“Not a chance in hell.”
“Fine. Be like that.” She finished off the rest of her wine and set the glass down. “Your dreams, your problem.”
“That’s how I look at it.”
“At least you’re not one of those clients who pays for dream therapy and then fails to take my advice.”
He smiled. “Does that happen a lot?”
“Oh, sure, all the time. Clients book a session, spend forty minutes telling me about their dreams to give me context, I do an analysis, put them in a trance and help them rework the dreamscape until we discover the unresolved issues involved. Then we talk about the issues and I offer advice. The clients go away and return a month later complaining about the same problems.”
“Because they didn’t follow your advice?”
“It’s very frustrating.” Gwen shook her head. “I suppose I should be grateful for the repeat business but—”
She broke off because he had started to laugh. She watched him, her eyes widening with a mix of curiosity and bemusement.
He was even more surprised by his laughter than she was. It had been a while since he’d been able to laugh like this. A couple of people at a nearby table turned to look at him.
He finally settled into an amused smile and reached for a chunk of bread.
Gwen narrowed her eyes. “What’s so funny?”
“You, the psychic counselor, wondering why people pay you for advice and then ignore the advice,” he said around a mouthful of the bread. “Talk about naive. But it’s rather sweet when you think about it.”
“Excuse me?”
“People ask for advice all the time. They go to their friends for it. They talk to virtual strangers at the gym. They pay doctors, shrinks, therapists and psychics for advice. But very few people actually take the advice unless that advice happens to be something they are already inclined to do.”
“That’s a very insightful comment.” She wrinkled her nose. “Still, it’s one thing to have a person reject my help flat-out like you did. It’s something else altogether when people pay you for expensive dream therapy and then ignore it. Do you know how disheartening that is?”
“Sure, I’m a consultant, remember? The pay is good in my line, but almost no one ever follows a consultant’s advice.”
She furrowed her intelligent brow. “I hadn’t realized that.”
“Look on the bright side: at least we both get paid for the advice we give.”
“There is that.”
The waiter put the plates of broiled salmon down in front of them and departed.
Gwen examined the salmon for a few seconds and then looked up.
“Do you think we’ll be able to find Evelyn’s killer?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“You sound very certain of that.”
He shrugged. “The case looks simple enough. It will take a while to sort out, but it’s just a matter of following up on the leads. Plenty of those.”
“I wish you had been around two years ago when Zander Taylor was stalking the people in Evelyn’s research study. Maybe he could have been stopped before he killed Ben and Mary.”
“One thing I’ve learned in the consulting business. Don’t look back. Not unless there is information in the past that can be used to figure out what is going on in the present.”
“It’s a good rule.” Gwen picked up her fork. “But in my line, I’ve learned that the past always impacts the present.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’ve run up against that problem a few times, myself.”
They ate in silence for a while. He tried not to watch Gwen overtly but it was hard to take his eyes off her. It was good to be here with her, basking in her delicate feminine energy. This was what he had needed ever since he had returned from the island, he thought. Gwendolyn Frazier was the fix he craved.
“It’s usually better if you don’t ask,” she said matter-of-factly. She speared a tomato slice and ate it.
He went very still, vaguely aware that his ring was suddenly infused with a little heat.
“Better if I don’t ask what?” he said, feeling his way as cautiously as he had when he had escaped the underwater cave.
“You’re wondering what I see when I view your aura.” She munched the tomato and swallowed. “I was just warning you that it’s better not to go there.”
He had known he would have to deal with this sooner or later. She was not the type to let go.
“You do realize that you’ve left me no option,” he said. “Now I have to ask.”
“I was afraid of that. Promise you won’t get spooked?”
“I’m a talent. I take the paranormal as normal.” He forked up a mouthful of fish. “Why would I get spooked?”
“My aura readings sometimes have that effect on people, even those who accept the reality of the paranormal,” she said.
“What do you see in my aura?”
She hesitated. He could see the uncertainty in her eyes.
“Okay,” she said. “But remember that my visions involve all sorts of misleading symbols and metaphors. When I go into my talent, I essentially slip into a trance, a waking dream. Those kinds of dreams can be just as hard to interpret as regular dreams unless I have context.”
She paused to give him an encouraging smile.
“No context,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do without any hints or clues.”
She stopped smiling.
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” she said. “You don’t believe that I can actually see anything useful, do you?”
“I don’t doubt that you can see auras, and I’m convinced you’re sensitive to heavy energy like the kind laid down at crime scenes. But read my dreams? No. I don’t think anyone can do that.”
She sat quietly for a moment, her incredible eyes luminous with a little psi. Energy shivered in the atmosphere. Two men at the nearby table glanced around uneasily and then went back to their meal.
Gwen lowered her talent. Her mouth tightened at the corners. “Your aura looks the same as it did a month ago when I met you in Seattle. You’re stable. But I can tell that the dreams are getting more powerful. They aren’t nightmares—not exactly—but there is a rising sense of urgency linked to them. You’re not sleeping well, either. But there’s something else going on, too, something I can’t figure out without more context.”