Chapter Eight

Amelia placed a glass of white wine on the table next to the recliner. “At least you no longer think I’m delusional or that I’m a con artist.”

“Nope,” Gideon said. He was stretched out on the recliner, plastic baggies filled with ice nestled against his ribs and his right leg. He picked up the glass. “Is this all you’ve got? White wine?”

“What were you expecting?”

“I was hoping for something stronger. Whiskey, for example.”

“I see. Well, I do have some cognac that my friend Irene gave me.”

“Thanks, I’ll take it.”

She thought about informing him that the cognac, a birthday gift, was very expensive and then decided that trying to talk him out of drinking some as a painkiller would be heartless—not to mention rude, under the circumstances. After all, she was the reason he had been beaten up tonight.

“Right,” she said.

She picked up the wineglass, went back around the island that separated the kitchen from the living room, and took down the bottle of cognac. She poured a small amount into a glass, hesitated, briefly considering her obligations as an employer, and added two more splashes. She picked up the cognac and the white wine and carried both into the living room.

She handed the cognac to Gideon and watched him take a healthy swallow. “Are you sure I shouldn’t call nine-one-one or drive you to the nearest emergency room?”

“Positive.”

She decided she could use a drink, too. She sipped the white wine and sank down onto the sofa. “All right, what happened?”

Gideon used his free hand to adjust one of the makeshift ice packs. “Best guess? You have stumbled into someone’s off-the-books business operation and attracted the attention of some very bad people.”

“It’s all those trips to Lucent Springs. Someone has realized that I’m closing in on answers.”

She drank some more wine and considered the fact that her worst nightmare had become a reality. She was being hunted. Again. But at least this time she was aware of the danger. She started to draw up a list of actions that needed to be taken.

“I’ve got to warn the others,” she said. “That might not be easy. Last I heard, Talia and Luke are following up a lead in the San Juan Islands. Limited cell phone service. Ambrose and Pallas are looking for someone on the list who lives off the grid in the Arizona mountains. I’ll ask our producer, Phoebe, to try to track them down. She’s a whiz with tech. After I do that I need to hire a bodyguard and head back to Lucent Springs. That’s where the answers are, I’m sure of it.”

“Amelia, did you hear a word I just said?” Gideon asked.

“What?” She blinked and yanked her thoughts out of planning mode. “Oh. Sorry. I was trying to develop a strategy for moving forward. I didn’t expect you to close my case so quickly or—” She broke off and waved a hand in a gesture meant to indicate his physical condition. “Or quite so dramatically.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I haven’t closed your case. I’m just getting started.”

“I hired you to get answers. I wanted to know if I was dealing with a random stalker or the people responsible for kidnapping my friends and me. You confirmed my suspicions. Send me the bill. I’m a little short on cash right now but I promise you’ll get paid.”

“Are you by any chance trying to fire me?”

“Not exactly. You’ve done your job. You’re through.”

“You can’t fire me and I’m not quitting. You and I are sticking together until we find the people who tried to grab you tonight.”

“I appreciate your professional commitment, but we have to be realistic. You are in over your head.”

“I’m aware I don’t look my best at the moment, but you should see the other guy.”

She managed a weak smile to acknowledge the weak joke. “Thank you for scaring him off.”

“You have no idea how much I scared him.”

“I’m very grateful but I really do need to find someone else to work with going forward.”

“Because of my physical condition?”

“It’s not just that. There’s the problem of trust.”

“You don’t trust me?”

He sounded surprised and possibly offended.

“I trust you, but you don’t trust me,” she said. “You didn’t believe me when I told you that I could see auras and photograph energy prints, for example.”

“To be fair, I’m in a business that requires some degree of skepticism.”

She sighed. “I understand. But I’m involved in a dangerous and complicated situation. I can’t afford to waste time with an investigator who is going to question everything I say.”

“Amelia—”

“Look, I get that you have doubts. I hoped you would take me seriously because your name was on that old research list. I assumed that meant you had some talent yourself.”

“Amelia—”

“I don’t know how or why you wound up on that list of people. Maybe the researchers made a mistake when they added your name to it. What I’m trying to say—”

“Amelia, the researcher who designed that damned test did not make a mistake. I’m on the list for a reason.”

That stopped her cold. “What?”

“One of my uncles, Shelton Sweetwater, designed and administered that study. A small, clandestine government agency commissioned the research. The goal was to find a reliable method of identifying and measuring psychic sensitivity. Shelton told me he tested a few hundred subjects on the West Coast.”

