The face of a dead woman who looked like- No! That's impossible. I'm not dead. Just dreaming. My eyes were open. I saw...

John.

Had she seen him? Was he still next to her? She pushed at the darkness, trying to force it back. Trying to sense the outside world.

Sounds.

Beeping. Voices.

I'm here! she screamed, but the voice was only in her head. Was she awake or still dreaming? Or in a coma? Did people in comas imagine they were conscious?

Maybe I'm blind. Sudden fear motivated her. She concentrated on her eyes. Feeling them. Moving them.

Opening them.

Straining like she was lifting a heavy weight, she forced her eyelids to rise. Nothing happened at first, and then a pale strip of gray appeared. The strip turned into a small window, and then a larger one. The gray evolved into something brighter, almost white. Shapes appeared. At the same time, the voices and beeps grew clearer.

"-hear me? Leah? Can you hear me?"

"John?" Attempting to speak was an automatic reaction to hearing him. The word came out as more of a whispered croak.

"Hold on," a second voice said. A woman. A hand appeared with a Styrofoam cup. A straw poked out of a plastic lid. It drew closer and Leah eagerly moved to meet it.

Cool liquid touched her tongue and throat, a magic elixir that washed away the dry, scaly feeling from her mouth, moistened the arid tunnel that was her throat, and poured energy into her body with each sip.

The cup pulled away, leaving Leah feeling unsatisfied but a thousand times better.

"That's enough for now. You can have more in a few minutes." The woman stepped away and began fiddling with a machine next to the bed.

Woman. Machine. Bed. She's a nurse. I'm in the hospital.

"John?" She turned to the side, afraid she'd hallucinated seeing him before. Memories-real or imagined, she couldn't be sure-jostled each other in her head. John on the floor, dying. John turning away from her when she needed him.

John cowering on the ground?

"I'm here." His hand patted hers, and she clutched at it. Real. Solid. Warm. "How are you feeling?"

Leah thought for a moment before answering. How was she feeling? Weak, but her strength was returning. Confused. Tired, the kind of tired that comes from mental exhaustion rather than physical exertion or lack of sleep. But, otherwise, she felt...okay.

"All right, I guess. I... How did I get here? What happened? I remember...I saw you...they..."

"Shot me. But you cured me. Again. I think I'm losing count of how many times that is now." He gave her a ghost of his usual sunny smile that triggered a twinge of guilt in her chest. He had to be as exhausted as she was.

Whatever had happened, he'd undoubtedly been right there with her, just like he'd been there for her all along. He was the one who'd been shot, poisoned and who knew what else. And yet she was the one in the hospital bed, while he watched over her.

"It's me who owes you. I was the one who got you in all this mess, and you're the one who pulled me out of it. Or tried to. I guess I should have listened more."

Continuing as if he hadn't heard her, John asked, "So seeing me get shot. That's the last thing you remember?"

Leah bit her lip as she tried to make sense of the image and memory snippets that were flashing in random fashion through her thoughts. "Del...he ordered them to do it. We watched on the computer... I begged him to let me help you-"

"We?" John interrupted. "We who?"

"The other men," she said, as the scene cleared up in her head. "The ones who came to see what I could do. To buy me. Six of them."

"Dressed real nice, but tough looking? Some of them were foreigners?"

Leah nodded. From the way he'd said it, she had the feeling he'd seen them. But when?

"Yes. And then Del had his men lead everyone down to the room where you were. And..." She stopped as a new memory popped to the surface.

A mummy lying across her, a dead thing that somehow looked familiar...

"Leah?"

"There was an explosion. In the hall. Someone was pointing a gun at me... Tal Nova! That's who it was. But he didn't shoot me. He...I...I think I did something to him."

She looked at John and saw something in his eyes, something she'd never seen there before. Not fear. Not sympathy, either. Something she couldn't identify, but she knew it wasn't good.

"John. You know something. Tell me."

He stared at her for a minute, his lack of expression betraying the fact that he had bad news for her. Then he sighed, and she recognized the emotion filling his brown eyes.

Pity.

With another sigh, he started speaking.

Leah waited until she was positive John wasn't returning before letting her tears spill out. She wasn't sure what had her crying worse-losing John, knowing she was the cause of his leaving or finding out she was a monster, something no longer human.

