Blood Ties

CHAPTER 9

SHERIFF DUNCAN PAUSED in the doorway of the waiting room and then entered hesitantly. “Any word?”

From her position gazing out one of the big windows that boasted a panoramic view of the mountains in daylight but offered a nighttime view only of the lights of the city below, Miranda said, “She’s still in surgery. They haven’t told us anything yet, good or bad.”

Duncan wanted to say something about no news being good news, but a check of his watch told him that Diana Brisco had been in surgery way too long for there to be any hope of good news. Nearly twelve hours now; it was well after midnight. She had been airlifted directly from the scene to this major medical center more than fifty miles from Serenade, where one of the best trauma units in the Southeast was, in all probability, her only chance for survival.

If she had any chance at all, which the EMTs called first to the scene had very clearly doubted.

He looked at the other two people in the room, noting that Hollis had at least washed the blood off her hands—though a fair amount remained to stain her light-colored sweater—and that DeMarco watched her with an almost imperceptible frown between his brows.

Realizing who was missing, the sheriff asked, “Where’s Quentin?”

Hollis replied, “With Diana.”

“In surgery?”

She nodded, staring into space rather than meeting his gaze.

Again, Duncan found himself groping for words. “I’ve never heard of any hospital or surgeon allowing something like that. Surgeons, especially, are pretty much God in an operating room.”

DeMarco said, “You didn’t see his face. Even God would have thought twice before trying to separate him from Diana.”

Miranda turned from the window to say, “Nobody in there is happy about it, but they did the best they could, wrapping Quentin in sterile sheets and dousing whatever they couldn’t cover with antiseptic. There was no time to lose and no sense wasting any of it arguing with him. Especially when it was obvious to everyone what the outcome would be.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t try to knock him out,” Duncan murmured.

“You didn’t see his face,” DeMarco repeated.

Duncan really wished he had. “I hope somebody disarmed him” was all he could think of to say.

“I did.” DeMarco didn’t offer details.

“How’s the situation in Serenade?” Miranda asked, clearly not all business but making a good show of it.

“Hell,” the sheriff replied frankly. “Though a bit quieter now than it was all afternoon and most of the evening. Thank God more of your people showed up to lend a hand. We have multiple injuries, damaged buildings with glass and other material still falling into the street if the breeze picks up, state cops and feds and firefighters crawling all over the place, the media crawling all over the place—and a whole lot of terrified people. But of the townsfolk, only the one fatality, so far.”

“I’m sorry about Dale,” she said.

“So am I. He was just a kid marking time in a uniform, with nothing special planned for his future. But he should have had more time to find something special for himself.”

“Yes.” She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry we brought such tragedy to your town, Des.”

“You didn’t bring it.” He kept his voice stoic. “That maniac you’ve been tracking brought it. I just hope you get the son of a bitch.”

“We will.”

Though her voice wasn’t especially emphatic, somehow he believed her. Maybe because her voice wasn’t especially emphatic.

Miranda said, “Dr. Edwards is in Serenade?”

“Yeah, she arrived with the first group of your people. In one of the choppers. I hope you don’t mind that I hitched a ride on one heading back up this way. The pilot said his orders were to fly up here and stand by to ferry some of you back to Serenade.”

“It’s a lot quicker than driving,” Miranda said. “And you’re welcome to the ride. As soon as we get some word about Diana…”

Duncan assumed that Miranda, at least, would need to get back to Serenade fairly soon; another SCU agent had arrived with the first group of them and had stepped in to fill her role as lead investigator, something the sheriff gathered was very much a temporary thing. But from the sound of it, Quentin was here for the duration, whatever that might be. Duncan wasn’t sure about the other two.

Before the silence could stretch too far, he said, “Your doctor seems to believe our clinic has enough of the basics for her and her assistant to work with, and the rest she brought with her.” He paused. “Never seen a doctor travel with so many boxes of equipment.”

“She’s a top-notch forensic pathologist,” Miranda said. “I should have called her in yesterday—or, rather, Tuesday—instead of sending the two murder victims to the state M.E.”

“From what I saw, calling in her and her mobile lab is a major production, so not something to order up if you aren’t even sure how long you’ll be staying. The first chopper couldn’t even hold her assistant, just her and the equipment.” He paused, then added, “Anyway, she’s going to do the autopsy on Dale. And she’s been working on the guy your people found on the roof of the old theater. Said right off the bat he’d been dead at least twelve hours when he was found.”

