"Anytime."

She felt a mixture of emotions as she hung up the phone. Gardner had not been optimistic but she hadn't expected optimism. But it was good to know that Phillip was being taken care of by a man who believed that a coma could be broken. As Grady said, Gardner had passion and that kind of drive could move mountains …or perhaps pull Phillip from his darkness.

"Was that Gardner?" Grady was standing in the doorway of their adjoining rooms. "Yes. Do you always listen at doors?"

"I was standing by to tell you to keep the call short. Any phone calls from now on should be limited to less than three minutes. Phones are wonderful technical gadgets but they can be traced."

"I'll remember." She looked at her watch. It was only a few minutes after midnight. Three hours before it would be time to leave for the circus. Great heavens, she was nervous. She wanted it over. She wanted to leave now.

"Do you want a cup of coffee?" Grady asked.

She shook her head. "How about a walk?"

She frowned. "At midnight? What are you trying to do?"

"Waiting is always hard."

And, as usual, Grady could sense what she was feeling. "I'll be fine." She sat down at her computer. "I can keep myself busy."

She could feel Grady's gaze on her back and a moment later the door closed behind him. Distraction was the name of the game. It's only three hours.

CARMEGUE CIRCUS.

The banner over the fairgrounds was a bit faded, but the red script was bold and joyous. The same shade of red in the stripes on the big top tent in the center of the fairgrounds.

It was after three in the morning and the fairways were deserted and the booths closed.

"Edmund Gillem's trailer is on the far side of the grounds," Grady murmured. "It's being used by one of the roustabouts, Pierre Jacminot, but Harley bribed him to go into town for the night. He should have left the door unlocked."

"I'm relieved we're not going to be arrested for breaking and entering." She followed him down the fairway. It was tense and a little eerie walking down this aisle that was usually crowded with busy, happy people and that was now dark and without life.

And the trailer where she was headed was also without life. It was the place where a man had killed himself in that terrible way.

"I wouldn't be that inefficient," Grady said. "You have enough to face without dealing with the local gendarmes."

"Maybe." She could see the small silver trailer gleaming in the distance. Her palms were cold and sweating. "What if Edmund doesn't come to the party?"

"Then you'll be relieved and I'll have to find another path to follow." His gaze was also fastened on the trailer. "You could put it off until tomorrow."

"I've always hated procrastinators. I won't be one, Grady." They had arrived at the door of the trailer. "Let's just get me in there."

"Right away." He opened the door and stepped aside. He handed her a small flashlight. "Don't turn on the lights. You're sure you don't want me with you?"

"At the moment I'd welcome anyone, even Dracula, with me in this trailer." She stepped up into the darkness of the trailer and was immediately assaulted with the smell of lemon polish and sweat. "I'm okay." She slammed the door behind her.

Darkness.

Isolation.

She couldn't get rid of the isolation, but she could do something about the darkness. She turned on the flashlight.

She was standing in a tiny room with a comfortable-looking hideabed couch and a TV on a stand. An even tinier kitchenette led off the room. A black sweatshirt was tossed on the back of the couch.

Edmund's sweatshirt?

No, what was she thinking? It had to belong to the roustabout, Pierre... what's his name, who had taken over this trailer after Edmund's death. It just seemed that everything that concerned her was connected and focused on Edmund Gillem. She could feel him here.

Imagination.

Or not.

What did she do now? She didn't want to sit on that couch. She didn't want to touch anything that had belonged to Edmund. She sank down on the floor beside the door and played the beam of her flashlight around the room. A landscape print of a poppy field hung above the TV. The furniture was cheap and well used, but the carpet was gray and looked brand-new. She lifted the beam to the walls. They were wood-paneled and the surface also appeared old and discolored.

Except for a lighter, two-foot square beside the curtains. The square was an entirely different color than the rest of the walls. A photo or picture must have once occupied that spot.

Or a mirror.

He cut his throat with a jagged piece of mirror. New carpet.

Because the bloodstains would not come out of the old one? Lord, she felt sick. Poor man.

He was a good man. I think I would have liked him. Were you a good man, Edmund? What made you take your life?

An overwhelming sadness enveloped her. Life was precious and Edmund's mental agony must have been exceptional to lead him to want to leave it.

Well, it was time to stop wondering and see if this so-called gift she possessed was only a fluke or if she could really find out the answers to those questions.

She drew a deep breath and turned off her flashlight. It was pitch-dark but in her mind's eye she could still see the bareness of the wall where the mirror had once hung.

Edmund.

She braced herself and slowly, tentatively, opened herself to the voices. Nothing. No whisper. No roar. Nothing.

Relief poured through her. She had tried. She had done what she had promised. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't hear anything. Perhaps it was a fluke after all.

And then they came.

A scream of agony so intense that it hurt Megan to the bone.

"Tell us. Don't be a fool, Gillem. Where's the Ledger?"

"No," a broken gasp. "I'll never tell you, Molino. You'd only kill me anyway."

"Perhaps not. Try me."

"No."

"Sienna, continue to persuade him." Another long drawn-out cry of pain.

"We know you don't have it here. Where have you hidden it?"

"I never... had the Ledger."

"But you know who does. Who has it now, Gillem?"

"I don't... know."

"Start on his testicals, Sienna."

Another shriek that made Megan press back against the wall as if the pain was being inflicted on her body, not Edmund's. Make it stop, Edmund. Tell them. Don't let them hurt you anymore.

"Why protect them, Gillem? They're only freaks. They wouldn't help you. Not those Finders or Listeners or Mind Readers. Probably most of them are phonies anyway."

"Then why do you want to find them?" Edmund gasped. Molino didn't answer. "Tell me about the Pandoras."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Who are they? How many?"