“Have you done this before?” Chase asked.

“Done what?” she questioned, having gone inside her head and lost track of the conversation.

“Visions? Voices?”

Like his earlier admission, hers came with a touch of hesitancy. “Yeah. Chan, and then … Lorraine. But the vision with Lorraine was different.”

His brows tightened as if he was assessing what she said. “Lorraine? The female victim who was murdered in the case we worked?” His brow creased. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

Maybe because you don’t tell me shit, either. She breathed in a mouthful of early morning air and it came with his scent: mint, some kind of herbs, and sunshine. “I … I kept hearing a voice, but I wasn’t sure and…” The wind stirred her hair in front of her face and she pushed it away. “Hell, if I’d told you I was hearing ghosts, you would’ve thought I was crazy.”

He dropped his hand from his pocket. “Probably. I didn’t think we vampires did the ghost whispering thing.” His gaze shifted and he glanced around at the tombstones.

Did he feel the same haunted feelings she did? As if something longed for her to walk the grounds and search for something—but what could be found here but the dead? Lost souls.

“Holiday thinks we have the ability because we’re Reborns.” Questions about when Chase had been Reborn started to percolate. Was he one of the few who survived on his own, or had someone helped him? Was he bonded to someone else? Now didn’t seem the time to start littering him with questions. Besides, he wasn’t known for handing over answers.

He ran a hand down his face as if fighting the edginess she felt. “Does Burnett deal with this shit, too?”

Oh, he was getting good at asking questions, wasn’t he?

Was divulging information about Burnett wrong? Chase’s eyes met hers and she decided he needed the truth. She didn’t think Burnett would disagree. “He hasn’t had visions, but he experiences a connection of some kind. Supposedly, anyone who can visit the falls without being repulsed has a little of the … gift. ‘Gift’ is Holiday’s word, not mine.”

He stood there as if considering something and then asked, “Can we communicate with anyone who’s dead?”

She had the feeling he was thinking of his family who Della remembered had all been killed in a plane crash. Unexpectedly, her heartstrings tugged at all that he’d lost. “I don’t know how it works. Holiday could tell you.”

His gaze went back to Chan’s tombstone. “I know this is tough.” He paused and the silence of the graveyard seemed almost loud. Then his voice came again and it felt as if the wind pulled it away. “You actually spoke with Chan?” He looked back at her.

More questions. All she could do was nod.

His eyes tightened with some emotion she couldn’t read. “Does he blame me, too? For his dying?”

She suddenly recognized that look. Guilt. She hadn’t thought he cared. Had she been wrong?

“He didn’t blame anyone,” she answered around a tightness in her throat. “That wasn’t Chan’s style.” Her heartstrings pulled again, this time for all she’d lost.

Another few beats of silence filled the haunted place. Her phone rang, the noise seeming to bounce against tombstone after tombstone. She looked at it, and saw Burnett’s number.

“Did Burnett know you were coming here?”

“He forbid me to come here,” he said matter-of-factly. “But he seems pretty smart, so he probably knew I’d come anyway.”

“You seem to have a thing about breaking rules.”

“I don’t set out to break them. I just make my own.”

She pretty much did the same, so she sure as hell couldn’t judge him for it. She looked back at the phone and made a decision. Changing her phone to vibrate, she slipped it back into her pocket.

Chase’s voice, deep and soulful, sounded again. “Do you want to go see the files?”

She’d told Burnett where she was going, and he would probably be pissed at her, both for not answering his call and for deviating from the plan. Emotions tied to the vision—desperation, hunger, fear—walked across her heart, leaving heavy footprints. Burnett would just have to be pissed.

“I’m ready when you are.” But she looked back at Chan’s grave one more time.

*   *   *

Chase took off, and much to his credit, he flew amongst the trees. They’d had to land twice to jog over urban areas where the early morning traffic moved and they could have been spotted. Della followed close behind him, vaguely recalling being unable to keep up with him earlier. Not that he was flying at full speed; he seemed to abide by Burnett’s rules of not showing his true powers. But before, even at this speed, longer than ten minutes would have been pushing her stamina.

His route was a little different from Burnett’s, but she recognized the terrain below. They were heading back toward Fallen, Texas … toward Shadow Falls. A couple of miles from camp, he followed a curvy dirt road and went down into a semi-clearing in the woods.

Her feet hit the ground with only a slight jolt. She looked behind her at a cabin. Not like the cabins at Shadow Falls, but like a fancy-schmancy cabin rented out to rich people to do yoga retreats or to get in touch with their inner spirit.

Whoever designed it did a good job. The logs formed an A-frame residence, constructed in such a way that it grew up and out of the natural landscape. Attached to the building was a large wraparound porch complete with wicker gliders and rockers. Only a few feet from the front porch seating were five bird feeders spaced out amongst the trees. The front part of the cabin held more glass than wood, so even those inside wouldn’t feel closed up.