Элизабет Чандлер - The Power of Love

She turned back to the window. "A killer dress," she said, then walked on. "What I really want to know is what everyone sees in this chick."

"It was nice of you to save a chick you think so little of," Tristan remarked dryly.

They passed the photo lab where Will worked and stopped in front of Celentano's, the pizza parlor where Will had drawn the angels on the paper tablecloth.

"I didn't save her," Lacey replied. "Eric was just playing — but you'd better figure out what kind of game it is. I've known some real creeps in my life, and I've got to say, he's not someone I'd like to party with."

Tristan nodded. He had so much to learn. After traveling back in time through his own mind, he was sure that someone had cut the brake line the night his car had slammed head-on into a deer. But he had no idea why. "Do you think Eric did it?" he asked. "Went after your brakes?" Lacey twisted a spike of purple hair around a daggerlike fingernail. "That's a leap, from being a bully in the deep end to committing murder. What did he have against you and Ivy?"

Tristan lifted his hands, then let them drop. "I don't know."

"What did anybody have against you or her? They could have been after just one of you. If it was you they wanted to get rid of, she's safe now."

"If she's safe, why was I brought back on a mission?"

"To annoy me," Lacey said. "Obviously you're some kind of penance for me. Oh, cheer up, Dumps!

Maybe you just got your mission wrong."

She slipped through the door of Celentano's without opening it, then reached up mischievously and jangled the three little bells over it. Two guys in T-shirts and grass-stained cutoffs stared at the door.

Tristan knew she had materialized the tips of her fingers — a trick that he had just recently masteredand managed to pull on the string of bells. She jangled them a second time, and the guys, unable to see either Lacey or Tristan, looked at each other.

Tristan smiled, then said, "You're going to scare away business."

Lacey climbed up on the counter next to Dennis Celentano. He had rolled out some dough and was expertly flipping it above his head — until it didn't come back down. It hung like a wet washrag in midair.

Dennis gaped up at it, then leaned from one side to the other, trying to figure out what was holding up the dough.

Tristan guessed that the dough was going to be one more pie in the face. "Be nice, Lacey."

She dropped the dough neatly on the counter. They left Dennis and his customers to look at one another and wonder. "With you around," she complained to Tristan, "I'll be earning gold stars and finishing up my mission in no time."

Tristan doubted it. "Maybe you can earn some more stars by helping me with mine," he told her. "Didn't you tell me there was a way to travel back in time through somebody else's mind? Didn't you say I could search the past through someone else's memory?"

"No, I said I could," she replied.

"Teach me."

She shook her head.

"Come on, Lacey."

"Nope."

They were at the end of the street now, standing in front of an old church with a low stone wall around it. Lacey hopped up on the wall and began to walk it.

"It's too risky, Tristan. And I don't think it's going to help you any. Even if you could get inside a mind like Eric's, what do you think you'd find? That guy's circuits have been curled and fried. It could be — to use one of his terms — a very bad trip for you."

"Teach me," he persisted. "If I'm going to learn who cut the brakes, I'm going to have to go back to that night in the mind of everybody who might have seen something, including Ivy."

"Ivy! You'll never get in! That chick's got you and everyone else closed out cold."

Lacey paused, waiting till she had Tristan's full attention, then lifted up one leg as if she were doing a balance-beam routine. She's never lost her appetite for an audience, Tristan thought.

"I tried Ivy myself at the pool party this afternoon," Lacey went on. "I can't imagine how, even when you were alive, you and that chick ever got it on."

"Do you think you could come up with a way to give advice without making sarcastic remarks about 'that chick'?"

"Sure," she answered agreeably, and started walking the wall again. "But it wouldn't be half as much fun."

"I´ll try Philip again," Tristan said, more to himself than to her. "And Gregory—" "Now, Gregory's a tough nut to crack. Do you trust him? Stupid question," she said before he could answer. "You don't trust anyone who's got eyes for Ivy."

Tristan's head bobbed up. "Gregory's dating Suzanne."

She laughed-down at him. "You're so naive! It's refreshing, for a jock-hunk type like you, but it's kind of pitiful, too."

"Teach me," he said for the third time, then reached up and caught her hand. Since angel hands did not pass through each other, he could hold on tight. "I'm worried about her, Lacey, I'm really worried."

She looked down at him.

"Help me."

Lacey stared at her long fingers caught by his.

She pulled her hand away very slowly, then reached down and patted him on the head. He hated the way she could patronize him, and he didn't like begging, but she knew things that would take a long time for him to learn on his own.

"Okay, okay. But listen up, because I'm only telling you once."

He nodded.

"First you have to find the hook. You have to find something that the person saw or did that night. The best kind of hook is an object or action that is connected with that night only, but avoid anything that might threaten your host. You don't want to set off alarm bells in his head."

She stepped carefully along a crumbling section of wall. "It's sort of like doing a word search on a library computer. If you pick a term that's too general, you'll call up all kinds of junk you don't want."

"Easy enough," he said with confidence.

"Uh-huh," she said, and rolled her eyes. "Once you've got your hook, you enter the person, like you've already done with Will and Beth, only you have to be more careful than ever. If your host feels you prowling around, if something feels strange to him, he's going to be on guard. Then he'll be too alert to let his mind wander back through memories."

"They'll never guess I'm there."

"Uh-huh," she said again. "Be patient. Creep." She crept along the wall in slow motion. "And slowly bring into focus whatever image you're using for the hook. Remember to see it the same way that your host would."

"Of course." It was simple. He probably could have figured it out on his own, he thought. "And then?"

She jumped down from the wall. "That's it."

"That's it?"

"That's when the fun begins."

"But tell me what it's like, Lacey, so I know what to expect. Tell me how it feels."

"Oh, I think you probably could figure it out on your own."

He stopped short. "Can you read minds?"

She turned to look him straight in the eye. "No, but I'm pretty good at reading faces. And yours is like a large-print book."

He glanced away.

"You need me, Tristan, but you don't take me seriously. I met a lot of people like you when I was alive."

He didn't know what to say.

"Listen, I've got my own mission to work on. It's time I start poking around New York City, going back to the beginning and figuring out what I'm supposed to be figuring out. Thanks to you, I'm already late for the train. "

"Sorry, " he said.

"I know you can't help it. Listen, if you should finish up your mission before I get back, can I have your grave? I mean, me not having one, unless you count my airplane seat at the bottom of the Atlantic, and you wouldn't be needing one after that—" "Sure, sure."

"Of course, I might finish up my mission first." After two years of procrastinating? he thought, but didn't dare say it aloud.