Chapter Two

Heather wandered the upstairs bedrooms of her home one last time before she continued down the stairs, running a hand along the banister. Dark rectangles on the wood-paneled wall showed where Woodard family photographs were removed. The house was a house and no longer a home; it had been stripped of its personality. Carpets had been rolled and put in storage; white sheets covered the chairs and coffee tables in the living room. It gave the rooms an empty, deserted look yet at the same time it exuded confidence that one fine day, it would be a home to a family again.

And some day a family would make their home here, Heather knew.

It just would not be her family, the family who had lived here the last two decades.

Was it indeed only last week that she buried her father in the small plot beside her mother's grave? It felt like much more time had passed. Tom Woodard had been her last tie to the town, to this house. When he passed, that final tie had been severed as surely as the others had been: the one to her mother, who died six months ago, and the tie to Bob, who had been her fiancé until he decided that he was not ready for a married life.

Her eyes dry -- she had cried enough over the past few weeks to last her a lifetime -- Heather closed the front door behind her, locked it, and dropped the key in the mail slot. Bill Hobson, the real estate agent, would collect it the next time he showed someone the house. He had promised he would get her a good price, but in all honesty, Heather didn't care much. No amount of money could make up for the family she lost or the loneliness she felt. Sure, her father had had a brother who lived somewhere up in Alaska, and whom she had seen perhaps three times in her life. This uncle didn't care much for his adopted niece. He had not even bothered to show up for the funeral, although she had received a printed sympathy card.

Heather walked down the steps from the front porch and across the path to the road. Her car, the white Hyundai Accent her father had given her when she had gotten her driver's license, was already waiting for her. Its boot and back seat were filled with her things. Clothes, photographs, personal mementos, mostly. She didn't need much else.

Before she got into the car, she spared one last glance for the house. It sat silently in the shadows of the large oak trees, with the shades drawn and its yellow paint slightly chipped. Already, her home looked like a distant memory. Still, she had lived here for nearly seventeen years, ever since Tom and Jennifer Woodard had adopted her when her real parents died.

Thoughts of the birth parents whom she barely remembered made her finger the heavy, silver pendant that hung just below her collar bone. That pendant and a few yellowed photographs were the only tangible objects she had to remember her birth parents by. Her mother had slipped the chain around Heather's neck on the night she died, as if she had known something bad was about to happen.

"Heather," she'd said, "this has been in our family for generations. Promise me you'll take good care of it. And never, ever take it off." Her solemn admonition had made a deep impression on the four-year old girl, and Heather could remember the words to this day. She didn't remember much else about her mother; her young brain had been still too untrained to etch many images into its synapses, but she had heeded her mother's words. In all those years, she'd only taken the pendant off twice. The first time because its lock had broken and needed to be replaced; the second time when she had grown from child to young adult and the chain had grown uncomfortably short. She recalled feeling naked without the silver trinket, naked and watched, the way one sometimes feel eyes pricking in the back of one's head and it turns out someone looks at you as you walk down the street. It hadn't been a pleasant feeling, and she was glad when the pendant had taken its rightful place around her neck again.

With a small, wry shake of her head, Heather got into the car and started the engine. Today was going to be the first day of the rest of her life. And she was determined to make the best of it.

A warm, clammy hand caressed his face, and a wet blanket was draped over his shoulders the moment Cole stepped out of the air-conditioned terminal. Instantly, beads of perspiration sprang up on his brow. The air was bright, but the humidity caused a thin haze to dull the glare of the sun. Cole let out a sigh. He dropped his weekend bag at his feet and proceeded to take off his suit jacket.

"Note to self," he muttered. "Obtain summer shirts." He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, draped the jacket over one arm, and picked up his bag again. He took a deep breath. Beneath the reek of hot pavement, kerosene and oil, he detected the faint scent of salt in the air. The sea. He felt a stab of homesickness. The scent reminded him of San Francisco. And of Phoebe.

Cole shook his head to chase away the unwanted thoughts. He wondered if Rhiannon was right, if it would ever get better, if he ever came to a point where not every scent or taste or song reminded him of one moment or another spent with Phoebe.

