Finally, by the weekend, I decided it was time to put it aside. Being at Cuppa helped. I dug back into my philosophy lessons too, anything to take my mind off what had happened.
On Sunday, five days after my day in the park, Lucas asked gently if I didn’t think I should try again.
“You know, get back out there, see if you can find another that you might be able to help.”
“I don’t think I can do it, Lucas.”
“Wouldn’t it help if it worked? Erase the sting of … of this last one?”
“And what if it didn’t? You saw how hard this was.” I shook my head. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
“Cassandra, you’re the only one cut out for this. Who else has the ability? You’re stronger than you know. It’s hard, but …” I stopped listening, knowing how the speech went, having heard a hundred iterations of it already.
“Fine, fine,” I said, holding up my hands, anything to stop the barrage of words.
I could have just lied to Lucas, told him I didn’t see any. After all, more often than not, it had been months, even years between times I saw the mark. The truth is, as much as I dreaded having to talk to another one, I did wonder if Lucas was right. I mean, there had to be a reason I could see the mark, didn’t there? One attempt was hardly a fair test.
I read the coroner’s statistics: one hundred seventy-some accidental deaths a year in a population of over eighty thousand. I tried to figure out how many people I saw each day. Working at Cuppa alone—between customers and those who passed our window—the number had to be in the hundreds. Realizing that made me feel better, helped explain why I’d seen more here than in Ashville. Then, if I added making the rounds, as I’d come to call it—visiting downtown, the malls, the parks—I had to be hitting the thousands. It wasn’t like I needed to be close to the person. The light made them stand out, even in a crowd, like the girl in New York.
I didn’t want to live with the idea of myself as a coward. So I gutted it out and went back to looking.
I saw him from two blocks away, sitting by the skeleton of a building. He was a construction worker, his yellow hat on the bench beside him, next to a steaming cup of coffee and a white wrapper holding half a sub.
I strode right up to him, determined to get it out before I lost my nerve.
“Jes?” His voice was warm, but heavily accented.
“I’m going to tell you something that will sound strange,” I said calmly. “I’m a little psychic, sometimes I can see things.”
He had stopped eating, staring at me expressionlessly. For a minute I thought maybe he didn’t speak English.
“Do you understand?” I asked slowly.
He nodded, his eyes wary.
“I think you’re in danger,” I told him.
“Dios mio,” he muttered, crossing himself.
“I don’t know what you have planned today, but if you can, go home and stay there. Don’t go back to work or drive your car or …”
He was gathering his things, knocking his hat clumsily off the bench. I bent to pick it up for him, but he snatched it away before I could touch it. He glanced back at me, his eyes wide, his right hand fluttering, repeating the sign of the cross, I realized.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but he was already backing away. Then he turned and ran.
“Is he there?”
I had told Lucas about the construction worker when I got to his apartment the night before. He said I did a great job, that it sounded like it had gone better. I guessed it had. He hadn’t threatened me with the police or started screaming, though that seemed a pretty low bar for success.
Reluctantly I scanned the obits that Lucas had dropped in front of me first thing in the morning. I felt a jolt of elation. There was no one under sixty.
Lucas saw my expression. “That’s what I thought,” he said, smiling. “You did it.”
“Let’s not celebrate yet,” I warned. “Maybe something happened later, after the paper went to print.” But he wasn’t in the next day’s either. I felt sure he was local, that it wasn’t an accident on the road, something that wouldn’t make the Bering News.
Lucas took me to dinner at Gianna’s the day after, the paper still absent news of the worker. Over champagne, he asked, “How do you feel?”
“Honestly, I’m still trying to digest it, Lucas. It’s hard to believe that it worked.”
“Why? It worked with me.”
“Yeah, it’s just that … well, it’s a lot to absorb.”
He nodded. “It’s just like I told you, Cassandra. There is a purpose to your gift. You can save lives.”
“I guess the key is getting them to listen,” I said, sounding more reasoned than I felt. The idea that something I did or said had that kind of power was overwhelming.
He nodded. “That’s right. And you’ll get better and better at it over time. There will always be people who don’t heed your warning, but doesn’t it feel great to have saved someone who did?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “Yeah, I guess it does.”
Chapter 24
It was three days later that I saw him again. This time, on the front page of the paper. My first thought was that you can’t cheat death after all. Then I realized he was in handcuffs.
I pulled the folded sheets out of the newsstand rack to read the caption:
EDUARD SANCHEZ, 39, IS LED FROM HIS
APARTMENT BUILDING WHERE POLICE
RESPONDING TO A 911 CALL FOUND HIS
WIFE, STABBED FIVE TIMES.
“You gonna buy that or not?”
I gave the newsie a buck and walked away skimming the article. Multiple domestic disputes, fired from his job the day before, no children or nearby relatives.
I found myself at the edge of the park, five blocks from Cuppa, where I was due in three minutes. I pulled out my phone.
“Doug? It’s Cassie,” I said when he answered breathlessly. “I’m so sorry for the short notice, but I’m not going to make it in today.”
He hesitated. I think I’d called in more times in the last few weeks than I’d showed up. “What’s wrong?” he asked finally. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just … not feeling good. I was on my way in, but I don’t think I can do it.”
Mechanically I entered the park and found a bench near the pond, deliberately facing away from the fields and paths, unable to bear the thought of people. I still held the paper but couldn’t bring myself to look at the article again. He’d stabbed his wife. Maybe upset about losing his job, one I’d sent him running from. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.