Until the priest appeared in the doorway in front of Jacob.
I grabbed the back of Jacob’s jacket and white light jumped between us.
The priest flashed utterly solid and lifelike, but only for a moment. When I found my equilibrium, he was insubstantial and jittery. “I know what I did was unconscionable!” he said.
Jacob, however, felt like he was cracking with power. “Don’t blast him,” I snapped. “He’s talking.”
Jacob cocked his head as if he might hear. Unfortunately, he’d need to listen through me.
The priest was distraught. “I had no good choices. We study those problems in seminary, but the real world is exponentially more complicated.”
“You were in cahoots with Kamal?”
“He was very convincing! His father was on a team that dismantled landmines in the second World War—and Dr. Kamal carried on his late father’s work. There was nothing wrong with his methods…not at first. But we were still at war.”
“With who?”
“Take your pick! Russia, China, North Korea. They’re all a massive threat to our very way of life—and they’re all training psychics of their own. It was a question of the greatest good for the greatest number. Just a few families were involved—and no real harm came to any of them.”
“No real harm,” I repeated.
“They intermarried voluntarily. Look, we all need to make sacrifices. And sometimes that means getting off your theological high horse and making the best of a bad situation.”
Bad enough to kill yourself over? “This Director Mann—suicide or murder?”
“He took his own life. God rest his soul.”
“You crossed him over, didn’t you?” Damn it. That meant the only answers I could hope to get were from this half-degraded holy roller. “What did he do?”
“One of the original group passed away—cancer took her—and Dr. Kamal wanted to study her body. She was a devout woman who would never have consented to such a thing. Dr. Mann falsified her records. The family challenged them—and he got caught.”
“So Mann forged some signatures,” I said. “What did you do?”
“I did nothing.”
“Sure. And that’s why you’re in purgatory.”
That got his attention.
The ghost flickered jaggedly, then solidified for just a moment and with great sorrow, said, “Dr. Kamal violated the sanctity of life…and I did nothing while he played God.”
“What violation? Surgeries? Drugs?”
“No, nothing like that!”
“Then what?”
“Eugenics. And I did nothing to stop him.”
They say confession is good for the soul. The problem with Catholics is that they think they can do whatever they want, and the minute they fess up to it, all is forgiven. For someone who believed condoms were a sin, eugenics had to be a major offense. And yet, once his big confession was off his chest, the priestly ghost made himself scarce. Whether for now or for good, I couldn’t say. But it was pretty clear we’d get no more answers tonight.
“The priest is gone,” I told Jacob, but I suspected he already knew. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet. Instead of his usual armchair quarterbacking, he’d been listening. Or focusing. Or whatever sense it was that connected him to his elusive talent.
“What did he have to say for himself?”
“Pretty much what you’d expect. Not my fault. Just going along with the program.”
Not a particularly satisfying answer. Especially after the amount of effort we put into getting it.
We took the stairs down two by two and found Barbara scrutinizing the drone by the light of her cell phone. “The plastic is a little scuffed. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
We all turned and headed toward the cars. As we picked our way through the nearly-dark woods by our flashlight beams, Jacob let Barbara pull ahead, then leaned in and whispered, “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to grab the light—”
“Never mind, it wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who grabbed you. It was the priest. He popped up right in your path…and for the record, we don’t look that much alike.”
“Right when your light hit me—for that initial burst of energy—I got gooseflesh all over. I swear, I could feel him.” Him, and a bunch of etheric dust bunnies. “What did he say?”
“Some rationalization about choosing the lesser of two evils….” The word eugenics felt too big for this conversation. “And not a whole hell of a lot else.”
Up ahead, Barbara called, “Would you guys put a move on?”
Urgently, Jacob said, “Listen—I want you to drive back with my sister.”
An hour alone in the car with Barbara? My stomach sank. “Why?”
