IT WAS CLOSE TO NOON BEFORE Megan finally shut off the computer and leaned back in her chair.
Done.
She should be exhausted, but she was too wired to feel anything but excitement, tension… and fear.
Get over it. She hadn't spent all this time and effort to let herself be blocked by an outpouring of emotion. Go take a shower and make a fresh pot of coffee. Think clearly and logically, go over the notes, and then come to a conclusion.
No matter how unclear and illogical the conclusion might prove to be.
"YOU PHONED?" GRADY SAID WHEN she opened the front door to his ring two hours later.
"Ten minutes ago." She frowned. "You must have been practically on the doorstep."
"Close enough." He came into the foyer and shut the door. "I told you I'd come when you called."
"But that was at the hospital."
He smiled. "That doesn't make any difference. I don't believe in short-term commitments. If you phoned, then you must have had a good reason. I'm not one of your favorite people at the moment."
"That's true." She turned on her heel. "Come into the kitchen and sit down. I need to talk to you. I'll even give you a cup of coffee."
"You're feeding me under your roof? Isn't that a medieval gesture of truce?"
"I'm not feeding you. I'm giving you a cup of coffee." She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table where she'd already set out cups and a carafe of coffee. "And the truce depends entirely on what you tell me."
"Then I'll start telling you about Phillip. I called the hospital and they have him comfortably settled in Bellehaven Nursing Home. I had Harley arrange for a guard to keep an eye on him."
She stiffened. "Wait a minute. You had no right to choose a nursing home without my input. Do you have any idea how many substandard nursing homes there are? A coma patient is totally helpless."
"I wouldn't put Phillip in a place where he'd not be well cared for. I checked it out. It's a fine place. Bellehaven has a special Coma Rehabilitation Unit in the annex run by Dr. Jason Gardner. It's small but high quality. They don't just let a patient lie there and vegetate. They try experimental medication, physical therapy, even study past psychological evaluations. I talked to Gardner and he's passionate about what he does. You should appreciate that."
"I do." Phillip needed all the passion they could give him in that dark world. "Has he evaluated Phillip yet?"
"No, he'll do that tomorrow. Right now there's no change in his condition. They're to contact both of us if there's any alteration, good or bad, tonight. Tomorrow you can talk directly to Gardner. He gave me his number and told me he's available to the families of his patients at any time."
"He sounds like a good doctor, a good man." She paused. "Thank you." It was clever of Grady to soften her attitude by appealing to her affection for the one person that they could discuss without conflict. "I just didn't think they were going to move him until tomorrow."
"I wanted him more comfortably settled."
"So that you could check him off your priority list?"
"No." He stared her in the eye. "So you could check him off yours. Yes, I wanted him to have the best possible care, but I also wanted your mind and focus clear. If that makes me a bastard, then so be it." He poured coffee into her cup. "But I don't believe my selfishness is that important to you at the moment or I wouldn't be here. Your move, Megan. Why did you want to talk to me?"
"Because you're the one with the answers." Her hands clenched around her cup. "I need to know more."
"More than what?"
She took a folded page of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. "When I was in the cave, these were the only conversations that I could distinguish out of that hideous cacophony. They were the strongest echoes."
"And?"
"I had to know that what you told me was true." She shook her head. "No, there's no way I can know, but I had to believe." She drew a deep breath. "That's why I spent the last sixteen hours at the computer searching through newspaper morgues trying to find some rock of reason to cling to."
"And did you find it?"
She didn't answer directly. "It wasn't easy. I had no date factor to enter into the equations. I had to go through every reference to the quarry since 1913, when the newspaper was established. I wasn't even sure what happened there would be mentioned. If there were crimes, they might not be known. If the emotional trauma was personal, there was no reason for it to be in the newspapers."
"No reason at all." His gaze narrowed on her face. "But you did find something. You're… pumped." He tapped the first name on the paper she had given him. "Hiram?"
