Then there was a flash, and between the plants stood the little girl.
Long dark hair. Big, sad, dark eyes. Pale oval face.
Missy.
In the gray twilight separating the strobelike flashes, she vanished, only to reappear in the bright white light.
Help us.
She didn't appear to speak; her lips didn't move. But with every flash she was moving closer and closer, closing the distance between them, her pallid face beginning to twist in an expression of pain, her eyes dark pools of terror.
Her hands reached out toward Diana, pleading—
"Diana!"
She jerked her head around to stare at Quentin, blinking in the abrupt return to the bright warmth of the veranda. And then in the next moment a loud rumble of thunder made her look up to see dark clouds rolling overhead, swiftly blotting out the sun and bringing a chill to the air.
"We'd better get inside," Quentin said, over the sounds of chairs scraping against the stone surface of the veranda as other guests came to the same decision. "This storm came out of nowhere."
"Did it?" she murmured, feeling very... peculiar. "Or was it here all along?"
"What?"
Diana realized that she was indeed holding his hand, and it required an enormous effort to force herself to let it go. "Nothing. It's... it doesn't matter."
"We should get inside," he repeated, frowning, as he got to his feet.
Diana rose as well, automatically. She was cold. And she was scared. Her body was tingling oddly, as if an unfamiliar energy coursed through her. And yet... there was something familiar about the sensation, like the distant echo of a forgotten memory.
Without meaning to say it aloud, she murmured, "Why do they call it second sight? Because you can see what's underneath the surface? Because you see what isn't there? Because you can see... through a glass, darkly..."
Quentin stepped around the table and grasped her shoulders with both hands. "Diana, listen to me. You are not crazy."
"You don't know what I just saw." Her voice was shaky now.
"Whatever it was, it was real." He glanced up impatiently as the first drops of rain began to splatter around them, then took her hand and began leading her inside.
Diana went, almost blindly. Maybe, she thought later, because she really didn't want to be alone just then. Or maybe it was because the answers Quentin offered were less terrifying than the probability of her own deepening insanity.
Madison looked up from the very old doll she had found in the trunk and frowned as thunder rumbled. "Daddy said there'd be storms."
"It storms a lot here," her new friend said.
"I like storms. Don't you?"
"Sometimes."
"I also like this room." Madison looked around at the very pretty, very girlish bedroom, with its old-fashioned furniture and lacy curtains. "But why is it secret?"
"Because they wouldn't understand."
"They?" Madison frowned and absently patted Angelo, who was curled up next to her, trembling a bit. He hated storms, poor baby. "You mean my parents?"
"Yes."
Suddenly wary, Madison said, "It's your room, right? I mean, it doesn't belong to somebody else? Because I'm not supposed to go into other people's rooms, not without being asked."
"You can always come into this room."
Madison had the suspicion that her questions hadn't really been answered, and asked another, more pointed one. "What's your name? You haven't told me."
"Becca."
"That's pretty."
"Thank you. So is Madison."
"So this is your room, Becca?"
"It was."
"But not anymore?"
Becca smiled sweetly. "I still come here sometimes. Especially when it storms."
"Do you? I like my room at home when it storms. I feel safe there."
"You'll be safe here too. Remember that, Madison. You'll be safe here."
Madison eyed her uncertainly. "From the storm?"
"No." Becca leaned toward her and, still smiling sweetly, whispered, "It's coming."
CHAPTER 4
Diana sipped the hot, sweet tea Quentin had ordered, looking at him over the rim of the cup. When she set it down in its saucer on the small table between their chairs, she said dryly, "The traditional remedy for shock."
He shrugged. "We didn't get to finish our coffee." They were sitting in a fairly secluded area of the big lounge off the main lobby, where quite a few guests had also taken refuge from the storm. The space was arranged so that numerous chairs and tables in scattered groupings separated from each other by large potted plants, screens, and other decorative dividers provided for privacy and quiet conversations, yet there was still the sense of not being too isolated, too alone.
The storm continued to rumble outside, more thunder, lightning, and wind than rain. Which was usual for this valley, Quentin had said.
Diana hadn't really recovered from her experience on the veranda. In fact, she wasn't sure she ever would. And now that she'd had a few minutes to think about it, she was feeling wary, defensive, and more uncertain than she could ever remember feeling.
It was not a comfortable sensation.
"We also didn't get to finish our conversation," Quentin added. "What did you see out there, Diana?"
"Nothing." She had, at least, regained enough of her wits to know better than to describe what she thought she had seen. What she couldn't possibly have seen. No matter what he said he believed, in Diana's experience people found the inexplicable unsettling at the very least.
And she really didn't want to see that too-familiar look in his eyes, that don't-let-her-know-I-think-she's-nuts careful lack of shock or disbelief.
"Diana—"
"This morning, you said something about this not being a safe place for kids. Something about tragedies? I assume you meant other than Missy. So what's that all about?"
He hesitated, then shrugged. "Accidents, illnesses, unexplained deaths, kids gone missing."
"That happens everywhere, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, unfortunately. But it happens here a lot more often than can be accounted for by random chance."
"And you believe that ties into Missy's death somehow?"
"I've found that for the most part, there's no such thing as coincidence," Quentin said.
Diana felt herself frowning. "No?"
"No. There are patterns everywhere, if we only knew how to recognize them. Mostly we don't, at least until after the fact. Some of them, on the other hand, are so clear they're practically in neon. You and me, for instance."
Warily, she said, "What about us?"
"The fact that we're both here, now, isn't a coincidence. The fact that you drew a very accurate sketch of Missy, someone whose murder I'm trying to solve, and that I happened to be here to see it, isn't a coincidence. Even the fact that you climbed the stairs to the observation tower at the crack of dawn this morning and found me there wasn't a coincidence."
"All part of the master plan, huh?"
"All part of the pattern. It all connects, somehow, some way. And I'm guessing Missy is the connection."
Diana, thinking of the other sketch in her tote bag, the one of this man drawn before she'd ever set eyes on him, found it difficult to argue with at least some of what he was saying. But she tried.
"How could that be? I told you, I never knew anybody named Missy. I've never been here before. I've never even been in Tennessee before. There was probably a newspaper article about her death or something, with a picture, and I saw it at some point years ago. Something like that."
"No." Quentin's voice was flat. "The article about her death was little more than a paragraph, and there was no picture. Plus, it never even made the big regional papers, let alone any national news media. I've studied the case for years, Diana. I've seen every scrap of information I could find — and the Bureau teaches us how to search, believe me."