Chapter One

 

It started with the old woman screaming in her bed.

The shriek shocked Rowan from sleep at dawn.  A second, higher-pitched scream followed the first.

Bolting upright in bed, Rowan clutched the sheets as her heart thundered against her ribs.  Terror drenched that loud cry.

Now, fully awake, Rowan heard a third scream echo through the apartment.  Gran.

Scrambling out of bed, Rowan’s hands shook with fright as she tried to open her door.  Her suddenly sweaty palms slid off the doorknob, and she swiped both hands down her pajama pants.  Clutching the knob in a crushing grip, she twisted and yanked the door open.

The pale glow of daybreak washed the walls with ghostly light.  She stumbled against the door of the second bedroom, calling, “Gran?”

Nothing.  No answer from Gran.

Rowan rapped on the door, dread bubbling up inside her.  “Gran?  Are you all right?”

When her grandmother still didn’t answer, Rowan rattled the doorknob, shaking harder when the door wouldn’t open.  Panicking now, she tried again.

“Gran!  Unlock the door!”

Rowan pressed her ear against the wood and heard nothing.  No scrabble of sheets.  No footsteps on the wood floor.  No hint of Gran’s voice.

Spinning in the hall, she rushed over to the bathroom door and ran her hands along the top of the frame.  There!  The key that had been there when Rowan moved in.

Her hands trembling, she shoved it into the keyhole.  Twisted until the lock clicked and the door opened a crack.  The key dropped to the wood floor with a quiet plink, and Rowan elbowed the door all the way open.

Still asleep, Gran was waving her hands, as if beating off an invisible foe.  “No,” she shouted.  “Stop.  You can’t have her.”

Rowan rushed to the bedside and dropped to the floor.  “Gran.  Wake up, Gran,” she said, forcing herself to speak softly.

Gran frowned.  Clenched her fists.  Muttered something that sounded like ‘Rowan’.

“Yes, Gran.  It’s me.”  She touched her grandmother’s shoulder.  Squeezed gently.

Gran startled awake and jerked away from Rowan’s touch.  Wild-eyed, unseeing, she stared past Rowan, focusing on the wall behind her.  Whatever Gran had seen in her dream had put fear and horror into her expression.

Rowan’s heart pounded in the still room, so hard she was sure Gran could hear it.  Drawing a deep, steadying breath, she reached slowly for Gran’s hand.  The older woman’s eyes were open, but she wasn’t fully awake.

“Wake up, Gran,” she murmured.  “You’re having a nightmare.”  Rowan smoothed her palm over the back of her grandmother’s delicate, fragile fingers.  “You’re scaring me.”

Rowan swallowed hard and pressed a kiss against the thin skin on the back of Gran’s hand.  Leaning close, she studied the older woman’s face.  Watched the movement of her eyes as she stared at the wall.  Was her grandmother having a stroke?

No nystagmus — Gran’s eyes weren’t flicking rapidly to one side.  Her facial features were normal — nothing drooped.  She was moving both of her hands.

Not a stroke.  Physically, nothing looked wrong.

Maybe it was just sleeping in a different place that had disturbed her sleep.  When Gran had shown up unexpectedly two evenings ago at Rowan’s door, Rowan had been grateful beyond words.  She hadn’t told Gran what had happened, but Gran had somehow known.  Not the details, but that something was wrong.

That Rowan was in trouble.

Her grandmother had knocked on the door, and when Rowan swung it open, Gran had held out her arms.  Rowan had fallen into her gran’s soft, fragrant embrace.  For the first time in four days, Rowan had relaxed as she clung to her grandmother.  Felt the tension and anxiety flow out of her body with each exhale.

The sense that she was clinging to the edge of a cliff with slippery fingertips had eased a bit.  Just enough to allow Rowan to take a deep breath.

Gran had led her to the kitchen and brewed a pot of tea.  With two mugs steaming on the table between them, Gran had taken Rowan’s hand.  “Tell me,” she’d murmured.

As if a dam had broken, the story had poured out of Rowan.  The missing money from her practice’s charity fund.  Evidence that it had appeared briefly in Rowan’s personal account.  Being fired by her partners.  Her fruitless efforts to trace the cash.  The way she’d been brushed off by the police, with vague promises of ‘looking into it’.

Gran had been brisk.  Business-like.  She’d looked Rowan in the eye.  “Rowan, I know you.  I know you didn’t steal that money.  Someone set you up.  We’ll find the bastard and fix this.”

