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popping noises behind her temples as darkness moved toward her.
    “Because you are my anam cara . You always have been.”
    A click, and then the line went dead as her world turned black.

Chapter Six

    “I’LL THINK SHE’S finally coming around. Look at her eyelids—they’re moving.” The voice belonged to Justin. Through her lashes Cameryn could see his face above her, swimming into focus as she tried to adjust her mind. Point by point she could feel sensation return: rough fabric beneath her hands, the buzz of fluorescent lights, the quiet murmur of men’s voices crowding overhead. Like puzzle pieces she put the perceptions together. She was in the lobby, laid out on the institutional-style sofa as though she were a corpse on an autopsy table. Light pooled along the top of Dr. Moore’s head, his jowls more pronounced as he leaned over her, his blood-spattered apron inches away from her face. Behind him stood Ben and the sheriff. Her father and Justin were kneeling beside her head. Blinking, she pulled herself up to her elbows while the men hovered in a circle overhead, cutting off the light.
    “Thank God she’s back,” her father cried. His strong arms propped her up, but she could feel Justin, too, his hand over hers, rough and warm. Patrick and Justin seemed to be jostling for position, but for now her father had won. His worried eyes searched hers while his hair, usually so controlled, stood straight up from his forehead like feathers. “Baby, are you all right?” he asked. Then the forced smile that she knew meant whatever was happening wasn’t good. “It’s all okay. You’re going to be okay. Just relax now, you’re fine.”
    “What happened?” she croaked. Her throat felt dry. Justin thrust a plastic cup of water toward her. His hands were steady as he pressed it to her lips. Grateful, she drank, as the sheriff said, “You fainted. You would have landed smack on the floor if my deputy hadn’t caught you. He grabbed you right before you hit.”
    “I fainted?” Cameryn felt a hot wave of embarrassment. She’d never, not in her entire life, ever done something so melodramatic. Fainting was something women in old-fashioned movies did. It didn’t happen to someone like her, not to a scientist who lived in a world of fact. She began to register the various segments of her body, the way her feet, still encased the paper booties, lay on the arm of the couch. For the briefest of seconds her mind couldn’t process why it had happened. And then the memory came flooding back and she took in a sharp gasp of air. Kyle. He had called her. Kyle O’Neil knew exactly where she was, which meant he was out there, somewhere, watching her, hunting. She began to shake. “Oh my God,” she whispered, her eyes so wide she could feel the strain of her skin. “I remember. Oh my God! Kyle—it was Kyle. He knows I’m here! ” The shuddering overtook her, rocking her body like waves.
    “Get a blanket,” her father commanded, and Ben obeyed. “Cameryn, are you sure? Could it have been someone trying to play a joke?”
    “No, Dad, I know his voice—it was him!”
    “I knew it!” Justin hissed. His hand, balled into a fist, hit the edge of the couch. “I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll kill him myself.”
    “I think that’ll be my job,” her father shot back. “Sheriff? Can you trace the call and get a location on that bastard?”
    “I’ll get right on it,” Jacobs said. He held up Cameryn’s BlackBerry, which he must have already taken from her when they carried her to the couch. “But I’ll lay money that he called her on a disposable phone.”
    “A what?” Patrick asked.
    “A cheap phone you buy and throw out when the minutes are up—you can’t track them. My next step is to notify the FBI and the Durango police, but before I do”—he bent close to her, narrowing his eyes—“it’s very important that you tell me exactly what he said. Can you do that, Cammie?” Without breaking eye