Page 20 of In Her Eyes

She pulls her legs up on the bed. “Can we talk about him now that you had a whole day to process everything?”

She knows me too well. All morning she pestered me about this “date” with the detective and what I’m going to wear. As irritating as it was, it did help to get me out of my own head. “Yeah, I’d like to.”

“How are you feeling?”

I let her question wash over me and search through my web of emotions, separating what is real from my perceptions and expectations. I have not given myself a chance to really feel and delve into the meaning of meeting him after so many years and under these circumstances. Is it really him? A part of me doubts it—the part that’s afraid to believe I finally met him again after all these years. He didn’t recognize me. But how could he? For him, I was a kid, and he had to have been nineteen or twenty. Probably doesn’t even remember saving me at all. Surfers rescue people all the time, don’t they? I read somewhere that they save as many lives as lifeguards.

I close my eyes and give in to everything that happened yesterday. Breathe.

I open them again. “I feel . . . ready. Whatever may happen, I’m ready for it.”

She rolls her eyes at my evasive response. “That’s not what I asked.”

I know that’s not what she asked. “A little confused—excited—I want to see him again and make sure I didn’t hallucinate the whole thing.”

“You know you didn’t. I mean, I’m sure there are other people in the world with eyes like his, but it’s him, right? You’re sure of that?”

“I’m sure. It’s more than the eyes. It’s his face too. And the tingles.”

Her eyes widen. “The tingles?”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s almost like when I touch an object and can see its history. When his fingers brushed against mine, I got that same feeling of knowing.”

A pillow flies across the space between the beds and smacks me in the face.

“You had tingles and didn’t tell me!”

I laugh and put my hands up when she reaches for another pillow. “When did I have a chance to tell you? I’m telling you now.”

She puts the pillow on her lap and props her elbows on it. “Please describe in detail.”

I laugh again. “It’s like a shiver, but more intense, almost like a low voltage electric shock. But not unpleasant. It doesn’t hurt.”

She tilts her head down and pouts. “I want tingles. I’ve never had tingles before.”

“You’re doing pretty well without them. But they will come. I’m sure you’ll get your own personal Lynn version of tingles.”

“Are you going to tell him you’re the girl he saved fifteen years ago?”

My stomach twists with knots and butterflies at the same time. “When the time is right.”

She looks down, her hands twisting the fabric on the pillow. “Are you really going to help him?” Her voice loses the excitement from before.

I take a deep breath. “If I say no, I might not see him again. And then there are the missing women. If I can help find them, I need to. I could never live with myself knowing I had a chance to stop this guy from killing again and didn’t take it. So, yes, I’ll help him. I have to.”

The emotional dam cracks, and I burst into tears. That girl and the horrifying way she died. I’ve been blocking the images since yesterday. A muted version of everything she felt assaults me. My heart races as if trying to escape my chest. I’m paralyzed with fear so intense it’s hard to breathe. She held on to a glimmer of hope the entire time. There was so much light in her. She believed she’d survive this even through the terror, even as she took her last painful, strangled breath.

I gasp for air. The press of phantom hands around my throat robs me of breath. My chest locks up. My mouth opens, and I try to suck in non-exiting oxygen. I experience her death again. I’m both the observer and her—Alice—I know her name now.

Lynn’s panicked and distant voice reaches to me, her hands on my shoulders, trying to shake me out of the vision. But the images won’t let go. Not until she’s dead, the light gone from her eyes and the horror she went through etched on her face. Alice is no more.

Air fills my lungs, and I choke on it. A water bottle presses into my hands, and I take greedy gulps. I stand up. Rub my hands on the back of my head and neck. Flicker my fingers as if trying to get rid of cobwebs. I mentally cut the cords that connect me to Alice. Close my eyes and regulate my breathing. Push the images away. Separate myself from what happened to her.

When I open my eyes again, it’s not just Lynn and me in the room anymore. A chill sinks into my skin, like death running its icy fingers down my spine. Well, this is new.

Alice is here, too.

A gray wisp.

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