Julia didn’t know how to answer. “You have to talk to Courtney about that.”
“While she’s in jail? How?”
“It can wait until later.”
Paul frowned, his bruise buckling. “She wouldn’t cheat on me. I know that.”
Julia needed a subject change. “Did you have to hit him?”
“Yes, totally. I missed anyway, which is so fucking embarrassing.” Paul shook his head. “This is it. I have to change; I’mgoingto change. I’m going to get Courtney out of there, no matter what it takes, no matter how long.”
Aw.“I’ll help you.”
“You mean you’ll stay in the U.S.?”
“I have to.”
“What about Gianluca?”
Julia felt a twinge. “My marriage is on the line, and so is yours.”
Paul’s eyes met hers. “Then we better get it done.”
“Right.” Julia’s gaze strayed to the window, which was dark with night. She felt drawn to go out to the garden again, wondering if she could make something happen. She had promised Courtney she’d try, and the garden was Kay’s thin place.
“What are you looking at?”
“Stay here. I’ll be back.”
The night was cool, and a breeze wafted across Julia’s face. It was too dark to see much behind the house, and the only ambient light came from the kitchen, casting amber rhomboids on the grass. The garden was invisible in the gloom, and the air was filled with the sounds of crickets, birds, and squawks she couldn’t identify. She spotted bats flapping above her, but tried not to let them distract her.
Allow.
Julia walked to the left, and the garden came into focus. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She emptied her mind of every thought. She wanted to allow any vision to come to her.
Kay, I’m here.
Julia tried to visualize the photo of Kay in the frame by her urn, happy, smiling, and so full of life. But then she remembered Samuel, and Glushenko, and Courtney sobbing at the station. The thoughts kept intruding, and she couldn’t empty her mind.
Allow deeper.
Julia tried to focus on Kay and summon her, but nothing was coming, no visions or premonitions. She knew she was trying to force it, but she had to. She wished for the umpteenth time that she’d taken the mediumship lessons. Courtney’s life was on the line, and Julia didn’t know what she was doing.
Shit!
She gave up, opened her eyes, and found herself lifting her gaze across the field, to the distance. She didn’t know why she was looking there and she couldn’t see anything because it was so dark, but she felt undeniably drawn there.
Something was compelling her, and she knew what she had to do next.
35
Julia drove Paul and Bennie to the middle of the field of tall grass behind the house, bordered by the treeline where the ghost gun had been found. It was pitch black everywhere but in the long cones of their headlights. Insects buzzed crazily around them, flying in and out of the beams.
“Are you sure it came from here?” Bennie glanced at Julia from the passenger seat, her expression dubious in the dashboard lights.
“Yes, I think so, I felt it from this direction.” Julia felt the strange sensation again, somewhere inside her. It wasn’t the dread of a premonition, and she saw no vision, but it was more like she was compelled to do something, it carried even the urgency of compulsion. “Bennie, did Courtney tell you that I have some psychic abilities?”
“Yes, she did.”