Smoke on the Water Read online

  He finished what he’d planned to for the evening—not enough, never was—and powered down his computer, then stepped out of his office. He glanced in the direction of Willow’s room—shouldn’t but he couldn’t seem to help himself, and looking wasn’t a crime, at least not yet—and she stumbled into the hall, nearly going to her knees before she righted herself.

  He was at her side before she’d taken another step. “What’s wrong?”

  She blinked at him as if she’d just woken from a deep sleep. Her room was dark—maybe she had—the hallway was brilliant. He would have written off her staggering and blinking to waking from a bad dream and stepping into fluorescent lights, if her lips hadn’t been tinged blue.

  He set his palm along her chin and tilted her face. She focused on him and smiled. “I missed you.”

  “I—” he began, and saw movement in the hall. A quick glance revealed a patient shuffling to her room and not Zoe lurking as she seemed to do a lot of lately, along with Justice, Deux, and Tom I. Everyone was on edge, concerned about their jobs. He was.

  He could have sworn he smelled the remnants of fire and glanced into Willow’s room to make sure she hadn’t run out because of just that. But he saw nothing there beyond her sheets on the floor. She’d probably had a vivid nightmare and kicked them off, which would have made her cold, though not cold enough for blue lips. He wanted to warm them, but the way he wanted to warm them was definitely illegal.

  He took her arm. “You should lie down.”

  “No, I need to—”

  Her head snapped up. Next thing Sebastian knew she’d tugged free and raced toward the communal facilities. Concerned she was going to be ill, he followed. But once there he hesitated. A shower ran; he heard more voices than hers.

  “Willow?” he called. “You need help?”

  Silence was his answer. A prickle of unease skated over him. He considered searching for a nurse—where was Zoe when you needed her? When he didn’t need her, there she was.

  “I’m coming in,” he said.

  Steam billowed from the single shower stall that had both the curtain drawn and the water running. None of the toilets appeared to be in use—all the doors were unlocked, no feet on the floor that he could see.

  “Willow?” he tried again as he reached the shower in question. “Answer me please or I’ll have to—”

  The shower curtain opened with a screech of the rings across the rod, revealing Willow, hair damp and curling, clothes wet in splotches, all alone inside. She was still too pale and her lips looked like she’d eaten a blueberry Popsicle a few hours ago.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Zoe stood at the entrance to the showers, hands on her hips, scowl bouncing from Sebastian to Willow and back again.

  He had no idea what to say because he had no idea what had happened. He couldn’t figure out why Willow would step into a shower fully clothed like that. Though if she hadn’t, she’d be naked and he’d be in huge trouble.

  She’d also been talking, and not to herself, unless she’d been using a different voice to answer. Which was another set of trouble altogether.

  “Where’s Mary?” Zoe shoved past Sebastian, peering into every shower stall on the way to the one Willow occupied, where the water continued to run.

  “Mary?” he echoed.

  “She was taking a shower.” Zoe jabbed a finger at the floor. “In this stall.”

  “Where were you?” Sebastian asked.

  “Right here until I went to check on a commotion in the next hall.” Zoe spread her hands. “Mary barely had time to dry off and get dressed before I came back. There’s no way she had time to escape.”

  Yet she probably had. Mary was getting far too good at this.

  “Did you see her?” Sebastian asked Willow.

  She shook her head and turned off the water.

  “Bullshit.” Zoe grabbed Willow’s wrist and yanked her out of the shower.

  Willow slid on the wet tile, nearly falling, but Zoe dragged her back up.

  “What did you do?” Zoe demanded, shaking Willow’s arm so that her hand flapped like a leaf on a tree.

  Sebastian took several steps forward, planning to shake Zoe like a dog with an old towel. He pulled up short when he saw Willow’s palm, which was covered in blood.

  *

  Mary had disappeared again—and it wasn’t even the full moon. What she’d whispered right before she’d taken my hand, then morphed out probably explained it.