A thrill of discovery sent a shock wave through Amelia. Progress at last. “Your uncle was responsible for the test?” In the next breath excitement metamorphosed into outrage. “Why didn’t you tell me that when I hired you this morning?”

“Because I wasn’t sure who you were or what you were after. The results of that test were classified, after all, and in the end, the project was shelved.”

“Why?”

“According to Shelton, the study could not be replicated. None of the standard scientific testing methods or tools proved reliable. The reason my uncle was able to come up with a list of people who demonstrated a genuine psychic vibe was because of a device he invented that only he can operate.”

“Hmm.” She sat quietly and drank some more wine while she processed the new information. “This is important. I need to update my friends.”

“So much for ‘classified.’?”

She ignored that. “We should contact the agency that commissioned the research and tell them someone is running dangerous experiments on the people on that list.”

“Good luck with that. According to Shelton, the agency that commissioned the original research has long since disappeared into the graveyard of shuttered government projects devoted to paranormal research. He has no idea how to contact anyone who might know what to do about our problem.”

She paused her glass halfway to her mouth. “So it’s our problem now?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, there have to be records. Who’s in charge of them?”

“I don’t know, and neither does Shelton. It was a tiny government agency running a clandestine survey, Amelia. Trust me, no one is going to come forward now and take responsibility.”

She shot to her feet, wineglass in hand, and started pacing the room. “We’ve got to follow up on these new leads while they are hot.”

“I agree.” Gideon shifted a little in an apparent attempt to get more comfortable and watched her stride back and forth in front of the recliner. “I’ve been thinking about that. You and your podcast friends are evidently the uncontrolled variable in the equation. Your experience in Lucent Springs did not go according to someone’s plan and your actions afterward have further destabilized the system. I need to look at the origin point.”

She came to an abrupt halt. “What are you talking about?”

“Sorry. I was thinking out loud. You were right when you said we need to go to Lucent Springs.”

“I said I need to go back to Lucent Springs.”

He paid no attention to the small correction.

“I want to take a look at that old hotel,” he said. “Lucent Springs is out in the desert, about a two-hour drive.” He checked his watch. “I’ll spend the rest of the night here. We’ll stop by my place in the morning so that I can change my clothes and pick up a few things, and then we’ll head out.”

Amelia came to a halt in front of the recliner. “How much do you know about Lucent Springs?”

“I listened to a few more of the podcasts this afternoon.”

“I see. Well, that’s good, I guess, but you’re moving awfully fast, considering your current physical condition and your doubts about my story.”

“I’m not moving fast enough. I can hear a clock ticking, Amelia.”

For some reason the cold certainty in his voice unnerved her more than anything else he had said. On the positive side, whatever had happened in the service lane tonight had convinced him she was not delusional and that she really was in danger.

“I can hear that clock, too,” she said. She set the half-finished glass of wine on the kitchen island. “There are some pictures I want to show you. Don’t worry, they aren’t aura or energy photos. I’ll be right back.”

He said nothing but she was aware of him watching her as she walked across the living room and around the corner into the small entryway at the front door. She continued on down the hall to the darkroom.

Opening the door of the former walk-in closet, she flipped the light switch and went inside. The envelope that contained prints of the photos from the Night Island investigation was on the workbench. She grabbed it and started back toward the door. On impulse she paused, opened a drawer, and picked up the baggie that contained the badly charred hotel room key.

When she returned to the living room, she discovered that Gideon hadn’t moved. He continued to occupy her recliner as if he owned it. It occurred to her that she had no practical means of evicting him from her apartment. She was getting the feeling she was stuck with him, at least for the near future.

“We don’t have a lot of solid leads, but my friends Talia March and Luke Rand returned from Night Island with a few photographs,” she said. “The photographer was a researcher who had a special interest in fungi, so most of the photos are pictures of weird mushrooms, but he also took some shots of the interior of a laboratory on the island. One in particular interests me. I used a computer program to enhance it.”

Gideon took the black-and-white photo without a word and considered the image for a long moment.

“It looks like the corner of a box of laboratory chemicals or medication,” he said.

“We—my friends and I—think it might be a box that contained the drugs that were used in some of the experiments.”

She waited, wondering if he would question the conclusion.

“I can make out three letters on the side,” he said. “?‘Aur.’?”

