“What are you saying—you want me to arrange for the two of you to have a chat?”
“You don’t have to make it sound so ludicrous.”
“Anwar Kamal was terrifying enough when he was alive. I can’t imagine he was any less horrific as a ghost covered in etheric remoras.”
“Terrifying how?”
“God complex. Devoid of empathy. Borderline sadist. Take your pick.”
“But it’s not like he can actually touch you from across the veil, can he? I thought your talent worked more like a telephone.”
Darla gave me the sort of look she’d normally reserve for Richie. “Channeling is less like a phone call and more like long-distance possession. And unless I’ve got a damn good reason to make contact, I’m not keen on sharing my body with the likes of Kamal. What is it you’re hoping to get from him, anyway?”
The reason Jacob’s initials were in that damn book. Not that I could say as much. Even if I did pull Darla into the loop, if she was this dead-set against channeling Kamal, my actual reasons might not be enough to get her to help me—so I did my best to make it seem like we both had something to gain.
“Aren’t you interested in understanding what happened at Camp Hell?” I asked. “Especially now that we’re all grown up?
“What’s there to understand?”
I thought back to the post-mortem glimpse I’d had of Director Sanchez, strangled in his office. “People died there. And for what?”
Darla blinked rapidly. Her eyeballs looked wet. “Even if we knew what the hell they were hoping to achieve at Heliotrope Station, it wouldn’t bring anyone back, would it?”
Guess she was a lot fonder of Sanchez than I ever was. But before I could figure out how to massage that into a good reason for Darla to conference call with our late doctor, Richie bounded over with an even more excessive coffee-like drink and said, “When the cashier lady bent over to clean it up, I could see right down her top. Heh heh.”
I tried to catch Darla’s eye and exchange a look, but she was lost in thought now. I guess I really didn’t take into account that she’d come through Camp Hell as scarred and embittered as me.
7
I MANAGED TO keep myself from throttling Richie…barely. In terms of the book Darla and I were valiantly attempting to write, he was pretty much useless—but that didn’t mean he served no purpose at all. My hope was that I could bond with Darla over our mutual dislike of the guy. Unfortunately, sharing an exasperated eye-roll is one thing. Allowing someone to puppeteer your body is another.
Darla was at least willing to share her trade secrets with me. We were so different, though, that even armed with her detailed description of long-distance calling, I had no idea how to make it happen. From the sound of it, she put herself into a receptive state. Likely alpha, which I could do with the Mood Blaster app on my phone. And then? She searched…and listened.
That’s where I lost my grasp on the instructions. Not because I’m visual while she’s auditory—after all, I can hear ghosts too. But because there was a key step in the process that was so intangible she couldn’t even articulate what it was.
That vague step was the part where training fell away and psychic talent took over—the switch that flipped when a clairsentient picked up a thought or a telekinetic successfully moved a paper clip. The part where you’d try…and something happened.
Except when it didn’t.
After work, I was anxious and frustrated by the time I pulled up in front of the ATM. Not for pecuniary reasons, either. I had the vague sense that the ghost with the shot-through eye socket was only gone for now, not gone for good. Whether that fear was based in actual evidence, or if I was just spooked about the clumsy way Jacob and I had handled things, hard to say.
I gathered my white light, aided by fear-induced adrenaline, and approached the machine. There was a guy in front of me who seemed none too pleased with my presence. But there are lots of low-level empaths sprinkled throughout the population, and I can only imagine how freaky my energy must feel to them.
But what if he wasn’t empathic? What if he was a low-level medium, and he was reacting not to me, but to the eye-shot mugger?
He shot me a look and scuttled away with his twenty bucks, and I belatedly fumbled out my bank card and keyed in my pin. Part of me was wondering how much I could withdraw without sounding any alarms. And part of me wondered if the shadow on the wall belonged to me, or to a scary dead mugger. But the thing about mediumship is that even someone as tweaked out as me can get things wrong.
