"Thank you, Mrs. Hawkins. Shouldn't you leave as well? We're more than capable of seeing to our own needs," Laura said in her soft voice.

"Speak for yourself, Laura," Cynthia said rudely, interrupting her. "Justine's too much of an emotional basket case, and I don't cook."

"I can take care of things," Laura said.

"Not our fragile little Laura." Cynthia's mocking voice was unpleasant, deliberately husky.

"Make m'wife do something," Ricky said, his voice getting even more slurred. "She might as well be good at something. She's lousy in bed, a lousy house-keeper, a lousy cook. She can't even get pregnant."

"Be quiet, Ricky," Laura said.

"If Justine's a lousy cook, that's hardly a recommendation," Cynthia added.

"Enough of this squabbling!" Mrs. Hawkins said. "I'm not going anywhere tonight. Not with Mr. Fitzpatrick in such rough shape. I don't know if the night nurse will make it up here, but Maria and I will take turns sitting with him,"

"We'll all take turns," Laura said, pushing herself up from the sofa. "Me first." She glanced back at Alex. "Do you want to come with me? You don't need to—some people are uncomfortable in the face of death."

His smile was so faint that most people wouldn't have noticed it. Laura did. "If you think your father wouldn't mind," he said as he rose.

Cynthia piped up, still perched on the sofa. "He's been in a coma for almost a week now. I doubt he'd notice if the Easter Bunny showed up."

"I'm not the Easter Bunny," Alex said. "And you'd be surprised what people notice, even at the moment of death."

Cynthia reached up and put her slender, manicured hand on his arm. He felt it like an electric shock, and she felt it, too, pulling her hand back in surprise.

"Static," she muttered.

She wasn't dead. She'd touched him, reached out to him, and she hadn't died. Interesting. But then, no one was dying. Not while he was otherwise occupied.

William Fitzpatrick lay motionless in the hospital bed that had obviously been brought in as his condition worsened. It looked odd in the midst of the huge southwestern-style master bedroom, amid the hand-carved furniture and rich Indian throws. William Fitzpatrick was beyond noticing, though.

"You can take a break now, Maria," Laura said in her soft voice.

The woman in the uniform lifted her head sharply, taking in the two of them before she concentrated on Laura. "You look like hell," she said frankly, setting down her paperback novel and moving toward them. "Did you run into a tree or something?"

"I'm fine."

Maria ignored the faint protest. "I think I should take a listen to your heart. I don't like your color. What have you been doing, racing around when you know you shouldn't?"

"Don't you pick on me, Maria!" Laura said, but there was friendly exasperation in her voice. "It's bad enough that the rest of them hover over me, expecting me to keel over at any minute."

"And who's to say you won't?" Maria said darkly.

"Listen, if people can plummet from the Empire State Building and survive, then I think my heart will make it through the next few days. It's brought me this far, hasn't it?"

"Amazingly enough. No thanks to the care you take of yourself."

"No, you can thank my overprotective family," Laura said, more in resignation than gratitude.

Maria rose, a sturdy, comforting soul, and put a reassuring hand on Laura's shoulder. "Sit with him awhile. I think he'd like it." She glanced past Laura, directly at Alex, and for a moment her placid expression clouded with concern. "Have we met?"

"I don't think so. My name is Alex."

"I'm sorry. I should have introduced you. He's a friend of mine," Laura said, sinking down into Maria's vacated chair with an almost imperceptible sigh. "He just arrived."

Maria looked him up and down, her dark brown eyes measuring. "I could swear I'd seen you before," she said, half to herself. "But then, I wouldn't forget that voice. Besides, I specialize in hospice work. I'm afraid most of the people I work with die."

Alex said nothing, merely smiled faintly. She knew him, all right, but her brain couldn't assimilate how or why. It was just as well. He had no intention of telling anyone, until he was ready to leave. He'd asked for two days. He wondered if he would really get them.

"Get some dinner, Maria," Laura said, reaching out and taking her father's motionless hand. "I'll keep him company."

The room was utterly silent after the nurse left, the stillness marred only by the distant sound of thunder and the faint hiss and pop of the breathing device. Alex watched the old man with silent interest. He could sense his spirit, floating, waiting, frustrated by the delay in the inevitable.

"He's been like this for more than a week," Laura said in a hushed voice, her slender, strong hand wrapped around the old man's. "I was certain he was going to die this afternoon. That's what made Justine run off—she couldn't deal with it. But he's still here. At least in body, if not in spirit."

Alex said nothing, waiting. As if on cue, the old man's crepey eyes opened, blinking at the bright light. The sound he made was indiscernible—barely more than a croak—but they both understood. "Laura," he whispered.

"Oh, my God!" she breathed. "You're awake! Let me go and tell the others—"

His hands were too feeble to stop her, and she ran from the room before either man could move. William Fitzpatrick, patriarch, millionaire, political kingmaker, raised his gaze to Alex's shaded stare, and froze.

"Take off your sunglasses." The words were barely spoken, but Alex heard them nonetheless. "Come here."

He didn't hesitate. He stepped up to the bedside, shoving the sunglasses up on his forehead, and met the old man's inimical gaze.

"Damn you," William Fitzpatrick wheezed. "You've come for me, haven't you?"

"Among other things," he replied, pitching his voice so low that most mortals couldn't hear him. Only those he chose.

Real fear crossed the old man's face for the first time. Not fear for himself, though. Another interesting facet of human behavior, Alex thought. They feared more for their loved ones than they feared for themselves. The number of people who had come to him, thrusting their children, their beloveds, out of his reach and making him take them instead, had been baffling and innumerable. Another question he needed the answer to.

"No," the old man gasped. But before he could say any more, his grown-up, contentious children pushed their way into the room, and Alex quickly slid the sunglasses down on the bridge of his nose and stepped back from the bedside.

All their fuss would have killed the old man if nothing else did. But for the time being, no one was dying. Not even a man so riddled with cancer that most of his organs had shut down. Not some poor smashed, mangled soul who'd tried to kill himself by jumping off a tall building. Not the three people in the car hit by lightning, not the three hundred people from the capsized ferry in Indonesia. Not the sniper's victims in Afghanistan, nor any of the poor souls ready to meet him. They would all have to wait.

Jeremy had pushed Laura aside, planting his sturdy frame at his stepfather's bedside. "We thought you'd left us for good, sir." His booming voice was loud enough to make the old man wince.