“Yes,” she said. At least he wasn’t dismissing the small bit of evidence. “We’re hoping those are the first three letters of the name of the firm that shipped the drugs to Night Island. Our producer, Phoebe, is doing a deep dive into the dark web to look for a lab or compounding pharmacy with ‘Aur’ in the name, but so far, no luck.”

“Needle in a haystack,” Gideon said. He looked up from the photo. “Anything else in the way of physical evidence?”

“There’s a photo of two men who were involved in the Night Island experiments. Both have disappeared. Talia and Luke are working that angle.”

“Is that it?”

“Probably.”

Gideon’s brows rose. “Probably?”

She handed him the baggie with the key inside. “I’ve made several trips to Lucent Springs. On one of them I found that room key in the ruins of the old clinic. As you can see, there was a plastic tag attached at one time that may have had some identification on it. You can make out the number ten and what looks like a partial sketch of a barrel cactus.”

“Does it look like an old Lucent Springs Hotel key?”

“No. I’ve come across a few of them in what’s left of the lobby. They are very different in design.”

Gideon studied the key for a moment and regarded her with a thoughtful look. “What made you think it might be important?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Probably the fact that I found it in the burned-out clinic and it’s charred. That means it was dropped before the fire, not by some curiosity seeker who arrived afterward. For some reason—”

“For some reason you thought it might be important. Sounds like you’re going on intuition, and that’s more than enough to make me think this key is important.”

“Really? You trust intuition that much?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So does Aunt Cybil.”

“Good for Aunt Cybil. I hate to be a demanding houseguest, but would it be too much to ask for a blanket?”

It occurred to her that he was rapidly taking control of everything, including her apartment.

“This is a one-bedroom unit and my sofa is too small for you,” she warned, clutching at straws.

“I don’t need a bed. This chair will work just fine.” He settled deeper into the recliner. “Very comfortable.”

She cleared her throat. “Look, I’m grateful for the new information you just gave me and I am very sorry you were injured tonight, but let’s be honest. You are in no condition to continue working my case.”

“Someone tried to kidnap you or maybe intended to murder you.”

“ Murder me?”

“Neither would have been a good outcome. You were right when you said you needed a bodyguard.”

She swallowed hard, grappling with the possibility that the stalker might want to kill her. “You’re not exactly the bodyguard type, are you?”

“I realize I have failed to make a good impression but I’m not quite as pathetic or useless as I appear.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There’s a reason I was on Uncle Shelton’s list,” Gideon said. “He was conducting research, remember?”

“Yes, but—”

“He needed a control subject, someone he knew for sure possessed genuine paranormal talent.”

She got an electric ping. “So?”

“So, he used me as his control.”

“And just how did your uncle prove you had some measurable paranormal ability if he didn’t have a reliable way of actually measuring it?”

“Unlike a lot of talents, mine is fairly easy to demonstrate.”

“Is that right?” She folded her arms. “What do you do? Bend spoons or talk to ghosts?”

“When you opened the door tonight you asked if I had fallen down the stairs. I told you that you should see the other guy.”

“What happened to him?” she asked, suddenly uneasy.

“He’s in a coma.” Gideon finished the last of the cognac and lowered the glass. “He may or may not wake up.”

She stilled.

“Did you hit him with something?” she asked.

“Yes,” Gideon said. “But not with a physical object.”

Her breathing got very tight in her chest. “Are you saying you used your talent to put him into a coma?”

“He hit his head when he went down,” Gideon said. “That won’t improve his chances for recovery. But, trust me, he was out before he fell.”

She stared at him, trying to read his unreadable eyes. He did not sound triumphant, she decided. He wasn’t boasting. He wasn’t trying to impress her. His voice had a bleak, resigned quality. Whatever the truth of the matter, she did not doubt that he believed every word he had just said.

She unfolded her arms and tried to unobtrusively wipe her suddenly damp palms on her jeans. The assailant had no doubt hit his head very hard when he fell. That would explain his unconscious state. For the first time she wondered if Gideon was the one who was delusional.

“I’m not sure I understand,” she said carefully.

Gideon’s eyes got a silvery sheen that iced her nerves. Energy shivered faintly in the atmosphere.

“Be grateful you only see auras, Amelia,” he said. “There are more complicated talents.”

Aunt Cybil’s advice rang in her ears. Trust your intuition. Some things you know are true .

In that moment she decided she believed Gideon.

“I’ll get a blanket for you,” she said.