Was I cold? Yes. But that could’ve been due to the weather. Once in a while, May seems like it can’t decide whether it’s finally willing to become summer. Did I have that creeping sensation on the back of my neck? Again, yes. But any heebie-jeebies I felt might be nothing more than my limbic system reacting to the memory of the gory ghost, and not its actual presence.
The touchscreen lit up, asking if I wanted a receipt, and I jabbed at it until it reset for the next customer. When I stuffed my money into my pocket, I felt the reassuring bulk of a baggie filled with salt. My mojo sparked and activated the salt crystals, but I didn’t feel drained, not like I did when the spark leapt from me to Jacob. No, I felt augmented. Enhanced. Ready to rumble.
So, naturally, the stupid ghost didn’t show his face.
Maybe the other night, he crossed over.
Yeah, maybe.
Too bad I couldn’t call him long-distance and make sure.
This must be how Jacob felt, having a talent but not the first clue how to use it. They say misery loves company, but I wasn’t so sure. Knowing that I was in the same boat as Jacob only made me more determined to contact Kamal. If only I could power up better, try harder, grasp the knowledge that was always just out of reach.
If only I hadn’t lost that goddamn GhosTV.
While it was true that I’d never long-distanced anyone by its lambent glow, I’d performed several other impressive party tricks that weren’t normally in my repertoire. I discovered habit demons. I saw people’s psychic talents like Halloween masks. I even astral projected. So it stood to reason that somewhere on that dial, there was a setting to help me play telephone.
The TV snatched away by F-Pimp National was history. Even if Laura Kim agreed to lobby for its return, I doubted any of her superiors would listen. But there was one GhosTV still at large…and I had a sneaking suspicion her predecessor knew where it was.
Con Dreyfuss, however, was another ball of wax. One that hadn’t been seen in months.
But there was more than one way to play telephone. Hopefully I could get him a message.
I swung by the cannery and picked up Jacob. My official reason was to invite Crash and Red to the wedding. Red was enthusiastic and supportive about the whole idea. Crash…not so much. While neither Jacob nor I looked forward to telling him we’d finally set the date, we’d both agreed it would be best to do it in person. And since I was already dreading the conversation, why not kill two birds with one stone?
Curious Curios is Crash’s latest business venture. It’s a funky second-hand shop in the back of an antique mall that seems to stretch on approximately forever. You’ve gotta hike through room upon room of displaced junk and horrible hand-me-downs to get there. And he doesn’t even sell metaphysical goods anymore…not officially. But the items that gravitate to him and Red tend toward the artistically spiritual: carvings from Nepal, tapestries from India, and dangly wind chimes that might or might not be made from the bones of long-dead shamans. The place is a riot of color, style and taste, and nothing matches anything else. Yet, somehow, all of it’s been curated and cared for in a way that makes it look like it was styled for a photo shoot in a magazine—a magazine too hip and young for the likes of me.
Come to think about it…did the kids nowadays even read magazines?
I’ve never seen a ghost in the vicinity, but I figured I should be on the lookout, since antiques would be the perfect vessel for a stowaway spirit. Y
ou can’t take it with you, it’s true. But someone with a deep enough obsession might very well try.
We found Crash alone, lounging in a papasan chair, tapping at a laptop in the cradle of his crossed legs. I’ve never been able to sit in those things without throwing out my back, so of course, he made it look effortless. Incense was smoldering, tunes were playing, and he was the picture of purpose and ease. He may never admit to it, but he’s a workaholic of the highest order—even if that work involves posting artsy photos of papasan chairs on social media.
“Two federal agents at once?” he called over as we cleared the threshold. “What is this, a raid?”
It was so much easier back when he sold herbs, and I could pretend I was there to top off my mugwort.
Jacob was more accustomed to verbally sparring with Crash than I was. Plus he was immune to Crash’s empathy. Major advantage. “Maybe we’re shopping.”
“The guy who buys everything brand spanking new—and the guy who then throws it away because he’s afraid of owning anything? Try again.”
