Chapter 2 #2
He seemed puzzled for a moment. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m some kind of lunatic.” He seemed able to focus on her now, even though there was still a painful furrow between his eyes.
“Dr. Woodruff, you must promise that you will provide me with at least enough detail to make an informed decision about whether I should ever ride on a high-speed train again.” She guided him to her little white car, using her fob to unlock the doors.
“Call me Daniel.” He reached out to touch the roof of the Mini, then frowned. “I won’t fit in that.”
“You’d be surprised.” She pressed another button on the fob as she circled the car. “With the seat pushed all the way back and the top down, you’ll have plenty of room.”
“The top down?” He pulled his hand away and blinked as all the windows powered down and the top gracefully folded behind the back seats.
“It is a lovely spring day in Italia. If you want to drive to Firenze, we simply must have the top down!” She slid her pack behind her seat after pulling out her sunglasses.
“Fine.” He fished around in his satchel to find his own sunglasses before stowing the bag behind his own seat. His cautious movements told her he was still in some pain as he opened the door and folded himself inside the car. He seemed surprised that he did fit comfortably.
Once buckled in, Mel started the engine and nearly ran into someone who had walked up behind them.
“Scusi!” she yelled as the man and his companion jumped aside with fervent Italian curses. She waved as she pulled away and watched them scowl as they headed for their own car. Frustration. Outrage.
She frowned in the rearview mirror. That was a bit of an overreaction. This was Italy, after all. Pedestrians were used to nearly being mowed down.
“Is that an example of your driving?” Daniel asked, holding on to the console.
Mel turned to him. “Have you changed your mind about the train?”
His face darkened. “No.”
“Then it doesn’t really matter, does it? Lie back, relax, and enjoy the ride on Noblett Air.”
He made some dissenting noise but leaned the seat back so far he could only stare up at the sky. It was a beautiful, clear spring day, but she doubted that he had his eyes open. He had to be exhausted, on top of everything else. Whatever the ‘everything else’ really was.
“Nothing like some wind in your hair to clear out the cobwebs.” She patted his arm, sharing some of her calmness and serenity. “Feeling better?”
“A bit.”
In her peripheral vision, Mel saw him struggle for a few moments with sudden lethargy, then give up and slip into sleep, his hand sliding off the console. Her mom had always called it her Reverse Sleeping Beauty.
She felt a tad guilty using it on him, but he needed some relief from the emotional barrage he’d been through, and so did she. The interview could wait.
In spite of Lance’s insistence to the contrary, it seemed that Dr. Woodruff was her second paranoid scientist of the day. Coincidence?
Just her luck to be driving through Italy on a splendid spring day in a convertible with a good-looking guy who might be available—there was certainly no ring on his left hand—and she had to send him off to sleep. She shook her head.
Daniel struggled to wake. He became aware of alternating waves of sunlight and shadow on his face, then of his posture, or lack thereof—he was in the seat of a car that was almost horizontal.
He vaguely remembered getting in with the short, curvy journalist with the bright smile.
Then everything went hazy. He had fallen asleep in her car. Awkward.
But there had been no dream. That was a relief. And at least he felt rested.
The last thing he remembered was the headache.
It had been worse this time, perhaps because he’d had two visions so close together.
After holding Francesca’s wrist as long as he could, trying to endure long enough to see where and when the crash would happen, he had been carrying the pain and terror that she would experience on that train with him.
In the midst of the screams and chaos, before everything had gone black, he’d managed to see a few things.
None of Francesca’s companions had been around her on the train.
It was daylight outside. He’d caught sight of an Italian newspaper, but no matter how he replayed the scene, he couldn’t make out the date.
When the lights went out, the train felt as if it were bounding forward on a track that was no longer flat and straight but moving up and down like waves in water.
“Earthquake?” he thought, then realized he had said it out loud.
“So, you are awake behind those sunglasses,” Mel said.
