“I know just what you mean.”
“I’m so tired of being in this place.”
“You don’t have to stay, Bill. It’s really your choice.” Why’d I say that? Is it true? Who am I to give advice to a nearly dead man?
“Wife’s been gone four years. Life’s been real lonely without her. I got me six children and twenty-two grandchildren, but they all have lives of their own, you know what I’m saying?”
“I sure do.”
“Dad?”
Ian spun around, startled that his son had come up behind him on feet of silk. “Luke.”
“I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
“Just to the ghost of the old man in that room.” Ian stabbed his thumb toward Bill, but he’d evaporated. No surprise. Bill was a figment of his imagination.
“Yeah, right,” Luke said with a laugh that came a beat too late, as if a part of him still believed that Ian’s brush with death had left him brain-damaged. “Listen, I just ran into Dr. Andros. He’s going to release you tomorrow. Mom’s very much against it.”
The door to room 13 opened, and doctors and nurses streamed out with their machines, their clipboards, their urgency gone. Through the open door, Ian saw two orderlies lift Bill’s body onto a gurney, cover it, then they wheeled the gurney out into the hall.
“You weren’t kidding,” Luke said softly.
Shaken by the confirmation that he actually had seen and spoken to a ghost, Ian didn’t respond.
“Jesus, Dad. Has this happened before?”
Nervous laughter bubbled through him. Happened before? Before when? Before he had died? Before his mind had been left on the floor of the ER? “No.”
“Whatever you do, don’t mention a word of this to Mom.”
“I don’t intend to.” Ian wouldn’t have said anything to Luke, either, if he hadn’t been standing there while Ian was talking to Bill.
“She’ll just use it as evidence that you’re brain-damaged.”
Maybe I am. “Any word from the attorney?”
“I’m still waiting for him to get back to me.
“How’d this ghost look, Dad?”
As they walked into the room, Ian described what had happened and Luke listened with rapt attention. “My sense was, uh, that Bill was ready to move on, but just didn’t realize it.” Really? That was your goddamn sense? What’s that mean? You’re an expert now on mental derangement?
“Wow, this is incredibly far out,” Luke said. “Once, on an acid trip, I was walking around downtown Minneapolis and found myself surrounded by ghosts,” Luke said. “They were all, like, talking at once, trying to get my attention, to give me messages for their families and friends, and some wanted to know if I was a helper who could get them someplace else.”
“What’d you do?”
“Freaked out and ran back to the apartment and locked myself inside.”
“Ghosts? Who’s talking about ghosts?”
Louise sailed into the room without knocking, leading Ian to believe she’d been eavesdropping outside the door. She’d brought gifts—a huge bouquet of flowers. “Oh my, just look at you, standing up and all, with a typewriter and paper and everything,” she gushed.
Luke rolled his eyes, but Ian smiled hello, then began gathering up the pages he’d written and handed them to Luke. “Keep these for me until I get out of here tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s way too soon,” Louise said, setting the vase of flowers on the windowsill. “I just had a chat with Dr. Andros and pointed out that you had two major heart attacks.”
“Andros is the cardiologist, Mom,” Luke said. “I’m sure he doesn’t need your input.”
“I feel fine,” Ian said. “I’m ready to check myself out.”
“You can’t do that,” Louise snapped.
She faced Ian with her sprayed, bouffant hair, her unnaturally wide eyes, her blue skirt and jacket, matching shoes and handbag. Louise, fashion maven. He remembered her laughter in the early days of their marriage, when she was a whiz with numbers and worked as an accountant in a real estate firm, the only woman in an office of men. Her whole demeanor then had been softer, flowing, joyful. He remembered her as someone she no longer was, and sometimes he missed that old Louise, missed what they’d had in those early years.
“You’re going to need care at home,” she went on. “And we have to arrange for something, for someone to come in, for—”
“Thank you for the flowers, Louise, and for taking care of things while I was in a coma. I appreciate it. But I can make my own decisions,” Ian said.
