Just as she handed back the dog, Judy gushing at how marvelous she was, Blake Reynaldo, LAPD, walked in with Bruno.
Blake was a big cop. Bruno was a big dog. He wasn’t a shepherd or a rottweiler, though. He was a basset. Low to the ground, but massive, Bruno could pull with such strength that Blake had once fallen flat while walking him. After that, Bruno had come in for training. When he looked at Melanie with his soulful eyes, his intelligence shone through. Bruno was the kind of dog who just needed to learn that his master was the boss, and Blake needed to learn to be that boss, establishing his credentials not with swearing or anger, but with a steady stubbornness to match Bruno’s own.
“Hey, Blake,” Melanie said. “How’s it going out there?”
“This morning, not so bad. Last night, a zoo. We got through with no fatalities. Damage is in the millions, but manageable. But the looting last night was savage. A lot of cops are still out there, but it’s been quiet enough that those of us who were out there tackling the looters last night were actually allowed to go home when the new shift came on.” Blake Reynaldo was a seasoned cop. Nearing sixty, he had put in all the years he needed to retire, but he said he wasn’t ready yet. He wouldn’t retire until they kicked him out, he had once assured Melanie. Stocky, strong—almost like Bruno—he was armed with over thirty years of street savvy. He wasn’t married, and he spent his free time creating programs for local toughs, putting his time and money into coaching neighborhood baseball teams and sponsoring “art days” when his players spent an afternoon at a dance recital, classical concert or art show, with the intention of showing them how different approaches to movement, rhythm and perception helped with sports. Sometimes a bad baseball player even became an artist or guitarist. There was a method to Blake’s madness, and Melanie loved him; she was sure that he had kept a lot of kids from going down the wrong path.
“So what you brings you and Bruno in?” Melanie asked.
“Dog food. I would’ve had to knock on your apartment door if you hadn’t opened today. I had some breakage. Don’t want to take any chance of Bruno getting glass slivers in his dinner. I threw away his old dishes, and the coffeepot fell on the bag of food with enough force to split it open, then broke. Bruno is my friend—hell, Bruno is my best friend. Can’t go taking any chances.”
“Oh, no! You’d never want to take a chance,” Judy said. She smiled at Blake. He smiled back. “Well, I’ll be on my way. Thanks so much, Melanie.” She headed for the door, then turned back to Blake. “You’re a very good master,” she said.
“Thanks,” Blake called, watching her leave.
Melanie wondered if she might be able to build a romance between the two of them. She needed to throw a few more bowwow parties, when her clients brought their dogs in for treats and playtime, then socialized over wine, soda and snacks.
Blake turned his attention back to Melanie. “So where were you when the lights went out?” he asked.
Melanie dragged a fifty pound bag of dog food over to Blake, then set two big new bowls on top of it. “Those are on me—I’ll put the food on your account,” she told him, then said, “I was out with my friend Maggie. She’s in from New Orleans. I think you met her last year. We do a weekend now and then. She leaves the kids at home with her husband and comes out here to do grown-up things.”
Blake nodded, then pointed a finger at her. “I heard about you, young lady. What am I going to do with you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him.
“I think you do—not that I’m objecting, mind you. But what did you think? That just because there was a quake and a lot going on, we weren’t going to investigate every incident? We have six beat-up street toughs with rap sheets a mile long in the lockup now, waiting for arraignment. They claimed that you—and some long-haired guy—beat them up.”
“What?” Melanie set her hands on her hips. “They…said it was me?”
“Don’t what me. L.A. is big, but we’re a bunch of neighborhoods. A tall platinum blonde named Melanie who must be a local because Mr. Delancy knows her? All roads lead to you, Mel.”
“They were attacking Mr. Delancy!” she said indignantly. “They abducted Viv, and God knew what they intended to do to her.”
