Forever and Always Read online

  And there, lying on the floor, was Darci. She had on some long white robe, her hands crossed over her breast. She looked like a sacrificial virgin in a bad B movie.

  With my heart pounding in my throat, I ran to her and picked her up. Until I touched her, I didn’t realize I’d expected her body to be cold. When she was warm to my touch I almost cried with joy. As I picked her up in my arms and pulled her to me, I sat down on the filthy old floor, putting my back against a wall. I’d played a cop in too many episodes to trust my back to an open door.

  “Darci,” I said, smoothing her hair back from her face. I kissed her forehead, then her cheek, then her chin. My lips hovered over hers.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she whispered when my lips started to touch hers.

  “You’re alive!” I said.

  “Did you think I was dead? Were you going to kiss a dead person?”

  “I was going to run off with one this evening,” I said as Darci got off my lap. She was rubbing her head and blinking a lot.

  “What dead person did you want to run away with?” She looked at me sharply. “You didn’t see Amelia by yourself, did you?”

  I wasn’t going to let her get out of telling me about herself. “Would you mind telling me what happened to you at dinner, and why you aren’t in your own bed now, and who’s the old blind man in my room?”

  “Henry went to see you?”

  She’d avoided all my questions. Before I could say another word, her eyes opened wide, the last of the sleep out of them. “This house is on fire.”

  “That’s what Henry said.”

  “He told you this house is on fire, but all you’re doing is sitting here?” She got up but then had a dizzy spell and grabbed on to me.

  “Darci, you’re in no shape to deal with this. I want you to go downstairs and get out of this house immediately. Get in the rental car, find a telephone and call—”

  I stopped because she was running out the door. “The women are still in their rooms asleep,” she said.

  I ran after her. “Their doors are locked, and where’s the fire now?” As soon as I said it, I knew. I could smell the unmistakable odor of smoke. It came from upstairs in the attic.

  “Open the doors and get the women out,” Darci ordered as she put her foot on the bottom stair.

  I caught her arm. “No, you don’t. You don’t go anywhere without me.”

  “Someone’s up there. I have to get her out.” Her voice was urgent. “Linc! Let me go!”

  I didn’t release her. I meant it when I said she wasn’t going anywhere without me. She looked at my hand and made it burn. I held on. The burn grew worse. I didn’t let up. My eyes watered; my knees grew weak; my stomach clenched. But I didn’t let go. I’d come to know Darci Montgomery and I knew that she wouldn’t continue giving pain to a good guy, to me.

  I was right. The fire in my hand stopped as abruptly as it had started and I’d not let go of her arm.

  “I have to—” she began, but then she turned away from the stairs and ran down the hall, me right behind her.

  I knew what she wanted. I held on to her arm as I kicked open the nearest door. Mrs. Hemmings was sound asleep in her bed. “Help me search for her cell phone,” I said, and two seconds later Darci had it. Moments later I’d called the fire department.

  “They’re on their way,” Darci said as she ran out the door toward the stairs up. “They’ll be okay. I see no death around the women.”

  I ran up the stairs after Darci and stopped her just as she was about to open the door to the room where I’d spent the night with Ingrid, where I’d found my son’s toy. “It’s hot,” I yelled. “Don’t touch that door.”

  “But how—?” Darci asked, meaning, How do we get into the room?

  I wanted to ask her who was in there that was so worth saving, but I didn’t. We’d lost too much time already to talk about anything.

  The door to the next room wasn’t hot, so I turned the knob and it opened and we went in. For now, the fire was on the other side of the wall. My guess was that the fire was at the end toward the door, so maybe the other end of the room near the windows was free of fire. Maybe there was enough air in that end of the room that a person would still be alive.

  But how to get into the room? If I went out the window in this room, across the roof, and into the next window, it would take too long.

  My thoughts had taken only seconds to reach the conclusion that there was only one way to get into that room quickly. Darci had to do what she’d done the night I’d been with Ingrid: She was going to have to use her mind to open the wall.

  I couldn’t waste my time with words that took too long to say, so I put my hands on Darci’s shoulders, her back to my front, and in an instant I sent the image to her that she had to open that wall.

  “But I can’t do that by myself. I need—”

  I tightened my grip on her shoulders. We didn’t have time for this “I can’t” garbage.

  I knew I couldn’t help her, but maybe my presence would give her support. I pulled her closer to me and my hands dug into her shoulders until I was sure I was hurting her.

  I could feel the tension in her body. She became as stiff as steel. “Come on, Darci baby, you can do it,” I said, and her body tightened even more. “Where the hell are you, Devlin?” I said through my teeth.

  I felt more than heard his laughter, then when I looked at the wall, I saw the flowers in the wallpaper become eyes. They crinkled up in laughter. I shook my head to clear it, never letting go of Darci’s shoulders. I looked back at the wallpaper, the eyes blinked twice, then changed back to flowers. As far as I could tell, Devlin the Shape-Changer was here and he’d changed himself into wallpaper.

  I conjured up an image that told Darci Devlin was here helping her and did what I could to send it to her. I didn’t want her to know he was playing tricks with the wallpaper, so I sent her the vision that he was standing behind me, looking normal, his strong hands on my shoulders.

  I don’t know if I had anything to do with it or not, but the wall began to open. When the wall was open only about a foot high, I felt Darci move under my hands. She was planning to wriggle through that space all by herself—without me. She had the advantage on me that she had unbelievable mind powers, but I was a lot bigger and a lot stronger than she was. I knew she could paralyze me or give me a headache, but I also knew that she couldn’t do two things at once.

  I wouldn’t release her shoulders and I sent her a vision of my going through the wall with her. I felt her tense, as though she wanted to argue with me, but I guess she decided not to waste time. She concentrated more and the wall opened wider. Seconds later, we were on our bellies and snaking into the room.

  It was Sylvia Murchinson on the floor, passed out from the smoke. Fire licked around the door. It wasn’t too big and too hot, yet. Holding my breath, I grabbed bed-clothes and began to hit the fire.

  Behind me, Darci was over Sylvia, and at one point I saw Darci giving the woman mouth-to-mouth. The second Darci had turned her attention elsewhere, the hole in the wall closed, which was good because an increase in oxygen would have fanned the flames.

  As soon as the fire was out, coughing and choking, I opened the door, then I ran to the window, unlocked it and pushed it open. I took a few deep breaths, then looked down at Darci. She was leaning against the window seat, breathing the clean air. Opening the wall had taken a lot out of her.

  Beside her, still on the floor, but now opening her eyes, was Sylvia. It looked as though Darci had saved the woman’s life.

  As Sylvia began to come to her senses, she reached out to Darci, but Darci pulled her arm back, not letting the older woman touch her.

  I remembered that it was Sylvia who’d talked to Darci at dinner and afterward Darci had been catatonic. Yet Darci had saved this woman’s life. She may have saved her life, even given her mouth-to-mouth, but Darci wasn’t allowing the woman to touch her.

  “Let’s get out of here,”