Whispers (2 page)

“
You’re scared of everything. You—” He stopped abruptly and scanned the area around them. He’d heard something.

“
What?” Analise said.

“
Shhh.” He stood, searching the darkness. The feeble glow of the flashlight reached only a foot or two in front of him. Past that it was all huddled shadows and looming shapes. He strained with the effort to hear. The quiet folded in and stretched out in a hiss. Then a slight, slithering sound reached his ears. Like dirt spilling into an empty hole.

In unison, he and Analise looked to the ravine. He took a step closer.

“
No. Brendan, no. Let’s just get out of here.”

He waved her off and took another step. As if frozen, Analise watched. The sound came again. Loose soil and rock sliding down the side. As if something were climbing up.

“
What do you see?” she whispered.

Brendan shook his head and moved closer to the edge of the hole. A rock joined the slight avalanche of dirt. It clicked and thumped down to the bottom. Analise made a whimpering sound that cut him to the bone. She’d been telling the truth earlier. This place ... it wasn’t right. Nothing felt right. The unrest hovered like a layer of dust in the heat.

More rocks, the earth slide increased. As if something had lost its foothold and slid back a few feet, causing the hole to cave in around it.

Brendan was almost to the edge. His flashlight crawled over the terrain then inched up to the piled dirt circling it. The blackness around him seemed more complete because of the tiny rent he and his light put in it. He acknowledged the fear that threatened to buckle his knees even as he refused to give in to it.

He stopped a few steps from the lip of the opening.

“
Brendan,” Analise said, her voice a shaky whisper in the uneasy night.

He leaned forward, trying to peer down into the pit without actually going to the rim. He couldn’t see a damn thing. More dirt shifted and skipped down in the depths. Dirt he’d dislodged? Or—

“
Brendan, please come back. Please?”

A deep and dank odor wafted up toward him. Like something dead and long ago rotted had escaped its sealed chamber. What the hell was it? Another step and then a rush of air blasted out in a gust that lifted his hair and scared a shout right out of him. After it, the scrabbling sound raced up the ravine wall. Brendan staggered back, shouting again as he stumbled. Behind him Analise began to scream.

“
Run!” he hollered, racing past her to the truck.

She didn’t even know from what, but she didn’t stop to ask. She followed him and jumped in as he threw the engine into reverse. Her door slammed shut, nearly clipping her foot, which had barely had time to clear the running board. He cranked the wheel and the truck fish tailed before spinning around and out the way they’d come. Shaking and crying Analise turned in her seat and looked back.

“
What do you see?” he demanded.

She was sobbing, too hysterical to even answer. He tore his gaze from the road and looked in the rearview mirror. A pale light seemed to hover over the pit. What was it? A face? But it glowed, not like skin but—without warning, it shifted and looked at him. He screamed like a girl and Analise joined in.

“
What is it?” Brendan shouted. “Is it following us?”

“
I don’t know,” Analise sobbed.

Brendan had the pedal to the floor and the truck felt like it had wings as it flew across the desert, barely staying on the excuse for a road. It hadn’t taken them this long to get there, had it? Shit, was he lost? Had he gotten turned around? Where was the moon? Where was the fucking
town?

“
Why did you bring me here?” Analise was crying over and over. “Why, why?”

He turned in his seat and looked back. Nothing following, and yet...A glimmer... The town. How had the town ended up on his right? Didn’t matter, as long as he got there. He cranked the wheel, his instincts telling him he was backtracking while his eyes told him he was headed the right way.

“
No,” Analise shouted. “You’re going back.”

He opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong, but now he was completely disoriented and his headlights picked out the gaping ravine ahead. At seventy miles an hour they were going in.

He twisted the wheel hard left, taking the truck into a crazy spin at the edge of the abyss. He felt the wheels lose traction. Felt the pull of gravity trying to suck them down. The back end hovered for an instant over the great nothingness of it, and then slowly, the truck began to slide down.

Chapter Two

SOME say destiny is unavoidable. Some say a person’s whole life is determined before he or she is even born. Reilly Alexander didn’t buy into that, which wasn’t the same as saying he didn’t believe it. When he looked back on his life, it seemed fate had done more than drive him around; it had plotted out a specific course that brought him here, now, to a bookstore in Los Angeles where he would meet his destiny.

“
We’ve put your table right up front,” the Barnes & Noble manager told him.

“
Thank you.”

“
I think you’ll have a good turnout. Your book has been selling quite well for us.”

This was his fourth book, and he still couldn’t get used to hearing that it wasn’t complete crap. Maybe he’d never get used to hearing it. A part of him still believed that it was his nefarious and disastrous venture into the music business that brought the readers to his books, not the writing. Not
his
stories, but
the
story of a failed rocker turned literary genius. He smirked to himself at that. Yeah, right.

But fans did come. The women as often as not asked to touch the tattoos on his arms—the bolder of them asked if he had any others he might share. The young musicians came because they thought some of his luck would rub off on them—it mattered not that his luck in the music business hadn’t been the best. The others ... he still hadn’t figured out what drew the others. All in all, though, he ate well, traveled in fair style, and lived a life of quasi-fame. In honesty, more than he’d ever expected of himself.

He ran a hand over his nearly shaved head, still expecting the shoulder-length shag he’d worn until a few months ago when he’d decided it was time to cut even that from his life. The impeccably dressed manager he followed to the table hadn’t said a word about Reilly’s appearance, but it was there in the look that skimmed his Flogging Molly T-shirt and faded blue jeans. In the beginning, when the first book had come out, he’d tried the dressing-up bit and felt like an even bigger idiot and imposter. The slacks and button-down had fit his image like panty hose and a sunbonnet.