  “Blood magic is the most powerful kind.”

  I’d been thinking that I wanted her far away from whoever had just tried to kill me. I wondered how far away she’d gone, and if we’d ever be able to get her back.

  Luckily she’d already put on her jumpsuit and slippers. I’d hate to have sent her out in the night with no clothes.

  I’d stepped into the shower to shut it off—Mary always forgot the simple things—then heard Dr. Frasier coming and pulled the curtain closed. I should have stuck my hand under the water. I should have done a lot of things, but my brain was firing on empty. I blame the plastic bag over my face.

  Dr. Frasier paled at the sight of the blood all over my palm. Mary’s blood. I doubted they’d believe me if I said she’d put it there unasked.

  “What happened?” Dr. Frasier asked.

  “I must have slipped and scraped myself.” Let’s hope they were preoccupied with Missing Mary and didn’t look closely at my hand. At least until I could actually scrape myself.

  “What happened to Mary?” Zoe shook me again.

  Maybe I should just belt her in the teeth. That would make us both bleed and cause enough commingling of fluids for me not to have to explain any more.

  The fingers of my free hand curled into a fist. Dr. Frasier set his over the top of it, and I stilled.

  “Zoe, fetch the guards. Have them start searching.”

  She still held on to my wrist tightly enough to leave a bruise. “Doctor, I don’t—”

  “Procedure, please.”

  She dug her fingernails into me—hard enough to draw blood, I hoped—before she let me go and left the room to do what the doctor had ordered.

  “Why did you run in here?” Dr. Frasier asked.

  “I didn’t hurt Mary.”

  “Obviously.”

  I was so thankful he believed me without question, I almost didn’t hear the rest of his statement.

  “If you had there’d be a blood trail.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I muttered.

  “I know you wouldn’t,” he said more gently. “But it’s good to have facts to back up your statement. You want to answer my question now?”

  Should I tell him the truth? Might as well. Or at least as much truth as I could give him.

  “Someone put a plastic bag over my face while I was sleeping.”

  He blinked, frowned. His gaze lowered to my lips for some reason, and I couldn’t help myself, I licked them. He peered at the ceiling. “Who?”

  “No idea. I was a little busy trying not to die.”

  “Why did they stop?”

  “No idea,” I repeated. Also true. I’d heard thunder, smelled lightning, but I’d been dying. Confusion was understandable. I should probably keep the information about my fingernail tips turning to ashes to myself too. That was the kind of talk that would get me put in solitary. Though I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to talk fast enough to stop that this time.

  “Did whoever was in your room make you bleed?”

  “Probably.” I put my hands behind my back and scraped my bloody hand with what was left of my thumbnail. The crescent marks Zoe had put there would be helpful as well.

  “You came in here to wash off?”

  “I came to warn Mary. I figured if someone wanted me dead, they might want her dead as well.”

  “Because?”

  Talking about witches and witch hunters probably wasn�
�t in my best interest right now. Would it ever be?

  “We spend all of our time together. If I annoyed someone enough to kill me, she probably did too.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. I knew what he was thinking. Mary would be the one most likely to annoy someone enough to kill, not me.

  “You saw no sign of her when you got here?” he asked.

  “It’s like she went poof.”

  “Not funny.”

  “Sorry.”

  He cast his gaze toward the door beyond which the sounds of a full-scale search had commenced. “Any thoughts as to where she might head this time?”

  If she’d transported to the place of my last vision, which seemed to be the MO, she’d be at or near her home in Three Harbors. However, this transportation had taken place before the full moon and with the use of blood magic. Who knew what that meant? Not to mention that the vision had showed Mary defending her son and my probable sister. I probably shouldn’t send anyone to fetch her before that happened.

  I shook my head.

  Dr. Frasier motioned me to the sinks. “Wash your hands so I can take a look.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. Mary’s blood was starting to flake off my skin, a nasty sensation I wanted to stop ASAP. I shoved both hands beneath the lukewarm stream, then pumped a palm full of soap.