Blake laughed. “I’m not saying you beat them up without provocation. We followed up, and Mr. Delancy told us that you saved his skin.” He wagged a finger at her firmly. “But here’s the point. I’m assuming you’ve taken a lot of jitsu-karate-kick-em-up or something, but Melanie, you can’t go taking the law into your own hands—you could get hurt. These gangbangers carry knives, even guns. You may have the best kick in all L. A., but if they shoot you, it’s no help.”
She flushed. “I’m okay. Honestly.”
“That’s the point I’m trying to make. You may be okay now, but that’s just ’cuz you got lucky. What about next time? You’re a civilian. A kick-ass civilian, but no cop.”
“Blake, Viv and Mr. Delancy might have died. I had to step in.”
“I’m grateful to you, and they’re grateful to you, but no more,” Blake said firmly. “You think I haven’t heard about you showing up to help out when muggings are going on? No more, and that’s that. And who’s the guy, by the way?”
“What guy?” Melanie asked.
Blake let out a frustrated sigh. “Tall, dark hair, stronger than he looks. Who was he?”
“I don’t know,” Melanie admitted.
“Come on, Mel. He’s not in trouble. I just need to tell him the same thing I just told you about vigilante justice and ending up dead.”
“Honestly, Blake, I don’t know, I swear. He just showed up. I’ve never seen him before.”
“If you say so,” he said skeptically. “But if you see him again, I want to talk to him,” Blake said. “Before he gets himself dead, too.”
Dead, too.
Melanie froze for a moment, but Blake didn’t notice. He shook his head and went on, “And suppose you killed someone, saving someone else? People have gone up on murder charges for that, you know.”
He hadn’t meant anything by that turn of phrase, she told herself, then let out a breath. “I still say we can’t turn a blind eye to violence.”
“Missy—” Blake began, but the door opened then, the little bells above it jingling.
Against the falling afternoon sun, she could see the silhouette of a tall man in a leather motorcycle jacket. He stepped inside, but she already knew that Lucien DeVeau had arrived. She had known him forever, and it was easy to recognize his silhouette. Strange, she thought. She would know the silhouette of the man she had met the night before just as certainly. His height, his lean build, the way he had of standing…she would recognize him a mile away.
“Hello there, my friend,” Lucien said, smiling at Melanie and nodding an acknowledgment to Blake.
“Lucien!” She hurried around the counter to give him a hug, then turned quickly to make introductions. “Blake, this is my old friend Lucien DeVeau, from New Orleans.”
“Hello,” Blake said. She could hear the curious pleasure in the tone of his voice. Blake was always trying to set her up with someone.
He suddenly arched a suspicious brow that silently asked, Tall and dark—is this the guy from last night?
She shook her head at Blake, then said aloud, “Lucien is married to my good friend Jade.”
“Nice to meet you, Blake,” Lucien said.
Blake cocked his head to the side. “So what are you? Old college friends?”
Melanie laughed. “Something like that.”
“Well, friendship is good,” Blake said.
Melanie thought he sounded disappointed that Lucien wasn’t a romantic prospect, not to mention that he wasn’t the mysterious stranger from the night before.
“Always good to know a cop,” Lucien said. “And be friends with one. Have you met Mel’s friend Maggie? Her husband, Sean, flew out here with me, and he’s a cop back home,” Lucien said.
“
Cool, I’ll have to meet him,” Blake said.
“Yes, you will,” Melanie agreed, then pointed to the dog, “And that’s Bruno,” she told Lucien.
“Hello, Bruno,” Lucien said.
“Have you seen Maggie yet?” Melanie asked him.
“She and Sean…are off somewhere together. She sent me here. She said you’d probably close up early.”
“Yeah. I have a couple of college kids who usually run the shop on Saturdays, but after the earthquake, I called them this morning and told them to tend to their own problems,” Melanie said.
“And since there was an earthquake, I think it’s okay if you close now. What do you think?” Lucien asked.