Slowly, DeMarco said, “So, not yesterday’s sniper but at least possibly Tuesday’s.”

Hollis said, “That doesn’t make sense. Two snipers? What, has somebody sicced an army on us?”

“If so, it’s not a very efficient one,” DeMarco said without emotion. “Two misses on Tuesday, and only one shot fired yesterday. I have to believe he didn’t just get… lucky… yesterday. If the deputy wasn’t the target—and I think we all believe he wasn’t—then either it was sheer bad luck that he stepped in front of the bullet aimed at Diana, or else the sniper was showing off and meant to get both of them with a single shot.”

“Why Diana?” Hollis was staring down at her clasped hands. “That doesn’t make sense either. She’s not even a full agent yet; she hasn’t had time to make any enemies.”

“The way we were running around out there this morning, it could have been any of us,” DeMarco pointed out. “He probably marked all of us as agents on Tuesday, while he was watching from that deer blind. We have no way of being sure Diana was the specific target yesterday. He could have intended to just get an SCU agent, period.”

“Especially since the shots on Tuesday were fired at you and Reese,” Miranda reminded Hollis.

“Okay, but two snipers?”

Miranda said, “I have a hunch we’ll find that the man killed on the roof of the old theater was… pure theater. Staged, posed, for us to find. Another victim.”

DeMarco nodded. “It makes more sense that way. If nothing else, it had our people focused on the wrong building, the wrong place, which gave the real sniper more time to do what he intended to do and get safely away. Plus, finding a body arranged that way is bound to be a distraction for us, another… red herring.”

“Maybe because we were getting too close?” Hollis said, a hopeful note in her voice.

“I wish I thought so,” DeMarco said.

Nodding, Miranda said, “I wish I did too. But it feels to me more like him just being clever. Playing games. Staging a ‘sniper’ for us to find, and on the roof of an old theater, is pretty dramatic.”

Before anyone could respond to that, a doctor came in to the room. Wearing scrubs and exhaustion, he looked around with eyes too old for his youngish face and settled immediately on Miranda as the one to speak to.

“She’s made it through surgery,” he said, in the flattened voice of someone who had been fighting a long battle he was afraid he might have lost. “We’ve done as much as we could to repair the damage. Her heart stopped twice on the table, and we’ve got her on a ventilator. Honestly, I’m surprised she made it this far. But she’s strong—and he’s not letting go. If she makes it through the next forty-eight hours, she has a chance.”

“A chance for full recovery?” Miranda’s voice was steady.

“I don’t know,” he said bluntly. “There are some… variables here I don’t really understand, including an unusual amount of electrical activity going on in her brain.”

“Going on now?”

“We’ve done three scans, initially to check for damage to the spine because the bullet passed so close. On the first scan, her brain lit up like a Christmas tree. Very unusual. So we scanned again, after we got her a bit more stabilized, and again after surgery. A hell of a lot of activity in the first and third scans, much less in the second. As if she’s in and out. Or maybe using energy in a peaks-and-valleys kind of rhythm. But the peaks are very high, very intense. Too intense. If they occur too often or last too long… I frankly don’t know how long that can go on before it damages her brain, just the way a high fever would.”

Hollis said steadily, “You can’t be sure of that.”

He looked at her briefly. “No. But it’s what my training and experience are telling me.”

Miranda said, “The brain activity is in an area you wouldn’t expect it to be?”

“In several areas I wouldn’t expect. And all I feel certain of is that she’s a long way from being brain-dead. Whether that will have any positive effect on her physically or will do the opposite is a question I just can’t answer.”

He sighed. “The bullet missed her spine, but there was a lot of damage and she lost a lot of blood. I’ve seen people come back from worse. Not many, but some. Look, there’s nothing any of you can do for her now. She’s being settled in the ICU and will be there for days yet.” Assuming she survives. “No additional visitors for at least a few hours, not until morning preferably, and even then I’m asking you to make it one at a time and brief. It’s difficult enough for the doctors and nursing staff to work around Agent Hayes.

“Go get cleaned up, get some sleep. I have your number, and I’ll call you if there’s any change.” His mouth twisted slightly. “Or he will.”

“We appreciate you allowing Quentin to stay with her, Doctor.”

“There wasn’t any allowing about it, and you know that, Agent Bishop.” He shrugged. “I’ve seen something like that only once before, and I believe it made all the difference that they were able to stay together. I’m not too proud to accept all the help I can get. So. The staff has instructions not to interfere with Agent Hayes.”

