"No." He shook his head. "I dragged Dom back outside… By then he seemed to be having waking nightmares. We hadn't slept in two nights, and I was getting dizzy. We went back to the precinct, and I ran a check on all the airlines out of Portland. I caught two tickets to Seattle charged on a MasterCard registered to a Shelby Drake at twenty-seventeen Freemont Drive…" He faltered, looking up at me.
My stomach lurched. How could I have been that stupid? I led them right to Maggie. It was my fault.
He went on. "Dom was never the same after we left your house. He told Captain McNickel and our sergeant everything… They put him on suspension pending psychiatric investigation."
"McNickel did that? To Dominick?"
At the time, neither Wade nor I found it strange that I spoke of Captain McNickel as if I knew him. The visions from Wade's past were as real to me as they were to him.
"Dom just sounded crazy, even to me, and I believed him. The next day he quit and told me he was driving up to Seattle to look for you."
"And you quit, too?"
"What else could I do? He's my friend, and he was right. They're all too blind to look for the truth."
"That's Dom talking, not you."
He winced, and I sat there watching the streetlights from outside reflect off his cheekbone. I didn't hate him anymore. Maybe I couldn't feel like Maggie. Maybe I couldn't understand his nature or comfort him, but I felt that I knew him, and I wouldn't hurt someone I knew.
"You have to stop tracking me, Wade. If Dominick finds me, he'll kill me."
"But what are you? Tell me what you are."
"I can't."
His fingers dug into the carpet. I watched the blue swirl of veins under the flesh on his hands. "You're so perfect… The images I pick up from you don't match. I can't even follow some of your thoughts. So cold. They aren't human."
Did he even know how close he was to the truth?
I stood up. "Wade, please. If you care about Dom, you'll get him to stop tracking me, or I'll kill him. Don't let him know about this. Just pretend you can't find me. I'll find a way to disappear, and you'll never see me again."
"Is that what you think I want?" he asked harshly, sounding frustrated. When I didn't answer, his voice lowered. "So none of this, none of the trip down my memory lane, means anything to you?"
What did he want?
I walked to the door. "Just keep him away from me. I didn't ask you to quit your job and come here. I didn't ask to see your life. Remember that."
Before he could answer I slipped out the door. But his narrow, intelligent face lingered in my mind, his troubled expression.
What did he expect me to do?
In the back of my mind, a very small part of me wanted to know.
Chapter 11
The next night, I sat in a chair by the fire at Maggie's, watching William dodder around the room. Reflections from orange flames flickered off dark mahogany end tables and danced down the wall beside me.
"I can't help it, William. We have to find someplace else."
"No, no, no. Just got here. Maggie will be home soon."
"Maggie isn't coming home."
"Call Julian. Time to call Julian."
"We can't."
His attitude concerned me. What if I couldn't get him to leave with me? Not that I blamed any of this on him. He'd lived ninety-six years in the same house. I'd dragged him out on a moment's notice and taken him to a strange place, only to tell him we had to move again. It was too much.
And I'd told Wade I would disappear… but now I wasn't sure where to go, even if I could get William out the door.
Would we have to fight it out here?
Maybe not. Could Wade be trusted? Thinking about Maggie, a part of me almost hoped Dominick would come hunting us again.
I got up and walked down the hall into Maggie's bedroom. Her cream lace bed draping smelled softly of floral perfume. Something white lay on her cherrywood nightstand. I picked it up and read a list of things-to-do, written in her perfect script.
1. Have dry cleaning dropped off.
2. Get William a new bedspread.
3. French-braid Eleisha's hair.
"Maggie."
She was gone. I'd led them right to her. Lying down on her satin comforter, I closed my eyes to the sight of Edward jumping off his porch again. How many weeks ago? Edward, Maggie, Dominick, William, Philip, Julian… they all kept spinning around inside me until my stomach tightened in sharp rebellion. And what about Wade? He occupied my thoughts almost as much as William. It amazed me that someone so intelligent couldn't recognize insanity in his own partner. Mortals always use pretty euphemisms like "caught in an obsession" to sugarcoat realities like madness.
"What do I do?"
I didn't know and there was no one to tell me. In a rare moment, Edward had once whispered, "When we die, our maker will feel the pain halfway across the world. The pain of their children will always reach them."
If that was true, Philip already knew about Maggie's death. If I had taken the time to sit down calmly and write out a list of all the reasons for us to flee from this house and get as far away as possible, we might actually have made a decent run for Canada or New Zealand or maybe even China. But I wrote no such list, and I was tired of running. I'd told Wade we would disappear, and yet… if we ran now, we'd never stop. This house was perfect. It had been Maggie's, and now it was mine.
I got up off the bed and walked back out into the living room. William paced back and forth between the fireplace and the dining room, muttering bits and pieces of "Rapunzel," which Maggie had read him almost every night.
"No packing," he said to me suddenly. "No packing."
"No, we don't need to pack. We're staying here."
For the first time, I felt sick at the sight of his aged, senile face. He couldn't help me. Why was he so useless? "Get away from me, William. I'm going out."
Without bothering to wait for an answer, I ran out the front door and down the dark side of the street. Single people and couples moved past me, doing whatever it is mortals do at night in the Emerald City, but I ignored them and headed toward downtown.
Mad Dog 20/20 littered the chipped sidewalks like pebbles in a stream. I hopped easily around them without thinking, and for once didn't stop to give the homeless bums any money.
Moving by a tattoo shop, I stopped at the sound of two raised voices.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be back by two. You lock that door on me again, and I'll kick your teeth in."
The shop was empty except for a young woman with greasy hair, smoking a cigarette, and a stocky, dark-haired man pulling on a jacket.
"Where're you going?" the woman asked.
"Out."
"What if a customer comes?"
"Tell 'em we're closed. I don't care! Go to bed or something. Just don't lock that goddamn door."
He hurried out, lighting a cigarette, and walked quickly toward a beat-up Ford Pinto parked near the curb.
"Why don't you get a key?" I asked softly.
"Huh?"
He half turned in annoyance, and then stopped sharply at the sight of me leaning up against the building.
"Why don't you get a key for the front door? Then you wouldn't have to worry about being locked out."
"Do you always hang out listening to other people's problems?" he asked.
"Not usually. Why don't you have a key?"
"She chains it from the inside." He had a stocky build, a hard face, dark hair, and china-blue eyes, like Dominick. "What do you want? You need a ride or something?"
For once I didn't fall into my helpless act. He didn't seem to need it. But my recently adopted hooker's pose didn't fit right either. Besides, going out hadn't been on my agenda, and I was wearing a long broomstick skirt with a white tank top, in spite of cool April night air.