Hostage

by Kay Hooper

“Not long ago,” Bishop confirmed. “Miranda is in California on a case and got the same message at the same time.” Miranda was his wife and partner in every sense of the word, a team primary agent in the SCU—which often meant they worked different cases far away from each other, as they obviously were doing now. But their psychic connection was rather extraordinary.

  Distance between two people was one thing; being separated was something else entirely.

  Not being psychic himself, and so lacking that particular mental and emotional link with his own beloved wife, John rather envied them their special closeness, even though he knew the same psychic connection that made them an amazingly strong team and solid anchor for the unit was also their Achilles’ heel. No one was completely sure, but they had some evidence to suggest that because their connection was extraordinarily deep, and growing deeper as time passed, it had become a literal lifeline between them: sever it, and both could die. Injure one and at the very least incapacitate the other, physically, emotionally, and psychically.

  “How’s Luther?” Maggie asked. If she was aware of her husband’s musings, she showed no outward sign of it.

  “When Callie sent her message, he was sleeping. Out, really; she had sedated him. She dug the bullet out of his leg and took care of the wound. Don’t worry; she’s also one of my agents with EMS-level medical training. He’s in good hands.”

  “And if Cole Jacoby tracks him to her place?”

  “There’s the thing about her being able to repel negative energy, remember. And if that doesn’t work, well, she’s also good with a gun. Very good, in fact.”

  John frowned and said, “If Jacoby was able to manipulate the minds of those agents during the transfer—”

  As usual, Bishop was a step ahead. “Then why couldn’t he affect Luther’s mind even if he couldn’t get through to Callie’s? Luther does have a shield of sorts; it should protect him, or at least make him aware if someone is attempting to get into his mind or control his actions. Virtually every psychic I’ve ever known has been able to detect attempts such as those.”

  “Maybe because they’re so rare,” Maggie mused. “The unusual does tend to stand out.”

  “It does,” Bishop agreed. “Which may be one reason why Jacoby’s security escort never saw it coming. Remember, all Jacoby did with the agents was leave them with a few gaps in their memories. And neither one of them is psychic, so no protection, no shields, no awareness of a psychic . . . intrusion. Even so, as far as we know, he wasn’t able to do anything more than . . . persuade them . . . to take a wrong turn or two, pull the car over, uncuff him, and then take a nap, forgetting what they’d done. They woke up on the outskirts of a small town where it was easy for him to boost another car.”

  It was Maggie’s turn to frown. “You said gaps. That they had gaps in their memories.”

  “When they woke up, they were about a hundred miles west of where they should have been,” Bishop admitted. “And somewhere along the way Jacoby must have been hungry because there were fast-food wrappers in the back, courtesy of the driver’s cash.”

  “Surveillance cameras?” John asked.

  “Yeah, the particular fast-food restaurant he chose had been robbed so many times they ramped up security. There was a camera on the drive-through, and we got to them before they could perform the usual end-of-the-week wipe of the footage.”

  “Was Jacoby visible?” Maggie asked.

  “No. A shadow in the backseat that must have been him, but he hid himself well. And before you ask, the agent driving as well as the one in the passenger seat seemed perfectly normal.”

  “Ordered food, paid for it, spoke to the employee at the window?”

  “All of the above. And nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “You mean nothing seemed to be,” Maggie murmured.

  “Exactly. The agents were, to all appearances, calm and casual, and neither showed any signs of being forced to act against their wills.”

  John wondered aloud, “Does that creep anybody else out, or is it just me?”

  “Me too,” Maggie said. “Bishop, they don’t remember any of that?”

  “No.”

  “Did he rob them?” John asked.

  “As a matter of fact, both their wallets had been cleaned out of cash, though no credit cards were taken, and both still had their credentials and cell phones.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Still holstered, not fired recently.”

  “So he didn’t need a gun,” John said slowly. “Or knew better than to steal one registered to a fed.”

  “Apparently. Neither agent remembered either turning off-course or stopping anywhere. But one agent woke up before the other one did to find their car parked just off the road and out of sight of any passing traffic, and to see his partner apparently sleeping peacefully.”

  “And Jacoby did that,” Maggie said. “All that.”

  “Jacoby did all that,” Bishop agreed.

  * * *

  “HOLLIS,” DEMARCO WARNED.

  But she was beyond listening. The chill of gooseflesh all over her body, the fine hairs standing on end, the odd sensation of a cold breeze moving not around her but through her, all told her this was one of those times when the door between this world and whatever one chose to call the spiritual world was wide open. Barely hearing her partner, she watched instead the eerily almost-transparent spirit standing just behind Owen Alexander, concentrating hard so she could hear as well as see.

  Hearing them had been more difficult for her in the beginning, and still usually required intense focus from her.

  . . . was . . .

  . . . was his . . .

  . . . was his fault . . .

  “What was his fault?” Hollis asked the very pretty and rather startlingly young spirit.

  Owen glanced behind him as though against his will, scowled, and said sharply, “What’re you—”

  “Quiet,” Hollis ordered. “I can barely hear her as it is. What was his fault? And who are you? What’s your name?”

  . . . No. It wasn’t his fault . . . left me . . . He left me.

