Blood Ties (20 page)

That did startle Diana, even though it explained a lot; she had been communicating with unnervingly mature “child” guides all her life. But it also raised the question… “Wait. I don’t remember another life. Just the one. What does that mean?”

“It could be another sign that you don’t belong here.”

Diana began to feel more hopeful even as she wondered, again, if she could believe what any guide said.

“Then again,” Brooke continued, “it could just mean you’re a new soul.”

Resisting the impulse to swear out loud as she was swearing inwardly, Diana instead struggled to keep her voice steady when she said, “So people who believe in reincarnation are right?”

“Let’s say they’re on the right track.”

“Karma?”

Brooke didn’t need the question clarified. “There are far worse hells than a pit of fire and torment. And better heavens than pretty clouds and harp music.”

“And we reap what we sow?”

“We’re called to account for our actions in one way or another, never doubt that. It’s all a question of balance. The universe likes things to even out. Sooner or later.”

Diana wanted to think about that but became aware that they were no longer walking along Serenade’s Main Street. Everything around her seemed to blur for an instant, and then she realized that she was, once again, in the gleaming, featureless halls of that onetime asylum.

“Brooke, why are we here?”

“Because we have to be. You have to be.”

“I thought you wanted me to go to the hospital where my—where I am. This can’t be that place, because this place doesn’t exist in the living world. Not anymore.”

“You have to be here,” Brooke repeated.

“She’s lying to you,” a new voice said calmly.

Diana stopped, turned very slowly, and wasn’t at all relieved or happy to see Quentin standing in an open doorway just behind them, smiling at her.

“I
know I should go back with you, Miranda,” Hollis said. “I know the doctor said there was nothing we could do for Diana here. But…”

“But you think otherwise?” Miranda showed no signs of impatience, even though the sheriff had gone ahead to tell their pilot that they were ready for the trip back to Serenade.

Hollis hesitated, then moved her shoulders in a gesture not quite a shrug. “I don’t know what I think. But what I
feel
is that I need to stay close, at least for now.”

“You realize that staying here will be difficult for you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I figured that out a few hours ago.” Hollis didn’t look at DeMarco, even though she could feel him watching her.

Miranda nodded and said, “I thought you’d seen at least a few spirits since we got here.”

“It was worse downstairs in the trauma unit. A little better up here.” Hollis avoided looking toward the hallway visible from this waiting area. “But they’re still… awfully vivid. And I can’t seem to close the door.”

“Probably not one you opened.” Miranda offered her a twisted smile. “I know from experiences with my sister that there are some places where spirits walk, and hospitals are at the top of that list. Mediums really can’t help seeing them.”

“I can handle it,” Hollis said, hoping she could.

“I don’t doubt you can. It just won’t be easy. Look, Hollis, we don’t know how the gray time works, but we do know Diana has always been convinced there are souls who end up there, disconnected from their bodies. Trapped, at least for a while, before they can move on.”

“Or come back. Yes.” Hollis was praying DeMarco would keep his mouth shut; they hadn’t gotten the chance that morning to report the events of the night to Miranda, especially the part about Hollis now being drawn to the gray time whenever Diana opened the door. And Hollis wanted it to stay that way, at least for now. Because she had no doubt that Miranda would not approve of the risky plan taking shape in her mind.

“You believe she’s there?”

“The doc said her heart stopped twice. We know it stopped once back in Serenade. If the gray time really is a corridor between this world and the next, I think it’s likely that’s where Diana’s spirit would go. It’s a place she’s comfortable in, confident, almost at home. It could be a refuge for her in a situation like this one.”

“A place to hide?”

“Maybe. With all that trauma to her body… maybe. She told me Bishop believes her conscious and subconscious minds haven’t fully integrated yet after all the years of being medicated, and one thing her subconscious had gotten very good at was protecting itself. What her subconscious, her spirit, knows best is the gray time. I really think retreating there would be almost automatic. If so, she’s still halfway in this world, this reality. At least half alive. She might try to contact one of us. Maybe Quentin. Or maybe me.”

