Blood Ties

by Kay Hooper

  Under his breath, Tony muttered, “Damn. Jinx.”

  Miranda glanced at him, then said to Dean, “Take your time. We’re mostly waiting for paperwork—the posts Sharon conducted and ballistics reports. And we’ll probably go over the victim files one more time, looking for connections. There isn’t much else to do, at least for the next few hours. Unless you’ve picked up something you haven’t mentioned, that is.” Dean Ramsey was a fifth-degree clairvoyant.

  He shook his head. “Not a whole hell of a lot, I’m sorry to say. At first I thought it was just the general confusion, all the violence, but… there’s a weird vibe about this place. Can’t quite pin it down, but I’ve never sensed anything like it.”

  “Join the club,” Tony said with a sigh.

  Dean offered a wry smile, then said to Miranda, “When I try harder, when I push, it’s like I’m picking up some kind of interference, almost like hearing static on a radio.”

  Tony and Jaylene exchanged quick glances.

  Miranda simply nodded. “Don’t try to force it. Maybe taking a break will help.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He didn’t sound too convinced but left to follow her orders without argument.

  “Interference,” Jaylene said. “Why does it make me very uneasy that word keeps cropping up?”

  “It’s an anomaly,” Miranda responded. “And anomalies are signposts. Things to pay attention to.”

  “Consider me paying attention,” Jaylene said. “Because even though the vibes I get are almost always from objects, I’m feeling the weirdness of this place too.”

  Tony said, “And me. I keep wanting to rub the back of my neck, because it feels like the hair’s standing straight out. Not an especially pleasant sensation.”

  “My question,” Miranda said, “is whether this is something natural and specific to the town for some kind of geographic reason or something new. And if it is new, I want to know when it started and whether it’s artificial, man-made, or…”

  “Or psychic?” Jaylene suggested.

  Miranda was frowning now. “Dean can’t pick up anything. Neither of you has been able to. I haven’t. Reese knew when a gun was being pointed at Hollis and him, but that was well outside town, higher up in the mountains—and before the bomb blast all he was really sure of was that the sniper was watching. Plus, he didn’t sense a thing before the sniper shot Diana, and a gun pointed his way virtually always sends up giant red flags. Gabe and Roxanne have a solid internal connection, but otherwise they’ve been… fuzzy, missing things they should have been able to pick up on easily.”

  Sighing again, Tony said, “Psychic, then.”

  “Christ, I hope not. It’d take a hell of a lot of energy to have that sort of dampening effect on so many psychics of different abilities and degrees. And it sounds too much like what was happening in Samuel’s Compound on that last day.”

  “Damn,” Jaylene muttered.

  “You did jinx us,” Tony said to Miranda. “Whenever anybody says we’ll get a good night’s sleep, we never do. Something always happens.”

  The words had barely left his lips when Sheriff Duncan came in to the command center, his expression grim. “I’ve got a missing deputy,” he said.

  “Who?” Miranda asked—and Tony looked at her curiously, because he had the odd notion she knew exactly what the sheriff would reply.

  “Bobbie. Bobbie Silvers. As near as I can figure, she hasn’t been seen since sometime last night.”

  Fifteen

  WHEN HOLLIS WOKE UP, she had no idea how much time had passed; this was an internal room in the hospital, so no windows allowed any natural light to signal whether it was day or night.

  She hoped it was still Thursday; surely she—they—hadn’t slept all day, even though she felt as if that could be the case. Hell, she felt as if she’d slept for a week. Her eyes were scratchy, her muscles stiff from apparently remaining in the same position for God only knew how long, and a gnawing emptiness told her she hadn’t eaten in too many hours.

  She wasn’t sure whether DeMarco was awake, until she was able to ease from his loosened embrace and sit on the edge of the narrow bed. Looking at him as she absently finger-combed her hair, she realized she didn’t feel the same uncertainty she’d felt earlier about his state of consciousness; he was asleep, and deeply at that.

