Текст книги "Day Shift"

Автор книги: Charlaine Harris

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

11

Manfred was hungry, and he was tired of feeling trapped in his house. Toward evening, the reporters began to drift away, and he felt pleased with himself. After eleven o’clock, he got into his car and drove to Davy, picking a barbecue joint called Moo and Oink, which was about the only place open this late. He had the chopped beef and the beans and the onion rings, and he enjoyed every bite. Most of all, he enjoyed being in a place that wasn’t his house.

When he pulled out his wallet to pay, he saw the slip of paper with Olivia’s other phone number on it, the phone in another name. As he pulled it out of his wallet, he had a sudden and clear vision. Olivia was in bad trouble; he could feel her fighting someone.

Tonight was the time she was supposed to be reconnoitering the Goldthorpe house. Manfred sat, the piece of paper in his right hand, absolutely paralyzed. Should he call her? But how could she answer, if he did? He might just make things worse.

All Manfred’s pleasure in the evening had evaporated.

He looked at his watch. It was now nearly midnight. It would take him at least two hours to drive to Dallas. What did he need to take with him?

I don’t need anything, he thought. I’ve got my wallet and my credit cards and my driver’s license. I can buy anything else I need. This was one time when it felt good to live alone, without even a pet. Though he had no clear idea of what he would do when he got to Dallas, Manfred walked out of the restaurant and drove to the interstate. Usually, he found the Texas speed limit more than generous. Tonight, he prayed there was no state trooper concealed by the side of the road.

Along the way, he had enough sense to call Lemuel.

Lemuel answered.

–

Without any warning at all, Olivia had been smashed against the brick wall of the house by a man who was so strong, she’d wondered for a moment if he was a vampire. He knew about fighting, too. Olivia was used to employing her ruthlessness and agility to win a fight, but this man, whoever he was, seemed to know her capability. Her hands were pinned, one above her head and the other at her waist. His body was pressing hers against the hard surface, but there was nothing sexual about it.

Since she couldn’t kill him, she went limp while she waited to find out what his intentions were. Her captor was not Lewis Goldthorpe; she was sure of that, simply from his height and his strength. Olivia realized what she hadn’t heard. This man had not called for backup. So he was not police, not a security guard, or he would have already called for help. And if he’d been another sneak thief, he would have left before she knew he was there, to avoid confrontation.

Instead, when she went limp he forced her hands together and used a plastic zip tie to secure them. But he was trying to do too much by himself, and he didn’t succeed in getting her wrists in tight proximity. She had some wiggle room. Not that that helped just at the moment, because he again used his whole body to keep her against the bricks, her hands trapped between them. He was doing something with his right hand. She heard some electronic beeps.

He’d gotten out a telephone. He’d punched two buttons.

Now he whispered, “McGuire, I’ve got her.”

Olivia’s blood turned to ice water. A moment before, she’d been cautious, waiting for more information: who this man worked for, what he planned for her. Now she knew. He’d automatically leaned a little away from her, just an inch or two, while he talked.

Olivia twisted just a little, brought her knee up sharply, and then shoved with all the power in her bound hands. Her knee landed exactly where she’d hoped it would, and he gagged and doubled over. She wheeled sideways, lifted a foot, and braced herself against the wall to kick the side of his head with all the force she could muster. She wished she’d been wearing boots. He landed on the ground on his back, and while he was fumbling to pull out a weapon, she stomped on his throat.

She knew from the feel of it she’d landed a killing blow.

She couldn’t find her balance on the uneven surface. She pitched forward onto the ground beside the dying man. As he finished dying, Olivia drew herself up into a crouch. Awkwardly, she patted him down. It was no surprise that he had a knife. In the darkness, she fumbled to extricate it from its sheath. As a bonus, she felt a familiar cylindrical shape and knew he’d brought a flashlight. Yes! It was easier to free it from his belt than to work her tiny one out of her pocket. She switched it on, setting it on his stomach to shine on her hands. Even with its help, she nicked herself in the process of cutting the zip tie. Once she’d freed her hands and stanched her own bleeding with the hair band, Olivia gave herself a minute to recover. By the time her sixty seconds were up, her breathing was back to normal and her pulse had stopped hammering.

She had gathered her wits, too. Olivia used the dead man’s flashlight to check that her own blood wasn’t anywhere on the ground. She stuck the sawed-up zip tie in her pocket. She would take his knife, flashlight, and phone, which she found on the ground beside his body. Did he have a wallet? Yes, he did. She took that, too. No gun, which was a slight surprise.

