sit up, groaning as the movement pulled on the wound in his side. "Danger... here."
"You're safe. No one knows where you are." She pressed a hand to his shoulder, encouraging him to lie back down. "Please, Micah, you've got to stay quiet."
He stilled at her touch and she started to sit back in the rocker when she noticed the stain spreading over the bedding.
He was bleeding again.
It was after midnight by the time she got the bleeding stopped, the bandages replaced, and the sheets changed. The fever raging through him frightened her even more than the blood and its peculiar color.
Filling a bowl with cold water, she wiped his face, his neck, the broad expanse of his chest, down his flat belly, stopping at the strategic point where the sheet protected his modesty and thwarted her curiosity.
Near dawn, his fever went down and a little color returned to his cheeks. Hardly able to keep her eyes open, Lainey curled up in the rocking chair, drew a furry blanket up to her chin, and closed her eyes. That quickly, she was asleep.
Asleep and dreaming.
She was walking with Micah, holding his hand. Everywhere they went, people stared at them, pointing, frowning. Puzzled, she glanced around, noticing for the first time that the sky was yellow, the grass was blue-green, and the sun was pale pink. She noticed the people then. They were all about the same height, they all had hair of varying shades of blond and eyes of varying shades of blue. Trying to stifle the hysteria she felt rising within her, she lifted her head to look at Micah...
The sound of her own scream jerked her from sleep.
"Lainey, are you all right?"
"Fine." She stared at Micah, but he was only a dark shape against the flowered percale sheets. Frowning, she tried to remember her dream, but it was gone.
"Go back to sleep, Lainey." Micah's voice, low and soothing, reached out to her through the darkness.
She nodded. Sleep, yes.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
His voice, speaking in her mind, soothed her as it had once before, lulling her back to sleep.
There were no more dreams.
Part One Chapter Eight
Micah seemed better the following morning. Lainey plugged in the coffee maker, then switched on the morning news. She'd expected the goings-on at the mansion to be the top local story. Oddly enough, no mention of it was made on the radio, or in the morning paper.
After a quick shower, she pulled on a pair of sweats and sneakers, checked to make sure Micah was still asleep, then drove up to the Grayson place.
It seemed exceptionally quiet after the noise and confusion of the night before. She parked her car about a quarter of a mile away, then jogged up the road, slowing as she neared the driveway. An unmarked police car was barely visible in the shadows alongside the mansion. Glancing at the house, she caught a flicker of movement at one of the upstairs windows. She had a sudden, silly urge to wave.
Micah was still asleep when she got home. She threw a load of wash in the machine, including Micah's blood-stained clothes, which had been soaking in cold water, then sat down in front of her computer.
But she couldn't concentrate on her story. There were too many unanswered questions rattling around in her head, too many real-life mysteries that needed solving to worry about the fictional mystery she was trying to write.
Too restless to sit still, she looked in on Micah. He was still asleep. A good sign, she thought. Her mother always said sleep was nature's best cure for just about anything.
She was about to leave the room when her gaze landed on the black box. Picking it up, she carried it into the kitchen. After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she went into the living room to study the black box. It was an odd contraption, about four inches square. It wasn't made of wood, or plastic, or of any other material she was familiar with. She turned it over in her hands, but try as she might, she couldn't figure out how to open it, if, indeed, it opened at all.
Another mystery, she thought, and dropping the box on top of the TV, along with her empty coffee cup, she went back to her computer, determined to get at least one page written before the day was over.
She went to check on Micah again at a little past noon. He was sitting up, his pale face sheened