“Frankly, Ian, I’m not so sure that you’re capable of making your own decisions. The oxygen loss to your brain was—”
“Enough, Mom!” Luke snapped. “Dad’s fine.”
Her eyes widened with umbrage, her bright red mouth pursed with disapproval, then anger. “Luke, this is between your father and me. And since I have power of attorney, I have a say in when he’s released. Besides, I didn’t see you paying for what his health insurance didn’t cover. Not you or Casey or the university. Me, I paid for it.”
“You’re so transparent it’s disgusting.” Luke was practically shouting. “You don’t give a shit about Dad. You’re only interested in appearances. In your new role as the wife of a prominent business mogul and philanthropist, you want to be viewed in a sympathetic light. You’re nothing but a goddamn social climber.”
Louise’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I . . . I can’t believe you think that of me, Luke.”
“Well, believe it,” Luke shot back.
Ian’s head started to ache. He realized Luke was using this opportunity to verbalize all the issues he had with his mother. “Please. Stop arguing.” He spoke with such a strange calmness that they both abruptly fell silent and looked at him as if he were merely incidental to their disagreement.
Seconds ticked by, then Luke said, “You’re right. There’s no point in arguing. You’re done here, Mom.” He took her by the shoulders and walked her toward the door.
Louise wrenched free and turned on Luke as if he were a rabid dog. “Don’t you dare presume to tell me what to do, young man.”
“Later, Mom.” Luke grasped her arm, led her into the hall, slammed the door. Then he leaned against it and in a softer voice added, “She’s trying to convince Andros that a neurologist should check you out for brain damage. I’m telling you, Dad, this is all about getting even. She was humiliated by the divorce because you initiated it. She’s conveniently forgotten that she was fucking what’s-his-name while she was still married to you.”
“Whatever.” All this drama exhausted Ian. “There’s money in that account with both our names on it, Luke. Pay her whatever I owe her. Hire a lawyer to get her name removed as my power of attorney. We’re divorced. She shouldn’t have any say about my life at this point.”
A soft knock, then a pretty redhead stuck her head inside the room. “Hey, guys,” she said. “Can I come in? It’s hostile out here, what with the ex-Mrs. Ritter shooting daggers my way as we pass in the hall.”
Luke laughed and hugged Casey O’Toole hello. “I’m on it, Dad,” he called over his shoulder. “Be back later.”
Luke shut the door on his way out and Casey came over, her smile bright enough to light up the dark side of the moon. “Hey, handsome.”
“Casey O’Toole. I’m not at my best.”
“You look wonderful to me.” She set a box of chocolates on the table in front of him, then leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.
He was intensely aware of how the shape of her mouth molded itself against his. But all he could think of was how the shape and texture of Tess’s mouth differed. If Casey were still alive in 2008, she would be seventy-six. And if any of it’s true, I’d be eighty-four. He didn’t know what he felt for her now.
Casey pulled back, her beautiful hair falling along the sides of her face, her parrot-green eyes struggling to read him. “Luke called and said he’d gotten permission for me to vis
it. I was able to visit for a while when you were in a coma, but Louise got huffy about it and put a stop to it.”
“It’s great to see you,” Ian said.
“Luke’s been giving me updates.” She pulled a chair close to his, sat down, crossed her lovely legs. Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Are you allowed chocolate?”
He had a sudden memory of her eyes doing this when they had stood in front of Hiawatha Falls, in a park burning with autumn, and he had kissed her. “No one said that I can’t have them.”
She lifted the lid, revealing his greatest weakness, an exquisite display of Swiss chocolates, thick, nutty half-moons with light and dark swirls, heart-shaped chocolates filled with caramel, neat little squares topped with cherries, triangles sprinkled with gold slivers of dried fruit. Chocolate held special meaning in the lexicon of their relationship—chocolates on birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and sometimes, chocolate just because.
He chose one of the triangles, bit into it—and felt his throat closing up and nearly gagged on it. He grabbed a piece of Kleenex from a box on the table, spat into it, and dropped it into the trash. “I guess . . . it doesn’t mix with my meds or something.”