Rowan had gripped her grandmother’s hand.  “Not sure it can be fixed,” she whispered.  “The damage is done.  No other practices will even talk to me.  I can’t find a job in cardiology.”

“Right now, you can’t.”  Gran brushed Rowan’s hair back from her face.  Touched her cheek.  “When the truth comes out, that will change.”

Rowan had embraced Gran’s words.  Held them tight inside her.

That night, for the first time in four days, Rowan had slept soundly.

Gran hadn’t.  Since she’d arrived, Gran had been restless.  Mumbling in her sleep.  Pacing the house at two or three a.m.  Up until now, Rowan had assumed it was worry about her granddaughter.

Waking like this, though?  This was new.  Scary.  Rowan brushed a salt-and-pepper curl off Gran’s face.

“I’m here, Gran.”  She smoothed a finger over the back of her grandmother’s hand, tracing the veins beneath the still-smooth skin.  “Tell me what’s wrong.”  She kept her voice low and even in the dimly-lit bedroom.  “It’s Rowan.  Your granddaughter.  Eileen’s daughter.”

Her grandmother’s gaze snapped to Rowan’s face.  The miasma of fear and something… otherworldly, disappeared.  “I know who you are,” she said in her brisk, no nonsense tones.  “Rowan Burke, do you think I’m losing my mind?”  She let go of Rowan’s hand and reached for a lock of her dark red hair.  Tugged gently.  “You think I would ever forget my darling Ginger?  My Eileen’s little girl?”

Rowan bit her lip, fighting back tears.  Gran hadn’t called her Ginger since she was a little girl.  “Then what’s wrong?” Rowan whispered.

Her grandmother’s gaze shifted from Rowan to the wall behind her.  “You can’t see,” she said, tightening her grip on her granddaughter’s hand.  “Not right now.  But you will.”

“See what, Gran?”  Her throat dry, Rowan stared at her beloved grandmother.  Was Gran losing her grip on reality?  Starting down the path that, according to Rowan’s mother, her great-grandmother had taken?

“You’ll face danger,” Gran whispered.  “Grave danger.  But you have the eye.  You’ll see.  You’ll know.”

Rowan swallowed.  Shivered.  She knew what ‘the eye’ was.  The third eye.  Second sight.  The relatives she and Gran had visited in Ireland a few years earlier had spoken of long-dead ancestors.  They’d said, offhandedly, that the old ones had the eye.  As if it was real.  As if everybody knew it to be true.

How could it be? Talk of the third eye was a fairy tale.  Folklore.  A myth.  “Don’t be silly, Gran.  There’s no such thing as the eye,” Rowan said now.  But it felt as if someone laid a cold hand on her nape.

Her grandmother’s mouth turned up in a smile, and the woman Rowan had grown up with was back.  The woman who always had time to play a game with her granddaughter.  The woman who told fantastical, amazing stories, filled with faeries and witches and elves.  Stories about people who could see the future.

“You’re such a doctor, Rowan,” Gran murmured, relaxing into the bed’s headboard.

“You make that sound like a bad thing, Gran.”  Rowan rose from the floor and sat on the bed beside her grandmother.  “You had a nightmare,” she said.  “Now you’re awake.  Back in the real world, instead of the dream world.”

Gran studied her for a long moment.  It felt as if the room held its breath.  Rowan did, too.  “The dream world is not as far from the real world as you think, my darling.”

She slid her legs from beneath the blanket.  “When I said you’re a doctor, I meant you’re a scientist.  You believe in what you think is the real world.  What you can see for yourself.  What you can hear or smell or taste or touch.  You don’t see everything else that’s out there.”

The cold hand on Rowan’s nape painted a path of ice down her spine.  “What else is there Gran?”

Gran’s eyes flickered past Rowan toward the wall, then she stood up.  “Let’s make tea.”

Fifteen minutes later, her cold fingers wrapped around a mug of hot Irish Breakfast tea, Rowan waited for her grandmother to take a drink of her own tea.  When Gran set her mug down, Rowan leaned forward.  “Tell me, Gran.”

Her grandmother tilted her head.  Studied her for a long moment.  Sighed as she nudged her mug away.

“Your scientist’s mind isn’t going to believe a word I say, Rowan.  You’re going to roll your eyes.  Think I’m crazy.  But listen to me.”  Gran pressed her palms to the table.  “Remember what I say.”

Rowan swallowed.  Nodded.  “I’ll listen.”

