realizing where Valenti was headed. 'What we need to know is how Wilkins came to get his own ghost ahead of the people of Roswell.'
'Exactly,' Valenti said.
'The bit of metal you recovered could be some kind of transceiver,' Isabel suggested.
'Figured that too,' Valenti said. 'But it crawled… moved under its own steam… out of Swanson's clothes. And he's been dead more than thirty years.'
'You think whatever that was,' Max said, 'was locked up behind the stone wall.'
Valenti nodded. 'That's exactly what I think.' He reached into his pocket and took out a leather pouch. Shoving a finger inside the pouch, he showed the ripped side. 'I found this around the neck of Swanson's corpse.'
'What was inside it?' Maria asked.
'I don't know,' Valenti said. 'A small keepsake, maybe. Whatever it was, it escaped.'
'What do you mean, it escaped?' Max asked.
Valenti wiggled his finger, showing the ragged edges of the hole. 'Whatever was in here,' he said, 'cut its way out.'
16
'This is not a good idea.'
Isabel studied Max's face as he spoke to her. Apprehension showed in his eyes and the set of his mouth. He's always been too serious, she decided. Taking Max's hand, Isabel said, 'You know I have to do this. There is no other way.'
'It's too dangerous.' Max looked over his shoulder, obviously hoping someone else would back his argument. 'We know that Wilkins is a murderer. You don't know what he'll do when he sees her in his dreams.'
Valenti met Max's gaze, then looked at Isabel. 'If you can do it,' Valenti said, 'it will help to know.'
Isabel nodded. 'I can do this.'
'Isabel,' Max said, 'you've never dreamwalked anyone like this. Wilkins is still in the hospital ICU, still on the critical list.'
'I'll be all right.'
Max fell silent, and with that silence came the full bore of his reproach at her chosen course of action.
'We need to know what Wilkins knows,' Isabel said.
'There's another way,' Max insisted. 'We'll find another way.'
'No,' Isabel said with the finality she knew her brother would recognize. 'Max, I'm going to do this. Because I can, and because it's the only way I can see for us to learn enough to figure out what we're supposed to do.' If anything. There still remained the chance that they'd be just as helpless as anyone else.
'Come back,' Max said. 'Just make sure you come back.'
'I will,' Isabel promised. Sliding back on Michael's couch, she laid her head back and closed her eyes. In seconds, she was asleep, and in her dreams she reached for Leroy Wilkins, prospector and murderer.
When Isabel opened her eyes again, she found herself in a small, dark room with stone walls. A dank, earthy smell filled her nose and almost made her sneeze. The soft glow of a battery-powered camp lantern barely fought back the shadows that cloistered the room.
'What are you doing here?'
Turning toward the man's angry voice, Isabel saw Leroy Wilkins standing against the wall near the basement door. He was tense and frightened, his eyes sunken so deeply into his head that they were dark pools.
'It's okay,' Isabel said in a soft voice.
Wilkins looked around the small room. 'I ain't here. I got no business bein' here.'
'Do you know where you are?' Isabel asked.
Madness lingered in Wilkins's gaze. 'This is the basement in my house.'
Isabel waited, noting that the old prospector's eyes settled on the wall opposite him. The wall was complete now, not the broken mass of rock Valenti and Michael described. Terrell Swanson's corpse still remained on the other side.
'I ain't in the basement in my house,' Wilkins said. 'I'm in the hospital. They took me to the hospital. Told me I was havin' a heart attack. I remember that.'
'You are in the hospital,' Isabel said. 'This is just a dream.'
Wilkins's eyes narrowed in suspicion. 'I don't know you, girl. You don't dream about people you don't know, an' I don't know you.'
'They're giving you medication in the hospital,' Isabel said. 'Medication causes hallucinations and dreams.'
Wilkins shook his head. 'You ain't no hallucination or dream, girl.'
Isabel felt the strain of keeping the psychic contact. Wilkins wanted her out of his head and was trying to shove her out.
'I need to know what happened down here,' Isabel said.
Wilkins grew more agitated. 'Ain't nothin' happened down here.'
'Terrell Swanson's ghost chased you into town,' Isabel said.
'Don't know what you're talking about.' Wilkins turned from her and started for the door.
'You killed Swanson,' Isabel accused. 'You killed him and you buried him behind that wall.'
Wilkins wheeled on her. Rage and madness made a harsh mask of his face. 'You'd best be watchin' what you're sayin', girl.' He took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket, stuck a cigarette between his lips, and lit up. The lighter's flame burnished his hard, wrinkled leather features and danced in his crazed gaze.
'Why did you dig Swanson out of the wall?' Isabel asked.
'Don't know what you're talkin' about,' Wilkins said sullenly. He put the lighter away, inhaled on the cigarette, and made the coal glow orange, then exhaled a cloud of smoke into the basement that hung in the still air.
'Something happened,' Isabel said. 'What made things change? Swanson had been walled up for almost thirty years.'
Wilkins turned to the basement door. 'I 'spect the next person you're going to be talkin' to is my attorney.'
Isabel stood helplessly watching, not knowing what to do as Wilkins's hand closed on the doorknob. Then a thunderous, sonorous boom echoed throughout the basement.
Wilkins cursed and yanked on the doorknob, but the door wouldn't open. The thunderclaps continued in regular syncopation. Wilkins continued fighting the door and cursing loudly.
Isabel gazed around the room, trying to find the source of the sound and couldn't.
Giving up on the door, Wilkins turned around, the cigarette tumbling from his lips as he stared in wide-eyed fear. He gazed around the basement and pressed his back against the door. 'Can't get out. Can't get out this time. Just like the last time.'
'What is that noise?' Isabel asked.
Wilkins glared at her, but the effort came off weak because there was so much fear in his eyes. 'Don't you know what that is?'
The rhythmic booms continued, and now Isabel could tell there was a before and after sound, like a double- pump blast. She could hear the constriction, the boom, and the letting go.
'It's a heartbeat,' she whispered, and the realization left. her dry-mouthed with anxiety even though she knew she was only dreamwalking and the events weren't actually going on.
'It's a heartbeat,' Wilkins agreed. 'It's Swanson's heartbeat.'
The pulse beat more loudly. Isabel would have sworn the walls pushed in and out with the sound of it.
'He's alive, you see.' Wilkins sounded stunned. He stared at the opposite basement wall. 'Walled up almost thirty years over there, and somehow he's alive.'
Isabel remembered Valenti's story about the skeleton lying in torn and tattered clothing on the basement floor.
'But he can't be alive.' Wilkins shot Isabel a desperate look. 'I caved his head in. Took a short-hafted hammer
