“Good night,” she responded, looking resigned.
“Night,” Caleb said, and they both went to their respective rooms.
He kind of doubted it would be a good night, but that was okay.
Tomorrow, they were going to find Delia.
Chapter Eleven
She had no idea of how much time was passing…or whether it was even passing at all. This dark room with the soft chaise lounge beneath her might as well have been in an entirely different dimension, one placed far outside the world she knew. And even though it felt as if she had been here for a hundred years, she still wasn’t hungry or thirsty, had no need to go to the bathroom.
A blessing, maybe. However, even though she wasn’t experiencing actual thirst, she thought she could really use a drink right about now.
A very strong one.
And as much as she racked her brains and tried to dredge up even the smallest, most insignificant detail, she couldn’t seem to remember a single thing about her abduction. She’d been walking back to her car — had even gotten close enough to spy the little white Kona waiting for her as she wound her way down the path that led to the parking lot — and then everything had gone black. As far as she could tell, no one had been anywhere near her. She hadn’t seen anyone, hadn’t heard anything.
Yet here she was.
Obviously, trying to retrace her steps wasn’t going to help her any, which meant she needed to come up with some other way to get out of here. Earlier, she’d sent a tendril of a thought beaming outward, imploring Caleb to find her. However, she hadn’t meant anything much by it, had only wanted to feel as if she was doing something, even if it proved to be a futile gesture.
All the same, she couldn’t help wondering if these strange powers that had begun to awaken might help her in ways she hadn’t yet imagined.
So far, she’d been more of a receptor, hearing Aaron’s thoughts in her mind. Why he’d been able to make such a connection with her, she wasn’t sure, but maybe the circuit worked both ways.
Of course, she had no intention of reaching out to Aaron, even though his mind — so far, at any rate — seemed to have been the most transparent to her. He might have been able to help, but she knew that Caleb was the one person who would have both the motivation and the means to come to her rescue.
She had no idea how to go about doing such a thing, though. It wasn’t as if she’d gone through some sort of apprenticeship with a Jedi master to help her gain control of her abilities.
No, this would have to be trial and error.
Well, if time didn’t exist here, then it wouldn’t matter how long all this might take.
Even though it was just as dark with her eyes open as it was with them shut, she went ahead and closed them anyway. No need to focus on anything at all except her breathing and the soft sound of her breath moving in and out, gentle and yet as sonorous as waves spilling across some secret shore.
Something about water….
She couldn’t say why, but for some reason, her mind filled with an image of the Colorado River as she’d seen it from one of the overlooks at Heritage Park, moving slowly but purposefully through the dry, golden landscape. It had a rhythm of its own, one that spoke to her with the strong sureness of its current and the way it rippled in the sunlight.
The river. Yes.
Delia had no idea where the thought had come from, but it surfaced nonetheless.
They need you to connect them to the river.
Who were “they”?
Well, whoever had kidnapped her and put her in this strange prison, one that definitely wasn’t your ordinary basement oubliette. Why they thought she had any particular abilities when it came to the Colorado River, she had absolutely no clue. Sure, she’d always enjoyed the outings her parents had taken her on when she was a kid and they’d gotten a houseboat on Lake Havasu or had come here to Laughlin for a quickie weekend on the water…or the one memorable time when she’d gone to Southern California and got to see the ocean…but it wasn’t as if she’d ever had any particular affinity for bodies of water.
Pru was the Pisces, not her.
Still, the conviction remained that whoever was behind all this, they needed her for a particular reason that involved the river.
Something connected to these weird powers of hers?
Maybe. Delia couldn’t think of a single other reason to kidnap her. She was just an ordinary real estate agent with a fairly humdrum life…as long as you left out the part where one of her closest friends happened to be part demon.
Was there some connection to Alba Sanchez’s house? The ghost had tried to communicate something about guarding the place, although, because the communication had consisted of only a word or two at a time and nothing about the context of those words, Delia believed she’d missed out on the actual meaning of that exchange.
