Maddy's Floor (24 page)

He took another step back and shook his head. Finally, he turned to her, his brow furrowed. "What is it?"

Motioning with her hand, she said, "Step over here."

Drew frowned. "The view's different from there?" Backing up toward her, he studied the painting again. Maddy studied him. Would he see the different faces when viewed from this side?

It took about ten seconds. Then lightning struck. He glanced at her, wonder in his eye. "What the hell? Is this for real?" Puzzled delight lit his features as he walked around her living room, keeping an eye on the picture. "Who created this?"

"Stefan Kronos."

"Never heard of him." He walked to the other side, his gaze never leaving the painting. Stunned comprehension washed over his face.

"Most people haven't." Maddy smiled in delight at his reaction. She loved how Stefan, using copious amounts of paint in a three-dimensional way, had made different faces shine through, depending on where you stood to view the painting.

"That is the most striking piece of art I've ever seen."

"Stefan's a dear friend. I thought that perhaps you had heard of him because he's quite famous in the law enforcement world. As a psychic."

"As a
what
?" He slid her a sideways glance. "Did you say psychic?" He glanced back at the painting. "I don't know how good his psychic skills are, but he's one hell of a painter."

"I think his psychic skills are second to none. He works with law enforcement agencies across the country." She walked toward the front door. "Are we ready to go?"

"What?" Drew had turned back to the painting. "Yes, yes. Let's head out."

He led the way to his truck parked out front. "We're heading to a new classy Asian restaurant downtown." Turning on the engine, he pulled the truck out into the traffic. The evening light was bright with an almost-f moon riding high. Recognizing a capable driver, Maddy crossed her legs at the ankles and relaxed back into the seat.

She was game. All Chinese was good to her. "Have you been to this restaurant before?"

"Not for a few months." He glanced at her in the dim interior. "You did want Chinese food?"

"Thank you. I'm looking forward to it."

"There's fresh seafood on the buffet."

"Oh yummm." Maddy rested her head back and closed her eyes. She so needed this tonight, just to have a break from all the problems – to not have to think about anything for a while. Then Nancy's question about taking Drew home with her tonight flitted into her mind.

She shouldn't. Short-term affairs weren't her thing. They didn't know each other very well either…

None of that really mattered. She wanted him. The single question floating through her mind – what did she want him as – a friend or a lover?

"Tough day?"

"Hmmm."

"Not to worry. Tonight you'll forget all about it."

At the smug tone of voice, she rolled her head toward him. "Yeah? How's that?"

"We're going dancing afterwards."

Maddy sat up. "Really?"

At his grin, her stomach started to bounce. She didn't remember the last time she'd really let loose on the dance floor. Her toes wiggled. They were so going to get a work out tonight.

***

John rolled over for the umpteenth time. Another bad evening. What the hell was wrong now? Today, he'd had one of the best days in a long time, and if he could get some sleep for once, he might actually heal.

He pulled up the blankets, shivering in the night. The lights never went out here. There were night-lights along the hallways, and street lights giving a glow outside. Tonight, the moon aggravated the problem. He should ask for a sleeping pill.

"Or not," he muttered to himself.

Why did the sound of his voice not give him the same comforting feeling it usually did?

He hunkered deeper and sighed. He couldn't sleep. He was too freakin' scared.

Scared of dying. Afraid of death itself. Terrified of what came after – if anything.

Not that acknowledging his feelings would change them. Death was waiting for him.

One of the lights in the hallway flickered, throwing eerie shadows on the walls in his room, crawling on the ceiling, dancing through the emptiness. His back stiffened. His breathing rasped unevenly.

This was stupid. He was a grown man – a cop, for God's sake. Too old and experienced in the ways of the world to let flickering lights scare him. Yet, nothing would stop the pit in his stomach from sinking. Something was out there.

John stared in the direction of the light, nervous, his stomach clenching. Closing his eyes, he gasped for breath, desperate to control his anxiety level before it controlled him. A second light flickered. He whimpered as the darkness encroached, coming ever closer to his bed. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed. His heart pounded against his chest, screaming warnings at him. Please, not tonight. He didn't want to die tonight.

The blackness approached.

THURSDAY EARLY MORNING

M
addy ate her way through the phenomenal buffet, then danced the night away at The Pandosy. Drew moved with the best of them, and she loved the chance to toss her stress away. They danced and laughed their way into the wee hours of the morning.

They closed the club and Maddy still felt like rocking. However, by the time Drew pulled up outside her condo complex, her adrenaline had seeped out through her toes. Her feet were killing her and although her heart sang with happiness, her body's song slid toward slumber.

"I had a phenomenal night. Thank you so much for the dancing. I had forgotten what fun it was." She'd danced his socks off.

Drew switched off the ignition, leaning his head back against the headrest. "Come on, I'll walk you to the front door.

Maddy smiled and unlocked her door. "Not required." She motioned toward her building. "It's right there. You can watch me walk the twenty feet. You're tired, too. Go home to bed. I'll be fine."

She watched the argument rise on his face, but he bit his lip and stayed quiet.
Good on him.
He was a protector and that was nice.

His long fingers grasped her chin. "Thank you for spending the evening," he said, glancing at the clock on the dashboard, "or maybe I should say – the night – with me." He grinned.

She smirked back at him. "You wish."

"I do," he whispered. "Are you sure?"

She leaned across and gave him a kiss on the cheek. At the last moment, Drew turned his head and her lips stroked across his. He held the kiss a brief moment, letting her taste him, get a feel for him. His lips teased yet didn't force, tantalized yet didn't take over.

