Stealing Shadows - Hiding In The Shadows Part 22

Kane felt a stab of guilt. "I know I haven't been very accessiblelately, Syd. I'm sorry."

"Don't be ridiculous." She smiled a little sadly. "No one else can trulyunderstand how you feel, but at least I have some idea. You've put yourthoughts and energies where they needed to go, just as you have to keepdoing until you find Dinah. Don't apologize for that.

And don't worry about me."

"Thanks, Syd."

"Don't mention it. And call me right away if-if anything changes, allright?"

"Of course."

Sydney got to her feet. "Faith, I ... wish you luck.

I hope you get your memory back."

"Thanks."

When they were alone again, Kane said restlessly, "As far as I can see,there's nothing wrong with the design from an engineering standpoint, sothe fault has to be either materials or construction. I'll have to goout there."

"I'd like to come along," Faith said. "Didn't you tell me that Dinah hadvisited the site the day before she vanished?"

-Yeah, she showed up out there looking for me, and Max gave her a quicktour. The police checked out the area, but as far as they could tell shedidn't go back there the day she disappeared."

"And they talked to Max?"

"Of course." Kane frowned. "Why?" Slowly, Faith said, "Probably nothing,but the only thing I can think of that both Dinah and I had some kind ofconnection to other than the shelter was construction. I worked at a construction company in Seattle, then came here and eventually got a job at the Office of Building Inspections and Zoning. Dinah's engaged to anengineer and architect whose company is involved in a very large projectfor the city, a building site she toured the day before she disappeared.

I'm in what looks like a manufactured accident, she vanishes-and nowyour project is in trouble." She paused. "I can just hear Bishop saythere's no such thing as a string of coincidences that long." Thinkingabout that, Kane said, "The building was started shortly before youraccident, so it fits loosely within the time frame. But how many otherbuildings were started in the same period?"

"G.o.d knows." Faith got up. "But I'd say we start with this one."

As they neared the construction site, Faith frowned and rubbed hertemple. "d.a.m.n," she said softly.

What is it?" Kane asked. "The water sound?"

"Yes. It's been fading in and out, but it's louder now. At least I thinkit is."

"Do you think Dinah is somewhere nearby?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know. I don't get any sense of direction.

just the sounds, the smells."

"Maybe your senses are trying to guide you."

"It's like this itching in my mind," Faith said, rubbing her templeagain. "Deep inside my head. And along with it is the notion thatthere's something just out of my reach, something that would answer allmy questions if I could just touch it."

"I know you said you didn't want to try to reach out to Dinah directlyagain, Faith, but-"

"It was like falling into a deep well. There was nothing to hold on to."

Kane parked the car by the padlocked gate at the construction site.

"According to what I've picked up from Noah over the years, there's atrick to managing any kind of clairvoyance. The first step is to staygrounded, safely connected to the here and now." He turned to face herand extended a hand. "Noah calls it a lifeline. Take my hand, Faith."

She hesitated, then slowly took his hand. It was warm and hard, and fora dizzying moment the whole world seemed to shift around her.

Instinctively, she closed her eyes and reached out, toward the sounds. Thecold was bone-chilling. There was a heaviness, an intense weight bearingdown on her, smothering her- No air. There was no air, she couldn'tbreathe.

She couldn't move.

She couldn't ... The sounds and scents vanished, and Faith opened hereyes slowly. "It's gone."

"Gone?

She looked at her hand clinging to his, and made herself release him.

"Gone. No sounds, no smells, no feeling of being trapped. Nothing. Forjust a moment, I thought I was right there, in the darkness, and then... nothing."

He watched his own hand close slowly into a fist.

"Nothing," he repeated.

"I'm sorry, Kane."

After a moment, he shook his head and, in a voice that sounded harsheven to himself, said, "Just tell me she's still alive, Faith."

I am, you know that. You know.

Faith caught her breath, tried to listen to that whispery voice, but itsaid no more.

"Faith?"

"I ... only know what I feel. What I believe. And I believe Dinah isstill alive."

He wanted to believe her. He almost did.

"Okay," he said finally.

Faith looked as if she wanted to say something more, but then shook herhead and got out of the car.