  “Left you where?”

  DeMarco, watching Owen, since he couldn’t see what Hollis saw any more than anyone else in the room could, saw the older man’s face whiten and a kind of dread creep into his eyes. Aside from Hollis’s firm voice, the room was utterly silent.

  In the car. He . . . told everyone . . . it was stolen, but . . .

  “But the car wasn’t stolen? What happened?”

  . . . missed a curve. Went into the river. He got out. She shook her head, dark hair swirling eerily around her as though she stood even now in deep water. He got out, and he left me.

  Hollis was concentrating intensely. “What’s your name?”

  Jamie. Jamie Bell. Her face changed suddenly, and she took a step sideways so she could see Owen’s frozen face. It was such a long time ago. He didn’t mean to do it. Any of it. So it wasn’t really his fault. He was showing off, going too fast, the way boys do. And when the car went into the water . . . he was afraid. He panicked. I . . . don’t think he could have saved me anyway. The current was so strong. It was in the spring, and the river was swollen. He couldn’t have saved me.

  Hollis wasn’t so sure, but all she said was, “Do you need the car to be found? Your body laid to rest?”

  Jamie shook her head. That doesn’t matter so much. There isn’t anything left of me, really. Except this. I’ve been trying . . . I needed to tell him I forgive him.

  “That’s what’s kept you here?”

  Jamie looked at Hollis pleadingly. Tell him, please? That it wasn’t his fault? That he can’t let what’s left of his life be ruined by that secret?

  “I’ll tell him for your sake,” Hollis said grudgingly.

  Jamie smiled for the first time. Thank you. He really wa
s the only thing keeping me here. My family and friends moved on a long, long time ago. They let go. But he never could. Never could forgive himself. Tell him he can, please.

  “I’ll tell him.” Hollis was about to ask if there was anything else she could do for Jamie when she found herself suddenly almost flinching back as she blinked at the extraordinarily bright light that had appeared from nowhere. It seemed to have no distinct source, and yet it enveloped Jamie, leaving her in silhouette. The “floating” strands of hair that had been one indication to Hollis that she was looking at something otherworldly settled about her shoulders, and then she took a step forward, smiling at Hollis. For that moment, she looked flesh-and-blood real.

  Thank you.

  “You’re welcome,” Hollis said slowly, watching as the light brightened even more, completely enveloping Jamie—and then dimmed, shrank, and vanished within seconds.

  “Well, what do you know.” Hollis blinked and looked at Reese. “There is a light, after all. This time, at least.”

  “You reacted physically,” Reese told her, calm. “Your pupils contracted.”

  “They did?”

  “Definitely.”

  Hollis thought about that, then nodded. “I’m not surprised. It was a very bright light, and appeared suddenly.”

  “So you know something you didn’t know yesterday,” he responded. “Worth the trip just for that.”

  Anna asked eagerly, “What did you see? Who was it?”

  Hollis returned her attention to her supposed client. “Not your husband, I’m afraid. I’m sorry. This spirit was here for your brother-in-law.”

  Owen said harshly, “I don’t believe in that bullshit.”

  Remaining calm, Hollis said, “Suit yourself. But my job is to pass on messages, and I just got one for you. Jamie Bell says you have to forgive yourself for what happened to her.”

  “I don’t know what you—”

  “She drowned. You were driving, you lost control and missed a curve, and the car went into the river. The water was deep, the current fast. You managed to get out, but she didn’t.”

  If Owen had been pale before, he was sheet-white now.

  Anna, clearly bewildered, said, “I’ve never heard anything about a car accident. Owen—”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said slowly. “Over forty years, long before you met Daniel. I wasn’t much more than a kid myself, and scared half out of my mind. When I made it back here, Dad and Daniel went back to the river with me. We tried, but . . . we couldn’t even find the car. The current had already taken it. There was no rail on that curve, no visible signs of damage on or near the road.”

  Neutral, DeMarco said, “I gather there was no police report.”

  “No.” He at least had the grace to look guilty, and avoid the steady gazes of the others. “No, Dad— The family decided against it. I was only eighteen, headed for college in the fall. Jamie was . . . a girl I met in Nashville. She didn’t even tell her roommate she was leaving the city with anyone.”

  Hollis wanted to be angry, to demand to know whether it had ever occurred to him that Jamie’s family and friends had never known what had happened to her, had never been granted any sense of closure.

  But then he looked at her, finally, with haunted eyes, and Hollis felt her anger dim. Whatever mistakes this man had made, whatever sins he had committed, they clearly had affected his life.

  “She forgave me?” he asked, something in his voice ample evidence that he was still struggling to come up with a rational explanation as to how Hollis had known what she knew.

  Owen Alexander still didn’t believe in spirits.

  “She needed you to know that. So she could move on. You’re the only one left who even knew what happened to her.”

  “You’re trying to tell me she’s been here, in this house, all these years?”

  “Not in the way you mean. Not haunting you or anything. She’s been . . . nearby, waiting for an opportunity to contact you. You weren’t open to that sort of experience, so she had to wait for someone who was. As to where she waited . . . We’re not sure if it’s another dimension the way science would define it or another plane of existence. Maybe it’s even another kind of reality just out of sync with ours. We don’t know.”

