Matt shrugs. “Cross that bridge when you come to it. If you have to tell him about you, just don’t tell him about me.”
“How can you be both my biggest source of support and such an asshole?” I grumble.
Matt smiles ruefully. “I’m a paradox, what can I say? Come on, let’s get you some toast.”
I grimace, as food sounds totally unappetizing. “Why toast?”
“Because you need to eat. You look like death warmed up. And it’s the least likely to make you want to throw up again. Come on. Besides, you’re going to need to eat something to kick-start that brain of yours.”
With a sigh of resignation, I let him pull me into the kitchen and make me toast. He’s not wrong. Come to it, I’m going to need every advantage to figure this out. I’ve never been one to freeze up from fear. Because even though everything I’ve learned about my visions until now makes it seem like the future is set in stone, like hell I’m going to cower in fear waiting for Drew to die. Now I just have to figure out how to stop it, preferably without clueing Drew in.
Who am I kidding? This is freaking impossible.
As I sit and munch my toast, I swing back and forth between determined and defeated. The sustenance does little to curb the bone-deep disturbance of this vision. I’m not sure anything will.
Chapter Fourteen
CJ
As midnight approaches, I start to panic, realizing I have no idea how I’m going to see Drew and not say anything. I haven’t even really decided completely that I won’t. I need to talk to Aunt Meg about how I even begin to unravel this mystery, but I can’t do that until tomorrow. So as much as I hate to do it, I text Drew that I’m not feeling well and I think I should stay home tonight. I need a few days to see if I can figure this out on my own.
He’s disappointed but understanding, underscoring my growing feelings for him. Sleep doesn’t find me for a long time, and I wake something of a hot mess. Ironically, I get a message from Anna also begging off our shopping date, as she’s been called in to work for another waitress who didn’t show up.
Nerves practically eat me alive the whole morning. Matt gives me a wide berth, understanding what I’m going through, not even engaging me on the car ride to Aunt Meg and Uncle Chuck’s house.
Matt distracts Uncle Chuck, so I get away with a cursory hug and hello, then I’m free to seek out Aunt Meg, who is, unsurprisingly, in the kitchen already at work on dinner.
As soon as she sees me, she stops what she’s doing.
“Oh, baby girl, what’s wrong?” She dries her hands quickly and rushes to me, wrapping me in a motherly hug.
I try to contain it, but a sob catches in my throat once, then it all pours out. I tell her everything I Saw, and everything I discussed with Matt, save the parts about his own experience with a murder vision.
I’ve never seen Aunt Meg look so grim, and as shaken as I was before, I’m even more so now as she sits, silently contemplating all that I’ve shared.
“Please say something,” I beg. “Do you think Matt is right? Can I stop this from happening?”
Aunt Meg gives me a sympathetic look.
“I can’t promise you that,” she hedges. “But I hope he’s right. I’ve always thought it made no sense that you couldn’t change your visions, but then, life isn’t always fair. But this …” She trails off helplessly with a shake of her head. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”
I sniff deeply, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. “It’s Drew I’m worried about,” I admit. “Even if we’re not meant to be, I can’t just sit back and let him die. The only thing I’m struggling with is whether to try and keep my vision from him.”
Aunt Meg nods slowly. “Yes, I see how that would be a difficult choice.” She mulls it for a moment longer. “When do you see him next?”
“He’s off on Thursday.”
“Well, maybe see what you can do on your own in the next few days. And decide how you feel about it then.”
“That’s … really good advice.”
Aunt Meg pats my hand tolerantly. “I know.”
I snort a laugh. “Thanks, Aunt Meg.”
“You’re most welcome, baby girl. And you know I’m here anytime you need to talk.”
I nod and pull her in for a hug. “I know. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.”
“Come, child, help me cook.”
I give her an incredulous look. “You sure you want me in a kitchen? Near hot things and knives? When I’m all out of sorts?”
Aunt Meg shakes her head. “If you put your mind to it, you’d be a fine cook. You just have it in your head that you’re a disaster in the kitchen. The mind is powerful, baby girl. If you let it tell you you can’t do something, you won’t.”
“Well, I tried getting it to tell me I could be a princess, but that didn’t work out,” I reply snidely, annoyed at the implication I know she’s making — that if I put my mind to it, I can change Drew’s future.
“You’ll always be my princess, CJ,” she responds calmly, handing me a box of pasta. “Give it a go. Cooking is good for keeping the hands and mind occupied. Trust me.”
With a deep sigh, I take the box and do as she asks. And while I can’t say I’m some cooking whiz by the end of the evening, she wasn’t wrong about it taking my mind off of the situation with Drew. It requires all my concentration not to burn their house down.
That night, though, sleep once again eludes me, and when I manage to drift off, it’s a fitful and nightmare-filled affair that leaves me exhausted the next morning.
I use the in-between time at work that week to do as Aunt Meg suggested, thoroughly digging up everything I can on Drew. This time I go beyond my pre-date cursory searches on social media, which he’s told me he doesn’t “do” anyway, and I dig into criminal databases, public records, and a few other tools available through the hiring portal I use to help Matt screen potential employees. If he can send me to talk to my boyfriend in the company car, then I can use those tools to see if there’s anything in his background that would explain who would want to murder him and why.
But despite, as Matt calls them, my “mad detective skills,” I can’t find anything more than parking tickets and a so-so credit score. The credit score piqued my interest for a minute, but he borrowed to put himself through culinary school and missed a few payments after the grace period. So no unpaid debts lurking in the shadows. At least, not on paper. And I haven’t seen anything about his lifestyle that would indicate he spends beyond his means and would thus need the services of a loan shark or something. Unless he’s got some gambling or hooker habit I know nothing about.
Ugh. Once my thoughts drift to gambling and hookers, I know I’m done here. Drew lives and breathes his job. His history supports that. Nothing is financially amiss. And because of his complete lack of social media presence, there are no exchanges with former high school, or even culinary school, rivals or ex-girlfriends to suggest someone hates him enough to kill him. Not to say those people don’t exist, there just isn’t a digital trail.