"Mr. Turner?"

"Yes."

The woman who had addressed Cole smiled and held out her hand. She was dressed in a pale, tan skirt and jacket, with a white blouse and low-healed pumps. Tiny wrinkles showed beside her eyes and gray streaked her blonde hair. "Welcome to Tampa. I'm Barbara Hamilton; I work with Chandler-Thompkins Realty. You hired us to help you find a suitable place to live. I have several furnished apartments lined up that you might like to look at. But I assume that you first want to collect your luggage and go to your hotel?"

Cole shook the proffered hand. "This is all I brought," he said, hefting his bag with the other hand. "Let's take a look at those apartments." He had spent the last three months holed up in a motel; he'd be damned if he spend one more night in a non-descript, impersonal hotel room.

"Sure." The smile faltered only an instant at the unexpected reply. "If you'll follow me."

She proceeded him to a dark green convertible with the roof up, where he stuffed his bag into the tiny boot and took the shotgun seat.

"I hope you had a pleasant flight," she commented while she put the car in motion and began to wind her way through the maze of streets that surrounded Tampa's airport.

"Uh huh," Cole muttered politely. In fact, he had not. During the first part of his journey, the fat lady to his right took up most of his elbow room, while on the second stretch from Atlanta to Tampa the kid in the seat in front of him had not sat still for more than a minute at a time. He feared his knees were quite bruised. But he had promised Rhiannon not to use his blurring power until absolutely necessary, so travel by plane it had been. He should have gotten a first class seat, though.

"Is it always this warm here?" he asked, pulling on his tie and loosening the top buttons of his shirt.

She glanced sideways and smiled. "It's not really hot yet," she told him. "It's barely seventy-one degrees, but it's the humidity that will kill you. Don't worry, though. It's unseasonably warm for this time of year and they predict thunderstorms later this afternoon. It'll cool off a bit then. And of course all the apartments I plan to show you are air-conditioned."

"Of course," Cole murmured. The temperature in the car was gradually improving as the AC-unit did its work. By the time he felt comfortably cool again, the car was speeding on the Interstate to the east. Soon Barbara took an exit and a minute later the car was crawling its way through the downtown Tampa traffic.

"That's the library," she pointed to Cole's right. He got a glimpse of a low-slung concrete building before she turned left, and then right at the next intersection.

Tampa Street, Cole read. He chuckled. Original street name. She drove him past modern office buildings and various plazas. Another few turns took them onto Franklin Street. Cole sat up straighter. "This is where my office is," he said, a little surprised.

"Really? Franklin Street is one of the major business streets in downtown. Can I ask what your business is?"

"I'm a lawyer," Cole said, peering out to try and find One City Center while having no clue what the building looked like. "After my wife divorced me, I decided I needed to make a new start." He stopped, bracing himself for the pain. He was surprised to find that, instead of the hot lance through his heart he expected, the words cause a dull ache somewhere deep in his chest. He took a deep breath.

"I was fortunate enough to be able to take over a law practice from a retiring lawyer here in Tampa. I thought it was as good a place as any."

She stopped in front of a red light. "Oh, you'll love Tampa," she said with honest enthusiasm. "It's a very laid back city, with lovely weather all year 'round. Except when we get a hurricane, that is, but that doesn't happen so often. It is why the high-rises don't go over twenty stories high, though."

The light turned green and the car sped forward again. They drove underneath an overpass -- "The Lee Roy Selmon Expressway," according to his self-appointed tourguide -- and once they cleared the bridge, sunlight glistened on deep blue water ahead of them. To Cole's right, a large complex sprawled along the waterfront. "That's the Tampa Convention Center," Barbara informed him. "Up ahead is Harbor Island. And over there," she pointed, "is Tampa General Hospital."

Cole filed away the information. If he was going to live and work here, it was best to familiarize himself with his surroundings as soon as possible. He didn't know what Rhiannon wanted him to do, or why she sent him to this particular city, but she'd looked worried when she mentioned she expected to need his talents here soon. The sooner he knew his way around, the better equipped he would be to fight the good fight.

