Silence.
Beautiful, peaceful, glorious, golden silence.
It wasn’t truly silent, of course, not even close. Noah was sitting in a crowded hallway, men on either side of him, people walking past, footsteps echoing off tiled floors, snippets of conversation floating by. But at least the damn crying had stopped.
His shoulders relaxed and he unzipped his jacket. He’d been burrowed into it, shivering, but it seemed to have gotten warmer. He couldn’t get used to how cold it was in the States. Back in Iraq, the guys used to joke that he had built-in AC, but that trait wasn’t nearly so handy during Washington’s chill gray winter.
“Guardian angels, God will lend thee…”
Noah didn’t react. The song was a hallucination, just another one of the voices only he could hear. But he would have liked to grimace. He really hated the singing. Maybe not as much as the crying, but it was close. Fortunately, it drifted away, drowned out by all the other noise.
He let his head rest against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. This business with the grand jury was total bullshit. In the nine months he’d worked for AlecCorp, he hadn’t seen or done anything, illegal or otherwise. Most of his time had been spent in training exercises or sitting around an office in Virginia, waiting for an assignment. His testimony was worth five minutes, if that. Meanwhile he’d been waiting for hours. And not with pay.
He needed to start looking for another job. It was a depressing thought.
Maybe he should go home for a while. Visit his family.
That thought was even more depressing.
“Carly? Where are you, Carly?”
“It’s not right, it’s not right.”
“Slow down, Tom. You’re driving too fast.”
His hallucinations were getting worse. When they started, a decade ago, there had just been three of them: Joe, the little boy, and the Arabic woman. Sometimes other voices came and went, but not so often that it was a problem. Lately, though, the voices started and stayed, more and more of them.
Most of the time, the new ones said the same things, over and over again. It was meaningless, just the static of his subconscious. But there were so many of them. Could he even filter out real voices from the ones his brain conjured up anymore? The clean freak, the crying girl, the singing lady, the angry man, the lost woman, the worrier, the fake Chinese guy… none of them were real.
But what about the husky contralto saying, “Seriously?”
Was she real?
Noah cracked open his eyelids, peering through his lashes. Across the hallway, a redhead stared at her cell phone as if reading a text. He couldn’t see the headset she wore but she spoke as if she had a voice connection.
“Good that you’re making friends, I guess?”
Noah watched her, his eyes intent on her lips, matching the movements to the murmured words.
“A model? Okay, yeah. I see him.”
She caught his gaze. He dropped his lids hastily. Yeah, that voice was real.
“Holy shit. That is so cool.” Joe. Not real.
“I want to do that, too. I want to talk to her.” The little boy. Not real. But he sounded excited, bouncy, like he was jumping around the hallway.
Noah’s mouth twitched, a faint smile curving his lips. The little boy was his favorite of his hallucinations. A psychiatrist would probably say the boy represented his inner child. If so, Noah’s inner child had a good sense of humor and a great attitude.
“Allah be praised.” The Arabic woman’s voice. Not real.
If the boy represented his inner child, maybe the woman represented his inner mom. Noah didn’t know why his subconscious would make his mom Arabic, though. He’d love to ask a shrink, although not if it meant admitting to his hallucinations. No way was he ever doing that. They’d lock him up and throw away the key.
“Tell her to be careful.” Joe’s voice. Not real. “He knows some of the guys here. She shouldn’t say anything that might get him in trouble. Nothing that sounds crazy.”
Joe would be the protector, of course. Ironic, since Noah had so singularly failed to protect Joe. But Noah veered away from that thought just as he had for the past decade.
He straightened, opening his eyes, glancing up and down the corridor, keeping the motion subtle. His fingers itched for the security of a weapon. Not that he was in danger here, of course. But every once in a while, the voices were worth listening to. What kind of trouble had his subconscious spotted?
“We could talk to people, mama,” the boy said, still exuberant.
“American people,” the Arabic woman answered. “You’d have to write in English, Misam. Besides, who do you want to talk to, anyway?”