  His face was relaxed in a way she’d never before seen, his breathing deep and even, and the tension she usually sensed in him was absent.

  Hollis frowned a little, though she couldn’t have said why, exactly, she was bothered. DeMarco had as much right to sleep as she did, after all, and even his seemingly ever-vigilant senses had to rest sometime. None of the team had gotten much rest in the last few days and, besides, she had no idea what he might have been doing before joining them in Serenade or how long he had gone without sleep at that point.

  She shook off the thoughts, deciding just to be grateful that there would be no more awkward—on her part, at least—conversation while they lay in bed together.

  Move. Don’t think, just move.

  Given the tininess of the silent, lamplit room, it required only a couple of steps for her to reach the door, and she slipped out without looking back at DeMarco.

  They had been offered the use of visitors’ restrooms, complete with lockers for their belongings and private showers; it was a kindness provided for the families of patients who spent long days, even weeks, in the various intensive-care units on this floor. Both Hollis and DeMarco had gotten cleaned up and changed not long after Miranda and the sheriff headed back to Serenade, but Hollis felt the need to shower again now, mostly to clear her fuzzy head.

  She found herself in a quiet and unfamiliar hallway, and it took a moment or two for her to remember that she hadn’t exactly been conscious when DeMarco carried her from the IC unit where Diana lay to this room.

  Carried me. Jeez.

  Hollis pushed that out of her mind and took a few tentative steps to her left down the hallway, wondering if she was headed in the correct direction. Everything still looked unnatural to her, too faded and colorless to be real life and yet not—quite—the desolate emptiness that was Diana’s gray time.

  Just creepy enough to make her distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Hollis.”

  Shit.

  Hollis turned slowly to find Andrea standing a few feet away. Like the other spirits Hollis had seen earlier, she looked more real than her surroundings did, and her aura was bright shades of blue and green.

  It was, Hollis realized, the first time she’d ever seen Andrea’s aura.

  “You have to help Diana,” the spirit said.

  “Andrea—”

  “You have to help her to heal. If her body isn’t healed, she won’t be able to come back to it.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Appearing to take the wry comment literally, Andrea said, “She’s in great danger. The longer she’s in the gray time, the less likely it is she’ll be able to get back. Her spirit’s being weakened there, and her body is weak here.”

  “I tried to heal her body. Or help her heal, anyway. I don’t think I did her very much good.”

  “You have to try again.”

  Since she’d planned to do just that, Hollis nodded but said, “Listen, can’t you finally tell me who you are? And why you’re apparently attached to me?”

  Andrea took a step back, clearly startled. “I—I’m not—you opened a door.”

  “Months ago I opened a door. I mean, when I first saw you. So why do you keep coming back? Or are you—did I leave you on this side? Can you not go back?”

  “Not until it’s finished.”

  “Until what’s finished?”

  Andrea seemed distracted for a moment, looking around as though she was lost, then she said, “He’s trying to protect you, but what he’s doing… It’s keeping you from helping Diana. Can’t you feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  “He’s tried to put a veil be
tween you and the spirit world. Energy. To keep you safe, he thinks.”

  “Who thinks?”

  “Reese.”

  “Wait. It’s because of Reese that everything looks weird and only the spirits seem real?”

  Andrea nodded. “He wants to help. To protect. But he can’t stand between you and the spirit world. He can’t block your natural energies. That’s why the real world looks faded to you, because his energy comes from there and only works the way he believes it works there. You have to stop him before he pushes you closer to the spirit world. That’s not the way. Especially not now. You have to help heal Diana, and you have to be very much in the living world to do that.”

  “Last time I had to help Ruby.” Hollis wasn’t really protesting, just trying to understand what was going on.

  “They both have a role to play.”

  “Andrea, for God’s sake—”

  The spirit began backing away, fading. “There’s a better way to use his energy, his shield. His protection. Tell him that. Help Diana. Everything depends on it, and there’s not much time….”