“It’s probably too soon.”
Ian immediately felt guilty because the stuff now revolted him. “Tell me what’s happening on campus. And with you.”
It was the right question. “The guy who’s substituting for you doesn’t seem to know squat about journalism and there’ve been complaints from some of your students that he’s really prowar and . . .”
Something flickered over her right shoulder, and as Ian watched it, he lost track of what Casey was saying. An optical illusion, some trick of the light? He squinted slightly, looked to either side of it, whatever it was, hoping it would be clearer in his peripheral vision. It seemed to flit and dart, like a white moth, a ghost moth, and nearly disappeared when it entered the shafts of light coming through the window. It reappeared an instant later, on the other side of the room where the light didn’t reach, and here it became a shadow that began to assume shape and substance. He knew, he fucking knew, what it was.
Ian leaped to his feet and lunged across the room, waving his arms, shouting, his heart hammering. He grabbed a lamp, hurled it, and it slammed into the wall, the base and bulb shattering. Then he saw it, a woman, a bruja, and knew it had followed him back from the dead. It was still there when two orderlies wrestled him to the floor and jabbed a syringe in his neck. The bruja’s laughter was the last thing he heard as he sank like a stone into darkness.
Eleven
He rushed toward Dominica like a crazy man, gesturing wildly, yelling, “I can see you, bruja, go fuck yourself, get away from me . . .” And when he hurled a lamp at her, aim perfect, she suddenly understood Ian didn’t just sense her presence, didn’t just detect movement in his peripheral vision, but actually saw her.
How? Outside of Esperanza, the only people who could perceive a brujo were those attuned to an inner consciousness—shamans, psychics, mediums. Ian was none of those. The reasonable explanation was that his near-death experience in Esperanza had blown open something inside of him. Did Ian, like Consuelo, that young woman who managed the Incan Café, now have the gift of second sight?
As the orderlies sedated him and put him on a gurney, a kind of despair gripped Dominica. What now? If she seized one of the orderlies, she might be able to force the man to kill Ian. But maybe not. Her abilities in this era were untested. She never had gone back in time to kill anyone. Only to seize.
From her birth in 1408 to her death in 1444 to everything that had happened to her since, she always had moved with the flow of time, not against it. Even though it was possible for her kind to travel back in time, it wasn’t easy. Just to get here, to find out where Ian was, had required days of surveillance, of eavesdropping on the likes of Ed, Sara, Illika, and the recovering hero, Juanito. She’d had to invade their computers, their security cameras, and then she’d used her own abilities to home in on the vibration that was uniquely Ian’s. Then he’d seen her.
She had no plan B. But if nothing else, six hundred years had taught her adaptability. So she threw herself at the closest orderly, sank into him like a knife through butter—and was immediately hurled out. Incensed, she tried to seize the other orderly. When the same thing happened, she knew it was no anomaly. It had to be a restriction germane to this era—or specific to Ian and the people around him. After all, she had been able to seize Ben in 1914 without any problem. Did it mean she wouldn’t be able to seize anyone here? Such a possibility terrified her as much as the apparent threat of the liberation movement.
She followed them up the hall and considered other alternatives. His son. His lover. His ex-wife. Could she seize any of them?
If she could, then his son, who wasn’t even here right now, probably wasn’t the best option. Even though Luke seemed to have doubts about Ian’s mental stability, their relationship was probably too solid for her to be able to force him to murder his father. Besides, when he had been in the room earlier, she had sensed the toxins in his body, drugs popular in this era—pot, mescaline, acid, peyote, mind-altering poisons that would make it too easy for her to lose her way or that might allow him to determine her true intentions.
The pretty redhead tempted Dominica. She liked the woman’s irreverence, her intelligence. But Casey O’Toole loved Ian, which discounted any possibility that Dominica might be able to force her to kill him.