"In 1922, Hiram Ludlow, a worker at the quarry was tried for the murder of his wife, Joanna. He pushed her from the cliff only a few yards from the cave. Then he went after his brother, Caleb, and shot him. He died in prison in 1935."
Grady pointed at the second name on the paper, "Pearsall."
"In 1944, Kitty Brandell sued Donald Pearsall for child support for her illegitimate daughter. She worked in the Pearsall Carpet Factory near town and when Donald came back from serving in the Army in World War Two, he evidently swept her off her feet. They had several clandestine meetings in the cave that summer and her daughter, Gail, was conceived there. He denied being the father and she was fired from her job and practically run out of town. But she fought back, saved up money for a lawyer, and filed the suit when her daughter was seven years old."
"Did she win?"
"No. His family had the power and the money. She ended up with nothing but court costs and a bad reputation, which was pretty terrible in those days. I wanted to find what happened to her later, but I didn't have time to investigate anything that wasn't pertinent to what happened in that cave."
He glanced down at the third name. "What about baby John?"
She shook her head. "I couldn't find anything in the newspapers. Maybe nothing violent happened to him at the cave. Maybe his mother just ran up there like a wounded animal when her baby, John, died or was hurt. There's nothing more wrenching than a mother who's lost her child."
Grady put a question mark beside baby John. "Two out of three. Not bad."
"Not bad? It's terrible. It's all terrible." She held up her hand as he opened his lips to speak. "Yes, I know you were talking about my so-called success ratio. But I just can't separate the voices and what they went through to cause that agony. I can't stop my own pain. It's as if I absorb it and can't let it go. Did Phillip's wife ever succeed in doing that?"
He nodded. "But she never felt the intensity of emotion that you do. Nora was never able to separate the voices. They were just one tidal wave of sound to her, like the howling of the inmates in Bedlam. I think it's like that with most Listeners."
"Then how did I get so lucky?" she asked bitterly.
He looked down into his cup. "Your particular talent may have other facets." He changed the subject. "You didn't answer my question. You were looking for a rock to cling to, some proof that could convince you. Did you find it?"
"It could all be pure guesswork, coincidence."
He repeated. "Did you find it, Megan? Do you believe me? Do you believe in what you are?"
She didn't answer for a moment. She didn't want to say the words. To make that final admission would be to change everything; her past, her present, her future. She would never be able to look at herself in the same way again.
"Pretty scary? If it will help, you won't have to face it alone. I'll be here for you."
"I don't want your help." It wasn't the truth. She wanted all the help she could get, but she couldn't take it. "I am what I am. I'm the one who has to handle any problems."
"And exactly what are you, Megan?" he asked softly. "Say it."
"I'm a fairly intelligent woman and a doctor."
"And?"
She hesitated and then haltingly said the words, "I'm a Listener, dammit."
He smiled. "At last."
"But I'm not Nora and I will not be dependent on you as she was."
"That thought did occur to me after I had to chase you down when you decided you had to face your demons instead of being traumatized as most people would have been. I don't believe 'dependent' could ever be included in you character description."
She had stopped listening after that first sentence. "Demons," she repeated. "You said that before. But I can't think of the voices as demons if I have to live with them. They have to be people. Bad people, good people, selfish, generous, helpless, powerful, but human. Always human. If I have to deal with demons, then my life would truly be hell."
"My God."
"What?"
"You're already molding, defining, fashioning the situation to suit yourself."
"I'm trying to survive. I will survive."
"I'm sure you will." He took another drink of his coffee. "But you didn't invite me here to watch you struggle with your gift. You said you needed answers."
"I have an orderly mind. I had to take one problem at a time."
"You've obviously leapfrogged over the first one. Give me the questions."
Leapfrogged? She was still moving as sluggish as a turtle in accepting that damn Listener concept. Yet she had accepted it and now had to move on. "You said my mother was killed by a man named Molino. A revenge killing. Why?"