She knew she had to leave before he tempted her more. And he did tempt her. The man was dynamite, on and off the dance floor. "I'm sure." She smiled wickedly. "Then again, I'm not against a second date tomorrow?"

A light fired in his eyes. "Tomorrow," he promised. "One kiss to hold me until then." A tiny smile crinkled the corner of his eyes and he lowered his head again. This was no gentle good-bye. No longer was he enticing or teasing. A small part of her brain dimly wondered if he was giving her a taste of what she'd be missing. Then her brain shut down.

He took her mouth in a possessive full-on promise, ravaging her lips with his heat. Their tongues danced and stroked, plunged, tasted then retreated. He gently stroked her swollen lips, his tongue soothing but promising more heat to come…and then he left Maddy gasping.

The man was magic.

Trembling, she barely managed to open her eyes to stare at him in wonder when he set her away from him. A tic pulsed at the side of his stern mouth. Deep blue velvet pulsed deep in his gaze. Good, she wasn't the only one affected.

"Get inside. I can't promise to be good any longer." He reached up to caress her bottom lip with his thumb, while his gaze hungrily devoured her. "You belong under lock and key."

Maddy was charmed.

A noise jarred her from the spell. "My phone. Someone's calling me. At this hour?"

"Then you'd better answer it," he whispered against her ear.

Maddy cleared her throat once, then again. "Hello."

"Dr Maddy? This is Amber on night shift. I wasn't sure if I should call you or not, as technically he's Dr. Cunningham's patient, but we can't reach him."

"What's the matter?"

"It's John. He's awake and incoherent."

"Meaning he can't speak clearly, his speech is slurring or he can't talk, period?"

"All of them."

"I'm coming in. Keep trying Dr. Cunningham as well. Did you call Emergency?"

"Yes, someone's on the way."

"They should be there by now. Emergency is in the same building, for heaven's sake. Who's on tonight?"

"I don't know. I put in two calls, except the hospital is crazy busy with some multiple car pileup on the freeway."

"Right. That's where Dr. Cunningham will be. Check with the hospital. I'll be there in ten. Stay on John. Make sure his breathing doesn't become impaired and hook him up to the heart machine. It sounds like he's heading for a stroke. And call Emergency again." Maddy slammed the phone closed and snatched up her handbag.

"Problems?"

Maddy stared at him, surprised by the question. She shook her head to clear it. "Your uncle has taken a turn for the worse. I need to go."

Eyebrows raised, he never said a word. He put the truck in drive, checked the traffic and pulled out onto the main road.

Maddy sighed with relief. "Thank you."

"He's my family."

"Let's hope he's okay. I can't do anything over a phone."

He shot her a sideways glance. "Can you do anything at all at this point?"

She glanced at him, unsure of what to say. "Maybe. I don't know." God, now she was babbling. Making a sudden decision, she said, "I'll try."

"Try what?" Confusion colored Drew's voice. "I don't understand what you do."

"And you won't understand this, either." She shifted into a more comfortable position. "Don't touch me. Tell me when you have parked so I can come back out."

With that, Maddy's consciousness jumped out of her body.

"Back out? Out of what?"

She recognized the shock and worry clouding Drew's face as he glanced from her to the road and back again. She didn't have time to soothe his nerves. John needed her help. Right now.

As fast as she thought his name, Maddy zipped to John's bedside in her astral form. Gerona was there, checking his vitals. Dr. Cunningham, his normal gray hair tousled, appeared to have just shown up. With a concerned frown on his face and tablet in hand he checked something on the minicomputer. She glanced at the machinery that registered John's heart rate. His color had faded, showing there had been some trauma to his system.

John's energy shuffled in a sluggish movement among the sheets. Below the bed, however, snug against the floor, were faint remnants of a black, darker energy. And not much of it, either. Gazing at the matrix of different energy fields mixing and blending, Maddy deciphered several other energies besides Gerona's and Dr. Cunningham's that she assumed belonged to other nurses, aides and visitors. Taking her time, she followed each energy pathway as they entered and left the area.

The black energy never left.

Even as she watched, it faded, starting to disperse slightly. Moving closer, she saw the broken hazy energy beneath John's bed had an aged appearance, as if it had been there for a while. Could this be the same snake-like blur Stefan had seen earlier and that she'd noticed on the film? If so, there was nothing snake-like about it now. This energy had shattered into globules versus normal dark energy that resembled a black heavy cloud. Sometimes, she identified dark lines within the clouds, woven through the fog like a spider web, which showed her the level of damage in the body she was scanning.

Here though, instead of spider webs, the blackness wobbled, like shiny gobs of Jell-O. She approached them, wondering about the shimmer deep inside each piece. They were almost pretty. Except looking at them made her stomach heave at their alien sense of wrongness.

She wanted to touch them, yet wasn't sure how they would react. She wished she understood what they were and where they'd come from – not to mention their relationship to John.

Surrounding John with white light, she poured healing energy into stabilizing his heart rate. Seconds later, the machines beside John showed he'd stabilized.

Relief flooded her.

"What the hell?" Dr. Cunningham stood at the machine, hands on his hips. "That's bizarre. What's the chance he was only having a bad dream?"

"He wasn't talking properly." Gerona picked up the chart and wrote down the current vitals. "Maybe we should wake him up and check again."

"We tried waking him and it didn't work," Dr. Cunningham snapped.

John moaned and snuffled, shifting his thin legs in bed.

"John, wake up. Talk to me." Gerona prodded his shoulder gently.