The Lost Night (21 page)

“I don’t doubt your intuition.” She opened her senses a little. The whispery threads of purple and yellow energy in Jasper’s aura told her all she needed to know. “Another dream about the Preserve last night?”

Jasper exhaled heavily and folded his arms on the counter. “Yeah. The dreams are getting worse.”

“Mine, too.” Rachel put the package that she had brought with her on the counter. “I made up another batch of your aura-tea for you.”

“Thanks.” Jasper
picked up the package. “I finished off the last of the old batch this morning. I needed it after last night’s dream.”

She glanced at his paint-spattered denim shirt. “How’s my picture going?”

Jasper straightened away from the counter. “That’s what I wanted to show you. Got the easel set up in the backroom. Light’s terrible in there but it’s not like it’s good anywhere else on the island lately. Damn fog.”

“Were you able to interpret my dreamscape vision?”

“I’m getting there. Haven’t got it all figured out yet but it’s getting clearer based on your descriptions. Usually I work with my own dream images. This is the first time I’ve tried to paint someone else’s dreamscape.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Jasper came out from behind the counter and started toward the back room.

“I’ll tell you one thing for sure,” he said. “I know this picture is important. I’ve got this feeling that I need to hurry up and finish it but I need more input from you.”

He walked through the doorway into the crowded back room, stood aside, and gestured toward the easel set up near the window.

“That’s what I’ve got so far,” he said. “See if it jogs your memory.”

Rachel followed him into the shadowed space. Another heavy wave of psi hit her senses. The room reeked of energy, and not all of it was from the antiques stored in the crates and boxes that were piled everywhere. Charlotte’s shop had been the scene of a murder not too long ago. Violent death always left a taint in the atmosphere of a place. It wasn’t the kind of stain that you could get rid of with soap and water.

The overhead
light fixture cast a weak glow across the array of crates and boxes stacked around the room. The fog was so thick outside that the windows might as well have been draped.

“I see what you mean about the poor light,” Rachel said. “I’m amazed you were able to paint anything at all in this gloom.”

“Not like I had a choice.” Jasper stood in front of the easel, contemplating his unfinished creation. “After the last time we talked about your dream I did some dreaming of my own. Woke up this morning with the feeling that I had to get something down fast. I got here at dawn and started painting.”

Rachel moved closer to the easel. She caught her breath when she saw the unfinished canvas. The fierce brushstrokes and the violent palette Jasper was using struck her senses like flashes of lightning—frozen lightning. She did not need the icy, all-too-familiar prickle of awareness on the back of her neck to warn her that the partially finished image was important.

“Oh, Jasper,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I know.” Jasper eyed his work with a grim expression. “I’m not there yet. But does it feel right? Does it look like anything you’re seeing in your dreams?”

“It’s a frozen waterfall. I saw it the night I went sleepwalking into the Preserve.”

“You’re sure you have no idea where that waterfall is located inside the Preserve?” Harry asked.

He stood in the back room of Looking Glass with Rachel, Jasper, and Fletcher Kane. They were gathered around the unfinished painting.

“No,” Rachel said. “Judging by where I found my bicycle, I walked into the Preserve at a point not far from my cottage. But all I know for sure is that I was gone for about twelve hours and that I came out near Calvin Dillard’s place.”

“That narrows it down somewhat,” Harry said. “You couldn’t have covered a great deal of territory in that span of time because the terrain is too rough.” He looked at Jasper and Fletcher. “Slade said that you two are able to get a short distance into the Preserve because of your ghost-hunter talent. Have you ever seen anything like this inside the fence?”

Jasper shook
his head. “Not that I remember. But it’s a fact that the energy inside the fence sometimes plays tricks on a person’s memory.”

Fletcher’s patrician features tightened in a thoughtful frown. “You didn’t forget anything, Jasper. You’ve never gone into the Preserve alone. It’s too damn dangerous. I’ve always accompanied you. Which means that if you had ever seen this frozen waterfall and forgotten it, so did I. Damn unlikely that we would both forget precisely the same scene.”

“I agree.” Harry did not take his eyes off the canvas. The currents of psi from several decades’ worth of hot antiques swirling in the atmosphere could not mask his intuitive sense that the waterfall was important. “I need to talk to this Calvin Dillard. He’s our only witness to the time and place where Rachel emerged from the Preserve. Maybe he can pin things down a little more precisely.”

Rachel looked at him. “Do you think this waterfall has something to do with what’s going on inside the Preserve?”

“My gut tells me it’s important, but I don’t know how yet.” He glanced at his watch. “I want to question Pritchard and McClain before I talk to Dillard, though.”

Jasper looked out the window at the gloom-shrouded day. “Better get moving. The fog is getting heavier. Looks like another storm taking shape over the island.”

“Let’s go,” Rachel said. She raised her voice. “Darwina? Where are you? We’re leaving.”

Darwina
appeared in the doorway and fluttered across the floor. She bounced to a stop at Rachel’s feet, chortling, and waved Amberella. Rachel scooped her up and plopped her on one shoulder.

Harry went outside with Rachel and Darwina. They walked down the empty street to the police station. The gray sky had lowered in just the brief span of time it had taken him to find Rachel at the antique shop. The fog was so dense now that he could not see the harbor. He could sense the energy of another storm gathering.

“It’s going to be another bad one,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did you know that most of the town of Shadow Bay thinks you’re psychically fragile because of the fugue incident?” he asked.