Kane had the key for the padlocked gate, and the nighttime securityguard had not come on duty yet, there was no one to see them enter thefenced construction site. Kane paused and looked back beyond his car toan un.o.btrusive sedan parked across the street.

"Your private investigator?" Faith guessed, aware that the man had beennearby since they had left the apartment.

"Yeah. Some of his people are still out looking for leads, so he decidedto take this duty himself. His orders are to follow and to stick withthe car. But this time-" Kane gestured slightly, and the manimmediately left his car and crossed the street to join them.

Faith was briefly introduced to Tim Daniels, a well-built man in hisearly thirties with something in his shrewd gray eyes that reminded herof the women in the shelter; they were older than his years and didn'tlook as though they could ever doubt that evil existed in the world. Hewore a gun in a shoulder holster beneath his jacket, and she could seethe antenna of a cell phone peeking from his shirt pocket.

"I need to take a look at this site," Kane told Daniels. "It should besecure, but I'd rather not take any chances."

Daniels nodded. "I'll watch your back." He trailed along behind them asKane took Faith's arm and guided her down the rutted track that led tothe building. They stood looking up at the steel skeleton clawing itsway nearly a dozen stories in the air so far. Only the underground parking garage had been partially closed in.

Faith eased her arm from Kane's grasp. "I don't think I want to go downinside that." "Then you stay here with Tim. I'll be right back." She didn't question his optimistic estimate, just nodded. But when Kane had disappearedaround the back of the structure, she glanced at Daniels and said,"Aren't you worried about him being alone down there?"

"He can take care of himself."

"I can't." She grimaced, and touched the hidden bandage on her leftarm. "Well, maybe so." "You're vulnerable at the moment. No memory means you couldn't tell friend from foe."

"So you know about that," she murmured.

"Kane told me what he thought I needed to know.

No more and no less."

Faith decided not to question him on that point.

She turned her attention back to the building. "I'd like to wander

around a bit. Alone, if you don't mind."

"Any particular reason?"

Daniels asked.

Because Dinah was here. Because I have to ... Had to what? She didn't

know.

"No particular reason," she said.

Daniels glanced around the site, which appeared to be enclosed by a high

wood and chain-link fence. "It looks safe enough. But don't go far."

"No, I won't." She had no idea what she was looking for, if any- thing.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the voices in her head, familiar and

unfamiliar, didn't know what they were talking about. Maybe she 'just wanted to have time and s.p.a.ce to herself and for a few moments forget- Except that you can't forget. I won't let you.

This time, Faith made no attempt to focus on that voice, to reach out for it. To catch it. Instead, she merely let her mind drift, trying not to think about anything at all.

That didn't work either.

She walked slowly, wandering without rhyme or reason. She pa.s.sed the huge earth-moving machines parked on the site, the stacks of

construction materials, and the trailer that housed the construction office.

Nothing she saw awoke a spark of memory.

It was, she saw now, absurd to imagine that Dinah might have been heldhere. The building was only a skeleton, even the underground floorsbarely enclosed. In fact, here at the back, the building was still openall the way down to the bottom most concrete floor.

Kane was moving around in the shadows of that lowest area, but shewasn't about to join him- mostly because she didn't care for shadowyunder- ground places.

Mostly.

She turned and continued along a few feet inside the fence, picking herway over uneven ground and around the occasional pile of debris. Twogiant Dumpsters barred her way at one point, and she chose to go betweenthem and the fence rather than around them.

If she hadn't, she never would have seen the break in the fence.

The wooden slats had been removed or never installed in this section, soit was possible to see through the chain-link to what lay outside.

There was an empty half acre or so, and then the back of a largebuilding. A warehouse, she thought, maybe for industrial use rather than'just storage. She saw at least one loading dock, but the place seemeddeserted on this Tuesday afternoon.

Then she caught a whiff of something she thought she should recognize,something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

That was the only warning she had before the eighty-pound Rottweilerthrew himself at the fence.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

"No judge in his right mind is going to give the police a warrant tosearch that place just because they have a guard dog," Daniels saidmatter-of-factly. "Not on the basis of a dream."

"I think it was more than a dream," Kane said.