“Thank you.”

“If she has family, I think it would be best to call them in. As soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” Miranda repeated. Then, as he began to turn away, she said, “Doctor? When her heart stopped, you had to shock her.”

He nodded, then said simply, “Agent Hayes never let go of her hand, and he never even flinched. One day I’d like very much to talk to you about that. Because I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

“It might be best,” Brooke said, “if you went to the hospital on this side. To be near…”

“My body?” Diana heard a slightly brittle laugh escape her, a sound given an eerie cadence by the hollow almost-echo of the gray time. “What’s the point, when I can’t get back to it?” She was sitting on a cold bench on a hauntingly silent and empty gray time Main Street in Serenade, where she had been since her second attempt to connect with Quentin had shown her something she very much wished she had never seen.

She had no idea how much time had passed in the living world.

Was she already dead? If she was able to bring herself at least partway back so she could see something of the living world, even if only for a split second, would she see her terribly wounded body laid out on a slab in some cold and sterile morgue?

Or had she been sitting, frozen, on this bench for long enough that she would see her own funeral?

Jesus.

“You’re still holding on to the connection with Quentin,” Brooke observed serenely.

“It’s more like he’s holding on to it. On to me.”

“Well, he’s a stubborn man.”

“Yes,” Diana murmured.

“And he had a…jolt or two of power that helped him hold on. Helped make the connection stronger. He’s determined to hold you, no matter what. Even to pull you back.”

Diana could feel that, faintly, a steady pull with an occasional more-urgent tug she was powerless to obey. “For all the good it’ll do. I’ve tried to reach out for him, but… I can’t. Not this time.”

And she had tried. Desperately.

Why didn’t I reach when I had the chance? Really reach, really connect with Quentin the way he wanted.

The way I wanted.

Too late. Dammit, too late now.

The anguish of that was more painful than anything she had ever known.

“Don’t give up, Diana.”

“Yeah, right.” She shivered, unable to stop the memories that washed over her. Herself as only a toddler, being led by her father down a long hospital corridor lined with rooms filled with people even her baffled, frightened child’s mind had known were more dead than living. People who lay silent and still in their beds, machines beeping and hushing as they recorded heartbeats and “assisted” the bodies to draw air into their lungs.

And, finally, being led into one of the rooms. Held up by her father so she could see… her mother. Or what was left of her. A still body, its heartbeats recorded by a beeping machine, another machine forcing it to breathe.

Just a body.

Diana had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that her mother was no longer there. And that she was never coming back.

What she knew now was that her mother, in a desperate attempt to locate her lost daughter, had pushed her psychic gifts beyond limits she could control, severing the tie that bound her spirit to her physical self. It had been only a matter of time before her body, kept alive by machines, finally ceased to function.

Diana had blocked those memories for a long, long time, because terror and grief had threatened to overwhelm her and because, barely a year ago, she discovered that she shared her mother’s gifts—and the risks involved in using them.

Only it hadn’t been a case of her pushing her gifts, as her mother had, but a sniper’s bullet that had fatally wounded her body and severed her spirit’s connection to it.

“Not severed. Not completely, at least. It doesn’t have to end that way, Diana.”

“Doesn’t it? Hasn’t it already?” Hard as she tried, Diana couldn’t hold her voice steady.

Matter-of-fact, Brooke said, “You would have moved on by now. Mediums almost never linger here.”

“Almost never.”

“Because they understand death far better than most people. They understand it’s a change but not an ending. So they tend to be ready to move on, to take the next step in their journey. But you haven’t. You’re still here. Which means there might be something you can do to change things for yourself.”

“Or it might just mean I’m stubborn too. Holding on to life even when there’s no real hope.”

“We shape our own fate.”

“Do we?”

“Some of it. Maybe most of it. If you have a stronger reason to live than to die, perhaps you can make that happen.”

For the first time she could remember, Diana heard the words of a guide and was afraid she was being deceived. Could she trust Brooke to tell her the truth? About anything?

So far, she had not felt that sense of wrongness that had alerted her to the false Quentin. Brooke looked exactly as she had looked before, spoke in the same way, and nothing about her seemed false or off. But Diana didn’t trust herself to sense anything in particular, not now, because the probability of her own death was a black cloud of terror and regret wrapping around her, smothering her.

Accepting this fate was no easier because she knew something of herself would survive death, that there was some existence afterward. She didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to leave the living world.

She didn’t want to leave Quentin.

