Forever and Always Read online

  She left the room in a flash and I wondered what she was up to. I mention jewels and she leaves.

  Ten minutes later the woman who’d opened the door for us brought my three suitcases into the room. When I tried to tip her, she shook her head and left. As soon as she was out of the room, the first thing I did was ascertain where the cameras and microphones were. People don’t realize how much energy machines give off, but I’d found out long ago that I could find machines with my mind. It took just a few minutes of concentrating to find them.

  Disabling them without alerting the watchers was another matter. I hung a hat over the little dried flower wreath that concealed a camera that looked toward the bed. In the bathroom (how rude! I thought) I sprayed my hair, then leaned over as though to get something and thoughtlessly sprayed the panel by the mirror, thus covering the camera lens.

  The microphones were more difficult but I managed—after three tries—to smash the one under the bed with the suitcase. Since there was no camera to see me, I put on a little radio show as though I were using the poker as a fencing sword, then said “oops” just before I smashed the microphone with the poker.

  I knew I was giving too much away by doing these things but, really—a camera in my bathroom!

  Once I was alone, I started digging through my bags and soon found what I wanted: my black Lycra cat suit.

  At the sight of the suit I refused to let myself cry. I hadn’t worn it since Adam and I had gone into the tunnels in Connecticut. To cover his attraction to me, he’d complained about everything I did or said. Of course I’d known we were safe. And I’d known—

  I made myself stop thinking about Adam, then went into the bathroom to change. When I emerged a few minutes later I halted. I could feel Linc near me. A second later, I saw his face at the window—the second floor window.

  “What in the world are you doing?” I asked as soon as I got the window open. He was hanging by his fingertips and I had to help haul him in.

  “Episode twenty-three was about a cat burglar,” he said as he fell onto the floor. “The director made me put on a leotard and crawl along the ledge of an eighteen-story building to see if it could be done.”

  I helped him stand up. “I thought all that was fake, that the actors were really only a couple of feet off the ground.”

  “I was, but I still couldn’t slip or—Wow! You look great.”

  I stepped away from him. “So how’s Mrs. Hemmings?”

  Linc groaned. “You can’t believe the offer she made me. She wanted to pay me to—” He waved his hand. “Anyway, I got no information out of her. She’s never been here before. But I talked to another guest and she said that the masseuse who used to be here was named Lisa, but she said she had never seen a little boy around here. She said that Delphia didn’t like men, children, or animals. You know, you really do look good.”

  “Touch me and I’ll make your head hurt,” I said, but I was smiling. His desire for a woman was getting stronger every time I saw him. His aura was now about a foot around his body and it was bright red. “You should have taken Mrs. Hemmings up on her offer,” I said, making sure there was lots of distance between us.

  Linc plopped down on my bed and I could tell he was sulking. I wondered how many women had turned him down in his life.

  “Did anyone see you climb up whatever you climbed up to get into my room?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the psychic. You tell me. And why are you dressed like that anyway?”

  I had no intention of telling him anything so I began sending him soothing thoughts that I hoped would put him to sleep, but since I was in a hurry I was a little too pushy.

  “Ow!” he said, rubbing his neck, then he began reciting the Gettysburg Address again.

  I didn’t have time to deal with him. “I’m going somewhere and I want you to stay here and wait for me.”

  He didn’t bother to answer. “What a fireplace!” he said, rolling off the bed, going toward the mermaids, his hands ready to grab their breasts.

  I put my body between him and the mermaids. A mistake. As his hands got near me, I gave him a look that made him halt. He stepped back, smiling. “Wherever you’re going, I’m going with you.”

  “To the library,” I said. “I have to do some things there. By myself.”

  “Such as disengage all machines that make fake ghosts appear?”

  “Now who’s the mind reader?” I asked.

  “We did a show that had a séance. A woman went to one and never returned, so I know something about the tricks. If you go, you go with me,” he said, and I knew he meant it.

  “All right.” I sighed to let him know I didn’t like the idea, although, truthfully, I didn’t want to go sneaking around by myself. I couldn’t cut wires or whatever while using my mind to make sure I wasn’t caught. “Let me make sure the hall is clear.”

  When Linc started to open the door, I shut it. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Checking the hallway. Excuse me. I forgot that you can do what no one on earth can do and that I probably know only fifty percent of what you can do.”

  “One percent,” I said. “And hush.” I closed my eyes and searched with my mind. I felt no one near us, felt that no one was about to come down the hall. I sent out thoughts that no one wanted to go into the entryway or—

  Opening my eyes, I asked Linc, “Do you know where the library is?”

  “What if I hadn’t dumped Mrs. Hemmings and come here, ready to rescue you? How would you even have found the library without me?”

  I opened the door slowly, peeking out just in case. Something was very strange in that house and I meant to find it. As far as I could feel, there were no cameras or microphones in the hall. It was my guess that there were certain people—namely Narcissa and Delphia—who didn’t want their movements recorded. Since they used the hallway, there were no recording devices.

  “I would have moved the library to me,” I said over my shoulder to Linc as I left the room.

  “You can’t really move a room, can you?” he asked, following me.

  Turning, I walked backward down the hall. Okay, so I was enjoying his lust. I planned to remain faithful to Adam forever, but it was nice to look at Linc’s beautiful body and see the lust that encircled him grow and develop. If auras were tangible he would have had a wall of fire behind him.

  “No, I can’t move a room but I could, say, make a backhoe driver get lost and end up with his machine in the library.”

  “That wouldn’t really move the room, that would destroy it. Not the same thing.”

  His voice was getting deeper and the flames of his aura bigger. “How about if I make someone think that she had to go to the library to get a book? I could follow her.”

  “She’d better be a locksmith because they keep the room locked.”

  His aura was now nothing but fire: red, orange, tiny bits of green at the tip. I could feel its warmth. As I went down the big stairs backward, I felt that my body had ice around it and he was the warmth I needed. Adam, Adam, Adam, I thought.

  Linc broke the spell. “This is it,” he said, his arm on the door behind me, his head coming down close to mine.

  The spell was broken when I saw a man’s face behind Linc’s left shoulder. I blinked and the face was gone. When Linc’s face got to where mine had been, I ducked under his arm.

  “Did you see that?” I asked, looking around but seeing no one.

  “What?” Linc asked, his voice higher. His aura was cooling, like a fire going down, no longer flames, but a warm glow. It wouldn’t take much to set it to blazing again.

  “I think I saw a ghost. Isn’t that marvelous? I’ve never seen one before. I mean, I’ve seen many of them inside my head, and talked to a lot of them, but I’ve never seen one in solid form. It takes a lot of strength to be able to appear in life form. One time I was in a new house but the people had used boards on the walls from some old cabin. I could feel bits of ghosts all over the walls. It wa