Or at least get a sense of them."

"That's good thinking. And not just because I'd rather you didn't go through it again," Cal added when Quinn narrowed her eyes at him. "It could work, and better yet, with Fox and Layla linked, it downscales the side effects." "And if it doesn't work," Fox added, "back to you."

"All right, that makes sense. Believe me, it's not as if I look forward to having my head explode."

"Okay, then we're up. This is the oldest part of the house. Actually, this room and the ones directly above were the house as far as anyone can tell. So, logically, if there was a cabin or a house here before this one was built, it could be over the same spot. Maybe, especially given Quinn's trip yesterday, they used some of the same materials."

"Like the fireplace." Quinn crossed to it, stepped over Lump, who'd already stretched out in front of the low fire, to run her hand over the stones. "I'm big on the idea of hiding stuff behind bricks and stones."

"And if we hack at that mortar, start pulling out stones without being a hundred percent, my father will kill me. Ready?" Fox asked Layla.

"As I'll ever be."

"Look at me." He took her hands. "Just look at me. Don't think.

Imagine. A small book, the writing inside. The ink's faded. Imagine her handwriting. You've seen it in her other journals."

His eyes were so rich. That old gold color so fascinating. His hands weren't lawyer-smooth. Not like the hands of a man who carried a briefcase, who worked at a desk. There was labor on them, strength and capability in them. He smelled of the rain, just a little of rain.

He would taste like cake.

He wanted her. Imagined touching her, gliding his hands over bare skin, sliding them over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her belly. Laying his lips there, his tongue, tasting the heat, the flesh ...

In bed, when there's only us.

She gasped, jerked back. His voice had been clear inside her head.

"What did you see?" Cal demanded. "Did you see it?"

With his eyes still locked on Layla's, Fox shook his head. "We had to get something out of the way first. One more time?" he said to Layla.

"Use your compartments."

Her skin felt hot, inside and out, but she nodded. And she did her best to set her own desires, and his, aside.

Everything drew together into a narrow point. In it she heard the jumbled thoughts of her companions, like background chatter at a c.o.c.ktail party. There was concern, doubt, antic.i.p.ation, a mix of feelings.

These, too, she set aside.

The book was in her head. Brown leather cover, dried from age.

Yellowed pages and faded ink.

With the dark so close outside, I long for my love.

"It's not here." Fox spoke first as he carefully let the connection between him and Layla fade. "It's not in this room."

"No."

"Then I need to try again." Quinn squared her shoulders. "I can try to home in on her, on the journal. See when she packed it away, maybe to take back to her father's house in town. The old library."

"No, they're not in the old library," Layla said slowly. "They're not in this room."

"But they're here," Fox finished. "It was too clear. They have to be here."

Gage tapped a foot on the floor. "Could be under. She might have hidden them under floorboards, if there were floorboards."

"Or buried them," Cybil continued.

"If they're under the house, we're pretty well screwed," Gage pointed out. "If Brian would be unhappy with us taking some stones out of the fireplace, he'd be pretty well crazed if we suggested razing the d.a.m.n house to get under it for some diaries."

"You don't have enough respect for diaries," Cybil commented. "But you're right about the first part."

"We need to try again. We can go room to room," Layla suggested. "The bas.e.m.e.nt? Is there a bas.e.m.e.nt? If she did bury them, we might get a better signal from there. Because I can't believe they're inaccessible.

Giles told her what would happen, told her about us-about you."

"She may have hidden them to keep them from being lost or destroyed."

Cal paced as he tried to think it through. "From being found too soon, or by the wrong people. But she'd want us to find them, she'd have wanted that. Even if just for sentiment."

"I agree with that. I know what I felt from her. She loved Giles. She loved her sons. And everything in her hoped for what those who came after her would do. We're her chance to be with Giles again, to free him."

"Let's take it outside. Yeah, there's a bas.e.m.e.nt," Fox told Layla. "But we could focus on the whole house from outside. And the shed. The shed was here, most likely, when Ann was here. We should try the shed."

As Fox had expected, the rain continued, slow and thin. He put his parents' dogs in the house with Lump to keep them out of the way. And with the others, stepped out in the stubborn drizzle.

"Before we do this, I had an idea-came to me in there-about the Bat Signal?"

"The what?" Quinn interrupted.

"Alarm system," Fox explained. "I can get it, the way I could get all the mental chatter in there. It's just like tuning a radio, really. If you push toward me, I should pick it up. If I push toward any of you, same goes.

We'll want to run it a few times, but it should work faster than phone tag."

"Psychic team alert." Cybil adjusted her black bucket hat. "Unlimited minutes, and fewer dropped calls. I like it."

"What if you're the one in trouble?" Under her light jacket, Layla wore a hoodie in what he supposed should be called an orchid color. She drew the hood up and over her hair as they crossed the yard.

"Then I push to Cal or Gage. We've done that during the Seven before.

Or to you," he added, "once you've gotten a better handle on it. We used to play in there. Remember?" Fox called out to Cal and Gage. "We used it for a fort for a while, only we didn't call it a fort-too warlike for the Barry-O'Dells. So we said it was our clubhouse."

"We murdered thousands from in there." Gage stopped, hands tucked in his pockets. "Died a million deaths."

"We made our plans for the birthday hike to the Pagan Stone while we were in there." Cal stopped. "Do you remember? I'd forgotten that. A couple weeks before our birthday, we got the idea."

"Gage's idea."

"Yeah, blame me." "We were-what the h.e.l.l, let me think. School was out. Just out. It was the first full day of freedom, and my mom let me come over and hang all day."

