Out of the Shadows (17 page)

*  *  *

"Boss?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you realize you're pacing?"
Bishop stopped in mid-pace and frowned at his subordinate. "In case I haven't told you, you're a very irritating companion, Tony."
"Hey, I'm not the one wearing a path in the floor," Tony objected. He watched Bishop sit down decisively at his laptop, and added, "Something bothering you?"
"I hate storms."
"It isn't storming yet. I checked when I went to refill the coffeepot, and it's just snowing gently out there. Ground isn't even covered yet. Hell, the phones aren't even ringing with the sounds of worried citizens pestering their constabulary. Just nice and quiet, with deputies working industriously at their desks or playing poker in the lounge."
Bishop waited, but when it became obvious Tony was finished, he gave in and asked, "Where's Miranda?"
"Alex said she went home about half an hour ago. Supposed to be coming back, though. I gather she intends to spend the night here."
Forgetting that he wasn't going to pace anymore, Bishop got up and moved to the window. It looked out onto the lighted parking lot, which showed him a couple of cruisers and numerous other cars all dusted with snow. The snowflakes were getting larger and no longer falling straight down as the wind began to kick up.
"The storm is definitely coming," he said.
"And that's bothering you?"
"I told you. I hate storms." He was silent for a moment. "I don't know why the hell she doesn't just stay home."
"Feels her place is here, I guess."
"You said yourself nothing was happening."
"Yet."
"Even so."
Another silence fell, this one not interrupted until Bishop returned to the desk and picked up the phone.
"I guess you know her number," Tony said.
"Yes, Tony, I know her number."
Undeterred by the sharp tone, Tony watched him with interest. What he sensed in his boss wasn't dislike of the coming storm or mere restlessness but something a whole lot stronger and much less easy to define. And apparently contagious, Tony noted as he stopped his own fingers from drumming on the table.
Jeez, talk about tension.
Bishop hung up the phone. "The machine picked up."
"Maybe she's in the shower."
"Maybe." Bishop returned to the window.
"But you don't think so," Tony ventured.
For a minute it seemed he wouldn't answer, but finally Bishop said, "Something
feels
 wrong."
"Feels wrong how?"
"I don't know."
"Feels wrong with Miranda?"
Bishop hesitated again, then nodded. "I used to— There was a time when I could feel what was going on with her. If she was happy or upset, I knew it."
"That's what you're feeling now?"
"No, this is different. It's like I saw or heard something I wasn't consciously aware of, something that's nagging at me now. Something I know that's just out of my reach."
"Something about Miranda?"
Bishop looked at the phone, his restlessness as clear as his reluctance to make a fool of himself. "I'll wait ten minutes and call again. In case she's in the shower."
Tony caught himself drumming his fingers again, and stopped. "Yeah," he said. "That sounds like a good idea."

*  *  *

The hot water made Miranda feel better, and by the time she'd dried her hair and dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater, even her appetite had returned. She looped an elastic band around her wrist to use later in tying back her hair.
In the living room she turned the television on for background noise and weather reports. It was only then that she noticed the Ouija board lying on the floor.
She grabbed her gun instantly, wondering why the game was the only thing disturbed in the room. An intruder would have taken her gun, surely; it had been clearly visible. Why knock a game board to the floor?
With her shields up and defenses cut off, Miranda could sense nothing unusual in the house. Which meant she would have to move carefully, room by room, turning on the lights, checking windows and all the outer doors, looking into closets and corners.
There was a quicker and easier way, she told herself. It wouldn't matter if she dropped her shields for just a moment or two. Just long enough to get a sense of the house, to make sure she was alone.
Miranda didn't fully realize the great strain of keeping those shields up constantly for so long until she allowed them to fall. For just an instant, the ache in her head intensified—and then vanished like a soap bubble. Her ears actually popped as though she were coming down from a high altitude, and her vision blurred before becoming so sharp that she blinked in surprise.
The moment of well-being was wonderful.
What came next was agony.
She dropped the gun, both hands going to her head, the red-hot jolt of pain making her sway. Even stunned, she instinctively recognized an attack, knew that something, some energy, was trying to force its way into her mind. Just as instinctively she defended herself.
Her shields slammed back up, reinforced by sheer desperation, and in the same instant she made a violent mental effort to deflect that probing blade of energy.
She almost saw it, white and shimmering and so rapacious it would cut its way into her. She almost saw it.
And then everything went black as pitch and as silent as the grave.
She never heard the phone begin to ring.