"Here's is the condo I wanted to show you," the realtor said. She parked the car next to the sidewalk, in front of a seven-story whitewashed apartment building. "The apartment is on the top floor, at the opposite side, overlooking the harbor."

He followed her in, nodded at the doorman, and joined her in the elevator. She pressed the button marked '7' and with a lurch the elevator went up. For a moment Cole feared it was all too familiar, but when the elevator doors opened, he realized it exited onto a hallway, and not directly into the apartment, unlike his old home in San Francisco.

Barbara unlocked the door to apartment 7b and gestured for Cole to enter.

The instant he walked into the living room, he knew he had found his new home. The apartment was furnished, as he had requested. A pale carpet covered a wood floor that was polished to a gleaming dark red.

"Mahogany," Barbara said when she caught him looking. "Imported from Honduras. It's stronger than oak, and, if you ask me, prettier."

Cole agreed it was pretty. Especially when combined with the cream-colored sofa and the leather easy chairs. The room might have looked feminine if not for the modern glass-and-steel dining room table. But what truly sold him was the view.

"Grand, isn't it," the real estate agent pointed. "You can see downtown Tampa from the balcony, and you'll be able to admire the Florida sunsets right from your living room."

She proceeded to show him the master bedroom (that held a four-poster bed of such dimensions, Cole was glad he did not suffer from agoraphobia), the kitchen ("equipped with all modern appliances") and the bathroom ("it has a shower as well as a separate Jacuzzi").

"Every apartment has its own boat slip. Everyone in Tampa owns a boat." Barbara pointed out the living room window where Tampa Bay was indeed speckled with white motorboats or sailing yachts.

"I'll take it," Cole said.

"Um... Don't you want to see the other homes?" She sounded a little confused.

"No, thank you, Miss Hamilton. This is perfect." He went to the window and stared out across the blue waters. Perhaps Florida wouldn't be such a bad place after all.

Birgit paced the length of her one-bedroom suite at the Prescott Hotel. She was bored and frustrated: a dangerous combination. Dangerous enough that Theo, who knew her moods intimately, had made himself scarce.

Three weeks! She had been in this cursed city for three weeks. And what did she have to show for it? Blisters on her feet. Well, okay, not actual blisters. Cassie and the limousine had seen to that. But figuratively speaking, yes, she had blisters. She'd lost count of how many office buildings and high-rises she had visited in her search for the perfect location to set up her business. She needed office space first before she could really start the San Francisco branch of the agency, before she could start recruiting and finding new clients.

The buildings she had visited were not upscale enough. Or too upscale, which would draw the wrong sort of attention. Too rustic. Too close to the tourist areas. Too far from the main routes. Too expensive. Too small. She found a flaw with every single office the estate agent had shown her. And now she was beginning to get thoroughly annoyed. She wanted the San Francisco branch. This city and its inhabitants were too important to neglect. It was filled with young, beautiful women in their prime and rich, old women who yearned to regain such beauty and youth.

The modeling agency was a front. Birgit dealt in the power of youth. She hired pretty girls, offered them a career as supermodels while tapping into their youth. Rich society ladies on the verge of losing their looks to the inevitability of age paid small fortunes for the life-force of those younger women. They never asked questions but wrote their checks and took what Birgit gave them. It allowed her to lead a comfortable life, but her ambitions ranged farther than mere comforts and luxury.

She grabbed one of the vases that decorated the suite and flung it against the wall. It hit with a loud crash and the shards flew all over the room. It gave her little satisfaction. She needed something else to get rid of the pent-up frustration. Maybe she would call Cassie up to the rooms and have her-- No, that would be a waste of perfectly good material. She had the female limousine driver pegged as her first source, not her personal toy.

She recalled the events of that afternoon. The latest real estate broker Theo hired had taken her to yet another building that rented out vacant office space. It was far too small and when she saw it, she'd raged at the agent, nearly releasing her power. It had taken a great effort of will and decades of training to restrain herself. John Polson, that was his name.

Perhaps she should give him a ring? Tell him she was sorry for the outburst and that she wanted to make it up to him? Birgit knew he would accept her invitation without a second thought. From the moment they met, it had been clear that he was attracted to her. He'd dropped the usual clues, brushed his leg against hers in the back of the car, his hand against her breast when steering her this way or that. Birgit had ignored him. But she had kept score. Now it was time to even up.