“Sorry, I dozed off, I think.” He opened his eyes and managed to adjust his seat back up, then blinked at the scenery flowing past. Mountains. Thickly forested mountains. “How long have I been out?”
“About forty-five minutes. So did you dream about an earthquake?”
Daniel kept himself from reacting to the word dream. He turned his head to get a better look at the reporter. Her short blonde hair was dancing in the wind. “You have a convertible at home, don’t you?”
Her smile really was amazing. “Of course! It’s also a Mini, and that’s my wind deflector back there. Can’t trust rentals to offer them.”
“You came prepared. Where are you from?” He was sure she was giving him a skeptical look behind those huge sunglasses of hers. It was difficult to distract a journalist from a line of questioning.
“I travel. A lot,” she responded. “For my job.” Mel changed lanes to zip around a truck, then accelerated into a long curve. Daniel put a hand on the console to keep his balance, glancing at the Mini’s large speedometer. He had to admire her skill behind the wheel. She clearly loved to drive fast.
“You live on the road?” he asked.
“Actually, yes. My home is the road. I live a wonderful vagabond life in an RV.” The comment sounded a tad sarcastic. “I tow the Mini behind it, when necessary,” she added. “I suspect you’re the opposite, with your roots sunk deep in that mountain of yours.”
“I’ve been traveling a lot lately.” More like running away from something he couldn’t put words around. “But I’ll bet you have me beat on that front.”
“You know, I agreed to drive you to Florence if you would give me an interview, not the other way around.”
“I don’t remember this agreement of which you speak,” he said, closing his eyes and sinking into the seat. “But I remember something about a hangover remedy.”
“I doubt that you remember much of what happened back at the hotel. But here I am, driving down the Apennines in a futile race with a technological marvel of a train that my passenger thinks is going to wreck for some reason. He suddenly wakes up and says, ‘Earthquake.’ My journalistic integrity insists that I ask—earthquake?”
He remembered it all clearly now. He had been left standing on the portico in pain, trying to deal with the terror of that train wreck.
The nosy little journalist had rescued him.
Pulled him away from Francesca. Kept him from getting carted off to a psych ward.
Offered him a ride. Nearly carried him to her car.
Granted, she had an ulterior motive, but…
A noise from the driver’s seat reminded him that Mel was still waiting for an answer.
“No. I mean… Yes, I had a bad dream.”
“So, your concerns about the train have nothing to do with an earthquake?”
“I’m afraid you caught me at a bad time, there. This whole thing was simply a reaction to something I ate for breakfast.” Remembering something she had said at the hotel, he added, “Or drank for breakfast.”
There was such a long pause that he almost looked over to check the expression on her face.
“Riiiight. Then we don’t need to rush off to Florence?” she asked. “Because I can turn around right up here at the next area di servizio.”
Damn, she was persistent. He looked up as they came out of a tunnel. A sign for the upcoming exit flashed by—Roncobilaccio.
“All right. Look, I still want to go to Florence. To the train station,” he said. “I’ll give you an interview, but not about what happened this morning. Not about the train.”
“Hmmm.” She drummed her fingers on the wheel. “Okay, nothing about the train… But off the record?”
What was it about her? “Your middle name is Tenacious, isn’t it?”
“My middle name is… Well, let’s just say I learned long ago to keep it to myself.” She fished something out of an inside jacket pocket—a digital voice recorder—and turned it on.
Damn. He hated those things. “You should actually interview the bees, not me.”
“Actually, that might be an interesting point of view for the story, but this whole train business has driven all my carefully constructed questions right out of my head.”
“It’s nothing, seriously. Just a little neurosis I have. Strange obsessions and all that.” Daniel lifted his hands in the air. “I promise I’m not dangerous, only a tad compulsive. Think of this as indulging a slightly dotty old uncle.”
That brought a snort of laughter. “Right.” She peered over her sunglasses at him and smiled. “Interview, then?”
Mel reached to put the recorder on the console and her fingers brushed his.
The Mini and Mel and the landscape rushing by began to flicker—
“Ahh!” He yanked his hand away before the vision could even start. Damn, that was close.
