Buddy’s bushy brows bounced up and down a couple of times. “Also heard that the television guy Evelyn used to do some work for is back. Any idea why he’s hanging around?”
“He’s looking for more ideas for his show,” Gwen said, deliberately vague. “He left town a short time ago.” She collected the sack of cat litter, food and eggs. “Thanks, Buddy.”
“You bet.” Buddy exhaled. “Just so damn sad about Evelyn. Really gonna miss her.”
“So will I,” Gwen said.
Seven
Evelyn’s small house was huddled in the trees at the end of the road. The windows were dark, just as they had been that morning when Gwen arrived. She felt the hair lift again on the nape of her neck. A shiver went through her.
Judson eased the SUV to a stop in the drive. He sat quietly for a moment, studying the house. Energy shifted in the atmosphere. The stone in his ring heated a little.
“You feel it, too, don’t you?” she said.
He did not ask her for an explanation.
“Like a shadow over the house,” he said. “You just know something bad happened inside.”
“I knew this morning when I got here, before I even opened the door,” Gwen said.
“Yeah, it usually hits me that way, too.” He paused. “But only if serious violence was involved.”
“Same with me.” She did not take her eyes off the house. “But at least in your business you get to do something constructive. You find justice for the victims.”
“I hate to disillusion you, but most of my consulting work is—was—done for an intelligence agency. Justice wasn’t the objective.”
“What was the objective?”
“Information. I’m good at gathering that.”
She turned her head and gave him a disturbingly insightful look. “But you don’t find it very satisfying, do you?”
He hesitated. “Sometimes I think Mom was right. I should have joined the FBI.”
“So that you could hunt bad guys? But you don’t like to take orders or work as a member of a team. You and the FBI would not have been a good fit.”
“No.” He paused, frowning. “Did Sam tell you about my preference for working alone?”
“No.”
Judson’s irritation was palpable. “You can read that kind of personality trait in an aura?”
“I didn’t get that information from your aura.” She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. “Five minutes in your company was more than enough to reveal that aspect of your character, believe me.”
She jumped down and slammed the car door a little harder than was necessary.
* * *
JUDSON CRACKED OPEN the driver’s-side door and got out. Together they went up the steps, crossed the porch and stopped at the door.
He watched her take the key out of her tote. When she got the door open, he moved into the front hall ahead of her. Energy whispered in the atmosphere, cold and intense. She knew that he had heightened his talent.
“The electricity is still on,” she said. She stepped into the hall behind him and flipped a switch, illuminating the small space. “No need to work in the dark.”
“Which way?”
“Down the hall to your right.”
Judson moved along the hallway. “What happened to the Ballinger study?”
“Evelyn stopped it after the second member of the study group was found dead. She realized that something awful was happening, and she sensed that it was connected to her research.”
“I’m going to want to hear about the three people who died two years ago,” he said. “Especially how you came to find the bodies.”
She had known this was coming, she reminded herself. She was prepared.
“I assumed you would want the details,” she said.
He looked back over his shoulder. “Show me where you found Ballinger’s body.”
“All right, but I think I should show you this picture first.” She took a photo out of her tote and handed it to him. “I found this on the floor beside her this morning. I’m not sure what to make of it but I think it might be important.”
Judson studied the photo. “I recognize you. Who are the others?”
“It’s a group shot of the members of Evelyn’s research study. She kept it thumbtacked to her bulletin board. The fact that it had been ripped off the board and dropped on the floor bothered me for some reason.”
“Ballinger is not in the picture.”
“She was the one who took the photo. Three of the people in that picture are dead. Mary Henderson, the blonde on the left, Ben Schwartz, the man standing next to her, and Zander Taylor. Taylor is the good-looking dark-haired man in the first row.”
“You’re standing next to a serial killer.”
She shuddered. “Don’t remind me. His goal was to take us down in the order in which we were posed in the picture. It was all a game to him. He was annoyed because he had to make me his third target. He said I had interfered with the proper sequence of play.”
Judson’s eyes heated. So did his ring. “He told you that?”
“Shortly before he went over the falls. Yes.”
“All right, we’ll finish this conversation later. Let’s take a look at the scene.”
Gwen kept her talent tamped down so that she would not see the ghost in the mirror. She reached around the corner of the door frame, found the wall switch and flipped it.
Shock lanced through her when she registered the chaos inside the office. Desk drawers and cupboard doors stood open. Books had been swept off the shelves. Files had been pulled out of the metal cabinet and dumped on the floor.
“Good grief,” she whispered, stunned.
“I take it things didn’t look like this when you got here this morning?” Judson said.
“No,” she said. “Someone searched this room sometime after I left today.”
She was already tense and on edge. Her startled response to the scene in the office kicked up her talent. It was an intuitive reaction. Before she could suppress it, she was looking into the mirror.
The ghost appeared in the glass.
“Well, you knew that this was going to get a lot more complicated, didn’t you, dear?” the ghost said. “That’s why you brought along your very own psychic investigator. I must say, he looks interesting. Definitely a high-end talent. I do hope he’s competent.”
“You and me, both,” Gwen said under her breath.