“What did you say?” Judson asked.
“Nothing.” She dragged her attention away from the mirror, lowered her senses and looked at him. “Talking to myself. I do that sometimes. Bad habit.” She swept a hand out to indicate the overturned office. “What happened here?”
“I’ll go out on a limb here and say that it sure looks like someone was searching for something he expected to find in Evelyn’s office.”
“No kidding.” She paused, frowning. “Maybe the killer didn’t find whatever he was after on her computer so he came back to take another look.”
“I don’t think so.” Judson prowled deliberately through the office, stopping briefly to brush his fingertips across the top of the desk. “I think we’re dealing with someone else. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection between the second person and the killer, though.”
“What makes you think that there was a second person here?”
“There’s a lot of desperation and growing rage in this space. Whoever conducted the search started out with a high level of urgency and left in a frustrated fury.”
Gwen was fascinated. “You can sense all that?”
“Sure,” Judson said, “providing the emotions were laid down with a lot of intense energy as they were in this case. It’s what I do, Gwen.”
“All right, let’s think about this. If there was a second intruder, maybe he was searching for whatever was on the computer or the cell phone, in which case he didn’t find it because the killer got to the information first.”
“That’s a reasonable assumption.” Judson crouched on the floor and shuffled through the folders that had been dumped on the carpet. “Some of these files go back thirty years.”
“I told you, Evelyn devoted her life to the study of the paranormal. But in the end, she was never able to prove anything to mainstream science.”
Judson opened several folders and examined the contents. “Looks like most of her research was focused on dreams.”
“Much of it was, yes. That’s why she and I became so close. I met Evelyn when I was in high school at the Summerlight Academy. She was a counselor there, the only one who really understood my psychic side. My aura vision is linked to my lucid-dreaming ability.”
“Yeah?”
She flushed, remembering how bad things had gone that night in Seattle when she had made the mistake of offering to fix his dark dreams.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “It’s complicated, believe me.”
“I believe you.” Judson got to his feet with the languid grace of a tiger. “You and Ballinger stayed in touch after you left Summerlight?”
“Yes.” She watched Judson move through the room. “Well? What do you think? Did Evelyn die of natural causes because of the shock of a random home invasion? Or was she murdered?”
Judson stopped in the vicinity of the space where Gwen had found Evelyn’s body. Energy heated the atmosphere.
“She was murdered,” he said quietly. “No question about it.”
Gwen thought she was prepared for that answer. It was the same conclusion that she had arrived at that morning. Nevertheless, Judson’s matter-of-fact certainty made her catch her breath.
“By paranormal means?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Damn, just like last time.” Gwen made fists with her hands. “I was hoping I was wrong.”
Judson did not respond to that. Instead, he did another short circuit of the room and stopped again near the desk.
“What?” she asked. “I can tell that something isn’t coming together for you.”
Judson met her eyes. “Ballinger died here, where I’m standing. But I’m almost positive that the killer was not physically close to her when she died. He was standing over there, near the door.”
“Oh, crap, are you sure?”
He gave her a politely patient look. “Analyzing crime scenes is what I do, Gwen.”
“Yes, I know. Sorry, it’s just that—never mind. I think I see where you’re going with this.”
“In my experience, it takes a very strong talent to overwhelm another person’s aura and stop the heart,” Judson said. “I’ve met very, very few psychics who can generate that much firepower and even fewer who can focus their talent so that it can be used as a lethal weapon. In those rare situations, the killer almost always needs to have physical contact with the victim. But there are exceptions.”
A chill feathered her senses. “Yes, I know. You think that whoever murdered Evelyn used a paranormal weapon of some kind, don’t you?”
“That’s the only explanation that works for this scenario. According to what Sam and his lab techs have discovered, psi-based weapons have to be used at fairly close range. They aren’t very powerful or accurate beyond a range of about twenty feet.”
Gwen took a long breath and let it out slowly, with control. “I’ve heard the Coppersmith R-and-D lab does research in that field.”
“Paranormal weapons have other limitations, as well. They can only be activated by someone who possesses some talent. And if they are crystal-based technology, they have to be tuned to the wavelengths of the individual who intends to use it. There are other issues, as well. Naturally occurring crystals that can be weaponized are extremely rare. Sam has tried growing them under lab conditions, but he’s had only limited success.”
Gwen wrapped her arms around herself. “Still, such weapons do exist.”
Judson met her eyes across the room. “You sound like you’ve had some personal experience.”
“Two years ago Zander Taylor used a paranormal weapon to murder Mary and Ben.”
Judson frowned. “Are you certain of that?”
“Yes,” she said. “Because he tried to use it on me, too. Now it looks like Evelyn has been killed in the same way. It’s as if Zander Taylor has come back from the grave and brought his damned camera with him.”
“What camera?”
“That’s what his dreadful device looked like, a small camera. Just point and shoot.”
Judson watched her for a long moment.
“How did you escape?”
“We were in the lab. There’s a great deal of energy in that place. Something went very wrong when Zander tried to use his camera. The device sort of exploded, I think.”
Judson gave her a politely skeptical look. “Sort of exploded?”