"He blamed her for killing his son, Steven. Molino is the slime of the earth, but he did love his son. He was proud of him and considered him a chip off the old block and he was probably right. From what I could gather, the boy was a liar, a sadist, and a rapist. All qualities that Molino shared."
"And he thought my mother killed his son?" She shook her head. "He was wrong."
"It depends on how you look at it."
"No, it doesn't. She was kind and gentle."
"Yes, but kind and gentle people do kill in self-defense."
"Why would she have to defend herself? Who the hell is Molino?"
"Scum. He dips his hands in quite a few cesspools. He's a drug dealer, owns a chain of whorehouses in Africa and South America and he dabbles in child slavery."
"What?"
"He pays bandits to steal children from the villages in Africa and handles the kidnappings in the U.S. and Europe himself. He sells them to clients all over the world. It's a very lucrative trade. Many tribal men in Africa believe breaking a virgin will rid them of AIDS."
She couldn't believe that horror. "No," she whispered.
"I wouldn't have given you ugly details but you had to realize just what a son of a bitch Molino really is." He paused. "And why your mother would have left you when she was approached to help stop him."
"And who approached her?"
"The CIA. They were getting flak from the government about the drugs that Molino was using to pay off the bandits flooding the market." He shrugged. "Not that it was more than a drop in the bucket. Molino's network was so extensive that they didn't think they could stop him, but they decided to make the attempt."
"Why involve my mother?"
"They had to locate him and then scoop him up when he was in a position where they could gather evidence with him. At that time he was moving around Africa with the speed of light and the usual informants weren't proving effective. So they borrowed me from my unit and set me loose on trying to track him." He shook his head. "But it wasn't my area of expertise. I can control, not locate. I called Michael Travis, head of a Psychic Investigation Group in Virginia, and asked him to send someone who could do the job. He gave me the name of a woman whom he'd run across about three years before. She had come to him because her daughter was exhibiting signs of being a Listener. She wanted to know how to block the echoes. She could block her own but she needed help in stopping the child's. She'd been able to do it when the voices had started when the little girl was seven, but after puberty the problem became too hard for her to handle alone."
"Me?" she whispered.
He nodded. "Michael Travis helped her as much as he could, but he said she was already stronger than he was. He tested her extensively and found out that she was amazingly multitalented. She was not only a Listener, she was also a Finder. Give her a glove, a scarf, a half-smoked cigarette and she could not only sense the person within a mile's distance but distinguish him in a crowd. He thought she'd be just what we needed if we could get her to cooperate. She didn't want to be involved with anything to do with psychic phenomena. She just wanted the tools to survive it and build a normal life for the two of you. Michael was very disappointed because he kept seeing hints of possible talents he'd rarely run across and wanted to do still more tests. She told him thank you, but no, thanks."
"She walked out on him?"
"He never saw her again. But he kept tabs on her because he felt it would have been irresponsible for him to ignore that potential."
"That sounds so… clinical." She shivered. "She wasn't 'potential,' she was my mother. She had a right to ignore your damn potential and live a normal life. You should have left her alone."
"We didn't force her. We told her the situation and left it up to her." His lips twisted. "I'm not saying that the CIA didn't persuade her with a few photos of the children that they'd managed to free from their owners. Two of them were already AIDS victims."
"Dear God."
"It was enough to make her agree to one job and one job only. She had to make arrangements for your care while she was gone and sent you to summer camp for six weeks. You were thirteen then. Do you remember?"
"Of course, I do. I didn't want to go to the blasted camp. I wanted to stay with her. She said I needed to be around people my own age." But she had never dreamed what her mother had been planning. Her mother was always urging her to be more outgoing and sending her to camp had seemed perfectly natural. "Where did she go?"
"Central Africa. Molino was to rendezvous with one of his bandit cohorts, Kofi Badu, for a payoff. That's where I met her. We became… close."
"How close?" She paused. "Lovers?"
"No. She was scared and I tried to help her. I was used to being a freak in everyone's eyes, but it was the first time she was exposed to it. She'd always hidden her gift." He met her gaze. "Is that what you thought when I showed up at the beach that summer when you were fifteen? That we were lovers?"