Jacob allowed himself to look chagrined, but only somewhat. My anxiety was a low, constant churn. But maybe that was normal for me. “Where’s Red?”
“Rainbow Dharma. Don’t get me wrong, I’m down with everything the group stands for, and I’d gladly have a drink with most anyone there. But a ninety-minute meditation? I’d crawl out of my own skin.”
I was fully aware of Rainbow Dharma’s schedule. I’d been counting on it. Dealing with an empath was bad enough without also having a telepath in the room.
Crash closed his laptop, then pushed a ceramic zodiac platter aside and slid the computer onto a nearby shelf. “If you were hoping for a yoga lesson, we could swing by later tonight.”
“No, it’s not that.” I looked hard at a framed poster for a sideshow “mind reader” from vaudeville days. It pictured a middle-aged white guy in a showy turban. “We’ve been doing some planning, is all….”
Crash squinted at me to see what I was hedging about, and realization dawned. “Wedding planning?”
“We’ve set a date,” Jacob said. “It’s in Wisconsin.”
“Are you inviting me, or trying to make excuses as to why I’m not welcome?”
“Of course you’re welcome,” I snapped—and I didn’t have to fake the spike of annoyance I felt. “You and Red. You know you’re our closest friends.”
“Then why didn’t you just send us an email?” He lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. “Or is this a super-secret affair you’re keeping on the down-low to make sure Big Brother doesn’t find out?”
Jacob said, “We just wanted to deliver the news in person. That’s all.”
I said, “You get that I can count the people I trust on one hand, right? And the ones that are cops have no desire to see me getting hitched to another guy.” As I heard myself speak, I spotted my opening: the one where I could slam-dunk the seed I’d come to plant. “Bad enough I won’t have Lisa there with me. So stop being a dick and say you’ll come.”
“All right, all right, don’t get your panties in a twist. We’ll be there—with bells on.”
Once Crash plugged the date into his laptop, I said, “And no wedding gifts. We mean it.”
“Did you not hear the part where I acknowledged your pathological aversion to material objects? No gifts. Understood. You’ll just have to make do with the pleasure of my company.”
We said our goodbyes and headed to the car before the telepathic half of the couple showed up. Jacob might be a True Stiff, but my mind was an open book. Red might only receive flashes of imagery, but between that and Crash’s empathic advantage, I couldn’t risk the two of them figuring out the main reason for my visit.
“Is there anything you need to tell me?” Jacob asked as we pulled away from the curb.
Crap. I thought I’d been smoother. “Was it obvious?”
“Only once I considered how much you love confrontation, once Crash pointed out that sending an email was way more your style.”
Damn Crash and his perceptive judgement of character. “I miss Lisa, is all. It’s hard to imagine doing this without her.”
“And you think he’s got a way to contact her.”
I shrugged awkwardly. “If not her, then Dreyfuss. He was close to both of them.”
I really did miss Lisa. And if her husband couldn’t tell us what to make of Kamal’s notebook, her sí-no would.
I strongly suspected that as soon as we left, Crash was launching a private chat that began: Get a load of this. So, while it might be underhanded, playing telephone—through Crash—was my best shot at calling in psychic reinforcements.
8
WE WERE DUE to Skype with Pastor Jill, so we grabbed some takeout and ate it in the car on the way home. Not because we were in danger of being late, but because we had so much work to do. While Dr. Kamal’s notebook was a pivotal piece of evidence…it was becoming clear that it wasn’t going to decode itself.
Since Jacob and I have a combined experience of nearly thirty years investigating the kind of crap everyone tries to keep buried—and especially since we’ve each had high-level training at the hands of both the Chicago PD and the FPMP—you’d think the two of us could figure out what Kamal’s notes actually meant.
Apparently not.
Obviously, I wasn’t expecting anything along the lines of, Dear Diary, here is my super-secret mad scientist plot in a hundred words or less. But the pages were cryptic to say the least. Charts. Figures. Scientific notations. Jacob had a couple of science classes in college. I had less than that, just a few continuing education workshops in basic forensics.
