She knew it wasn’t physical running, but it was definitely somebody out there on the ethers, and then she heard this scream that made her blood curdle. She bolted back out of her vehicle and looked around, not sure whether she was facing somebody in reality or just an unruly spirit.

  When nothing materialized, she took several slow deep breaths and then realized that the security guard was standing in the front of the building, watching her. Not sure what she’d seen or heard but knowing perfectly well that her behavior would be watched, she gave the security guard a wave, got into her vehicle again, and forced herself to drive away.

  As soon as she got home, she phoned Stefan.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked immediately.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” she muttered. “I’m not certain that whatever happened last time is actually over with.”

  “Explain,” he demanded, his tone sharp.

  She quickly told him about the vehicle scenario.

  “It could have been anything,” he muttered.

  “It could have been, yes, but I suspect it was quite a bit more than that. I’m pretty sure it was that same energy again. It had that … that same signature.”

  “Did you see it?”

  She hesitated, then replied, “No, I didn’t. I heard it.”

  A long silence came on the other end. “Are you telling me that you can now hear energy? And it’s the same person?”

  “I don’t know what I’m telling you,” she admitted. “I’m just trying to explain what I heard. I’m not saying for sure it’s the same signature, but I feels like it. It sounds like it.”

  “It is possible,” Stefan noted cautiously, “but we’ve never really had anybody who could hear it.”

  “Believe me. I don’t want to be the first one,” she stated, with a wry note to her voice.

  He chuckled. “Maybe not, but you and I both know that, when shit happens, it tends to happen in great big piles, never nice little dumps.”

  “Yeah, especially for me. And, by the way, Stefan, that’s not helping,” she muttered.

  “No, but right now you need to get a hold of yourself, ensure you’re protected at all times, and, when you go back tomorrow, see if anything has changed.”

  *

  She has no idea.

  That was always the fun part, but it was also sad because he’d expected more of a challenge when she returned. Unless he’d burned her out. That was an interesting possibility, but one that he didn’t really want to consider. He knew that she would be back. He’d counted on it, but he didn’t want her to come back damaged. That wouldn’t be any fun. She was really the only one he could communicate with, the only one who had some idea of what he could do. Even then, what he really wanted from her was help to get away. He needed her for that.

  She had thought that this was over, that the last time was a one-off, that she had won, but she hadn’t. Just as she’d been burned out, so had he, but he’d just gone into sleep mode. In her case, she’d managed to walk away and had done something very different for a time, and now she was back. He wondered at that, wondered what drove her to come back to something like this.

  The people here were crazy, absolutely nuts. Why would you want anything to do with them, especially after what she’d been through? There had been quite a stink over it all, and, even then, there were no answers in many ways, certainly not for him or from him.

  Nobody had answers, and it was answers everybody always wanted, even when none were to be found. That was the part that always got to him. It was the clueless ones who fascinated him the most. How could you go through life completely dulled to what was going on around you? Desensitized to the whole world, locked into just your tiny part of it, and be expected carry on? Except that they were just a shell. Of course he might have had something to do with that too, trying to get them all to forget.

  Still, now what?

  She was back, so that was something. What would she change? He had already heard that she was pissed off about some things. That made him laugh, like anybody gave a crap about the food here. Nobody did. It was all about budgets.

  She’d always had friends in high places, friends who other people didn’t have access to, and she always made things happen, and nobody really understood how. Even him. He didn’t understand that, and it worried him.

  In many ways her return worried him, when really it shouldn’t. He should be all-powerful, yet she’d had the power to actually ruin everything he had set up, and that terrified him too. Nobody should have that kind of power over him. He didn’t like anything about it, but what was he supposed to do, except follow along and see where she was headed? He’d ruined her plans once before, and he was sure he could do it again.

  And that boy? The one who she was here for? That was just too damn bad. He liked the young ones, and there was no way in hell he would let Adam go. If they were to go, it would mean that they were fine, healthy, and moving on to the next stage of their recovery, and that was a joke. Nobody was leaving that he didn’t say could leave. His decree was law, and he would be damned if he’d let her overrule him on that.

  Chapter 7

  Cressy woke bright and early, and, when she opened the door to step out and head to work, Gray stood there, waiting for her. She frowned at him, and he just smiled back. She sighed. “You again.”

  “Yep, me again,” he replied cheerfully.

  “I’m sure the FBI has more cases for you to work on than this.”

  “Yes, they do, but I have faith that you’ll find something.”

  She stared at him, uncomprehending. “You do realize that it can take days, months, even years for progress in a case like Adam’s, right?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but, if that were the case, I don’t think Grant would be all over this in quite the same way.”

  She winced at that. “Okay, that’s a low blow.”

  He chuckled. “You have a reputation, Doc.”

  “Reputations can get you in a hell of a lot of trouble,” she warned. “Besides, simply having a reputation doesn’t mean that it’s actually warranted.”

