Chapter 4
Thursday, 7:12 a.m.
“Hey, partner,” came Andy Hall’s voice as he opened the door to the office he and Moira shared in the Dallas Federal Building. Moira looked up from her desk, where she sat hunched over a mound of paperwork. She started to utter a return greeting, but then the weight of her memories from the previous day came crashing down on her like cement blocks. Particularly the part where she’d collapsed into sobs in the car, and he’d had to hold her for several minutes while she composed herself. Her cheeks flushed redder than her hair.
“Hey, listen,” Andy spoke into the awkward silence, holding up his hands to forestall further embarrassment. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Far as I’m concerned, it never –“
“…No,” Moira replied, hesitantly at first. And then, with greater certainty: “No. It did happen. And you – you were there for me.” She stood up, and put a hand on his suited arm. Her grey eyes fixed warmly on his, and a moment passed between them in silence. “I won’t forget that.”
Andy beamed for a moment, and then the smile turned wry. “So she has a heart,” he teased.
Moira snorted and punched him playfully in the arm. “Doesn’t give you the right to be mean to me!” she replied in a feigned huff. Then she grabbed her coat off the back of her chair. “Now, come on.”
“Where we going?” Andy asked, turning instantly sober and professional.
“New assignment.”
“New assignment?” he probed, confused. “I didn’t get any –“
“I just got it myself. Come on, I’ll explain on the way.”
And with that, she was out the door, moving with a brisk stride. As she walked, she turned and saw a smirk come over Andy's face. He didn't say anything, but she knew him well enough to read his expression: Some things will never change.
--
Fifteen minutes later, the two of them sat in their car, which was parked curbside a few houses away from the Cronlords. “Moira,” Andy intoned. “What are we doing here?”
“Stakeout,” Moira replied briefly.
“Stakeout?” Andy raised an eyebrow. “For what? Being a snide bitch isn’t a federal crime, Moira.”
Moira didn’t answer. Andy took a moment silently, contemplating how to proceed. He did not want to ruin the goodwill he had apparently gained with his partner the previous day, but at the same time …. “Being a member of a kooky religious cult isn’t a federal crime, either,” he said gently, trying an appeal to her law-and-order side. “Unless you’ve got proof she’s actively abusing her daughter, we can’t arrest her for nutty beliefs. There’d be a lot more scientologists in jail if we could,” he quipped, finishing with a wry smile.
“We’re investigating the house burnings, remember? That’s our official assignment. We have reasonable suspicion that this woman and her family are going to be targeted soon. Nothing unconstitutional about acting on credible intelligence to prevent a crime from being committed. Hell, that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
The argument made sense, but Andy knew his partner. Moira had kept her gaze fixed straight ahead as she spoke, never looking toward him or making eye contact. That meant she was rationalizing – that Andy’s suspicions about her motives were right, and at some level she even knew it, but she didn’t want to admit it.
So he had to make her admit it. “And there aren’t any more-efficient ways we could go about catching our pyromaniac hoodlums?” he asked. “Say, talking to the families of the kids whose DNA matches the hair and skin samples we found at the glue factory? Finding out what their favorite hang-outs might be?
Moira stared straight ahead, silently.
“This isn’t about the house fires for you anymore, is it?” Andy asked.
“Look,” Moira turned a look on Andy that was half insistent, half pleading. “I need to at least try on this one, okay? Whatever they did to Ian – the worst of it started at about Alex’s age. He would come home from these meetings he couldn’t talk about, completely exhausted even when he’d slept a full night the night before. If something like that’s being done to Alex, we can find it. We can stop it. I just – I know it seems crazy to you, I don’t blame you, but… give me this one day. Please?”
Andy sat for a long moment in silence, struck by Moira’s conviction. “I – all right, Agent McBain,” he nodded finally in assent. “We’ll play it your way. Let the stakeout for the fire-starting hoodlums commence.”
Moira smiled at him as if her face might break. “Thank you,” she whispered.
--
9:10 a.m.
“Alex!” came Ainsling’s insistent, chirping voice, and the rapping noise told Alex that her mother was knocking at her door. She groaned – could morning possibly have come already? As exhausted as the previous day had left her, she felt that she could easily sleep another full night through. Slowly, grudgingly, she opened her eyes –
And they went wide as they saw the green digital numbers staring back at her on her alarm clock. 9:10 A.M., it said. “Shit!” she cursed, leaping out of bed with panic gripping her heart. She’d have missed a full period at school already, but if she hurried she could make most of second period. She’d have to forgo her morning shower, which she disliked doing, but being as late as she was would be embarrassing enough.
