by Ciana Stone
“Hey!” he protested.
“Morgan, quick!” she insisted. “Look!”
“Where?” He stepped behind her and aimed his lens over the top of her head in the direction she pointed.
“There!” she exclaimed. “See, in that window. The…fourth one from the right.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“There’s something there.”
“What?”
“Someone with a gun.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Morgan kept his lens pointed at the window. When the figure appeared again, his camera fired before Lola could get the words out of her mouth. “There he is!”
“Christ!” Morgan blurted and whirled away, slamming his camera into her hands and then running at full tilt up the steps of the platform to launch himself at the candidate before anyone could stop him. A split second after he tackled the candidate, bullets slammed into a secret service agent who’d been standing behind him.
Pandemonium broke out with people screaming and running all directions, agents yelling orders and people clustering around the candidate who lay trapped beneath Morgan.
Lola tried to fight her way to Morgan but was pushed back farther and farther by the crowd, carried on the sea of fleeing people. By the time she’d managed to work her way free, she was nearly a block away and police cars were skidding to a stop all along the street, barricading the area.
She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t get to Morgan. She waited and watched along with hundreds of others, and finally gave up and fought her way free. She walked for nearly a mile before she was able to hail a cab to get back to the apartment.
Once she arrived, there was nothing she could do but wait. And worry. She paced the floor, back and forth, over and over until her feet hurt. Finally, she flung herself on the couch. The sound of the clock on the wall, ticking slowly, was the only noise. The space between each tick seemed to be growing.
Lola felt an impending attack of the Sight and hurried to the dining room table where she’d set up her laptop. Her hands trembled as she raced to boot up the system and start a new file.
Her vision swam. She wasn’t going to make it. At the last moment, the canvas appeared. She snatched up her graphic’s pen and tablet and fell into a chair.
And was lost.
When she returned, the scene on the computer had her jumping up to get the cameras she’d brought back with her. Scared nearly out of her wits, she saved the scene she’d drawn and pulled the memory cards from both cameras. She inserted the one from the camera she’d used into the card reader.
It seemed to take forever for the images to load, but finally the operation was complete. She selected filmstrip mode and she scrolled through the images, stopping on a blurred shot of the building where she’d seen the gunman. It wasn’t clear enough to make out much of anything. She removed the card from the reader, and then inserted Morgan’s.
Her heart jumped when she saw the images he’d taken. Clear as a bell and zoomed in tight enough, two images displayed a man barely visible between a part in the curtains. The first showed the man’s face above the rifle he held. The second showed him peering through the sight.
She quickly copied the files to her laptop, created a copy of the files, and then switched memory card, inserting the one from her camera. She copied the blurred shot off the computer, pasted the clear shots from Morgan’s camera on top of it and saved it under the original file name to her memory card.
She repeated the process, substituting her blurred shots for the clear images on his memory card. Now if Morgan looked at the images, he would think he’d missed the shot. And that meant that if word got out about the photos, no one would know he’d taken them. And no one would be trying to get even with him for exposing them.
She replaced the memory cards into the cameras then took another look at the image she’d created. Her mission was finally revealed and it scared the life out of her.
Where was Morgan? What was she supposed to do? How could she prevent this from happening? Were the precautions she’d just taken enough?
A sound at the door had her racing to it. She threw herself on him before he could enter the apartment. “Oh god, Morgan! Are you okay? I was so scared!”
“Lola! Thank god. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find you.” He pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly as he backed her up so he could enter and kick the door closed behind him.
She scooted around him and locked the door. “What happened?” she asked. “Was she shot?”
“No. She’s fine. Lola, where’s my camera?”
“On the coffee table.”
“Thank god!” Morgan went to it and removed the memory card. “I think I may have a shot of the assassin. We need to open the files on your laptop and see.”
“No! Morgan, wait!”
She ran to stop him but it was too late. He saw the image displayed on the screen, stopped dead in his tracks and turned to her. His face looked ashen.
“When did you do this?”
“Just now.”
Morgan ran his hand through his hair and slumped into the chair in front of the computer. “That’s me.”
Lola ran over to him, throwing herself onto her knees beside him and grabbing his hand. “Morgan, look at me. Morgan?”
He turned his eyes to her and she could see the fear. It broke her heart. “Morgan, listen to me. Just because I drew this doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It won’t. I’ll stop it.”
He barked a harsh laugh. “Right, you’re going to stop someone from blowing my brains out.”
“Yes.”
“Lola, I love you and I know you’d do everything you could to try, but you’re no match for someone out to commit murder. The only thing we can do is get the images to the Secret Service. They’ll know what to do. They’ll protect us.”
She nodded and looked down. Morgan inserted the memory card into the computer. When the images loaded he scrolled through them. “No!” he shouted as he saw the blurred photos. “No! Goddamn it all. What the fuck happened?”
“You were moving? Trying to get to the stage?”
“No. Where’s the other card?”