There wasn’t any way to conceal the body, so she left it where it lay. Finally, she switched off the flashlight.

Forcing herself to move stealthily, Olivia worked her way closer to the street, bush to bush, until she came to the shadowy place where she’d left her bag. She pulled down the sleeves of the sweater to cover her abraded wrists. She draped the messenger bag to cover as much of her as she could, in case there were spots she hadn’t noticed.

Olivia took a few deep breaths, then started the long walk back to her car, reminding herself with every step to be wary. He’d made the call; they’d be checking. Though not twenty-five minutes had passed since she’d turned onto Old Pioneer, she felt it had been hours.

Olivia stayed in cover wherever she could—overhanging tree limbs, shadows of any kind, parked cars as she moved into the less grand streets. If she heard a vehicle approaching, she hid and remained hidden until it was past. That only happened twice. As she came closer to the street where she’d left the rental car, she abandoned the sidewalk altogether. She crouched, watching the car, from the lushly planted yard of the corner house on that block. Concealed by a cluster of yucca plants and pampas grass, Olivia watched for fifteen minutes. Nothing happened. She was just about to stand when the phone she’d confiscated began to buzz quietly.

It made her jump about a mile.

She held it up to her ear. “Falco? Where are you now?” said a familiar voice. “Did you have to hurt her? She okay? We’ll be there in two.”

When Olivia said nothing, the voice hesitated. Then the man said, “Isabel? Is that you?”

Gently, she placed the phone on one of the large rocks bordering the planting bed. She brought her heel down on it like a jackhammer. She was able to crack it significantly. She bent to pick it up, happy that she couldn’t hear the voice anymore. Happy that she’d destroyed something that her father had paid for, though the purchaser had been his right-hand man, Ellery McGuire.

Done with waiting, Olivia strode to the rental car just as confidently as she’d left it. She climbed in as though this were part of her daily routine, and she pulled out and drove away with smooth expertise. She coasted around for an hour, checking for a tail, before she headed for her motel. She parked at the back and started up the stairs, feeling suddenly exhausted.

Somehow she was not surprised to find Lemuel sitting outside her room. “How?” she said, but he caught her up in his arms and held her close. After a second, she let herself lean on him. Then when a couple of minutes had passed, she opened her door and they went inside.

He sat by her on the bed, his arm around her. “Manfred called me directly,” he said. “I was closer than he was, so I told him to turn around and go back to Midnight, if he wanted. He said he would.”

“Where were you?” she asked, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Here in Dallas,” he said. “I had a plane layover. I can delay a night.”

She started to tell Lemuel he didn’t need to postpone his departure, but when she tried to make her lips move, she simply couldn’t make them form those words. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I got away from him.”

“Woman, I know that,” Lemuel said in his quiet voice. “Manfred gave me the address. I saw the body. Who sent him?”

“My father’s right-hand man,” she said. “Ellery McGuire.”

Lemuel was silent. “Does he know where you are?”

“He knew I was going to that house, or at least suspected enough to put someone there. I don’t know how. I’ll figure it out.”

“Did you get whatever you went there to get?”

“No, I never got inside. Falco caught me first. I was too cocky. On the other hand, why would I ever imagine there’d be someone waiting there for me? I had other things to worry about.”

“What were you afeared of?” From time to time, you could tell Lemuel had been born in another age.

“That there might be security measures I didn’t know about, or that the jerk who now lives there would catch me and I’d have to do him in . . . which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.”

“But instead, someone you never expected was there waiting for you.”

She nodded.

“You have no idea why?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t had time to think. I was too . . . intent on getting away from the area before the body was found. I had to get to a safe place.”

“You’re safe now,” he said, his cold lips brushing her cheek.

Suddenly she wanted the familiarity of him, the touch of him, more than anything else in the world. She turned to him, put her hands on each side of his face, brought his lips to hers.

For the first time that night, something went exactly like she’d expected. Maybe even better.

12

Manfred was rejoicing in the lifting of the siege the next day. He didn’t know what had happened in Dallas to make most of his watchers withdraw, but there were only two lone reporters outside the next day. He immediately checked the Internet. His search parameter was “Goldthorpe Bonnet Park,” and he got information immediately.

“Hmmm,” he said. “So Lewis found a body.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, he thought. “No identification. Well, well, well.”