She bolted to her closet, threw on a pair of jeans and the first t-shirt she could reach, then raced for her door, pulling it open – and nearly toppling her mother as she started to charge through it.
“Whoa, Alex!” Ainsling cried, holding up a hand to forestall her daughter’s frantic motion. “You’re in quite the hurry.”
“School, mom!” Alex answered frantically, a bit annoyed that her mother was blocking her path out of her room and, thus, out of the house. “I’m already an hour late, I can’t believe I slept through my alarm!” As always, she could hear her mother’s reproving lecture coming, and this time, she agreed with it entirely.
“You didn’t,” Ainsling told her calmly. “I turned it off.”
Alex’s eyes were the size of dinner plates in a heartbeat. “You what?” she asked, utterly disbelieving.
“I turned it off,” she told her daughter. “I felt that you could use the extra sleep after yesterday’s ordeal. Besides which, you’re not going to school today – I’ve scheduled you a doctor’s appointment.”
“A – a doctor’s….” Alex was confused.
“You were attacked yesterday, right?” Ainsling asked rhetorically, her tone suggesting that she found it silly that her daughter had not already thought of this. “Well then, best let a doctor take a look at you. Make sure nothing’s broken or torn.”
Alex smiled unexpectedly at her mother, actually flattered by the unexpected show of concern. “I – thanks, Mom, but I’m fine, and I really should go to school, don’t want to get behind this early in the –“
Ainsling shook her head. “Nonsense. I’ve spoken with your principal – he’s assigned students to take notes in each of your classes. You can use those to catch up when you return. Now, come on – your appointment’s at 10:30.”
Alex started to protest – but stopped herself, remembering how exhausted she still felt. A day off would not be the worst thing in the world, even if it did mean getting poked and prodded by a doctor, and perhaps even stuck by a needle or two. Besides, it would be a welcome relief not to face her classmates’ uncomfortable questions about Lucian and what had happened with him and why he wasn’t in school today.
“All right, Mom,” she smiled a very genuine smile at her mother. “I’ll go take my shower.”
--
9:55 a.m.
As it turned out, there was a donut shop around the corner, and so Andy had just returned with chocolate donuts and a cup of coffee for each of them when the Cronlords’ car backed out of their garage. “Whoa, we have movement!” Andy remarked as he settled back into his seat, handing Moira her coffee. “Didn’t the dad already go to work?”
Moira nodded. “About ten minutes after we showed up, yeah. So that must be the mom. But wait a minute ….” she squinted her eyes, putting her cup in the cup holder between their seats. “I see two people in that car.”
“Alex is with her?”
Moira nodded. “And it’s a little late to be driving her to school, don’t you think?” she asked, reaching for the keys and sticking them in the ignition.
Andy laughed gently. “You’ll really find witchcraft in anything, won’t you?”
Moira turned an annoyed look on her partner. “I thought you were with me on this.”
“I am, but … the girl’s probably sick, Moira. They’re probably on their way to a doctor’s appointment.”
“One way to find out,” Moira answered, starting the car as quietly as she could and following at what she hoped was a discreet distance. They rode along in silence for perhaps ten minutes before seeing the Cronlords’ car turn into the parking lot of the Southwestern Medical Center. Moira started to follow them into the parking lot, but Andy objected.
“She’s taking her daughter to the hospital, Moira. There’s nothing ominous about it.”
Moira held up a hand to forestall her partner’s further objections. She found them a parking space, and together, they watched Ainsling walk Alex across the parking lot and toward the hospital building, the mid-morning sunlight catching in Alex’s blond hair. “What are we gonna do, Moira?” Andy asked. “Follow them into the doctor’s office? You know, I’m pretty sure that’s a HIPAA violation …. “
Moira shook her head, turning off the car. “Just follow me. One more step, then we’re through.”
Andy gave a long-suffering sigh and shrugged. “Might as well …. “
He followed his partner as she took off at a brisk stride toward the hospital building, dodging around an EMS crew racing toward an ambulance. They jogged through the entry doors – which opened automatically at their approach – and to the main reception desk. “Excuse me,” Moira spoke to the attendant behind the desk, who looked as if he’d slept far too little recently. “We’re friends of Alex Cronlord – we hear she was admitted here recently.”
The attendant silently turned his attention to the computer in front of him. A moment passed with only the tap-tap-tap sounds of the keyboard and the background noise of the hospital filling the air. And then, he looked up at Moira and said disinterestedly. “Nope. No Cronlord here. Sorry,” and turned back to looking at something on the desk in front of him.
