Chapter 52
FIFTY-TWO
Quinn tried to calm down, but, after what had just happened, she realized that she was truly frightened for her son.
Since she was a child, she had been able to see through the eyes of the people who had died and learn their stories, but, although frequently shocked and heartbroken for the victims, she had never experienced their pain physically.
Alex had been flailing his arms and gasping for breath.
At one point, his fingers had gone to his temple, the same spot where Colin had found a contusion on Geneva.
Was Alex’s response a form of sympathetic reflex, or had he been in pain and felt like he couldn’t breathe?
What would have happened had she not pulled the earring from his grasp?
And who could she talk to about this? She could hardly explain to a medical doctor that her psychic eight-year-old had experienced the agony of a woman who had died a hundred years before.
The doctor might suggest psychotropic drugs or some form of shock treatment.
Barbaric as that was, it was still in use when treating psychiatric patients, and she never wanted Alex to be labeled mentally unstable.
She prayed that, as he got older, he would learn to self-govern and know when not to touch something, as she had.
And if he picked up something by mistake, he’d know to drop it immediately, before the transference had the chance to do him any real harm.
But Alex’s vision, although clearly terrifying, had served to narrow down the list of suspects.
Alex had said that the hand he’d seen was bigger than Quinn’s and more like Gabe’s, which had to mean that the killer was a man.
And given that Geneva had been wearing Rory’s ring at the time of her death, it had to be Jesse, since Rory would have little cause to murder her if she had accepted his proposal.
But why would Jesse kill her? If Geneva had refused to kowtow to her father’s demands, he could have married Honor, or no one at all.
His future had not depended on either sister, and he could have disposed of his inheritance as he pleased.
So, what had happened that had resulted in Geneva’s brutal death at the age of twenty-one?
And who was the other person whose presence Alex had sensed?
Was it a man or a woman? And what was their role in Geneva’s death? Could it have been Honor?
Quinn sighed and sank deeper into the mattress.
She was so tired and so unsettled by everything that had taken place over the past few days.
And she felt woefully cut off from the world without access to the internet.
There was another option, but, in the midst of a family crisis, she could hardly hare off to the retirement village where Dinah Wilson resided.
She’d speak to the woman in due course, but for now any active research into the case would have to wait.
She had her family to focus on.