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The next several minutes would be seared into Mariah’s brain forever. Every miniscule detail would become so clearly separated that each might be a single film cell taken from a 35mm movie roll.

Frannie saw Mariah’s horrified expression at the exact moment her brain registered Damion’s shriek. She vaulted out of her seat, simultaneously yanking the gun out of her purse and flipping off the safety. She pivoted around to face in the direction of the voice.

Kelly Garrett caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He frowned, watching a man dressed in white shirt and pants walk slowly down the aisle.

Suddenly Kelly caught the glint of metal from the stage lights. Jumping to his feet, he reached inside his jacket, his hand closing around the Sig Saur P226 in his shoulder holster. He took a step into the center aisle—and was momentarily blocked by the elderly gentleman with the bladder problem who was just now coming back from the restrooms. Kelly pushed him aside roughly. He had no time for niceties.

As he side stepped the old man and raised his gun, he saw the man in white brace himself by spreading his legs and raising both arms. Then he heard Damion scream and heard the
whump
of the colt being discharged.

The church reverberated with the roar of Damion’s gun, and everyone saw the smoke erupt from the barrel. A second blast, booming like a cannon, erupted almost immediately after the first, followed milliseconds by a
crack
! that sounded like a firecracker.

Two more explosions followed, like detonating hand grenades. The five shots, milliseconds apart, sounded like a fusillade.

Damion’s bullet should have buried itself in Mariah’s chest. Before he could register his failure and pull the trigger again, the bullet from Garrett’s P226 belted him between his shoulder blades with a force like a line drive. Frannie’s Glock exploded, the shot tearing into his solar plexus. The simultaneous impact of both revolvers kept Damion upright for a split second, but he was dead on his feet. Kelly’s bullet severed his spinal column, rupturing his heart’s left ventricle, and Frannie’s shot shredded his aorta.

As Damion lurched and began to fall, the muscles in his hand contracted reflexively, causing his index finger to complete the action it had started—and the Colt erupted for the last time. As the dead man’s knees buckled, Garrett’s second shot took him in the head.

This time, the hollow point bullet from Grandad’s colt did what it was intended to do ... but to the wrong person. It struck Frannie in the chest, the powerful wallop lifting her off her feet, slamming her body into the stage. She never felt her breastbone splinter as the bullet continued its devastating path, ripping a hole in her left lung, tearing into her aorta. She slid down, her legs sticking out in front of her, dark red blood spurting rhythmically from her chest, pooling beneath her.

Mariah leaped off the stage. Landing in Frannie’s blood, she skidded, catching herself on the edge of the stage as she fell to her knees.

Garrett slammed into screaming people pouring out of the pews, needing to get them out of his way in an effort to reach Mariah. Momentarily, he bent down to retrieve the old Colt still clutched in Damion’s hand.

Automatically sliding the safety on then jamming the gun into his jacket pocket, he watched Mariah Carpenter pull Agent Manzetti against her body, cradling the dead woman’s head against her chest. Unmindful of the blood she knelt in, Mariah rocked back and forth, keening, “No, no, no,” in a high-pitched, hysterical voice. His heart shuddered in sympathy, but he had to get her out of there. No telling if the murderer had an accomplice.

Through the din of panic-stricken babbling, Fuhrman’s voice came over the loud-speakers. It was strong and soothing, trying to calm everyone down, repeating over and over to “Please sit back down in your seats so no one will get hurt, it’s all over, please ladies and gentlemen, sit down, it’s all over...” But he was ignored as people continued to stampede for the doors.

Kelly holstered his weapon. Elbowing people out of the way, he found Frannie’s Glock by her side where it had slipped from her fingers. No matter that it was covered in blood; he picked it up, thumbed the safety on, and dropped it into his other pocket.

Steeling himself for what he had to do, he grabbed Mariah around the waist and yanked her to her feet. Surprisingly, she offered no resistance. Kelly felt like he was holding a rag doll. Moving her away from Manzetti’s body, he shouted in her ear over the pandemonium, “I’m sorry, Miss Carpenter.” His voice was intentionally commanding as he tried to pierce the din. “There’s nothing you can do for Agent Manzetti now. I’ve got to get you out of here immediately.”

He half carried, half pushed her toward the exit on the right, shielding her body from the crowd with his own. The police officer guarding the doorway was valiantly trying to keep people from panicking as they streamed out of the open door by repeating what Fuhrman was saying. When he spotted Mariah covered in blood, and a man propelling her toward him, the officer shoved several people out of the way, whipping out his gun at the same time. The mob convulsed, seeing the gun pointed their way. The people in the front tried to scrabble over those behind them.

