“So you keep your ass with the group, Doc,” Garland told her. “No more sitting on coolers off by your lonesome.”
Charlie didn’t even glance his way.
“We’ve been through the crowds,” Kaminsky said. “If he’s here, we’re missing him.”
“He’s here,” Charlie repeated with certainty.
“We need to cross-reference,” Tony said. “Kaminsky, when we get back—”
“I’m on it,” Kaminsky said before he could finish.
Crane joined them. “According to the victim’s body temperature, the ME estimates time of death at around four a.m.”
Charlie knew that after death the human body cooled by about one degree per hour. Of course, the heat of the sand would have complicated the calculation, but any competent ME would have taken that into account.
“She wasn’t killed here, which means that after four a.m. the unsub transported the body here. Then he had to bury it without anyone seeing him. It would have taken him at least half an hour to dig that hole, and he would have done it while it was still dark,” Tony said.
Kaminsky whipped out her iPhone and pressed a button. A moment later she had what she wanted. “The sun rose at five thirty-seven this morning.” She looked at Tony. “Wherever he killed her had to have been within about a half an hour’s drive of here.”
“He not only had to bury the body before dawn, but he had to be near enough to get back here quickly when the body was discovered, without knowing precisely when that would be.” Charlie’s mind raced. “So he has some sort of a shelter within about half an hour’s drive, and I’m guessing that’s where he keeps the victims. Something in an RV park, maybe, or a campground. Something mobile.”
“I’ll have the local guys get a list of nearby facilities.” Tony picked up his cell phone and started texting.
“You want my two cents, I’d say he’s listening to a police radio or scanner,” Garland said.
Charlie looked at him, momentarily surprised that he’d even felt motivated to contribute, much less that the contribution had been useful. Then she remembered that she was the only one who could see or hear him, dragged her eyes away, and repeated the observation to the others.
Kaminsky frowned at her. “You saying you think it’s a cop?”
“Anybody can have a police scanner,” Tony reminded them. He had finished with his text, and Charlie presumed that local FBI agents were now scrambling to identify any RV parks or campgrounds in the vicinity, and check them out.
“He’s a narcissist. He’s watching what we’re doing right now. He’s been following the investigation through the media. It makes sense that he’d have a police scanner. He shows up whenever the bodies are discovered, and that’s how he knows.” Charlie was thinking aloud. “And so far nobody has noticed him. He could be a cop. Or a reporter.” She grimaced. “Or just an ambulance chaser. But whoever he is, he’s here, and he blends in.” Even as she spoke, she swept another look around. He was there, she could feel it, and yet she couldn’t spot him.
The knowledge was both frustrating and terrifying.
“We’re wasting time here. Let’s get going.” Tony held a hand down to Charlie. “Need some help?”
“He’s here,” she said one more time, scanning as much of the crowd as she could see. “Right here with us.”
“Since we don’t know who we’re looking for, the best thing we can do is go back and compare today’s video with video from the dances.” The very reasonableness of Tony’s voice told Charlie that he was feeling the frustration of it, too. “Whoever is in all those places makes our suspect hit parade.”
It made sense, and Charlie knew it. Still, knowing the killer was there and not being able to identify him was a bitter pill that she was finding hard to swallow. Taking Tony’s hand, she let him pull her to her feet, then smiled her thanks at him. All the while, she was supremely conscious of Garland’s narrowed eyes on them. It was obvious he didn’t much like what he was seeing. Charlie was mad at herself because she even noticed.
What do I care what he thinks anyway?
Answer: I don’t. This is not a relationship, and he is not a man. And even if he were a man this wouldn’t be a relationship.
They were moving away toward the parking lot when Charlie glanced around again and saw that the coroner’s assistants were pushing the gurney with Bayley Evans’ body on it toward the van. The procession was almost abreast of them. Nobody had yet covered the girl with a sheet.
Charlie knew this because she looked. It was automatic, instinctive, and a mistake. Her heart lurched. Her chest tightened and her throat ached.
“Jesus,” Garland muttered. Charlie realized that he was beside her and staring at Bayley Evans’ body, too. Serial killers did not have the right to look sickened at another serial killer’s atrocity, she thought with a sudden burst of fury, and shot him a look of loathing.
“What?” He caught her look. It took him only a second to correctly interpret it. His face tightened. “You really think I’d do something like that to a woman?”
Charlie didn’t answer. There were too many people around.
But if she had answered, the only thing she could have said was Yes.
Because there was no way she was foolish enough to let her heart override what she knew.
Sometime before they reached the SUV, she realized that Garland had disappeared.
On the way back to Kill Devil Hills, everybody was out of sorts and snappy, Charlie included. The local FBI called back: two campgrounds and an RV park existed near Jockey’s Ridge, but a search had yielded nothing suspicious. After that, nobody felt like eating; Crane ordered a pizza anyway. While he and Kaminsky went into the house to wait for the delivery person to arrive, Charlie reluctantly told Tony that she needed to go back to the Meads’ for just a minute. It was after ten p.m., they were all exhausted, disheartened, and weighed down with failure and sorrow for Bayley Evans, but there was something she needed to do and she wasn’t about to go out in the dark alone. Tony gave her a long look, but didn’t ask questions, which was one of the things she truly liked about him. Instead, he escorted her over to the Meads’ house.
