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him.

    It was playing that Irish song, the one they use in every movie with a bar fight or a leprechaun. Everyone knows it's the Irish song, and Justin's phone was playing it and flashing the name Deirdre on the caller ID.

    A vision popped in my brain--in the space of a held breath, a series of images flickered in front of my mind's eye like those old film reels where you see the blink between frames: A black-haired, green-eyed, creamy-complexioned woman trekking through a boggy field, sitting with Justin over a couple of pints in a pub with a smoky peat fire. The two of them, heads together in intimate conversation, him inclin- ing to say something, her leaning forward to meet him and . . .

    The phone clattered to the floor, falling from my nerve- less fingers. Maybe I broke it, but I couldn't care. Head whirling, I tried to bring the room back into focus. My heart slammed against my ribs. What the hell had just happened?

    "Maggie?" Justin had returned, drinks in hand.

    "I dropped your phone." My own voice sounded flat and cold. I stared stupidly at the phone on the floor, not about to touch it again. Something was wrong with me.

    He set down the drinks. "Are you all right? You look sick."

    I felt sick. I was seeing things while I was awake. My freakitude had just reached a whole new level. "Deirdre called." The words blurted out, the way the im- ages had blurted into my brain. "I wasn't spying on you."

    "What?" He blinked in confusion, brow knit in concern. "Spying? Of course not."

    "I just picked it up and . . ."

    "And what, Maggie?" Bending slightly, he searched my face, trying to trap my gaze. "What happened?"

    But I couldn't tell him. Too many emotions had seized my brain and nailed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I couldn't make my lips form the questions that would clear everything up. Who was Deirdre? Was she why you stopped writing? All valid questions, but I couldn't get past the part where, oh my God, I was even more of a freak than I thought.

    "I need to go." I grabbed my keys from the table and he snatched them neatly from my shaking fingers.

    "Maggie, what the hell is wrong with you?"

    I pressed my hands to my pounding head. "I have a headache all of a sudden."

    "Then let me drive you. You look awful."

    "No." My latte, all three shots of it, stood on the table. I grabbed it, took a scalding drink, gasped, but felt better. The burn, like a slap in the face, calmed my hysteria. One more deep breath and I squared my shoulders. "I'm fine."

    "You are not fine." His voice had a taut edge, from trying to keep it below the general hum of conversation and the music playing in the background.

    "All right. I'm not fine." Another sip of espresso and I could lift my eyes to his and hold out a steady hand. "But I can drive. Give me my keys."

    His gaze searched mine, and I wondered what he saw there. I had no clue to his thoughts, though his confusion and worry were clear. Finally he relented. "Will you call me when you get home so I know you made it okay?"

    "Fine." Anything to get him to give me the keys. He hesi- tated a moment longer, then dropped them into my palm. I didn't wait, but fled the coffee shop like the coward I was. 5

    P in my own driveway, I called Justin and told him

    arked succinctly that I was safe at home, answering his concern. Yes, I was all right. I'd just had a long, stressful day, and my psyche was wrung out like a dishrag.

    By the time I'd driven home, the warm September wind whipping through the open Jeep and clearing my head, the panic had abated, and these didn't even feel like lies. My ESP for Dummies book had said emotional state can affect your Sight. Of course, it talked about blocking reception, not suddenly getting an imaginary slide show, but still.

    I'd justified away my intuition for almost eighteen years. I have a talent for denial that puts even my mother to shame. When I went inside, the living room was dark, but there was light from both my parents' bedroom