  “I find reputations are often warranted,” he murmured. “In your case, you just might not like it.”

  “No, I sure don’t. Yet it is what it is.”

  He chuckled at that too. “You didn’t eat breakfast.”

  “How do you know?” she asked in exasperation.

  “I can tell. You also didn’t grab any coffee.”

  She just glared at him, as she walked to her car. “Not everything is quite so cut-and-dried.”

  “No, probably not,” he agreed, “but, if I go pick up something, will you eat it?”

  She stared at him and asked, “What are you now, my nursemaid?”

  “If that’s what the job requires, then, yes, absolutely.” He gave her a look.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “Coffee is at the office. I’ll see you there in a few minutes.”

  And, with that, he got into his vehicle and took off.

  She got into hers, and, at a much slower pace, she headed to work. She walked in and waved at the staff, heading directly for her office. She stashed her purse, logged onto her computer, and, while everything was booting up, she headed off to the coffee station. Thankfully she found a fairly full pot. She poured two cups and headed back to her office.

  As she walked down the hallway, one of the doctors looked at the cups in her hand and said, “Wow, you haven’t even been here two days yet, and you’re already double-fisting it.”

  She rolled her eyes at his crude joke and replied, “Hardly that.”

  He laughed. “Still, it’s good to have you back.”

  “Glad to hear that,” she murmured, “because I feel like I’m about to raise Cain.” He looked at her in question. She shrugged. “Some of these changes made while I was away are unacceptable.”

  He winced. “Yeah, not exactly fun, are they? But it was made very clear that, if we complain, it would be our jobs,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, in that case, it’ll be my job.”

  He stared at her astonishment. “Seriously?”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” she declared. “I refuse to accept these changes.”

  When she got back to her office, her cell phone was buzzing. She quickly picked up the phone, surprised to hear a man identify himself, someone from her past but not connected to her work, someone who was now located in New Orleans. After his introduction, she was still a bit confused. “Okay, so Stefan contacted you. I understand that, but I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”

  “I’m looking for a business to invest in,” he replied. Still, she frowned at that, not following. He continued. “I know the kind of work you do, at least Stefan has let me in on some of it.”

  “Okay, so to be very specific, you realize that I work at an institution for psychiatric patients.” She had to step lightly, not sure how much this man knew of her real line of work.

  “Yes, and my partner also works in a similar energy field of work.”

  Ah, he used the magic word—energy. Then she put two and two together. “Now I know who you are,” she said out loud, a bit too cheerfully, then cringed right away. “So, how much money do you have to invest?” she asked bluntly. “I would very much like to purchase this place and take it away from the shareholders, if it came to that.”

  He laughed at her blunt approach. “I can look into what you’ve got going on there and do some investigating into the shareholders and what’s happening, but it’s likely to be fairly hidden information.”

  “That’s fine,” she replied. “While I was gone on a six-month sabbatical, they cut the food budget and are now serving these already fragile unhealthy people this overly processed garbage for food. They’ve cut the staff significantly, and they’ve even cut the hygiene supplies. They’ve cut wellness hours and all kinds of programs that require extra staff. It’s basically become a program of more drugs to keep everybody sedated, so the patients are just quiet,” she explained. “But a drug-induced state of calm does not allow for healing or for getting healthier.”

  “Understood,” he agreed. “Stefan mentioned the sabbatical.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you care that much, why the sabbatical?”

  She hesitated and then asked, “Is your partner a ferryman?”

  “Yes, wow. How did you guess that?” he asked. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I assume you understand what happens when things go wrong in her corner, with the kind of specialized work she does?”

  “Yes,” he said cautiously.

  “Something like that went wrong while I was working with a patient,” she murmured. “I survived it, but there was definitely a price tag.”

  “Ah,” he muttered. “Okay, got it. What about the people you work with?”

  “The entire staff doesn’t know what I fully do, just that I get results the other doctors don’t. However, the board took advantage of my absence to make a lot of changes,” she shared. “Changes that I’m sure are much better for the immediate budget but won’t be that good for the long-term bottom line. Patient health and recovery is what I am worried about here, and that is what keeps new patients coming here. Anyone can sedate the patients and house them until they die. I want to help them get better.”

  “You do know that these places are supposed to operate at least somewhat at a profit.”

  “No, they’re supposed to operate,” she argued, with finality. “The profit part is optional.”

  “So, in other words, you’re looking for someone to invest but don’t plan to give anybody their money back?” he asked. “That will be a much harder thing to understand.”

  “I have some money to invest,” she admitted, “but I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “Can you give me some idea of what kind of money you mean?”

  She immediately shared a figure.

  “That’s actually very respectable, but do you want to put it all into something like this?”

  “If I had control, that would be fine by me. However, if other people will be yanking my chain, then no.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll have to do something else.”

