Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(73)

The night had sucked. She wanted to go home, take a long hot shower, then pass out on top of her bed.

Instead, her pager went off. She checked the number. Couldn’t place it. Then, given the early-morning hour and sheer curiosity, she entered the number on her cell phone and pressed Send.

“I’m worried about you.” A man’s voice immediately filled her ear.

“Who is this?”

“Andrew Lightfoot.”

“How’d you get this number?”

“You gave it to me, on your card.”

D.D. paused, searched her mental banks, and remembered that at the end of the interview, she’d handed Andrew Lightfoot her business card. Routine protocol—she’d already forgotten all about it.

“Little early to be calling, don’t you think?” She leaned against the stairwell wall, giving the conversation her full attention.

“I knew you were up. I dreamed of you.”

Lotta things D.D. could say to that. Given her shitty night, and her instinctive distrust of anyone who called himself a spiritual guru, she didn’t. “Why’re you calling, Lightfoot?”

“Please call me Andrew.”

“Please tell me why you’re calling.”

Hesitation. She found that interesting.

“There’s something wrong,” he said at last. “I don’t know how to explain it. At least not in terms you would understand.”

“A disturbance in the fabric of the cosmos?” she asked dryly.

“Exactly.”

I’ll be damned. “You talk,” D.D. decided. “I’ll listen.”

“The negative energies are building. When I visited the interplanes earlier tonight, I found entire pockets of dark, roiling rage. I could feel a hum, like a vibration of great evil. The light had fled. I’ve never seen so many shadows.”

“The negative forces are winning the war?”

“Tonight, I would say yes.”

“Has that happened before?”

“I’ve never encountered such a thing. Sometimes, when I’m leading group meditation, I’ll stumble across a particularly malevolent force. But the collective strength of the group, the exponential power of the light, enables me to confront such negativity and force it back into its small and insignificant space. Tonight … it’s as if the inverse has happened. Dark calling to dark. Feeding, growing, exploding. Alone and unprepared, there was nothing I could do.”

“You got your ass kicked on the spiritual superhighway?”

“I wouldn’t laugh about this, D.D.”

“And I don’t have jurisdiction over evil energies. What the hell do you want from me?”

Andrew’s voice changed. “You’re tired. You’ve suffered tonight. I apologize.”

Instantly, she was on edge. “What do you know of my suffering?”

“I’m a healer. I can feel it. Your aura, bright white when we first met, has turned to blue. You’re not comfortable with blue. You do better with red, though I prefer white.”

D.D. pinched the bridge of her nose again. “Why are you calling, Andrew?”

“Something is coming.”

“Evil wants to take over the universe.”

“Evil always wants to take over the universe. I’m telling you that this time, it’s winning.”

“How?”

“It has a purpose, I think. The purpose has given it power.”

“What’s its purpose?”

“It wants something.”

“All right,” she said wearily. “What does it want?”

No immediate answer. Maybe Andrew had gone back to the interplanes. In the silence, it occurred to her to ask: “How’s Tika doing?”

“Tika?” Andrew echoed back. Good answer.

“Danielle Burton thought you knew her,” D.D. fished again. “You know, from the Boston psych ward.”

“She’s angry with me.”

“Tika?”

“Danielle. I want her to heal more than she wants to heal. Forgiving is hard work. It’s easier for her to hate me.”

“So you two know each other. Spend much time on the psych ward, Andrew?”

“Don’t be angry with Danielle,” he continued. “Without the children, she would be lost. Without their love, the darkness would consume her completely.”

“Why do you say that, Andrew?”

“Her story to tell.”

“But you want her to heal. Tell me, and I’ll help.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” he said abruptly, and there was an edge to his voice she hadn’t heard before. “I lived in your world, Sergeant Warren, playing hardball with the best of them. I know a skeptic when I meet her. And I recognize bullshit when it’s shoveled at me. You’re a cop. You have no interest in healing. Your job is to judge. And you are extremely good at your job.”

In spite of herself, D.D. felt her hackles rising. “Hey, now—”

“She hurts,” he continued. “I feel Danielle’s pain and it calls to me, only because it’s so unnecessary. But not everyone wants to heal. I accept her choice, just as I accept that you will never truly believe what I say until it’s too late.”