LITMIR.BIZ

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of panic held down with difficulty.

      A girl was lying across from him on the van floor, similarly bound, her purple-streaked blond hair falling over her face but not quite concealing her frantic eyes. There was a bruise on her face, dark even in the dimness.

      Two men sat on benches, one on each side. Couldn’t make out their features in the darkness. One was smoking, the stink of it filling the van and making it even harder to breathe around the gag….

      He jerked back into himself, gasping, and dropped the cards. A strange sound sawed at his ears, and after a couple of seconds he realized it was the girls, giggling. He was still in the coffee shop, in Venice Beach. He was safe. His heart was racing, his palms sweating, and he couldn’t get away from the feeling of fear and foreboding and claustrophobia in the vision.

      He stood up, gathered the cards and jammed them into his pocket. “Sorry,” he said, and pushed through the crowd of girls to achieve the open air outside. He stood there, breathing deeply, trying to slow his pulse. Blue sky, warm sun, pounding surf. Laughing people. Weight lifters on the beach, displaying their oiled muscles and as much skin as legally possible. Skating, scantily clad girls. Jugglers. Sidewalk artists. Musicians. Normal life, by the community standards. Stefan stood there shaking, struggling to put himself back in his own body. He was unable to forget the bleak terror the girl was feeling.

      DUAL ABDUCTION IN PHOENIX.

      They were in a van, and they were in terrible danger.

      He needed to tell someone.

      He sat down on a bench facing the ocean and dialed his cell phone slowly, thinking hard about what to do. In the end, he did what he always did.

      He called home.

      “It’s about time,” his mother said. No hello because she already knew it was him—she always knew. “Are you all right, Stefan? I had a dream.”

      “Did you?” He closed his eyes and smiled. “What about?”

      “You, obviously. You were somewhere dark, and you were in danger. Where are you, my dear?”

      “Not in the dark,” he said. “And not in danger. I think you had an echo of what I just had, Mom.”

      “Ah. Vision?” She was businesslike about it, but then, she would be: it was her business. Rose Blackman, psychic to the stars and Hollywood nobility. A genuine talent. She’d taught him all about showmanship, too. “Tell me about it, peanut.”

      “Mom, please don’t call me that.”

      “Just tell me.”

      He did, in as much detail as he could remember. Unlike some of his other visions, this one wasn’t fading like a nightmare—it remained immediate and frightening in its vividness. “Mom, I think it’s the girls who were on the news. In Phoenix. I think I should call the cops.”

      “The cops? Oh, no. That’s the worst thing you can do. Believe me, I’ve been down that road before. Even in L.A., the police don’t believe in psychics, and you’re talking about Arizona? Pffft. You might as well claim to be from outer space.”

      “What about the FBI?”

      “What about them? Do you have any real information, Stefan? Anything that could really help those girls right now?”

      He thought it over. The impressions had been immediate, but limited to the van, the pain, the fear. He couldn’t describe the exterior of the van, or even the faces of the abductors.

      His heart sank, and he bent over to rest his aching forehead on the heel of one hand. “Then what do I do?”

      “Whatever you do, son, it will be the right thing. I know this, because I know you.” Rose Blackman’s voice had softened, as if she could sense his distress. Maybe she could, even at this distance. It had been a source of annoyance and comfort to him all his life, that he couldn’t hide anything from his mother or—to a lesser extent—his father. They always knew, somehow, what he felt, if not what he was thinking. “Are you working today?”

      “No. I’m supposed to have some production meetings later this week, but I’m at the beach.” He didn’t consider street performing to be working so much as playing, although he couldn’t say she agreed with him. “Why?”

      “Maybe you’ll get more information,” she said. “When you do, you can decide what to do. And where to go. But, peanut—”

      “Mom!”

      “—I had the dream. So watch yourself.” There was a voice in the background, and Rose dropped her own voice to a lower volume. “I have to go. My morning’s very full.”

      “Anything exciting?”

      “Oh, you know, the usual. Should I take this job or that one? What about this guy I’m dating? Movie stars aren’t really any different from everyone else when it comes to insecurities. Except that you can’t keep them waiting. I love you, son.”

      “Love to you and Dad,” he said and hung up. He rubbed the plastic of the phone case for a few long seconds, thinking, and then stood up to walk toward the stand of yellow taxis nearby.

      “Stefan?” His gaggle of beach beauties stepped into his path, led by Heather in the orange bikini. She pressed against him, arms around his neck. Warm and so very tempting. “You’re not leaving us, are you?” He’d be a fool, that much was clear.

      And of course, he was a fool.

      “Want to see another trick?” he asked, and they all agreed they did.

      It was a disappearing act.

      His.

      Chapter 3

      Katie had been lucky on flights. After grabbing an overnight bag—she always kept one in her car, packed and ready—she’d been the last passenger boarded on the MD-80 out of St. Louis, and spent the flight refreshing her memories of Phoenix, Glendale and the surrounding area. According to her maps, Teal and Lena had been grabbed several miles from the school, which was odd; why hadn’t the girls caught a ride to the movies, or a bus or a cab? It was a long walk. She jotted down questions for Jazz and Kayla, then filled a second page with questions for Christine Evans. Made herself a note to contact the Phoenix field office on landing to make sure they knew she was involved. She might end up needing an intercession from SAC Evangelista, if the local bureaucracy was going to be difficult about things; then again, she expected at least one Athena grad in a position of authority would make some phone calls, and that would straighten out the tangle quickly.

      Sitting strapped down made Katie’s bruises and cracked ribs ache fiercely. She swallowed some non-prescription painkillers and tried to nap, since she’d been short on sleep for days. She couldn’t. Her mind kept replaying the visuals she’d constructed from Jazz’s verbal account.

      The blue van, easing in at the curb ahead of the three unsuspecting girls. The blitz attack, fast and overwhelming—as if the attackers had known to anticipate considerable resistance. Which implied that they’d done their homework on the girls, and also implied an uncomfortable amount of knowledge about the Athena Academy and its students. Almost certainly not targets of opportunity, these girls, or they’d have managed to surprise their abductors and fight their way free.

      Still. It was possible that she was reading too much into it. Maybe this was a simple case of sexual predators cruising for prey…which was never simple. Her mind veered off in unwelcome directions. Too many cases that had ended horribly, too many trials, too many autopsies. She’d seen and heard things that wouldn’t leave her in moments like these, even with all her mental discipline and training. What if it was that rarest of breeds, the team of sexual predators—one to drive, two to abduct? That kind of organization was associated with the most frightening of offenders, the ones capable of the most excessive and calculated cruelty.

      Given all that, sleep stayed a distant wish.

      Katie opened her eyes as the

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