Cade saw me starting to spiral. He pushed off the counter and came toward me. “Imogen?—”
“No.” My hand flew up to ward him off — one pink glove, extended out like a shield. It was shaking visibly. “Don’t come near me. Not right now.”
He stopped moving immediately.
I sucked in a gulp of air, trying desperately to tamp down my rampaging emotions. “I don’t do that anymore. What you’re asking—” I took another ragged gulp. “I can’t get involved in a case like this. Not again.”
“I know the Crawford situation didn’t go well. But before that, you helped solve a dozen different cases up and down the eastern seaboard.”
My lips parted in surprise. “How do you know that?”
“Goldie, your name pops up in so many cold case files, you could have your own true crime podcast. I mapped your whole path up the coast, those first few years, starting when you left home at fifteen. Everywhere you stopped — Orlando to Annapolis — if you could help, you helped.”
“Guess you were pretty thorough when you looked into me,” I said, a note of bitterness sluicing through my voice.
“Yeah. I was. That’s why I know you aren’t some con artist bilking desperate families for money. You aren’t looking for payback or credit. You’re definitely not looking for fame.” He didn’t move closer, though I could tell he wanted to. His hands were fisted at his sides with the effort to keep from coming to me. “I don’t know how your abilities work. I don’t care. What matters is, you’re the real deal, Imogen Warner. You have a gift. And until you hit Baltimore, you were pretty generous when it came to sharing that gift with others.”
“There’s a reason I stopped.”
He nodded. “What happened with the Crawford case was a miscarriage of justice in every regard, Imogen. The fact that it blew back on you is bullshit. And I know you think it’s your fault?—”
“No! You don’t know. You maythinkyou know,” I said staring at him through my tear-glazed eyes. “You may think you understand. But you weren’t there. You didn’t see how it went down. You didn’t hear what they said about me. You didn’t see the look on that mother’s face when they told her the news. You didn’t?—”
“I did.”
I flinched. “You did what?”
“I did see how it went down.” He took two steps closer, ignoring the hand I still had up to hold him off. “Because I was there.”
He was there.
No.
No, that wasn’t possible.
My hand fell limply to my side. My body pushed backwards, automatically seeking distance from him when he continued to come toward me. I didn’t stop moving until my spine hit the counter’s edge. A dull throb moved through me — I was still sore, thanks to Donny — but I barely felt the pain. My brain was stuck on what Cade had just said, and incapable of moving past it to another thought.
“You were there.”
He nodded. He was watching me carefully, like he wasn’t sure how I was going to react to this information. Like he thought I was about to bolt. There was a wariness to his expression I’d never seen before. I didn’t like seeing it there, but I couldn’t blame him for it, either.
I wanted to bolt.
I’d never wanted to bolt so much.
He stopped five feet from me, and didn’t move a muscle. His boots were rooted to the floor, his arms were crossed over his chest. He was utterly silent.
“How is that possible?” I forced myself to ask after a series of deep breaths that did precisely nothing to calm me. “You weren’t there.”
“I was.”
“I’d remember you if you were there!”
“You don’t believe me?”
I shook my head. I didn’t. Icouldn’t. If he was there… If he knew me… That changed everything. Everything I thought I knew about us. How we’d met. How we’d started.
Everything.