Valdis chose that moment to begin a chant in her own voice. “Go now, go back to the hell you created,” she shouted. “Take your greed and your pride, leave us this earth we weregiven.”
Walker’s hackles rose,and he increased his stride, pushing pastHarvey.
“She’s praying,” Harvey offered. “She hears dead people, if you want to put it like that. It sounds as if she’s talking to one she knows, but she never explains, so we can onlyguess.”
“He shot me,” Valdis shouted in a deeper, differentvoice.
Harvey cursed louder and followed after Walker, beating at the bushes to warn thesnakes.
“I’m guessing she’s not praying now?” Walker said wryly, leaping from rock to rock. For one insane moment, he wondered if Valdis might be channeling hisfather.
“She may have a broken ankle,” Sam called back in the voice of sanity. Walker wafted another... normal... prayer to the powers thatbe.
“They have all thedinero, the easy job, and I lived in a hovel!” Itwas Valdis speaking, but in a gruff voice with a slightaccent.
“Juan,” Harvey said in horror. “She’s channelingJuan.”
“Sam, ask who shot Juan,” Walker called. Not that he believed Val was channeling ghosts so much as voices in her head, but he needed the distraction to keep his mind focused as he looked for safe places to put hisboots.
He could hear her more clearly, sothey were gettingcloser.
“Who shot you?” Sam asked, as if she were sitting in an interrogation room talking to a damnedghost.
“That freak Francois told his boyfriend,” the sepulchral voice shouted furiously. “How could I know he was listening? It was a privateconversation!”
“Did Francois shoot you?” Sam asked in a carefully neutralvoice.
“He got the gun! No waythat sleaze would have one. The Kennedys ought to pay!” the weird voicecried.
Walker’s hackles rose even more. He was almost as reluctant as Harvey to climb higher. This was worse than watching some weird horror film. He expected a twirling puppet head or a flying doll to appear any moment. But Sam was up there—he had to reachSam.
“They get away with murder, they should pay,” thevoice continuedangrily.
“Who did the Kennedys murder?” Sam asked in genuinepuzzlement.
Walker climbed faster. Was Valdis a danger when she was hallucinating likethis?
Hell, yes. He just had to pray she didn’t have a gun. But she was strong, stronger thanSam.
Heart in throat, he lengthened his stride, while Harvey beat the shrubs with hisstick.
