Hector whined. She glanced up and saw that he was standing at the foot of the stairs, gazing intently up into the darkness of the second floor.
For the first time she got a look at the steps and the banister. She froze at the sight of the violent, black and purple dreamprints glowing ominously in the shadows.
Hector growled. He did not take his attention off the top of the stairs.
The 911 operator came on the line. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“Intruder in the house,” Chloe whispered.
“Does he have a gun?”
“I don’t know. He’s upstairs.”
“Get out of the house immediately, ma’am.”
“Someone has been hurt. He’s unconscious.”
“Get out of the house. Now.”
8
HE WAS ON THE COMPUTER, TRYING NOT TO THINK ABOUT THE night of doped-up sleep and bad dreams that awaited him when the jolt of awareness struck. It hit like a body blow. He was out of the chair and on his feet, searching for nameless enemies in the shadows of his office before he realized what had happened.
Take it easy. Just another hallucination. They rarely lasted more than a few minutes at most. But invariably he knew that what he was seeing was not real. It was as if his para-senses short-circuited for a brief period and his brain tried to make sense of the resulting confusion.
But what was happening to him now was different. It wasn’t a disorienting moment of visual disturbance when the real world blurred and took on the surreal quality of a dreamscape. It wasn’t an auditory hallucination, either. His first thought was that it was yet another aspect of his new talent. But for some reason the deep, intense awareness and alarm he was experiencing seemed focused on Chloe Harper.
His unease was not irrational, he thought. After all, he had a hell of a lot riding on Chloe. If she could not locate the lamp he was going to find himself right up against a very hard wall. He’d been thinking about her constantly since he had left her office, the strat side of his nature trying to plot ways to stay in control of what was fast becoming an out-of-control situation.
But logic went only so far. He could not escape the feeling that something really bad was going down and that Chloe was in the middle of it.
He took out his phone and punched in the number of Harper Investigations. Goth Girl answered on the third or fourth ring. He heard the sound of music playing in the background. Opera, of all things.
“Is your boss there?” he asked.
“She’s out on a case,” Rose said.
“It’s after midnight.”
“Stakeout. Her sort-of ex thinks one of his students is stalking him.”
“Where is she?”
“That kind of information is supposed to be confidential at a detective agency,” Rose said.
“She’s in trouble—I can feel it.” He did not bother to put the energy of his new talent into words. He wanted to scare her a little, but the laws of para-physics being what they were, psi waves did not travel through cell phones, cyberspace or any other kind of high- tech device. But he was still a strat. He had picked up on the close bond between Rose and Chloe that afternoon. You didn’t have to have a lot of talent to know how to work an angle like that.
“You really think so?” Rose asked, dubious, but concerned.
“Look, you know your boss is psychic, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, sure.”
It was a relief to be dealing with someone who actually believed in the paranormal.
“So am I,” he said. “Trust me on this. Chloe is in danger.”
“Okay, this is really weird. I’ve been getting a little nervous, myself, for the past few minutes. Chloe says I’ve got good intuition. Hang on, I’ll give her a call.”
He left his office and went out into the living room. The sight of his newly decorated condo with its cold, polished concrete floor and sleek steel-and-glass design did nothing to ease his prowling tension. He went to the wall of windows and looked out at the view of the black expanse of Elliott Bay and the lights of West Seattle while he waited. Another storm was coming in. He could feel it.
Rose came back a moment later. She sounded seriously worried now.
“She’s not answering her phone,” Rose said. “You’re right, something’s wrong. I knew that weasel was using the Mad Cheerleader to manipulate her.”
He headed for the door, fishing his keys out of his pocket. “Give me an address.”
“What are you going to do?” Rose asked.
“Find her.”
“Pick me up first. I’m coming with you.”
“Waste of time.”
“Please. I don’t have a car of my own. I need to get to her.”
The rising anxiety in Rose’s voice cut deep. She was starting to panic.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I have an apartment across the hall from Chloe’s. Right above the office. I’ll meet you downstairs on the sidewalk.”
9
THE SMELL OF KEROSENE WAFTED DOWN THE STAIRCASE. HECTOR growled again. There was a sudden, terrifying whoosh. The top of the stairs was abruptly illuminated with a hellish glow.
“Oh, shit,” Chloe whispered.
“Ma’am? Are you out of the house?” the 911 operator demanded.
The smoke detectors kicked in. The screech drowned out Hector, who was now barking furiously. Upstairs the fire roared like a freight train as it gathered energy.
“Trust me, I’m getting out of here as fast as I can,” Chloe said.
She closed the phone, dropped it into her pocket and jumped to her feet. Hooking her hands under Fletcher’s shoulders she heaved with all of her strength. His head lolled. His body moved only a couple of inches on the carpet. He weighed a ton.
So much for the famous adrenaline rush that was supposed to give a woman abnormal strength in an emergency, she thought. It dawned on her that she had to get Fletcher off the carpet and onto the hardwood floor where there would be less friction. She dropped his shoulders, knelt beside him and started to roll him toward the entrance.
To her amazement, the technique worked. Fletcher’s head flopped on the rug a few times in the process. He would probably have some bruises in the morning, she thought, but at least he would be alive. Maybe. Always assuming she could haul him out the door before the house burned down around them.
Hector was in a frenzy now. He trotted back and forth between the open door and the foot of the staircase, howling.
“Outside,” she ordered. It was the word she always used when she announced that they were going for a walk.