“Sam? You there?”
No answer. She waited a moment then called again. Nothing. The house was silent. What would her roommate be doing digging through her bathroom drawers? Had she eaten the candy, then felt guilty and bought more?
In one bite, she crammed the chocolate pieces into her mouth, turned back to the bathroom and stepped into the shower. Maybe she’d gotten sick and blacked out. Food poisoning? What had she eaten yesterday? Cold pizza?
As she shampooed her hair, her mind ran through the gamut of possibilities. At twenty-six, Mackenzie doubted she had Alzheimer’s like her mother, but losing an entire day with no recollection plucked at the tight order of her life.
She stretched her arms overhead and flexed her muscles. Her temples tingled, probably just remnants of the migraine, but the sensation wasn’t painful. It made her feel … happy? Content? How weird.
She rinsed off and debated hitting the gym, something she rarely felt like doing. With the photos emailed and no classes to teach at the art school, she had the rest of the day free. She should probably go visit her mother, but maybe she’d organize her bedroom closet instead.
Then it struck her. How the hell had she gotten home?
She turned the water off with a jarring crank of old pipes, grabbed a bath towel and ran down the stairs, dripping wet, almost slipping on the bottom step. She skidded through the kitchen and wrenched open the garage door.
Thank God. It was there. But a niggling feeling tugged at the back of her neck as she stared. Her bike was parked on Sam’s side of the garage.
What was going on? Had she lost her mind?
Organized to the point that her brother called her anal, she wasn’t used to feeling so out of control. Maybe she really was going a little crazy. Maybe she did need to see a doctor.
Water from her hair dripped down her back. She wrapped her head with the towel, genie-style, and imagined what Samantha would think if she walked in right now. She’d certainly think Mackenzie was nuts. Although Sam worked at a spa and wasn’t a stranger to seeing naked women’s bodies, she just hadn’t seen this particular one before.
Mackenzie had started back inside when she had a thought.
She approached the bike, opened one of the saddlebags, and sifted through the contents. Where was her tripod? Normally she kept it stored there. Less of a chance she’d forget to bring it on a shoot if she happened to need one. And she hadn’t seen the thing in her room, either.
She noticed her field notebook tucked on its side and flipped through the pages. There were no notes pertaining to the Bear Creek Pioneer Cemetery. No measurements, no sketches, nothing. What the hell happened? Had she forgotten to do them?
She wandered back inside and pressed a few buttons on the espresso maker next to the kitchen window. The high-pitched sound of the grinder echoed in the room and the air filled with the aroma of coffee beans. With a hand on her toweled head, she leaned over the sink to get a better view of her mother’s bird feeder hanging just outside the window overlooking the backyard. The thing was almost empty again. Stupid squirrels.
Her temples began to vibrate, the tingling suddenly replaced by a low buzzing hum. The migraine wasn’t coming back, was it? She put the heel of her hand to her forehead, pressing up on her eyebrows. No. Her head didn’t hurt. Just felt a little strange. She stretched on her tiptoes, reached into the cupboard on the other side of the window and grabbed a coffee cup.
Sweet Jesus.
The oath rang through her head, deep and hoarse. A man’s voice.
She spun around in confusion, the mug slipping from her fingers and clattering to the counter. Where did that come from?
I could just … damn … she’s so …
Words and sentence fragments tumbled into her head from elsewhere but it made no sense. God, what was happening to her? Was she really losing her mind?
“Hello? Sam?” Barely able to eke the words out, she knew her roommate was gone, but she called to her anyway, hoping Sam would answer, though the voice was clearly male. “Who’s there?”
She yanked the towel from her hair and wrapped it around herself in an attempt to cover up. Her heart hammered out a deafening staccato in her chest, while the atmosphere seemed to shift around her as if someone was near. She pulled a large knife from the cutting block, held her other palm to the hilt as she’d been taught and backed up until the edge of the countertop stopped her from going farther.
The words felt as if they had been projected into her head rather than spoken aloud. With the noise from the espresso machine, someone would need to shout for her to even hear them. And what she heard was crystal clear. It just didn’t make sense. She must be going crazy or—
Exquisite … so frightened … I wish … can she hear …
She ran into the dining room, pointing the blade out wildly in front of her. Her temples continued to vibrate and she rubbed her forehead with the back of her knife hand.
Oh God, was this it? Was this what had happened to her father when he disappeared all those years ago? And Stacy?
A surge of strangling heat started at her toes and rose upward, clutching at her chest and pythoning her airways. She could hardly breathe.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be happening. Good Lord, no.
Then, like the snap of an off-switch, the vibration in her head stopped. Gone.
Relief flooded over her and she dropped the knife on the dining room table. She drew in a few raspy breaths and the constricting panic disappeared, fading into a calm assurance that she was safe.
What happened to her father had nothing to do with this. She didn’t know why. She just knew.
Seconds ticked into minutes and her breath eventually evened out.
Although she didn’t hear the voice again, something tangible still called to her. A silent longing tugged at her heart as an ache settled into her bones.
Her lips throbbed, felt swollen, and she detected a slow rhythmic sensation in her head. Not painful, just strange. It didn’t seem to match that of her own heart doing cartwheels and clanging around her rib cage. The sound in her temples was steady and quietly reassuring.
Two heartbeats? Okay, think. Well, she knew she couldn’t be pregnant. It took a man as well as a body capable of carrying a child. Two things she didn’t have. No, definitely not pregnant.
What about the missing chunk of time? What if … She felt between her legs and rubbed her hands over her breasts. Nothing. She’d know if she’d had sex last night, especially since it had been ages. No, she was positive she hadn’t been with a man.
Could the migraine be coming back? What the hell was happening to her? She needed to seriously calm down and figure this out. There had to be a completely rational explanation for this … this … whatever this was.
Air. She needed fresh air. She flung open the French doors of the dining room, and a rush of coolness whispered over her damp skin and hair as she scanned the perimeter of her backyard. For what, she had no idea.
The dewy green of spring was everywhere and her cherry tree was starting to blossom. Ceramic pots on the patio waited to be filled with flowers, and a swallow swooped under the eaves, its beak filled with bits of dried grass. Everything seemed the same, normal, but she knew things weren’t.
She concentrated on the slow thumping beat in her head, rather than her racing heart and was startled to find that the more she focused on it, the more comforting it became. Gradually, the tempo of the two beats got closer together and eventually meshed into one.
One rhythm. One sound. One heartbeat.
She leaned against the doorjamb, her skin flushed hot, and for some