God's Eye (30 page)

Holding the puff of dandelion in front of her, she blew the seeds right at him. With a natural sense of humor she hadn’t quite expected, he smiled at her as the white fluff danced around him like falling feathers.

He was heading out to a late lunch and she was going back in, so they said a quick good-bye and went in different directions. But as she walked away, she found it harder and harder to shake an odd, nagging feeling that he’d taken something from her.

Katharine ran. She screamed. And though she knew it was just a dream, she found she still couldn’t fight her way out. Even asleep, she had begun to wonder whether her dreams were more than mere wisps of her subconscious. Perhaps the other reality of deep sleep, whether confined to her mind or not, had heft and value.

So she ran from what chased her. She couldn’t let it catch her, especially if this wasn’t “just a dream.” Her legs worked furiously, though she knew she stood no chance of getting away from what chased her. It was far more powerful than she. And in the dream, she understood for the first time that it was far older, too. Being malevolent didn’t prevent it from being wise. And she felt it pull back, as though it would just let her run herself into the ground, like a small rat, mindlessly working toward its own capture.

Not knowing what to do, she fought for a burst of speed and instantly smacked into something in the dark. Solid and feral, it brought her to a dead stop. It didn’t need to engulf her or grab her–she was in enough trouble already, having run herself right into it. It pulled back and waited.

As she breathed in and tried to see through the darkness that came and went like fog, she realized she could smell him. And that it was Allistair. With a sigh of relief, she dove for his arms, hoping she could find the needed shelter there. But in the same instant that she started the movement toward him, she suddenly jerked back.

Here. Right before her all along, was another charismatic man who had invaded her life. Another new player in her story. Another who had drawn an unsuspecting Katharine in as easily as if he held puppet strings.

With that, she jerked wide awake in her room.

In a second or two her eyes adjusted to the little light that came in past the blinds and the faint glow from the nightlight in the bathroom. She had never left the overhead light on; part of her had always been aware that light changed nothing in her scenario. Nothing of her dream lingered in the physical space. There was no one here. And it was just her room. But she wasn’t just Katharine.

No, she was shifting. Becoming.

•  •  •

Zachary jerked back, startled at Katharine’s movement. She had stopped in the hallway that led to the garage. There, all alone, she had turned her head and looked right at him. Then she’d turned back and gone on her way.

She hadn’t been tense. He would have seen that she radiated nerves, and these days she often did. It was his job to help smooth out those feelings, to help her stay as peaceful as possible. She hadn’t been afraid either. That, too, he would have seen and done his best to prevent.

But, no. He’d stayed here, just on the other side of the veil and watched. He was apprehensive about calmness this morning. He had waited for the ripe smell of Allistair to hit him as it washed off her in waves. But it didn’t. It seemed both of them had left her alone last night.

So he’d been shocked when she’d turned and narrowed her gaze to exactly where he stood.

She couldn’t have seen him. If she had, she would have screamed, run, done something. Even if nothing physical had occurred, he would have seen the changes brought on in her thoughts had she managed to actually focus on him. Seeing through the veil was terrifying for humans, no matter what they looked at. They had no point of reference, no system of categorization, and no way to process any of it. Some were closer to what they might call “enlightenment,” but Katharine wasn’t.

Her car pulled out from its parking spot and she drove off to work.

Mary Wayne was still giving her trouble, he knew. Katharine was the only one who remembered seeing the woman there at the office after she had died. All other evidence had been erased. But Katharine had been unaware. She had told the police things in her drug-confused state–things that she couldn’t have known–making her a “person of interest” in the investigation. And the state of affairs over Mary Wayne had gotten very ugly. The only point in Katharine’s favor was that the police had almost stopped asking themselves who killed Mary Wayne; at this point, most of them had switched to the question of
what
had killed her?

But Zachary had been listening to see what they found, and the few holdouts for a human perpetrator–those who didn’t think there was a crazy feral dog on the loose, or perhaps an escaped pet tiger–had put Katharine on their list to watch.

That was a dangerous place for her to be. If they saw her as insane, that would only serve to build the case, especially given the manner in which Ms. Wayne had been dispatched.

Zachary sighed. He could save Katharine from the police. And he needed to do it. She needed saving and he had to be the one who came to her rescue. It was the only way she would be safe from the cops and safe from Allistair. She needed to side with him.

Unfortunately, his human form didn’t yet have access to the information that would stop the police investigation into Katharine’s life. He would need to “discover” it in a purely human way before he could use it to free her from scrutiny.

He looked further, past the condo building and into the depths of Light & Geryon. Allistair looked up from where he sat hunched over at his desk, looking and acting all too human. Allistair was supposed to become more human the longer he stayed. While he didn’t seem to notice all the other comings and goings beyond the veil, he pissed Zachary off by being able to find him the second his opponent turned his focus to Katharine.

Zachary decided to let it go. She was with Allistair now, and for the next several hours there would be nothing he could do. It wouldn’t be prudent to try to get to her with Allistair right there.

So Zachary relinquished his attention. When he felt Allistair relax far away, Zachary turned his thoughts to the police. He regretted mixing himself up in police affairs. After all, this was supposed to be about Katharine. But he needed this, and so did she. With a nudge, he moved the thoughts of several of the officers–not enough to make anyone frown or wonder where it had come from, just enough to change the trajectory of the idea.

Patiently, he listened and he pushed. Just a little. One officer here. Another there. Until finally the detectives agreed. “I think we need to interview the Geryon daughter again,” said one.