Moira shot Andy an ominous look, and this time, Andy didn't answer.
--
“Now, why don’t you just sit down, young lady?” the kindly, gray-haired doctor said to Alex as her mother ushered her into his office. He pointed her to the examining table – which looked as sterile as everything else in the office – and Alex reluctantly walked over and sat down. She was beginning to wonder if she should have insisted on going to school after all, not that her mother would have listened in any event. Hospitals always put her off her ease.
The doctor turned and fiddled with a few things on his desk as Ainsling gave Alex an expectant look. Alex was baffled – Lucian had barely touched her, and she was self-evidently unharmed. For Ainsling to have arranged this checkup was sweet, but largely unnecessary. Couldn’t her mother see that? “Mom, it’s okay,” Alex tried to soothe her.
“Just sit still, Alex,” Ainsling answered, her voice also sounding tense. Nervous. “Just sit very still.”
“What? Wh –“ Alex’s speech was cut off as she saw the doctor turn around with a syringe in his hand, full of a milky white liquid.
“Wait – wait a minute,” Alex protested, starting to lift herself from the examining table. “There’s no need for – I’m not even behind on any –“
“Give me a hand, would you, Ainsling?” the doctor asked, studying the syringe’s contents intently.
“Of course,” Ainsling replied, rising from her seat in a smooth, fluid motion, almost like a predator lunging for its cornered prey. She grabbed one of Alex’s arms in a vise grip and forced her back down to the examining table. Ainsling’s nails were like claws pressing against Alex’s skin – it really hurt.
“Mom,” Alex winced. “Mom, what are you ….”
The doctor approached as Ainsling regarded Alex wordlessly, her green eyes fixed on Alex’s face with an almost unthinking intensity. Ainsling Cronlord had always been a source of apprehension and even fear to her daughter, with her stern and often unforgiving manner, but never like this ….
She winced in pain as the needle went into her arm.
Fire lanced through Alex’s entire body, spreading from her temples to her toes and then arcing upward again. Somewhere, she thought she heard a man’s voice say something about “ … need to watch her very carefully,” and a woman’s voice ask “How long do you think this will take?” and a man’s voice reply, “In a few hours, we should know …. ” But she neither knew nor cared any longer who the voices belonged to. For moments that seemed like ages, all she knew or cared about was the pain, the horrible fire shooting up and down her body. And then, finally, slowly, blessedly, the pain subsided, fading from her temples and her chest and her joints and giving way to ….
Nothing.
She ran down a gravel street, looking down at black boots that weren’t hers as she huffed and puffed, racing to catch up with her target. She threw all the speed and stamina that years of keeping herself in top physical shape gave her into the chase, determined not to let her quarry escape her. “STOP!” she called, in a voice that wasn’t hers. It was much deeper, more vibrant, as if it came from an adult. “FBI!”
She drew her weapon – what weapon? – quickly from its holster at her side, then raised her eyes to fix the man she pursued again. In her peripheral vision, Alex saw the houses on either side of the street down which she chased the man – and, with a start, recognized the street as hers. The man ran impossibly fast, easily outpacing her despite her being in peak physical shape. His tall, thin frame was clad in black, and when he looked over his shoulder at her, she saw the sculpted features beneath the engaging eyes. Lucian.
Alex was confused. Lucian was dead. This could not possibly be. And yet, it did not slow her even for a second as she continued the pursuit, curly red hair bouncing in front of her face as she continued the pursuit. Red hair? Alex had thought she was blond. She raised her weapon, fired a shot into the air. This startled Lucian. He turned a surprised look on her, and in the time it took him to do so, she surged ahead, closing half the distance between them. Just a few feet more ….
Alex awoke, shivering and sweating, in her own bed. Late afternoon sun streamed in through the window, and her mother sat at her bedside, put a gentle hand on her arm as she saw Alex stir. “How are you feeling, dear?” Ainsling asked, in as close to warmth as her voice ever got.
Alex actually recoiled, shrinking away from her mother’s hand as she turned an aghast face on Ainsling. “Wh – what did you do to me?” she asked weakly, her throat feeling very dry, as if someone had shoved cotton down it.
Ainsling shook her head, her expression suggesting she found Alex’s reaction laughable. “Nothing, dear. The doctor was trying to give you a routine inoculation – your body reacted badly. That’s all,” she told Alex in soothing tones.