“I agree she may have gone there. But we don’t know if her connection with Quentin is strong enough to keep her anchored on this side. Not if she truly died.” Miranda’s voice was on the edge of emotionless but didn’t quite make it.

“All the more reason for me to stay close. Even if she’s lost that anchor, another medium might be able to see her. Speak to her. Maybe even help her.”

DeMarco spoke up for the first time to say, “You don’t see the spirits of people you know, coworkers. Right?”

“I haven’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t. And since Diana’s a medium, it might make it easier for me to see her. Maybe. I just… believe I should stay, Miranda.”

“Then you’ll stay.”

“So will I,” DeMarco said.

Without looking at him, Hollis said, “You don’t have to.”

“I’ll stay,” he said to Miranda. “If Diana was the target and not just one of us chosen at random, our insane sniper might decide to come here and finish the job.”

“The thought had occurred.”

“So I’ll stay. Even without being at her bedside or outside her door, I should be able to sense a threat to her.”

“Without a connection to her?”

“I still have her blood on me,” he replied, his voice remote. “That’s enough of a connection.”

Miranda didn’t question that. “Okay.”

“Galen’s on-site now?”

“He flew one of the choppers.”

“Then you’ve got the best watchdog on the team.” DeMarco nodded. “And if you tell him I said that, I’ll deny it.”

Miranda smiled faintly. “Gotcha.”

“What about the twins?”

Unsurprised that he knew, she replied, “Hopefully still in the background, unless the sniper spotted Gabe. But even if he was spotted, Roxanne certainly wasn’t. We also have a few more team members on-site now, as the sheriff noted.”

“Might be playing into the sniper’s hands,” DeMarco pointed out. “With so many of us here, he could be setting us up for a turkey shoot.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t make it that easy for him.” Without waiting for a response, she added, “I’ll speak to the doctor again before I leave and make sure you’re both cleared to stay near Diana—for her own protection.”

Hollis said, “Thanks. And keep us posted on what’s happening in Serenade, will you?”

“I will.” Miranda turned her head just as Sheriff Duncan appeared in the doorway. He was carrying two overnight bags and looked somewhat bemused.

“Your pilot asked me to bring these in,” he told Miranda, as he set the bags in a couple of the waiting-room chairs. “He seemed to be sure that Hollis and Reese would be staying.”

“Thanks, Des.” Without explaining a thing, Miranda merely said to DeMarco, “There’s also a change of clothes for Quentin in your bag. Assuming either of you can persuade him to leave Diana long enough for a hot shower and a meal, that is.”

“We’ll do our best.”

Miranda nodded. “One last thing. I need to contact Diana’s father and let him know what happened.”

With a slight frown, Hollis said, “I… don’t think she’d want that.”

“Neither do I. But she hadn’t decided absolutely to completely cut that tie, and absent written instructions to the contrary, I have to follow procedure. If you don’t already, you should both know that Elliot Brisco is an extremely powerful man, and he’s not been at all happy about Diana’s involvement with the FBI.”

“Understatement,” Hollis murmured.

“Yeah, he’s likely to be spewing fire and brimstone.”

DeMarco smiled, though only someone who knew him well would have seen wry amusement in the expression. Anybody else probably would have felt the need to find a warm corner somewhere. “If I could handle Samuel’s brand of fire and brimstone, I imagine I can handle Brisco’s.”

“True enough. Just wanted to warn you. And to tell you that one thing Diana
did
put in writing, as per procedure before coming on her first assignment, was that Quentin holds her medical power of attorney. Which means that in addition to being worried about Diana’s condition and pissed about the direction she chose for her life, Brisco is also going to be powerless to make medical decisions for her. Men like him really don’t like to be powerless.”

“Oh, boy,” Hollis said with a sigh. “Aren’t we going to have fun.”

“Well, you should have at least a brief respite before you have to deal with him; he’s likely to be at one of his companies on the West Coast or in New York, possibly in London or even Hong Kong.”

“I’ll hope for the latter. And find a way to make peace with my conscience if he gets here too late.”