Crushing Mariah against his body with one arm, Kelly grabbed his jacket lapel and wrenched it back, exposing his FBI identification. The two men nodded to each other. Garrett squeezed out of the doorway. The policeman holstered his gun and resumed his demand for people to calm down and file out orderly before someone got trampled.

As Garrett exited the church, the back door of a car idling at the curb opened, and FBI Agent Celia Montgomery got out. She and the driver had been assigned to watch the parking lot from their unmarked car. When the gunfire erupted in the church, they drove to the side door in case they might be needed.

Amid the surge of humanity flowing out of the church, Garrett lifted his charge off her feet and slid her into the car. Mariah Carpenter was covered in blood; however Celia, who had been in law enforcement for fifteen years, instinctively knew it was not hers. The lady’s skin was ashen, her eyes glazed over and lifeless, and the expression on her face was frozen.

Agent Montgomery had seen people in shock before. Mariah Carpenter looked nearly catatonic. When Kelly yelled, “
Go
!” to the driver, the tires squealed and the car took off for the safe house. Celia’s heart lurched, her breath catching in her throat as she tried to get a response out of Mariah by rubbing her cold hands. She knew that her murmured words of encouragement fell on deaf ears.

It was Friday evening, nearly three weeks after the death of Frannie Manzetti and the insanity in the church that injured thirty people. Thomas sat in Michael’s office, stress lines radiating across his face.

“I’m really worried about her,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. “I realize she’s still going through the grieving process. They were really close. And she was crushed when the new agent in charge wouldn’t let her attend the funeral.” He paused, his memory of the Sunday Frannie died as vivid today as when it happened.

He had just parked his truck in the driveway when a dark blue Thunderbird came barreling down the street, squealing around the curve in the cul-de-sac and shuddering to a stop in front of the house. Momentarily stunned, Thomas watched a tall black woman emerge from the back door and hurry around to the side nearest him, closely followed by the driver. Opening the door, she leaned in, obviously talking to whoever was inside.

He spotted a flash of azure through the open door. It was the color of Mariah’s favorite church dress. Thomas bolted for the car, his heart racing.

Shouldering both agents aside, he lifted her out until she was pressed tightly against his chest. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder.

Thomas headed for the house, acutely aware of the bloodstains soaking the front of Mariah’s dress. They weren’t hers, thank God: if they were, she’d be in the hospital right now. As the agent opened the front door for him, his stomach wrenched painfully. The absence of Manzetti, Mariah’s best friend—and constant shadow—was a bad sign. Thomas took an educated guess as to whose blood it was.

Michael cleared his throat, returning Thomas to the present. “She talks to me and we still make love. I mean it’s
her
. But it isn’t. I’m frustrated because I feel so helpless. I don’t know how to make it better. There’s something I should be doing, or saying, but I don’t know what. I held her when she finally cried her heart out over Frannie’s death...” Thomas paused, swallowing the lump in his throat”... and I thought for sure it would be just what she needed.”

He stared miserably past Michael’s shoulder through the window beyond. The bright sunny day mocked the appalling depression they were all fighting. “Not being able to attend Frannie’s funeral was a terrible blow, but she understood. Agent Winters told her the fucking media vultures would have the cemetery surrounded waiting for her to show up so they could get pictures of her crying her heart out at Frannie’s, uh, grave.”

Tears welled in his eyes. “You know Mariah got a letter from Mrs. Manzetti?” Michael nodded and Thomas continued, his voice hoarse. ”Mrs. Manzetti said that she used to worry constantly about her daughter not having a close friend. But after Frannie met Miss Carpenter, she talked about their friendship all the time. Mrs. Manzetti was so happy that Frannie had found a real friend at last, someone she could confide in. She also said she didn’t blame Mariah at all for what happened. Her Francesca had died doing what she loved to do.”

He sighed, as much for the loss of Frannie as for his sense of failure. Staring down at his hands, he said, “The tears are gone but Mariah is still withdrawn. No matter what Mrs. Manzetti said, she does blame herself. Especially when she learned that Lazote’s first round, the one fired at her, was found imbedded in the wall behind her, about five feet over her head. Since it was impossible for his shot to go that wild, there’s only one logical explanation; she psychically deflected the bullet without realizing she did it.

“I suggested she might want to check in with a shrink who could help her handle her grief. All I got was an ‘I don’t need one’ response.” Thomas’ aggravation radiated out in waves, catching Michael in its path.

“She said that if she was able to deflect the bullet aimed at her, she should’ve been able to deflect the one that killed Frannie.”

Thomas stood up and began to pace. He was a man used to resolving problems, yet now he was stymied.

