Darkroom (28 page)

Then came the footage of people leaping from burning offices. How awful it must have been for them to choose to die by jumping to their deaths. A dark voice in the back of my mind said,
That could be her.

“No!”

“Grace, what are you—?”

Right away, I grabbed my Bible, clutched it to my chest, and prayed. I didn’t care that Peter shook his head, or that he of all
people thought I was being superstitious. I just prayed. And a verse came to my mind.

A more familiar voice spoke to me in my spirit. Not the dark one, but the bright, comforting one.
Proclaim it.

Proclaim what?

The Word.

I opened my Bible without thinking. There under my fingertip was a verse I had never read before. From Psalm 118.

Proclaim it for her.

And I read it aloud. Repeated it again. Because it was for my Xandi’s sake, I continued to repeat it.

“I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the L
ORD
.”

Del Mar, California: September 12, 2001

Peter did not sleep at all last night. He kept trying to call Xandra, kept watching the nonstop news reports. Only once did he attempt to lie down, and that was at my insistence.

Finally, around nine forty-five a.m., we got the call.

It was Xandi!

She was all right. Yes, she was in the South Tower before it went down. Her entire law firm had a good lead and began to evacuate together down a stairwell.

But she heard the voice of an elderly woman across the hall. It was one of those women who pushed a cart around selling bagels and coffee every day. She had tripped, and her cart had fallen and pinned her leg to the ground.

Xandi watched as every one of her coworkers rushed for the stairs. But she could not just leave the old lady there. So, despite the urging of her friends not to, she went down the hall to help the bagel lady.

Xandra and the lady ended up going down a different stairwell and eventually made it out alive, thank God.

“But Mom, that’s not the most incredible thing of all this.”
Xandi was crying when she told me this. “No one else from my office made it out.”

That day, Peter even said to me, “Maybe there
is
a God.”

Del Mar, California: July 4, 2007

I cannot sleep tonight. The fireworks have stopped, the people have gone home after a wonderful barbecue that Peter arranged with our neighbors and my friends from church. I am awake at two thirty in the morning because of three things.

For one, Peter’s nightmares have returned. And when he experiences them, I am the one who is kept up.

Another reason is that I am so worried about Xandi, who right now is on assignment in Iraq, doing a feature on female suicide bombers.

Peter forbade her to go, which of course only goaded her further. He thinks she’s trying to outdo him, though he denies any sense of competition. I honestly think she’s trying to prove something, to win his approval.

“It just takes a couple of words,” I always tell him. “You can speak life into her by just telling her how proud you are of her.”

“Oh, come on,” he’ll say, brushing it off. “She knows.”

But I don’t think she does. Since she was twelve, she’s been trying to win his affection. By the time she turned sixteen, it was apparent she would just settle for any attention, positive or negative. She still does, in my opinion. Which is one reason I believe she dated that terrible young man, Ethan. He was everything her father wasn’t. Negative attention.

But instead of dealing with it, Peter asked me to talk with her. Of course, Peter has started again with those secret meetings. Where are those visions now? Perhaps it’s best if I don’t know about those meetings. Perhaps I truly am being protected. At least he is not flying away for days at a time now. But the very memory of those days early in our marriage causes me to feel ill.

And that brings me to the third reason I can’t sleep. I’ve been suffering from severe migraines. Peter has taken me to some specialists, but so far none of the medications they’ve prescribed has helped. Putting a bright face on it all, I keep my family from worry. But I fear it may be worse than anyone imagines.

68

KYLE MATTHEWS

We were shouting simultaneously. All I can tell is that it’s a woman. No time to speculate, she’s got her weapon pressed into my chest. What was I thinking coming after Xandra like this? It goes completely against protocol. This is what I get for following my heart.

We’re both breathing heavily. I’ve got to take control of this situation. “All right,” I whisper. “We’re both going to have to—”

“Kyle?”

“Xandra, is that you?” The gun lifts away from my chest. I lower mine as well.

“Yes. Where are the lights?”

“What are you doing sneaking around in my father’s house? I almost killed you!”