“In the camera.”
He got up and retrieved it. When he saw the images, he studied them for a few moments, and then switched to a detailed view of the file names. “Lola, what did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. I know I didn’t blur a shot this bad. What did you do?”
“What makes you think—”
The ring of the phone interrupted. Morgan picked it up. “Yes… Of course. Thank you.”
“The Secret Service is here,” he announced. “They want the memory cards.”
She nodded and followed him into the living area. Neither spoke as they waited. They didn’t have long. Morgan answered the knock at the door. Two agents entered.
“Mr. Morgan?” the first one asked. “Mike Billings. My partner, David White.”
Morgan shook their hands. “Here are the cards.”
“Have you looked at the images contained on these cards, sir?”
“Yes.”
“And you, Miss…?” Agent Billings asked Lola.
“Lola Boudreaux, and yes, sir, I did.”
Billings turned his attention to Morgan. “Are you certain these are the correct cards?”
“Yes, I mean I think so. Check them and see.”
“Do you have a personal computer we might use to view the images on these cards?”
“Yes, of course.” Morgan directed them to the dining area. “Are you familiar with—” The rest of the sentence was left hanging. Billings sat down at the computer, inserted the first card into the reader and waited for the images to load.
“Dave,” he called to his partner who stood beside the sofa. “Take a look.”
His partner joined him, peering over his shoulder. Lola followed and stood besi
de Morgan. “I don’t know if we can pull it out enough or not,” Agent White said. “Try the other one.”
Billings switched out the cards. Once the images were loaded, he and his partner scrolled through the images and then he looked up at Morgan. “You took these photos?”
“No,” Lola answered before Morgan had a chance. “I did.”
“You did?” Billings looked from her to Morgan and back to her.
“Yes. Morgan let me borrow the camera. It’s the older model, the D70. You can tell by the file designations.”
The agents exchanged a glance, then directed their attention to Lola. “Miss Boudreaux, we’re going to have to take this card. And we’ll need a statement from you.”
“Of course,” she replied. “Now?”
“No,” Billings said. “We’ll send someone for you first thing in the morning. Right now we need to get this card back for processing.”
He turned his attention to Morgan. “Mr. Sands. You did a brave thing today. You may have saved the life of the next president.”
“Thank you,” Morgan replied and stepped aside for the agents to leave.
“Nine a.m.,” Billings said to Lola.
“I’ll be ready,” she assured him.
Morgan saw them to the door, then turned to her. “You want to explain now what you’re doing?”
“Fulfilling a vow,” she said quietly. She’d decided she had to come clean with him, tell him the whole truth. At least as much as she knew. There were still missing pieces in the puzzle. Pieces she suspected no one could supply but Eulalia. And she had no idea how to contact her.
“A vow? To who?”
“That’s kind of a long story,” she said and extended her hand. “Can we sit?”
Morgan took her hand and let her lead him to the couch. “Okay, I’m all ears.”
“Well, it happened like this…”
Chapter Eight
Lola was hoarse by the time she finished telling Morgan about Eulalie. She’d already told him how Nanette had found her and taken her to a friend in New Orleans, Delphine Boudreaux. That was where Lola had grown up, not knowing who her parents were. She told him of the unusual ability she’d always possessed and how Delphine and Nanette had tried to help her control it.
Delphine had died when Lola was eighteen. It was like losing a parent, but she still had Nanette and had always been as close to her as she was to Delphine, even though she’d never lived with Nanette.
Now she told him the rest of the story and didn’t spare any detail, not even about being taken to the castle beyond the veil.
Morgan didn’t speak one word until she finished with the statement, “…which brings us to where we are now.”
“Lola…” He shook his head, raking his hands through his hair, and then stood to pace the floor. “This is…” He turned to look at her. “Look, I’m not calling you a liar or anything, but this is…a bit much.”
“I know,” she agreed. Had she been on the receiving end of the tale, she would have thought it crazy.
He shook his head again, clearly at a loss for words.
At that moment, the phone rang. They looked at one another in alarm. It was the middle of the night. No call at that hour could spell good news.
“Yes?” he answered.
She watched his expression change from fatigue to alarm as he listened. “I understand. Yes, we will,” he said into the phone then hung up and faced her. “The agents who were here…they never made it back. Their bodies were found half an hour ago.”
Fear spiked throughout Lola’s body so strong it took her breath. “The memory cards?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Gone.”
Morgan hurried to her as her hand went to her face and her skin paled. “They said for us to sit tight. They’ll send police to guard the building. We’re safe here, Lola.”
“No, we’re not,” she argued softly. “Morgan, whoever did this will surely know we’ve viewed the files. They’d probably even suspect that we made copies. It’s not safe. We have to get out of here, now.”
“No, Lola,” he argued, and pulled her back down when she started to rise. “Listen to me. We’re safer here. The building has security, and the police are on their way. This is the safest place for us now.”