She lay on her side, clutching one of the thin, almost-useless hospital pillows to her chest. It was almost too much to comprehend. She wanted to just close her eyes and sink into dark oblivion. Return to her coma-like state and never wake up. Except now she knew even that would offer no respite from the h.e.l.l her life had become. John's words-awful enough on their own-had acted like magnets on her broken memories, rounding them up and piecing them together until the whole picture became clear inside her head.

Drawing the death out of John and replacing it with her own life force.

Sucking Tal Nova's essence from him until only a husk remained.

Becoming something other than herself, the opposite of herself, a thing that delivered death instead of life.

Killing the men who'd held her hostage, who'd attacked her.

And worst of all, enjoying it.

Most of the previous day was still fuzzy, but parts she remembered were more than enough to let her know she'd turned into a freak. A monster. She'd sensed John hadn't told her everything, either. He'd been vague about describing what she looked like when he encountered her in the hall. But she'd seen how his face turned pale, how his hands trembled in his lap.

Whatever he'd seen-whatever she'd been-it hadn't just frightened him.

It had terrified him.

Which was why she shouldn't have been surprised at his response when she said that the one silver lining was they didn't have to worry about Tal Nova or Del anymore, and after she was released from the hospital they could go back to the way things were.

"I don't know, Leah... I...I need to think about things. After what's happened, what I've seen...I need to process it. I think I'm going to take some vacation time. Get away. Clear my head."

He'd left right after that. No goodbye. No "I love you, we'll work this out". Just there one minute and gone the next.

Leaving her alone.

Alone.

The beep-beep of her monitor and the hushed swoosh of the IV drip-glucose to rehydrate her-emphasized the quiet of the room, which in turn underscored the fact that she had no one. No one to hold her hand. No one to take her home and have a gla.s.s of wine with. No one to help her celebrate surviving a horrible ordeal...

Of course not. Who could be with you? You're the embodiment of Death. You suck the life out of people. You hold the Power to Cure or Kill. And who knows if you have any ability to control it. Why should John want to be with you when you might drain him dry, turn him into a mummy creature, because you let yourself get tired or you Cured the wrong animal?

You're alone, and you should be. It's not safe for you to get close to anyone. Even if you don't kill them yourself, there's always the chance somebody else will find out about you and, and then what? The lives of everyone you know will always be in danger.

So that was it. Leah rolled over, wiped her eyes and stared at the water-stained tiles overhead. She was doomed to be alone. Which, when you really thought about it, wasn't much different than how her life had been before she met John. Go to work. Cure some animals. Go home. Wake up and start over.

She'd been doing fine for years-maybe not totally happy, maybe not living the life she'd dreamed about as a girl, but not bad, either. She could do it again. Start over. A different state. And this time she'd be more careful. A clinic with no windows, for one thing.

And no Curing people.

I can do this. It's for the best.

She fell asleep still trying to convince herself it was true.

The long, black limousine glided to a stop just as the sun disappeared behind the buildings on the Jersey side of the Hudson River. Del McCormick waited for Leonard Marsh to get out before he exited his own vehicle, an SUV he'd stolen specifically for this meeting. He'd leave it in the parking garage when he was through.

"Thank you for meeting me," Del said. At the same time, he looked past the billionaire and caught a glimpse of at least two bodyguards in the limo.

"You said you had a proposition for me." Marsh's words were measured, his tone cautious.

Del was pretty sure he knew why. Tal Nova had f.u.c.ked up the whole DeGarmo thing on so many levels, turned it into a nightmare that showed no sign of ending anytime soon. At any moment a piece of evidence could turn up linking them all to Nova's idiotic actions.

"Your a.s.sociate had certain plans for our mutual friend." Del kept his words purposely neutral, just in case Marsh was wired.

"My a.s.sociate was a fool. As was I for trusting him. You can see what it got him in the end." One of Marsh's bushy, gray eyebrows rose up. "Speaking of which, I was rather surprised at your...continued involvement."

Del allowed himself a small laugh at Marsh's euphemism for his being alive. "You and me both."

How he'd survived the attack on the slaughterhouse he had no idea. Just like he had no idea what happened while he was unconscious. As best he could figure, his own men and Nova's had pretty much killed each other off. In the confusion, DeGarmo and her boyfriend had either hidden or been rescued by the cops. By the time Del regained consciousness and emerged from his own hiding place, the forensic teams were already hard at work. It had taken some effort, but he'd managed to sneak out without being seen.

The end result was there'd been no one left alive who could rat on Del, and DeGarmo was very much alive and kicking.

