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got an honest-to-goodness smile out of Miranda.
    “She also says that you’re a very quiet neighbor, with no pets. She says you only have one visitor… a Hector from Tom’s Gas-N-More, and that he only stays long enough to drop off a couple of bags of groceries every two weeks. And she says you don’t ever seem to leave the building, except for last night.”
    The smile melted off Miranda’s face, replaced by a flush of heat and damp. Great. Now the police thought she was some kind of freak. And that didn’t even take into account the fact that she’d electrocuted somebody without a visible power source.
    Apparently she’d lost control over her sense of irony as well, since she momentarily found the situation amusing. But her present situation came back in a quick rush, and she blushed even more as she tried to think of how to explain her… condition.
    “I… I…”
    I have nothing worthwhile to say. Dammit.
    She tried again. “I don’t g-go out much. I’d rather stay inside.” Where it’s safe. “I w-work on a computer, so…” She shrugged. She’d given it her best shot, as pathetic as it was.
    She waited for O’Hara to make some type of biting comment, maybe a joke. That was the usual response to her condition. That and people telling her to get over it. Instead, the detective nodded, as if she’d made an eloquent speech. O’Hara looked down at the pile of papers again, and shuffled them slowly. Miranda waited for the other shoe to drop. But instead, the detective reached over and clicked off the recorder. The sharp snap of the button seemed to echo through the tight room. Miranda froze like a deer who’d just heard the first shot of the season.
    “You know, Miranda,” the detective said gently, “you can get help. There are a number of therapists in the area… I’ll e-mail you a list of those taking on new clients.” And Detective O’Hara reached over and clicked the recorder back on, the red recording light glowing like a beacon. Her voice resumed its brisk tone.
    “So, Ms. James, if you didn’t touch the man, what do you think happened to him?”
    He got a shock. But it certainly hadn’t been bigger than the one she’d gotten a moment ago from the detective. She’d been trying to help her. Why?
    “I-I don’t know,” Miranda finally answered. “Maybe he had a heart attack?”
    There. That seemed plausible. And she hadn’t even stuttered too much.
    But Detective O’Hara shook her smoothly coiffed head. “No, we have the preliminary medical reports back, and his internal organs are burned.”
    Oh god. She’d done that. She’d burned someone so badly it had affected his organs. Miranda felt her head swim and blinked to make the black spots in front of her eyes recede. Suddenly she wanted to tell Detective O’Hara the whole story, wanted some kind of human support. She wanted to explain that something had happened to her, that she’d been possessed by the light, and that she’d never meant to hurt anyone, not even a bastard mugger. And more than any of that, she really, really wanted her powers to disappear as suddenly as they’d appeared.
    Miranda felt a sudden buzz in the back right pocket of her jeans. She had a split second flash of panic that the electricity had somehow come back and zapped her as punishment for what she’d done. But then she remembered she’d tucked her phone in her pocket. Someone must have texted her.
    In addition to scaring the crap out of her, the buzzing also jolted her out of her mood. She felt terrible about hurting that man, she truly did, but if she told Detective O’Hara what had actually happened, the woman would know that Miranda was crazy. And not merely “not wanting to leave the house” crazy. Full on crazy. And maybe a criminal. Either way, she’d be shoved in front of doctor after doctor, and she had a feeling that this new power of hers would definitely attract a lot of attention in the medical community. She couldn’t tell anyone