So the last choice was the ex-wife. Dominica moved in closer to Louise as she hurried along behind the gurney, high heels clicking against the tile floor, her pretty little purse tight against her side, her dark hair so sprayed into place that it wasn’t ruffled by tiny bursts of heat from the vents. Such a petite body. Wasp waist, a pleasing flare to her hips, a sassy sway to her walk. Will I be able to seize you?
Dominica moved up behind her and slipped into her as unobtrusively as a splinter sliding beneath skin. She rapidly dispersed her essence throughout Louise’s body and wasn’t hurled out. Louise didn’t flinch or recoil, didn’t even know she had been compromised. Perhaps that was the secret to finding a host body in this era. Do it gently and lie hidden, like a cancer cell, awaiting the opportune moment.
She took swift inventory of Louise’s physical and psychological state. She was so attractive on the outside, but such a total mess inside. Her bitterness over her divorce from Ian already had created intestinal problems and stiffness in her knees and shoulder joints. She flourished on a diet of constant high drama that slowly ate away at her adrenal glands. Louise had been the unfaithful spouse when she and Ian were married, but saw herself as a victim because Ian had filed for divorce first, humiliating her deeply. Her foremost desire was revenge. She resented that her son was closer to his father, that Luke apparently regarded her as a kind of money-grubbing bitch who didn’t have a clue about anything.
Aside from an occasional joint, she didn’t do drugs, didn’t smoke, drank only moderately. In other words, Dominica thought, Louise Ritter Bell would provide a fine, healthy body for the moment.
As the orderlies approached the double doors at the end of the hall, Dominica began to feel uneasy. Beyond those doors lay the psych ward. She could feel the collective malaise of the people inside, a tsunami of despair, depression, tragedy. Fortunately, Louise’s body provided some protection, but it was painfully clear to Dominica that she couldn’t seize anyone inside there to kill Ian unless her game plan changed.
The orderlies stopped outside the double doors. “No visitors are permitted inside,” the taller, muscular man said.
“What ward is this?” asked Casey.
“The psychiatric unit, ma’am.”
“He doesn’t need to be in any psych unit,” Casey snapped.
“Excuse me,” Louise said, an arctic chill in her voice. Dominica felt the tension in Louise’s body, the barely subdued rage, but didn’t dare interfere. “This is a family matter, Ms. O’Toole.”
&nbs
p; Casey burst out laughing. “You haven’t been a part of his family since he divorced you two years ago.” She spoke forcefully to the orderly. “Mr. Ritter’s son has legal authority.”
Dominica felt embarrassed for Louise’s mental confusion, the way she flipped through the files in her own head, seeking the legal document that had made Luke his father’s legal guardian. When Louise concluded that Casey was bluffing, she told the orderly that she had power of attorney, but Casey butted in.
“You need to call Luke Ritter,” Casey said.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the orderly said. “Hospital policy dictates that any unruly patient goes to the psych unit for evaluation. We don’t need anyone’s permission to do that.”
“Who’s your supervisor?” Casey demanded.
“That would be Dr. Danforth, ma’am, the hospital administrator.”
“Fine, I’ll speak to him. And then I’ll call Mr. Ritter’s son.”
Casey marched away, and Louise stared after her, fuming. Then her rage spilled over and she rushed after Casey, grabbed her arm, spun her around. “Let’s get something straight.” The words hissed through her teeth and she leaned in so close to Casey that Dominica could see the flecks of amber in her beautiful green eyes. “I don’t want you anywhere near Ian, you understand me?”
“Get out of my face, lady.” Casey shoved her away.
Louise staggered back in her high heels, one ankle twisted, she lost a shoe and her balance and fell to the floor on her pretty little ass. “That’s assault. You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”
“Right.” With a toss of her lustrous red hair, Casey turned, wiggling her fingers. “Ta-ta, Louise. I’m off to call Luke.”
Louise had trouble getting up. Her skirt was too tight, the floor was slippery, and a clasp on her garter belt had popped so that one of her stockings sagged. She felt humiliated that the exchange had been witnessed by the orderlies and other personnel. But her wrath interested Dominica most, an emotion she could stoke and manipulate.
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