“And don’t interrupt,” Gran added.

Rowan nodded again, her mouth relaxing into a tiny smile.  Her grandmother knew her too well.

“The third eye is real, Rowan, and you have it.  I’ve known you had this gift since you were very young.”  She took a deep breath and reached for Rowan’s hand.

“You have the ability to see… possibilities.  Things that might happen in the future.  You’ll see them while there’s still time to change the outcomes.”

Gran leaned closer.  “If you’re as powerful as I think you are, you’ll also see things from the past.  Things you would have no other way of knowing.”

Rowan shook her head and tried to push away from the table.  Gran’s grip tightened.  That’s why Gran had grabbed her, Rowan realized.  Gran had known her first instinct would be to get up.  To pace as she tried to absorb what Gran was saying.

“That’s ridiculous, Gran,” she managed to say through the tightness in her chest.  It wasn’t fear, she told herself.  It was exasperation.  “I’ve never seen… visions, for lack of a better word.  Or known ahead of time what’s going to happen.”

Maybe Gran was losing touch with reality.  Rowan’s mouth quivered, and she clamped her lips together until she steadied.

“It would have been helpful when I was fired.  When someone was draining the money from my practice’s charity account.  If I can see the past, why didn’t I know that was happening?  Or who did it?”  She snorted.  “Hell, why doesn’t it help me in surgery?  Tell me what’s wrong?  Where to look for the problem?”

“Don’t trivialize what I said, Rowan Burke.  Or humor me into dropping it.”  Her grandmother frowned at her, making Rowan feel like a mouthy ten-year-old again.  “It’s too important to shuffle it to the side.  I know you have the eye, because I do, too.  So does your mother, but she refuses to accept it.”  Gran shook her head.

“My mother, your great-grandmother, was a powerful seer.  Ignorant people said she was batty.”  Gran made a scoffing sound in her throat.  “They’d say I was batty, too, if I told them what I saw.”  She shook her head.  “People are always afraid of what they don’t understand.”

“I’m not afraid, Gran,” Rowan said.  “Just skeptical.”

“How’s that boyfriend of yours?”

“Marcus?”  Rowan was startled by the change of subject, but she shrugged.  The plastic surgeon, tall, blond and ripped, had the office across from hers in the Spaulding Building.  They’d been dating for five months.  “He’s fine.  I called to tell him what happened, and he believes me.  Said he knew I hadn’t stolen that money.”

Her grandmother snorted.  “He’s not as wonderful as you think he is.”  Why was there pity in her grandmother’s expression?

Rowan frowned, annoyed at her grandmother.  “Is this what your ‘eye’ talk is about?  Are you telling me to dump him, when he’s standing by me?”  She shoved away from the table.  “You’ve never liked Marcus.”

“No.  I haven’t,” Gran said calmly.  “Because he’s not who you think he is.”

“I know exactly who he is.  He’s one of the best plastic surgeons in Chicago.”

Gran shook her head.  “There’s more to a man than what he does for a living, Rowan.”

“I know that,” Rowan said, suddenly chilled again.  She and Marcus hadn’t spent a lot of time sharing their deepest thoughts.  They’d been busy with… other things.

“What a man shows the world can be a carefully constructed lie,” Gran murmured.

At the pity in Gran’s eyes, an ugly prickle of doubt stirred in Rowan’s gut.  What did she really know about Marcus?

She knew about his job.  About his good manners.

What he liked in bed.

Not much else, she realized.

He’d said he didn’t believe she’d stolen the money.  But he’d been acting different lately.  He’d been busy.  Lots of surgeries.  The accompanying paperwork.  It had been a couple of weeks since they’d spent any time together.  She frowned.  Maybe more.

“There will be danger.”  Gran’s eyes were unfocused.  “Grave danger.  But you will claim your gift.  Use it.”

“Wait.  What?  Marcus will put people in danger?”  Rowan took a deep breath.  Now she knew her Gran was wrong.  Marcus wasn’t violent.  He avoided confrontation at any cost.  His office staff laughed about the fact that if a patient was unhappy, Marcus sent someone else in to deal with it.  “Trust Me, Gran.  That’s not Marcus.”  Rowan might not know him as well as she should, but she was certain he wasn’t violent.

“I’m done talking about that boyfriend of yours.”  Her grandmother’s dismissive sneer should have angered Rowan.  Maybe she needed to figure out why it didn’t.

