Page 65 of Silver Claw

Remy laughed. “I like that plan.”

Five minutes later, Lucy called. “Kait, something strange happened.”

“Tell me, Luce.”

“I don’t know why things are changing. I’ve been doing this my whole life, and it’s always the same. I fall asleep, usually at night, and I dream about the person I need to help. Over and over until she’s saved. Before you, few of them were rescued, and I questioned my so-called gift.”

“What happened?” I asked her.

“I did the blackout thing again. Sam said I can never drive again because one second I was there and the next, I was gone.”

I knew Lucy. She was delaying telling me what she needed to tell me, which usually meant she hadn’t quite come to terms with it herself.

I didn’t prompt her again, but let her talk until finally, she said the thing that had apparently scared her half to death.

“I spoke with the ghost, Kait,” she murmured. “I know how it sounds, but that’s what happened. I spoke with the ghost in my dream. I can communicate with spirits in my dreams.” She laughed, but there was a hint of desperation in her voice. “Why would that happen?”

And I realized, finally, what was bothering her. The magic in the caves had affected everyone who’d gone inside them. Lucywas changing, and she was afraid that awful cave magic was changing her.

Sometimes, change was scary.

“I think it’s just enhancing your gift, Lucy,” I told her. “It’s made you stronger. More powerful.”

“That’s what I told her,” I heard Sam say in the background.

“I’m just afraid of what else it might do,” she said. “I don’t want it to change my life, Kait. What if I really can never drive again?”

“I’m sorry, honey,” I told her. “I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.”

She took a deep breath. “Yes. It’ll be okay. I’ll learn it, and I’ll be the boss of it.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been going on and on while that poor woman is suffering. The ghost is someone who didn’t cross over—she never told me why—and wandered into the Shopes’ house. When she saw what was going on with the girl, she wouldn’t leave. She knew that someday, someone would come.”

“Tell me where she lives,” I said, “and then you can tell me the story.”

Lucy began to talk, and I knew that though we’d lucked out with this victim, and though Lucy had gotten a boost from the cave magic, it wasn’t likely to last. I didn’t tell her that because I didn’t want to get her hopes up when I wasn’t sure.

But it was likely that after this one, things would go back to the way they had been, with us slowly, torturously looking for victims who were running out of time.

I just had a feeling.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The house was only two streets over from Crescent, so Max had been close.

The girl was twenty-seven years old, and her name was Emma Shope. Her husband was Lee, and he was an abusive, controlling asshole who she’d finally worked up the strength to leave.

Emma began hiding money, and she had a single packed suitcase stashed in the attic. One morning after he left for work, she gathered her hidden cash and her suitcase, put her cat in its carrier, and walked to the door. She’d planned to take a bus out of town, then set up a new life across the country.

She didn’t know if she could make it, but she knew she had to try.

The ghost knew that Lee hadn’t actually gone to work. He’d discovered the suitcase in the attic. He’d found some of the money. He hadn’t taken it, though, because he wanted to catch her actually trying to leave.

“She was scared to death,” Lucy murmured. “But it was her last chance. She kept repeating that to herself. ‘It’s my last chance.’”

No one spoke as I drove and we listened to Lucy, dread thick in the car.

“He was waiting for her. Just as she reached the front door, he gave a horrible roar, which paralyzed her, just paralyzed her, and rushed from hiding to grab her. He made her watch as he opened the carrier and tossed her cat outside, where it had never in its life been, and then he took her to the attic and chained her up. She’s been there ever since.”

“Her family?” I asked.