LITMIR.BIZ

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again.

      The image was exactly the same. Dark water. Cold and deep and still. And somehow deadly.

      Aware this time of what might happen, she instantly began to fight against its pull. She jerked her eyes open and stumbled backwards, bumping into a monitor and sending it rolling away from the bed.

      It had been attached to one of the myriad wires, of course. As the connection was disrupted, an alarm sounded, loud and demanding in the quietness.

      The curtain behind her was thrown open, and two nurses rushed in. One of them began to adjust the monitor she’d stumbled into, thankfully silencing the alarm, while the other went over to examine their patient.

      “I’m sorry,” Raine said. “I backed into one of the machines, and it went off. Nothing’s wrong with my father. It was just an accident.”

      The nurse by the bed looked over her shoulder. “You’ll have to leave.”

      “But I told you—”

      “I’m sorry. You can wait in the waiting room. Someone will call you.”

      The nurse who had readjusted the monitor took her by the elbow, directing her toward the curtain.

      “Come on, my dear. Better to get out of the way so we can make sure everything is all right.”

      She wanted that, of course, but she had the feeling that if she let them send her away, she would never be allowed to return. There were too many things left unsaid.

      And too many years during which they might have been said. On both sides.

      The drape was pulled closed behind her, and Raine found herself standing alone in front of the cubicle. She thought about waiting out here until they were through, but one of the other RNs from the nurses’ station rose and started toward her.

      Raine put her purse over her shoulder and looked at the glass door leading out of the ICU unit. A man waited beside it, his eyes directed not inside, but at the white tile wall opposite him. He stood with his arms crossed in front of his body, the left holding the wrist of the right.

      He wore a gray, three-button suit over a white dress shirt and blue tie. His salt-and-pepper hair had been cut almost militarily short, and he was clean shaven. Although she had never seen him before, the look was one she instantly recognized, despite the passage of years. Perhaps the style of the suit had changed, but the way he was dressed was what she had once considered to be the agency’s unofficial uniform.

      Another of Cabot’s men? Assigned to protect her father? Or assigned to watch her?

      That was possible. Cabot and Ethan Snow were probably already in the process of trying to verify her claim.

      Other than asking the man in the cubicle behind her, she wasn’t sure how they would do that. Monty Gardner was far too adept at keeping secrets. After all, he had had more than forty years with the CIA to perfect the art.

      “I think it would be better if you go back to the waiting room now,” the nurse from the station said.

      Startled from her contemplation of the man outside, Raine turned to smile at her. “Of course. You will send for me when they’ve checked out the equipment, won’t you? I wasn’t in there but a minute or two. I’d really appreciate another chance to talk to my father.”

      The nurse looked slightly taken aback, perhaps because of Gardner’s physical condition. It was obvious that any conversation wouldn’t be two-way.

      “I’m sure there’ll be other opportunities,” she said. “Now, if you don’t mind…” The nurse gestured toward the exit to the unit.

      Given no choice, Raine walked across the room and pushed the bar that would release the door. As it opened with a pneumatic hiss, the eyes of the man who had been waiting outside met hers.

      “Ms. McAllister?”

      He had obviously been given her description. Maybe he had a message from Ethan or the Cabots.

      “Yes?”

      “If you’d come with me, ma’am.” He took a step along the corridor as if her consent would be automatic.

      “Come with you where?”

      He turned back, smiling at her. Although it was an attractive smile, it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which she saw were an unusual shade of brown, so light they were almost gold.

      “To rejoin your party, of course.”

      Ethan? Or the Cabots?

      The latter seemed unlikely, given Claire’s reaction. Maybe Ethan had arranged for her to be escorted to somewhere besides the waiting room, so that she and Claire wouldn’t meet again.

      “And I need an escort to do that?” she asked.

      The man’s smile widened before it became a soft chuckle. Even his laughter didn’t change the amber eyes.

      “I’m just following orders, Ms. McAllister.”

      That, too, was something she remembered from when she was a child. That’s what they all said. All those hard men had always just been following orders.

      All but my father, who gave them.

      As the charge nurse had done inside the ICU, her escort put out his hand, gesturing down the hallway. Raine glanced back through the glass door, but the curtain around her father’s cubicle was still closed.

      They had said they’d send for her, but they would assume she had returned to the waiting room. If Ethan were waiting for her somewhere else and she allowed this man to take her there, they wouldn’t know where to find her.

      “I’ll have to tell the nurses where I’ll be.”

      When she turned back, the man was no longer smiling. His eyes seemed even more golden. Lighter. Colder.

      Colder?

      “I’ll send someone to tell them,” he said, taking her arm.

      She was getting tired of people doing that, she realized. As if they thought she wasn’t capable of making up her own mind about where she wanted to go. She pulled against his hold, but instead of releasing her, his fingers tightened painfully around her elbow.

      “What do you think you’re doing?”

      She hadn’t finished the sentence before he’d pulled her against him, her back to his chest. Something hard was pressed into the base of her spine. For a second or two she didn’t understand its significance. Not until he put his cheek next to hers, his mouth close to her ear.

      “Walk,” he said. “Don’t look back. Don’t talk. Just walk. I’ll tell you where.”

      When she didn’t move, more out of shock than from any intention to resist, the object in her back, which she now realized must be the muzzle of a gun, ground into her backbone. He closed the distance between them, which had the effect of both hiding the weapon and, at the same time, urging her forward.

      “I don’t know how much you know about firearms, Ms. McAllister, but the one at your back is a 9 mm. Trust me when I tell you it will blow a very big hole in your spine.”

      She did trust what he’d just said. Just as she knew he would have no compunction in pulling the trigger.

      It was damned late to be getting that kind of clear message about what was happening, she thought. Far too late to do her any good.

      From the first she had tried to tell Ethan Snow that she couldn’t help him, but he hadn’t listened. And then when she had heard Monty Gardner was involved, she had put her doubts aside in order to make this journey.

      One that was a waste of everyone’s time. Because now she had absolute proof that she couldn’t even use her gift to help herself.

      Chapter Four

      “She

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