Noah relaxed. Not this time. They were nonsense words, a nonsense conversation spewed by his overactive brain. No meaning, and definitely not his subconscious alerting his conscious mind to danger he hadn’t recognized.
“How are you doing that?” Joe again.
“It took a lot of practice,” a teenage boy’s voice said. “I broke a lot of phones.”
Noah let his eyes drift over the crowd of people in the hallway, nodding at a former co-worker he recognized. No teenage boys.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. Another new one. Damn.
He leaned forward, resting his palms on his knees and stared at the floor, trying to shut out the cacophony in his ears. But once they started, they just kept going.
The same damn song, over and over again.
The crying.
“It’s not right. It’s not right.” The angry man.
Again and again and again.
Stress, that’s what it was. AlecCorp had been a lousy job for him. He wasn’t cut out to be a military contractor. Not that he’d done much, but the waiting around got to him. Now that he was unemployed again, the voices would quiet down.
Yeah, because being unemployed was so relaxing.
But even the fast food joints seemed reluctant to hire someone with only military experience. Apparently being able to hump eighty pounds and field strip an M4 assault rifle in your sleep weren’t skills prized by the average American employer. Who knew?
“Excuse me.”
Noah started, sitting up.
The redhead stood in front of him, a business card in her outstretched hand.
“Yes?” His voice was wary. Did he know her? She looked vaguely familiar, as if he might have seen her before, in the distance or in some other context, but he couldn’t put a name to her face. She had the pale, almost translucent skin of a natural redhead, with minimal makeup and her hair drawn back. She wore a suit, with a loose-fitting jacket and skirt, but the clinging t-shirt underneath it coupled with the control in her movements suggested she was athletic, definitely physically fit.
She smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I understand you have a problem.”
Noah raised a brow. “Yeah?”
He had several problems that he knew about. Being stuck in this hallway was one. Being unemployed was another. But there was something about her expression, the sympathy in her gray eyes, that sent a tremor of unease down Noah’s spine. What did she know?
“It’s a problem I’m familiar with.” The words were even, but her smile was rueful.
What was she talking about? Noah’s voice felt stiff as he said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Mmm.” She nodded acknowledgement and the sympathy in her eyes deepened. Lowering her voice, she stepped closer to him. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
Before he could respond, the door to the grand jury room opened. The redhead glanced over her shoulder and Noah straightened, as heads turned and conversations dropped off. All eyes were on the door as a witness exited, relief written on his face, and the door closed again.
The energy in the hall stayed heightened. Lawyers muttered last-minute instructions to their clients and witnesses fidgeted, tugging at suit sleeves and straightening ties.
The redhead turned back, pressing the card upon him. Noah took it, gaze skimming over it.
General Directions, Inc.
Tassamara, FL
555-347-9779
info@generaldirections.com
He flipped it over. No name, no scrawled message. “What is this?”
“You’ll have to go there in person.”
Before he could ask more questions, the door to the grand jury room opened again. A woman checked a clipboard and called out, “Sylvie Blair?”
The redhead glanced over her shoulder. “My turn, I guess.”
Sylvie Blair? Noah had heard that name before.
The redhead turned back to him. “Ask for Akira.”
“Akira?” Noah recognized that name, too, but only from the animé. Were real people actually named Akira? He scowled.
The redhead frowned back at him, worried lines appearing between her brows. “Say that Dillon sent you. He wants to help.”
“Sylvie Blair?” The woman called out again, louder, her voice impatient.
“Help how?” Noah asked.
The redhead opened her mouth, glanced around, then let out her breath in a controlled sigh. “Not here. I can’t explain like this and I don’t have the time. But go to Tassamara. You won’t regret it.”
Turning away from him, she muttered, “Best I can do,” almost as if the words weren’t directed at him. He watched her go, still frowning, as she crossed to the grand jury room and introduced herself to the woman with the clipboard.
“Sleep my dear…”
“Oh, my, this floor. Carbolic soap, that’s what I need.”
“You’re driving too fast. Slow down…”
“Who’s Akira?”
“Ama hina kaychu.”
