Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

In clear protest, Ruby said, “But, Maggie—”

“That’s the deal, Ruby. You stay inside and out of sight. You obey Bailey. If there’s anything you need Miranda or the rest of the team to know, you tell Bailey and let her relay the information. But you do not go outside or even show your face at a window. And if Bailey or Miranda tells you it’s time to go, you don’t argue. Understand?”

Ruby nodded slowly. “I understand.”

“What about Lexie?” Maggie asked, referring to the absence of Ruby’s constant companion.

“I’ve given—She’s going to stay here with Cody, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay. But are you sure, honey?”

“I’m sure. She hates plane rides. She loves Winston, Reiko, and Archie,” Ruby added, referring to the three dogs belonging to the Garrett household. “And, besides, it’ll be… quieter here. So she won’t be afraid.”

“And you won’t have to hide her?”

“I don’t expect I’d have to. But…just in case. She should stay here with Cody. He’ll take care of her.”

Maggie nodded. “Is your bag ready?”

“Yeah. I packed a while ago. I’ll go get it.” And when John took a step forward, she waved away help, adding, “It’s okay, the bag is on wheels. I can get it.”

When she had gone to get her bag, John shook his head and said, “That kid really is way too old for her years. Christ, I hope Bishop knows what he’s doing.”

“He usually does,” Bailey said, her tone more wry than reassuring.

“Okay, but since when does he use kids as soldiers?”

“She was a soldier against Samuel at that church of his,” Bailey reminded him quietly. “Without her very powerful help, they never could have defeated the bastard.” {see Blood Sins}

John shook his head. “That was different. She’d been left for dead and pretty much had to be there, had to help them fight—in pure self-defense if nothing else. But there was no deliberate, premeditated decision to put her in the line of fire.”

“Well,” Bailey murmured after a moment of silence, “a good lawyer could probably argue it the other way. Bishop being Bishop and all. But I get your point.”

Maggie said, “He seems determined to keep her out of the line of fire in this case. And as safeguarded as possible. But she wants to be in Serenade, and he agreed it was a good idea. Maybe he believes she’ll see something that’ll help.”

“She saw what happened to Diana while she was here,” John reminded his wife. “Far away from Serenade. For all the good it did. We couldn’t stop it, after all.”

“Because we couldn’t get in touch with them in time. If something else is going to happen and she’s closer to the scene, there may be time enough for a warning to make a difference.”

“Miranda’s a seer, and she’s on the scene.”

“And you know as well as anyone that seers have little if any control over what they’re able to see. Miranda didn’t have a premonition, not about what happened to Diana. But Ruby did.”

“There’s nothing to say she’ll have another one.”

“There’s nothing to say she won’t.”

John gave up that argument; none knew better than he that, gentle though she was, his wife possessed a core of steel. And she was stubborn as hell when convinced she was right about something. “Look, I have no idea exactly how many agents are there by now, or even what specific psychic abilities are being focused on the investigation, but I’m willing to bet that every SCU agent and Haven operative in Serenade has a lot more experience than a twelve-year-old girl. Experience with psychic abilities and with defending themselves from a determined enemy.”

“I’m not so sure,” Bailey said. “You didn’t see what Samuel did to his flock. And I mean the ones who survived.”

“I saw these kids,” he told her. “I’ve heard them cry out in the night and I’ve seen what it does to Maggie to take away at least some of their terror and pain. I know they went through hell, Bailey. Which is why I don’t believe Ruby should be going into a war zone.”

It was Maggie who said quietly, “John, you know I don’t like this any better than you do. If Bishop had been the one asking, I would have said no without hesitation. But it wasn’t him. It was Ruby who asked to go. Who insisted she had to. Ruby feels with every fiber of her being that she has to be there.”

Bailey said slowly, “And you don’t find that odd, Maggie? Odd that Ruby specifically saw what would happen to a woman she’d never met before? A woman to whom she had no connection?”

“It happens.”

“To older psychics, yeah, some, though not many. But virtually never with kids. They need a connection. It can be as simple as a touch or as complex as a psychic link or a blood relationship, but they need some kind of connection. You know that.”

“She met Quentin. I assumed the connection was there.”

“What if it wasn’t?”

“Bailey—”

“What if it wasn’t, Maggie? What if Ruby’s connection is to someone—or something—else entirely?”

To that question, Maggie had no answer.

It was John Garrett’s habit to check the big house every night before going to bed. They had an excellent security system for both the house and grounds, and the three large mixed-breed dogs who lived with them had the run of the house and were very protective, especially of Maggie. But he nevertheless needed to check doors and windows for his own peace of mind before he could relax and sleep.

Not that there, so far, had been any trouble here. Still.

The dogs accompanied him on his nightly rounds, their relaxed attention additional proof that nothing threatened the house or its occupants, at least for now. Which was all the reassurance John ever expected.

There were several Haven operatives living and working in the house currently, but that wing of offices, common spaces, and bedroom suites boasted its own self-contained security system—plus another four dogs, at the moment—and he never felt the need to either check the locks or invade the privacy of those who, by necessity, considered this a second home.

Finally satisfied that everything was as safe and secure as possible, he returned to the bedroom floor of the private wing.

“Go to bed,” he told the dogs quietly, and each obeyed at once, retreating to their individual comfortable beds tucked away in niches of the hallway near the master bedroom.

John wondered why he bothered. By morning he would, as usual, wake to find at least two of the dogs sharing his and Maggie’s bed, with the third sprawled across the bedroom sofa.

Shaking his head in wry amusement, he went into the master suite, leaving the door open a bit because, if he didn’t, Maggie would just slip out of bed sometime in the middle of the night to let the dogs in.

“Everything locked up tight?” She was at the window, her back to him.

He was instantly alert, bothered by a note he recognized in her voice. Pain.

“Yeah. Are you okay?” He crossed the room and put his hands on her shoulders, feeling the tension, the slight tremors. “Missing Ruby already?”

He felt a stronger tremor shake her.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I miss her.”

“Maggie, are you upset that she didn’t tell you why she felt so strongly that she had to be in Serenade?”

“Not because she didn’t tell me.” She turned to face him, and he saw that she had been crying. “Because she did.”

Serenade

Special Agent Tony Harte looked at the post-midnight activity still going on around Main Street and shook his head. “Has anybody been keeping track of all the law enforcement and the technical people working here? The electrical crews, FBI agents, the county sheriff’s department, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, plus fire departments and EMS units from about three counties. It’s beginning to look like a First Response convention.”