Feeling better already at the prospect of an evening full of fun, she closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment on locating him. It was easy. With the power of telelocation at her disposal, a simple touch, skin on skin, was all it took to find anyone, anywhere. And the human habit of shaking hands upon meeting made things even easier.

Ah, still in his office. She walked over to the phone and dialed the number on his card. After some small talk, arrangements were made. John would come by the Mendocino suite at eight-thirty for a private dinner. Birgit hung up and whistled a tune. Time to make some preparations.

Mark sat at his desk, which stood in a small niche between the coffee machine and a file cabinet. The editorial room, abuzz during the day with the effort of putting together a weekly newspaper, was quiet. In the far corner, an elderly man was wiping the floor, his mob uttering a soft swish-swish on the linoleum. Occasionally, the sopping noises were drowned out by a crackle of static and terse voices from the police radio scanner on top of the file cabinet, announcing mysterious numbers. Mark had adopted the trick from the Enquirer's photographer, Kit Watson. "Always keep the scanner on, kid. You never know when news breaks."

The computer screen in front of Mark glowed bluish-white with narrowly typed words but he didn't see the copy he had written. Instead, Mark was staring off into space, tapping the butt of a pencil against his notebook. His mind was on Gillian James.

Ever since the night he and Kit investigated the death of the unknown woman who carried Gillian James's driver's license, she had never been far from his thoughts. Ironically, he had been right after all: the strange woman's death had warranted a few lines in the police columns of the dailies but so far he had failed to find the story that the Enquirer would be interested in. Still, he knew something strange was going on. His budding journalistic intuition told him there was a story there, somewhere. There were simply too many loose ends. If only he could discover how to tie them together.

The woman's death had been deemed to be of natural causes. Her body was old, and her heart simply gave out. Except for the fact that so far the police had failed to find out her identity (or so the official word was), there was nothing unusual about her death.

But why had she carried another woman's license? Why had she been dressed so inappropriately for her age? And more importantly, where the hell was Gillian James?

A quick, yet somewhat illegal peek in the police database that listed missing persons had shown Mark that she had been reported missing by her roommate three days after the woman carrying her license had been found.

"Keep at it, buddy," Santano encouraged Mark when he took his thoughts to the editor-in-chief. "Keep at it. You might break the story yet. But first, I want you to investigate these accusations of aliens impregnating a elderly housewife in Zephyrhills."

Perhaps he would try and talk to the roommate. What was her name again? Mark reached to grab his notebook from the desk. He was browsing the pages filled with tiny scribbles when the police scanner squeaked again. A voice called out.

"Two-Bravo-Nine, this is Central."

"Two-Bravo-Nine, go ahead, Central."

Something about the tone more than the words caught Mark's attention. He stopped flipping through his notebook and turned toward the scanner, perking up his ears.

A minute later, he was out of the door and seated behind the wheel of his car, racing along Kennedy in the direction of West Shore Boulevard. Fortunately, traffic was light at this time of night, and he covered the two miles in record time. He hopped from the car and approached a small crowd already forming at the foot of the multi-storied apartment building. Everyone's head was craned and muted whispers ran through the crowd.

Mark followed their gaze and gasped involuntarily. Although the police reports over the radio should have prepared him, it was quite a different thing to actually see the girl perched on the balustrade of the top floor. She wore a black skirt and a red blouse. Her long, blond hair streamed behind her in the breeze coming in from the ocean. Behind her, in the shadows, Mark could make out shady figures moving slowly and carefully. The police officers, he knew, who would try to either talk her down from the railing, or would try to get close enough to grab her.

For a long moment, the world seemed to stand still. Then, without making a sound, the red-and-black clad figure of the girl fell forward, as if in slow motion. He could see everything with unnatural clarity. Her blond hair fanned out behind her, and the black silk of her skirt fluttered. Her features changed while he watched. Mark knew her eyes would forever be etched into his memory.

Splat.

