“My God, Ed,” Sam whispered. “Why? Why?”
Skinner faced him again. “Because of that file you have in your hands. All this time, it never surfaced. I figured it never would. Your mother gave me everything that was in this room. When I didn’t find the evidence there, I thought I’d been wrong. Maybe he really didn’t have anything on me after all. Maybe I killed him for nothing.”
His eyes turned distant, pain-filled.
“And that’s why you took care of us, stepped into Dad’s shoes the way you did,” Sam said. “It was guilt.”
“And you’re gonna make the same mistake now that you thought you’d made then, Ed. Because I don’t even know what’s in this file, and neither does Megan.”
He lifted his brows. “You really don’t know?”
Megan could see Sam trying to inch his hand toward his gun. But he couldn’t do it with the other man’s eyes on him.
“Oh, come on, Sam,” she said. “You can guess, can’t you?” The chief turned his attention her way. “Skinner is the man who’s been raping and murdering girls in town. And I suspect he was doing it long before the police realized they had a serial killer on their hands. He knew someone was onto him when I phoned the police with that tip on where the next body would be found.”
“I still don’t believe you have any so-called psychic powers. But I had to find out for sure,” Skinner said.
“So you assigned Sam to get close to me, try to find out how much I really did know and how I knew it. That way you could keep an eye on both of us.”
“None of this is relevant,” Skinner said. He swung his gaze back to Sam’s, held out his free hand. “Give me the file, Sam.”
Sam held it out. Skinner reached for it and seemed to realize at that moment that Sam’s gun was no longer in its holster. “Don’t, Sam!”
Skinner lifted his own gun higher, even as Sam brought his around from behind his back. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, barrels pointing, fingers squeezing, shots exploding, muzzles flashing.
Megan launched herself, hitting Skinner in the side just as his gun went off, so that he stumbled and fell. Rolling onto his back, he turned his weapon on her.
“No!” Sam shouted.
Skinner’s gun bucked in his hand. The shot exploded in a deafening roar, and Megan felt the blaze of red hot metal slice through her midsection; she doubled over at the impact long before she felt the pain. She lifted her head, shocked, stunned. Skinner was taking aim, would have shot her again if not for the shot Sam fired that made the chief’s head snap backward, leaving a neat hole between his eyes. His body went lax, his arm and gun dropping to the floor, and then he was still.
“For the love of God, what’s going on?” someone cried. Megan heard feet crashing through the house, female voices crowding around her. But Sam was her only focus. He knelt beside her, his face stricken.
“Megan, hold on.” Without looking away from her he told his mother, grandmother, whoever was within earshot, to call nine-one-one. “Tell them there’s an officer down,” he said. “It’s the truth, and it’ll get them here faster.” He added that last with a meaningful look at Skinner.
Then he was leaning over her again, holding a hand to her belly, where she felt warmth and pulsing wetness. “Don’t leave me, Megan. Hold on.”
She smiled softly, staring up at him. “Guess I was another one-night stand after all, huh?”
"Not by a long shot.” He held her desperately. “Megan, you have to know I wasn’t pretending. Not from the first second I set eyes on you. What's between us is real.”
Her hand closed around his. “I know that, Sam.”
“The curse is lifted,” Lily said in her raspy voice, from somewhere nearby. “The girl broke it, exposed it, took it upon herself.”
“There was never any curse," Sam said. "Skinner killed Dad.”
“And would have killed you, too, if not for this woman and her gift.” She knelt on Megan’s other side. “Bless you, child.”
Meg smiled, shifting her gaze from the old woman’s back to Sam’s again. “Finally did something important with my abilities. Finally got someone to believe me.”
“Yeah. And I will never, ever doubt you or your visions, Meg. I promise.” He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers, and she kissed him back until the darkness swallowed her up.
Epilogue
Megan was in the darkness, and it occurred to her that she might be dead. Oddly, she felt no terrible grief or resistance to that idea. She had reached one of the most important goals of her life. She’d understood, at last, why she had been given these powers, and what earthly use they could be to anyone. They had been useful. Vital. They had saved an entire family, broken a curse, of sorts, solved a string of murders, prevented who knew how many other women from being victimized by Ed Skinner. And maybe kept Sam Sheridan from an early death. God, that was worth everything, wasn’t it?
He believed in her, in her gift. So did his grandmother.
That was all she had ever wanted. Validation. Respect. And the chance to use her gift for something good.
“I love you, Megan.”
No, not love. She’d never asked for that. Just to be believed, just to be useful, just–
“Do you hear me? I love you. I’ve never said that to a woman before, and I’m not about to lose the only one. I want you back. I want you to stay with me. Always.”
Sensation seemed to return by degrees. She became aware of a warm, strong hand holding hers. And she opened her eyes and stared up into a pair of familiar, loving ones.
“There you are,” Sam whispered. “You gonna stick around, then?”
“I think so.”
He squeezed her hand, and a vision flashed, making her suck in a breath and close her eyes, just briefly.
He frowned at her, his face filled with worry. “What is it, honey? What are you seeing?”
She drew her brows together, wondering if she should tell him what she had seen. The two of them in a photo a lot like the ones on his father’s desk, with two little angels standing in front of them, golden ringlets and strawberry curls. A boy and a girl. She smiled and knew she still had a whole lot left to do in this lifetime. “Meg? You gonna tell me what you saw?”
She blinked and met his eyes, saw the love in them, knew it was going to last. “You parked in a terrible spot. You’re going to get a ding in the Mustang.”
Sam smiled slowly. “That’s my Megan.”
“Yours?”
“Oh, yeah. And I’m not leaving this room, even if someone’s going to total the Mustang.”
“No?”
“No. And as long as you’re still having visions. I’d like you to try one on for size. Will you do that for me?”
“I guess I could try.”
He nodded, taking both her hands in his. “Look into the future, honey. See if you can make out a long and happy one, one you’ll be spending with me.”
“I don’t need any psychic skills at all to see that, Sam. If we want it, we can make it happen.”
“I want it, Megan. Do you?”