Out of Body

Gray puffed up his cheeks and studied his shoes.

“You do, don’t you? You’ve been writing a story about them. And now they’re missing. When I showed up, Detective Archer must have been questioning you about it.”

“Congratulations,” he said. “You don’t waste any time getting your wild guesses together. If Nat had brought me in for questioning, we wouldn’t have been lounging in his office when you arrived.” Not entirely true, but Nat hadn’t seen any reason to hold him, either.

Marley Millet still wore the white cotton dress she’d had on earlier, but with a short pink sweater that tied beneath the breasts and a filmy, multicolored scarf around her neck. Everything about her appealed to him and he didn’t like the idea of her being alone in Scully’s at almost one in the morning. There weren’t many sober patrons around.

The glass of green-something Marley picked up shook slightly on the way to her lips. She barely touched the liquor, but continued to hold the glass in both hands.

“I know where you live,” he told her, and almost bit his tongue when he saw what she thought of that announcement. “You gave your name at the station and you said you lived on Royal. I put it together with J. Clive Millet. The antique people. I worked in the Quarter a long time—I probably know just about every business around.”

“You followed me here?” she said.

“No. I didn’t know you’d be here. I came for the same reason as you, to see if I could get a lead on Amber. This is the last place I know she was seen. I don’t expect her to walk through those doors, but I keep hoping.”

Marley raised her chin, but abruptly her eyes lost focus on him. She seemed…distant, as if she was listening for something. Or to something.

Gray looked around, but didn’t see anything different. When he glanced back at Marley, she had rested her chin on her hands and closed her eyes. Tingling crept up his spine, and he got that sensation of heat in his lungs and belly again. There was fear in this woman, and urgency. She needed and wanted to do something but couldn’t, not without help.

The flicker of a memory shoved into his mind. He didn’t allow himself to go there to that place where a small boy was tormented for being “different.” The boy had made the mistake of knowing when bad things were going to happen, and trying to warn the other children. He had been that boy.

No, that was a long time ago. Whatever he’d thought he knew was dumb kid stuff.

Marley was so still, he could almost imagine she wasn’t breathing. Under the low lights in the room, her hair glowed a deep, shocking red. Her brows were fine and feathered and even her lashes were dark red. She fascinated him. He’d never considered himself a masochist, but he must be if he was excited by Marley of the laser tongue who walked into a precinct house and announced she could travel without her body!

She was concentrating on him again and he almost said, “welcome back.” This time sanity prevailed. “You look really nice,” he said. Sanity? With a grin, he added, “You do, but I’m also trying to soften you up. It would be good if you could like me a bit. I’m a decent guy, honestly. Just a journalist trying to make a living and having problems right now.”

Her stare never left his face.

The same sensation he’d had in his fingers yesterday afternoon slipped into his head. The very tips of his fingers were still affected. Numbing cold.

“Tell him he should go home.”

Who said that? He frowned. Not Marley, but he heard it.

“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll leave now.”

A man’s voice.

Was he losing it?

“Marley, did you say something?”

She shook her head and looked past him toward Sidney, who was making moves to start another set. “You should go home,” Marley said. “Excuse me.”

Shoot, had he heard someone giving her instructions just now?

Gray pushed his shoulders back and watched her through narrowed eyes. She disturbed him, yet he didn’t want to leave her. Could someone really choose to leave their body and go “traveling”? That he would even ask himself the question worried him.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave,” Marley told Gray.

Gray held his breath. She sounded like a soft echo of the male voice.

Marley couldn’t concentrate. Her attention was split. Uncle Pascal had never, ever communicated the way he was doing now. He had located her mind—just found it and started talking and telling her what he wanted her to do. And he’d come because he had sensed danger, sensed her alone out here and with a man she knew little about. Did it mean her uncle could find and transmit to any mind—at will? Had he simply never chosen to do so before tonight? That was incredible. She considered herself a strong talent, but her own telepathic abilities were mostly short range and by mutual invitation.

Marley wondered what Gray would think if he knew she and her uncle were talking about him—in a manner of speaking.

“Who is he?” Uncle Pascal asked. “Do you know anything about him?”

Marley responded in thought: “Not really. He’s a journalist who used to be a policeman. I’m not sure what to think, but he could be okay. How did you find me?”

“All you need to know is that I can.”

Gray sat opposite her and reached for her hands. She was too surprised to pull away in time.

“I…I’m not sure, but I think I’m feeling something weird,” he said. “Did you hear a voice? I mean…someone talking without being here? Are you cold?”

“Uncle, he’s picking something up from us.” The last thing she would have expected was for Gray to mention being cold.

“He can’t be.”

“Can you hear what he’s saying?” Marley asked.

“No. I’m aware of a man with you and what you feel about him. You feel threatened.”

She didn’t want to discuss that. “He’s a sensitive. I don’t think he even knows it yet, but he could be a problem eventually.”

“Get home to me. Has something happened, something you haven’t told me about? I think you’ve traveled recently.”

Marley worked hard to close her uncle out. She must think unobserved for a while. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Marley, do not shut me out. I must be in contact and know you’re safe.”

He could find and enter her mind, but not see where she was. That was something. “Be patient,” she told her uncle. “This man is hearing parts of our communication. Not much —or I don’t think so—but he’s getting caught up in the open channels between us. We should stop now.”

“Marley—”

With an effort that left her weaker, she shuttered Uncle Pascal from her. What he’d just done was unheard of, at least in reputable psi circles. He had simply found her telepathically. She didn’t like it and from now on, she would make it as hard as she could for him. Safety was one thing. Fear of being spied on was another. But he would always make his presence known, wouldn’t he? That was one of the family’s rules of honor. They didn’t just sneak in and out of each other’s heads.

How had Uncle Pascal known she was in the middle of something bizarre?

“You look so serious, Marley.”

“Could have been just a fluke this time,” she said carelessly, still feeling his hands holding hers.

“What?” Gray said.

“Um. You asked me if I’m feeling cold?” She couldn’t risk involving him in her world. His fingers were icy. Apparently he was too cold to know her hands were also deeply chilled. “Are you sick?” She didn’t know what else