  For a moment, Hollis reflected that whatever they were, the dimensions or alternate realities or whatever had to be many and varied, since each medium’s experience appeared to be unique. For instance, Diana Brisco,1 a very powerful medium in their unit, was able to visit a gray place without even shadows, where nothing really existed in any sense, like a corridor between two worlds.

  A place Hollis had visited herself, which was creepy enough; the likelihood was that having been there and being a medium, she could well be drawn there without warning and against her will. That was something she hadn’t really faced and didn’t want to now.

  “What, she’s in limbo?”

  “Wherever she was,” Hollis told him, “she’s moved on now.”

  “On to heaven?” He was trying hard to sound mocking.

  “Well, into a light place. However you choose to define it, I’m thinking better a light place than a dark one.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “You mean do I believe in heaven?” Hollis recalled an experience that had occurred months in the past and smiled without meaning to. “Let’s just say I’ve seen convincing evidence that heaven—or something a lot like it—must exist.”2

  “And I’m supposed to just buy all this?”

  “I’m not selling anything, Mr. Alexander. I’m just telling you what I saw. What Jamie Bell told me. Now you can decide it’s all bullshit and go on with your life, or you can choose to accept the forgiveness offered to you and go on with your life, or you can ignore the whole thing and pretend today never even happened. Up to you. I’m just the messenger.”

  She hesitated for a moment, then said unwillingly, “Jamie told me that her family and friends had moved on a long time ago. So even though they never knew what happened to her, they must have known somehow that she was never coming home again, and made their peace with that. You were the one Jamie was worried about. You were the one she said needed to let go of what happened and move on.”

  His gaze avoided hers then, and he remained silent.

  Hollis turned her attention to Anna, who she realized with a start was looking at her with desperate hope. Reluctant to disappoint the older woman, she nevertheless said, “I did tell you there was no way of knowing who might come through. Mr. Alexander was angry, and he made me angry—and sometimes strong emotions have a distinct focus. That was why Jamie came through. Well, that and the fact that she’d been waiting such a long time for someone who could open the door for her.”

  “And . . . and Daniel?”

  Hollis rubbed one forearm absently, glancing down to see what she felt: no goose bumps or fine hairs standing on end, and no sense of that strange wave of cold sweeping through her, the three things that almost always happened whenever she was in the presence of spirits.

  All had existed the whole time Jamie had been visible. She was still vaguely aware of spiritual energy around her, but it was distant, on the periphery of her senses. All of her senses.

  Something new.

  “I’m afraid the door’s closed for the moment,” she said, hoping it was because she was abruptly conscious of being very, very tired. Physically and emotionally. And cold in a different way; she was only barely able to stop herself from shivering.

  DeMarco spoke up then to say, “It might not show so much, Anna, but this takes a lot out of Hollis, a lot of her own energy. She needs to rest before she tries to contact your husband.”

  “I’ll be happy to come back tomorrow,” Hollis offered, not about to argue with her partner, since she wanted to take a very hot shower and then curl up and take a nap. For about twelv
e hours.

  Anna was clearly disappointed but spoke quickly to say, “There’s absolutely no sense in you two making that long drive from town twice. You can stay the night here. In fact, you’re welcome to stay as long as you feel it’s necessary. It might even help,” she added with more than a touch of pleading in her voice. “If you spend more time in his house, it might be easier for you to contact Daniel.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Please, the guest rooms are always ready, and there are two connected by a little sitting room on the second floor that I’m sure will suit you.”

  Which, Hollis thought, neatly resolved their hostess’s potentially awkward dilemma as to whether to ask if her unmarried guests needed one bedroom or two. Before she could gather her thoughts to form a refusal, she heard her partner smoothly accepting the invitation.

  “Thank you, Anna. You’ve saved me a long drive back to town with Hollis snoring in the passenger seat.”

  “I would not,” Hollis said somewhat indignantly. “Snore or sleep. Besides, we didn’t even bring luggage.”

  “Yes, we did. Since we hadn’t unpacked at the hotel, I put both our bags in the car while you were . . . discussing . . . with the hotel manager the remarkable lack of high-speed Internet.”

  “His sign said Wi-Fi was available,” Hollis said irritably. “Not just high speed, but wireless. The sign didn’t say a thing about it being available apparently only during a blue moon that happened to fall on a Thursday. In December.”

  “Point made,” DeMarco murmured.

  “Truth in advertising. There ought to be consequences.”

  “Trust me, he knows that now.”

  Anna said brightly, “So that’s settled. I’ll have Thomas show you to your rooms and have your luggage brought up. You two can rest and freshen up, and we’ll have dinner around eight thirty. Is that all right?”

  Hollis wanted to argue, but she was just too tired. And cold. Maybe a hot shower would help, or maybe she’d take a little nap before dinner. At any rate, despite her misgivings, she admitted to herself that either was infinitely preferable to getting back into the car and heading back to that odd little town, especially since that odd little hotel in that odd little town didn’t offer room service. And she had a strong hunch they rolled up the sidewalks in that town somewhere around sundown.