*  *  *

The last of Liz's customers left around nine-thirty, which gave her plenty of time to finish cleaning up before the snow got too bad. She left the front door unlocked, in case anybody needed to come in to use the phone, and kept the television above the counter tuned to local weather reports.
They weren't very encouraging, unless you liked a lot of snow.
Liz wasn't thinking about anything in particular, just letting her mind drift, when she suddenly understood what the white shirt meant.
Of course. Of course, it made 
perfect
 sense.
Her first impulse was to call Alex, but a moment's thought made her decide on a trip to the Sheriff's Department. So she worked hurriedly, locked the front door and turned out the lights, then let herself out the rear door and locked it.
She always parked in back, in an alley just a few steps from the door, even though Alex had told her to park in front whenever she worked nights. Liz never worried about it. Just a few steps, after all, and she'd never been afraid no matter how late it was.
It was cold, much colder than it had been just a few hours ago. And the snow was beginning to thicken and blow about as the wind whined restlessly.
Liz started her car, then got out to brush the snow off the windshield while it warmed up. Her wipers weren't the best, and the defroster wasn't very enthusiastic, so she thought a little manual help was in order.
"You're going home late."
She turned with a gasp, then managed a shaky laugh. "And I have to go by the Sheriff's Department first. But what're you doing out—" Then she saw the gleaming knife.
"I'm sorry, Liz. I'm so sorry."
She barely had time to realize that she'd been wrong about the shirt after all when she felt the cold steel of the knife slip into her body with horrifying ease.

