"Officer Mills, it's Harrison Frost of the Seaside Breeze. You suggested I call today? That you might have some information for me?"

"Oh yeah . . ." A pause. A hesitation. Then, as if Mills had finally connected the dots, he said quickly, "Bryce Vernon is a developer with property up and down the northern Oregon coastline. His son Noah is turning eighteen the day after tomorrow."

Click.

Harrison hung up thoughtfully. Bryce Vernon was Noah Vernon's father and Noah Vernon-N.V.-was turning eighteen the day after tomorrow. In a very few days he would no longer be a juvenile, and then all kinds of things could happen. He might be tried as an adult. He could go to jail. He might want to talk to a reporter about how misunderstood he was by his parents and how persecuted by the local police. He might lawyer up, and then again, he might have a helluva lot to say.

Faintly smiling, Harrison grabbed up his razor and went to work on his stubborn beard.

Detective Savannah Dunbar entered the sliding doors to Seagull Pointe and said to the woman at the desk, "The sheriff's department got a call from your director, Darius Morrow?" She flashed her badge.

The receptionist nodded. "Oh. Oh, yes. Let me page him."

Savvy twisted the kinks from her neck. She'd been up half the night with the damned fire at the old Tyler Sawmill. The blaze had exhausted all the county emergency crews, and both the fire and sheriff's departments were stretched thin. She, herself, had already worked a full shift, and it looked like she wouldn't be going home any time soon.

A few moments later a man and a woman met Savannah in the reception area. The woman was Inga Anderssen, whom Savvy had met before, but the man was someone new. Darius Morrow, no doubt. Inga looked disappointed upon recognizing Savvy, as she said brusquely, "Madeline Turnbull died sometime yesterday evening."

"Oh." Savvy was a little surprised since she'd just seen Madeline the day before. "You called because you think it could be the result of foul play?"

"I'm the director of Seagull Pointe," the man broke in, holding out his hand. "Darius Morrow." He had a horseshoe of dyed black hair around a bald pate and wore a worried expression that looked perpetual. "We called because when we checked on Ms. Turnbull, there was, ah, another woman in her room. Unconscious. Seated in a wheelchair."

Savvy asked, "Who's the woman?"

"We don't know," Inga responded, her voice tight, her lips even tighter. "She's not a patient here."

"Where is she now?"

"We moved her to a bed in an empty room. She was about to fall out of the chair."

"Still unconscious?"

"Yes. The doctor on staff isn't in today, so we called nine-one-one. They're sending an ambulance."

"She's alive, then?" Savannah asked. The vibe here was all wrong.

"The ambulance should be here any second." He seemed nervous.

"What about Madeline Turnbull's?" she asked. "Her death was expected," Savvy said, touching all the bases. "Natural causes. Right?"

"The medical examiner will determine that," Morrow said.

"You think there's a chance of foul play?" Good God, what had she stepped into when she'd taken the call? Neither Morrow nor Anderssen answered immediately, and they seemed to be a tad too careful in not looking at each other.

"Foul play? No," Morrow said after some consideration. Then, tellingly, "We don't see how."

"Excuse me for a moment." Savvy took a few steps away and called dispatch, confirming what Darius Morrow had said, that an ambulance was due to arrive within minutes and that the ME was on his way. "Send another unit here," she added. "I just don't like the feel of this." She snapped off the phone and said back to them, "I need to take a look at the Jane Doe."

"Of course . . ." The director was beginning to sweat as he and Nurse Anderssen led the way to a small room down the end of one long hallway. At the door Morrow hemmed and hawed and finally left Savvy with Inga. He racewalked away, either to another situation that needed immediate attention or from the issue at hand. Inga entered the room first, with Savannah coming up behind her. The woman lying in the bed had been hooked to an oxygen supply; her breathing was labored.

What struck Savvy the most was how young she was; she'd expected someone much older. The atmosphere of the nursing home/assisted-living facility, she supposed.

"She's been strangled," Savvy said, seeing the bruise marks forming on the woman's throat.

"What?" Inga seemed surprised.

"Didn't anyone examine her?"

"Yes, yes, but we were just concerned about her breathing. . . ."

"What about Madeline Turnbull?" Savvy had no time for excuses. "Was she strangled as well?"

"Maddie? No . . . I don't think . . ." The older woman's face was full of consternation, and Savvy realized no one had examined the dead woman that closely; they'd been overtaken by the more immediate problem of their new, unexpected patient. By bringing up the staff's lack of response to Madeline Turnbull's death, Savvy had inadvertently embarrassed Inga Anderssen in a way that wouldn't do any good in her public relations with the woman.

