Chapter Six #3
Considering how much she had to travel, Mel’s dislike of planes and airport lounges was, at best, inconvenient. Today it was downright debilitating. She was crouched on an uncomfortable seat, or rather curled up, listening to her “soothing” playlist, but still felt raw and jittery.
Yesterday had taken too much out of her for her shield to be of much use, and the lounge was a bedlam on steroids. People weren’t exactly calm while worrying about cancellations and missed connections or thinking about being trapped in a metal tube hurtling through the sky for hours.
She tried to remember where the nearest refreshment kiosk was and weighed the bother of gathering up her stuff against her need for another shot of caffeine.
She glanced at the time. Another hour until boarding.
She might as well start transcribing the parts of the interview she wanted to use.
With any luck, she might finish it on the flight and send it to Lance tonight, assuming everyone on the plane cooperated and there were no emotional basket cases or teething babies on board.
Yeah, that’s likely.
Fishing in her backpack, she came across her camera. After a moment’s pause, she pulled it out and scanned through the photos from yesterday. The sunlit Il Duomo rising above the dark Via dei Servi, the solemn little Madonna…
And there he was, looking sad and thoughtful as he stood in front of the duke and his bees.
Daniel had been talking about his grandfather, about how his pops would have enjoyed seeing the duke’s bees.
It was a beautiful picture. He looked like some creature caught in a trap he couldn’t escape.
In the next, though, he was back to smiling, as if nothing was wrong.
Dr. Daniel Woodruff was tormented by something.
She still wondered if he might have some kind of talento.
He seemed to feel or see things when he touched people, things that left him with an emotional fragment—emotions that belonged to someone else.
And he was certain that something bad was going to happen on the train, or to it.
But this morning, still recovering from overexerting her abilities yesterday, she had wondered if, perhaps, Daniel was simply ill. If, out of a wishful need to find others like her, she had read too much into his actions and emotions.
Then again, she knew all too well how outward appearances could be deceiving. Fortunately, her parents had realized she had a rare and unusual ability. They taught her how to control it and, more important, how to conceal it.
Perhaps Dr. Woodruff was just a very eccentric, slightly unbalanced—she blew out a breath—and very attractive professor.
But if coincidence really was the universe pointing out something important, then when she considered everything that happened yesterday, Daniel Woodruff had a big, flashing neon sign over his head.
“Damn.” Her thoughts were still spinning. She should never overextend herself like that again.
She slid the camera into the pack, got out her laptop and recorder, plugged in her headphones, and thumbed through the recording of the interview he’d given in the car yesterday.
“You should actually interview the bees, not me.” Daniel’s voice sent tingles down her spine, but she tried to ignore them and fast-forwarded through the chatter, searching for the right part.
“It’s nothing, seriously. Just a little neurosis I have. Strange obsessions and all that. I promise I’m not dangerous, only a tad compulsive. Think of this as indulging a slightly dotty old uncle.”
She smiled, then frowned. Neurotic, huh? He was on meds. Or whatever herbal remedy his sister had him taking. His sister the MD. Maybe herbal had been in heavy quotation marks.
She fast-forwarded trying to find the beginning of the proper interview.
“Go in the cave? She’s dreaming about that? I’m the one who dreams, not Grace.”
She thumbed the Stop button.
What? She didn’t remember him saying that. Rewinding and turning up the volume, she listened to it again. He was talking to his brother-in-law on the phone.
“I’m the one who dreams.”
The one who dreams. And the one who sees things he doesn’t want to see.
Her heart sped up. She thought about the way he had lunged out of the car last night to take Francesca’s hand.
If he had some kind of psychosis, it was a very detailed and specific one.
She would bet that he believed it so completely, it temporarily incapacitated him.
So was it really migraines or something else?
Maybe his extended leave from the university was its way of gently dealing with a bigger problem?
I’m the one who dreams.
Despite all the logical arguments to the contrary in her head, Mel had to admit she believed him.
She believed him and she believed in him. Once she got home, she needed to find him and tell him so.
A wave of anxiety and stress slammed into her, and she stiffened, wishing once more for her shield. She glanced around to see if a particularly terrified traveler was nearby.
But it wasn’t one person. A whole crowd had gathered in front of the monitors that hung from the ceiling not far away. She pulled off her headphones.
Only one word was clear through all the babble, but that word was enough.
Terremoto.
Earthquake.