Michael’s voice was filled with the pain he, too, felt. “I wish I could be of more help, but I’m also at a loss. When I visited her several days after the ... tragedy ... I tried to make her understand that she was not responsible. I was disturbed by the expression, or lack of one I should say, on her face. It was almost the same look as the night Everett Hinckley died. Remember? Reminding her of all the lives she saved, not only Sophie’s and Estella’s, but the other children, did nothing to change that detached look.”

Thomas stopped pacing and shuffled back to the couch. Michael glanced up at the picture over his head: the Victoria Falls were not having their usual calming effect today.

“I told her that everything happened so fast, it would’ve been impossible for
anyone
to react quickly enough.” Michael bowed his head for a moment. “I tried to make her understand that she couldn’t be held accountable for talents she didn’t know she had. What she did to protect herself was pure instinct, a matter of self-preservation. She didn’t even know she had deflected the bullet.

“She listened, but that’s about it. She didn’t respond. Not once. I don’t believe I got through.”

But he had, although not in any way he could have imagined.

Mariah stared pensively off into space when Thomas had left her alone. Inadvertently, his words lifted the fog of bewilderment from her mind, and clarified her immense pain.

It was the entire crux of the matter. She never experimented with this psychic phenomenon to see what she could do, never tried to find her limits, never practiced, tweaked, or developed these talents. Instead she allowed herself to be manipulated and controlled—a freaking, woodenheaded Pinocchio.

No more
.

Mariah Adele Carpenter was finally able to say, without reservation, that God had nothing to do with the
Findings
. The facts did not add up to a divine miracle.

Fact: she psychically conversed with kidnapped children over long distances, seeing through their eyes when she was in their heads.

Fact: she could manipulate people, cause great pain, even scare them to death.

Fact: she was capable of astral projection, sometimes referred to as an out-of-body experience; however, something had been added to this phenomenon because she was visible to Hinckley.

Fact: she was undergoing physical, mental, and emotional changes at an astonishing rate, increasing beyond what had occurred since the
Visitation
.

With all that, the rest of her suppositions fit together like Lego’s.

The trips to Planet X were not dreams after all, they were astral projections. The two aliens she saw through the malleable barrier were not her imagination. The extreme differences in climate, the odd plants, the peculiar skies, the thrum of machinery—it all made sense now. Instead of being a fantasy world created in her subconscious, she was sure she had projected into a facility designed with chambers of extreme temperature differences.

What more proof did she need than her last trip? Standing in a desert, the hair on her body sizzling from the intense heat, she had witnessed two large, sentient beings conversing by a lake in a lush, fertile valley.

Thinking of the two aliens, Mariah remembered something that had not registered before.

The dark-skinned one had been waving his hands around. Hands with three long fingers and one long thumb. And the skin on the exposed parts of his body looked like scales that were flexible, allowing him complete mobility.

Mariah looked down at her hands. Her thumbs were approximately an inch longer than they used to be, and her pinkies were shorter by about the same amount. She glanced down at her legs: the hair was definitely thicker, almost forming a pattern that might be mistaken for scales.

Fact:
Mariah Adele Carpenter was evolving into an alien, probably the same race as the two she had seen.

She knew precisely when this evolution began ... that morning at three o’clock when she tried to commit suicide, the morning of the
Visitation
. Swept along in a current of religious fervor, she allowed herself to believe it was God who came to her that night. That notion deepened when she began the
Findings
. Who else but God could grant her the power to perform these miracles?

But it wasn’t God. At least not in the Judeo-Christian sense.

Something
had wrapped its arms around her and held her. And that something, or someone, had altered her physically and mentally. Remembering how aware she had been of her body, she was sure this entity had completed a
Joining
, the same as she did with others. Still, instead of using the strength from her body for its own purpose, it had given her something with far greater implications then she could imagine.

Adrenaline spiked her bloodstream, her heart beating rapidly and her breath catching in her throat.
He had altered her DNA
.

Back to the question she posed in Michael’s office the day they met: Why? If these extraterrestrials wanted to use her as a weapon, they really messed up badly. If they were looking to conquer the planet (okay, so too many alien invasion movies) they were certainly going about it in an odd way.

What did they want? Was she just another experiment? Did they want to find out what would happen to a human being if injected with their DNA? Somehow it just didn’t feel right. Furthermore, why wasn’t she paralyzed with fear if she believed she was evolving into an alien? She was missing vital information only they could provide.

Mariah had no way to contact them; nevertheless, she felt certain that they watched everything she did. And for now, they were playing a waiting game.

Well, Mariah Carpenter was through being manipulated. It was time to take an active role in her development. She smiled, feeling alive for the first time since Frannie had died. Mariah felt sure her friend’s death was not part of their plan, but she was not about to let it be for nothing. It was time she found out exactly what she
could
do, just how far these talents went—and how she could use them to her advantage.