Blood Ties by Kay Hooper Page A

they happen.”
    “Oh, right. He mentioned that. You mentioned that.”
    DeMarco said, “It’s something we’ve all learned. The hard way.” He paused, adding dryly, “Though I hadn’t realized we were numbering Bishop’s rules.”
    “Quentin is,” Hollis said. “Of course Quentin is. And can we get back to my own pillar-of-salt consequences? Sorry to sound selfish, but I really would like to know what the worst outcome might be. What to be on guard against if—when—I find myself in the gray time again.”
    “You already know, Hollis. The worst outcome is that you could be trapped on that side of the door when it closes.” Diana drew a breath and let it out slowly, fighting to hold her voice steady as the reminder brought back an old but still-aching memory. “Lost, with no way of getting back to your body. And a body cut off from its spirit, deprived of its soul… can’t exist very long without medical intervention.”
    “Medical intervention? You mean—”
    “I mean machines. To keep the body breathing, the heart beating. Under those conditions, the body can last years. Decades. But you wouldn’t be there. You wouldn’t be there ever again.”
    B obbie Silvers was proud to be a deputy. Of course, she wasn’t a real deputy, not yet; she was only partway through the training manual, and the sheriff refused to let her even begin weapons training.
    Still, she was young, energetic, and determined, so she knew it was only a matter of time until she made it to full deputy status.
    In the meantime, she worked as hard as she could to prove to Sheriff Duncan that she was deputy material. If he asked her to do something, no matter how seemingly routine or unimportant, she went above and beyond to make sure she did a thorough job of it.
    Which was why she was, in the middle of the evening and the middle of her shift, still at her computer terminal, poring through missing-persons reports—covering a radius of five hundred miles.
    “Give it up,” Dale McMurry advised. “Sheriff’s gone home for the night, and, besides, there isn’t much anybody can do ‘til morning.”
    “The only thing I can’t do until morning,” she told him without looking at him, “is talk to a first-shift deputy or other officer. Law enforcement is 24/7, Dale, or didn’t you know that?”
    He grunted. “It took you ten minutes to find the right state bureau guy and get their list, and twenty to get the one from the cops two counties over. At this rate, you’ll be at it until midnight and still not get done.”
    “The county doesn’t pay me to sit with my feet up and read magazines,” she told him. “If I’m still working on this when the next shift shows up and it’s time to clock out, so what? As long as I’m making progress—trying to make progress—then I’m doing my job.”
    “I’m doing my job,” he said, mildly defensive. “I’m waiting to answer the phone. So far, it hasn’t been ringing much.” He got out of his chair and went to change the channel of the TV resting on a nearby filing cabinet, grumbling underneath his breath at the lack of a remote.
    “Don’t turn on wrestling, please,” she said, still without looking at him.
    “What do you care? You haven’t taken your eyes off that screen since you talked to the SBI guy.”
    “I care because you get too caught up in the so-called action and end up yelling and throwing things at the screen. Find a nice cheerleader or beauty competition instead. You drool quietly.”
    He threw a balled-up piece of paper at her.
    Bobbie ducked, sent him a smile to indicate she was only kidding, and went back to her work. Not that she had a whole lot to work with . From the remains of both victims, only the barest of preliminary descriptions could be listed with any certainty—and height, weight, eye color, and probable hair color in the case of the female left things pretty damn vague.
    The list Bobbie had painstakingly compiled from five hundred miles around