Chapter Twenty-Five
Lucy did something she’d never done before—at least not since I’d known her. She had a dream while she was awake.
We were finishing up dessert, and Joe was telling us stories about when he’d been working security for Mayor Hedrick. We were laughing at his likely somewhat tall tale when Lucy dropped her fork, her eyes turned white, and for a few seconds, she was just…gone.
“Lucy,” I cried, jumping up to run to her.
Sam put his arm around her to keep her upright. “What’s happening to her?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Her eyes looked like that in the daywalkers’ cave, too. It went away, but…I thought it went away.”
Apparently, whatever had happened to her in those caves had apparently just been lying dormant.
Sam tightened his grip around her shoulders and shook her, just a tiny bit. “Should we call Doctor Hayes?”
“She’s not sick or hurt,” I murmured, leaning down to look into her spooky eyes. “He can’t help her.”
It was Ash who brought her back. He put his front feet on her leg and whined, and every time he’d give a little bark, Lucy’s body would jerk.
“Kait,” Zach said, watching from across the table. “Put Ash on her lap.”
Sam stood and pulled Lucy’s chair away from the table, and I lifted Ash to her legs. He immediately began licking her face, whimpering quietly, and in seconds, Lucy came out of her trance.
She wrapped her arms around him and looked at us, confused. “How did…what happened?”
I crouched beside her and took her hand. “It was like you went away for a minute. Your eyes turned white, the way they did in the caves. Are you okay?”
“I fell asleep,” she realized, finally. “In the middle of dessert.” She squeezed my hand. “Take Ash.”
I stood and took Ash from her, and he was perfectly happy to trot to Remy to get a bite of food. “I’ve seen some freaky shit in my life,” Remy said, “but that’s right up there with the freakiest of them.”
Lucy leaned against Sam. “I had a dream. I dreamed about the woman in the attic…sort of.” She frowned.
“She’s in a tall white house. Her cat has been put outside—it’s on the porch, waiting, poor thing.
It didn’t look well. The cat is white, like the house.
” She looked at me. “Like the ghost who waits with it. I think the spirit might be her mother. She’s waiting on the porch for help.
She knows when help comes, it’ll be from someone like you.
” She swallowed hard and pressed her lips together.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever been inside the thoughts of a ghost. Or anyone other than the victim. ”
Zach brought her a glass of water, which she took gratefully, drinking half before she continued. Then she said the thing I was hoping she wouldn’t say.
“I don’t know where she is.”
“You were there,” Sam said. “You saw the house, the porch.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Tell me everything you saw, everything you heard. Close your eyes and go back there. Take me with you, Lucy.”
She closed her eyes and began to talk, and in the end, she had the house number, the color of the car in the driveway—red—and the fact that the house was on a street in the city with other houses right beside it. She also saw the top of a building with the letters M-E across the front.
“Not in the Pocket,” I said, hurrying to grab my phone from the countertop where I’d left it.
“No, definitely not,” she assured me. “The houses are too nice for the Pocket.”
I called Max and gave him all the information. “Find me this house, Max.”
“On it,” he said, and ended the call.
I grabbed my keys. “I’m going to the city. Luce, if you think of anything else, call me.”
“I’m coming with you,” Zach said.
“I’ll ride along too,” Remy said.
“Sam, stay with Lucy?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll guard the place from Voss and his wolves.”
“But if you need him,” Lucy told me, “you call him.”
“I will,” I promised.
Once we were in the car and speeding toward the city, I called Rick.
“Rick,” I said when he answered. “Lucy gave me more information about the abducted woman in the attic she’s been dreaming about.
” I told him everything. “Apparently, the missing woman is still in her own home. I have Max looking for the house, and I have no doubt he’ll find it.
I’ll call you as soon as I know the location. ”
“I’ll be there,” he said, and ended the call.
I frowned. Something was going on with the detective, and I wondered if it had anything to do with Beth.
And I wondered if he was going to give their marriage another try.