  I knew better than to gaze at the water, so I stared into the mirror above the sinks instead. When Dr. Frasier’s eyes met mine, I caught my breath. Though the room around us was institutional—nothing sexy about it—his position behind me, my position just in front, made me think again of things that hadn’t yet happened. There would come a time when we would be in a bathroom—much nicer, what wasn’t?—me at the sink, him just behind. He would place his hands on my hips, move my hair away from my neck, lean over and fasten his lips to my skin as he lifted my skirt, trailed his palm up my bare thigh, skated his fingertips beneath the hem of my panties and—

  “Willow?”

  I’d closed my eyes, remembering, and now they snapped open. In the mirror for just an instant I saw a different me—hair tumbled and curling, lips parted, skin flushed, eyes bright.

  “Are you all right?”

  The doctor had stepped closer, to the exact place he would one day be. It was all I could do not to arch my back and rub myself against him. But, despite my visions of us, I knew now that we could never, ever be.

  “Yes.” I shut off the water and reached for a paper towel at the same time he did. Our hands collided. I didn’t mean for them to, but my fingers tangled with his and clung.

  He tightened his around mine for just an instant before pulling the once bloody appendage close and patting it dry with the towel. I crunched the one I’d taken in my uninjured hand.

  The marks Zoe had left had not even broken the skin. The ones I had welled with fresh blood.

  “Not so bad,” he said.

  Not bad enough to cause the amount of blood that had been on my hand, but neither one of us mentioned it.

  “You can probably keep pressure on that for a few minutes and it’ll stop. Or we could go to my office for the first-aid kit.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He stayed right where he was, even though the amount of commotion in the hall demanded his attention. “They aren’t going to find her, are they?”

  He rubbed his thumb along the inside of my wrist. I didn’t want to speak and break the spell, even if I’d had anything to say to that question. Being touched felt wonderful. Being touched by him … both familiar and fabulous. As if I’d finally found my home.

  “I’m worried,” he said. “Mary’s getting out somehow, which means someone could get in the same way. Now you’ve been attacked.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me to consider that my attacker wasn’t a patient or staff. I hadn’t considered much but breathing and then finding Mary. But now that I had, it made more sense for the attack to have come from the outside than from inside. I’d been in here a while. If someone local wanted to kill me, wouldn’t they have tried it before tonight?

  “You should be in solitary.” Dr. Frasier squeezed my hands. He seemed sad. “Not a punishment, Willow, for safety. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I echoed. Was he moving closer? I swayed in his direction, unable to stop myself, drawn by his heat, his scent, his—

  He kissed my forehead, then seemed as surprised about doing it as I was. We stood there, staring into each other’s eyes, holding hands until someone shouted, “Dr. Frasier!” right outside the door.

  He released me, stepped back, seemed about to say something, then shouted, “Here!”

  Deux appeared in the doorway.

  “Take her to solitary,” he said. “Keep her there. No one in or out until I say otherwise.”

  Deux blinked. “Sir?”

  “Do it,” Dr. Frasier snapped then left without another glance in my direction.

  Chapter 13

  Sebastian felt terrible about sending Willow to solitary, but it was for her own safety. He probably should have taken her there himself, but he was afraid if he spent one more instant in her company he’d give in to the career-ending, jail-time-inducing desire to touch her in the ways he’d been dreaming of.

  What was wrong with him? He was a psychiatrist. He knew that dreams weren’t real and the dreamer shouldn’t beat him-or herself up about having them. The subconscious was like a snarled ball of yarn—it could be unraveled, but why it was the way it was, how it had gotten to be that way, was often a mystery.

  On the other hand, his dreams were pretty straightforward. He wanted Willow in ways that he shouldn’t.