She winced. “You talked to Myrna, didn’t you?”

“Don’t blame her. She was just being protective.”

“I know.” Rachel made a face. “Geez. One little twelve-hour fugue episode and everyone assumes I’ve been traumatized for life.”

“She meant well.”

“Of course.”

“I told her I was pretty sure that she and everyone else in town is wrong about the condition of your psyche.”

Rachel brightened. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“However, on the gossip front, it appears you were right. Looks like the entire town assumes that we did not spend last night in separate seats in the SUV.”

“Really?” Rachel’s smile was smug. “Well, in that case imagine what they’ll say when they find out that you’re staying with me tonight.”

“I
am?”

“You have to sleep somewhere. Your cabin burned down, remember?”

“I could stay at one of the B and Bs.”

“Yes,” she said. She stopped smiling. “You could do that if you like.”

“I’d rather stay at your place.”

She smiled again. “Okay, then, it’s settled.”

He wanted to ask if she intended him to spend the night on her sofa again but he realized he did not want to risk the answer. Better to take the conversation in another direction, he decided.

“Did seeing your dream image of the waterfall on canvas trigger any other memories?” he asked.

“When Jasper showed it to me, I got a flash of another image, a huge icicle suspended overhead like a chandelier. But it was made of hot crystals, not ice.”

“Psi-hot crystals?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it. Harry, remember those rain-stones in the jar in my kitchen?”

“Yes.”

“I told you I thought they were important. Now I think I may know why.”

He stopped and turned to face her. “Why?”

“I think the frozen waterfall that Jasper is painting is made of a solid piece of rainstone. But in my dream the stone is energized, it’s not cold like the crystals in my kitchen.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t remember what happened last night.” Vince rocked a little in his chair. He watched Harry with a pleading expression. “I don’t remember anything after we left the B&B and got into that dumb little rental buggy.”

“You ditched the Vibe before you got to the cabin,” Harry said. “Remember that?”

“No, I swear it.”

Rachel, sitting quietly in a corner of the police station lunchroom, watched uneasily as agitation flared in Vince’s aura. It wasn’t the wildly gyrating currents of anxiety that worried her—that kind of energy was only to be expected under the circumstances. It didn’t indicate guilt, just that Vince was scared.

He had good reason to be nervous, she thought. He was being questioned, after all, and Harry, for all his cool control, or maybe because of that control, was more than a little scary even though he was not using his talent. He faced Vince across the table.

What
alarmed Rachel was the glacial blue of a particular band of wavelengths on Vince’s spectrum. The currents in that region appeared frozen—not extinguished, but rather in some sort of suspended state. She had never seen anything quite like it.

“I think you remember a little more about what happened after you got into the Vibe,” Harry said, calm but relentless. “You remember driving out Gatehouse Road, don’t you? How did you find the turnoff?”

Vince’s face screwed up in fierce concentration. “I think I remember driving out of the B&B parking lot.” He hesitated. “It was night. I do remember that.”

“What was the weather like?” Harry prodded.

Vince blinked and then frowned. “It was starting to rain. Wind was gusting. I remember wishing we had some better rain gear. All we had with us were a couple of jackets.”

“You had a few other things with you, Vince,” Harry said. “You had a device you could use to set a fire and a couple of mag-rez pistols.”

“No.” Vince slumped in his chair. “I don’t remember those things.”

“Where did you get the accelerant?”

Vince scowled. “The what?”

“What did you use to torch the cabin?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You bought the explosive device from someone.”

“No.
”

“Where did you get the guns?”

Vince started to say he could not recall that information, either, but he hesitated, grimacing again. “I think we found them somewhere.”

“You just happened to find two very expensive, very illegal mag-rez pistols lying around on the street?” Harry asked as if he were inquiring about the weather.

“No, not on the street.” Vince cheered up again, eager to offer hard facts that might placate his questioner. “We found them somewhere else.”

“Where?” Harry asked, patient as a specter cat stalking prey.

“I dunno. No, wait, I think they were in a metal box in the trunk of the car.”

Harry opened his mouth to ask another question, but Rachel had seen enough. She spoke quietly from the corner.

“Vince?”

Vince stirred and turned his head to look at her. She realized he had forgotten her presence in the room. Harry was looking at her, too. She knew he was sending her a silent reminder that he had told her to stay quiet. She ignored him. Sometime in the past half hour Vince had become a patient who needed her help.

“Was there something else in the box with the pistols?” she asked softly.

Vince started to deny it, but confusion flashed through his aura, disturbing all of the currents except those in the frozen section.

“I think
so but I can’t remember for sure,” he said. He sank deeper into his seat and into his misery.

“I might be able to help you remember,” Rachel said. Harry gave her a hard look but he did not try to silence her.

Vince shrugged. “I don’t see how.”

“I read auras,” Rachel said. “I can see yours now.”

“Yeah?” Vince shrugged. “So what do you see?”

“There’s a part of your aura that appears to be frozen,” she said. “It looks a little like the aura of a person who has undergone hypnosis, but this is not quite the same thing. Hypnotic suggestions usually affect a different section of the spectrum and fade rapidly over time. The iced-over psi in your energy field is in the dreamlight sector and shows no sign of thawing, at least not in the immediate future. It could be weeks or months before your conscious memory of events returns, if ever. But I think the things you saw and did last night will start showing up in your dreams one of these days.”