But I shoved that uncomfortable thought away and concentrated on finding an abused, abducted woman who seemed to be chained up in her own home.
“Zach,” I said. “Can you search for buildings in Jakeston that might have ME on the front?”
He wrinkled his nose but brought his phone out. “I’m not real technically inclined. What do I do, exactly?”
I shrugged. “I guess just put ‘Jakeston ME’ in the search. Maybe it’ll autofill with some suggestions.”
Remy snorted. “Best just wait for Max.”
“It can’t hurt to try,” I told him.
“Okay,” Zach said. “It brought up Jakeston medical center, Jakeston medical transport, metropolitan housing authority, mental hospital—”
“Mental hospital,” I said. “Really?”
He shrugged. “That’s what came up.”
“So,” Remy said, leaning up, “Medical buildings. I think ME is Merritt-Crest Regional Hospital.”
I sucked in a breath. “I think you’re right, Remy. Zach, can you call Max and—”
Before I could complete the sentence, Max called. “Look near Merritt-Crest Hospital,” he said, sounding too pleased with himself for me to tell him Remy had beaten him by a couple of seconds.
“Thanks, Max, we’re on our way. Can you narrow down the location at all?”
“I’d start on Crescent Drive and that area. The view from a second-story house or an attic could partially be blocked by trees and other buildings. I’m doing live street views. If I see the house with or without a red car in the driveway, I’ll call.”
“You’re amazing, Max.”
“Yes, I know.”
“What are you going to do if you find the house?” Zach asked.
“I’ll call Rick first,” I told him, then tapped the laminated ID hanging from the mirror. “Then I’ll knock on the door and ask whoever answers if I can search the house.”
“And when they say no?”
“Then you go around back. Remy can go in with me after I kick in the door.”
Remy laughed. “I like that plan.”
Five minutes later, Lucy called. “Kait, something strange happened.”
“Tell me, Luce.”
“I don’t know why things are changing. I’ve been doing this my whole life, and it’s always the same. I fall asleep, usually at night, and I dream about the person I need to help. Over and over until she’s saved. Before you, few of them were rescued, and I questioned my so-called gift.”
“What happened?” I asked her.
“I did the blackout thing again. Sam said I can never drive again because one second I was there and the next, I was gone.”
I knew Lucy. She was delaying telling me what she needed to tell me, which usually meant she hadn’t quite come to terms with it herself.
I didn’t prompt her again, but let her talk until finally, she said the thing that had apparently scared her half to death.
“I spoke with the ghost, Kait,” she murmured. “I know how it sounds, but that’s what happened. I spoke with the ghost in my dream. I can communicate with spirits in my dreams.” She laughed, but there was a hint of desperation in her voice. “Why would that happen?”
And I realized, finally, what was bothering her. The magic in the caves had affected everyone who’d gone inside them. Lucy was changing, and she was afraid that awful cave magic was changing her.
Sometimes, change was scary.
“I think it’s just enhancing your gift, Lucy,” I told her. “It’s made you stronger. More powerful.”
“That’s what I told her,” I heard Sam say in the background.
“I’m just afraid of what else it might do,” she said. “I don’t want it to change my life, Kait. What if I really can never drive again?”
“I’m sorry, honey,” I told her. “I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.”
She took a deep breath. “Yes. It’ll be okay.
I’ll learn it, and I’ll be the boss of it.
” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been going on and on while that poor woman is suffering.
The ghost is someone who didn’t cross over—she never told me why—and wandered into the Shopes’ house.
When she saw what was going on with the girl, she wouldn’t leave.
She knew that someday, someone would come. ”
“Tell me where she lives,” I said, “and then you can tell me the story.”
Lucy began to talk, and I knew that though we’d lucked out with this victim, and though Lucy had gotten a boost from the cave magic, it wasn’t likely to last. I didn’t tell her that because I didn’t want to get her hopes up when I wasn’t sure.
But it was likely that after this one, things would go back to the way they had been, with us slowly, torturously looking for victims who were running out of time.
I just had a feeling.