  Hollis found herself alone in the corridor once again. She drew a breath, let it out slowly, and then turned back to the room where DeMarco slept. She went in and sat on the side of the narrow bed, put her hand on his shoulder, and attempted to shake him.

  “Hey!”

  It occurred to Hollis only afterward that rudely awakening a man with DeMarco’s background, training, and apparent nature probably wasn’t the wisest thing in the world, but at that moment she wasn’t thinking about any possible danger from him.

  His eyes snapped open, and in the same heartbeat of time his hand moved in a blur and grabbed her wrist. She felt his fingers tighten for just an instant and then relax.

  Interestingly, she was never frightened for a second.

  “That,” he said calmly, “was not very smart. I might have taken your head off.”

  She pushed that aside with a gesture of her free hand. “Never mind that. You have to stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Your shield. Projecting it—I guess. Something like what you did at the church Compound back in January. You’ve actually got it between me and the real world rather than the spirit world, and you have to stop doing that.” Even as she said it, another thought occurred, and she added absently, “I wonder if that’s why I couldn’t reach the spirit world then. Not the same thing, but maybe your dampening field was doing a lot more than we thought it was.”

  Without denying anything, DeMarco merely responded, “Who says that’s what I’m doing?”

  “Andrea.”

  “Spirit Andrea? The one who warned you about the bomb?”

  Hollis nodded. “And she knew what she was talking about then, so I have to listen now. You have to pull it back, Reese; stop trying to stand between me and the spirit world. That’s what I do, and you can’t stop it.”

  “According to Andrea.”

  “Yeah, according to her. Also according to her, I have to help heal Diana before it’s too late. And I can’t do that effectively with your shield wrapped around me. That might even be the reason I went out like a light when I tried earlier to help her heal. Energy pushing against energy is—well, most of it would rebound, don’t you think?”

  After a moment, he released her wrist and pushed himself up on an elbow, continuing to regard her calmly. “Rebound?”

  “Rebound. I push and your energy pushes back.” She frowned suddenly. “Why, by the way? I mean, why’re you trying to protect me?”

  “I wondered when you’d ask that.” He hooked one hand around the back of her neck and drew her close enough so that he could kiss her. It was hardly a gentle sort of first kiss, more a kind of claiming just this side of forceful, and by the time it was over Hollis had no doubt at all what it was he wanted.

  “Any more questions?” His voice was a little rough.

  Very conscious of his fingers moving against her neck and of the hardness of his shoulder beneath her own clutching fingers, Hollis thought, Wow, but had sense enough not to say it.

  Except he’s a telepath and… Dammit.

  “Urn… this is very sudden,” she heard herself say inanely.

  “Not really. We met months ago.”

  “Yeah, but… we haven’t… I mean… You never said anything.”

  “I’m saying something now.”

  Casting about for something not inane to say in response, she finally managed, “I think your timing could use a little work.”

  DeMarco smiled slightly. “Never the time and the place. Hollis, if something happens to either of us, I’m not going to be like Quentin, wishing I’d spoken up when I had the chance. So I’m speaking up now. You don’t have to say anything one way or the other, but I wanted you to know that I’m… more than interested. In you. In being with you.”

  She hesitated, conscious of a clock ticking away in her mind with the uneasy urgency Andrea had created. Still, she had to say something. He probably already knew, but… “Reese, to say I’ve got a lot of baggage is a huge understatement.”

  “That’s okay. Baggage doesn’t bother me. It makes us who we are.”

  She tried again. “After what happened to me, I don’t even know if I can respond normally to a man.” She hated making that admission but figured once again that he probably knew anyway.

  He pulled her toward him again just far enough to kiss her, and this time it lasted awhile.

  When she could breathe again, Hollis murmured, “Okay, maybe that isn’t going to be such a problem, after all.”

  DeMarco was still wearing that faint smile, only now there was something sensuous about it. “I’m thinking it probably won’t be. But you don’t have to worry. I won’t pressure you.”