“
Just let me know if you need anything,” the manager said before going about his business. A cold beer would be nice, but Reilly refrained from asking and simply thanked the man. All he could hope was that the next two hours went fast.

During his college years Reilly had made his living as lead singer and songwriter of a band called Badlands. When the group broke up after three years and one hit single, Reilly had been left with a bit of fame and little fortune. Individually, each of the band members had branched out and failed to produce anything worth listening to. Reilly had resorted to writing songs for others until he’d finally settled down and pounded out the novel he’d been thinking of for years.

Four books later, he’d gained enough traction to warrant a fifth. Of course the scandal over his last book hadn’t hurt his sales any. The girl he’d been dating claimed he’d sexually assaulted her as part of his research for his writing. It was bullshit, but when did that matter to the media?

Riding the infamy tide with Badlands had taught him not to believe his own press—good or bad. They loved his books today, but only if he had something better to provide tomorrow. His problem of the hour was, he didn’t. The channel of ideas he’d been surfing had disappeared and left him lost and in a panic over what next. Was it time for yet another career change?

The signing started like clockwork with a steady trickle of readers who had fished his other titles off the shelves and now wanted his signature on the new one. It never quite felt real to scrawl his name on the title page, but he tried not to let it show. After a while there was a lull and Reilly sat back to take a swig of water and catch his breath. A moment later a young man wearing faded blue jeans, a Badlands T-shirt, and a camera around his neck came up to the table. Reilly immediately took note—he hadn’t seen one of his old band’s shirts in years. It made him feel nostalgic for a minute. He guessed the wearer to be in his late teens, early twenties, too young to ever have been to a Badlands concert, but who knew? He had blond hair, blue eyes, and a build that spoke of hours devoted to the gym. He reminded Reilly of an actor, but he couldn’t remember who.

“
Mr. Alexander?”

Reilly nodded, hiding a wince at the “mister.”

“
I’m Zach Canning. I’m a freelance reporter for
Spin
magazine.”

“
I think you’re in the wrong place, buddy. This is a book signing.”

Zach grinned. “Had to do a bit of convincing to get here, too.”

Reilly raised his brows at that. “Here’s a news flash for you. The assault case was dismissed. She just wanted to get in the limelight long enough to be discovered. I hear she’s making porn flicks now.”

Zach nodded sagely. “Yeah, that had to suck. That’s not why I’m here though.”

“
Good.” But Reilly’s relief was short-lived.

“
I’m doing a feature on One Hit Wonders. You know, where are they now?”

“
They’re all in hiding,” Reilly said. He knew for a fact that one or two of his own one-hit disaster group would probably shoot the smiley Zach Canning for his efforts to out them.

Zach sat on the edge of Reilly’s table and picked up a copy of his latest book,
Master Piece.

“
So is this based on your life?” Zach asked.

Reilly gave him a steady look. “It’s about a maniac who stalks groupies and murders them.”

Zach nodded, still wearing the idiot smile.

“
So no,” Reilly said patiently, “it’s not about my life.”

The kid let go a snort of laughter. “Good thing, huh?”

Good thing Reilly didn’t make Zach a one-hit wonder, but a woman’s voice interrupted them.

“
Excuse me?”

Reilly looked away from Zach to a petite and very old woman standing at his table. Fine-boned and birdlike, she stood tall despite the fact that she was obviously deep into her golden years. Her skin was the color of toffee—not black, brown, or white, but a mixture of all three that defied racial claims. It was papery-thin and yet unwithered. The lines fanning from her eyes were deep, speaking of untold years, but the eyes themselves sparkled like black diamonds. She wore pink lipstick—a young girl’s color, but she managed to carry it off. Perhaps it was the white-toothed smile. A turban in bright African colors wrapped around her hair and a long flowing tunic matched it. Black pants with precise creases covered her legs and black sneakers completed the outfit. Reilly stared at the athletic shoes with a bemused smile. The words
super granny
came to mind, but he kept them to himself.

Behind her in a bizarre cluster stood a hodgepodge of humanity that Reilly couldn’t have dreamed up and fictionalized if he’d tried. Like some kind of comic book depiction of a crowd they huddled together, some extremely tall and others excessively short, some unnaturally thin and others uncommonly fat. Their clothes crossed the spectrum from white gauze to fuchsia, tie-dye to black satin. One man wore white gloves and a priest’s vestments. Either this was the weirdest book club on the planet or they’d been beamed down from a circling vessel. The group watched the old woman with avid interest.

“
Is there a circus in town?” Zach asked, oblivious to the offensiveness of his remark.

The woman simply stared at him until Zach eased himself off Reilly’s table and shifted uncomfortably. She continued to stare until he hung his head in shame. Reilly grinned. He had to admire a woman who could do that with just a look. He’d known a few of them in his lifetime.

“
You are Nathan Reilly Alexander?” she said, her voice strong and clear.

No one called him Nathan. If it wouldn’t have been such a pain in the ass to do it, he’d have had the name removed from record. “It’s Reilly. Reilly Alexander.”

He reached for the book she held out and opened it to the title page.

“
You can make it out to Chloe LaMonte,” she said. “Your guide to your destiny.”

He paused, pen poised over the page. “Come again?”

“
You’ve been waiting for me, haven’t you?”

Reilly gave her a slanted look and a head shake. “Can’t say that I was.”

“
You haven’t been thinking of fate, of your destiny? Of where you go from here?”

He wanted to scoff, but of course he couldn’t. He’d been doing more than thinking about it. He’d been dwelling on it. He wrote, “To Chloe, enjoy the book,” signed it, and handed it back to her. She took it with a strange smile.