The Hollow by Nora Roberts Page B

a fairly big surprise to turn around and see a dead woman standing at your desk,” Cybil pointed out.
    â€œI was wishing I had something to do, something to keep me busy, and, well, be careful what you wish for. Let me think.” She closed her eyes now, tried to picture the episode. “In my head,” she murmured. “I heard her in my head, I’m almost sure. So I had, what, a telepathic conversation with a dead woman. It gets better and better.”
    â€œSounds more like a pep talk from her end,” Gage pointed out. “No real information, just get out there and give your all for the team.”
    â€œMaybe it’s what I needed to hear. Because I can tell you the pep talk might have turned the tide when the other visitor showed up. The phone rang. It was probably you,” she said to Quinn. “Then—”
    She broke off when the door opened. Fox breezed in. “Somebody’s having a party and didn’t . . . Layla.” He rushed across the room so quickly Quinn had to jump back or be bowled over. “What happened?” He gripped both her hands. “Snake? For fuck’s sake. You’re not hurt.” He yanked up her trouser leg before she could answer.
    â€œStop. Don’t do that. I’m not hurt. Let me tell it. Don’t read me that way.”
    â€œSorry, it didn’t feel like the moment for protocol. You were alone. You could’ve—”
    â€œStop,” she commanded, and deliberately pulled her hands from his, just as she deliberately tried to block him out of her mind. “Stop. I can’t trust you if you push into my head that way. I won’t trust you.”
    He drew back, on every level. “Fine. Fine. Let’s hear it.” “Ann Hawkins came first,” Quinn began, “but we’ll go back to that if it’s okay with you. She’s just run that one.”
    â€œThen keep going.”
    â€œThe phone rang,” Layla said again, and told them.
    â€œYou hurt it,” Quinn said. “On your own, by yourself. This is good news. And I like the boots.”
    â€œThey’ve recently become my favorite footwear.”
    "But you felt pain.” Cal gestured to her calf. “And that’s not good.”
    â€œIt was only for a second, and I don’t know—honestly don’t—how much of it was panic or the expectation of pain. I was so scared, for obvious reasons, then add in the snake. I was hyperventilating, and couldn’t stop at first. I’d have passed out, I think, if I hadn’t been more afraid of having a snake slithering all over me while I was unconscious. I have a thing.”
    Cybil cocked her head. “A snake thing? You have ophidiophobia? Snake phobia,” she explained when Layla simply looked blank.
    â€œShe knows all kinds of stuff like that,” Quinn said proudly.
    â€œI don’t know if it’s an actual phobia. I just don’t like— okay, I’m afraid of snakes. Things that slither.”
    Cybil looked at Quinn. “The giant slug you and Layla saw in the hotel dining room the day she checked in.”
    â€œTapping in to her fears. Good one, Cyb.”
    â€œIt was spiders when the four of you were together at the Sweetheart dance.” Cybil cocked her eyebrow. “You’ve got a spider thing, Q.”
    â€œYeah, but it’s an ick rather than an eek.”
    â€œWhich is why I didn’t say you have arachnophobia.”
    â€œThat would be Fox,” Cal volunteered.
    â€œNo. I don’t like spiders, but—”
    â€œWho wouldn’t go see Arachnophobia ? The movie? Who screamed like a girl when a wolf spider crawled over his sleeping bag when we—”
    â€œI was twelve, for Christ’s sake.” With the appearance of a man stuck between embarrassment and impatience, Fox jammed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t like spiders, which is different from being phobic. They