Kelley Armstrong - Haunted

"Didn't think so," the guard said. "Be thankful for the room service."

The guard strode away.

"Fat cow," Sullivan muttered.

She scooped a spoonful of oatmeal, then stopped, spoon partway to her mouth. Carefully, she lowered the spoon, head moving from side to side with the wariness of one who's learned she has reason to be wary.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

When no one answered, she rose, noiselessly laying the tray aside, and glided to the cell door. A long, careful look each way, head tilted to listen. The cell block was empty.

"I can hear you," she said. "I hear you singing. Who is it?"

I looked at Trsiel. The same thought passed between us. If Sullivan was hearing voices in an empty cell block, they could only come from one place. Trsiel reached for my hand and transported me back into her mind.

I came to a stop in a pit of darkness. Sure enough, after only a moment, I picked up the whisper of a voice. Someone humming off-tune. Then words. I'm usually damned good with songs, but it took me a moment to place this one, probably because the singer kept mangling the lyrics.

"Invisible" by… someone. Didn't matter. The voice only sung a few lines from the refrain, and when she hit the end of those lines, she started over again. Something about being treated like you were invisible.

I vaguely remember the song, probably because it had always triggered a childhood memory of the neighborhood grocer. I'd stood head and shoulders above all my friends, but the grocer always served all of them first, then served every other customer in the store, only taking my money when I tossed it onto the counter and walked away with my candy bar. I figure now it was anti-Semitism-East Falls being the kind of small town where even Catholics are eyed with suspicion. My mother never talked to me about stuff like that; she preferred to pretend it didn't exist. When I told her about the grocer, she'd said I was imagining things. I knew I wasn't, and being unable to put a label to his dislike, I had assumed it was my fault. Like my teacher, Mrs.

Appleton, he saw something bad in me, something no one else noticed.

"Invisible," the woman crooned. "Oh, yeah, I'm invisible." A sudden shriek of laughter sent me jumping like a scorched cat.

"That's me," the woman chortled, voice shrill with manic glee. "Miss Invisible. They treat me like I'm not even there. And they sure as hell don't care. Dah-dah-dah-dah. Miss Invisible."

Another voice, the soft, insidious tones of the Nix. "And what are you going to do about it?"

"Make 'em notice me, of course. Make 'em stand up and salute. All hail, Miss Invisible." The woman's laughter screeched like nails down a blackboard, drunken bitterness infused with a teaspoon of madness. "Gonna show them that I'm somebody. Somebody important. Somebody who can make them tremble in their pretty little Pradas."

The darkness cleared and I found myself in the young woman's memory, inside her body, looking out her eyes, as I had with Sullivan and the death-row inmate. I stood in a long hallway, sweeping the floor with a wide, industrial-size broom. Two well-dressed women walked past, chatting and laughing. One unwrapped a stick of gum and dropped the wrapper. Dropped it right where I'd just finished sweeping. The woman laughed.

Laughing at me - at the stupid, ugly cleaning girl. No need to find a garbage can. Not when Lily is right there. That's her job. Make her earn her pay .

If the Nix was retrieving this memory for Lily, it had to be important. I struggled to pull myself away from Lily's thoughts, to look around for myself. Long hallway. Well-dressed women. An office building? Look, Eve. Look harder. You'll need to find this place . Farther down the hall, sheets of paper dotted the walls. Notices of some kind. Dog-eared and brightly colored. Not very businesslike.

"Hey!" a young man's voice shouted. "Hey, that's mine!"

Three giggling girls streaked past, nearly knocking me-the woman, Lily-flying. They kept going without so much as a "Sorry," not surprising, considering they were about thirteen and being chased by a boy their age.

Bitches. Stuck-up little bitches, just like their mommies. Too good to say "Excuse me." Why bother? It's only the hired help. The cleaning lady.

I squirmed free of Lily's thoughts. The three girls ran shrieking down the hall, plowing past the two women without an apology, either, but Lily didn't notice that, didn't care about that. One of the girls lifted something and waved it like a flag as she ran. A boy's bathing suit.

"Give me that!" her pursuer yelled.

They threw open a door and zoomed through. The barest whiff of chlorine wafted back.

As the boy skidded after them, my gaze went back to those distant sheets on the wall. I honed in on them, concentrating, but was only able to invoke half my usual power, just enough to make out a few of the headings. SPRING FLING. TUTORS WANTED. MARCH BREAK MADNESS.

Two men strode in front of the bulletins, coming toward us. Both were in their early twenties, both dressed in sweat-drenched shorts and tank tops, both damned fine-looking. My pulse quickened, heart tripping, a slow burn of longing plunging through me-pretty creepy, considering these boys were about half my age. Fortunately, since I had neither a pulse nor a heartbeat, I knew this lust attack wasn't mine.

Brett. The name fluttered through Lily's mind. Her gaze lingered on the shorter of the two, following him up the hallway.

"Next week is going to be my week," Brett said to his companion. "You just watch. I will beat you so badly, you'll-"

"Die of shock?"

Brett cuffed the other man and they bounced down the hall like overgrown puppies.

Look at me, Brett. I'm right here.

The two men passed Lily without a glance her way.

I'll make you look, Brett. I'll make you see me. Just wait -

An alarm wailed. Lily shot up, blinking fast, heart racing. The bedside clock-radio continued to screech. She slammed the Off button, then stared at the blurry red digits. Seven-thirty.

"I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go," she muttered.

"Oh, but today will be different," the Nix whispered.

Lily chortled and reached for her glasses. "Oh, yeah, today will be much different."

With her glasses in place, the room came into focus. She leaned over and opened the nightstand drawer. Inside were a few dog-eared magazines. She reached underneath, fingers closing on metal. She pulled out her prize. A semiautomatic.

The scene faded to black.

After a few minutes, Trsiel pulled me out.

"Is that it?" I said. "I need more. Did you see the flyers on the wall?"

"I saw papers, but I couldn't get a good look. I'm restricted to what she sees."

I started to pace. "So was I, but I could zoom in a bit. It was a community center. Indoor pool, ball courts, bulletins for a dance and March Break activities-she works in a community center. And that's where she's headed now. With a gun."

As I passed Trsiel, he grasped my shoulder, forcing me to stop pacing.

"Eve, we need to-"

"Slow down and think. I know that. But I think better when I'm moving."

He let me go. I wheeled and strode across the cell.

"Let's see what we have," Trsiel said. "Her name is Lily and she works at a community center as part of the cleaning staff."

"Yeah, yeah." Still walking, I rubbed my hands over my face. "Okay, she just woke up, so it'll take her a while to get to work. It was seven-Wait. What time is it now?"

Trsiel walked through the cell bars and looked around. "This clock says just past nine-thirty."

"Then we've got a two-hour time difference. That means she's somewhere west of Colorado. American accents, so definitely in the country."