Кей Хупер - Chill Of Fear

Without meaning to say it aloud, she murmured, "Why do they call it second sight? Because you can see what's underneath the surface? Because you see what isn't there? Because you can see... through a glass, darkly..."

Quentin stepped around the table and grasped her shoulders with both hands. "Diana, listen to me. You are not crazy."

"You don't know what I just saw." Her voice was shaky now.

"Whatever it was, it was real." He glanced up impatiently as the first drops of rain began to splatter around them, then took her hand and began leading her inside.

Diana went, almost blindly. Maybe, she thought later, because she really didn't want to be alone just then. Or maybe it was because the answers Quentin offered were less terrifying than the probability of her own deepening insanity.

Madison looked up from the very old doll she had found in the trunk and frowned as thunder rumbled. "Daddy said there'd be storms."

"It storms a lot here," her new friend said.

"I like storms. Don't you?"

"Sometimes."

"I also like this room." Madison looked around at the very pretty, very girlish bedroom, with its old-fashioned furniture and lacy curtains. "But why is it secret?"

"Because they wouldn't understand."

"They?" Madison frowned and absently patted Angelo, who was curled up next to her, trembling a bit. He hated storms, poor baby. "You mean my parents?"

"Yes."

Suddenly wary, Madison said, "It's your room, right? I mean, it doesn't belong to somebody else? Because I'm not supposed to go into other people's rooms, not without being asked."

"You can always come into this room."

Madison had the suspicion that her questions hadn't really been answered, and asked another, more pointed one. "What's your name? You haven't told me."

"Becca."

"That's pretty."

"Thank you. So is Madison."

"So this is your room, Becca?"

"It was."

"But not anymore?"

Becca smiled sweetly. "I still come here sometimes. Especially when it storms."

"Do you? I like my room at home when it storms. I feel safe there."

"You'll be safe here too. Remember that, Madison. You'll be safe here."

Madison eyed her uncertainly. "From the storm?"

"No." Becca leaned toward her and, still smiling sweetly, whispered, "It's coming."

Diana sipped the hot, sweet tea Quentin had ordered, looking at him over the rim of the cup. When she set it down in its saucer on the small table between their chairs, she said dryly, "The traditional remedy for shock."

He shrugged. "We didn't get to finish our coffee." They were sitting in a fairly secluded area of the big lounge off the main lobby, where quite a few guests had also taken refuge from the storm. The space was arranged so that numerous chairs and tables in scattered groupings separated from each other by large potted plants, screens, and other decorative dividers provided for privacy and quiet conversations, yet there was still the sense of not being too isolated, too alone.

The storm continued to rumble outside, more thunder, lightning, and wind than rain. Which was usual for this valley, Quentin had said.

Diana hadn't really recovered from her experience on the veranda. In fact, she wasn't sure she ever would. And now that she'd had a few minutes to think about it, she was feeling wary, defensive, and more uncertain than she could ever remember feeling.

It was not a comfortable sensation.

"We also didn't get to finish our conversation," Quentin added. "What did you see out there, Diana?"

"Nothing." She had, at least, regained enough of her wits to know better than to describe what she thought she had seen. What she couldn't possibly have seen. No matter what he said he believed, in Diana's experience people found the inexplicable unsettling at the very least.

And she really didn't want to see that too-familiar look in his eyes, that don't-let-her-know-I-think-she's-nuts careful lack of shock or disbelief.

"Diana—"

"This morning, you said something about this not being a safe place for kids. Something about tragedies? I assume you meant other than Missy. So what's that all about?"

He hesitated, then shrugged. "Accidents, illnesses, unexplained deaths, kids gone missing."

"That happens everywhere, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, unfortunately. But it happens here a lot more often than can be accounted for by random chance."

"And you believe that ties into Missy's death somehow?"

"I've found that for the most part, there's no such thing as coincidence," Quentin said.

Diana felt herself frowning. "No?"

"No. There are patterns everywhere, if we only knew how to recognize them. Mostly we don't, at least until after the fact. Some of them, on the other hand, are so clear they're practically in neon. You and me, for instance."

Warily, she said, "What about us?"

"The fact that we're both here, now, isn't a coincidence. The fact that you drew a very accurate sketch of Missy, someone whose murder I'm trying to solve, and that I happened to be here to see it, isn't a coincidence. Even the fact that you climbed the stairs to the observation tower at the crack of dawn this morning and found me there wasn't a coincidence."

"All part of the master plan, huh?"

"All part of the pattern. It all connects, somehow, some way. And I'm guessing Missy is the connection."

Diana, thinking of the other sketch in her tote bag, the one of this man drawn before she'd ever set eyes on him, found it difficult to argue with at least some of what he was saying. But she tried.

"How could that be? I told you, I never knew anybody named Missy. I've never been here before. I've never even been in Tennessee before. There was probably a newspaper article about her death or something, with a picture, and I saw it at some point years ago. Something like that."

"No." Quentin's voice was flat. "The article about her death was little more than a paragraph, and there was no picture. Plus, it never even made the big regional papers, let alone any national news media. I've studied the case for years, Diana. I've seen every scrap of information I could find — and the Bureau teaches us how to search, believe me."

Diana was silent, bothered but a long way from convinced.

"You saw her, didn't you? Out on the veranda."

She half shook her head, still silent.

Patiently, he said, "Whatever you saw, it was very sudden and very vivid — and it was triggered by the storm."

That surprised her. "What?"

"Remember what I said about energy? Storms are full of it; they charge the very air with electrical and magnetic currents. Currents our brains are hardwired to react to. Psychics are almost always very strongly affected by storms. Sometimes they block our abilities, but more often what we experience is far more intense than is usual for us, especially in the minutes just before a storm breaks."

More to herself than to him, she murmured, "I usually know when one is coming. But, out there..."

"Out there," he finished, "we were both concentrating on the conversation and got caught off guard by the storm. I can usually feel them coming myself." He paused, watching her. "And most of my senses tend to be heightened during storms. Just like yours are heightened right now."

Diana couldn't help thinking that he had guessed more about her and her various moods and peculiarities in a few short hours than all the doctors had in years of knowing her.

If he was guessing.

It was unsettling, and yet it had to make her wonder if there could conceivably be any truth to the other things he was telling her. The possibilities. Could there be? After all the years, all the tests and therapies and medications... could the answer to what was wrong with her really be that simple? And that incredibly complex?