"I don't know, but I doubt it." She pointed toward the back of the house. "They said he disappeared back toward the Abbotts' house-that's the white one two houses down-and that they tried to cut him off but couldn't find him. They said they'd put an extra car in the neighborhood, but that there wasn't much else they could do."
Ten years ago, I reflected sourly, when we were still big news, the Regina police department would probably have fallen all over itself trying to protect her, and like as not we'd have wound up with a ring of armed guards around the house. But all the many and varied expectations of how telepaths would make the world a better place had gradually faded away, and with the rosy glow had gone our celebrity status.
Though of course it was only our relative obscurity these days which had allowed me to sneak unheralded into Regina in the first place. The universe, I reflected, contained no unmixed blessings.
"Well, I guess that'll have to do for tonight," I told Colleen as I double-locked the door and steered her back toward the bedroom. Despite obvious efforts to the contrary, she was already starting to sag with her earlier fatigue. "But tomorrow we'll do something more useful."
She nodded, either too tired to think about asking what I had in mind or else too tired to care. I helped her into bed, turned off the light, and tiptoed out. For the next few minutes I made a circuit of the house, making sure all the windows were locked and setting various jars and other breakable glassware onto the sills, the best impromptu burglar alarm I could think of. And wondered exactly what we were going to do when morning came.
making sure all the windows were locked and setting various jars and other breakable glassware onto the sills, the best impromptu burglar alarm I could think of. And wondered exactly what we were going to do when morning came.
Colleen wouldn't like it, and I wasn't looking forward to telling her she would have to leave the city she loved, possibly for eight months, possibly longer. But I no longer saw any choice in the matter. Clearly, someone had recognized me and subsequently deduced the existence of the telepath shield, and now that somebody had seen the thing up close. If he decided to steal it, then the child Colleen was carrying was dead... because as long as she was pregnant, Colleen's life depended on having two functioning shields, one acting as backup to the other; and with one of them gone an abortion would be the only safe course of action. The migraines of the past month were abundant proof that as the fetus developed its close-approach pressures would continue to increase, almost certainly reaching lethal levels long before Colleen was ready to deliver.
And I was not going to risk losing Colleen. Period.
I finished my rounds, turning off lights as I went, and trudged back through the dark to the bedroom. By noon tomorrow we'd be gone, I decided as I lay in bed listening to the unfamiliar creaks and groans of a strange house in an unfamiliar neighborhood. We'd take the morning to throw some essentials into suitcases, and by noon we'd be on the road.
Eventually, despite the noises, my own fatigue caught up with me, and as I drifted to sleep I wondered distantly if perhaps I might be getting a little too paranoid.
I was not, in fact, paranoid enough. By noon tomorrow it was far too late.
It was nine-thirty the next morning, and I was still trying to persuade Colleen of the necessity of running, when the knock came on the front door.
For a frozen moment we just stared at each other. The knock came again; rising from the kitchen table, I moved quietly to the door. "Who is it?" I called.
The voice that answered was urbane and calm and educated. And very sure of itself. "The fact that you have to ask that question, Mr. Ravenhall," he said, "tells me all I need to know. Please open the door."
I heard a footstep as Colleen came up behind me. "Dale?-what is it?"
"Trouble," I hissed back. For a moment I hesitated; but there really wasn't anything to be gained by keeping him out. Mind scrabbling hard to come up with a new story to spin, I undid the locks and opened the door.
There were two men standing there. One, obviously the man who'd spoken, was balding and late-middle-aged, heavily wrapped up in an expensive coat and an almost visible air of authority. The second, standing a pace behind him, was much younger, with a coolness to his eyes that made me shiver.
"I think you have me confused with someone else-" I began; but practically before I'd started into my spiel the middle-aged man pulled open the storm door and walked calmly in past me, the other right behind him. So much for that approach.
"Miss Isaac." The spokesman nodded to Colleen. "Please-both of you-sit down."
"Perhaps you'd like to state your business first," I said in my best imitation of hauteur.
Silently, I stepped to Colleen's side and sat us down on the couch. My first hope, that we were dealing with overeager reporters, was gone now without a trace. Our visitor chose a chair facing us and eased himself smoothly into it, his younger companion remaining standing behind him. "Now, then," he said briskly, looking back and forth between Colleen and me. "I expect it'll save time and histrionics all around if I begin by telling you what I know. First: I know that you, Miss Isaac, are pregnant; possibly by Mr.
Ravenhall here, though I'm not absolutely certain of that. Second: the child is itself telepathic-or perhaps potentially telepathic would be a better term; it certainly isn't doing any real mind-reading at this stage of its development. Third: the only way you and the fetus can stand being this close together is because you have a device plugged into the wall back there that somehow temporarily damps out your telepathic power, which is of course also the only reason Mr. Ravenhall can be here in this room with you. Now, does that pretty well cover it?"
I felt cold all over, the lie I was struggling to create dying still-born. Or most of it, anyway. "Pretty well," I said calmly. "Except that the machine's effects aren't temporary. They're permanent."
He smiled indulgently. "Really. And you'd like me to also believe that your powers of persuasion are such that you could simply talk a killer like John Talbot Myers into giving himself up."
I glanced at the man standing silently over him, the taste of defeat in my mouth. "So it was you I was following?" He nodded once, still silent, and I shifted my eyes back to the other. "How did you arrange for Myers to be there?"
He smiled again. "I'd like to claim credit for that, but in fact it was pure happenstance. Alex here-" he gestured minutely toward the man standing over him-" was really only trying to get you out of the way for awhile so that another of my people could examine the device he saw you bring inside after your long day at the hospital."
"I hope he got a good look before the phone call scared him away," I said coldly.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Your anger is understandable, Mr. Ravenhall, but totally unnecessary. He had explicit instructions not to tamper with the device. After all-" he shrugged-"I'd hardly go to all this trouble only to lose my child."
Beside me, Colleen stiffened. "What do you mean, your child?" I demanded.
"I mean," he said softly, "that when the baby is born I'll be taking charge of it."
"Like hell you will," I said, a flash of anger hazing my vision with red. "It's Colleen's baby, and whatever arrangements are made will be up to her."
"And her sponsors?" he asked pointedly.
I frowned. "What do her sponsors have to do with it?"
He looked at Colleen. "Your monthly stipend, Miss Isaac; the money without which you would have little or no way of surviving. It comes from the University of Regina, Regina General Hospital, and the Canadian Psychiatric Institute, correct?" or no way of surviving. It comes from the University of Regina, Regina General Hospital, and the Canadian Psychiatric Institute, correct?"