“Whoa.” Mel held up her hand. “I know you’re uncomfortable with interviews, but—”
“No.” He blew out a breath. “No, it’s not that.
” He grappled for an explanation that wouldn’t make him look like even more of a nutcase, but it was probably too late.
“I have this…condition that flares up now and again. The skin on my hands…” He shook his hands.
“It’s some nerve thing. Seems to happen around the same time I get the migraines.
I, uh… I usually wear gloves, unless I’m in a situation where it would look odd. ”
She cocked her head at him, her expression unreadable. Then she smiled. “Feel free to wear them around me. I already think you’re odd.”
Actually, maybe gloves would help. “They’re in my hotel room.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Look in the glove box. Someone might have left a pair. If not, we can buy some in Florence.”
Daniel opened the glove box and dug through the manuals and brochures.
“I want you to know how much I appreciate the chance to interview you. I think you’ll be surprised at the impact it could have,” she said.
“In my experience, the media makes the story about what they want to say, not what was actually said.”
“Point taken.”
Daniel closed the glove box. “No luck.”
“Florence then.”
He shook his hands. “It’s okay, it’s easing up some.”
“Good.”
She didn’t seem aware that she was rubbing the unusual pendant that hung around her neck.
His phone rang. This time it was Nick. “Sorry, I have to take this.”
Mel pointed. “Make it quick. Tunnels ahead.”
He nodded as he answered. “Hey, everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Nick said.
“Sorry if I upset Grace yesterday. I need to put my phone somewhere out of reach until I can wake up completely.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s fine, but she’s worried about you. That’s why I called.”
“All right.” When it came to Grace, he and Nick battled for the title of most overprotective, especially in her current state.
“Actually, she’ll have my hide if she finds out I called you about this. She’s having dreams again.”
Daniel had always been the one who dreamed.
But after Pops died last year, Grace had started having intense dreams about their great-great-great-grandmother, Granny Lily, and the mountain.
Those dreams had ultimately saved Nick’s life and exposed Pops’ murderer.
The dreams had ended after that—or so he’d thought.
“Not Granny Lily? The mountain?”
“No…you,” Nick said.
“Me?”
“It’s those headaches. She thinks you need to—”
“Go in the cave? She’s dreaming about that?” Daniel said, then lowered his voice, hoping Mel couldn’t hear him over the wind. “I’m the one who dreams, not Grace.” He noticed the noise of the wind had died down a bit. Mel had slowed to the speed minimum. The better to overhear his conversation?
“I don’t know if the mountain is behind the dreams this time, but she’s worried about long-term damage to your brain if this keeps up,” Nick said.
“I don’t like this. It’s like I can’t say ‘no thanks, I don’t want this thing’ to a damn mountain.”
There was a long pause. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m worried about Grace and the baby. It’s every night now.”
“This is blackmail,” Daniel growled.
“Sure feels like it,” Nick agreed. “But I can’t exactly have the mountain arrested.” Daniel heard a snort on the other end, as if Nick couldn’t believe he’d just said those words.
Daniel sighed. “Sorry, Nick. This isn’t your fault. I understand how you feel. Grace should’ve told me.”
“She doesn’t want to pressure you. But…I can’t watch Grace go through this much more. She won’t take anything to help her sleep. The baby—”
“I hear you,” Daniel said. “I’ll deal with it when I get home.”
“Sorry, Daniel.”
“No. I’m glad you were honest with me. I’ll let her know when she calls about the Rock House hives. Maybe just knowing I plan to go into the cave when I get home will help.”
“Yeah. I wish there were some other option.”
“Thanks, brother.” Daniel meant it.
“Ditto,” Nick replied.
Daniel slid the phone into his pocket. “Damn.”
The car sped up again. “I was worried that you might not finish before the next tunnel,” Mel said. “Expecting any more calls? It’s going to get iffy as we go through the mountains.”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
“So…blackmail?”