"How did she get here?" Savvy asked aloud, though it was more a rhetorical question than anything else, as she motioned to the woman lying on the bed.

Inga Anderssen pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest. "We aren't certain."

"Who found her?"

"I think the morning nurse's aide, but I'm not sure," Inga hedged.

Savvy turned and pinned the woman with her gaze. "Find out who it was, and send her to talk to me. I'll need a conference room, a list of anyone who visited Madeline Turnbull or had access to her room and this one as well. I want this facility sealed off and any tapes from your cameras inside these walls, as well as the film from the parking lot."

"But . . . but . . . I don't think we have cameras or . . ."

"Then tell the director what I need. But first, take me to Madeline Turnbull's room." She thought for a moment that Inga would refuse her, but Savannah was the law. Inga turned on her heel and, stiff-backed, led Savvy through a maze of hallways to the room where Justice Turnbull's mother had died.

There were no obvious strangulation marks on Madeline Turnbull; her neck did not display the same bruising. But Savvy bent down and looked closely into the woman's eyes and thought she saw the telltale signs of petechial hemorrhaging that signified constriction of airflow. She glanced at the pillow, then back at Madeline Turnbull.

Inga bustled up and bent over the woman's body, staring into her eyes as well.

Smothered, Savvy concluded and thought Inga knew it as well.

"I'll need that private room," Savvy said. "Where the hell is your boss?"

"I'll get Mr. Morrow."

"Do that," Savvy said, unable to hide her irritation with the incompetence of the nursing home staff in general as she waited for the medical examiner to arrive.

CHAPTER 21.

It was one o'clock when Laura stopped by Conrad Weiser's room in intensive care. She didn't know the security guard all that well but felt oddly responsible for his injuries because of her connection to Justice. She wished she could have warned him somehow of the coming danger, even though she knew that was unreasonable.

Nina Perez was waiting for her as she left the ICU and said, "No change," less a question than a statement of fact, and Laura nodded.

"Dr. Zellman is being released soon," the nurse then told Laura. "He still isn't talking."

"Have they determined whether it's definitely physical damage to the voice box or emotional trauma?"

"I'd say a little of both, but I'm not his doctor." She looked troubled. "You think the police are any closer to catching Turnbull?"

"I hope so," Laura said, wondering if even now Justice was on his way to find her. A shiver skated down her spine. She was having second thoughts about calling to Justice. Despite her earlier bravado, she knew that taunting him was dangerous, even deadly.

As she was walking back to the nurses' station, she happened to see Zellman being released into the care of his wife. The trim woman had wheeled her husband to the door of the hospital, per hospital policy, but the injured doctor practically jumped out of the chair as soon as he was outside the front doors, nearly kicking the offending chair into the surrounding shrubbery. On his feet, he started striding across the parking lot, bristling with outrage or anger or something, his wife half jogging along behind him.

Laura watched them for a long moment. The rumor was that Justice hadn't been handcuffed when he'd been escorted by Zellman to the van, and that his escape was mostly Zellman's fault. Underestimating Justice was something Catherine had said everyone at Siren Song had been guilty of, once upon a time. Laura didn't plan on being a victim to it again.

Or had she already by tweaking his tail last night?

Staring through the hospital's front doors, seeing her own watery reflection, a strange feeling creeping across her skin, she backed away from the glass panes automatically, her heart slamming into her ribs in a hard, systematic beat.

He was out there.

Somewhere.

Waiting.

And it felt like he was right outside. . . .

Justice stared, unblinking, through the windshield of the woman's compact. He was in a different world. A world that swirled with emotion and half dreams and urgency that racked his body with pain. Colors blended and shapes shifted, as if he were underwater. He closed his eyes, and his mission pounded through his brain. He needed to take them. All of them. Soon!

They were miserable creatures, and their old taunts ricocheted through his brain, reminding him of why they were all doomed, why he had to defeat them. He felt the one that was outside the gates like a living snake within him, twisting his insides, curling around his guts, tightening and writhing, sickening him. His skin crawled at the smell of her; that nauseating scent filled his nostrils.

She was close. So close.

Then he knew.

She was inside the walls of this hospital. This hospital.

Ocean Park.

Inside, tucked away, thinking she was safe behind a curtain of fog and the concrete and steel walls. And she was laughing at him.

Shaking with the effort to fight the bile in his throat, he yanked himself to the present and gazed hard at the front of the hospital. He was parked in the side lot with a narrow, angled view to the front doors. She was in there. Just inside the vestibule. Invisible with the fog.