“And we’ll all hope that’s not even an issue,” Miranda told her.

“Amen.”

“See you two later.” She briskly gathered up the sheriff as she left the waiting room, allowing him no chance to do anything but wave at the two remaining behind.

“It’s not a risky plan,” DeMarco said as soon as they were alone in the room, “it’s an insane plan.”

“Maybe, but thanks for not giving it away.” Hollis frowned at him as several thoughts occurred. “Or do you think Miranda got it too? Because I was broadcasting?”

“You weren’t. And after what’s happened in the last two days, Miranda’s shield is about as solid as I’ve ever known it to be. And a lot more solid now than it was when you got through before the bomb went off. My guess is that she and Bishop close every possible chink in that shield when they’re under attack or expect to be. It’s a trade-off: a diminished ability to use the extra senses but also a lot more protection.”

Hollis nodded but said, “I wasn’t broadcasting?”

“Not so much. Either you’re learning to shield or else an insane plan makes you secretive on every level.”

Then how could you read me?
She didn’t ask aloud but stared at him, still frowning.

He returned her suspicious gaze with a completely unreadable one of his own.

Hollis decided not to ask out loud. “Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll even have the chance. I’m way too wound up to sleep.”

“I won’t stand by and let you sedate yourself, Hollis.”

“Will you quit doing that?”

“Just making an educated guess.”

She wished she believed that.

“The point,” DeMarco said, “is that even if you managed to get to the gray time and find Diana there—what then? What is it you believe you can do to help?”

“I don’t know.”

“You nearly didn’t make it out the last time.”

Hollis opened her mouth to respond, then closed it.

DeMarco was nodding. “Maybe because the two of you were under a kind of attack from someone else in the gray time. An attack—and an attempt to deceive Diana.”

“We don’t know what any of that meant.”

“We know Diana was shot yesterday. When the shooter could have aimed at any of us, he picked her. I don’t believe it was random in any sense of the word. He aimed for Diana, and he hit her. Put that together with the gray time visit the other night and I’d call it a pretty goddamn good indication
somebody
is out to hurt her, at the very least.”

“That’s not what you said earlier.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly something I could be so definite about to Miranda without going into what happened Tuesday night. Which you very clearly didn’t want me to do.”

Damn telepaths.

Hollis drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Okay. Granted. There’s a better than even chance someone has targeted Diana. A chance that person can attack her spirit as well as her body, and maybe even more violently. But… Look, when you pulled me out of the gray time, you weren’t actually in there with us, right?”

He nodded again. “Right. It was more like I reached in an arm to pull you out. I had the sense of coldness, of something… unpleasantly nightmarish. But I wasn’t there. Didn’t see or hear anything.”

“Nightmarish
. That’s a good word for a very creepy place.”

“A place Diana is very, very familiar with,” DeMarco reminded her.

“Yes. A place she’s visited most of her life. But you weren’t there. You don’t understand how strange and… lonely… that place really is. How absolutely desolate.”

“Hollis—”

“She’s always gone there with a purpose, to help someone else. I think that’s one reason she’s been strong there, how she’s been able to move through that place or time or whatever it is without being the least bit afraid. But… what if, this time, she knows, Reese? What if she’s in there,
stuck
in there all alone, and she knows what happened to her?”

“Then I’m sorry for her. But I still don’t know what it is you believe you can do to help her.”

The hell of it was, Hollis didn’t know either. But she also knew she couldn’t just stand by without trying something.

Anything.

Ten

R
OXANNE WOLF CHECKED
the perimeter of Serenade for the fourth time, moving slowly and being very, very thorough. She also had to be extremely cautious—because it was quite dark all around the outskirts of downtown due to the power outage, and because the small town was still playing reluctant host to more cops, more FBI agents, and way too much media, not to mention electric-company crews still working to restore power.

Which meant there were a hell of a lot of unfamiliar faces wandering around, strangers roaming not only the scene of the bomb blast but the entire town, even this late.

Flashlights jabbed through the darkness here and there, several times narrowly missing Roxanne as she slipped through the night.