"Not at first. Yet sometimes you seemed to read each other's thoughts." And she had been jealous, she remembered suddenly. Her mother had been right. Megan had had a king-sized crush on Grady. From the moment she'd seen him, he'd caught and held her. He'd been her friend and teacher, yet she couldn't deny that he'd drawn her sexually. There had been moments when she'd only had to look at him to have her heart start pounding crazily.
For God's sake, she'd been only fifteen. It was an entirely natural response for a young girl when brought into contact with a man as physically attractive as Neal Grady.
"I assure you that if we read each other's thoughts it wasn't psychic-related," Grady said. "We lived in each other's pockets when we were in the jungle and that's bound to draw anyone close."
"And did my mother find Molino?"
"Yes." His lips twisted. "We furnished her with a red shirt Molino had left at one of his whorehouses in Madagascar and it was enough for her. We flew into the jungle where we thought the bandit, Kofi Badu, had a hideout, and spent three days there. She located Molino and went with the team to keep them on target."
"And that's where she killed Molino's son?"
"No, that was later. The raid proved a bust. They were waiting for us. We lost seven men… and your mother was captured."
She went rigid. "What?"
"We got her back two days later. But by that time the damage was done. She'd already killed Molino's son, Steven."
"I don't care about his son," she said fiercely. "What about my mother? Did they hurt her?"
"Yes. But she survived it and came out on top."
"What did they do to her?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"Hell, yes."
"Molino's son raped her."
She felt sick. "Then I'm glad he's dead." Dear God, what her mother had gone through. "She never let me know. She didn't let it change her. When she came home, she was the same as the day she left."
"I told you, she came out on top. Sarah was strong enough not to let that filth make her any less than she was." He paused. "But when she came back home we decided to take precautions and have her disappear for a while. That's why we whisked the two of you away from Richmond the minute she came back."
"She said she had a better job."
"We wanted to give her new credit cards and documents in a new name, but she said that it wasn't necessary since Molino was on the run from the CIA. She said Molino might be caught any day. Sometimes Sarah believed what she wanted to believe. She didn't want you to know anything about him or the talent she'd been trying to hide from you all your life. I tried to talk her out of it."
"Why?"
"Molino is relentless. He digs until he reaches pay dirt. He went underground for a long time and Sarah was feeling safer and safer every week. All the time he was working, searching, bribing everyone to find out everything he could about her and where we'd found her. After her death we discovered that the day before Molino's men had raided Michael Travis's library at the think tank and stolen all the records pertaining to her." He shook his head. "Dammit, I knew he'd find her. He was raised to believe in the vendetta and he wouldn't quit until he'd killed Sarah and her entire family. As the years passed, Sarah was getting more confident and I was getting more uneasy. That was why I rented that cottage and stayed close to you both all that summer."
"Not that last day."
"No, Sarah wouldn't let me come. She was beginning to be impatient with having me near all the time. She wanted to forget what happened with Molino and I wouldn't let her."
"So she died."
Yes.
"Shit." Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "Because of me. Right? She wanted everything to be safe and normal for me and they found both of us."
"It was her choice, Megan. None of this was your fault. You were the one person she loved in the world and she didn't want you to feel hounded because she'd decided to go after Molino."
"But she didn't stop him, did she? He's still out there selling drugs and children. He killed my mother and all she tried to do was for nothing. How can that be?"
"He's clever. He's rich. He has contacts in the governments of several countries. Corruption. Bribery. Fear." He shrugged. "His main headquarters is in Madagascar and it's as secure as a fort. And when he moves around to other locations he has the money to stay virtually invisible. The CIA has been trying to get their hands on him for years and they can never find the bastard. I almost had him twice but he slipped away."
"Had him?"
"Sarah was my friend. You don't think I'd let him kill her and live?"
"I don't know what to think about you, Grady."
"You knew what to think about me at one time."