But she felt him. This he knew. He heard the pounding of her heart, sensed the blood pumping furiously through her veins . . . hers and that nasty little incubus within her. He smiled as he sensed her fear.

Good.

Let her terror rot her from the inside out. She, who dared summon him!

I'm here, witch. Just like you wanted!

He thought about the car he was driving, a silver Nissan. How long was he safe with it? He'd left its driver almost dead at Seagull Pointe, but they would learn who she was and come looking for her vehicle. He'd switched plates with old man Gerald's Taurus, which would buy him some time, but he was doomed to find another car.

A frisson disturbed the murky air.

Suddenly he jerked to attention, squinting toward Ocean Park's entrance. Exiting the hospital at that moment were Dr. Maurice Zellman and the woman whom Justice guessed to be his wife. Justice's gaze narrowed on her. Holding on to her hair to keep it in place, she was hurrying to catch up to the doctor's longer strides to no avail. Zellman's large steps and ramrod straight back ate up the distance to a black Lexus that crouched near a security lamp. Wifey barely managed to scramble into the passenger seat and was still closing the door when Zellman backed out in a tight turn, his tires giving a little broop against the pavement as he hit the gas and the sedan leapt forward, narrowly missing a green minivan parked in the next space.

Zellman half turned Justice's way as he passed, and Justice smiled coldly, wondering if the doctor could feel him as he purposely sent the man a warning. But Zellman seemed as oblivious as ever, glowering through the Lexus's windshield. The doctor had no ability to sense Justice at all.

From the interior of the Nissan, Justice watched Zellman's departing car with a sort of detached interest, not the urgency the women of the lodge inspired, but a kind of clinical curiosity. The doctor had counted himself as Justice's savior. This meaningless cockroach, this self-congratulating piece of dirt, deigned to believe he knew something-anything-about him!

And then Justice caught an overwhelming whiff of Lorelei's pungent aroma.

He swiveled his head so hard the vertebrae in his neck cracked. He barely noticed. His nostrils flared and his lips curled at her noxious odor.

Pregnant whore!

I'm coming for you, he told her, but the wall she'd erected was tall between them, one he couldn't scale.

I'm coming for you!, he screamed. Sick witch! You can't hold me out forever!

She was inside the hospital. Right there. All he had to do was slip inside . . . !

Blinded with need, he slammed out of the car and moved to the side door of the hospital, stopping just short of the security camera, shaking with a desire to kill so intense it stole his common sense. The middle of the day was no time to attack her, but he didn't care. He wanted her. Now.

With a frustrated scream caught in his throat, he dug at his scalp, ripping at his hair. He needed the sea . . . a cold Pacific breeze . . . the lighthouse. . . .

He took a step forward, into the camera's range, then pulled back. Ducking his head, he returned to his vehicle, slid inside, and slouched in his seat. Flexing his fingers on the steering wheel, he attempted to regain control. He couldn't, wouldn't, let the bitch win.

He wanted her badly. Could almost feel his hands clenching over her soft throat as he felt the life seep out of her. He imagined watching her naked whore's body burn in a foul and malodorous stench that would rise to the heavens in thick black smoke as her body was condemned to hell.

Lorelei.

Above all else, he needed to snuff out her life and that of the life she'd spawned.

Could he charge inside and just take her? Could he?

Zellman's Lexus was stopped at the end of the parking lot. He and the wife were arguing, apparently, and the vehicle was stalled while they yelled at each other. Then it jumped forward again, and Justice watched Zellman drive to the end of the lot and turn onto the main, tree-lined drive that accessed the hospital from Highway 101.

Glancing back, Justice stared at the hospital until it felt like his eyes were burning in his skull. Then, grinding his teeth with impotent fury, he shoved his car into gear and hit the gas. He'd follow the doctor.

"You all right?" an impatient voice demanded in Laura's ear.

She'd dropped into a chair in the front reception area, her legs practically collapsing beneath her. That feeling . . . that recognition . . . Though she'd had her mental wall held high, she'd sensed Justice on the other side, his malevolence nearly smothering her.

It was Dr. Loman who'd questioned her, his blue eyes cold ice as he glared down at her.

Of course she would run into him. A brush with the older doctor was even worse than one with her own ex-husband. Loman was imperious and arrogant and dictatorial.

What was it with the doctors here at Ocean Park? Most of them seemed to be egomaniacs, well, except for calm Dr. Hanson and funny Dr. Charles, one of the few women surgeons on staff. But the docs at the top. Imperious, self-inflated jerks.