“To make sure Father Paul hasn’t followed us home. Barbara wasn’t on Kamal’s list. She’d be easier to stick to than I would.”
Since Father Paul was a crossover ghost, it was unlikely he’d stray from the hospital. But if riding with his sister made Jacob feel better, fine. It took a few minutes for me to catch up with Barbara, and all the while, I did my best to refill my tank with white light. I’m not sure if etheric fatigue is an actual thing, or if it’s my physical and emotional resources that dwindle. Either way, I had to buck up and hold the light as best I could. I’d hate to learn the hard way that the priest decided to leave his post after all.
Barbara was surprised I wanted to drive back together, but when I fed her a line about wanting to double-check our to-do list with her, she seemed to buy it.
Once I actually looked at our docket, I could see why. Between our final meeting with Pastor Jill, our rescheduled manicure and our bachelor party, we’d need to stick to our timetable.
Still, there was only so much to discuss. We fell into an easy enough silence with nearly forty-five minutes to go, with me focused on my white light levels and Barbara watching the road. The moon was out, the deer were scarce, and the radio was playing innocuous pop songs.
I’d relaxed, figuring I was home free, when Barbara turned down the radio and said, “It was funny seeing Sacred Heart all boarded up like that.”
Also funny how I’d forgotten that Barbara had Sacred Heart memories too. “I’ll bet.”
“Mostly, I only went inside to use the restrooms—except the one year I tore my arm open on a chain link fence and needed stitches. The walls were such a funny shade of green and the whole place smelled medicinal. But compared to the carnival outside where it was hot and humid and full of these annoying little gnats, it felt so cool and quiet in there.” She shivered. “I guess it still is.”
I didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t seem like she was expecting much of a response. We drove on, with the trees on either side of the road so high they nearly formed a tunnel, and road curving out in front of us in the headlights.
“I met Derrick just inside those front doors.”
“Your ex?” I’m not sure why that would surprise me—obviously, she had to have met the guy somewhere. But that somewhere being a location where the chaplain was complicit in some sort of psychic scandal didn’t bode well.
I said, “You don’t need to talk about him if you don’t want to.” It was a cheap ploy I’d learned for my undercover work—but it worked especially well with contrary subjects.
Contrary…and stubborn.
“I was barely twelve, and Derrick was starting high school, so it was hardly love at first sight—not on his part, at least. I thought he was so mature and self-assured—and he wasn’t much older than Clayton is now. I couldn’t wait to see him the next year—but then that was the year the whole thing shut down.”
“So how did you end up reconnecting?”
“At the Catholic church. I used to go whenever I stayed over at Grandma Marks’s house. I can’t imagine why everyone thought I was so pious! I just wanted to see Derrick.”
Maybe Barbara’s parents had been fooled…but I somehow doubted her grandmother was in the dark.
“Once we
got married, the first few months were like a dream come true. We bought a four-bedroom house, honeymooned in Hawaii, and even got a rescue dog. Scooter. He was such a great dog.” She trailed off as she lapsed into memory.
It was tempting to prompt her—forget about the dog, what’s the deal with Derrick? But that same undercover work that had showed me how to steer a conversation also taught me that sometimes the best response is none at all.
A few miles up the road, Barb picked up her story again. “You know how some new mothers have postpartum depression? Sometimes I swear that was Derrick. We had this wonderful life—a storybook life—and one day he up and says, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ And by the end of the week, he was gone.”
“Men are…strange.”
“Tell me about it. I figured he was seeing someone on the side—I was still carrying a lot of baby weight, not that that’s any kind of excuse, but it would’ve at least been a reason. But he’s never remarried. I would never ask him, myself, but he’s been chatting with Clayton once a month ever since the kid could talk, so I get the inside scoop on my ex whether I want it or not. It wasn’t money problems. It wasn’t an affair. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ That’s the only reason I ever got.”
“That sucks.”
Barbara sighed. “Yeah. It really does.”