There was a quiet knock on his back door, so he was glad he was dressed and had brushed his teeth. He was sure who his caller must be. He opened the door and Olivia came in. It would be an exaggeration to say she looked like hell, but it would be accurate to say she’d looked better every other time he’d seen her.

“You just get in from Dallas?”

“Yeah.” She stood facing him, her mouth tight with reluctance. “Okay, thanks for calling Lemuel. As it turned out, I didn’t need him. I got away by myself. But it was nice to have backup. Don’t ever do that again.”

“Sure, don’t babble on and on about it,” Manfred said in a friendly voice. “I didn’t worry at all after getting a picture of you in danger, and I wasn’t halfway to Dallas when I heard from Lemuel telling me all was well, so I only wasted half a tank of gas and some sleep. That’s fine! I don’t mind. Anything to help a friend.”

Olivia looked more and more angry as he spoke. Just when he began to believe she might hit him, she smiled, though reluctantly. “I do thank you,” she said. “But most situations, I can handle myself. I was really, really glad to see Lemuel. It was a stroke of luck that he was in Dallas, by the way. He’s not there any longer.”

Manfred didn’t ask where Lemuel had gone. “So, are you hurt?” he asked.

“Not to speak of. Definitely not as badly as the other guy.”

“I never intended anything like this.” Manfred looked at her directly. “If I’d known the Rev was going to ask you for help, I would never have consented. Maybe this is a day for us being ungrateful with each other. Because I feel pretty bad that the guy is dead, Olivia.”

“I feel pretty bad that he was trying to capture me to turn me over to my enemy,” she retorted.

“Who is the enemy? And how does that relate to the problem with Lewis Goldthorpe?”

“I’ll try to explain.”

“Please do.” Manfred suddenly realized he felt a little silly arguing in the middle of his kitchen, and he gestured toward the little table. A bit to his surprise, she sat. He pointed at his Keurig, and she nodded. He made her a cup of coffee, and then one for himself. There was creamer and sugar on the table, and she used both.

“I’ve thought about it most of the night, and this is what I think happened,” she said after she’d taken a sip. “I’ve looked back over the news coverage of the deaths at Vespers, including Rachel’s. Of course I stayed out of sight when the police and press arrived at first about the Devlins. But I think I was in the background of one of the news stories about Rachel’s death, because there were several reporters there already to cover the double murder.” She said this without the least trace of self-consciousness, as if she had nothing to do with the deaths of the man and his wife. “I think that I was spotted—maybe by facial recognition software. Since the story was about the huge coincidence that the same hotel had had a murder/suicide and a sudden death in the same twenty-four hours, the people looking for me covered all the bases.”

“You think they’re somehow hanging around the Devlin house, too?” Manfred said. He didn’t know what to think. Maybe Olivia had worried herself into a mental corner.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said. “I wondered if they’d staked out the Goldthorpe house, but after I thought about it, I decided the man, Falco, asked Lewis, or the maid, some questions about anyone who’d come by the house lately. Lewis would definitely have blabbed about the stranger who’d been there that day, the blonde who’d been asking about Rachel’s application for home health care. So I think this guy was posted there just in case, and he got lucky.” She smiled. “Or so he thought.”

“I kind of followed that,” Manfred said, after working it through. “So you have a long-standing enemy who has a lot, a lot, of money and persistence.”

“Yeah. My dad. And most specifically, my dad’s shadow, Ellery McGuire.”

“Didn’t see that coming,” Manfred said after a moment’s silence. He knew that Olivia would be angry when she realized how much she had told him; he could only blame her talkative bout on the lack of sleep and the shock.

He had no idea who his own father had been, but that had left him at liberty to imagine his father loved him and had had to be absent for some fabulous reason. At least his father had never sent a henchman to capture him. “And you told me this because?”

“Because you were able to tell I was in trouble last night. You somehow knew. How’d you do that?”

“The piece of paper with the phone number on it. You told me not to enter it in my phone. And you’d written on the paper yourself, which made it a personal object. When I held it, I knew you were in trouble.”

She nodded, just a quick jerk of her head. “Okay. I won’t doubt you again.”

“I only get a true reading now and then,” he admitted. “But I got one for you. So treasure it.”

Manfred had a hundred questions he would have liked to ask Olivia, but now was not the time. There might never be a time. Somehow, he felt weirdly fonder of Olivia now, though he knew she was a killer. It was an unsettling feeling, somewhat like wanting to scratch a Bengal tiger behind the ears.