She wasn’t ready. Not now. Not yet.

Trying her best to push all that aside, she heard herself responding to the guide, attributing her casual, almost offhand tone to sheer instinct. “Make that happen? Do something to change my own fate? What, here? I don’t do anything in the gray time, Brooke, except talk to guides.”

“This time maybe you can.”

“Yeah, like what? Figure out who shot me? I doubt he’s on this side.” She paused, then added quickly, “He isn’t, is he?”

“No.”

Diana wondered if she could believe that. If she should.

What if he’s here? Could he find me here? Could he hurt me even more on this side? Hollis was afraid Samuel’s pet monster could have, if he was dead. How do I know the sniper isn’t capable of that, whether he’s alive or dead?

Do I even understand this place, this time, as well as I always believed I did?

Could there be someone else here, another psychic, watching her? Watching and perhaps exerting some kind of control or at least influence over her? And, if so, how could that person, that being, hide in a place where there was no darkness or light, where there were no shadows?

“You have to look for the truth.”

“The truth underneath it all, yeah, I remember. I don’t have a clue what you meant by that, but I remember.”

“It’s all about ties. About connections.”

Diana sighed. “Between what? People? Places? Events?”

“All that.”

“Thanks. That was a lot of help.”

Brooke turned and walked away.

Diana looked after her for a moment, then got up from the bench and quickly followed. She didn’t know where she was being led and had the awful fear that she could end up someplace a lot worse than an eerie Serenade Main Street, but one thing she was absolutely sure of was that she didn’t want to be alone in the gray time.

“Hey, wait up.”

“Keep up,” Brooke said, without turning.

“You’ve got a mouth on you for a kid.”

“You of all people should know I’m not a kid,” Brooke said as Diana caught up with her. “None of us is a child in the gray time, even if we died as children. I’ve lived and grown up and died more than once, and I remember every life when I’m here. We all remember it here.”

That did startle Diana, even though it explained a lot; she had been communicating with unnervingly mature “child” guides all her life. But it also raised the question… “Wait. I don’t remember another life. Just the one. What does that mean?”

“It could be another sign that you don’t belong here.”

Diana began to feel more hopeful even as she wondered, again, if she could believe what any guide said.

“Then again,” Brooke continued, “it could just mean you’re a new soul.”

Resisting the impulse to swear out loud as she was swearing inwardly, Diana instead struggled to keep her voice steady when she said, “So people who believe in reincarnation are right?”

“Let’s say they’re on the right track.”

“Karma?”

Brooke didn’t need the question clarified. “There are far worse hells than a pit of fire and torment. And better heavens than pretty clouds and harp music.”

“And we reap what we sow?”

“We’re called to account for our actions in one way or another, never doubt that. It’s all a question of balance. The universe likes things to even out. Sooner or later.”

Diana wanted to think about that but became aware that they were no longer walking along Serenade’s Main Street. Everything around her seemed to blur for an instant, and then she realized that she was, once again, in the gleaming, featureless halls of that onetime asylum.

“Brooke, why are we here?”

“Because we have to be. You have to be.”

“I thought you wanted me to go to the hospital where my—where I am. This can’t be that place, because this place doesn’t exist in the living world. Not anymore.”

“You have to be here,” Brooke repeated.

“She’s lying to you,” a new voice said calmly.

Diana stopped, turned very slowly, and wasn’t at all relieved or happy to see Quentin standing in an open doorway just behind them, smiling at her.

“I know I should go back with you, Miranda,” Hollis said. “I know the doctor said there was nothing we could do for Diana here. But…”

“But you think otherwise?” Miranda showed no signs of impatience, even though the sheriff had gone ahead to tell their pilot that they were ready for the trip back to Serenade.

Hollis hesitated, then moved her shoulders in a gesture not quite a shrug. “I don’t know what I think. But what I feel is that I need to stay close, at least for now.”

“You realize that staying here will be difficult for you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I figured that out a few hours ago.” Hollis didn’t look at DeMarco, even though she could feel him watching her.

Miranda nodded and said, “I thought you’d seen at least a few spirits since we got here.”

“It was worse downstairs in the trauma unit. A little better up here.” Hollis avoided looking toward the hallway visible from this waiting area. “But they’re still… awfully vivid. And I can’t seem to close the door.”

“Probably not one you opened.” Miranda offered her a twisted smile. “I know from experiences with my sister that there are some places where spirits walk, and hospitals are at the top of that list. Mediums really can’t help seeing them.”