  “Yeah?” She managed an unsteady laugh. “And when does the not-pressuring me part start?”

  “Right now.” He kissed her one final time, briefly but not at all lightly, then let her go and got up off the bed. In a perfectly normal voice, he said, “If you mean to try to help Diana, I think we both need time to shower and get something to eat first.”

  “But—”

  “You need energy, Hollis. Fuel. It won’t do Diana any good if you collapse because you haven’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours. It’s well after two.”

  She resented his normal voice, especially since she couldn’t match it; to her own ear she still sounded out of breath and flustered. And full of inane questions. “A.M. or P.M.?”

  “P.M. Still Thursday. Come on.”

  Hollis took his extended hand, conscious of faint panic and a much stronger sense of inevitability.

  Some things had to happen just the way they happened.

  If she’d learned nothing else with the SCU, she had most certainly learned that.

  Washington, D.C.

  He was surprised but not astonished when the Director got in touch to arrange another meeting, assuming there had been a change of mind after some considered thought. He was a little annoyed that the venue Micah Hughes chose was a conference room in a small hotel just off the Beltway but guessed it was the Director’s attempt to avoid more openly public spots and the risk of recognition.

  He found the room without the need to ask a staff member and opened the door fully expecting to see FBI Director Micah Hughes.

  Instead, Noah Bishop was seated on the opposite side of the big Conference table between them, his hands resting on a plain manila folder. The folder was closed.

  “Well, Agent Bishop. Fancy meeting you here.” He remained outwardly calm as he came into the room; he had faced too many powerful men across too many boardroom tables to fold at the first sign of trouble. He remained on his feet, resting his own hands on the tall back of one of the chairs but not pulling it out. Once he sat down, he conceded the power position to Bishop and he knew it.

  His mind raced, considering the possible ramifications of this, but he had no intention of making it easy for Bishop, no matter what the ag
ent was up to.

  “Thank you for coming. We weren’t sure you would. I gather you usually choose the meeting spots,” Bishop said coolly.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  Bishop shook his head just once. “I didn’t intercept the call, if that’s what you’re thinking. In fact, from all I can gather you seem to have greatly exaggerated the extent of my reach. And my interests. It’s never been about power with me. Not your kind of power.”

  “Of course not. You merely cultivated other powerful people because it amused you.”

  “No. Because I knew I’d need them one day. When a man like you came after me—for whatever reason.” The scar down Bishop’s left cheek stood out whitely against his tanned skin, the only visible sign of any tension. “I have to admit, I never expected a reason like yours. Revenge, sure. Retaliation. Even just to remove me before I could become a problem for someone. But I didn’t expect to be a kind of rival. This kind, at any rate.”

  “Agent Bishop—”

  “You’re so wrong on so many counts it’s hardly worth talking about. Except to note that your jealousy and resentment led you down one of the darkest paths I’ve ever seen.”

  “So dramatic. Should I ask you to define this ‘dark path’ for me?”

  Again, Bishop shook his head just once. “You do realize that once I tell him who is really responsible for the murder of his daughter, Senator LeMott will destroy you.” It very clearly wasn’t a question.

  He stiffened but said, “I was in no way connected to that unfortunate girl’s tragic death.”

  “You most certainly were. Oh, I don’t have courtroom proof. But I have proof enough for LeMott. Believe me. He had Samuel killed on a lot less. Unlike you, he has complete faith in the abilities of myself and my team. All our abilities.”

  “So you’re going to tell him you saw my face in your crystal ball?” He managed a laugh and knew it sounded convincingly amused.

  “I’m going to tell him the truth. That Samuel and his pet monster were fully funded by you in Boston. I don’t know whether you were aware going in of exactly what he meant to do—or how he meant to do it. But I do know you continued to fund him even afterward, when you had to know how your money was being used.” Bishop’s wide shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “Not that LeMott will be listening beyond that point. He’ll only care that you were the catalyst that got his daughter killed.”