His voices were babbling again, talking one over another. He could even hear the mellifluous mystery language that was his subconscious pretending to speak Chinese. Noah didn’t understand Chinese, but he recognized it well enough to know his hallucination was doing it wrong.
“Fraternizing with the enemy?” The question sounded disgruntled.
Noah almost ignored it before realizing it came from the man sitting on the bench next to him. “What?”
The guy nodded toward the doorway. “That’s her. The one who killed Chesney.”
Noah glanced back but the redhead had already disappeared into the grand jury room. His brows rose. She hadn’t looked like a killer.
He looked down at the card in his hand again. General Directions. So many rumors had been flying around in the wake of AlecCorp’s implosion. What had he heard about General Directions? But the story, whatever it was, didn’t come back to him.
“You know this place?” He showed his neighbor the card.
The guy grunted. “Sounds like some New Age crap.”
The guy on the other side of him craned his neck forward. Noah tilted the card in his direction.
“Think tank,” the guy said. “Consultants. And research.”
Noah could almost see the invisible quotation marks around the word ‘research.’ “What sort of research?”
“Spook stuff.” The guy leaned back again, falling silent.
Noah considered the card. Spook stuff, huh? He should throw it away. But there was no trash can nearby, so he slipped the card into his pocket. He didn’t know what Sylvie Blair wanted from him, but one AlecCorp was enough for a lifetime. No way was he going to Tassamara.
A month later
The voices were driving him crazy.
Crazier than usual, that was. Technically, Noah knew he’d been insane for years, ever since he woke up in a hospital room to the sound of his best friend’s voice. Even in his coma, he’d known that was impossible. The memory of the light draining out of Joe’s eyes had been a nightmare he couldn’t escape.
But this was today, not back then. Yeah, he was crazy, but why the hell couldn’t his hallucinations argue about something reasonable? Basketball, say. Baseball, maybe. But no, his imaginary companions wanted to debate Disney movies.
Worse, they were flat-out wrong. Okay, sure, Frozen was decent for a girl movie, but no way did it beat The Lion King musically. One impressive song did not stand up to a score that included Hakuna Matata, Circle of Life, and that one about feeling the love. And Toy Story — fine, great movie — but Toy Story 2 & 3 were even better, plus sequels. How often did sequels improve on the original? The filmmakers deserved credit for pulling that off.
But if he opened his mouth to argue with his hallucinations... No, he wanted no part of that slippery slope. Talking to them would put him on the fast track to a ratty bathrobe, zombie eyes and a slurred voice, zoned out on whatever antipsychotic the VA was experimenting with.
It was bad enough that he was following their directions. If they started ordering him to assassinate presidents or open fire at a shopping mall, he hoped he’d have the sense to get himself locked up instead.
“Oh, turn right up here,” the new guy’s voice said. “We’re almost there.”
Almost there? They were in the middle of nowhere, deep dappled light scattered by the trees overhanging the narrow road, no sign of houses or human habitation. But Noah took the right turn as ordered and within a few more minutes, the trees opened up as he entered a small town.
Two minutes later, the trees began closing in again.
“Go back,” the voice demanded. “Go back. You missed it.”
That was it?
Noah wanted to beat his head against the steering wheel. He’d come all this way, driven through the night to get to this tiny spot on the map, and it was nothing. Nothing. One street, maybe two blocks of shops. What the hell?
But he slowed his truck. At a wide spot on the empty road, he made a three-point turn and headed back. His eyes were hot with the burn from a sleepless night. He’d find a cup of coffee, maybe some breakfast, and look around. Maybe he’d ask someone about the business card that sat in his back pocket and maybe not. Either way, he’d made it to the town. Surely the voices that had been nagging him night and day would shut up now.
The town was cute. But strange. Not at all what he’d expected. He’d imagined a place that looked top secret. Concrete walls and big blank buildings, parking lots and fences, that kind of thing. Instead, he’d found a dusty little tourist town. Glass window fronts on cozy shops, wide sidewalks, and street parking with no meters.
As he stepped out of his truck, an impossibly tiny old woman in a brightly-flowered muumuu paused on the sidewalk. She tsk-ed at him, shaking her head. He glanced at the distance between his truck and the curb — the appropriate six inches — and raised his eyebrows.
