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But that wasn’t what she felt. Instead of the growing relief and joy she had felt when she first saw the girl, something else took over. As Laura cradled her to her chest, she felt the encroaching chill of something dark. Something that she couldn’t name, but she could feel it running icy fingers down her spine. The girl—there was something wrong with the girl. There was something wrong with her future. The darkness wasn’t over.
Laura could feel it as real as if the entire room had been plunged into darkness. There was more night to come.
But, exhausted as she was, there was no vision. Only the feeling of a chill running through every one of her bones, plunging her into icy water. It was a…darkness around this girl.
Laura had no idea what that meant. She was safe now, for today. She could see that clearly.
But not for long. Somehow, inexplicably, a darkness was still before her.
The girl was still in danger.
CHAPTER FOUR
Laura hugged her arms across her chest, tapping the empty polystyrene cup against her upper arm. Instead of the hospital’s sickly overhead lighting and the faint smell of antiseptic, all she could think about was the feeling of darkness that had rolled over her when she’d held Amy. The fear that even now was still making her heart race.
“You want another coffee?” Nate asked, making her look around. Laura hadn’t even realized he was there. There was still a little dust in his dark coiled hair, buzzed neatly across the top of his forehead.
“Probably best not to,” Laura said, giving him a wry look. She was already wired, energy thrumming under her skin. It didn’t sit well against the bone-weary exhaustion she otherwise felt, or the headache still pounding away so strongly in her temple she couldn’t see straight.
“I would agree,” Nate laughed. Laura couldn’t find it in herself to laugh back.
The hall of the ward behind them was buzzing with activity, as was the small waiting area just a few steps away. Other feds were milling around, both the personnel from the scene and those who had been brought in to assist after the fact. They were all waiting for news, and for the call to leave. This investigation was just about wrapped up; they wouldn’t all be needed to stay and interrogate the kidnapper or search the grounds of the farmhouse. The local cops could handle that.
“She’s going to be all right, you know,” Nate said.
Laura looked at him. “What?”
“Amy. You saved her life,” Nate said, nodding his head forward at the window they were standing in front of. The blinds were drawn across it. Behind it, they both knew, the girl was being checked over by the doctor.
“Yeah,” Laura said, trying to sound convincing. “I know.”
She hadn’t been able to shake the chill that had fallen over her at the farmhouse. She knew that something was wrong, but until she had a clear vision that actually told her something, she didn’t know what to do. What could she do? There was no clue in her mind as to the nature of the darkness that awaited the little girl.
Perhaps there was a medical emergency about to happen. Something untreated, undetected, that would risk her life. If so, there was nothing Laura could do that the doctors wouldn’t be able to. Or maybe the kidnappers had planned a raid on the hospital, if there was more than one accomplice, and she was about to be put in jeopardy once again. Maybe they were going to target her father, the governor, directly this time, and Amy would be caught in the crossfire. But there was not much Laura could do about that either, since she didn’t know what quarter it would come from or if that threat was even real.
Or maybe it was something else entirely, something she couldn’t even think of, and that was where the problem lay. When her visions—or in this case, feelings—were so vague, she had no direction to go in.
Only continual frustration, and the horrible feeling that something bad was going to happen that she couldn’t stop.
And that was even if she was right. She had been so exhausted, so stressed out. The fear over this little girl’s life, just like her own Lacey’s, had been so strong. What if it had only been her own worry and fear creating a sensation that wasn’t really there? That would explain everything, and allow her to at last relax. But she couldn’t relax. Not while there was any chance that the girl was not out of harm’s way.
She needed to get close to Amy again—to see her and touch her. That was the only way she could get another vision to trigger, the only way she could hope for more details.
“Agent Frost!” the familiar voice called from behind her, prompting Laura to turn away from the blank window. “And Agent Lavoie. Congratulations, both of you.”
“Thank you, sir.” Laura dipped her head in acknowledgment of the special agent in charge’s words. He wasn’t a man she had worked with before; multiple agents had been pulled in from the field for this urgent case, and she didn’t know most of them. He was balding and had obviously begun to put on weight since being promoted to a less fieldwork-oriented position.
“How did you do it?” he asked, leaning in conspiratorially close even as he kept his voice raised. Laura caught a whiff of stale cigarette smoke wafting from his tailored black suit. “Did he give you a little hint before we took him away?”
“No,” Laura said, then cast her eyes down to the pale beige tiles of the hospital floor. “He just said the girl was going to die before we got to her. We thought it best to check the farmhouse out, and we found her by chance.”
“Hmm,” their boss said, looking them both over with a too-wide smile. His teeth were yellow and brown, stained from years of smoking. “That’s good. Because keeping evidence to yourself just so you can get the glory of the case—well, that’s the kind of thing I don’t like to see at all.”
Laura looked up sharply. “No, sir,” she agreed. “Neither do I.”
Although, she thought, it wasn’t as though she had a leg to stand on. Sure, she hadn’t been given a clue by the kidnapper and kept that to herself. But she had been given a pretty big clue by the universe, or whatever it was that controlled her visions. And that, she certainly hadn’t shared with anyone.
He must have seen the doubt in her face, the small tinge of guilt. His faced twisted just a little, until his smile was no longer a smile but a sneer. Then he turned and swept over to the others, congratulating them on the finished case.