Alex regarded her mother with suspicion and scorn. She inched further away from Ainsling on the bed, as if her mother might attack her at any moment – though if she did, Alex had no idea how she might defend herself, since she felt so exhausted that she could barely move. “Would you like something, dear?” Ainsling asked her. “Water, perhaps? Dinner won’t be ‘till later, when your father gets home.”
Alex nodded groggily, and her mother stood and walked out of the room, presumably going to the bathroom down the hall to fill a glass with tap water. Alex lay back in bed, balancing her current unease with her mother against her current inability to do … much of anything, really. The prospect of doing so much
as rising to a standing position felt overwhelming to Alex, whose head felt as if it were being pushed through mush and whose stomach felt as if she had not eaten in several days. Silently, Alex started to concede that her mother had won – and then she remembered.
The street. The chase. Lucian. He was alive. How could he be alive? She had killed him herself, she had stuck a knife right into his chest. But she had ignored her dream once before, and had nearly paid for it with her life. Alex’s cheeks still burned with humiliation as she remembered how she had played right into his hands, walked into his trap like a lamb to the slaughter. But this time, if she understood her dream correctly, it was not she who might die, it was someone else. She had no idea who, but … she could not let someone else suffer what she had nearly suffered. She had to at least assume that the dream might be real, that it was somehow predictive of the future.
Alex reminded herself that she had no way of knowing when the scene she had dreamed about might occur. After all, she had dreamed of being chased by Lucian on a Sunday night, and it had not happened until a Wednesday afternoon. But somehow, she knew that this dream would happen today – she felt it.
Hesitantly, and with her own body fighting her at every turn, she tried to haul herself out of bed. Attempting to stand brought instant dizziness and nausea, so instead, she crawled out of bed, on her hands and knees, trying to do so as quietly as possible. All the time, she kept one ear pointed toward her bedroom door, listening intently for the footsteps that would signal her mother’s impending return. To her dismay, she heard them almost as soon as she’d lowered herself to the floor.
Well, shit, thought Alex. She had planned to crawl to her closet, attempt to hide in there and hope her mother didn’t find her. It was a rather feeble plan, and even she knew it, but in her current, weakened state, she wasn’t sure what else she could do. She did not bother to ask herself how, in such a state, she hoped to stop whatever harm Lucian planned for the woman she had dreamed about. Instead, she merely crawled under her bed as she heard her mother call out, “Alex? I’ve got water.”
She heard her mother’s footsteps as she crossed the threshold, and could practically feel Ainsling’s confusion as she entered the room and found Alex gone. “Alex?” she called, sternness creeping into her voice. “This is no time for childish games.”
She heard her mother’s footsteps and silently closed her eyes, cringing with certainty that her mother would come straight to the bed, then lean down and look under it, at which point the jig would be up … but Ainsling did not. A moment later, Alex realized with a great rush of relief that her mother had gone to her closet instead, opening it and peering inside. “Alex! Stop this foolishness!” Ainsling chastised her. “I don’t know what you’ve got in your head, but I am not trying to hurt you.”
Alex’s heart pounded in her chest as her mother continued. “I do need to ask you some questions, though,” Ainsling said, trying to sound soothing – and it sounded obvious that she was trying. “I need to know if you … if you saw anything. Like on Sunday night – the dream about the boy who attacked you, remember? Did something like that happen? At the hospital?”
Sickening rage and petrifying fear mixed in Alex’s gut. Just concerned about my health. Yeah, right. She could feel the blood pulsing between her temples as the emotional cocktail gnawed away inside her stomach. She heard her mother’s footsteps come closer. It would be only seconds now ….
And then, from downstairs, the doorbell chimed.
Alex heard her mother scoff at the noise. Her shadow descended over the bed, and for a moment Alex wondered if she was about to be discovered anyway, if her mother’s last act before answering the door would be to catch her daughter in the act. But no, she heard a clinking noise, and then heard Ainsling turn on her heel and march downstairs to answer the door. Only as she heard the heavy footfalls that meant that her mother was descending the stairs did Alex allow herself to exhale, heaving a deep sigh of relief.
She crawled slowly out from under the bed, brought herself to a sitting position, and looked around the room. Looking up at her bedside table, she saw that her mother had left the glass of water there. Reaching for it gratefully, she put it to her lips, taking small sips at first, testing whether her system would hold it. When she was comfortable that she would not simply vomit up anything she drank, she tilted the glass, and drank the remainder in a long, steady swallow.
Then she pondered her next move. Somehow she had to get outside before the mysterious red-haired woman was attacked. And she had to do it without her mother noticing.
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