Reaching out, I find her hand. It’s clammy and shaking. The thought that I almost put a bullet through her head horrifies me. Thank God I didn’t. “I decided, against my better judgment, to come after you. Where’s your father?”

“I don’t know. But whoever ransacked his office—they’re still here.”

Someone’s rummaging around behind the door to Carrick’s bedroom. “We have to get out of here.”

“Back stairs,” Xandra says. “We can get to the garage.”

“I just came up that way. The back door was unlocked.
Caught a glimpse. Three men. They look like Secret Service agents.”

“Real ones?”

“Hard to tell. But they’re armed.” The person stalking about Carrick’s bedroom is stepping toward the door. “We have to go back down.” I take Xandra’s hand and lead her in the dark toward the rear door.

Groping in the dark, I find the wall, and finally the doorknob.

The bedroom door opens behind us.

A shot rings out. “Get down!” The bullet whisks over us. I fire two shots into the dark. I feel under my feet the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground. Taking Xandra’s hand, I lead her to the exit.

Someone else pushes against the bedroom entrance to the media room, but the body of their fallen colleague blocks it. Xandra aims her gun back at them and pulls the trigger.

Nothing but an empty click. She forgot to insert the clip.

Blindly, I fire two more shots in their direction and push Xandra through the exit door. But two agents force their way into the media room. They fire several shots, a couple of which hit the exit door.

Just in time, we escape into the long hallway that leads to the back stairs. But the door jams as I try to shut it. It must have been damaged by the bullets. “Can’t close it,” I whisper.

“Wait,” Xandra whispers and pulls my arm back.

“What is it?”

“Don’t move.”

Her whims are getting on my nerves, especially now, with a dangerous situation bursting at the seams. “We don’t have time for—” Right when I take a step forward, the hallway lights—which I now realize are controlled by a motion sensor—activate.

Xandra whispers something not particularly nice.

One glance back tells me that the bright lights I just turned on are now streaming through the crack I left in the doorway. The footfalls in the home theater rushing toward us confirm this. “We’ve got her,” the voice of our pursuer says after a walkie-talkie beep.

To make matters worse, another set of footsteps pound up the back staircase, converging on our position. “We’re trapped.”

Xandra takes me by the arm and leads me through the hallway. “Maybe not.” Running her hand along the wall, she stops at a picture frame. She slips her hand behind the picture. Suddenly, a panel in the wall recesses and slides to the left. A hidden door appears. “Panic room.”

69

XANDRA CARRICK

The panel slides open. I pull Kyle into the panic room and shut the door.

He jiggles the doorknob. “There’s no lock!”

“It’s all electronic,” I tell him, fumbling with the keypad on this side of the panic room. The first combination yields a rude beep.

“Doesn’t matter, they’ll wait us out. Or burn the house down.”

Two words enter my mind:
auxiliary exit
. That’s right. I almost forgot. Dad told me about it during the orientation held by the company that installed the panic room. The auxiliary exit was designed as a last-measure fail-safe if the panic room is breached.

I punch in the correct sequence and enter my security code. “Follow me.” I take Kyle’s hand and lead him past the bathroom and kitchenette to the back of the room. “Check for another control panel door hidden in the wall.”

“Got it!”

“Two-two-three-eight-one!”

He enters it and another door opens. We get inside and the door slides shut. On the monochrome monitor screen, two men in black suits rush into the panic room. Their guns are held out ready to shoot.

I hit the red button with an octagonal icon. The entire panic
room goes pitch black. A heavy slam confirms what is now displayed on the monitor:

PANIC ROOM SEALED

“Let’s go.”

Kyle follows me, his eyes still drawn to the monitor. “I assume the room is lined to—”

“Block cell phone signals, yes. At least, that’s what they told Dad. Only the right access code can remove the shield.” For all intents and purposes those men are trapped inside until we let them out.

