“I’m okay.”
“No. You need to use your gift to contact the living. You need to stand here and concentrate on Lara. Think of her as if you were trying to call her. Clear your mind and think of nothing else, nobody else, but Lara.”
The Virginia Monument stood forty-one feet high; it was a beautiful equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee over a group of seven Confederate soldiers. It was the largest of the Confederate monuments.
Meg handed the dog to Matt and sank down on the monument where she and Lara had sat before, talking about the Civil War. Years later, Lara had said that while Richmond might have been the capital of the Confederacy, it was now more “Washington” than ever, what with the ninety miles between the two cities being nothing in this day and age.
Except for traffic, of course.
Meg closed her eyes. She tried to envision her friend, with her sunshine hair and sparkling green eyes, always striving to see both sides of an issue. She often deplored the fact that although the Civil War was more than a hundred and fifty years behind them, some people still had to fight against inequality, while others hadn’t learned to stamp out their own prejudices.
The sounds around her dimmed as she concentrated. She felt the sun and heard birds and pictured her friend’s face. In her mind, she could see Lara, smiling in the sunlight.
And then the sun dimmed. And she saw her in darkness, barely visible, lying on...dirt. Surrounded by darkness. Walls of dirt...and darkness.
She’s dead, Meg thought, dead and silent. Forgotten...
Then she seemed to hear a pulse, a heartbeat. Lara wasn’t dead; she was weak and starved and dehydrated, barely alive and yet...
“Meg... Meg, where are you? Help me...”
Alive. Yes, Lara was still alive. Still trying to reach out to her.
Alive...but for how long?
*
Lara lay on the floor, fevered, half awake and half asleep.
She was dying, and she knew it.
She wanted to fight; the will to fight was strong in her. But her body was giving way. She was nearly out of water and she hadn’t eaten in days. She was so weak...
And yet, lying there, she suddenly had an image of Meg.
Meg is near.
She wanted to concentrate. She wanted to tell her friend there wasn’t much time left. She tried...
She could no longer scream. She could hardly move. She knew that Meg wouldn’t stop until she found her.
But now...
Now it seemed that when Meg found her, she’d be dead.
But then she could tell her some things...
Because Meg could speak with the dead.
15
Meg’s eyes opened. “I don’t know... Am I just making up what I want to see? I—I think she keeps trying to reach me. I think she’s somewhere in the dark. Like...thrown into a well, a dirt-floor basement, something like that!”
Holding Killer, Matt sat next to her for a moment and she realized she was shaking. “Meg, I believe you did see her, and I believe she’s alive—she’s not coming to you as a ghost. Her mind is connecting with yours, and she’s communicating with you the way you two did as kids. There’ve been lots of experiments with people who have extrasensory perception, and there’s lots of evidence that it exists—which is far more accepted than that we might see the dead. Take a deep breath. We’ll figure it out. We’ll find her.”
She looked at him and was thankful that he gave her strength. What she’d once seen as arrogance really was his stance on life; he always walked forward in confidence, spoke with honesty, maintained a clear vision.
She smiled. “If we find her—when we find her—and this over, I’m going to need a vacation. With you, of course. I may be the new kid on the block, but...”
“You’ll deserve it.” He smiled back, using his free arm to pull her close. “Now, we’re running out of time. We have to check into the MacAndrew farmhouse, look it over and then head to every location on Angela’s list. With any luck I’m right—and someone in Walker’s party owns land and on that land we’ll find Lara.”
They left the park. They’d spent about three hours there, but it was still early, only about one o’clock. By that evening, they’d be on official duty as part of the Walker family security. Matt was anxious to get there.
The MacAndrew farmhouse had been in the Confederate line of fire; while MacAndrew had sympathized with the North, he was also a Quaker and a pacifist. When the Confederates had arrived in need of a field hospital, MacAndrews, his wife and six daughters had set about tending the wounded. They’d welcomed the help of Confederate doctors.