward, so I couldn’t see her face.”
“Are you sure she was murdered?”
The scene replayed in my head, blood and all, making me queasy. I nodded again, fighting to keep it together. “A person wearing a hood pointed a gun at the woman’s head and shot her.”
“Oh, God.” Jonah started to hyperventilate. “Who killed her?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t recognize the voice, and the person’s features were completely concealed. He or she said that they’d brought you a present and that you’d thank them for it later. Then the person shot whoever the woman was and told you it was time to get to work.”
“Work? Doing what?”
“I don’t know.”
Jonah rested his head between his hands. “We don’t know anything.”