Zachary didn’t want them on her trail. Unfortunately, sending them to her was the only way to get them off.

•  •  •

The knock at the door startled her.

For two whole days, she had managed to stay out of the clutches of either of Allistair or Zachary. She had felt pulled to each of them, both in her dreams and in her waking life. Before she opened the door, she steeled herself, reminding herself to tell either of them no, no matter what they wanted.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled the door open, ready to turn away anyone–except the people she found at the door.

Two officers flashed their badges, even though she already recognized them from the Mary Wayne investigation. One of them spoke. “Miss Geryon, may we come in?”

The refusal she had prepared wouldn’t be a good way to start this. Feeling startled and out of sorts, which was probably how they wanted her, she said, “Of course. How can I help?”

In a few moments, they were seated around her dining table in a scenario the officers had obviously contrived to make her feel “comfortable.” She braced herself for an interrogation, but it didn’t come.

Instead, Officer Dashel shook his head. “We’re at a bit of a loss, and we’re hoping you can give us some information, anything, that will help clear this up. After all, you found her.”

He seemed sincere and vulnerable, but Katharine was sure it was all an act. After all, why would the police really need her help? They had set up a neat little trap for her. If she didn’t answer, she was hiding something. If she called Zachary, as he had told her to do, she was hiding behind her lawyer, which would only make her look guilty. If she just answered their questions the best she could, they could lead her into a corner. And without her lawyer there to help, they could probably do it fairly easily.

She hated this. She had studied some law in college. But tax law and theory didn’t prepare one to face down what looked like it just might be a sugary-sweet assassination of her character. She could be sitting across the table from the perfect setup right now.

Something caught her attention from the corner of her eye, and she turned to look at it. Of course, there was nothing there–except maybe another new level to her craziness. Several times she thought she had seen movement and then turned to see what it was, but it had been nothing each time. She hoped the cops would interpret her sideways glances as unease at the memory of finding Mary Wayne’s corpse. Maybe they would finally believe that she couldn’t have done it.

Since she couldn’t call Zachary, she had to save herself. So while she told them the truth, she lied.

Dashel leaned forward. “When you saw the body, what did you think?”

Katharine was startled. She wasn’t a medical professional or an investigator–what did her opinion matter? And she asked just that.

It was Detective Leaman who answered her. “We don’t expect an analysis. But a lot of times an untrained observer sees something we don’t.”

She didn’t buy that for a second, but acted like she did. “I thought she was the wrong color. The … rational part of myself told me she was dead, but I hadn’t really accepted it. So my thought was that she was the wrong color, but I knew it was Mary Wayne because of the rings and the hair.”

“You’re familiar enough with her to recognize her rings?”

See? There was the first corner they were trying to get her into. “Not really. I trained her when she first came to us. She seemed to like big rings. They were hard to miss.”

Leaman pressed again. “It didn’t seem odd to you that someone on her salary would spend that kind of money on expensive jewelry?”

“No. Honestly, I don’t think they were expensive. I thought they looked a bit tacky. That’s why I remembered them.” Actually, she had thought they were just the kind of thing her mother would call tacky.

“Did you remember these rings from the recent times you saw her?” Dashel spoke this time. Were they tag-teaming her?

“No,” she lied. “I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw her.”

“Can you narrow down the dates for the last time you did see her?”

“Probably not.” She hated this and was beginning to hate them. She hadn’t killed Mary Wayne. Nor had she wanted to. She hadn’t even wanted to believe the woman was embezzling funds. But here she was, trying to keep herself out of the loony bin. Maybe she even belonged there. But she didn’t want to go. Medicines and group therapy wouldn’t help her. And so she pushed on, trying to answer the cops in a roundabout way that didn’t seem roundabout. “I know I said that I saw Mary Wayne, but you do realize that it was only on the tapes. I didn’t see her in person. And I was looking for her. So I guess it’s entirely possible that I saw someone who looked like her on the recording.”

Something shifted in Dashel’s expression. He seemed to think he had her here. “You seemed very certain that you had seen her when we spoke before.”

“Yes, I thought I had, on the tapes.”

“But you aren’t certain now.”

She wanted to snap at them. But she couldn’t. All those years of training held her frustration back. “How could I be? It seems she was dead before then. And, honestly, I don’t think I’ve slept well in a month.” The truth and a lie, all in one.

“You haven’t been sleeping well?” Dashel pushed.

Katharine smiled and stifled the sharp retort that burst into her brain. She shook her head. “I haven’t even been making it into work on a regular schedule. I keep sleeping in trying to make up for bad nights.”

“Why haven’t you slept well?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been sick. And the neighbors make noise.”

Leaman was writing notes on his little pad of paper, clearly not having moved into the current millennium with everyone else. “And you reported this to the building super?”

“No, sir. The management didn’t get a complaint from me.” She paused while she mixed fact and fiction. “I have a new boyfriend and it didn’t seem wise to report someone else.” She left it at that.

By the time the two left, she felt drained.

Propriety almost insisted that she thank them for visiting, but her new backbone, weakened as it was, told her not to. She didn’t wish them a good evening, or offer to help. She simply mentioned that she had been on the way to bed when they called on her, since she hadn’t been sleeping soundly.

Most of that had been the truth. As she threw the bolt, she thought of Margot telling her she didn’t lie well. She hoped she had thrown enough truth in there to keep the officers from seeing what her friend saw. Oh, well.