The auxiliary exit leads us to a tunnel that ends at a ladder stretching up to a hatch door. We climb out and find ourselves standing on a hill overlooking the road leading up to Dad’s house. Wincing from his wound, Kyle points to his car parked outside the gate; we make haste to get in and drive off.

“Your father’s got the cell phone and calling cards. He’s gone dark until he can contact us safely.”

“I am such an idiot. Should have known they’d come here.”

“Your father’s clearly a target now.”

I’m not concerned with the thugs locked in the panic room—there’s enough food and water to sustain a family of five for two weeks. The real question lies with Kyle. “Why did you come?”

“Following my heart, for a change.” He puts his gun down on the center console and turns to me. “Still, you should have discussed this carefully before storming off like that.”

“What would you have said?”

“Besides waiting until we make a plan with your father, that it was too dangerous to go to his house.” He strains and puts his hand over his wound. “By the way, why does a photographer need a panic room?”

“Doesn’t every public figure have one?”

“No.”

“Dad always told us that public figures—wealthy ones in particular—
are always potential targets of crime. That’s why he made sure we knew about the room, the gun, how to use it. My mother wouldn’t even look at the gun.”

“Well, all I can say is, I’m glad I came.”

Grateful that this was the closest he came to saying “I told you so,” I redirect the conversation to something that I’ve wanted to ask since Kyle showed up on my flight to San Diego. “Just what is it about this case that’s got you so obsessed? You’re as driven as I am, but what’s your motivation?”

He presses his lips into a tight line. Finally, after some deliberation, he speaks. “My father died in a mining accident when I was three. So I was raised by a single mother. But I had a strong father figure up until I was twelve. My uncle Ray. You might be familiar with his name.”

“Can’t say I—”

“He was a member of Echo Company.”

“Oh!” It doesn’t take a vision now to know what he’s getting at. “Lieutenant Raymond O’Neil.”

“That’s right.”

“Didn’t he take his own life?”

“Absolutely not. And trust me, I’m not exaggerating when I say his murder was what drove me into a career with the FBI. For twenty years, I’ve hunted his killer.”

It all makes sense now. Caressing his hand, I let out a long breath. “Kyle, if my mistake costs us the chance to find out who’s been killing the Echo Company vets, your uncle …”

“There’s still a chance. I spoke with Jennings earlier. He’s expecting us.” Gradually, his fingers intertwine with mine. His warmth infuses me from my hand to the center of my being. For the next couple of miles we’re silent.

“Since we’re being so open here, there’s another question I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“Shoot.”

I’m not particularly fond of that phrase at the moment. “How is it you never questioned my ability to see visions? I think I’ve had more doubt than you.”

He considers the question. Rubs the back of his neck—which I continue for him—and then answers. “For one thing, I know you’re sincere.”

“But it’s so bizarre. Makes no sense scientifically.”

“One thing Uncle Ray taught me that I’ve never forgotten: things that can’t be explained by science are in themselves evidence of its limitations.”

It takes a few seconds to sink in. “So you don’t think science can explain everything.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have solved half of my cases.”

“So, how many psychics have you consulted with over the years?”

“None.”

“Really? I’m the first?”

“You’re no psychic.”

“How exactly has Uncle Ray’s wisdom guided you then?”

“It’s just thinking outside the box. I took this with me to the Academy where Professor Blake Danielson refined my thinking. Believe it or not, the way I approach my cases, as well as my choice to believe in your abilities, has its roots in mathematical concepts.”

This turns my head and causes me to stop massaging his neck. “Mathematical concepts?”

“Are you familiar with decision theory?”

“I studied it in college. Briefly.” He can tell I’m lying.

“All right, how about probability theory?”

“Something about finding patterns in rolling dice?”

“Oh, and finally, there’s Pascal’s Wager.”

I sit up, galvanized, because this is one I actually remember from high school. “If reason can’t be relied upon, it’s a better bet to believe in God than not to.”

“I’m not saying that every paranormal event I encounter is about God. But I don’t automatically dismiss it as nonsense either. Based on the events that brought us together, and the flawless accuracy of your visions, it seems the better bet to believe your abilities are real than not to.”