Кей Хупер - Hiding in the Shadows

"I just wondered," Katie mumbled.

Guessing, Faith said, "Is there something you wanted to tell Dinah? Something you wanted to ask her? Is that it?"

"No. Except.."

"Except what?"

"Nothing. I want to practice now."

Faith watched that little face close up and felt frustrated and anxious. But her instincts told her not to force the issue, so she just said she'd see Katie later and quietly went away.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Karen reassured her in the foyer a few minutes later. "She probably just needs time. And her mama out of the hospital, of course."

"Yeah, I guess." Faith gave her the number at Kane's apartment and said, "Call me if... if there's anything I can do to help."

"Sure. Try not to worry, Faith."

That, Faith thought, was easier said than done. Far easier.

"Of course they caught him coming out of the morgue," Bishop said savagely, watching the TV.

As before, microphones were shoved in front of Kane and questions shouted at him, but this time he wore the look of a man barely conscious of those around him — until one reporter demanded to know how he'd felt upon learning of the brutal murder of his fiancée. Kane gave the reporter a stare of such incredulity that the others were silenced, and into that silence he spoke with cold precision.

"The million-dollar reward I offered for information leading to Dinah's safe return will now be paid to the person or persons providing information that leads me to her killers."

"That's torn it," Bishop said softly.

"Can't Richardson stop him?" Faith asked.

"Obviously not." The detective was speaking urgently into Kane's ear, but he was totally ignored. Kane repeated his offer, allowing the words to fall like separate chips of ice, and only after he was absolutely sure that every reporter had written down or taped his offer did he allow Richardson to hustle him into a car.

When the TV reporter began breathlessly to relate the gruesome facts of the discovery of Dinah's body, Bishop muted the set and looked at Faith.

"Here we go," he said.

"What do you expect to happen?"

"A feeding frenzy. Every reporter in town will be trying to solve the murder, to say nothing of way too many private investigators and amateur sleuths. "

"Couldn't that be good? I mean, with so many trying ..."

"It'll just muddy the water. And Richardson wasn't kidding when he warned Kane he could be charged with reckless endangerment if somebody gets hurt or killed trying to earn that reward."

"He isn't thinking clearly."

"No. And he'll regret it later. But for now..."

"The damage is done?"

"I'm afraid so. Worst of all, Dinah's killers could be spooked into taking actions they might not otherwise have taken."

"They won't go after Kane?"

"Probably not. There's a very bright spotlight on him right now."

Bishop looked at her steadily. "But they could very well go after you. With Dinah gone, you're the key, Faith."

"A key with no memory."

"If I were them" he said, "with a city full of people trying to figurer out who I am, and a million-dollar bounty on my head, I wouldn't take any chances by presuming the validity of amnesia."

"No," Faith said reluctantly. "Neither would I."

It was called the witching hour, Faith knew. Three A.M., when all the world seemed quiet and still, and nothing was lonelier to listen to than the beating of your own heart.

Except maybe "Moonlight Sonata".

He was playing it so quietly it wouldn't have awakened her if she had been asleep. But she hadn't been. She'd lain there in his bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, and soon after midnight he had begun playing. The soft sound got into her head somehow, throbbed inside her like the echo of feelings, the wordless rendering of instincts. It made her heart ache.

She thought he was grieving with the music, allowing the notes to express the pain and longing he couldn't yet release in any other way.

He had returned to the apartment so controlled and withdrawn there had been no way to reach him, to touch him, even if Faith had dared try. She hadn't dared.

To her he was formal, indifferent. She might have been a total stranger, a guest he suffered in his home and his life out of courtesy and nothing else. More than once, she had the impression he didn't even see her when he looked at her.

And now it was the witching hour, and Faith lay in the bed in which he had coolly insisted she continue to sleep, listening to him play the piano with such grinding emotion she wanted to cry.

She turned over and pulled the pillow around her ears, trying to shut out the aching sound, but even the muffled notes had the power to hurt her. She didn't want to hear them, didn't want to listen to his pain and grief.

She wondered if Dinah had known how lucky she was. Had she reveled in Kane's love, or had it been a burden to her because she had known they would have no future together? The scenes Faith had witnessed between them, those dreams and flashes of knowledge, had been playful and sexy and filled with intimacy, but had they been filled with love? She didn't know.

Couldn't know.

And couldn't ask, not now ...

The beach was wonderfully peaceful and soothing, as it always was. It fed her soul. The waves were like music, or what Dinah imagined music must sound like to people who enjoyed it, rhythmic, like a pulse, and altogether pleasant.

The sand was warm beneath her bare feet, damp at first, then wet as the waves lapped around her. She walked and walked.

There was a man up ahead, a familiar figure, and she smiled when she saw him. If she walked a bit faster, she could catch up to him.

But no matter how fast she walked, he remained the same distance ahead of her. She began to run. Her heart pounded and her breath came raggedly, and still he was distant and out of her reach.

Beyond her ability to touch.

She finally stopped running and paused to catch her breath, and when she did she was puzzled to find that the beach was gone. She could still hear the waves, the rhythmic pulsing that was so soothing, but now she was at the construction site where Kane's building was going up. Only it wasn't quite right somehow.

She walked around the steel skeleton to the back, and frowned because on this side it was a solid office building, windows gleaming in the sunlight. That was very odd, she thought. Only half a building. Why would Kane build half a building?

"He must have a reason," she said aloud.

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she was in her apartment, and she walked through it curiously, looking at familiar things, touching them.

But everything was curiously insubstantial, and she was puzzled again.

"You're dead," Faith told her.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You are."

Dinah shook her head and continued through the apartment, searching now, her expression determined. "I'll find it, and then everything will be all right again," she said.

"But you're dead," Faith insisted, miserable. "It's too late, because you're dead."

"When I find it, I won't be dead anymore," Dinah explained reasonably.

"How do you know that?"

"I just know, that's all. Why are you here?"

"I tried to reach you," Faith explained, following her. "I tried and tried. But it was so dark, and all I could hear was the water."

"You're reaching me now."

"Yes, but I think it's because you're dead."

"How you do harp on that," Dinah said, shaking her head.

"Well, I'm sorry, but it's the truth. What is it you're looking for, anyway?"

"The Macguffin, I think somebody called it."

"That's what we're looking for."

"Yes, I know. But you're looking in the wrong place."

"Then tell me where to look."

Dinah made a sound of exasperation. "If I did, it wouldn't be a treasure hunt, now would it?"