"So what is it you wanted to speak to me about?"

"Well, I have to admit that I had some ideas which sort of ran in the same vein as our friend's. But upon further reflection, I think I've found something, er, safer, which could still make us both a lot of money."

Marsh nodded. "I'm listening. Although I'm no longer sure that dealing with that woman is in my best interests."

"This might change your mind." Del was hoping it would. "Tell me, Mr. Marsh. How much do you think certain politicians, and men of business such as yourself, would pay for the chance to dramatically extend their life spans?"

Chapter Thirteen.

Leah opened the door to the clinic and nearly pa.s.sed out from the smell. The police had warned her but she hadn't expected something so rank. She should have. After all, it'd been close to three weeks since she'd been there. Her absence, and the subsequent discovery of Chast.i.ty's murder, had created quite a stir in town.

The police had investigated the clinic as a potential crime scene and arranged for the transfer of any animals who'd been recuperating or boarded at the clinic. However, no one had thought to do anything with the fish tank in the waiting area. Or Chast.i.ty's two hamsters that she kept in the file room. Or the various plants. And no one had cleaned any of the cages or emptied the food dishes.

The stench of rotten food, old feces, sc.u.mmy fish water and dead rodents not only turned her stomach it brought back unwanted memories of the slaughterhouse where she'd been held captive. Dozens of flies buzzed through the room. She imagined each one carrying little packages of rot and disease on its feet.

On top of everything, someone had turned the air conditioner off and the office had the hot, stuffy feel of a desert tomb that had just been unsealed after a thousand years.

One hand over her nose and mouth, Leah ran from window to window, opening them all despite the ninety-degree temperatures outside. Then she set the A/C to sixty degrees and turned on the two portable fans she kept in the supply closet in case the A/C ever broke down. Finally, she doused every room with Lysol until the antiseptic fog made it almost impossible to breathe.

After that began step two: packing. She'd made her decision the night before while sitting alone in her living room with all the lights on. She couldn't stay in Rocky Point. Not only was it a place of bad memories now, but she didn't feel safe. She'd been attacked in her home. Attacked in her place of work. Being in the dark was impossible; she kept having waking nightmares of Tal Nova entering her bedroom and completing his threat to kill her. Since her release from the hospital, she'd been sleeping on the couch. Even then, it usually took several gla.s.ses of wine and an Ambien before she could drift off without jumping back awake several times.

So she'd come to the clinic to clean it and pack up her files, get everything ready so she could sell the practice. After that, she'd put the house on the market but she didn't intend to stick around until it sold. She'd find herself a new town, set up shop and rent until someone bought the house. They could send her the money; she didn't even plan on returning for the closing. Why bother? Rocky Point held nothing for her anymore.

Since her release from the hospital three days earlier, the only phone calls she'd had, other than her parents, were from the police-"We'd like to go over your statement once more"-and the press-"Why did those men kidnap you?"

Nothing from John.

She'd stuck to the story she and John had worked out back when they'd been holed up in the motel. The same one he'd apparently given, based on what she'd read in the newspapers.

Unknown people had kidnapped her because they wanted drugs. John had been there at the time and had been taken as well. In the process, they'd killed Chast.i.ty and then used Leah and John as hostages. There'd been a gunfight with a rival gang. John and Leah had escaped, but then were captured again before they could get to the police. In a second gun battle, John had gotten Leah to safety.

She'd seen in the paper, and on TV, that John was getting a medal for heroism. He'd also announced he was retiring from the force.

Leah had turned down all requests for interviews.

Her goal was to disappear as fast as possible from the spotlight, and it was working. This morning there'd been no reporters out in front of the house, so she'd gotten dressed and dashed out as fast as possible. A quick trip to an office supply store for file boxes and here she was.

Getting ready to throw away everything she'd worked so hard to attain.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. What's done is done. Get your a.s.s in gear.

For the next six hours she did just that-cleaning, tossing bags of garbage into the dumpster out back, filling red medical-waste bags for disposal and applying liberal amounts of bleach to every countertop and floor. After a quick break for a late pizza dinner (delivered, there was no way she was taking a chance and going to a fast-food place again), she got to work on packing her files.

As she put together several of the packing cartons she'd purchased, she realized that for the first time in days she hadn't thought about the downward spiral her life had taken.

"Maybe it's true what they say," she said to the empty room. "Hard work really does clear your head."

She'd just started stacking files in the first box when the door buzzer rang.