“Here’s what happened at the house,” Olivia said abruptly. “And by the way, good job on the floor plan.”

Manfred felt absurdly pleased at the compliment. He nodded. “I have a pretty good memory,” he said. “So you made it up to the second floor?”

Olivia told him about her first venture into the Goldthorpe mansion and her return trip that night.

“The guy was there to bring you to your dad? Or this McGuire?”

“He called Ellery McGuire, not my dad. It’s possible my dad said something like, ‘Find my daughter and bring her to me.’ My dad is the man who causes things to be done. He’s not picky about the method. Everyone takes cues from that. So I guess those were Ellery’s orders. Otherwise, the guy could have killed me right off, and no one would have known. Being dead would be better than going back to my father.”

“To you, being captured is the equivalent of being killed?”

She looked at him, surprised. Then she gave a short jerk of the head. “You’re right,” she said. “Or close enough.”

“And Lemuel found you?”

“He’d already been to the house and back by the time I got to the motel,” she said. “He rearranged the body, rather than trying to get rid of it. There was no way I could have taken the time to do that. For one thing, I wasn’t sure Falco was alone.”

“You thought there might be more than one guy there?”

“He was alone, but he could have had a team circling the block or parked nearby.”

“So we’re back where we started, at least as far as finding the jewelry I supposedly stole.”

“Yeah.” Olivia slumped in her chair, which made her look younger and less in control. Manfred much preferred Olivia the other way. He knew that competent, cold Olivia better.

After a moment or two, she said, “I think this means that sooner or later they’re going to come check you out. They don’t know why I was at the Goldthorpes’, they just know I was at the hotel, but sooner or later my father’ll think of looking at you.”

“Should I be worried about that?” Manfred asked, trying to sound like he wasn’t anxious already.

“Yes,” she said. “We all should. If the Rev is flipping out about there being reporters here to cover the story you’re a part of . . . he’ll go ballistic if my father’s people come around.”

“Because they’re much more scary?”

“So much more,” she said, simply stating a fact. “We’ve got to figure out another way to get at this problem. I don’t know that it’ll draw them off, but we have to make progress. It’s too bad we can’t just . . .”

Manfred, who’d been refilling Olivia’s coffee cup, looked up to find out why she’d stopped. She was staring at Manfred as though he’d sprouted a horn.

“What?” he said.

“Get her husband to tell you,” Olivia said.

“What?”

“Where the damn jewelry is, of course! You’re a medium. Call Rachel up, however you do it. Or her husband, what’s his name?”

“Morton. I can try,” Manfred said. He felt like smacking himself on the forehead. “It would help if we could get someone near to her to cooperate, but I’m sure her daughters wouldn’t want anything to do with a séance. And Lewis is out of the question.”

“So maybe just you and me could do it?”

“I think we need someone a little more . . . in tune,” Manfred said, not quite sure how to put it.

“Someone more spiritual,” Olivia said evenly.

He nodded. “Joe or Chuy,” he said.

“What’s spiritual about those two?” she said.

“I’m not sure what they are . . .”

“Two nice gay guys,” she said.

“More than that.”

She threw up her hands. “All right, then! I’ll call them! Tonight, okay? Or do you have something more important to do?” Heavy on the sarcasm.

“Tonight would be fine, and we can have it here,” he said, deliberately keeping his voice relaxed.

“See you then, and I’m having a nap in between,” she snapped, and left as suddenly as she’d come.

13

Joe put his cell phone in his pocket and turned to Chuy. “We’ve been invited to a séance tonight,” he said.

Chuy, who was making a salad for their lunch, finished chopping the chicken and added it to the raw spinach and the toasted pecans. He began halving the grapes. “That’s a first,” he said. “What do you think? Is this really something we should do?”

Joe considered it. “It’s not like we didn’t know there are ghosts all around us,” he said. “We see them every day.”

Chuy tilted the cutting board to add the grapes. “Bacos?” he asked. “I’m assuming it was Manfred who called?”

“Yes to the Bacos, and no to Manfred,” Joe said. “Here’s the surprise. It was Olivia.” He gave Chuy his amazed face, and Chuy laughed. But then he said, “Poor Olivia.”

Joe nodded. “I think we should help them out. It’s not like they ever asked us for anything.”

Chuy began drizzling on a honey-based dressing. “All right, sweetie. By the way, have you been over to the hotel yet?”

“Not since you and I took the tour with Ms. Whatever.”

“There are three old people in there, and two geek-type people doing contract work with Magic Portal. There’s one man whose purpose I can’t discern.”

