“The opposite,” Hollis told him. “Reese and I stopped by the station before we came back to the hotel, and Katie filled us in on the results on all the deputies interviewing family and friends of those affected. It seems that both Leslie Gardner and Sam Bowers were class parents last weekend when their kids’ class took a little prospecting trip out into the valley.”
“You believe they found the source.”
“I think there’s a good chance they did. And probably never felt anything other than a twinge in their heads or a faint pressure they believed was the start of a sinus headache. Family reported that both of them suffered from allergies.”
“Very thorough deputies,” Bishop noted.
“Yeah, Archer has them well trained. They got a specific location for that class trip, and according to our maps it’s in a grid section we would have searched tomorrow. An area up against the raw cliff face that looks so weird all around the base of the valley. Which would have been a perfect place for kids to dig up pretty rocks.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We’ll all head to that area first thing in the morning. If we find the source—and I hope to hell we do given that it’s probably building up to attack mode again—then we’ll try to seal up the portal. Any ideas, by the way, on how we can do that?”
“Call me in the morning,” Bishop said, “before you head out there. We’re still working on possible solutions.”
“Good, because I haven’t given it much thought,” she said ruefully.
Unsurprised, he said, “We’ll try to have some options for you. And one, I’m sorry to say, may be the weather.”
“What?”
“Afraid so. The latest forecasts show a storm system moving over the mountains sometime tomorrow.”
“Anything more specific?” Hollis wasn’t happy for several reasons. Because storms still bothered her, because they still interfered with her abilities, and because she was uneasily aware that the electrical and magnetic energy of a storm could very well intensify, even feed, the energy field in the valley.
Hell, it could detonate the energy, for all they knew. And, poof—no valley. At all.
“Any unusual danger from this storm?” Hollis heard herself ask.
“No, nothing out of the ordinary, not for Prosperity and the valley. According to the weather service, that area of the mountains is well known to play host to highly unpredictable weather, going back hundreds of years.”
Hollis felt an odd sensation she couldn’t immediately identify, and when she could identify it, all she knew was that it was a deeply unsettling sense of familiarity.
“Hollis?”
“Yeah, I’m still here,” she said slowly.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Just . . . déjà vu, or something.”
“Or something?”
She concentrated, trying to grasp an illusive feeling even as it vanished like smoke through her fingers. “Whatever it was is gone now, Bishop. Probably not important.”
“You know better, Hollis.”
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, her gaze meeting DeMarco’s slightly anxious one. “Well, if I’m aware of it later on I’ll try to hold on to it longer. I don’t know what else to tell you, Bishop. Look, I’ll call you in the morning before we head out.”
“All right. I’ll have whatever information and suggestions we settle on ready for you.”
“Thanks. Talk to you tomorrow.” She hung up the phone, then looked with faint surprise at the handkerchief DeMarco held out to her. A slight tickling beneath her nose prodded her before he could, and she held the cloth to nostrils pinched shut, continuing to breathe through her mouth.
Neither one of them said anything for several long minutes until Hollis dabbed at her no-longer-bleeding nose.
“How weird is that?” she murmured.
“Hollis?”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything, Reese. Except . . . to figure out what suddenly felt familiar. Bishop said something about the weather here being unstable going back hundreds of years, and I felt like . . . like I should have known that.”
“How? Why?”
“I have no idea. It was just a flash, a feeling of familiarity. Then it was gone.”
“You said déjà vu.”
“It was the first thing that came to mind. Just that the information about the weather didn’t surprise me. As if I . . . Hell, I don’t know.”
“You’re scaring me a little bit.”
“I’m scaring myself.” She shook off the sensation as best she could, even though it left a lingering chill. “Very weird feeling.”
“Are you expecting a spirit?”
She blinked at him. “What? No. Why?”
He reached over to touch her arm, his thumb gliding over gooseflesh. “You’re cold.”
She stared at her own arm, then frowned at him. “Yeah, I am. I must be more tired than I thought.”
After a moment, he said, “I think tonight the hot shower should come before the hot meal.”
“I think you’re right.”
FOURTEEN
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10
Even though it was still very early when they set out the next morning, heavy clouds were already beginning to tease the mountain-made horizons, and now and then a faint rumble could be heard in the distance.
“I hate storms,” Hollis muttered. “Especially the ones that rumble around and around as if they have no idea where they want to be.”
They were still at the hotel and about to climb into their vehicles, none of them happy about the storm.
“Maybe it’ll miss us,” Dalton offered.
“Are you a betting man?”
“Not really.”
“Good,” Reese told him. “She always wins.”
“It’s not my fault you don’t know how to bluff,” his partner told him virtuously. “Stone face or no stone face.”
Dalton lifted an eyebrow at the larger man. “Way I heard it, you don’t have any tells. At all.”
“I don’t. Except with Hollis.” He made the admission calmly and without any sign of embarrassment whatsoever.
Dalton wanted to say something about that, but whatever it was vanished from his mind. He found himself swinging around abruptly, from the open door of the SUV, staring toward the end of the town that was not their destination. He was barely aware that Hollis and Reese were also facing the same direction, their faces grim.
“Oh, shit,” Hollis muttered. She lifted both hands, her fingers massaging her temples. Hard.
“I’m only picking up intention,” Reese said, his voice unusually tense. “Scattered thoughts.”
“I’m getting more. A teacher. Young. Loves her work. But . . . she’s been getting more and more irritable lately. It’s not her nature, not at all. But her head won’t stop hurting. She needs to . . . fix her life. And she— Oh, Christ, she has guns. More than one. And she knows how to use them.”
Galen, Reno, and Olivia approached them from one direction, while from the other came Sully, Victoria, and Logan.
Galen said, “ I studied that school when I drove all through Prosperity. Place is close to being a fortress. It’s a newer school, and with all that’s happened in recent years, they’re all about security.”
“Maybe a fire drill?” Olivia suggested.
Victoria said, “I’m pretty sure they warn the teachers in advance now. So if there’s anything unexpected, they know to get the kids somewhere safe.”
Sully said, “I can’t pick up anything until I’m a lot closer. But get me close enough and I’ll tell you every single thing she’s feeling.”
Hollis was trying hard to sort through impressions, the panic and anxiety of the townspeople, the wordless terror of children. That angry, painful determination to fix a life that hadn’t been broken . . .
“Hollis, you have to stop.” Reese was there, holding his handkerchief to her bleeding nose.
“I can’t,” she said thickly. “You know I can’t. How many kids will she kill? How many other teachers? That thing in her head’s controlling her, and it wants a bloodbath—”
“You’re feeling that?” Reno asked sharply. “The consciousness behind the energy?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And it is familiar, dammit, I know it is.”
Reese didn’t waste any more time getting both arms around her. “Hollis.”
“That’s better,” she murmured. “Don’t let go.”
“I’m not about to,” he said, grim. He was standing behind her, one arm around her, holding her hard against his own body, while his free hand held the handkerchief to her nose.
Softly, Dalton said, “Reese, her ears.”
They were bleeding too.