"No ch.o.r.es," Fox continued. "I remember now. I got a pa.s.s on ch.o.r.es, one-day pa.s.s. First day after school let out. We were playing in there."

"Vice cops against drug lords," Gage put in.

"A change from cowboys and Indians," Cybil commented.

"Hippie boy wouldn't play greedy invaders against indigenous peoples.

And if you'd ever gotten one of Joanne Barry's lectures on same, you wouldn't either." The memory had a smile ghosting around Gage's mouth. "We were so juiced up, September was a lifetime off. Everything was hot and bright, green and blue. I didn't want that to end, I remember that, too. Yeah, it was my idea. Major adventure, total freedom."

"We all jumped on it," Cal reminded him. "Plotted the whole thing out right in there." He gestured toward the vine-wrapped stones. I'm d.a.m.ned if that's a coincidence."

They stood there a moment, side by side. Remembering, Layla supposed. Three men of the same age, who'd come from the same place.

Gage in his black leather jacket, Cal in his flannel overshirt and watch cap, Fox in his hooded sweatshirt. Odd, she thought, how something as basic as their choice in outerwear spoke to their individuality even while their stance spoke of their absolute unity.

"Layla." Fox reached out. Her hands were wet and cool. Rain sparkled on her lashes. Even without the psychic link, her anxiety and eagerness flowed toward him.

"Just let it come," he told her. "Don't push, don't even reach for it.

Relax, look at me."

"I have a hard time doing both of those things at the same time."

His grin was pure male pleasure. "We'll see what we can do about that later. For right now, bring the book into your head. Just the book. Here we go."

He was both bridge and anchor. She would realize that later, that he had the skill, had the understanding to offer her both. As she crossed the bridge, he was with her. She felt the rain on her face, the ground under her feet. She smelled the earth, the wet gra.s.s, even the wet stone. There was a hum, low and steady. She understood with a stab of awe that it was the growing. Gra.s.s, leaves, flowers. All humming toward spring and sunlight. Toward the green.

She heard the faint whoosh of air that was a bird winging by, and the sc.r.a.pe that was a squirrel scampering across a branch.

Amazing, she thought, to understand that she was a part of it, and always had been. Always would be. What grew, what breathed, what slept.

What lived and died.

There was the smell of earth, of smoke, of wet, of skin. She heard the sigh of rain leaving a cloud, and the murmur of the clouds drifting.

So she drifted, across the bridge.

The pain was sudden and shocking, like a vicious and violent rip inside her. Head, belly, heart. Even as she cried out, she saw the book-just a flash. Then the flash was gone, and so was the pain, leaving her weak and dizzy.

"Sorry. I lost it."

Gage's hands hooked under her armpits as she toppled. "Steady, baby.

Easy does it. Cybil."

"Yes, I've got her. Lean on me a minute. You had quite a ride."

"I could hear the clouds moving, and the garden grow. It hums. The flowers hum under the ground. G.o.d, I feel ..."

"Stoned?" Quinn suggested. "You look stoned."

"That's about right. Wow. Fox, did you-" She broke off when she managed to focus. He was on his knees on the wet gravel, his friends crouched on either side of him. And there was blood on his shirt.

"Oh my G.o.d, what happened?" She pushed instinctively with her mind, but rammed into a wall. She stumbled, went down on her hands and knees in front of him. "You're hurt. Your nose is bleeding."

"Wouldn't be the first time. d.a.m.n it, I just washed this stupid sweatshirt. Just give me some room. Give me room." He dragged a bandanna out of his pocket, pressing it to his nose as he sat back on his heels.

"Let's get him inside," Quinn began, but Fox shook his head, then pressed his free hand to it as if the movement threatened to break it away from his shoulders. "Need a minute." "Cal, go get him some water. Let's try your mother's trick, Fox." Cybil moved behind him. "Just breathe." She found the points, pressed.

"Should I ask if you're pregnant?"

"Not a good time to make me laugh. Little sick here."

"Why was it worse for him than for Quinn?" Layla demanded. "It was supposed to be less, because we were linked. But it's worse. You know."

She aimed a fierce look at Gage. "Why?"

"Being O'Dell, he stepped in front of you and took the full punch.

That'd be my guess. And because of the link, it was a h.e.l.l of a punch."

"Is that it?" Furious, Layla turned on Fox. "I'm listening to clouds and you're getting kicked in the face."

"Your face is prettier than mine. Marginally. Quiet a minute, okay?

Have a little pity for the wounded."

"Don't ever do it again. You look at me, you listen to me. Don't ever do it again. You promise that, or I'm done with this."

"I don't like ultimatums." Even through the glaze of pain in his eyes, the temper sparked. "In fact, they p.i.s.s me off."

"You know what p.i.s.ses me off? You didn't trust me to carry my share."

"It has nothing to do with trust or shares. Thanks, Cybil, it's better." He got carefully to his feet, took the water Cal offered and drank it straight down. "They're wrapped in oilcloth, behind the south wall. I couldn't tell how many. Two, maybe three. You know where the tools are, Cal.

I'll be back out to help in a minute."

He made it into the house, into the bathroom off the kitchen before he was as sick as a man after a two-day drunk. With his stomach raw and his head a misery, he rinsed his face, his mouth. Then just leaned on the sink until he had his breath back.

When he came out, Layla stood in the kitchen. "We're not finished."

"You want to fight? We'll fight later. Right now we've got a job to do."

"I'm not doing anything until you give me your word you won't shield me again."

"Can't do it. I only give my word when I'm sure I can keep it." He turned, started rooting through cupboards. "Nothing but holistic s.h.i.t in this house. Why is there never any d.a.m.n Excedrin?"