“I can handle it,” Hollis said, hoping she could.

“I don’t doubt you can. It just won’t be easy. Look, Hollis, we don’t know how the gray time works, but we do know Diana has always been convinced there are souls who end up there, disconnected from their bodies. Trapped, at least for a while, before they can move on.”

“Or come back. Yes.” Hollis was praying DeMarco would keep his mouth shut; they hadn’t gotten the chance that morning to report the events of the night to Miranda, especially the part about Hollis now being drawn to the gray time whenever Diana opened the door. And Hollis wanted it to stay that way, at least for now. Because she had no doubt that Miranda would not approve of the risky plan taking shape in her mind.

“You believe she’s there?”

“The doc said her heart stopped twice. We know it stopped once back in Serenade. If the gray time really is a corridor between this world and the next, I think it’s likely that’s where Diana’s spirit would go. It’s a place she’s comfortable in, confident, almost at home. It could be a refuge for her in a situation like this one.”

“A place to hide?”

“Maybe. With all that trauma to her body… maybe. She told me Bishop believes her conscious and subconscious minds haven’t fully integrated yet after all the years of being medicated, and one thing her subconscious had gotten very good at was protecting itself. What her subconscious, her spirit, knows best is the gray time. I really think retreating there would be almost automatic. If so, she’s still halfway in this world, this reality. At least half alive. She might try to contact one of us. Maybe Quentin. Or maybe me.”

“I agree she may have gone there. But we don’t know if her connection with Quentin is strong enough to keep her anchored on this side. Not if she truly died.” Miranda’s voice was on the edge of emotionless but didn’t quite make it.

“All the more reason for me to stay close. Even if she’s lost that anchor, another medium might be able to see her. Speak to her. Maybe even help her.”

DeMarco spoke up for the first time to say, “You don’t see the spirits of people you know, coworkers. Right?”

“I haven’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t. And since Diana’s a medium, it might make it easier for me to see her. Maybe. I just… believe I should stay, Miranda.”

“Then you’ll stay.”

“So will I,” DeMarco said.

Without looking at him, Hollis said, “You don’t have to.”

“I’ll stay,” he said to Miranda. “If Diana was the target and not just one of us chosen at random, our insane sniper might decide to come here and finish the job.”

“The thought had occurred.”

“So I’ll stay. Even without being at her bedside or outside her door, I should be able to sense a threat to her.”

“Without a connection to her?”

“I still have her blood on me,” he replied, his voice remote. “That’s enough of a connection.”

Miranda didn’t question that. “Okay.”

“Galen’s on-site now?”

“He flew one of the choppers.”

“Then you’ve got the best watchdog on the team.” DeMarco nodded. “And if you tell him I said that, I’ll deny it.”

Miranda smiled faintly. “Gotcha.”

“What about the twins?”

Unsurprised that he knew, she replied, “Hopefully still in the background, unless the sniper spotted Gabe. But even if he was spotted, Roxanne certainly wasn’t. We also have a few more team members on-site now, as the sheriff noted.”

“Might be playing into the sniper’s hands,” DeMarco pointed out. “With so many of us here, he could be setting us up for a turkey shoot.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t make it that easy for him.” Without waiting for a response, she added, “I’ll speak to the doctor again before I leave and make sure you’re both cleared to stay near Diana—for her own protection.”

Hollis said, “Thanks. And keep us posted on what’s happening in Serenade, will you?”

“I will.” Miranda turned her head just as Sheriff Duncan appeared in the doorway. He was carrying two overnight bags and looked somewhat bemused.

“Your pilot asked me to bring these in,” he told Miranda, as he set the bags in a couple of the waiting-room chairs. “He seemed to be sure that Hollis and Reese would be staying.”

“Thanks, Des.” Without explaining a thing, Miranda merely said to DeMarco, “There’s also a change of clothes for Quentin in your bag. Assuming either of you can persuade him to leave Diana long enough for a hot shower and a meal, that is.”

“We’ll do our best.”

Miranda nodded. “One last thing. I need to contact Diana’s father and let him know what happened.”

With a slight frown, Hollis said, “I… don’t think she’d want that.”

“Neither do I. But she hadn’t decided absolutely to completely cut that tie, and absent written instructions to the contrary, I have to follow procedure. If you don’t already, you should both know that Elliot Brisco is an extremely powerful man, and he’s not been at all happy about Diana’s involvement with the FBI.”

“Understatement,” Hollis murmured.

