Extrasensory by Desiree Holt Page B

seriously.
    After they’d ordered their food and been served, Mark threw the first question at her. “Have you always had precognition? I mean, since you were a child?”
    “Yes. I guess since I was about ten years old.” She made a face. “My parents thought I was making up stories to call attention to myself. They were both very busy with their lives. My father’s an attorney and my mother is a successful real estate agent.
    They didn’t understand a child who was ‘different’. Besides, I was wrong a lot of the time and they punished me for creating problems where there were none.”
    “What about when you were older?” This from Dan.
    “I began to learn how to interpret the messages a little better but many of them confused me. So again, I was wrong more than I was right. It got so nobody wanted to trust anything I had to say. Even after the times I was proven right.”
    “Tell me a little bit about how you get these images or whatever they are,” Dan prompted.
    As long as I can keep away from the image of you naked and the sound of your voice in my head.
    Mia explained about the images that could hit her at any time. Sometimes sharp, sometimes just flashes of color. Seldom clear enough to interpret so she had to do a great deal of research to identify what she was seeing.
    “And it’s so easy to be wrong.” She pushed her plate away, no longer hungry.
    Managing with her bandaged hand was difficult anyway, even though the injury was to her left one and she was right-handed.
    So yet again she described everything, beginning with the first image of the bouncing rock. What she was doing when the flashes of images hit her. What they looked like. And again, without quite knowing why, she held back the image of the dripping knife.
    Dan narrowed his eyes, watching her, trying to keep the atmosphere relaxed. He waited until the waiter had brought their coffee before he spoke again, then he did so carefully. Mia was like a caged bird waiting to take flight at its first opportunity.
    “I have a sense that there might be an image you’re reluctant to share with us.” He made his voice as low and controlled as possible. “Am I right?” Mia started, almost dropping her coffee cup and banging her bad hand against the table. Did he know? Impossible. She bit her lip against the pain, then paled as she saw blood seeping through the bandage.
    Dan gently took her hand in his. “I think you might have re-injured yourself pretty badly. This doesn’t look good. I want to have a doctor look at this for you.”
    “It’s all right.” She blinked back tears. “I’ll be fine.”
    “It has to do with what you’re holding back, doesn’t it,” Dan guessed.
    “Mia.” Mark leaned across the table. “Whatever it is, we’ll help you with it.” She clenched her right fist, forcing a calm she didn’t feel and pushing the image of a naked Dan Romeo from her mind with deliberation. After all, it would be normal not to want to share visions of violence with two strangers. “I picked up a knife to cut something in my kitchen and I had an image of someone being stabbed.”
    “And you dropped the knife you were holding on your hand,” Mark said.
    Mia nodded.
    “Any clue as to who was being stabbed? Or doing the stabbing?” She shook her head, blinking back tears again as pain shot through her hand. Jesus, Mia, get a grip here. “No, none at all. That’s what has me worried. And that’s why I didn’t want to say anything, maybe point you in the wrong direction. But Dan, a voice said, ‘Someone’s going to be killed .’ I don’t usually hear voices. Someone’s going to be killed and I can’t even tell you who.”
    “Right now we don’t have any direction,” Mark told her, “so whatever we get from you will be a starting point.”
    “Okay.” Dan signaled for the check. “The first thing we need to do is get out of here and get that hand looked at. No objections,” he insisted, when Mia tried to protest