This time, one of the two cops in the car out front had a key. She’d already told Tony that she needed to go upstairs alone, so he waited in the living room with the officers while she trudged up the stairs.
Now that there was no more need for Julie Mead to cling to earth, Charlie meant to help her go home.
However, when she reached the master bedroom, Julie Mead was not there. Charlie called her, softly, but got no answer. She also didn’t feel the least bit sick to her stomach, which was what finally convinced her that the spirit was truly gone.
A glance in Trevor’s bedroom told her that it was empty, too. What Garland had said he’d seen—Trevor’s father coming for him—apparently was true.
Not that she didn’t trust Garland’s word, but for Trevor’s sake she’d wanted to make sure.
I hope Bayley and her family are all together somewhere.
The deep sadness she felt for them was oppressive. Her heart ached. And the worst part about it was, this dubious gift she had been given hadn’t changed a thing.
“So when were you planning to tell me that you’ve got some psychic ability?” As Tony escorted her back over the boardwalk between the two houses, he asked the question in such a casual tone, it took Charlie a second to process what he was saying.
Then she stopped dead, which meant he had to stop walking, too. He was beside her, and her hand was tucked companionably into his elbow. They were close enough so that when she looked sharply up at him, she should have been able to read his expression. But it was very dark, with the moon and stars almost completely obscured by a bank of heavy black clouds that had blown in over the last hour. The air smelled of rain to come, and the crash of the waves hitting the shore promised a storm.
She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, because his face was deep in shadow.
/> But all of a sudden she knew where that question had come from, and she pulled her hand free of his arm.
“You got that from the background check, right?” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it earlier: of course that’s why he’d never really questioned how she knew what she knew.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you ask me about it before?”
“I was waiting for you to tell me.”
“What, that I see dead people?” Angry, she resumed walking toward the house.
He fell in beside her. “Do you?”
She jerked a look up at him. “Yes. Sometimes. Not that it ever does anybody any good.”
He caught her arm, pulled her to a stop. “It’s not your fault we weren’t able to save Bayley Evans.”
She gave a bitter little laugh. “Isn’t it?”
“No.”
Then, to Charlie’s surprise, he bent his head and kissed her. It was a hard kiss, thorough, plenty of tongue. After the first moment of shock, she slid her hand behind his head and kissed him back. Her body reacted with a tingling warmth that told her there absolutely was promise in there somewhere.
What her body didn’t do was melt or burn. No fireworks went off against her closed lids. Her world did not rock. All her preconceptions about herself and men did not shatter.
But still, it was a very nice kiss.
When he lifted his head, though, Charlie was annoyed to discover she was feeling a tad cranky.
“So what was that about?” she asked, striving to keep the crankiness out of her tone.
She thought he was studying her face, but again, it was too dark to really be sure. “I wanted to get it out of the way.”
Okay, cranky was definitely happening. Nothing she could do. “Oh, goody. I like your motivation. You want to tell me why you wanted to get it out of the way?” She pulled free and started walking again.
He laughed, and caught up. “You came to us on a temporary basis. I want to make it permanent.”
Whatever she had been expecting, that was not it. “What?”
“I’m offering you a job. Come be a permanent part of our team. Between the psychological insights and the psychic stuff, you’re unique. You’ll give us a weapon in this war against the monsters out there that we’ve never had before.”
Charlie frowned at him. “Which means you kissed me because …?”
“I wanted to, and I don’t kiss people I work with. If you accept the job, and I’m hoping you will, our relationship is strictly professional from here on out.”
“That’s certainly an incentive.” She couldn’t quite keep the tartness out of her voice.
He grinned. “Ouch.” Then his tone turned serious. “This is life-and-death work we’re doing, Charlie. You could be a vital part of it.”
They had almost reached the house. Through the gentle veil of the screening on the porch, Charlie could see Kaminsky standing in the lighted doorway holding a pizza box. The red-shirted delivery guy was just leaving. She watched him walk around the side of the house until the RV blocked him from her view.
“You three are based out of Quantico, right? I’d have to relocate.” Charlie thought of her house in the mountains.
“You’d probably find it more convenient.”
“And I’d have to give up my research.”
“On the upside, you’d help catch a lot of bad guys. Which would save a lot of lives.”
That was something, she had to admit. “I have to think about it,” she said, and he nodded.
They walked inside in time to hear Kaminsky say, “When a person dies, it’s like they just drop their bodies. Then they step into a new one.”
“When a person dies,” Crane replied, sounding like he was talking through his teeth and making Charlie think the discussion had been going on for some time, “they enter into eternal rest. Until Judgment Day.”
“You are so—” Kaminsky began witheringly, only to break off as she spotted Charlie and Tony. “Pizza,” she said to them in a different, brighter tone.