  “Interesting,” he murmured. “I don’t know any of the patients you worked with. I would need a roster of some of perhaps some of your more affluent clients who would be willing to talk with me.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of those,” she replied, “and I’ve called on them in the past. I just need to confirm that they are okay with my sharing their names first.”

  “Good. Do that, and let me talk to a few of them, and we’ll see what we might do.”

  “Good enough.” She hung up, and, as she did, Gray walked in.

  He motioned at the phone. “I just caught the tail end of that,” he said, as she pointed at the door. He quickly closed it and asked, “What is that all about?”

  “I would appreciate it if you don’t say anything to anybody, but I’m considering my options here.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  She shrugged. “A lot of things here need to be fixed, and I’ll get a lot of guff from the board about it,” she explained. “If I don’t get any guff, it will really surprise me. Still, while I would obviously prefer it that way, I still have to—”

  “You could take it to the board and see what kind of response you get before calling in the big guns, if I may say so.”

  “Yeah, that’s the plan,” she stated, with a smirk. “However, if you’ve ever dealt with a board of directors, they’re all about keeping their shareholders happy, and that is directly related to the payout at the end of the day. That’s what everyone on the board cares about, and we both know it.”

  “You don’t agree with that?”

  “I don’t agree with these hospitals turning into profit machines,” she declared. “Break even? Yes. Profit enough to support expansion or updating infrastructure? Yes. But profit for the sake of profit for the shareholders? No, that’s a bit hard for me to understand. Especially when the tradeoff is substandard care.”

  “Oh, that’s clear enough.” He sat down and happily picked up the coffee she had brought in for him. “Have you had a chance to assess any of the patients yet?”

  “Nope,” she said cheerfully. “I just got off the phone.”

  “I’m surprised that was your first call.”

  “He called me.” When Gray stared at her, she shrugged. “Somebody from Stefan’s corner of the world, his partner at least.” Cressy smiled. “Now she is somebody you really should meet.”

  “Why?” he asked, already frowning in apprehension.

  “Because she does work that would actually send your nightmares into overdrive. Maybe then you would stop looking at me like I am some sort of alien.” His eyes widened, and she nodded. “She would be called a ferryman.”

  “I don’t understand the term.”

  “She helps people cross over to the other side. However, in her case, she specializes in mass disasters.”

  He blinked and then swallowed hard. “Yeah, you got that right.”

  Then she grinned. “She’s also incredibly gifted. Her partner just contacted me. He’s some kind of financial whiz.” She gave a wave of her hand. “So, I was pretty crystal clear about what I wanted and what I didn’t want.”

  “And that is?” he asked, fascinated.

  She lowered her voice. “I want control of the board. I want to get this place back to where it is supposed to be, and I want to start seeing people heal and get out of here to live a normal life. At the rate this is going here, these patients will become permanent residents, drugged to the hilt, providing lovely monthly checks for the board and their precious shareholders.”

  He contemplated his coffee for a long moment. “I guess in that sense, it is better for the board if they’re more of a sanatorium and long-term care facility.”

  “True, and there is a place for that, but these people aren’t supposed to need that. These patients are to be assessed and treated here, if appropriate, or otherwise moved on to long-term facilities,” she pointed out, “unless that too has been changed while I was gone, although I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that isn’t in the works.”

  “Do you think that is possible?”

  “It’s certainly outside of the system we were all hired into, and I think plenty of people here we could help. I don’t want to lose track of that.”

  “Got it,” he noted. “It’s not great when you go away, then come back, only to find that everything is different, huh?”

  “No, it’s not great at all,” she muttered. “It really sucks.”

  He laughed. “I kind of meant it as a joke, you know.”

  She gave him a weak grin. “I got it, but there are things at play here that I really don’t understand. As I get some of these things off my plate, at least to that extent, I can relax and get to work.”

  He frowned. “That doesn’t seem to be all just finances.”

  “Sure isn’t,” she murmured.

  “And when you say something is going on, what do you mean?”

  “Remember that part about you not believing and understanding any of this stuff? You’re probably better off just not asking questions at this point.” When he glared at her, she shrugged. “Some of this stuff is pretty freaky. I don’t have any proof.”

  “You actually deal in proof?” he asked, his eyebrows raising.

  She glared at him. “No, I don’t, not for people like you.”

  His tone mild, he repeated, “People like me?”

  She sighed. “Look. I’m not trying to get into a spitting contest with you right now, but some of what I saw and heard yesterday doesn’t make me happy, and then I got a definite feeling that something was off when I got into my car last night.”

  “You want to explain that?” He sat taller, leaned closed and frowned.

  She laughed. “Sure, if you insist.” She told him about the sound of somebody running toward her and nobody being there, then the screaming. His eyebrows slowly rose. “As I told you, not the kind of stuff that you can really do anything about.”

  “Yet you believe it?”