It would be a risk.
Hell, everything she did was a risk. This was a way out, possibly the only way out. She had to know if it was working or if she had to search out another path. Joe would say it was reckless, and she should wait for him to come for her. He had tried to free her to make a move, but she knew he didn’t want her to make that move without him.
Joe.
She closed her eyes and let the thought of him surround her. His tea-colored eyes, the way he moved, the quiet that hid all the leashed fierceness, the intelligence that was both a challenge and source of pride to her. Thinking about him soothed her, and she wanted to cling to it.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t rely on him. He was her friend and her lover, but this was her battle. She had to make her own decisions.
I’m sorry, Joe. Run toward me. I’ll run toward you. One way or another, we’ll come together. That’s the way it’s always been.
She opened her eyes.
Two minutes had passed. Doane’s breathing had stayed even and perhaps had deepened. Time to move.
She slipped from the bed and began to fold it up in the middle.
No sound.
Slowly.
She knew the drill now and it took her less than a minute to climb up on the bed and reach for the nozzle to unscrew it.
She drew a deep breath and opened the line.
Carnations.
She started to close the line.
Wait. A little more. Test it.
Carnations.
Dizziness.
Blackness, closing in.
She frantically turned the screw.
Too much. Too much.
Get down.
No noise.
Hold on.
Don’t black out.
Hurry. Get down. You’ll ruin everything if he finds out what you’ve been doing.
She reached the floor, staggered, and fell to her knees.
Carnations.
Had she left that line open or was the smell just still in her nostrils?
If she’d left it open, she had to go back up and close it.
Not now. She wouldn’t be able to manage yet. Too weak. Much too weak.
She curled up in a ball on the floor.
Dizzy.
Darkness …
* * *
STUPID. SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN sure that gas line was closed. She could vaguely remember hurriedly turning the screw but maybe—
“Stop worrying, Mama. You closed it.”
Bonnie?
She opened her eyes to see Bonnie leaning against the folded bed a few yards away. Her daughter was dressed as always in her Bugs Bunny T-shirt and jeans, and her curly red hair gleamed even in the dimness of the room. So little, so beautiful, so beloved.
Bonnie suddenly chuckled. “Don’t be sappy, Mama. I was never beautiful except to you. Red hair and freckles on my nose?”
“Don’t make fun of me. You were—you are beautiful. It’s spirit that makes beauty.”
“Then I guess I should be beautiful because I’m most certainly a spirit.” Her smile faded. “You shouldn’t have doubled that dose of gas, Mama. You scared me. I was worried about you. I was afraid you were going to fall.”
“I had to make sure that I was—”
“I know why you were doing it,” Bonnie interrupted. “But you shouldn’t have done it. It was working. Your body is becoming accustomed to the gas.”
“You should have come and told me that before the fact,” Eve said tartly. “It would have saved me a lot of trouble.”
“I couldn’t come to you. I’ve been trying. There’s too much darkness holding me away. He doesn’t want me near you. Sometimes it’s easier to use dreams, but that didn’t work either. I wouldn’t have been able to come this time if the gas hadn’t knocked you out. You’re deep enough so that I could slip in.”
So it was a dream. Sometimes she couldn’t tell the difference with Bonnie. “Ben said that he’d dreamed about you.”
“I had to find a way to warn you. I was helpless. He wouldn’t let me near you.”
“Doane?”
“No, the other one.”
“What other one?”
“Kevin.”
Eve felt a chill stiffen every muscle. “Kevin is dead.”
“Not as long as Doane is alive. Kevin won’t let go. There’s some … connection. Just as there is with you and me.”
“Bonnie.”
“I didn’t want to scare you, but you have to know.” She shook her head as she looked at Eve. “Mama, you know there are things that do go bump in the night. Not many that are evil. Occasionally, something slips, or there’s a force that carries over. Those are usually taken care of by the natural order. But there’s something helping from your side. Very strong, very powerful.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know very much myself. I learn more every day I’m here. It made me afraid when I could see all that darkness heading toward you and couldn’t see any way to help you. I couldn’t even reach Joe. He was too close to you.”
“You might not have reached him, but you managed to make him extremely nervous, didn’t you?”
“Part of that was me, but most of it was Joe’s instincts. He’s lived with darkness for a long time. He can sense it coming.”
“Yes, he can. But neither one of us could see that Jane would be pulled into this nightmare.” She met Bonnie’s eyes. “Did you, baby?”
She shook her head. “Jane closes me out. I can’t connect with her either.”
Eve nodded slowly. Jane knew that Eve believed Bonnie came to her and had never argued or tried to dissuade her. But she had never accepted Bonnie as anything but a comforting dream that gave Eve happiness. “It’s not that she has any ill feelings toward you, baby.”
“Are you trying to keep me from getting my feelings hurt?” Bonnie was smiling again. “You love her, and that makes me love her. I understand Jane. Someday we’ll come together.” Her smile ebbed, then faded. “Though I wish it was going to be different.”
Eve stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure. The darkness…”
“Listen to me; nothing is going to hurt Jane,” she said fiercely. “We have to keep that from happening. She’s already been hurt because of that bastard. She’s not going to be hurt again.”
“Sometimes you can’t stop it from happening.”
Panic surged through her. “Don’t say that. If I try hard enough, I can do anything. Why do you think I’m working on Kevin’s reconstruction? I’ll stall Doane until I can either get away or Joe can find me. And I told him he had to keep Jane safe.”
“Who is going to tell Jane? Do you think she’s not going to try to find you? She loves you. I think she loves you as much as I do, Mama.”
“Then I just have to work faster, harder.”
Bonnie made a face. “Not too much faster. It’s good that I was able to get to you after that last whiff of gas, but I don’t know how dangerous an overdose would be.”