“There are always limits, but it’s fair to say Hollis is still exploring hers, so we aren’t yet sure of which abilities she’ll end up with, or how strong they’ll ultimately become. In the meantime, we’re certainly hoping she can help with Olivia’s and Sully’s headaches—and any other painful problems that might come along.”
Olivia set Rex’s carrier down on the ground, ignoring the profane feline muttering from inside it, and said, “How come everybody else hears stuff on the psychic grapevine? And how do you, Tory? Telepathy’s still not your thing, right?”
“Right. No more than it’s yours.” Victoria smiled. “But this grapevine is the real sort with people—psychics—talking out loud and otherwise communicating via traditional channels. Usually on the phone. And there’s e-mail, at least for those of us who don’t short out electronics. Reno keeps in touch.”
Olivia nodded. “Oh, that grapevine. She keeps in touch with me too. But I don’t remember her mentioning anybody named Hollis.”
Victoria wasn’t surprised. Olivia was very nearly as fragile as she looked, in more ways than one, and no doubt Reno’s checking in with her had been more about making sure Olivia was all right than it was about passing on information.
Victoria had always believed that Reno was a born caretaker, though she didn’t look it and seldom sounded it. It was also interesting that her first name, more commonly given to a Latin-American male child, meant “to rise again.” Like a phoenix. Except that a phoenix rose from the ashes of its own destruction, and as far as Victoria knew, Reno had never come close to being destroyed.
Yet, at least.
She hunched her shoulders against the chill she told herself was only the October night.
Miranda was saying easily, “Things tend to happen quickly with Hollis, especially during investigations, so it’s sometimes hard to keep score. But you’ll be meeting her and Reese tomorrow.”
Victoria nodded, then said curiously, “I was wondering about Dalton. Did he call in?”
“No.”
“But he was summoned?”
Miranda nodded, smiling faintly.
Victoria looked at her for a moment, and then laughed. “Don’t tell me. You sent Reno to fetch him?”
“Do you know anybody else who could take Dalton somewhere he doesn’t want to be?”
“No,” Victoria said, and laughed again. “Not even Bishop.”
* * *
? ? ?
TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 7
Leslie Gardner slipped from the bed, not trying to be particularly quiet since Ed was snoring and always slept like the dead anyway. His was a curiously gentle, rhythmic snore, and she had teased him their entire married life about it. Her own personal sound machine, lulling her to sleep.
At least, it always had.
They’d been in bed by a bit after eleven, as usual after a busy weekday, and as usual he fell asleep right away.
But not Leslie. Not even her own personal sound machine helped much lately.
Her head was pounding so hard she had to feel her way to the bathroom, and when she got there and eased the door closed, she turned on only the light in the shower, dim behind its curtain.
Even that hurt her eyes.
She didn’t know what time it was except that it was late—and she had to be up early to fix the kids’ lunches and make breakfast. She needed her sleep. The supposed painkillers she’d taken hardly two hours before had not even taken the edge off the pain. She wanted to take more, but the bottle was empty.
Her head had been hurting on and off for days.
Note to self: Buy something stronger tomorrow.
There was a small, padded bench between the shower and the vanity, and Leslie sat there for what seemed like a long time, her elbows on her knees and both hands pressed to the sides of her head. It hurt.
It hurt, and somewhere inside that throbbing pain, inside her aching brain, she could have sworn she heard, very faintly, two words whispered. That was all. Just two words.
But everything in her shied away from listening to those words, even acknowledging what they were, even though the silent battle made her head hurt more. Trying not to moan with the pain, but also trying to hold back those awful words, to pretend she didn’t hear them, that everything was normal.
It was just a headache.
She talked to herself aloud, her voice soft.
“I have to sleep. I have to get back into bed with Ed and sleep. Tomorrow, things will be better. Tomorrow, things will be fine. My head won’t hurt anymore. The light won’t bother me anymore. I won’t hear impossible words. And I won’t . . . I won’t see . . . anything strange. Everything will be back to normal. I’m sure.”
She used the vanity to help lever herself upright, and clung to it for long minutes because she felt dizzy and weak. She splashed cold water on her face and dried it with a towel, resisting until that moment any glance into the mirror above the sink.
In the dim light she saw her face, pale but her own. Eyes huge and oddly . . . blurry. Maybe because of the words in her head, the words she refused to hear.
Maybe that.
Or maybe it was something else.
She stared at herself for a long minute, then looked past her left shoulder.
It was her shadow on the light-colored wall. Just that, just her shadow. Except that it had a funny red tint. That was one thing that was wrong.
The other thing that was wrong was that she shouldn’t have had a shadow just there, with the dim light in the shower. It was on the wrong side. And, besides, she shouldn’t have had a shadow at all. Not like that. Not all . . . distorted.
Not a monster shadow.
Feeling a little sick and a lot shaken, Leslie Gardner slipped back into bed beside her snoring husband, very carefully not looking to see if the shadow had followed her even here into the dark.
* * *
? ? ?
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
In the bedroom of a small but surprisingly cozy cottage on an all-but-deserted island in the Bahamas, Reese DeMarco woke to find himself alone. He woke early out of long habit, but not this early, not without reason.
The reason this time was the empty place beside him.
It was still dark outside, and the muffled sounds of the ocean told him it was approaching high tide only a dozen or so yards from the cottage. There was no light in the bedroom, but when he looked at the nearly closed door, he could see a light coming from the living space beyond.
He got out of bed and found a pair of sweatpants to pull on, then went out to the living room to find what he expected to find. The scent of coffee was sharp in the morning air, a glance toward the compact kitchenette showing him the coffeemaker with a pot already half empty.
Hollis was on the couch, the big coffee table before her covered with papers and her open laptop, which was plugged into a wall outlet. A mostly empty coffee cup sat on the end table beside the couch. She was barefoot and bare-legged, and wearing nothing but a man’s white shirt that made her look, even with her recent golden tan and the few pounds he’d managed, with his cooking, to add to her slender frame, deceptively fragile.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked, leaning on the back of the couch slightly to one side of her.
“I slept. As long as I could. Sorry if I woke you.” She leaned back and looked up at him with a faint smile. And returned his deep and not-at-all-brief kiss with matching fire.
It was one of the things they had discovered for themselves during the weeks away from the job and other people. A passion for each other of rather astonishing ferocity, something that was still a new aspect of their partnership but one very much treasured even more for the long and difficult path that had brought them here, separately and together. And something that had most certainly deepened their already strong connection to each other.
That last fact had also created a few surprises for them as yet untested in the field.
“Don’t start something,” she murmured when she could.
“Why not? We have a few hours of vacation left.”
“Yeah, but right now something about this summoning business is bugging me. And you know how I get when something’s bugging me.”