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“No, Savannah. I’m here with her! How are you going to put those chains on?”
“If it gets really bad, I’ll figure it out.”
“You’re . . . too . . . pregnant,” he stated flatly.
“They’re the snap-on kind. I can do it,” she flared. “My sister’s hurt. What did you think I would do? Sit and wait in a motel room?”
“I’ve got this handled. No matter what you think, you’re not bulletproof, Savannah. And you’re—”
Savannah cut him off with one click. To hell with Hale St. Cloud. She grabbed her sneakers, smashed them on her feet, and tied them with the effort of bending over. Snatching up her overnight bag, her messenger bag, and her gun, which she’d laid on the nightstand, she headed outside.
The snow made everything unnaturally light, and its beauty as it fell would have been magical at another time. Now Savvy felt a clock ticking in her head. The same clock that reset and marked off the seconds every time she was in a dangerous situation.
Getting down the stairs and into the Escape took longer than she wanted, but there was no way in hell she was going to slip.
“Hang in there,” she said, placing a hand on her belly, though she meant both the baby and her sister. The two-hour trip would be three hours or longer in this weather, but she’d be damned if she’d stay in Portland.
Her mind touched on the dream, and an uneasy feeling spread through her.
She didn’t believe in dreams, but then she didn’t believe in people with otherworldly gifts, either, or at least she hadn’t.
Gritting her teeth, she put a call in to Lang’s cell, which, like every call today, went straight to voice mail. She told him she was on her way; then she pulled out of the parking lot and began the long journey back.
“Aunt Catherine?”
Catherine awoke with a start. She’d drifted off in the living room chair, while reading by a strong electric light. Now she glanced quickly down at the journal, which was still open in her lap, and she closed it as Lillibeth wheeled through the doorway from her short hallway and bedroom.
“Someone’s here,” Lillibeth said, heading toward the door.
“At the gate?” Catherine stirred herself and got to her feet. The fire had died down, and there was a distinct chill in the room, or maybe it was her soul.
“It’s Earl.”
Catherine gave her a long look. Lillibeth didn’t possess Cassandra’s gift of seeing the future, but she did have a trace of precognition, as did Catherine, as did, maybe, all of them. “How do you know?”
Lillibeth shrugged. “He told me.”
Her head squeezed. “He who?” Catherine demanded. “Don’t talk in riddles.”
“I think it was Earl.”
Catherine found that mildly alarming. She looked around as she headed for the back door to fetch her cloak before returning to the front of the house, where Lillibeth still waited. “Where’s everyone else? Still upstairs?” The girls had been quiet at dinner, almost plotting, Catherine thought, and then had all returned to the second floor and their rooms.
“I think so.”
“Stay inside,” Catherine ordered, then pulled her hood over her head, tightened the cloak at her neck, and stepped into a swirl of dancing snow and rain. The mixed precipitation landed on her face and melted and ran cold.
She trudged carefully along the flagstone path, which was nearly buried in snow, toward the gate, where, sure enough, Earl stood in the dark beyond, outlined by the growing field of white surrounding him.
“What is it?” Catherine asked, approaching him.
“There’s a fire on Echo,” he said, to which Catherine whipped around, but from the spot where she stood she couldn’t see over the bushes to the island beyond.
“A fire! There can’t be. No one could be out there in this weather.”
“Someone is.”
“No one knows the island like you do, and you wouldn’t go out there in this.”