31
THE THING ABOUT hanging all your hopes on a ghostly confession is that dead people have an unfortunate knack of talking about everything except the facts you need to know. Father Paul thought he was sacrificing a few kids to save the rest of the country from the Red Menace. But that still didn’t help us figure out how Jacob’s talent was actually supposed to work.
I’d filled Jacob in on the conversation as best I could remember. And we were both more than a little surprised to have the eugenics allegations that landed Andy Parsons in the woodchipper corroborated by someone else. Partly because we’d presumed Andy was a screwup, partly because Jacob was the one on the roster, and not me.
The next day, as we sipped our early-morning coffee at his parents’ kitchen table, I hazarded my best guess as to what it all meant. “Plenty of covert psychic research was going on even before the Ganzfeld Report blew the field wide open. Mostly an attempt to train our guys as remote viewers and use them for espionage.”
Jacob frowned. “But remote viewing is basically some sort of long-distance clairvoyance, right? We both know full well how they test for that sort of thing. Matching cards. Naming colors. Drawing pictures. If anything like that happened to me, I would remember.”
As someone who’d had big hunks of his adolescence erased, I wasn’t so sure. But Jacob was upset enough as it was without me giving him something more to doubt. And anyway, if Dr. Kamal had been hoping to breed himself a human shield, I shuddered to think what that testing process might involve.
Jacob fiddled with his coffee mug. “Every time I feel like we’re closing in on an answer, we get nothing but more run-around. Why wouldn’t Father Paul give you any details about what they were testing for?”
“Too busy trying to exonerate himself?”
“Or maybe he didn’t know. Back then, the six-talent, seven-level system didn’t exist, and everything fell under the blanket term of ‘psychic.’ Think about it, though. If everyone else was training up remote viewers, it would make sense to try and counter their telepathy with a True Stiff.”
Made sense…on paper. But the way the etheric pond scum reacted to Jacob when he was full of mojo—hell, the way the dead priest reacted, too—it seemed shielding wasn’t the only tool in my future husband’s toolbox.
Bad enough Jacob was secretly bred by Kamal to be a psychic.
What if the aim wasn’t to create a psychic shield…but a psychic weapon?
If I went particularly quiet trying to un-think that thought, Jacob didn’t notice.
It was one thing to learn to handle a weapon. Most cops I know hope they’ll never need to pull that trigger. But being the weapon? I couldn’t even imagine a scenario where Jacob’s self-image survived intact. The fact that he had the healthiest ego of anyone I knew only made it that much worse.
I did my best to put it from my mind. There’d be no time to delve into it now anyway. We had a full docket, starting with our final premarital counseling session.
At the church, Pastor Jill greeted us with a warm smile. “All ready for your big day tomorrow?”
“Here’s hoping,” I said.
“It wouldn’t be a wedding if everything went to plan. Some people find weddings to be as stressful as funerals.” Probably not psychic mediums, but I took her point. “For our last session, I thought we’d work on communication skills—because it’s a lot easier to handle a stressful situation with clear and honest communication.”
Jacob and I sank down next to one another on the love seat. “Let’s talk about assertiveness,” Pastor Jill said.
My face must’ve telegraphed exactly how I felt about that, because she turned all her attention on me. “No two people express themselves in exactly the same way, Vic, and it’s pretty safe to say you’re more of an introvert than Jacob.”
“Wow. You’re quick.”
“Opposites really can make great partners, since they’ve got a broader range of emotional tools to draw on. Being quiet and thoughtful and having a big internal life are likely the very things that attracted Jacob to you to begin with.”
Sure, and the fact that I saw ghosts had nothing to do with it.
I didn’t bother contradicting the pastor.
She said, “Not everyone does all their processing internally, though. And when conflict arises, it’s important to let your partner know what’s going on inside. It might not feel comfortable, but in the long run, that moment of discomfort while you’re speaking your truth is well worth it.”
