"To show you something. So you'll really start to believe."
"Show me what?"
"A secret place."
"Becca—"
"There are secrets everywhere, Diana. Remember that." She pointed off to the side, where the door to this barn's tack room stood closed. "One of them is in there. Tell him to look for it. Tell him it's hidden there."
"What's hidden there? Becca—"
The little girl tilted her head to one side, her expression solemn. "In the attic too. There's something you need to see up there. It's important, Diana. It's very important."
"Why?" The question had barely emerged when a sudden flash made Diana blink. For an instant, just a split second, she thought she smelled hay, thought the grayness all around her changed. "Becca, why?" she repeated quickly.
"Because it's the truth. And you need to know the truth. Until you know that, you won't understand what's happening here."
Another flash brought Diana the smell of hay and horses and the sight of fluorescent lights stretching down the barn's hallway. She felt a sudden warmth grip her upper arms and realized instantly what was happening right now, this moment.
She was being pulled back.
"Becca, what is it? What is the truth?"
Another flash. Then another. She could see Quentin now, in the flashes, standing before her.
"I can't tell you, Diana. You have to find it out for yourself. You and him. You need him. Because—"
"—it's coming," Diana said as she opened her eyes.
"What's coming?" Quentin demanded, his hands tightening on her bare and chilled upper arms.
A horse snorted nearby, making her jump, and the strong if pleasant scents of hay and horses were suddenly thick in her nostrils. The strips of fluorescent lights down the barn's hall seemed so bright they hurt her eyes. She wondered vaguely if they remained on all night, then decided that Quentin had probably turned them on when he had followed her into the barn minutes — or maybe hours — before.
Her feet felt like ice. She felt like ice.
"Diana, what are you doing down here? It's five o'clock in the morning."
She blinked up at him, for a moment totally baffled, her mind a blank. But then she remembered.
She remembered all of it.
"I was... following," she murmured.
"Following what?"
"Not what. Who."
Quentin's frown deepened, but before he said anything else, he took off his zip-up sweatshirt jacket. "Here, put this on. Your skin's like ice."
Diana looked down at herself, abruptly aware of her very skimpy attire. The silky camisole was clinging to her chilled flesh like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. Feeling heat rise in her cheeks, she hastily shrugged into the jacket, wrapping herself in the warmth and scent of his body.
"Christ, your feet are nearly blue," Quentin said. "The stable manager used to keep extra boots and sometimes shoes in the tack room, but it'll be locked. I need to get you back to the cottage."
Realizing more by intuition than any movement of his that he meant to pick her up and carry her, Diana took a step toward the tack room and said, "The door isn't locked. And we... we can't leave yet."
"Why not?"
Without answering, Diana went to the door, only dimly aware that her feet really were numb; she could barely feel the rough pavers beneath them. She turned the door handle and stepped up into the wooden-floored tack room.
It was Quentin who flipped on the light switch as he entered close behind her, saying, "Good, they still keep the extra stuff here." He went to the other side of the large space, where a low shelf held riding boots and several pairs of shoes.
Diana stood looking around her. Secret place? Was there a secret place here? All she saw was a tack room, a roughly eighteen-by-twenty-foot space crowded with saddles on stands, and bridles and halters and lead ropes on pegs, and numerous utility trays on shelves holding brushes and combs and hoof picks and other grooming equipment and supplies.
"Sit down, Diana." He took her arm and led her to one of the two long benches placed back-to-back down the center of the space. Diana sat on the nearest end of the bench, but reached for the shoes he held in one hand before he could sit down beside her.
"I'll do that. You take a look around in here."
He frowned down at her. "What am I looking for?"
Diana hesitated only an instant before replying, "A secret." She bent over to pull on the fairly new-looking but definitely too-large running shoes he had found for her.
"Everything's pretty much out in the open here," Quentin noted, looking around. "Except for the first-aid cabinet over there, I don't see any closed storage at all. What kind of secret could be hidden here?"
Diana didn't hear in his voice any sign of humoring her, and she saw only intent interest in his face when she straightened and looked up at him, but she was still wary of saying any more than she had to, at least for now.
Not because she feared he'd think she was crazy, but because she was afraid she'd convince herself of that fact if she started talking.
"Diana?"
"What're you doing down here, anyway?" she asked abruptly.
Quentin replied matter-of-factly, "I looked out my window last night and realized I could see your cottage. And something told me to watch. That little voice I hear sometimes. So I did. Saw you come out and head toward the stables a little while ago. It seemed like a good idea to follow you." He paused, then added, "It wasn't a blackout, was it? Your eyes were closed. You were walking in your sleep."
"Something like that."
"Something like that? Diana—"
"Could you just please look around in here?"
Quentin didn't move. "Does this have something to do with the murders? The disappearances?"
She drew a breath. "You tell me. A... guide... brought me down here. A little girl, maybe twelve years old. Said her name was Becca."
Barely hesitating, Quentin said, "Rebecca Morse disappeared from The Lodge nine years ago. No trace of her has ever been found."
"Then I guess this does have something to do with the — the murders. Because she led me here. In the gray time."
"And told you what?"
"That this place held a secret." Diana looked around the neat, silent tack room. "Becca told me that there were secrets everywhere. She told me to tell you to look for the one hidden in here."
"Me? By name?"
"No. She said 'him.' But she was talking about you." Diana shivered and drew the jacket even tighter around her. She should have felt lost in all the material, except that it was warm and smelled very pleasantly of him, and that gave her an odd and very unfamiliar feeling of security. She wished she could luxuriate in it. "There's something hidden here, Quentin, and we need to find it."
Still without moving, he said, "In that case, we need to call Nate and then talk to the manager of The Lodge. Before we do anything else. This is private property, Diana, and we're in here after hours and without permission."
"You sure as hell are," a grim voice agreed from the doorway.
CHAPTER 9
Cullen Ruppe was a dark man in his fifties, powerfully built through the shoulders and arms, and with a longtime rider's slim hips and strong legs. He was also, Nate had informed Quentin under his breath, apt to view himself as a badass, possibly why he was apparently hell-bent on giving everybody a hard time. Nobody was searching his tack room, not without permission from Management or, failing that, a warrant.
"I can't get a warrant," Nate told Quentin in a low voice as he joined the other man near the entrance end of the long barn, leaving Ruppe scowling just outside the tack room door. "Not on the word of a maybe-psychic who could have been walking in her sleep for all we know."