They sat down at the table and Joe served himself from the bowl. “This looks great, Chuy. Do you think we need to do anything about this one man?”

“I think we need to find out what he’s up to. We have to protect the boy.”

“We do,” Joe agreed. “Okay, I’ll see what’s up at the hotel.”

“Good. I have an appointment this afternoon, Myra Shellenbarger.”

“She’s fun,” Joe said, smiling. “She knows everything going on in a twenty-mile radius.”

“Or farther. And she’s not afraid to name names.” Chuy smiled back. “I like her. What you see is what you get.”

“It can be tiring knowing so many people with hidden depths,” Joe said. “Some days, shallow is good. This salad is great, by the way.”

“Got it out of Southwest Cooking,” Chuy said. “I left out the roasted corn.”

After that, the talk turned to cooking, and whether the U.S. Postal Service would stop delivering on Saturdays, and where Lemuel might be in his research project to discover more about the magic books he’d finally found, the ones that Bobo had hidden without meaning to.

There was not a reporter in sight when they strolled down to Manfred’s house just after dark. They glanced over at the newly rechristened Midnight Hotel.

“It’s still strange to see it lit up,” Chuy said. He was holding Joe’s hand. This was one of the good things about living in Midnight.

“But kind of nice. Sometimes when I look into the past, I can see all the stores here, busy and bustling. People all around.”

“Horses in the streets.” Chuy chuckled. “And the smell of them. And people who don’t bathe.”

“Do you ever wish we could see the future?” Joe asked. “There’s so much of the past that lives with us still.”

“No,” Chuy said instantly. He stopped walking and faced Joe, taking Joe’s free hand. “I would go mad,” he said, meaning every word.

Joe’s eyes met Chuy’s. “Then that won’t ever happen,” he said quietly. “The past is burden enough.” After a second, they began walking again. “I saw Mildred today,” Joe said, clearly changing the subject. “She was letting Hattie Barnes in the back door.”

“Mildred,” Chuy said, a wealth of rueful comments in the one word. “What a woman, so mistaken in some ways and so ahead of her time in others.”

“She certainly left her house to the right person, though I doubt she ever imagined Fiji would be stronger than Mildred herself ever was. If I remember correctly, Mildred considered Fiji the best of a weak lot.”

Chuy shook his head. “Mildred couldn’t imagine the scope of Fiji’s power.”

“And Fiji herself doesn’t know it yet.” The two were both smiling when Manfred answered the door.

“Glad you all were able to make it,” he said. “Please, come in. You want some water or lemonade? I’ve got some wine, but I don’t advocate drinking any alcohol before an attempt to get in touch with those who’ve gone ahead.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Joe said, trying not to cast a sideways glance at Chuy, with whom he’d split a bottle of wine at dinner. “I don’t believe I need anything. Chuy?”

Chuy shook his head. “Is Olivia here yet?” he asked. “I haven’t seen her today.”

“I’m here,” she called from the kitchen, and Joe followed Manfred into his alleged kitchen. Joe looked around, trying to suppress his dismay. He couldn’t imagine cooking in the depressing and outdated little room.

“Do you cook much, Manfred?” Chuy said, managing to make his tone only inquisitive.

“No, I’m a microwave kind of guy,” Manfred said. “You cook, Olivia?”

“No,” she said, with a little astonishment in her voice. As if she couldn’t believe they were talking about something so unimportant when there was business to be done.

Joe sighed. He realized that once again, he was being reminded to be grateful for the love and nurturing of Chuy, who loved to cook and considered the preparation of good food to be an important part of his day. “So, we’re here to contact the dead,” he said. “Mrs. Goldthorpe, I assume?”

“Yeah,” Olivia said. Joe drew near enough to see that Olivia’s face was bruised.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

“You should see the other guy,” she said, without a smile.

Chuy put his hand on Olivia’s shoulder, and she did not pull away. She even seemed, after a moment, to relax just a little.

“So what’s the procedure?” Joe asked.

“You sound interested,” Manfred said.

“I am. I’ve never done this before,” Joe said. He didn’t need to contact the dead, since he could see them all the time, but he didn’t add that.

“I’m glad you’re open to the experience,” Manfred said briskly. “I’ve pulled this table out so there’s room for all of us.”

So at least the kitchen doesn’t always look this crammed, Joe thought.