Summer Sun. Gentle Surf. Grady smiling at her.
"You were pretending even then."
"Perhaps." He added wearily, "Perhaps not. Those were good days for me. I felt as if I had a family again. I had no business feeling like that. I was there to protect both of you and emotion always gets in the way. I should have ignored Sarah when she told me to stay away from both of you for a while. But I cared too much about what she thought and felt. I won't make that mistake again. Not with you, Megan. That's why I told Phillip to tell you that he was Sarah's half brother so that he could talk you into taking his name, changing your name from Nathan to Blair. I had to find a way to cover your tracks after Sarah's death."
"Phillip said that we should make a new start together and that would be part of it. We'd be a family again." She was shaking. She didn't want to believe Grady. She didn't want to feel this softening. "You don't have to worry about what I'm feeling. You have to worry about how to make sure I get my chance at Molino."
"To kill him?"
Kill. The word was ugly and foreign to her. She had spent years training to save lives and now she intended to kill.
He shook his head. "You see? It's not an easy choice for someone like you."
"He killed my mother. Phillip may never wake up again. The choice isn't that difficult. You can help me, can't you?"
"Yes, but there's always a price to pay. If you help me, I'll help you. I promise we'll get Molino."
A price. He'd mentioned before that he wanted her help. "What do you want me to do?"
"I'm searching for a certain object. I believe you can help me find it."
She frowned. "I'm not like my mother. I can't find people or things."
"Actually, Finding is fairly common. It often accompanies more significant gifts. You can never tell what talent is going to pop up." He shrugged. "But I'm not counting on you inheriting that particular one. All I need is a Listener. That will be harrowing enough."
She shivered as she remembered just how harrowing that episode in the cave had been. Now he wanted her to expose herself to that trauma again?
"And it will probably be worse than what you went through before." He was watching her expression. "Is it worth it to you?"
Dear God, of course it was worth it to her. She could bear anything if it meant that Molino would be destroyed. His grotesque presence was casting a shadow over her entire life. "I won't be your puppet. I won't do anything I regard as immoral."
"Then I'll have to make sure that I either keep your part of the project above reproach or lure you to the dark side." He continued briskly, "We'll have to leave here right away. Molino is having you watched and I want you off his scope so that we can move freely. I'm surprised he hasn't made another move since Phillip was shot. We're not going to give him another chance at you."
"Where are we going?"
"France. Do you speak French?"
"High school French. I've forgotten a lot. Will I need it?"
"I don't know."
"And I don't have a passport."
"No problem. I already have one for you."
She remembered what Phillip had said about Grady furnishing him with documents to prove he was her uncle. "How convenient. You must have been very sure of me."
"No, but I always like to be prepared. Like the Boy Scouts."
Sitting there, relaxed, dark, his posture gracefully indolent she was reminded of the comment her mother had made about him looking like a Renaissance prince with all the lethal radiance of that age. "You're definitely no Boy Scout." She pushed back her chair. "I'm going to go pack a bag and call the hospital and tell them I'm taking an extended leave. I'll be ready to leave in an hour."
He nodded. "I have a few arrangements to make too."
She headed for the door. "Not entirely prepared then." She stopped at the door to look back at him. "Have you told me the truth, Grady?"
"Absolutely."
Her gaze searched his face. "But you haven't told me everything, have you?"
He was silent a moment. "I should have realized you'd sense that. No, not everything."
"Why not?"
"It's not to my advantage. And ignorance won't put you in any more danger than you will be anyway."
He wasn't going to tell her any more. "I'm going to find out, Grady."
"I don't doubt it. But not now, and not from me."
"I could make it part of the deal."
"Go ahead, call my bluff." He said quietly but firmly, "Not now, Megan."
She hesitated. She had no desire to do battle with him at the moment. She believed what he had told her was the truth. The rest could wait until she was more in control of herself and the situation. "I will find out, Grady. You'd better be prepared for that, Boy Scout." She strode down the hall and slammed her bedroom door behind her.