  What he needed was to get laid. Unfortunately he was new in town, had no time to meet anyone, let alone date them enough to warrant getting naked. He wasn’t going to pay for it either. Not only did the idea make him twitchy for more reasons than one—legality and the possibility of blackmail among them—but how would he even find such a place around here? He certainly wasn’t going to ask one of the Toms or Justice for a recommendation.

  “Doctor!”

  Speak of the Tom. The first Tom, phone to his ear, motioned for Sebastian to join him at the front desk.

  The man hung up. “County sheriff thought he saw a woman in the woods about two miles west of here. Lost her but he’s setting up a block on the other side of that patch. Officer stationed every twenty yards. You want me to go?”

  “I will.”

  If this escape went like the last two, Mary was going to need sedation.

  *

  I didn’t sleep. By dawn I was pacing. I tried for a vision—but all I had in the way of liquid was coffee and milk. They possessed a good amount of water but not enough to show me anything without blood for a boost. As I was in solitary, the items available for self-mutilation were few. I’m sure I could manage, but I decided to wait. If I did something too drastic I’d be in this room a lot longer than originally thought.

  The guard on duty would tell me nothing. I asked for Dr. Frasier and I was told he was out searching. As I doubted he’d be searching where Mary had gone, I shouldn’t be worried, but I was.

  I asked if Peggy was in yet and shortly thereafter, she stood outside my door. Even she couldn’t get past Dr. Frasier’s order of no one in, no one out.

  “You rang?” Peggy asked.

  “Anything new on Mary?”

  She cast me a suspicious glance. “I just received a call from Three Harbors.”

  “What happened?”

  “She tried to kill a witch.”

  “But—”

  Peggy lifted her hand. “When I get back, we’ll all talk. Maybe you can even get her to make sense, though I won’t hold my breath.”

  *

  Sebastian spent the rest of the night and most of the morning in the forest with the county sheriff. Not a trace of Mary did they find. It wasn’t until he traipsed back to the highway and his phone went buzzing nuts with missed calls and messages that he realized he had been without service the entire
time he’d been shaded by the monstrous, freaky trees.

  The first several messages were from Toms I and II, as well as Zoe, giving him an update on the boots-on-the-ground search.

  Zilch. Zip. Nada.

  The fourth was from an irate Dr. Tronsted—as he hadn’t called her, someone had snitched. Number five advised him that Three Harbors PD had called the facility and the sixth was from Peggy Dalberg who was headed to Three Harbors to fetch Mary. Sebastian beckoned the sheriff and ended the search, then he got in his SUV and phoned the caseworker.

  “Got her,” Peggy said. “We’re on our way back.”

  “She sedated?”

  “They brought someone in to give her something right after she arrived at the jail. There was head banging.”

  Sebastian sighed. When wasn’t there? “What happened?”

  “She turned up at her house.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “I guess. What isn’t is the attempted murder of a witch.”

  Mary thought she was a witch. Why would she—?

  “Listen, she’s coming around. I’ll see if she makes any sense. If not, we’ll try again when we get back.”

  Sebastian returned to the facility and ordered Willow released from solitary and brought to his office.

  Zoe appeared in the doorway. “Shouldn’t I take her to her psychiatrist’s office?”

  Sebastian looked up from his e-mail. “Shouldn’t you go home?”

  Zoe’s eyes widened behind her thick glasses. That had sounded a little irritated. Probably because he was. He blamed lack of sleep, along with Zoe’s constant hovering. If this kept up, he’d probably have to fire her. As she was very good at her job when she wasn’t trying to advise him on his, he hated to do it. But he’d had enough.

  “I’m the administrator. I don’t have to explain anything.”

  To her. He had a sneaking suspicion Zoe had been the one to snitch to Dr. Tronsted, but he couldn’t prove it.

  Sebastian returned to his e-mail. “Go home.”

  Ten minutes later, Willow arrived.

  “Sit.” He waved at the chair. “Coffee?”

  She nodded. He poured them both some from the pot he’d started as soon as he got back. He handed her the cup and sat on the edge of the desk.