Charlie shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I’ll just go on up to bed.”
Tony followed her to the foot of the stairs. “Let me know, okay?”
Looking past him to where Kaminsky and Crane were both regarding them with identical speculative looks, Charlie gave him a wry smile. “I will.”
Then she went upstairs. As soon as she stepped through the door to her darkened apartment, she noticed two things: the TV was on, although she had left it turned off, and Garland was there, big as life and looking just as substantial, standing in the doorway between the living room and the bedroom. As she closed and locked the door behind her, he propped one broad shoulder against the wall and folded his arms over his chest.
From the straight set of his mouth and the glint in his eyes, Charlie realized that she was looking at one pissy ghost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Charlie’s immediate thought was that Garland must have witnessed Tony’s kiss, and not liked what he had seen. That straightened her spine and made her pissy, too. She didn’t owe him any explanations, and he had absolutely no right to object to anything she chose to do.
No right to spy on her, either.
She wanted, badly, to blast him for it. What stopped her was the fact that she was not one hundred percent sure he had seen her kissing Tony, and that kissing in general was not a subject she wanted to discuss with him at the moment.
The knowledge that what had happened between them last night hadn’t been a dream was still fresh enough to make her squirm.
“If you’ll get out of my way, I’m going to bed” is what she said. Her tone was icy. She had a feeling her eyes were hostile, but it was dark except for the bluish light emanating from the TV, which meant he probably couldn’t tell.
He straightened, and stepped out of the hallway into the living room so that she could walk past him.
She did, ignoring him ostentatiously. Of course he followed her.
She whipped around, pointed a finger at him. “Stop right there.”
He stopped. He was still in the hall. She was at the threshold of the bedroom. The room behind her was as dark as a cave. Because of the light behind him, he was a tall, broad-shouldered, should-have-been-intimidating silhouette.
Only she wasn’t intimidated one bit.
“For the rest of the time you’re here, the bedroom is off-limits,” she informed him tightly. “The bathroom, too. They’re mine. You can use the living room.”
“Ain’t that a treat.” His low voice had a growly quality. “You owe me some ju-ju, Doc.”
She knew what he was talking about: something to keep him here.
“I don’t owe you anything. I told you I’d try, and I did. If the sea salt didn’t work, you’re shit out of luck.” Turning her back on him, she marched into the bedroom and turned on the bedside lamp. As soon as her eyes landed on the bed, still rumpled from the restless night she had passed, she realized that heading to the bedroom had probably been a mistake, because it instantly brought to mind last night’s dream-that-wasn’t.
“Does kissing somebody always make you this bitchy?”
She whipped around again, bristling with temper. He was standing inside her bedroom looking like he was spoiling for a fight. His eyes were narrowed, his face hard, and dark energy rolled off him in waves.
The problem with having this particular fight was that she wasn’t completely sure which kiss he was referring to, the one she had shared with Tony or the one—all right, many—she had shared with him. Come to think of it, though, it didn’t really matter. She didn’t want to talk about any of them.
“Get out of my bedroom,” she snapped. “Right now.”
He smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. In fact, there was a time when she would have said it was downright dangerous.
Now it just made her mad.
“Make me,” he said, and because she knew she couldn’t, except by using the sage and the candle and
she wasn’t going to try that again even if she could get it set up and get him in position for it, which she knew wasn’t going to happen ever again in this eternity, she picked up a pillow from her bed and heaved it at him.
The thing about it was she was a dead shot. She hit him smack in the chest. And it went right through him, to land on the floor behind him.
He gave her a taunting look. It made her so mad she threw the second pillow at him, with the same result.
He laughed. Then he said, very softly, “Maybe you ought to try calling Tony for help,” and she knew he had indeed seen the kiss.
The look she shot him should have singed his eyeballs. “You have no business spying on me.”
“I was keeping an eye on you. Because it doesn’t suit my plans for you to get your pretty throat slit. Who knew you and your boyfriend would start going at it out there in the dark? Next time, give me a heads-up, and I’ll make myself scarce.”
“You won’t be around next time. Because in about three days or less, you’ll be gone. Poof. Bye-bye.” She said that last with defiant relish and a little wave.
His eyes narrowed. His voice mocked. “Didn’t look like Tony turned you on all that much. Want me to give him some pointers?”
Charlie could feel her face starting to heat.
“Go to hell,” she snarled.
He smiled at her. “Not if I can help it.”
Then he turned and walked out of the bedroom. Past fury, she hurled the last remaining pillow, a round decorative one, after him. It bounced off the hall wall.
From somewhere in the vicinity of the living room, he laughed.
Seething, Charlie took a shower and went to bed. The shower was an awkward affair, because the last thing she wanted was to be caught naked by him, and she certainly wouldn’t put it past the rat bastard to pop up at the most embarrassing possible moment. She had to maneuver with towels, her robe, etc., so that she was nude for as brief a period as possible. Then she practically yanked a nightgown over her head and jumped into bed. In the end, of course, probably simply because she was prepared for him not to, he left her alone.
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