“But we can’t just hide in here—”
Her words were cut off by a sudden shattering of glass as the window exploded. Morgan grabbed her, threw her onto the floor and dove on top of her. They lay there, hearts pounding, clutching one another while bullets slammed into the fabric of the couch where they’d sat just moments ago.
Lola had no idea how long they lay there. Time ceased to have meaning. Morgan slid off her and belly-crawled over to jerk the cord of the lamp, sending it crashing to the floor and pitching the room into darkness.
She rolled over and watched as he crawled on hands and knees into the dining room. It wasn’t long before he returned, camera in hand, a long zoom lens mounted on it.
“Don’t!” She grabbed his arm as he started for the window.
“It’s okay. I just want to see if I can spot anything. Get behind the couch.”
She didn’t respond, but after he’d positioned himself to one side of the window and rose to peer through the camera’s viewfinder, she hurried over behind him. She wasn’t sure what good that was doing, but she felt better close to him.
“Do you see anything?” she asked.
“No. Yes. There’s someone there. In that building.”
“I want to see.”
He switched places with her, handing her the camera. Lola peered through the viewfinder. At first she didn’t see anything suspicious. Then her eye caught movement in one of the windows. A form darker than the background behind it.
It was a man. With a long rifle.
Her heart leapt into her throat. They had to do something. Call the police, run. Something. Otherwise…
Her thought was cut short as she watched the man peer through the rifle sight. “No, no, no, no, no,” she whispered a frantic chant. “Stop, stop, stop!”
“Lola!” Morgan pulled her back from the window. “What’s wrong?”
“Stop, stop, stop,” she whispered, her entire being focused on the idea of making the man stop, giving them a chance. She couldn’t see Morgan, his eyes frantic with concern, or feel his hand gripping her arms, shaking her.
“Lola!” Morgan continued to call to her, shaking her and finally bringing her out of her trance.
“Morgan.” She looked up at him. “We have to do something. Call the police. Please. Hurry.”
“I will. Stay right here. Don’t move.”
He crawled across the room for his phone, snatched it up and dialed. A frown came on his face. He dialed again and again. Finally he looked at her. “I can’t call out.”
She crawled over to him. “Is the battery dead?”
“No, it’s…” Morgan’s eyes bugged out as he looked at the phone. He glanced at the digital clock on the table against the wall. Its face wasn’t blinking. His eyes darted to the clock on the digital cable box. Same thing.
“What the hell’s going on?” he whispered. “Come on.” He grabbed her arm, tugging her along as he started to the kitchen in a hunched-over jog.
“What?” she cried as he looked at the clock on the microwave.
“The clocks,” he finally answered. “Let’s get to the bedroom.”
Together, they raced through the apartment. Morgan snatched the drapes closed over the window and grabbed the television remote. The screen lightened. Into a frozen image.
“What the hell’s going on?” he asked and parted the drapes to peer down at the street. “Lola, get over here! Look at this!”
She ran to the window and looked down. There was no movement. Cars on the streets were as still as small models on a toy store shelf.
The shock had her reaching for his hand in fear. “No, this isn’t right. They should be moving. Morgan, what’s going on? I’m scared.”
“It’ll be okay,” he pulled her to him.
“No!” she pushed back. “We have to go. Don’t you see? This is our chance.”
Morgan resisted when she tried to pull him away from the window. “Morgan, please! Those agents were killed and they were skilled people. We’ve been shot at and probably will be again. We can’t depend on the police. Someone could shoot you when we’re being escorted out. We need to get out of here on our own. Go somewhere we can hide and upload or email the images from my computer to the Secret Service.”
“No. We’re not leaving.”
“We have to! Morgan, the image I drew. It was here in this room. We have to get out of here. Get out of this city.”
“Lola—”
“Please,” she pleaded. “Please.”
She could see him struggling with himself. Finally he nodded. “Okay, but what if this…whatever is it, wears off. We’ll be sitting ducks. We need a way to get out of the building without anyone realizing we’ve left.”
Lola hadn’t considered that. She leaned against the wall, trying to come up with a plan. She closed her eyes, struggling to concentrate.
And the next thing she knew she was opening her eyes to find herself in the bed. Morgan lay beside her, awake.
She brushed the hair from her face. “What happened?”
“You fell asleep so I brought you to bed.”
She pushed herself up, noting the drapes were securely closed and that she was wearing only her blouse from the day before. “Are things…moving?”
“Yeah, the minute you went to sleep, it all started back up.”
She didn’t even want to consider what that implied. “Did you sleep?”
“No.”
“Did the police come?”
“No.”
That alarmed her. “Morgan, something’s really wrong. The windows were shot out! Surely someone heard—called the police.”
“Apparently not.”
“It doesn’t make sense. We have to call the police or—or someone.”“And tell them what? No. We’ll call the Secret Service agents. You have the number, right?”
“I do. A card. It’s on the table.”
“Don’t move. I’ll get it and make the call.”