And as family trees went, the records were spotty. Barbara was missing. Uncle Leon, too.
Oh, and did I mention that some of the notes were in freaking Arabic?
And that Arabic has umpteen dialects?
We knew this because we actually watched a YouTube intro to the language…and immediately realized that neither of us stood a frozen cadaver’s chance in hell at learning Arabic well enough to translate squat.
Even more daunting—some pages were missing. But Jacob’s page was still there, and the initials, at least, were in standard English letters.
Every code has its key. If we could crack just one more set of initials near Jacob’s, it would allow us to start tracking down commonalities that person might share with him. Like what? Teachers with unconventional methods involving flash cards that weren’t technically part of the curriculum. Family friends who resurfaced every few years and took unusual interest in the kids. Guidance counselors who were a little too eager to push them into Psych-related fields.
Unfortunately, his parents and grandparents were the only other sets of initials we’d managed to work out.
Them, and Alex Warwick. Yes, his initials were there, like the Sarge promised—crossed out with a single line, and a date of death beside them—but they told us nothing. And Jacob’s appeared on an entirely different page.
Not only was making sense of those notes painstaking and unsatisfying research, but we were doing it all behind our boss’s back.
Laura Kim might be pretty keen on me, but her relationship with Jacob was complicated. Jacob had accused her of murdering Roger Burke. And while she was probably better off knowing she’d been possessed than remaining blissfully unaware, when Jacob accused her, he’d demonstrated exactly how far he’ll go when he thinks he’s right.
At some point, we might very well need to concede that we’d hit a dead end and entrust the notebook to The Fixer, who could put her top cryptographers on building an algorithm to identify all the initials and have the Arabic translated by the end of the day. This book was Jacob’s albatross, though, not mine—therefore, it was his call. I’d set aside the pursuit of my own permanent record for the time being, since the bits and pieces I’d managed to unearth were so redacted they were useless. But on his own history, Jacob was nowhere near ready to admit defeat.
The notebook had
become the bane of our existence, so it was with some eagerness that we sat down to the pile of papers we’d brought back from Wisconsin instead. Since you never know who might drop by, we’d set up our war room in the basement. Now that I knew the whole story of my old apartment with the baby in the basement—that it was basically a tragic accident—I wasn’t so spooked by basements anymore. Or, more accurately, I was more worried about the feds catching me sticking my nose where it didn’t belong than I was about spending time underground.
There was a narrow room behind some long-retired canning equipment—we think it was originally used for storing fruit. A good once-over with a shop vac, a coat of white paint and a powerful space heater had left it tolerably comfortable, though it had no modern light fixtures, and long extension cords served in place of outlets.
This odd, whitewashed bunker housed all of our research. A dedicated laptop with no wifi. A backup hard drive. A safe full of notes. If FPMP National ever decided to see what we were up to, they’d uncover our secret hidey hole in no time flat. But the casual visitor would have no reason to stumble across it. Not unless they decided to work out in Jacob’s basement home gym and then throw in a load of laundry.
Jacob hauled out the box he’d brought back from his parent’s place. It seemed doubtful to me there was anything he could hope to find, but he was still smarting from the ATM ghost fiasco, so I figured I should keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.
There were report cards from as far back as first grade—apparently Jacob needed to “apply himself” but was otherwise bright. There was a local recipe book with unvarnished critiques of several recipes penciled in the margins by Shirley. And there was a photo of a pre-adolescent Jacob in a Boy Scout uniform. But no helpful photos with men in black creeping around in the background spying on Jacob for a secret government experiment.
I was flipping through a family photo album, marveling at how Jacob was the spitting image of his father thirty years ago, when I realized Jacob had stopped shuffling papers some while back. I glanced up and found him with his drugstore cheaters perched on his nose, scowling hard at a sheet of stationery. “What is it?” I asked. Because from where I was sitting, it looked like it was covered in cursive. “Is it something about Kamal?”
Other Half (PsyCop book 12) Page 5
