Trig checked his watch. “It’s four thirty. Want me to stick around any longer?”
“No. I can handle things now. Go home and get some sleep.”
“Right.” Trig started to turn away. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. Where’s Celinda?”
“Sound asleep on the sofa. Finally.”
Davis frowned. “What do you mean, finally?”
“She had a hard time getting to sleep. Didn’t stop tossing and turning until about three AM. No big surprise, given what she went through.”
“She was amazing,” Davis said.
“Yeah, I got that impression.” Trig paused. “And to think you didn’t believe any woman could handle the invisibility thing.”
“I said Celinda’s amazing.” He made his tone go neutral. “Doesn’t mean that she wants to have a long-term relationship with a Guild man who does a carnival act.”
“Don’t be so negative, boss. Keep in mind that she knows your big secret, and she didn’t freak out.”
“I repeat, it doesn’t mean she wants to get involved with me.”
“Looks like the two of you are already involved, if you ask me. By the way, I stopped by your place on the way over here last night and picked up some fresh clothes for you.” Trig nodded toward a small overnight case on the floor. “Wasn’t sure what you had left from the wedding trip.”
“Thanks.”
Trig went down the hall. A moment later the front door opened and closed very quietly.
Davis got to his feet and then stopped, unable to decide what to do next. He couldn’t get the image of Celinda asleep on the sofa in the other room out of his mind. The urge to go down the hall and look at her was almost overwhelming.
But now she knew he was a circus freak.
“Probably a bad idea,” he said to Max.
Max yawned and stretched contentedly. Then he flipped over on his back, closed his eyes, and went back to sleep.
“How come your love life is so much simpler than mine?” Davis asked.
There was no response.
After a while it occurred to Davis that he probably needed a shower.
Chapter 28
WHEN HE EMERGED FROM THE BATHROOM A SHORT TIME later, he listened very intently for a moment. No sounds of movement came from the living room. Evidently, Celinda was still asleep. Max had disappeared from the bed. A dull, silvery gray light infused the sky.
He opened the suitcase that Trig had packed and found several items including a black crew-neck T-shirt and a pair of black trousers. He donned the T-shirt and trousers and then stopped to listen again.
There was still no sound from the living room. He considered his options. He could either stay here in the bedroom until Celinda awakened, or he could go out into the kitchen and see if Trig had left any coffee.
It was a no-brainer.
He went barefoot down the hall. The drapes were open, allowing the pale light to illuminate the living room. He told himself that he would go straight into the kitchen and not even glance at the sofa. He discovered immediately that his normally inexhaustible well of willpower had run dry.
Celinda was sound asleep amid a tangle of sheets and blankets. Her face was turned away from him on the pillow. He came to a halt, unable to move beyond the sight of her lying there in the early morning light. The memories of their night together in Frequency flooded back, igniting his senses.
Forget it. Whatever you could have had with her is probably finished.
As though she had been awakened by his thoughts, she stirred, opened her eyes, and turned her head to look at him.
“Hi,” she said in a voice softened and warmed by sleep.
“Hi,” he said. He couldn’t think of any other intelligent conversation. Do you still want me? was what he really wanted to ask.
“How are you feeling?” she said.
“Normal. Thanks to you.” Again the unspoken question went through his thoughts: Do you want to go to bed with a freak?
She looked around the rumpled bedding. “Where are Max and Araminta? Don’t tell me they took off again?”
“No.” He inclined his head toward the small balcony. “They’re dining alfresco at the moment.”
She followed his gaze. The sliding glass door was open a few inches. Araminta and Max were perched on the railing, munching cookies while they watched the sun come up over the Dead City.
“They were both pretty cool last night, weren’t they?” Celinda said proudly. “I couldn’t believe how they went after those thugs.”
“You were pretty cool, yourself.”
“Mmm. Well, you did most of the work. All I had to do was drive us all home.”
He groped for words. “Sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you about what I can do with silver light.”
“Trig explained it.” She contemplated him for a long moment. “It’s a little disconcerting to watch someone disappear, especially when you don’t know there’s a rational explanation.”
“It’s more than disconcerting.” He remembered the dream about Janet. “Even when people do know there’s an explanation, they can’t deal with it. It’s just too damn weird.”
She searched his face with sudden understanding. “That’s what happened to your engagement, isn’t it? Your fiancée found out that you can go invisible, and she couldn’t handle it.”
“I told Janet the truth. I even went invisible in front of her once to let her see what it was like. I could tell it bothered her, but she insisted she could deal with it. I don’t do it very often because it’s such a huge psi drain. But once in a while it comes in handy in the course of my work. As long as I don’t push it for more than a couple of minutes, I’m okay.” He paused. “Until a few months ago I was always in complete control.”
“What happened?”
“I think all those drugs they gave me while I was in a coma had some kind of long-term side effects. Occasionally now, when I dream, I pull a little silver light without realizing it.”
“Without amber?”
He nodded. “Janet and I were together one night when it happened. I woke up to the sound of her screams. Looked down and saw that a chunk of my leg was missing.”
She gave him an understanding look. “An awkward moment in a relationship.”
“Yes,” he said. “It was definitely that.”
“That was when the two of you decided you weren’t a good match?”
“Things hadn’t been going well for a while,” he admitted. “We got engaged before I wound up in the hospital. After I got out, we both pretended that everything was back to normal. But it wasn’t. We started having problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“I lost most of my clients, for one thing. No one wanted to risk hiring a known burnout case. Business was bad. The rumor went around that I would never recover from the psi trauma. Some of our friends started avoiding us.”
“I see.”
“At any rate, the night I accidentally pulled the silver in bed was the last straw. Janet grabbed her keys, ran out of the apartment in her nightgown, and drove to her parents’ house. The next day her father phoned to say that they were all very sorry, but everyone hoped I would understand that no one wanted my genes in the family.”
“Well,” she said briskly, “that certainly explains why you like to sleep alone.”
“Beats waking up to a screaming woman in the middle of the night.”
She arched her brows. “I would just like to point out that you really can’t blame the matchmaker for what happened. I’ll bet you never mentioned your unusual talent when you filled out the questionnaire, did you?”
“No. I told you, it’s not the kind of thing you advertise.”
“How did you expect your marriage consultant to find you a good match when you didn’t provide her with your full parapsych profile?”
“What the hell was I supposed to do? List ‘invisibility’ in the Description of Psychic Talents section? Give me a break. She’d have figured me for some kind of nutcase. And if I had proven that I could do it, she would have told me I was unmatchable. Right after she stopped screaming, that is.”