Inside Dana’s mind, the shape of the dark angel from her dream suddenly took shape. He stood facing away from her, tall and powerful, his black wings folded, muscular arms loose, fingers curled and tipped with black nails. He stood as if listening to what Corinda was saying, and then he began to turn. The wings twitched, and Dana could hear the rustle and rasp of the leather membranes.
Dana, spoke the angel in a voice that rumbled like summer thunder. Dana, be careful. Be very careful. If you open your eyes, you can never unsee what you see.
The dark angel turned and for a moment—for a fractured, flickering piece of a second—he wore the face of her father.
Dana cried out and lunged backward from him, and in doing so tore her hands from Corinda’s grip. Her shoulders struck the partition between the booth and the register, hitting hard enough to knock something over. A calendar, maybe. She heard it slither down the partition and thwap onto the floor. The connection was snapped with the image of the dark angel and with Corinda, and the tall woman gasped and snatched her hands back as if stung.
They sat there, both frozen, staring at each other. Corinda looked shocked at first, but she composed her features very quickly, and even managed a smile.
“Well,” she said, “that was something, wasn’t it?”
CHAPTER 28
Beyond Beyond
4:31 P.M.
“What are you guys talking about?”
Dana jumped and turned to see Melissa standing beside the table. She hadn’t even heard her sister approach.
“God! You scared the life out of me,” gasped Dana.
Melissa raised her eyebrows. “Looks to me like you were already scared silly. You’re white as a ghost. Move over. Are those fresh scones? I’m famished.” She sat down and hip-checked Dana across the bench seat, took a scone, and bit off a large chunk, then nodded to Corinda. “You spooking my baby sister?”
“Only a little,” said Corinda. “Dana’s been doing a good job of spooking herself.”
“Oh, I’m way past being spooked,” said Dana with a nervous laugh. “I’m way, way, way freaked out.”
“Tell me everything,” said Melissa, taking Dana’s cup and finishing the last of her cold tea.
“I had visions of some disturbing things that have been going on in Dana’s spiritual mind,” said Corinda. “But you already know about that, don’t you? Yes. I can tell that she’s shared this with you.”
Melissa did not even blink when Corinda said that. Instead she nodded. “She tells me everything. How’d you know? Cards? Crystal gazing?”
“Meditation and astral projection,” said Corinda.
“So cool. And you got inside Dana’s head?”
“I’m actually right here, you know,” said Dana.
Melissa elbowed her gently. “Tell me everything.”
They did. Or at least Corinda did, and Dana grunted and nodded at all the appropriate places. Some of what Corinda said to Melissa was phrased differently, using even more of the often hard-to-follow language of the new age. The gist was the same, though.
Melissa leaned forward, her eyes wide and bright. “You think Maisie was murdered?” she said in a shocked whisper. “Oh my God!”
“That’s what Ethan thinks,” said Dana. “His uncle seems to think so, too. Maisie and the other teens.”
“You think they’re right about this?” asked Melissa. “I mean, this can’t be true, can it?”
“It’s true,” replied Corinda. “Dana knows it on a soul level. The murdered kids are reaching out to her, using her sensitivity to share their story. To reveal the truth. That’s why Maisie appeared to her at school.”
“We have to tell people,” declared Melissa. “We have to tell the sheriff and, well … everyone.”
“No,” said Dana and Corinda at the same time.
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll think I’m actually certifiably insane,” said Dana.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Corinda. “People have thought I’m an oddball since I was three years old. Who cares? It’s just proof of their small minds and the blinders they choose to wear. No, girls, the reason we don’t tell anyone about this, not yet at least, is that we don’t know who the killer is.”
“Which is why we have to tell the police,” insisted Melissa.
“No,” said Dana, getting where Corinda was going with this.
“Why not?” asked her sister.
“Because,” said Dana, “if we tell the police, the killer will know that we know.”
Melissa said, “Again, so what? We don’t know who the killer is, so it’s not like we’re ratting on anyone in particular. We’re not naming names.”
“The killer won’t know that,” said Dana. “If it gets out that we know this because I’ve had some kind of weird psychic flash, or that Ethan told me about his uncle’s case files, then the killer’s going to wonder what else I know. He’s going to wonder what happens if I have a dream of his face or his name, and he’s going to have to do something about that.”
“Yes,” said Corinda quietly. “It would focus all his attention on you, Dana.”
“I wish you could grab more details out of your visions,” said Melissa. “Like maybe a name, an address. Anything.”
“It takes time,” said Corinda, “even for me. There has to be a proper alignment of universal factors for these things to come to me.”