Lucien wasn’t being rude, but Blake Reynaldo could take a hint before it was a hint. “Nice to meet you, Lucien. See ya, Melanie.” Bruno let out a deep, soulful wolf as if echoing his master’s words. “Melanie, don’t forget what I was saying to you, you hear?”
“I won’t forget, Blake,” Melanie assured him.
He left, and she turned to see Lucien staring at her firmly. “So?”
“Come on,” she protested. “You just got to California. What’s the so? Maggie’s more concerned than I am.”
“I understand you’re suddenly drawing like a pro.”
“I can’t believe Maggie encouraged you to come out here because of that,” Melanie said.
“After I dreamed that earthquake, I planned on coming before I ever talked to Maggie. Let’s go someplace where we can talk. Maggie and Sean can meet up with us.”
“All right, there’s a place just down the street. I’m pretty sure they’re open. We didn’t suffer much damage around here.”
Ten minutes later, they’d been served drinks and Lucien had put a call through to Sean to tell them where they were. Lucien was looking at her very seriously and Melanie knew that what she was feeling was dread. He was here because of the Alliance, of course.
All the members of the Alliance led normal lives—or fairly normal, anyway—and they were scattered around the country. But when something was really wrong, Lucien stepped in. He was powerful; he’d lived through a lot, learned a lot, and his senses were as well honed as his physique. And right now she didn’t like the assessing way he was staring at her at all.
“Nice neighborhood,” he said casually. But Lucien was never truly casual.
“I love it,” she assured him. “I have a grocery store just across the street, great neighbors and nice customers.”
He leaned forward suddenly. “A good life,” he assured her. Then he asked her abruptly, “Why are people staring at me?”
“What?”
“People keep looking at me.”
Melanie laughed. “Well, this neighborhood does border Hollywood, you know. You’re tall, dark and handsome. They’re probably trying to figure out which show you’re on.” She leaned closer. “Our waiter just did a spot on CSI. The woman over there is on a soap. And the young guy over there, known as ‘The Ponceman,’ is a major leaguer with a show on the Internet.”
“Great, I thought we were going for privacy,” Lucien murmured.
“Trust me, we’ll be plenty private here. It’s a neighborhood hangout. People may stare, but they leave you alone. They may look and whisper, but if you’re not Clooney or Pitt, they go right back to their own conversations. But what do we have to talk about that’s so private?”
He arched a brow to her. His look asked, What in the world wouldn’t we need to keep private? He shook his head and looked down at the table, then stared at her in concern. “You’re doing it again,” he said.
“What?”
“Sketching,” he said.
She froze. She looked down and saw that she had indeed been drawing again. She didn’t even remember taking a pen from her purse, but now she stared blankly at the picture she had created.
She had sketched a road not three blocks from her apartment. In her drawing, the ground was practically exploding. A terrified woman looked on with her mouth open in a scream, and others wore detailed looks of absolute panic on their faces.
“Do you recognize the area you’ve drawn?” Lucien demanded curtly.
“Yes, yes, it’s down about three blocks,” she said, still stunned at her own artwork.
He rose and grabbed her arm. “Let’s go. Now!”
Scott couldn’t leave until the following night. For some reason, flights to Rome were heavily booked. Summer, he figured. Schools were out. At least he had enough miles to upgrade to first class, and since he was tall, it was damned nice to have the legroom.
He called his three employees to tell them to take care of their own problems but, if everything was all right, report for work on Monday. He only had three employees, but they were all good, young designers who didn’t mind doing the physical work of running the presses as long as they were able to get some creative work, to build up their portfolios. He took extra time to brief Kevin Ostrom, his office manager, about everything that might come up during his extended absence. He would try to check in periodically while he was away, but with Kevin in charge he felt confident that things would run smoothly.
Since he had the time, he went to the office to check the damage and found that all his heavy equipment had stayed put, and he’d suffered only one broken monitor and a smashed printer. Whispering a little prayer of thanks, he wrote a note to Kevin to see that the monitor and printer were replaced; he had insurance, so all Kevin had to do was arrange for pick-up.