“We all sit around it and hold hands. I’ll try to summon Rachel. If she won’t come, I’ll try to reach her husband, Morton. He may not be willing since I don’t have Rachel to use as an attraction, but I can try.”

“The son accuses you of theft?” Chuy said.

Manfred nodded.

“Then we’ll do our best,” Joe said, and took Olivia’s left hand with his right, and Manfred’s right hand with his own left. Across the table, Chuy linked hands, too. Their eyes met, and in his partner’s, Joe saw almost infinite patience.

Olivia did not look excited or interested. She looked intent. And deep past that intensity and committal to move forward, Joe saw pain and suffering and rage. He sighed. One day Olivia would explode from this volatile combination, like a bomb. She was dealing out pain and violence to get rid of the rage, and probably Lemuel’s energy leeching helped. But the more violence Olivia dealt, the less effective it was in controlling the rage.

Manfred said, “Olivia, you need to relax.”

She took some deep breaths and managed to contain herself. “All right,” she said. “All right.” The tension dropped a few degrees, and Manfred’s power began to flow between their linked hands. It was strong and pure, and it glistened. Joe could see it, almost taste it. Joe began to see faces in that power, spirits drawn close by it. It seemed funny to him that Manfred could only sense the presence of the dead, when they were so visible to him and Chuy.

Not everyone came back, of course. Bobo’s girlfriend Aubrey hadn’t, and she’d been a murder victim. It was a fact that those who’d met violent deaths were much more likely to walk forever as ghosts. Joe had figured he’d see Aubrey striding across the barren land to reach the river or coming into the shop to play her irritating flirtation games.

But meeting up with the ghost of her murderer had been a much more painful prospect. Luckily Joe hadn’t seen that one, either.

Joe made himself look at the faces forming nearby. Mildred, well, that made sense. And he recognized the homeless man who’d roamed around Midnight for ten years, attracted by the town but scared of it, too. He saw a Native American woman who had something urgent to say, and she muttered it through Manfred’s lips . . . but in a language they couldn’t understand. Olivia’s eyes showed white all around at hearing Manfred speak in tongues, as it must have seemed to her.

Then Rachel Goldthorpe said, “I’m sorry he’s giving you trouble.” The other three hadn’t ever heard her voice, but they never doubted this was the dead woman.

Manfred was even sitting like someone else, Joe realized. His shoulders were slumped with age and illness, and he was a little back from the table as though there were more of him to accommodate. She must have been a heavy woman, Joe thought.

Silence reigned, and Joe thought, None of us know what to do. We all thought Manfred would question the spirit, if she appeared. They hadn’t foreseen it was possible that Rachel might inhabit the psychic.

Joe said, “Rachel, where did you hide the jewelry?” He was not frightened of the dead, but he was uncertain how to handle the situation, which was a first for him.

Rachel said, via Manfred, “In Morton’s study. Where Lewis will never look. He and his dad never got along.” She shook Manfred’s head sadly.

“Where in the study?” Joe asked, trying not to sound impatient.

“Inside . . .” It was like a cell phone had dropped the call.

“Inside what?” Olivia snapped.

“I see the world . . .” Rachel whispered, and then Manfred was back in his body. His eyes opened. He looked from one of them to another. “I feel like something happened,” he said. “Tell me what it was.”

“Are ghosts always irritating and vague? Is that part of dying?” Olivia said.

Chuy released her hand. “Olivia,” he said reprovingly.

“Well, it was exasperating,” she said. “At least now we know which room.”

“Could someone tell me what happened?” Manfred looked from face to face.

Joe said, “Rachel paid us a visit. She said she’d put the jewelry in Morton’s study, because Lewis and Morton didn’t get along. Inside something.”

“Inside what?”

“She didn’t tell us that. We lost the connection before she could specify. She said something about the world. How do you feel?”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever been taken over like that,” Manfred said. “Interesting experience, and a little too personal for me.” He seemed excited about the possession, rather than exhausted or terrified, which was what Joe would have expected.

“That was an interesting experience for all of us,” Chuy said. “I thought we’d be here for hours trying to summon a spirit, and she popped into you like a hand into a puppet.”

“I’m not sure I like that analogy,” Manfred said. “But I’ll accept it. I was definitely somewhere else.”

Olivia stared at Manfred. “I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I couldn’t lose control like that.”

“Then the chances are overwhelmingly good that you won’t,” Manfred said. “Usually, the spirits visit people who are open to the experience. I hate to sound all abracadabra, but it’s true. I have a theory or two about why spirits are so vague.”