Chapter Seventeen

“It’s all about control,” Gideon said. “What was your core talent, the one you possessed before you were enhanced?”

“I was—I am —a pretty good photographer,” Amelia said. “Not amazing, but pretty good. I’ve always been able to sense a vibe of energy around my subjects and shoot for it. Or not, depending on the vibe in question.”

“And now?”

She sighed. “Now, after dark, I don’t just pick up a vague feel for an individual’s energy field. I see it in living color. And I’m talking about colors that don’t have any names because they aren’t on the normal spectrum. Going outside at night or entering an unlit room is like walking into another dimension. A ghost world.”

She was beginning to relax, she realized, not just because of the wine but because she was starting to conclude she had hired the right private investigator after all. In the parking lot his aura and his prints had appeared reassuringly strong and stable.

She was also feeling quite pleased with herself. She had survived the harrowing journey across the parking lot without succumbing to an anxiety attack. She had to give Gideon credit for pushing her out of her comfort zone. The realization that she had not fallen apart when she was confronted with the murky fog of glowing energy prints on the pavement had boosted her self-confidence as nothing else had since the stupid phobia had taken root.

They were seated in a cozy booth that overlooked the illuminated swimming pool and the night-darkened golf course beyond. The restaurant decor was desert-style resort casual—lots of colorful tile work, dark wood, and ocher-colored walls. The menu was modern eclectic, leaning Mediterranean. The room was comfortably busy but not crowded and she was aware that, for the first time in days, she was hungry.

You ought to see me now, Dr. Pike , she thought. I’m out at night and acting normal.

“When did you first realize you had a core talent?” Gideon asked.

She nibbled on a chunk of herbed focaccia dipped in olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt while she considered the question. “I’m not sure,” she said finally. “I didn’t think of it as a psychic ability. It was just something I gradually became aware of as I grew older. By the time I was in my late teens I was obsessed with old-school photography.”

“Right,” Gideon said, “you grew into your talent gradually as you grew into adulthood. Figuring out how to handle your ability was a process. There’s a learning curve.”

“And then one day I walked into an abandoned hotel, got slammed with a bout of amnesia, lost an entire night, and woke up the next morning with a whole new level of my basic talent,” she said.

“You would have been just as shaken, just as unnerved, if you had gone to sleep one night and awakened with a sense of hearing that allowed you to listen to conversations taking place at the end of the block or across the street.”

“I would have been seriously rattled. Probably would have wondered if I was delusional.”

“Exactly.” Gideon reached for another slice of focaccia. “My point is that it’s all about control. It takes time to adapt to a powerful talent. It also helps if you have some guidance along the way. Evidently you and your friends did not have those benefits.”

“No.” She swirled the wine in her glass and met his eyes across the table. “Sounds like you did, though.”

“There’s a strong psychic vibe in the Sweetwater bloodline,” Gideon said with a casually dismissive gesture. “Has been for decades. Centuries, actually.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She took a moment to absorb that information. “Do all of your blood relatives have your talent?”

“Paranormal abilities take different forms in different people. No two talents are identical. But, historically speaking, the Sweetwaters tend to wind up in careers that involve criminal investigation and security.”

“Why is that?”

His eyes heated a little. “Probably because we are very, very good at hunting bad guys.”

She got a ping warning her that he was telling her the truth but not the whole truth. “You said your family business involves security work for the government?”

“Mostly.”

Fascinated, she leaned forward and started to ask another question, but the server, a cheerful woman in her early twenties, chose that moment to arrive with the main courses. She set the plates down and smiled enthusiastically.

“I hear you two are in town to photograph the old Lucent Springs Hotel,” she said.

“Word travels fast,” Amelia said.

“Yeah, well, small town and everything. Pete Ellerbeck, the guy who owns the Cactus Garden Motel, talked to my boss late this afternoon and said you might be in for dinner. My name is Madison, by the way. Pete also said you were planning to talk to people who have stories about the hotel.”

“That’s right,” Gideon said. “Do you know some of the history of that place?”

Madison chuckled. “Not the kind of history you’re probably looking for. When I was in high school my friends and I used to go out there to party sometimes, but I don’t think that happens much anymore. Things changed after that big hotel company bought the property and put up all the No Trespassing signs.”

“I never knew a No Trespassing sign to stop people looking for a party,” Gideon said.

Madison rolled her eyes. “The cops started paying more attention after three dumbass tourists went out there to do drugs one night and managed to start a fire. The hotel company is afraid someone will get hurt, so they’re going to take the place down to the foundation and try to sell the property.”

“We heard that,” Amelia said. She would ignore the dumbass crack, she told herself. Priorities.

Gideon gave her an approving look, which only served to further annoy her.

Madison opened her mouth to say something else but a man seated on the other side of the room caught her eye.

