Something did. Like a cork blowing out of a bottle, the blockage flew out of Marisol's third eye. The force of the energy behind it chased it down her body and out the soles of her feet almost faster than Rob's eye could follow.
Gold everywhere. Marisol's entire body was encased in gold as the energy raced around, rushing through veins and capillaries, circulating at a wildly accelerated speed. An internal whirlpool bath. God, it was going to kill the girl. Nobody was meant to have that much energy.
Rob jerked the crystal away from her forehead.
Marisol's body had been straining, her back arching as the energy shot through her. Now she fell back and lay completely still for the first time since they'd walked in. Her eyes were shut. Rob realized suddenly that one of her monitors was blaring like an alarm going off.
Then, as he watched, her right hand began to move. The fingers unclenched, the wrist relaxed. It looked like a normal hand again.
"Oh, God," Lewis whispered. "Oh, look at that."
Rob couldn't speak. The alarm went on blaring. And Marisol's eyes opened.
Not halfway. All the way. Rob could see the intelligence in them. He reached out to touch her cheek, and she blinked and looked scared.
"It's okay," he told her, loud over the alarm. "You're going to be all right, you understand?"
She nodded uncertainly.
Running footsteps sounded outside the door. A sturdy nurse burst in, got almost to the bed before she skidded and saw Rob.
"What do you think you're doing in here? Did you touch anything?" she demanded, hands on hips-and then she took a good look at Marisol.
"Ma'am, I think she's feeling a little better," Rob said, and smiled because he couldn't help it.
The nurse was looking from Marisol to the monitors. She broke into a huge grin, switched the monitor off, and took Marisol's pulse.
"How're you feeling, darlin'?" she asked with tears shining in her eyes. "You just hang on one minute so I can get Doctor Hirata. Your mama's going to be so happy." Then she rushed out of the room without yelling at Rob.
"I think we'd better go before Doctor Hirata gets here," Lewis whispered. "He might ask some awkward questions."
"You're right." Rob grinned at Marisol, touched her cheek again. "I'll tell your brother you're awake, okay? And he'll be over here as fast as he can drive. And your parents, too . . ."
"Rob," Lewis whispered urgently.
They made it to the back stairs without being caught. On the second landing they stopped and whacked each other in glee.
"We did it!" Rob whispered, his voice echoing in the empty stairwell. "We did it!"
"You did it," Anna said. Her dark eyes were glowing and wise. It wasn't true, it had been the crystal, but her praise made Rob feel warm to the tips of his fingers.
He hugged Lewis and felt happy. Then he hugged Anna and felt a surge of something different from what he felt for Lewis. Stronger . . . warmer.
It confused him. He'd only felt something like it once before-when he'd found Kaitlyn alive down in Mr. Z's basement. It was almost like pain in its intensity, but it wasn't pain.
Then he pulled back, shocked and mortified. How could he let himself feel like that about anyone but Kaitlyn? How could he let himself feel even a little like that?
And he knew Anna could tell, and that she was upset, because she wouldn't meet his eyes and she was holding herself shielded. She was disgusted with him, and no wonder.
Well, one thing was for certain. It would never happen again, never.
They walked down the rest of the stairs with only Lewis talking.
"All right, this is the place," Gabriel said. It was an imposing stone building on a one-way street in the financial district of San Francisco. Through the metal-framed glass doors Kait could see a guard at a little booth.
"Joyce said the guard won't give us any trouble. We sign in with the names she told us. The law firm is Digby, Hamilton, and Miles, the floor is sixteen."
He didn't look at Kaitlyn as he spoke and he didn't glance at her as they went inside. She didn't seem to exist for him anymore. But Joyce had told them to go in pairs, and Kait was supposed to walk by Gabriel.
She tried to do it without showing any more expression than he did.
The guard was wearing a red coat and talking on a cellular phone. He barely looked at them as Gabriel flipped through papers on a clipboard. Gabriel signed, and then it was Kait's turn. She wrote Eileen Cullen, Digby, Hamilton, and Miles, 16, and 11:17, on the appropriate lines. The 11:17 was the "Time In."
Frost and Renny signed in and they crossed the tile mosaic floor to a bank of brass elevators. A man in jeans was polishing the brass, and Kaitlyn stared at her neat brown Amalfi shoes while they waited-it. seemed a long time-for the elevator.
Once inside, Gabriel pushed a large black button for floor sixteen. The button stuck. The elevator started, slowly, and with a wheeze.
Renny was snickering and Frost let out a torrent of gasping giggles.
"Do you know what I signed for my name?" Renny asked, banging the elevator door. "I signed Jimi Hendrix. And I put for the company, Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe. Get it? Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe for a law firm!"
"And I put Ima Pseudonym," Frost said, tittering.
Kaitlyn's heart gave a violent thud and began racing. She stared at them, appalled. They looked normal now: Frost's hair was pulled back elegantly and she was wearing only one earring in each ear and Renny could have been a junior accountant. But underneath they were still the same raving loonies.
"Are you guys nuts?" she hissed. "If that guard takes a look at that sheet-oh, God, or if the next person who signs in just glances up-we are dead. Dead. How could you do such a thing?"
Renny just waved a hand at her, weak with laughter. Frost sneered.
Kait turned to Gabriel to share her horror. It was a reflex-she should have known better. However horrified he might have been a minute ago, he now shrugged and flashed a quick, mocking smile.
"Good one," he said to Renny.
"I knew you had a sense of humor," Frost purred, running a silvery fingernail up Gabriel's gray wool sleeve. She ran it all the way to his crisp white collar, then toyed with the dark hair behind his ear.
Kaitlyn gave her a blistering glare through narrowed eyes. Then she stared at the elevator buttons, fuming silently. She didn't like this job. She still hadn't been told what they were doing-what can you burglarize in a law firm? She didn't even know what psychic powers Frost and Renny had. And now she had to worry about what other insane things they might decide to do.