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window of the shop at Rex, who was perched on the railing outside, graciously accepting pats and coos from passersby.
    “Where’d you pick up the dust bunny?” Hank asked.
    “He showed up a while back,” Slade said.
    “Didn’t know they made good pets.”
    “They don’t,” Slade said. “Thanks for the fish. See you later.”
    “You bet.” Hank beamed. “Have a good time tonight now, you hear?”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    Outside on the front porch, Rex examined the package of salmon with great interest.
    “Forget it,” Slade said. “This is dinner, not an afternoon snack. It’s going into the refrigerator at the station and then it’s going back to the cabin after work.”
    Rex appeared to lose interest in the salmon. Slade was not deceived. He went down the steps.
    Cautiously he jacked up his other senses a couple of degrees. He knew better. The doctors at the clinic had warned him against pushing his talent beyond a very minimal range. But he was unable to resist. He had to know how much worse the damage was getting, had to know how much time he had left before his senses shut down altogether and he went psi-blind.
    His other vision kicked in for a few seconds. Waterfront Street—with its weathered, wooden storefronts—the ferry landing, and the marina began to glow in eerie shades of ultralight. The footprints of the people strolling on the sidewalks heated with iridescent energy. But when he inched a little higher and tried to work his way into the zone, he sensed the seething storm of energy that was out there waiting to envelop him. The good news was that it did not seem to have grown any darker since he had last checked.
    He still had some time left before his talent failed completely, but the psychic powers that had shaped his life and made him so good at what he did for the past fifteen years were slowly but surely being consumed by the storm at the end of the spectrum.
    He clamped down on the useless tide of rage that threatened to well up inside. There was no point giving in to the anger. He had to keep moving forward because there was no alternative.
    At least he was going to have dinner with an attractive, interesting woman tonight. It had been a long time since he’d had a date. Susan had left after the verdict had come down from the doctors and para-psychs. He didn’t blame her. For a time it had looked like he was probably going to self-destruct. They had both known that there was nothing she could do to stop the slide. Even if he did not put a mag-rez pistol to his head or get permanently lost in a haze of drugs and alcohol as some expected, he would never again be the man she had planned to marry.
    Susan had cut her losses and he had been relieved when she did. At least he no longer had to pretend that some day he might recover his talent; that some day he might be able to return to the Bureau.
    But Charlotte Enright had never known him in what he now thought of as his other life. To her he was a clean slate. No baggage. And he would not be hanging around Shadow Bay long enough for her to get the wrong impression. He’d been straight up about that. She now knew that he planned to leave within six months. He was pleased that he’d gotten that issue out of the way before he’d asked her to dinner.
    They were just two semi-strangers passing in the night, he thought. No reason they couldn’t spend some time together. She wasn’t a kid anymore. They were both adults.
    He had been literally stunned to see her when he’d walked off the ferry five days ago. Most of the town had turned out to greet the new chief of police, but it had been the sight of Charlotte in the crowd that had sent the jolt of lightning across his senses and awakened sensations he could not identify.
    The first thought that had slammed through him that day was completely irrational.
It’s as if she’s been here, waiting for me all these years
.
    It made no sense but for the past five days he hadn’t been able to