“Gotta go,” she said. “Enjoy your dinner.”

There was a short silence. Amelia looked at Gideon. There was a thoughtful stillness about him.

“What?” she said.

He picked up his fork. “There’s no record of the offshore hotel company existing and yet the rumor here in Lucent Springs is that the nonexistent corporation is planning to go to the trouble and expense of demolishing a property that has no value. Why bother? Why not walk away and let the hotel rot into the desert? It’s not as if injured parties would be able to track down a phantom company and sue.”

“Okay, good question. Do you have an answer?”

“Maybe. It looks like you and the Lost Night Files podcast team have become more than a nuisance to whoever is behind the experiments.”

“That may explain why they tried to grab me but it doesn’t tell us why the fake company would schedule the demolition of the Lucent Springs Hotel.”

“I can think of one very good reason why someone might want those ruins razed to the ground.”

“What?”

“It would be the only way to be sure that all the evidence was erased.”

“But there is no evidence out there in the ruins,” she said. “I should know. I’ve spent hours looking around and photographing that damned hotel.”

“You found that key,” Gideon reminded her.

“But that’s all.”

“There’s a chance there’s more evidence. I’m talking about the paranormal kind.”

“If there is, I haven’t been able to sense it.”

“You told me your talent works best at night. Ever been out there after dark?”

She stopped breathing. Her throat got tight. The back of her neck was suddenly ice-cold.

“No,” she admitted. “But I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Damn. Now she sounded weak.

“If you want evidence of the sort you can perceive with your talent you’ll need to look for it in the ruins at night.”

She cleared her throat. “This is the desert, remember? There’s a lot of nightlife. Scorpions, snakes, spiders.”

“We’ve got flashlights and boots.”

She did not like the casual way he brushed aside her very legitimate concerns. “You’re kind of a hard-ass, aren’t you?”

“When I’m working I tend to be very focused.”

“I noticed.” She couldn’t blame him. When she was working with a camera she was focused, too. She swallowed hard. “Are we going out there tonight?”

“No, tonight I’m going to take a look around the manager’s office at the motel, remember? I want to try to ID the individual who lost the key to room ten in the ruins.”

She relaxed a little. She had a twenty-four-hour reprieve. “Right.”

Gideon frowned, as if he had finally realized just how unenthusiastic she was about an after-dark tour of the scene of her lost night.

“You won’t be alone out there,” he said. “I’ll be with you.”

She turned that over a few times in her head. The thought of a night visit to the old hotel was daunting, but he was right. Maybe she had missed some important evidence because of her phobia.

“I know,” she said, resigned.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it’s a way to get some answers.”

She gave him a steely smile. “Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. You haven’t explained how your own talent works.”

“Trust me, you really don’t want to know.”

“Yes, Gideon, I really do want to know.”

He took a moment to consider her demand and then he evidently came to a decision. “I can’t view auras or prints the way you do, but I’m good at picking up certain currents in the human energy field. Currents that come from a very specific portion at the far end of the spectrum.”

She watched him for a moment, wondering what he wasn’t telling her. “What portion?”

“I sense the energy that generates dreams,” he said in an unnervingly neutral voice. “Nightmares, to be precise.”

Her mouth went dry. “Nightmares?”

“According to Uncle Shelton, dream energy is the likely source of all the psychic senses. When you use your talent you tap into the dreamstate.”

“While you’re awake?”

“That’s right,” he said. “And that’s what makes it so damned tricky to handle a strong psychic vibe. If you can’t control the dream energy while you’re awake it will overwhelm your normal senses. It can literally drive you insane. Think hallucinations. Voices. Visions. Delusions.”

“Are you telling me you see other people’s nightmares?”

“No, for which I am profoundly grateful. I don’t even want to think about what it would be like to have a front-row seat for other people’s nightmares.” Gideon ate a bite of the fish he had ordered. “My own are bad enough.”

She speared some of her roasted yellow cauliflower and thought about the paintings on the walls of his library. “That must be a very… annoying talent.”

The words terrible and awful and scary came to mind but she didn’t think it would be polite to go there. The conversation was weird enough.

Gideon watched her with a look that told her he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“My talent occasionally has its uses,” he said.

“In your work as an investigator, do you mean?”

“Yes. You see, I’m not just good at picking up the currents of a person’s nightmares. I can trigger them.”

She put down her fork with great care. “You could send me into a nightmare? While I’m awake?”

“While you’re awake.”

She swallowed. “What would happen?”

Gideon’s eyes got a faint, silvery sheen. He watched her intently. She knew he was waiting to see how she would react to what he was telling her.

“Turns out the human mind can’t deal with that kind of sensory overload,” he said quietly. “It shuts down. Sometimes permanently.”

“Are you telling me you can kill someone with their own nightmares?”

“I can use your own nightmares to scare you to death, Amelia.”