The Burning Girl by Lisa Unger Page B

letting this thing eat us alive , Eloise thought but didn’t say. It was ruining both of them.
    Agatha had warned her. They’ll take everything if you let them. Everything from you and everything from those involved with you. Eloise knew it was true; it was why she didn’t fight to stay closer to Finley, Alfie, and Amanda. It was why she kept trying to push Ray away. Let them save themselves , she thought. They deserve to be happy.
    But Ray wouldn’t budge from her. She couldn’t quite figure out what was in all of this for him. It couldn’t just be the money. No, it was something more. She should know, but she didn’t—probably because he didn’t know himself. And she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    He walked over to her and put an arm around her shoulder, ushered her to the couch in the living room where she gratefully sat. The events, the visions, were taking more out of her lately.
    Eloise tried to get back into the present the way Agatha had taught her, though she still felt wobbly and light-headed. She needed to ground herself in the moment by observing the details of the real world: the sun washed in and dappled the floor; outside, the wind chimes sang in the breeze; sheets billowed on the line. She watched them fill and flap as Ray went presumably to get her some water.
    “I don’t know,” she called after him. He’d asked his question a while ago. But she was just getting around to answering. “Nothing current.”
    He made an affirming noise from the kitchen. Since retiring from The Hollows Police Department, Ray had opened his own private investigation firm. Eloise helped him with his cases, when she was able. She had her own things, and the things they worked on together. It was usually pretty clear which was which. Although not always. It was a tricky business. Eloise never knew what was connected to what, or when those connections might reveal themselves to her. Adopt the pace of nature , said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her secret is patience .
    Ray returned with the water and handed it to her.
    “You okay?” he asked.
    He sat in the chair across from her, regarded her with worry. He had a lot in common with the old recliner. It needed reupholstering, was showing its age. But it was the most comfortable, embracing seat in the house. It was reliable, did the work it was designed to do, unfailingly. It had been Alfie’s reading chair, and it still wobbled from bearing his substantial weight, though Alfie had been dead nearly fourteen years.
    Her Alfie was gone now almost as long as they’d been married. And she still missed him every day. Some losses you never get over. There would never be another love like that in her life. She knew this in a practical and not self-pitying way. There was such a paucity of true, selfless love in this world; it wouldn’t be fair for her to have it twice. Whatever it was she shared with Ray, it could never approach what she had with Alfie. She hoped that Ray might find it with someone. But she suspected it was too late for that.
    “I’m okay,” she said.
    She could still smell The Burning Girl, the acrid odor that remained after fire. It never went away; whatever fire had touched must be discarded.
    “You look tired,” Ray said. She took a sip of the cold water and let the sensation wash over her. The cold in her mouth, moving down her throat. The water, the sunlight, the billowing sheets. Seize upon the moment , Agatha would say, to hold on to what’s real right now.
    “I am tired,” she said.
    But she couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. Eloise felt a vibration unlike anything she’d felt before. She would need to talk to Agatha. She considered telling Ray about it, but she wound up staying quiet.
    They weren’t working on anything now, and she sort of wanted to keep it that way. They’d had a couple of high-profile cases in a row, and her voice mail and mailbox were full of requests for their help. But she