or I can find a connection between them and Paveeth, I’ll have to believe what they tell me.”
“So that’s it,” Shannon said.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t built a case yet against me for Carver and Gibson.”
“Give us time,” Daniels said. He tried to smile but it didn’t stick. “A word of advice, Bill, stay away from True Light.”
Shannon exaggerated a mock look of dismay. “But they’re the one true source,” he exclaimed. Then he got the hell out of there.
Shannon felt a sickish feeling in the pit of his stomach when he stepped into the ICU waiting area and saw the wetness around Susan’s eyes. It took a moment before he could find his voice and ask if there was news about Emily.
She shook her head, wiped some of the wetness away with her finger and motioned towards a TV that was hanging from the wall. “I was watching the ten o’clock news,” she said. “They had a story about a missing six year old boy who had gotten lost up in Pike’s Peak.”
Shannon took the seat next to her. “With everything going on today I forgot all about that,” he said. “I met Les Hasherford early this afternoon. He received a call when I was there about the missing boy. Have they had any luck finding him?”
“They just did. He had fallen into a ravine.”
“Is he alive?”
“He’s unconscious, but alive.”
“Was Les Hasherford responsible for finding him?”
She nodded, bit her lip.
“That’s interesting,” Shannon said. “When I saw him earlier he was having trouble slipping into that other world. I had the impression he couldn’t do it anymore.”
“They showed video of him from earlier in the day when he was leading the police. The poor man could barely walk. A police officer had to support him on one side. With his free hand he was holding a cup of coffee. They showed him several times drinking coffee.”
“Are you sure it was coffee?”
Susan shrugged weakly. Of course, Shannon knew the answer to that. Hasherford was antidoting himself so he could find the missing boy. Most likely he had poured cup after cup into himself until he was able to slip into the world of the dead and dying again.
“Maybe it won’t affect his health.”
“Maybe,” Susan said, unconvinced.
A news break came on. The boy was reported to be in critical condition, but the doctors were hopeful. According to one of them, if he’d been found any later he probably wouldn’t have survived. Susan blindly searched for Shannon’s damaged hand and held onto it. They sat like that until past midnight when a young resident came over to them and introduced himself as Dr. Leonard Cohen. He told them that Emily had regained consciousness. “She’d like to see both of you,” he said.
Cohen led them through the ICU to Emily’s room. She was propped up in bed, her head mostly shaved and a thick bandage wrapped around her skull. Her eyes looked swollen and her skin had a jaundiced tint to it. Both an IV and a morphine drip were attached to her arm, and other equipment monitored her blood pressure and heart rate. She looked so small lying there that Shannon almost didn’t recognize her. When she saw Susan, her face scrunched up into a mass of creases. “My head hurts,” she whimpered softly.
Susan was both crying and smiling brightly at the same time. “I know, Em.” She moved quickly to the bed and hugged her friend. Cohen nudged Shannon, told him he’d be back in five minutes and then Emily would need to rest.
The two women embraced for a minute, then Susan sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Emily’s shoulder.
“I bet I had you worried,” Emily said.
“You’d win that bet, Em.”
“You should’ve known it’d take more than a conk on my noggin to get rid of me.”
“Do you remember what happened?” Shannon asked.
Emily squinted over at Shannon and noticed him for the first time. “I got hit on the back of my head,” she stated, annoyed.
“I know. Did you see anything?”
She shook her head, winced. “I don’t remember much, except hearing somebody rustling around in your apartment when I came home from work. After that it’s all fuzzy.”
“How’d you get into my apartment?”
She stared at him as if he were dense. “With a key. How’d you think I got in?”
“You gave me back my key.”
She hesitated, smiling sheepishly. “I made a copy in case I ever lost your spare.”
“Hon, that’s enough interrogation for tonight,” Susan said to Shannon, then to Emily, “Em,” she said, “I’m so happy that you’re okay.”
“I know, Susie. I’m just going to have a headache for a couple of days, that’s all.”
Cohen had walked back into the room. He suggested that it would be best for Emily to rest. Susan gave her another hug and told her she’d be back visiting tomorrow.
“You mean today,” Emily said. “Already past midnight.”
“Today,” Susan agreed, her smile brighter than any Christmas tree.
During the ride back to the hotel, Susan rested her head against Shannon’s shoulder. She looked exhausted, too emotionally spent to talk. The skies lit up every few seconds as lightning flashed over the Flatirons. Rain started to hit the windshield.
By the time they got back to their room, Susan was out on her feet. Shannon helped her into bed and out of her clothes. He then sat on the floor and tried to meditate, but he couldn’t slow down all the noise in his head. Every time he closed his eyes thoughts would start bombarding him. The one that was most persistent and loudest was his wondering what the connection was between the two murdered students and that cult.
He knew he had no chance of sleeping. He wrote Susan a note, left it on his pillow and headed out to his car. Outside the skies had opened up and the rain was coming down in sheets. The lightning now seemed to be overhead, the thunder crashing around him. He drove to his apartment. When he arrived there he put on a sweatshirt and a pair of running shorts and headed outside. Within seconds he was soaked, the water adding pounds to his clothing. He started running as hard as he could. Within minutes he could feel the burn in his leg muscles and chest, but he kept pushing himself. At times lightning lit up the trees along his path as if bombs were being tossed, the thunder exploding next to him. He forced himself to keep sprinting at full speed and didn’t turn around until he was several miles from his apartment. On his way back he pushed himself harder. At times the rain hit him so hard in the face that he could barely breathe, his chest feeling as if it were about to explode in unison with the thunder going off around him, but he didn’t stop until he got back to his apartment building. There, he collapsed, hands on knees, and tried to suck in air through deep ragged breaths. He stayed paralyzed in that position for minutes before he could move. Then he went into his apartment and took a hot shower.
After changing into dry clothing, Shannon walked around his living room and put the books back on the shelves, all the while trying to keep his eyes off the gaping hole in the wall next to the closet. After that he straightened up the kitchen. When he went into the bedroom, he stood transfixed for a moment over the blood-stained carpet, then steeled his gaze away from it and started to pick up the papers and clothing that had been dumped out of the drawers and onto the floor. It took a while, but eventually he had the room straightened up. As far as he could tell, nothing was missing other than his computer and the surveillance tapes.