I may have been grimacing.
“Now, given the little deflection you did when I pointed out you’re an introvert, I’m thinking that expressing your preferences verbally might be a growth area for you.” Pastor Jill turned to Jacob. “Think back to the last disagreement you had regarding the wedding.”
“It’s been going pretty smoothly.”
“Really? So many moving parts—and you were in a real time crunch. There’s bound to be a confrontation that cropped up.”
Jacob shook his head. “No—my sister’s been on edge about getting everything done. But Vic seems fine.” He turned to me. “Are you?”
“About the wedding?” Weird response. Jacob’s eyes widened as if he thought I’d blurt out just how stressful it is to be ghost hunting in the woods. “It’s fine. Uh…really fine, not just let’s-drop-the-subject fine.”
Pastor Jill wasn’t satisfied. “Think back on some typical stressors. Guest list? Menu?”
I shifted uneasily. “The baker was a little…out there. But Jacob handled her.”
“So you let Jacob handle your confrontation?”
“I was dealing with a flower emergency. Divide and conquer. In terms of the cake, so long as no one sneaks in any raisins, I don’t really care—”
“Hold on,” Jacob said, “My mother’s bran muffin—the one you spat out—was a potential confrontation. You told her it was good.”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“You made a noise that sounded…good-ish.”
“That’s debatable. And what difference does it make? It’s a muffin.”
Pastor Jill folded her hands sagely. “In the book of John, Christ said, The truth will set you free. But truth can also be used as a weapon. You don’t need to go out of your way tell your friend her haircut is unflattering…or your mother-in-law that her muffin is less than stellar. But what about the next time a muffin you don’t like comes your way?”
“I’ll say I’m not hungry.”
“You certainly could, and if your main motivation is to be gracious, that might be the best response. But what if the muffins then become a regular thing? Every time you visit, she bakes another bat
ch. What if she’s made them just for you—and she’s gonna stare at you until you eat one? Truth has a way of coming out. The longer you keep up the lie, the more awkward it will be when the prevarication runs its course.” She wagged her eyebrows at me.
“Yeah, I was in law enforcement. I’m familiar with the word.”
The pastor narrowed her eyes in assessment. “Oh, the stories the two of you could tell. If you ever need to talk to someone, keep in mind that I’m bound by confidentiality as clergy.”
I liked Pastor Jill…so I wasn’t about to suck her into the psychic vortex. But I did appreciate the offer.
She said, “Trust is important in my relationship with you both—but it’s even more crucial between the two of you. Any job that requires such a water-tight NDA must be stressful. Not only are you working together, but living together. Loving together. And the bedrock of all these relationships is trust.” She pulled a bandanna out of her desk drawer. “Let’s try a little trust exercise. Who wants to wear the blindfold?”
A Camp Hell flashback flexed against the surface tension of my memory. I massaged the back of my neck. “I don’t really go for that sort of thing.”
“Oh?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’ll do it,” Jacob said quickly.
Pastor Jill must have thought he was fighting my battles for me again, but she handed him the bandanna anyway. She led us across the hall to a sort of church rumpus room, with a coffee station, tables, and shelves full of board games and books. “Normally, I have the participants switch places halfway through. Even without the role reversal, though, you’ll still get something out of the exercise. Go ahead, Jacob, put it on.”
He did as he was told, and she spun him around a few times like she was prepping him to take a swing at a piñata. Then she looped her arm through mine and let me across the room. “Okay, Vic, I’d like you to guide him through the tables with nothing but your words.”
That seemed too easy. Probably the blindfold game was a distraction and the real exercise was something else entirely, but it seemed harmless enough. “Two o’clock,” I called out. “Three paces. Eleven o’clock. Ten feet—okay, stop. One o’clock.” Within a few seconds, Jacob was at my side, and I turned to Pastor Jill, fully expecting another shoe to drop.
Other Half (PsyCop book 12) Page 20