It probably should have scared her a lot.
"No, you were always more comfortable with this sort of thing than I was," Paris said as she mostly emerged out of the darkness in front of Dani.
"I'm the one who tried to run away from it," Dani pointed out, not as distracted as she should have been by the fact that Paris seemed to have a body only from the navel up.
"It was the stuff out there you were running away from, the stuff you couldn't control. People, relationships. Emotional stuff. The psychic stuff was always easier for you."
"I can't control this."
"Oh, of course you can. You always could."
"Bullshit."
"To paraphrase what you said to Marc, that'll fix things-a good, resounding bullshit."
"I didn't tell you what I said to Marc."
"Mmm. Never mind that now. Just remind yourself that you really can control this. Later, when you think about it, when it matters. Don't forget."
"What's happening later?"
"You'll need to know stuff."
"Paris-"
"It's all right, Dani. Some things are meant to happen just the way they happen. We both knew this was one of them, right? We both know that's why you really came home."
For the first time, uneasiness stirred in Dani, cold and deep. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you do."
"No. I don't."
"I wasn't in your vision dream. Right from the beginning. Before you told anybody. Before you came here. Before you did anything at all to affect what you had seen. I should have been there with you, and I wasn't."
"So? It's one of the things I knew would change."
"No, Dani. It's one of the things you knew wouldn't change. That's why you've been so shut inside yourself. Why you've kept Marc from getting close the way he wants to, and why you even shut me out."
"I never-"
"Dani. The only time you let me in was during the dream walk. Not before then. Not since. Because you were afraid. Because you thought there'd be a moment, somewhere along the way, when you could change things. This one particular thing. If you were strong enough. Quick enough. If you tried hard enough. But that's not the way it works, you know."
"Paris-"
"Miranda said it. No matter what we see or what we dream, the universe has a plan. All this was part of the plan."
"I won't accept that," Dani whispered.
"Afraid you don't really have a choice, sis. Besides, you've already accepted it. We both have. That's why we didn't need to talk about it all these weeks while you were letting me cry on your shoulder, and cried yourself, about the end of my marriage. We both knew that wasn't the only ending we were grieving."
"Paris-"
"I'm glad you came back here after the divorce. Have I told you that? How much it meant to me that you came?"
"You didn't have to say anything. I knew."
"We always do, don't we? The best part about being a twin. All the things we don't have to say."
"There are things we do. Paris-"
"Listen, what Shirley Arledge told Hollis is right: He's tricking you. Look past the trick, Dani. You know the truth, it's there in your vision dream. Just think it through."
"I can't do this by myself."
"You won't be by yourself. A twin is never alone, no matter what." Paris was already drifting back into the darkness. "And you can do what you have to, Dani. When the time comes. You'll know. You'll make the right choice."
"Paris, come back!"
"It's okay." Her voice was faint and fading. "I've got something for you, something you can use. I think it was always supposed to be yours anyway. Come see me before you leave, okay?"
Dani listened as hard as she could, but she couldn't hear her sister anymore.
And the darkness closed in.
Sunday, October 12
Dani resisted opening her eyes for a long time even after she knew she was awake and aware. A part of her wanted to hide, to dive back down into the darkness and search for Paris.
But a stronger part of her knew there was only one way back into that darkness, and willing herself there wasn't it.
She opened her eyes. A hospital room, she thought. Dim and hushed, with machines beeping quietly nearby. There was never a sense of time in a hospital room, Dani had found; there was routine and order, but the nights and the days looked very much alike. Her own internal clock told her hours had passed, that it was probably at least late Sunday morning.
Which meant she'd been out a long time. She wondered with faint amusement what the doctors had made of her.
Somewhere in the building, a medical paper was probably being drafted.
She was distracted from that thought by the realization that there was a shadowy figure in the far corner of the room, but it was the closer presence she was far, far more aware of.
"Dani…"
She turned her head to see Marc beside her hospital bed, holding her hand. He looked incredibly relieved and incredibly weary, older than he had looked yesterday.
We pay such a price.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
Dani considered, then nodded. "Good. I feel good." More than that, really. She felt strong. Stronger than she'd ever felt before, and in a way that was completely unfamiliar to her. It wasn't muscles, it was…
Power.
"Dani… something's happened."
She nodded again. "I know. Paris."
He didn't seem surprised by her knowledge but offered details. "She isn't dead. At least-The doctors say it's a coma. They can't explain it. But they couldn't explain you either." He shook his head. "They're saying she's showing some brain activity, and as long as that continues, there's hope."
Dani knew. She heard the clock in her head ticking off the remaining days-or hours, or maybe just minutes-of Paris's hope. There was so little time left.
Bishop came out of the shadows to stand at the foot of her bed. "I'm sorry, Dani."
She looked at him. "I never thought we'd meet with those words, even though I dreamed them. Sort of. But I get it. You knew he'd come after one of us."
"Yes. Something Miranda saw. But… it could have been either one of you. There was no way for us to be sure."
"Until I started hearing his voice in my head."
Without flinching, Bishop said, "At first I believed he'd choose Paris as one of his victims. When she wasn't a part of your vision dream, not beside you when she should have been, and once Miranda was out of the picture, that seemed the obvious answer."
"You were going to use her. Watch her, follow her. Wait for him to go after her. Bait on a hook."
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "But it seemed our best chance of catching him. It bothered me from the beginning that neither of you really fit his victim profile, but from the beginning here he was veering from that, at least in terms of coloring. I had to assume his ritual was changing in some fundamental way, and that meant it was possible he was choosing victims using some other criteria and then… making them fit. Both of you could be made to fit.
"You were still dreaming, and Paris was still missing from that dream. That vision dream. But then the killer's M.O. began to change in drastic, unpredictable ways, and quickly. Very quickly. That… neon crime scene. Being a little too obvious in stalking and photographing Marie Goode, a previous victim's jewelry left in her home, plus flowers."
"Too obvious," Dani said, half to herself. "Look at me, look what I'm doing."
Bishop nodded. "Not at all in character for the Boston serial. Not a kind of progression, a kind of evolution, I've ever seen before in a serial killer."
"And yet."
He nodded again. "And yet. We were sure this was the same killer even before we got here, positive in our own minds even without evidence to back that up. Since then, Hollis had seen Becky Huntley, later Shirley Arledge; both of them and Karen Norvell were the right physical type, matching the victims in Boston. And you were hearing that voice, a confirmation of our suspicion that we might be dealing with a psychic killer."