“Huh,” he said.
“I told you, it doesn’t work in here,” Devin said. “It’s been lit up like that since we went through the fence.”
“It’s not functioning as a compass,” Slade said. “But I think it is working as some kind of tracking device. It might explain why your prints were so clear.”
“What does that mean?” Devin asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s interesting.” He gave the compass back to Devin. “We’ll worry about it later. We need to get you guys back home.”
Nate looked uneasy again. “Does this mean we have to go back through the fence?”
“I’m afraid so,” Slade said. “But this time it will be easier for two reasons.”
“What reasons?” Nate asked, still wary.
“Reason number one is that all three of us are going to go through it together. Brace yourselves, we’re going to hold hands.”
Devin snorted. “Yeah, that’s how we did it the first time, huh, Nate?”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Why does that make a difference?”
“Hard to explain,” Slade said. “But it does.”
“What’s the second reason it will be easier?” Devin asked.
Slade smiled. “It’s always easier to get through something like this when you know what’s waiting for you on the other side. In this case, it will be dinner.”
Chapter 21
“YOU KNOW, IF YOU REALLY WANT TO GET OUT OF THIS job and off Rainshadow, you’re going to have to stop playing hero,” Charlotte said. She used hot pads to set the pan of hot, fragrant lasagna on the table. “Now that Myrna and Officer Willis as well as everyone else in town know that you can go into the Preserve to rescue lost kids, the locals are going to pull out all the stops to keep you from resigning in a few months.”
“I wasn’t the hero today.” Slade studied the lasagna with a sense of great anticipation. It occurred to him that he was hungry, especially for Charlotte’s home cooking. “The kids saved themselves. All I did was go into the Preserve to retrieve them.”
“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, being able to go into the Preserve is considered an impressive feat in these parts. The ability to track a couple of people inside the grounds is held to be downright amazing. This is the first time anyone around here can recall that a rescue was carried out without having to call the Preserve authorities. And the first time in years when the folks who needed rescuing were found alive.”
“Probably the first time the local chief of police has had some psychic talent,” Slade allowed.
“Or at least your particular type of talent,” Charlotte said. “Clearly not every kind of ability works equally well inside the Preserve. I’ve got a fair amount of talent but I’m quite sure I could not have found my way back out, let alone track a couple of kids.”
She cut two large portions of lasagna and set them on plates. She set one of the plates on top of the refrigerator for Rex. He favored heights, she noticed. He chortled exuberantly and bounded up on top of the appliance. He set his clutch aside and settled down to dine with his customary enthusiasm.
She put the second plate of lasagna in front of Slade. She cut a smaller slice for herself and sat down at the kitchen table.
Inviting Slade to dinner tonight had been an impulse, Charlotte thought. She had not intended to do so because she had concluded that he needed some space. He was, after all, dealing with a lot of heavy stuff these days. She knew that he had not yet allowed himself to believe that he might recover his senses. He was not a man to be pushed or manipulated. He had to come to his own decisions. Hence her give-the-man-some-space strategy.
But when he had stopped by her shop shortly after returning to town with the boys, she had changed her mind. The shadows in his eyes and the hard, grim cast of his face had told her that, unlike everyone else in Shadow Bay, he was not in a celebratory mood.
“I take it this isn’t over?” she had asked.
“No, it’s not,” he’d said.
There had been no time to talk because Nate’s parents had arrived on the sidewalk out front, eager to thank him for bringing their son home safe and sound. But she’d gotten the distinct impression that Slade wanted to talk and he definitely needed to unwind. So she’d tossed aside her carefully orchestrated strategy and asked him to dinner. She wanted to hear every single detail of the big rescue, anyway.
Slade’s response had been so casual that she had known immediately that he had been planning to show up on her doorstep with or without the invitation.
“Right, see you sometime after six,” he’d said.
He had walked outside, Rex on his shoulder, to meet with Vern and Laurinda Murphy.
Charlotte had rested her elbows on the counter and watched through the window for a while, debating whether or not to get seriously ticked by Slade’s attitude. He was acting as if nothing had changed in their relationship because of last night.
In the end, she had decided to take a tolerant approach. After all, he’d had a hard day. And besides, to be fair, he had no way of knowing that she had made some crucial decisions regarding the future course of their relationship. She was no longer rezzing with the frequency. You couldn’t blame a man for assuming that nothing had changed when you hadn’t explained said changes to him, she told herself.
It wasn’t until Slade parted with the Murphys and walked off toward the station that she chanced to look across the street at the front window of the Kane Gallery. She saw the familiar figures behind the glass and realized that she was not the only one who had been watching Slade talk to the Murphys. Fletcher Kane and Jasper Gilbert had been watching, too.
Now, several hours later, she still wasn’t sure why the memory of Kane and Gilbert observing Slade through the window of the shop was still drifting, ghostlike, at the back of her mind. There had been nothing odd about it, she thought. Everyone in town had been talking about Slade and how he had tracked the boys into the Preserve and pulled them out.
“Something interesting about that old compass you gave Devin,” Slade said.
“What is that?”
“All four crystals in the compass rose were lit up when I found him. On the way in, I noticed that his footsteps glowed a lot hotter than Nate’s. At the time I assumed that was because Devin has some talent. But now I’m not so sure.”
“You think the compass generated some energy?”
“Maybe. You said you tuned it for him?”
“Right.”
“Those old compasses were made of amber and crystals. That’s always a powerful combination. I’ve got a feeling that when you tuned it to Devin’s rainbow frequencies you did something that helped him amplify his own natural energy, at least while he was cranked up. Maybe that’s how he was able to get Nate through the fence. Something else. Dev’s prints were so hot that I believe any strong hunter could have followed them.”
“You’re saying that the old compass worked as a tracking device?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, but if it works as a tracking device, it may be possible to transform it into a directional indicator like the ones ghost hunters use down in the Underworld. That, in turn, might make it possible for anyone with some talent to navigate inside the Preserve.”
“Maybe it only works with certain kinds of talent. Devin’s, for instance. But we don’t yet know what kind of ability he possesses.”
