Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

Tony glanced around. “You have a point. Several, in fact. Still, if the plan is to spend any kind of time here, I say we move the mobile command center down here. Otherwise, we should go back into town.”

“And what makes you think town is any safer?”

“Nothing solid,” he confessed. “But we’ve done all we can to clear it out and guard the most likely buildings, so it’s as safe as it’s going to be until we catch this bastard. In the meantime, there’s nothing else you can do here—and we still have all those files to go through.”

“You’re probably right.” Miranda knew he was, but she was finding it difficult to turn her back on this poor girl and walk away.

Jaylene said, “When do the reinforcements arrive?”

“Anytime now.” She pulled out her cell phone to check for a signal. “I’ll get an ETA. Why don’t you two get back to the command center and get started on the files? I’ll catch a ride with the sheriff.”

Without commenting that the sheriff was likely to remain here awhile, Tony merely said, “Watch your back,” then turned and followed Jaylene toward the lone remaining SUV.

Watch your back .

She could feel it too, in the very air around them, a skin-prickling sense of danger, of threat. Her training told her at least part of it was psychological; knowing a sniper was still out there, capable of shooting someone in the head from more than a hundred yards away, was hardly something easily forgotten or even pushed aside.

But there was more to it than that. Despite the shield that guarded her mind, her innermost self, Miranda had the uneasy feeling that there was a chink somewhere in her armor and that the enemy knew it.

She shook her head finally, acknowledging to herself that they were—that she was—doing everything possible to protect themselves; there was nothing else to be done except get on with the job. She returned her attention to the cell phone, realizing that she had accidentally brushed a thumb against the wrong touch key—which wasn’t so unusual with the sophisticated little unit—and had called up the phone’s photo in-box.

She found herself staring down at a brightly colored photo on the cell’s screen: a shot of Diana as she had lain bleeding not so many blocks from where Miranda stood.

She looked at it for several heartbeats, then very deliberately deleted the picture, wishing it was as easy to remove it from her memory. She returned to the call screen, only to discover there wasn’t even a single bar indicating minimum signal strength.

Sighing, Miranda returned the cell to its specially designed case on her belt, then touched the tiny device hidden in her ear. “Gabe?”

Static.

She estimated she was no more than two miles from the command center, probably less. Far enough, obviously, to have lost the shaky reception they had nearer the center of town. Whether by accident or design, Serenade appeared to be the ultimate communication dead zone.

Now there’s a phrase .

Trusting that Gabriel was keeping an eye on this area as per orders, Miranda dismissed the lack of communication as something beyond her control for now and turned her attention to Sheriff Duncan.

“Des?”

“This is gonna kill her mother. I told you about her mother, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” He had rambled on a great deal during the last frantic hours of searching for his young deputy, so Miranda knew that Bobbie Silvers had lived with her widowed mother in a small house on the opposite side of town, only the two of them left of the family since Bobbie’s father had died years before.

“I just… I don’t understand. She was a sweet kid. Who’d want to hurt her like this?” He looked years older than he had only days before, deep lines in his face and his eyes red-rimmed and haunted. He gestured toward the body, exposed enough so they could all see some of the numerous cuts and deep slashes that had undoubtedly killed her.

Miranda drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know if it’s better or worse to say that to him she wasn’t a person. Wasn’t a girl who lived with her ailing mother, a girl who worked hard because she wanted to be a cop. To him, she was only… a thing. Maybe just an experiment in how long it might take someone to bleed to death.”

“Jesus Christ.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Des, let the others take care of her now. You know they’ll treat her with respect.”

“I don’t want to just… leave her.”

“I know. But there’s something you and I have to do, and it’s best done as soon as possible, before the media or helpful neighbors or anyone else beats us to it.”

Duncan looked at her, his eyes full of dread.

Miranda nodded. “We have to tell her mother.”

DIANA DIDN’T KNOW how much time passed while she sat, frozen, on the bench staring at a gray and lifeless Main Street, but she did know the rest had done her little good. It was still a bit difficult to breathe, and she still felt overwhelmingly exhausted.

Brooke had remained close but said nothing, merely waiting for… whatever. Diana had no idea what that might be, until she noticed that Brooke’s gaze had focused across the street.

Looking herself, Diana saw the fake Quentin. Going from door to door, trying the handles, opening the doors when he could, only to retreat and continue on down the street.

“What’s he doing?” Diana asked.

Brooke looked at her, silent.

Sighing, Diana thought it over for herself, since that was clearly what Brooke expected. She watched the fake Quentin trying door after door, peering into windows—and suddenly she got it.

“He’s looking for the door. The one out of here.” She frowned. “Doesn’t he know that it’s only a literal door if that’s the way it’s made, to be something different, something out of place, so it sticks out?”

“He will if you say it any louder,” Brooke murmured.

“Oh.” Diana watched him for a while longer as he worked his way down the street. “Has he been trying doors in the gray time since he got here?”

“I expect so. He wants out, remember?”

Diana had been trying not to think about that, but knew she couldn’t ignore it forever. Holding her voice very steady, she said, “If I… choose to move on… if there’s nobody left here to make a door for him to leave, will he remain trapped here?”

“Would you do that?”

Quentin .

“I don’t know,” Diana said honestly. “I’d like to think I would. That I’d pay whatever price I had to in order to keep a monster like him trapped where he can’t hurt anyone else. But…”

Brooke watched her for a moment, then said, “You aren’t the only medium who can walk in the gray time, Diana. So your sacrifice would most likely be wasted. Sooner or later, someone will make a door. The only question is whether he’s able to last until then.”

Diana frowned, her relief passing quickly when she reminded herself that she, too, appeared to be trapped here. “Once before, we managed to… shove something evil through a doorway and beyond. Not back into the living world, but out of the gray time. {see Chill of Fear} To a place where it could never return from.”

“Yes. Using spiritual energy. A lot of energy that had been building for a very long time. I don’t believe that’s an option in this case.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“That’s your choice, Diana.”

She put her head in her hands and counted silently to ten. When she raised her head, Brooke was gone.

Oh, shit .

Without the guide’s presence, frustrating though it often was, Diana felt very, very alone. Except that she wasn’t alone. She had to lean forward and stare hard to find the fake Quentin; as she watched, he reached the last building of the downtown area on that side of the street, tried its door, and peered in the front window, and then he crossed the street to Diana’s side and began working his way toward her.