Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

She went with her gut, saying, “No, I don’t know why. All I know is that you’re lying to me.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

His tone suddenly silky, he said, “Wouldn’t you rather concern yourself with the body back in that hospital? Wouldn’t you rather be worrying about whether you’re going to live or die?”

She knew he was trying to manipulate her, trying to make her fearful and uncertain. But she didn’t know why. To weaken her? To make her more vulnerable? Just for the hell of it?

He was good, though. Good because it worked at least a little, as her thoughts turned, however briefly, to her terribly wounded body and the terrifying uncertainty of whether she would be able to reclaim it.

For an instant she thought she could feel Quentin’s hands—both of them—holding one of hers, and she looked down at that hand wonderingly.

“He won’t be there, Diana. When you really need him to be. When you finally have the courage to reach for him. He won’t be there.”

She looked at the fake Quentin and for the first time felt only anger. “You’re wrong.”

“No. He won’t be there. He’ll disappoint you.”

Diana shook her head. “You don’t know him. Whatever you are, you don’t know him. But I do. I might not be able to count on anything or anyone else, but I can count on Quentin.”

“Now you’re the one who’s wrong.”

Turning her gaze to the silent guide, Diana said, “You aren’t going to help me, are you?”

“I’ll help all I can.” Brooke’s gaze was fixed on the fake Quentin, with a peculiar watchfulness Diana found almost more unnerving than anything else. “But you have to find the truth here on your own, Diana.”

“Because that’s the rule?”

“Frustrating, I know.”

“Can you at least give me a damn hint?”

Brooke looked at her finally and said matter-of-factly, “He’s here because you allow him to be here. See what’s underneath the mask and he’ll have no power over you.”

“I don’t—” Diana turned her head again only to see the door closed and no fake Quentin confronting her. Slowly she said, “I don’t know how to look underneath the mask.”

Brooke began to walk again. “Well, perhaps you’ll figure that out while you’re here. Perhaps you’d better.”

“Threat or warning?”

Ignoring that, Brooke said, “We’re here for a reason, Diana. In this place for a reason. Think it through. Why would you come in the gray time to a place that no longer exists?”

“Because…” The flippant response in her mind vanished as a far more serious—and frightening—one occurred to her. “Because… the evil still exists.”

Brooke turned her head and smiled at her. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“You mean I’m right?”

“Doesn’t it feel right?”

To her surprise, Diana realized that it did. Then a chill cold enough to make itself felt even in the gray time stole through her. “The evil still exists. But—they stopped him. He’s in a cage.”

Brooke continued walking, her face serene.

“Brooke, the evil creature that killed in this place, the creature that nearly killed Hollis—he is caged. No longer killing. No longer dangerous. They got him.”

“If you say so, Diana.”

“If I say so? You mean he’s still dangerous?”

Sending her a calm glance, Brooke said, “You have to think in layers, Diana. Peel away one layer at a time.”

Diana walked for a time in silence, glancing rather idly at each door they passed as she grappled with the question of how the evil that had existed in this place could still exist—and be connected to what had happened and was happening in Serenade.

Layers.

Layers…

She stopped walking, staring at one of the doors that wasn’t quite as featureless as all the others, hardly aware that Brooke had also stopped and was waiting, silent. Slowly, as Diana stared, a shape was forming on the door at eye level.

It was a cross.

“My God,” she whispered. “Not the puppet—the puppet master. The evil hand on an evil creature’s leash. Samuel.”

Nurse Ellen King came around the curtain prepared to pour wrath all over whoever had dared to invade her ICU without permission. But the sight that met her eyes stopped the words before they could even form.

On one side of Diana Brisco’s bed, Agent Hayes finally slept, slumped mostly sideways with his head on a pillow near her knees, his hands still holding one of hers.

He’ll have a monster crick in his neck , she thought. Her professional gaze checked the monitors, and she was both surprised and pleased to see that Diana’s vital signs were stronger, steadier.

Then she saw the other two federal agents. Saw the tall, slight brunette on the other side of the bed from Agent Hayes slump as though all the strength had drained out of her. Saw the big, powerful blond man lift her as though she weighed nothing and cradle her carefully in his arms.

“Hey, is she all right?”

He turned, holding the brunette, and said, “She needs to sleep. Do you have an extra bed?”

Ellen King looked at that almost-expressionless, handsome face, and thought fleetingly, That’s twice I’ve seen that look. Wow. I wonder if she knows .

Then she got a grip on herself and said, “Yes. Yes, of course. Follow me.” And led the way.

Serenade

NAOMI WELBORNE INTENDED to one day anchor a major news program, and she intended to do so before she was thirty-five. So she had ten years in which to pay her dues, on top of the three she had already spent at the small eastern Tennessee station where her blond good looks had gotten her on the air only to chirp brightly about the weather.

Naomi was better than that and she knew it. She was tired of being called in to be on air only as the weather girl in a short skirt, or for what amounted to a sixty-second filler if the real news happened to run short that day. She was tired of being assigned, instead of real news stories, story scraps the station manager cheerfully called human-interest necessities for the station.

“Because people’ll stop watching if we feed them nothing more than depressing stuff, Naomi.”

Human-interest necessities. Warm and fuzzy stories about little kids and heroic dogs and people who lived to be more than a hundred. She’d gone to so many goddamn birthday parties she suspected confetti was permanently embedded in her hair, and if she saw one more mutt awarded some medal or other for barking when he smelled smoke or learning to turn on a light switch because his owner couldn’t, she was afraid she’d borrow a gun from one of her cop contacts and shoot herself.

Enough was more than enough.

Naomi had been working on the final draft of her resignation letter the day before when the radio scanners at the station suddenly went berserk with activity. Police, fire departments and EMS, emergency electrical crews—all called to Serenade. There had been an explosion of unknown origin… cop down… at least one federal agent critically wounded… one known civilian casualty… deadly sniper still at large…

Naomi looked around the almost-deserted newsroom of the station and realized happily that fate had decided to reward her for her patience by dropping into her lap what looked to be a real career-making story.

The station manager had been obviously and insultingly doubtful about it when she lobbied hard for the assignment, but since all the other reporters were out, she was all he had. Reluctant, he sent her and a cameraman to Serenade.

“Just get some footage and try to get statements from witnesses and maybe a cop if any’ll talk to you. And remember, Naomi, we can’t compete with the cable-news outfits, so don’t try to get fancy. Just get the story and don’t get in the way or step on anybody’s toes doing it. Understand?”