At first, Miranda ignored the voice. It was distant and hardly discernible, and besides, she was too tired to care what it was trying to tell her. She didn't know where she was, but it was quiet and peaceful. She had no reason to worry anymore and just wanted to be left alone there.
Miranda.
At the extreme edge of her awareness, she understood that something was touching her. She didn't feel it yet somehow knew the touch existed. And without thinking about it, she realized that without the contact she wouldn't be able to hear ... him ... at all. Not that she was hearing him, not really. She understood what he was saying, but not because her ears told her.
That was strange. She considered it idly, still not caring but mildly interested in the puzzle of the thing. AH her senses, she realized eventually, had shut down. Shut down completely, turned themselves off. And because of that, her body was turning itself off as well. She had the vague impression of a heartbeat slowing down, of lungs no longer drawing in air, and other organs ceasing to function.
Miranda, listen to me. Hear me.
She didn't want to listen to him. He would hurt her again. She knew he would. He would hurt her and she never wanted to be hurt like that again.
You have to let me in, Miranda.
Oh, no. She couldn't let him in. It was dangerous to let him in. Because he'd hurt her again and because ... because it wasn't time. Why wasn't it time? Because ... something else had to happen first. That was it. Somebody else had to die. There had to be five, that was it, that was why she had to wait.
There had to be five.
Please, Miranda. Please let me in. Something's wrong, you have to let me in.
No. She couldn't. She turned away from him and drifted back toward the peaceful darkness. But there was a tugging deep inside her that she hadn't expected, and it was painful. She wanted so badly to let him in, to feel what she had never felt with anyone but him. But that frightened her too, her own need, the hunger that shattered control.
She shied away from it, tried to escape the demands of emotions she didn't want to feel. Tried to break the gossamer thread that seemed to connect her to something ... outside ... something ... someone ...
Miranda ... you're dying. Can't you feel it?
She didn't want to listen to that, because of course she wasn't dying. She couldn't die, not yet. There was something she had to do, something ... important.
Except nothing seemed to matter very much to her. Not now. The darkness was warm and peaceful, and she knew that outside held only anguish and worry and grief. And him. Him, making her life painful and prickly with complications she didn't need. Him making demands. She was so tired.
Let me in ... God damn you, let me in ...
She almost got away, got free, that faint connection so wispy and frayed it couldn't possibly hold her any longer. But then defenses she was barely aware of gave way, and something grabbed her, captured her. Other gossamer threads swirled around her, and where each one touched her she felt a jolt that was pain and pleasure and certainty that seemed to her inevitable. Struggle though she did, she was drawn slowly but inexorably out of the peaceful darkness.
She felt the cold first, a cold that was bone deep, and she knew it had been the beginning of death. Then the slow, heavy beat of her heart, uneven at first, gradually steadying, becoming stronger. Her lungs drew in air in a sudden gasp.
And she was back.
Miranda thought her head was going to explode, and every nerve in her body throbbed. She was cold and she ached, but she could hear again, hear the wind outside whining around the eaves and sleet rattling against the windowpanes. A familiar softness beneath her told her she was in her bed, though she had no memory of being brought upstairs. She knew if she opened her eyes she would see her bedroom around her. And see him.
"Damn you," she heard herself murmur.
"Damn me all you want, as long as you let me in."
She felt his hands framing her face, felt his mouth moving on hers, and no matter how much she wanted to resist she knew she was responding to him. Her body was warming, the cold ache seeping away, and she could feel herself opening up to him, accepting him now willingly where before she had simply given way to his urgent insistence.
There was a hunger in her greater than her will to defy it. A hunger for him. His hands soothed her aching head and his mouth took hers in long, deep, drugging kisses more addictive than any narcotic.
"This isn't fair," she whispered when she could.
"Christ, do you think I care?" Bishop's voice was hoarse.
Miranda forced her eyes to open. She thought she had seen him in every mood, thought she would have recognized any expression his face could wear, but this was a man she had never seen before.
"I didn't let you in." She had to say it.
"I know."
"You promised you wouldn't—"
He kissed her again and said roughly, "Do you really think there's anything I wouldn't do to keep you alive? Even if it gives you another reason to hate me."
Miranda knew he'd find out soon enough that she didn't hate him, but she wanted to argue about this dying business because it didn't make sense to her. But his mouth was moving on hers and his hands were slipping beneath the covers to touch her, and all her consciousness focused on the need he was only feeding. Nothing else mattered.
Their eight years apart seemed to melt away, the clock turning back to a summer during which two new lovers discovered the most extraordinary intimacy either had ever known.
Their bodies remembered first, driven by an urgent hunger that had to be satisfied. Covers were pushed aside, clothing discarded, and they couldn't stop touching and tasting, couldn't get close enough to each other. It was familiar and yet new, their bodies altered by time and experience, more mature now, more aware of their mortality and less careless of life and the pleasures and pains it offered.
They explored the familiar and the different with the utter deliberation of two people who knew too well that each moment was a gift and that they might never get this chance again. They took what life and fate offered them.
Outside, the storm was building, wailing now, and inside there was warmth and intensity, another kind of force that raged silently.
It happened now as it had that summer so long ago, and Miranda was surprised and shaken all over again by the enormity of it. With the passionate physical joining came a mental union so deep and absolute it was as if their two souls merged and became a single entity.
In a flashing instant, Miranda saw his life in the years they had been apart, saw the pleasures and hurts of it, the triumphs and tragedies, the cases that had ended well and those that hadn't. She saw the faces of his friends and co-workers and enemies, saw the places he'd been and the things he'd done, and felt what he had felt. She knew that at the same time he was also reliving her life, her experiences.
It was a wildly exhilarating roller coaster of emotions, and coupled with the potent physical sensations of lovemaking, it pushed them toward an incredible peak so far beyond the reach of most humans that there were no words with which to describe the journey.
Except sheer joy.