Double Cross [2]

There are so many people I want to thank for
Double Cross
!

First of all, I am endlessly, lavishly grateful to my critique partner, Joanna Chambers (a.k.a. Tumperkin), who has been such a brilliant and important co-creator of this book. I feel so lucky we took a chance on each other! And also my husband, Mark, the most amazing brainstormer, draft reader, and sentence-punch-up guy ever, and an extraordinary writer in his own right. I’m grateful also to early readers Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, Marcia Peck, and Teresa Whitman, who brought insight to the beginning. And to Jessica Miller, who came through with a late-draft read and some key thinking that greatly improved things.

Warmest thanks to Cameron McClure—you continue to be a treasured ally, giving me hard, smart, creative input on my work, and being a great agent in every other way. And I’m hugely grateful to my wonderful editor, Anne Groell, as well as David Pomerico and all the other hard-working people at Spectra.

Also, I owe a tremendous debt to so many book bloggers—your support of the series, your friendship, and all of our creative interaction has meant so much to me. And I should specifically thank Sarah (Sharrow) and Rachael Dimond, who both gave me specific earworm
song ideas in a contest ages ago—songs I ended up using on these pages.

Finally, so many authors have reached out to me in so many ways: Ann Aguirre, Meljean Brook, LB Gregg, Vicki Pettersson, Jill Sorenson, Shiloh Walker, Penny Watson, and others. Thank you! And I especially want to thank the talented, generous authors in the League of Reluctant Adults—I feel so lucky and happy to have the benefit of your kindness and insight, and to be in on your mayhem.

E
Z THE COAT CHECK GIRL
, a.k.a. the Stationmaster, draws her face right up close to the glass window of her little booth and fixes me with a piercing gaze. Her fine features and short blonde hair lend her a certain elfin beauty; it’s hard to believe she’s a mass murderer. Honestly, how does a dream invader even kill people? People have bad dreams all the time. They’re just dreams. I should have asked when Packard assigned me her case.

“Do you get a lot of patients coming to your clinic with, you know, Morgan-Brooksteens parasites colonizing their organs?” she asks.

“Oh, yes.” I run my finger along the semicircular hole at the bottom of the window. The coat check booth is situated along a kind of balcony overlooking the glamorous piano bar below. They call this place the Sapphire Sunset. Soft music and voices rise up through the air, punctuated by occasional hoots of laughter.

“What happens to them?”

“Well, once a person’s organs are colonized …” I shake my head.

“But I thought there were promising new medications on the horizon!”

“ ‘Promising’ may be overstating it. Just between us, we don’t want people scared if they have symptoms.”

Ez stiffens. “People should be scared if they have symptoms?”

“No, I said we don’t
want
them to be scared.”

“Which implies they should be scared!” The conversation winds on like this for a while. It’s easy to frighten a hypochondriac once you understand that it’s just an adult version of monsters in the closet.

I study the booth as she describes her symptoms. Stationmaster Ez is separated from the world by two panes of glass; tokens are passed back and forth along a metal gully under the semicircular holes. To the left is a coat carousel, like a revolving door for coats. Patrons hang them on hooks and Ez spins the coats to her side. She slides a token across the gully for each coat, and then she hangs it up and rollers off lint. You’d never know it’s been her prison for three years. The curtain behind her probably hides where she sleeps and bathes.

Cut off even from touch! Otto only reserves this level of security for his most dangerous offenders; usually when he makes a force-field prison, non-prisoners can pass in and out. That’s how it was when he had Packard imprisoned in the Mongolian Delites restaurant.

A new tune noodles up from below. “Muskrat Love.”

Ez lowers her voice. “Whenever he plays that, I want to shove an ice pick in my ear.”

“I bet.” I’d like nothing better than to discuss the insanity of that song, but I can’t let her get off subject. “Look, I could take your pulse and examine your skin tonus,” I say. “That would provide certain indicators.”

She points to the window. “Antiburglar force field.”

I nod. So that’s how she explains it. Probably only the owner knows she lives here. Her eyes grow huge as I pass my hand through. I have to be touching a target to zing her.

“How’d you do that?”

I’m ready with my story: as a nurse, I have a descrambler that unknits fields just enough for me to pass through.

“I never heard of that!”

“What if you were having a heart attack? How would I treat you?” I don’t tell her the device is the chain bracelet I’m wearing; she might try to rip it right off. “Come on, let’s see.”

Cautiously she places her hand in mine and I pull it toward me, back across the gully, and pretend to inspect her skin as I stoke up the fear I’m going to zing her with. The abnormally large amount of fear I’m able to generate is the reason Packard drafted me into his psychological hit squad, and the reason he could teach me to dump it into other people just by touching them. Later, others from my squad will do the same thing to her, with different emotions. We’re like a demolition team of neurotics.

I focus on one of my triggers: the plastic hospital tray where you put your jewelry before an operation. I feel the panic thicken my throat, speed my pulse. The room goes bright.

I hate this job more every day.

“Can I get one of those? A descrambler?”

“Medical professionals only. Let’s see the other one.”

She extends her other hand toward mine. It occurs to me that this is probably the first time somebody has touched her in years. I feel like such a fiend.