He had just finished writing the note when he felt an aftershock that shook the place like a fun-house floor. It wasn’t severe, but he heard screams and stepped outside to see what was going on.
A block down, the earth had shifted, spewing up concrete and heaving a ruptured gas main to the surface. People were running, some shoving others out of the way, some trying to help those who needed it. He saw a kid of about nine just standing in the street, staring at the broken pipe sticking up into the air.
Scott tore off down the street. First he grabbed the boy and delivered him to a teenager hurrying away from the disaster. The teen stared at him; dumbfounded. Long-haired, wearing an oversized T-shirt, he didn’t look mean, just young and confused. “Get him out of here,” Scott commanded.
The teen stared at Scott blankly, then nodded. Grabbing the younger child, he ran.
The area was clearing, but any second now the gas would explode, and there was no telling how far the rain of devastation would extend.
Scott raced for the pipe. He grabbed one end, feeling almost overwhelmed by the smell of the escaping gas. He found the other end of the split pipe. He wasn’t sure that he could do anything, and his sense of self-preservation was kicking in, screaming at him to run like hell himself. But he didn’t. Somehow he forced the broken pieces together. He strained, and felt the tendons in his neck popping. His fingers threatened to snap just like the metal, which had been weakened by the first quake and now had twisted as it split.
He had to straighten out the metal to get the pieces together. It seemed impossible, especially with the seconds ticking by. But to his amazement, though his fingers were bloodied, he managed the task. He forced the pieces together, then wondered what to do next. He couldn’t stand there and hold them together forever.
Then he heard someone shout the news that the utility company had been informed and the gas had been turned off.
Sweat was dripping down his face. He gritted his teeth and steeled himself to the task. Someone with the right equipment would come; they had to. No matter what that dying old man had somehow done to him, he couldn’t hold the pipe much longer. How much gas was still compressed in there? Should he let it leak out slowly?
Scott was startled when he heard movement behind him. He turned to see another man reaching out to grasp the jagged metal.
He almost dropped the pipe. He was sure his jaw gaped.
It was him.
The man from his dream.
That was impossible, of course. He just
thought it was the man from his dream. He’d probably seen the guy’s picture somewhere and put him in the dream. Because logic dictated that people—strangers—simply did not walk into each other’s dreams.
Yes, they did, and logic be damned, because the man recognized him, too. He saw it in the man’s eyes, in his shocked expression.
With impressive dexterity, the man grasped the pipe, not allowing any shift that could create friction and a spark. “I’ve got it,” the man said. “You can let go. Help is coming.”
Scott stumbled back. Every bone in his body seemed to ache. He stared at his bloodied hands, and then at the stranger.
He knew him. Damn it, he knew him.
“Are you…Earth? Or, uh, the Oracle?” Scott asked quietly.
“What?” the man asked, looking as him as if he must be confused.
“Are you…the Oracle? Are you…an earth sign?”
“I’m afraid…not,” the man said, shaking his head, but studying Scott.
He, too, had dark hair and hazel eyes. But he thought he saw more. The man’s eyes had a streak in them, like a glint of gold. There was something about him that was…different. Scott didn’t know how he knew—maybe certain of his senses had been heightened, as well—but he was sure of it.
Just as he was sure the man would stay until the problem was solved.
But the man wasn’t the Oracle. Of course not. It had been a stupid question. Scott had held the hand of a dying man in an alley, and now he was searching for some hidden agenda that didn’t exist, believing in the ranting of an old man who’d lost all sense of reality as the light faded from his eyes. And just because this man was strong and looked like the man from his dream…
Scott suddenly realized that he had to get the hell out of the crowd. Someone might recognize him, people might question him. Worse, the press might get hold of what had happened and make him out to be a freak or something.