“Ma’am?” Had he done something wrong?
“Sage, young man,” she said. “Sage. Or perhaps juniper.” She shook her head again, then toddled away.
Noah blinked. He was tired, but he was pretty sure he was awake. Still, that had felt an awful lot like a moment out of a dream. Surreptitiously — not that anyone was on the street to notice — he pinched his arm.
Definitely awake.
He started walking down the street, checking out the storefronts as he passed. A bookstore, with what looked like a mix of new and used titles. A small drugstore, not one of the chains. Antiques, a gift shop, a window display of fancy rocks and crystals, and finally, a restaurant. Planters of lush blue lobelia bordered the doorway and under an awning, a window with gold lettering spelled out ‘Maggie’s Place.’
Noah paused. The restaurant looked nicer than the basic all-American diner he’d been hoping for, but it was the only restaurant he’d seen and he was running out of street.
When he entered, a bell jangled over the door. From behind the counter, a young waitress, her jagged blonde hair tipped with purple, called out, “Sit anywhere you like, I’ll be right with you.”
A shriek of feminine delight split the air. “Dillon, Dillon, Dillon,” a girl’s voice chanted. “You’re home! I’ve missed you so! Where have you been? You missed the wedding.”
Noah took a long, slow glance around the restaurant. It was more crowded than he would have expected for an early mid-week morning, with most of the tables and booths full. But there were seats available at a diner-style counter.
There was not a shrieking girl.
And the only one responding to her delight was his most recent hallucinatory voice, the new guy, saying, “Hey, Rose.”
Second-most-recent now, Noah supposed. Another hallucination was not what he’d been hoping to find on his long drive to the middle of nowhere. Resigned, he held back his sigh and moved to the counter, sliding into an open seat next to the cash register.
His voices were quieter away from the door, as if he’d left them temporarily across the room. But he could still hear the girl saying, with a southern lilt, “You could have danced with me. I had to dance with Toby and you should have seen the way people looked at him.” She laughed, the sound contagiously cheerful.
Noah found his lips curving up in an involuntary smile. Huh. This voice wasn’t like most of them. She talked like she went places, did things.
“He’s a little short for you, isn’t he?” the new guy replied.
Noah’s smile faded. He hated that voice. It had been badgering him for weeks, pestering him endlessly to go to Tassamara, to find Akira. Apparently his subconscious thought he was living in an animé. It was damn annoying.
“I taught him to jitterbug. He did pretty good for a three-year-old.”
“I’m sorry I missed it. I really tried to get back in time.”
“What can I get you?” the waitress asked. She couldn’t be much out of high school, if that, but she wiped down the counter before him with practiced efficiency.
“Coffee, please,” Noah responded. He took a deep breath. The air smelled incredible — sweetly spicy, like cinnamon or vanilla. Maybe he didn’t want bacon and eggs after all. “And a menu?”
“A menu? Oh, sure.” The waitress sounded surprised, but she nodded toward a built-in slot on his side of the cash register. “Grab one from that bin. I’ll BRB with your coffee.”
Noah leaned to the side. The bin held multiple menus, some large, some small, some colorful, some plain, all different. He grabbed a red one from the middle of the pile and opened it up.
It was in Chinese.
Noah blinked.
It wasn’t even the kind of Chinese menu that put English translations or pronunciations under the characters. It was just Chinese.
He stared at it.
“Try the special,” a woman said from the seat next to him. “It’s a sure thing.”
Noah glanced her way.
Time stopped.
And then it started again.
But for a moment, a split second, unnoticeable, he hoped, he’d felt like he’d just taken a hard kick to the gut. Blonde hair, swooping in a graceful curve across her cheeks; green eyes, the color of army drab; a smiling mouth; and the lightest splash of dusty freckles across her nose. He felt a mad desire to count them.
She blinked at him and her smile deepened.
“You must be new in town.” Her voice was light, pleasant, nothing special, but he felt the sound of it running down his spine like a shimmer of electricity. She stuck out her hand. “Grace Latimer.”