“Yeah, he’s likely to be spewing fire and brimstone.”

DeMarco smiled, though only someone who knew him well would have seen wry amusement in the expression. Anybody else probably would have felt the need to find a warm corner somewhere. “If I could handle Samuel’s brand of fire and brimstone, I imagine I can handle Brisco’s.”

“True enough. Just wanted to warn you. And to tell you that one thing Diana did put in writing, as per procedure before coming on her first assignment, was that Quentin holds her medical power of attorney. Which means that in addition to being worried about Diana’s condition and pissed about the direction she chose for her life, Brisco is also going to be powerless to make medical decisions for her. Men like him really don’t like to be powerless.”

“Oh, boy,” Hollis said with a sigh. “Aren’t we going to have fun.”

“Well, you should have at least a brief respite before you have to deal with him; he’s likely to be at one of his companies on the West Coast or in New York, possibly in London or even Hong Kong.”

“I’ll hope for the latter. And find a way to make peace with my conscience if he gets here too late.”

“And we’ll all hope that’s not even an issue,” Miranda told her.

“Amen.”

“See you two later.” She briskly gathered up the sheriff as she left the waiting room, allowing him no chance to do anything but wave at the two remaining behind.

“It’s not a risky plan,” DeMarco said as soon as they were alone in the room, “it’s an insane plan.”

“Maybe, but thanks for not giving it away.” Hollis frowned at him as several thoughts occurred. “Or do you think Miranda got it too? Because I was broadcasting?”

“You weren’t. And after what’s happened in the last two days, Miranda’s shield is about as solid as I’ve ever known it to be. And a lot more solid now than it was when you got through before the bomb went off. My guess is that she and Bishop close every possible chink in that shield when they’re under attack or expect to be. It’s a trade-off: a diminished ability to use the extra senses but also a lot more protection.”

Hollis nodded but said, “I wasn’t broadcasting?”

“Not so much. Either you’re learning to shield or else an insane plan makes you secretive on every level.”

Then how could you read me? She didn’t ask aloud but stared at him, still frowning.

He returned her suspicious gaze with a completely unreadable one of his own.

Hollis decided not to ask out loud. “Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll even have the chance. I’m way too wound up to sleep.”

“I won’t stand by and let you sedate yourself, Hollis.”

“Will you quit doing that?”

“Just making an educated guess.”

She wished she believed that.

“The point,” DeMarco said, “is that even if you managed to get to the gray time and find Diana there—what then? What is it you believe you can do to help?”

“I don’t know.”

“You nearly didn’t make it out the last time.”

Hollis opened her mouth to respond, then closed it.

DeMarco was nodding. “Maybe because the two of you were under a kind of attack from someone else in the gray time. An attack—and an attempt to deceive Diana.”

“We don’t know what any of that meant.”

“We know Diana was shot yesterday. When the shooter could have aimed at any of us, he picked her. I don’t believe it was random in any sense of the word. He aimed for Diana, and he hit her. Put that together with the gray time visit the other night and I’d call it a pretty goddamn good indication somebody is out to hurt her, at the very least.”

“That’s not what you said earlier.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly something I could be so definite about to Miranda without going into what happened Tuesday night. Which you very clearly didn’t want me to do.”

Damn telepaths.

Hollis drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Okay. Granted. There’s a better than even chance someone has targeted Diana. A chance that person can attack her spirit as well as her body, and maybe even more violently. But… Look, when you pulled me out of the gray time, you weren’t actually in there with us, right?”

He nodded again. “Right. It was more like I reached in an arm to pull you out. I had the sense of coldness, of something… unpleasantly nightmarish. But I wasn’t there. Didn’t see or hear anything.”

“Nightmarish. That’s a good word for a very creepy place.”

“A place Diana is very, very familiar with,” DeMarco reminded her.

“Yes. A place she’s visited most of her life. But you weren’t there. You don’t understand how strange and… lonely… that place really is. How absolutely desolate.”

“Hollis—”

“She’s always gone there with a purpose, to help someone else. I think that’s one reason she’s been strong there, how she’s been able to move through that place or time or whatever it is without being the least bit afraid. But… what if, this time, she knows, Reese? What if she’s in there, stuck in there all alone, and she knows what happened to her?”

“Then I’m sorry for her. But I still don’t know what it is you believe you can do to help her.”

The hell of it was, Hollis didn’t know either. But she also knew she couldn’t just stand by without trying something.

Anything.