In San Francisco, Birgit spent several long, and for the broker very unpleasant hours toying with him before she finally tired of her games. She morphed back to her human form. Her yellow eyes dulled until they were the cold gray of her human form. Her hair lost the golden sheen and faded into platinum blond. The tufts disappeared from her ears and they grew into a human's curved shape. Birgit heaved a sigh: part tired satisfaction, part reluctance because she didn't want to revert to her earthly self. Her mortal form was as nice as she could make it but her true self was so much more pleasing.

She stared down at the quivering lump of flesh that was once a cocky real estate agent. Theo would have to see him home; he was in no shape to get himself anywhere. Polson would never talk about what had taken place this night; shame and fear would make sure of it. She snorted. Mortals!

She leaned forward, removed the bonds from his wrists and ankles and tore the blindfold from his eyes. The look she saw in them was extremely pleasing. Stark fear mingled with the memories of the pain.

"You'll be a good boy now and find me the ideal location for my office, won't you?"

Polson's head snapped up and down, and he gulped as he searched for his voice. He had to try three times before he managed to gasp a whispered "Yes, Miss Freda."

"Good." She walked over to the house-phone and dialed the number for Theo's room. She let it ring two times, then hung up and left the door to her suite ajar. Theo would recognize the signal.

And indeed, not a full minute later, he knocked on the door and entered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "You called, Mistress Birgit?"

"Yes, Theo. It seems that Mr. Polson needs some help getting dressed and getting home. You'll see to it, I trust."

"Of course, Mistress," Theo muttered without even blinking at the sight of Polson.

Birgit chortled beneath her breath and disappeared into the bathroom for a well-deserved bath. Good ol' Theo. How had she ever managed without him?

Mark stared at the lifeless body of the woman, aghast with horror. Her limbs were folded at unnatural angles; sightless eyes stared up at the night sky. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth and onto the long, gray hair that fanned out beneath her head.

Mark couldn't move. He was too deeply shocked to feel much of anything, except a faint nausea in the pit of his stomach that he dimly expected would grow much worse once reality sank in. For now, though, he forgot his purpose. He forgot why he had answered the call over the police radio, forgot that he was supposed to be an uninvolved journalist who would write fair and objective reports. Instead, he was a witness, an onlooker who could only gape along with the other gawkers that quickly gathered around the body.

A siren howled in the distance, quickly growing louder, until it ended with a last whoop close behind the crowd. "Make way! Move aside, please!" Uniformed police officers swept a path through the crowd for the paramedics to reach the victim's body.

The disturbance rippled through the crowd, jostling Mark and he had to take a quick step to keep his balance. It pulled him from his stupor. He shook his head to clear it, for the first time taking in the scene around the woman. He realized he carried his notebook in his hand still, pen poised to paper. He remembered the job he came to do here.

Resolutely he pushed his way through the crowd, closer to the victim, hoping to overhear something he could use. But there wasn't much to say. One of the paramedics, a female with dark hair tied back in a ponytail, looked up at the nearest uniformed police officer. She shook her head. "She's gone," she said.

He nodded. "I'll tell Detective Morris."

"Tell me what?" A second man pushed his way through the crowd.

With a start, Mark recognized him. He was the same detective that had been at the scene of the Gillian James incident.

"That she's dead. And Sir--" The uniformed cop hesitated and glanced at the crowds pushing in.

"Let's get these people moving, shall we?" Morris observed. He turned to direct himself at some of the other officers. "Please have these people move out," he called. "Nothing to see here."

Mark frowned with annoyance when a uniformed officer took his arm and gently but firmly forced him to step back until he was out of earshot of the two policemen. But as he watched without being able to overhear, Mark suddenly realized he didn't need to hear. He knew what the uniformed cop would tell the detective. The woman was not what she appeared to be. No doubt she carried some identification in a younger person's name. She had been that younger person, until she died.

Mark finally knew where Gillian James was. Gillian James was dead. Just like this nameless girl. And someone had to be responsible. With the afterimage of the body floating through the air burned on his retinas and the sickening plop of the body hitting the ground echoing in his ear, he swore to himself he would discover who was to blame for these killings. And would expose them in the Enquirer.

To Be Continued...