Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than a hundred novels. She's a winner of the RWA's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Thriller Writers' Silver Bullet. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. For more information, check out her websites: TheOriginalHeatherGraham.com, eHeatherGraham.com, and HeatherGraham.tv. You can also find Heather on Facebook.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Dust to Dust

Mira

"What is what?" Melanie asked.

She hadn't paid the least attention to what she had been doing, and now she stared down at the napkin. She had flipped it over, so there was no logo to deter the free movement of her pen or mar the pictures she created.

Pictures. Real pictures. Recognizable.

Detailed.

There were four of them, and they were so well situated on the napkin, she might have marked off the corners with a ruler.

The top left corner was very evidently a sketch of a fire, so detailed that the flames almost seemed to move. Even more hypnotic was the sketch on the opposite corner.

It was of a waterfall, forceful, filling the air with spray as it fell to the pool below. There was something wild and even violent about it.

The bottom right corner showed a fiercely blowing wind, sweeping away the cloud cover.

She hadn't even known that the wind could actually be drawn. Not without showing something blowing in it. But what she had put on the paper was the wind. And like the fire and the waterfall, it seemed to have life, to be real and almost tangible.

The bottom left corner showed an earthquake, and it was amazingly realistic. It wasn't a sketch of buildings toppling or a bridge crumbling. It simply showed the ground, but the ground split asunder. Once again, it was almost as if it were happening as she looked at the napkin. Something violent and almost mobile seemed to be captured on the fragile paper.

She set the pen down.

"I didn't know you could draw like that," Maggie marveled.

Melanie clenched her hands in her lap. "Neither did I," she admitted.

Maggie looked at her as if she had just grown a third eye in the middle of her forehead. "Wow," she said.

Melanie waved a hand in the air and forced what sounded like an easy laugh. "I don't think it's such a big deal. They say that we only use about a tenth of our mental capacity at any time. We were talking, and I guess I was distracted, so part of my subconscious mind kicked in or some such thing. Who knows? Anyway, I'm sure I couldn't do it again if I tried."

And she meant that. She couldn't usually so much as draw a stick figure.

She grabbed the beer in front of her and took a long swallow. She realized that she was barely keeping her cool, and that, too, was strange. She had learned long ago how to hide her thoughts and emotions, to play it easy in any given situation.

After all, she'd been around. Los Angeles wasn't actually home for her. She'd spent a lot of time touring Europe, hung out in New York City for a while and lived for many years in New Orleans, which was really home for her. It was where she had found a sense of herself, and where she had made so many good friends. They called themselves the Alliance?and even far apart, they remained close, always ready to help one another out. Maggie was one of those friends, and she couldn't believe she felt uneasy in front of Maggie, who knew everything there was to know about her. But she did feel ill at ease, and all because she could suddenly draw.

Maggie sat back, arched a brow and took a long sip of her own beer. "I would have thought, if you were magically going to become a great artist, you?being you?would have drawn Lassie."

"Very funny," Melanie said.

"Well, you are a fabulous dog trainer."

"Because I know animals respond to positive reinforcement," Melanie said.

"So do people," Maggie said, and set a hand on Melanie's. "Seriously? those are great. Don't look so worried."

"But it's so? strange that I, of all people, could draw something so good," Melanie said.

"I agree," Maggie told her, and that was when Melanie realized her friend was as weirded-out as she was by the whole thing.

They both had their day jobs, but it sometimes seemed that the Alliance, which operated totally beneath the regular radar of humanity, was the most defining force in their lives, one that made them react to even seemingly innocuous events with immediate suspicion. They dealt with the curious, from the slightly uncommon to the absolutely bizarre, which made sense, most of the members being rather unusual themselves. Their titular head, Lucien DeVeau, lived in New Orleans, where it seemed they most often gathered, since New Orleans seemed to attract the peculiar and mysterious. Then again, Melanie reflected, Los Angeles, where she was now living, could be most unusual itself. Back home, most of her friends were in relationships? married, for the most part. Lucien had a wife he adored, Jade, who of course was part of the Alliance, too. For Melanie, it was like having a big family, but she hated being a third wheel, and it did sometimes feel that way when she was back home.

California had become her place. She was used to standing on her own here, at least on a day-to-day basis.

Tonight was supposed to have been just a nice evening out. Maggie had a houseful of children and a boutique that was thriving. Melanie's life was much easier in one sense?no children?but she was extremely proud to be considered one of the finest trainers in the country now, and she traveled extensively to train show dogs, working dogs and just plain pet dogs. She had an affinity for all animals, not just dogs, and she had always seemed to have a special gift for working with them, from hamsters to horses. Training the unruly German shepherds of an A-list movie star had first brought her out here, and she had been determined to carve out a life for herself.

So far, it had been a fine life. And now and then she got really lucky and her friends came out to see her.

She had found her niche. She had a great job. She loved the animals she worked with, and they loved her.

In her own mind, at least, she didn't do half so well with most human beings. She was lucky to have very good friends despite that, though she wasn't quite certain she considered all of them to be human beings. Maggie, however, was definitely very human.

Maggie's home had always been New Orleans, but at least four times a year she took a much-needed break and traveled out to L.A. to spend a few days with Melanie. Her husband, Sean, was a great guy, a police lieutenant working the French Quarter, and though he was very busy himself, he was also a great father. His day job was very important to the Alliance, but he enjoyed getting quality time to bond with his brood when Maggie headed west.

Sometimes a few of Melanie's other friends joined them when they got together, but tonight it was just the two of them, and Melanie was glad of that.

If she hadn't already felt completely unnerved by the drawings, her friend's reaction would have alerted her that something weird was going on. Maggie was taking the drawings very seriously; Melanie could tell by the way her face had drawn taut and her eyes had darkened.

And Maggie always knew these things.

Maggie was a beautiful woman, with deep auburn hair and green eyes; she was down-to-earth and one of the most socially conscious people Melanie had ever met. She adored her own four children and especially loved five-year-olds. They were perfect people then, she had told Melanie once. Old enough to go potty, dress themselves and eat fairly neatly, but too young to have learned hatred or prejudice, and still willing to believe in the word of the adults around them.

"What about six-year-olds?" Melanie had asked her once.

"By that age they start questioning everything you say," Maggie had warned...