“I’m talking about something else,” Gran continued.  “I’ve seen men with guns.  People on the floor.  Blood.  You’ll have a chance to save them.”

A cold fog passed in front of Rowan, touching her with chilly fingers.  Vague outlines in the haze could have been people on a floor.

They also could have been sheep on a hillside.

She shook her head, trying to get her eyes to focus.  When her grandmother appeared again through the mist, Rowan took a deep breath.  “That’s ridiculous, Gran.”  Rowan forced herself to speak calmly.  “Where would I see gun-toting men?  People come naked into my surgeries.  No place to hide a gun in those skimpy gowns.”

Gran said nothing, and Rowan tried to ignore the knowing look in Gran’s eyes.  Her odd, urgent claim.  The chill that lingered in the air.  The way Gran had faded away for a moment.

Her gran studied her without speaking, long enough to make Rowan squirm.  So she said, “If this eye thing is real, why doesn’t it help me in surgery?  Tell me what’s wrong?  Where to look for the problem?”

Finally her gran said, “You’re a skilled surgeon, Rowan.  You already save far more people than another surgeon would.  That’s how the eye helps you.  You know what needs to be done for each patient, and you do it instinctively.”

“That’s called being a surgeon,” Rowan said.

Gran tilted her head.  “What’s your mortality rate compared to the other surgeons in your group?”

How did Gran know about mortality rates?  “I don’t have a group anymore,” Rowan began, but Gran waved at her dismissively.

“The past six months, Rowan.  Hard numbers, since that seems to be what you believe in.  Who had the lowest mortality rate in your practice?”

“I did,” Rowan said after a long moment.

“No one else was even close, were they?”

How could she know that?  She had to be guessing.  “No.  I was the lowest by far.”

Gran nodded, then stood up.  “You use your gift every day, Rowan.  You just don’t realize it.  Now it’s time for you to acknowledge your gift.  To use it mindfully.”  She took Rowan’s hand and squeezed.  The green malachite stone in the ring her gran always wore pressed into Rowan’s palm, burning her skin.  Her muscles twitched.

Rowan eased her hand away, and Gran let her go, but Rowan’s whole body tingled.  Gran must have squeezed on a nerve.

Gran tilted her head.  “When the moment comes to seize your gift, you’ll know.  Do not be afraid to act.  And do not be afraid to disappear afterward.  You will need to protect yourself.”

* * *

Long after her disturbing wake-up that morning, but still on edge from her talk with her grandmother, Rowan squared her shoulders as she reached for the door into the lobby of the Spaulding Building.  The anxiety from the past several days roared back as she prepared to clean out her office.  She’d come early, hoping none of her partners would be there.  But if they were, she’d hold up her head.  Face them.  She’d done nothing wrong.

She’d pack her belongings.  And she’d find out when to expect her buyout check, the one her attorney had forced her partners to issue.

Stepping into her building, she moved toward the line for the elevator.  The beautiful old art deco building in Chicago’s Loop had a curving bank of six elevators, all of them painfully slow — so slow that the lobby was always crowded in the morning.  Today, impatient people jostled to get to their office, juggling coffee cups and using elbows to inch toward the front of the line.

Finally it was her turn to step into one of the ornate, wood-paneled elevators.  She was the last one in, pressing the button for the twenty-third floor as the doors slid shut.  Suddenly someone pounded on the door, as if they wanted her to open it.

Rowan reached for the button, but the elevator had already started to move.

Ignoring the other occupants of the car, she stared at the door.  Steeled herself for her last visit to her office.

She’d been happy at Skyline Cardiology.  She’d done a lot of surgeries.  Saved a lot of people.  She’d never spent time socially with her partners, but that was fine with her.  They’d worked well together professionally, and she’d thought that was all that counted.

The elevator jolted to a stop at her floor, and she stepped out, walking down the hall to her office door.  She glanced at the suite across the hall, Global Plastic Surgery.  No sign of Marcus.  Or her friend Sophie, who was Marcus’s new associate.  The waiting room was unoccupied.

Opening the door to her own office, Rowan stepped inside.  “’Morning, Paige,” she said to her receptionist.  Sam Brown, one of the security guards, was sitting in a chair.

Paige lifted her head from her own computer and stood up.  “Dr. Burke.  It’s…”

Rowan didn’t hear the rest as her hand began to burn.  Her phone dropped to the floor and landed on the carpet with a soft thud. The desk blurred and wavered.  The light changed.  Instead of her office, Paige was in a bedroom.  Naked in front of her.