The Seance (Harrison Investigation #5)

Jed didn’t look at her. He rose and headed for the bathroom. A minute later she heard the shower come on.

He didn’t seem to appreciate her sense of humor, she thought, or understand that it seemed every bit as ridiculous to her to think that her cousins could be involved.

He came out, dressed, and drying his hair with a towel. “You should come with me,” he told her.

“No, thanks.”

“I’ll go see if Adam will join me.”

“Maybe Thor will go, too. Then Genevieve and I can talk about old times, and dish about you and Thor,” she said lightly, forcing a smile.

He paused by the bed and lifted her face. He kissed her lips. “Can a ghost kill?” he asked in all seriousness.

Was he mocking her? She couldn’t tell. She hesitated, then said, “He…uh…makes a decent cup of coffee,” she said.

“All right. I’ll see you later.” He started for the door, then turned back. “Wait for me?”

“All right.”

“I’m serious. I mean—”

“You mean I shouldn’t go anywhere—especially with my cousins—right?”

“There’s no real evidence,” he said.

“There’s no evidence at all,” she snapped in return. “Don’t worry about me. I want to decorate the house for Halloween, so I think I’ll get started on that. I’m a bit late, but, hey…there are still ten days left. And I can hunt up all the Thanksgiving stuff while I’m at it,” she said. “Ana wanted to go out for Halloween,” she said softly. “She wanted all of us to get dressed up like characters from the Wizard of Oz. She was going to be Toto.”

“Sounds…”

“Sounds lame when you’re talking about a serial killer in the same breath, huh?”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just said goodbye and left.

She sat there in her bed and listened to his footsteps on the stairs, followed by voices. Adam’s, Genevieve’s, Thor’s…Jed’s. Even Killer woofed his two cents. Finally the front door opened and closed, and then she heard a car start up, drive away. And still she stayed in bed, listening to the sound of silence.

“Adam, do you think you can help Katherine in any way? Do you think maybe she knows something that can help clear Beau but doesn’t realize it?” Jed asked, meeting the older man’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Thor was next to him, too tall to fit comfortably in the back seat. Jed wasn’t sure he was ever going to believe in ghosts, but he was intrigued by the efficacy of the power of suggestion and hypnosis. He was sure Adam knew that he didn’t believe in the supernatural, but then again, from everything he’d gathered, Adam Harrison never actively tried to convince anyone that the spirit world existed.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure how much she could know. She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen when the first set of murders took place. She believes in her brother, blindly, because she loved him. That doesn’t mean she actually knows anything, even subconsciously.”

When they arrived at the Kidd house, Katherine had obviously been waiting. She walked out to greet them, looking thin and tense, despite her jaunty earrings and her gypsy-style skirt.

“I’ve been watching the news. Lieutenant Tiggs is being interviewed. He just told the reporter that authorities think they’re looking for a copycat killer!” She shook her head in dismay. “How can they say that?”

“They haven’t found any reason to fault Larry Atkins for shooting your brother, Katherine,” Jed explained. “I’m sure there’s a lot of departmental pressure to keep the story as-is until they know something different. It’s also smart. If you and I are right and we’re still looking for the same killer, he’s more likely to make a mistake if he doesn’t realize they’re on to him.”

She nodded, but her attention was already focused on Adam. Her lips trembled suddenly. “I saw my brother last night,” she said. “I really saw him.”

“I believe you,” Adam said quietly.

She hesitated. “Can you hypnotize me?”

“Probably.”

“I can’t help thinking…if I could only remember the night he died, I might think of something we don’t know, something that would help.”

“You can’t bring your brother back, you know,” Adam said gently.

“Nothing can bring my brother back. I know that. But I still think there’s something from back then I need to remember.”

“All right,” Adam said after a minute. “Let’s go in, shall we?”

“Here’s one of the boxes of Thanksgiving decorations,” Christina said, pleased. She and Genevieve were down in the basement, where it was cool and pleasant. Her grandmother had always marked boxes clearly, so it was easy enough to find what she was looking for.

Genevieve laughed. “What was your first clue? That great drawing of a turkey, maybe?” she said.

“Mike did that. Mike could always draw,” Christina said.

“Okay…what else?” Gen asked.

“Why don’t you grab that box over there, past the pool table? I think it has seasonal serving trays and things.”

“I envy you your basement,” Gen said as she was getting the box in question. “I wish I had one, but with the water table down in the Keys…no way.”

Upstairs, as they set the boxes down, Christina looked at Genevieve and burst into laughter.

“What?”

“You’re covered in spiderwebs. I think I have to get down there and really sweep the place out.”

“Spiderwebs?” Genevieve said, horrified.

“Not so jealous of my basement now, huh?”

“Maybe not,” Gen laughed. “I don’t want a bunch of spider bites. I’m going to run up and take a shower. I’ll be back down in a few minutes.”

“I think I’ll run over and get Ana, see if she wants to help decorate.”

Christina cut across Tony’s lawn to reach Ana’s house. At the door, she rang the bell and waited. No one answered, and she started to walk away. Ana often worked weekends, so there was nothing strange about her being gone. But then she thought she heard movement within.

“Ana?” she called.

Nothing.

She walked around the house. Ana must be home, she thought, because she could hear the television; it was on somewhere in the back of the house.

“Ana?” she shouted, walking toward the back, where she noticed Ana’s car parked. Her friend was clearly home, so why wasn’t she answering the door or responding to her name?

Christina’s heart suddenly started to pound too swiftly, but she gave herself a mental shake.

There was no reason to be afraid for Ana. She had dark hair, not red. Other than being a woman, she didn’t resemble any of the murder victims in the least.

Heart racing, temples pounding, Christina raced to the back door. It wasn’t exactly wide open, but it was ajar.

She was tempted to go in, then realized that if someone was in there, she had no way to fight, no way to save her friend, who had to be alive. Had to. She needed to get back to her own house as quickly as possible and call the police.

She raced back across Tony’s lawn to her own house, wondering if she was being watched by a killer. She looked around, searching for signs, then stopped stock still, too stunned to keep moving.

Dan’s car was there. Not parked in front of Ana’s, but down the street, partially hidden by a large oak tree.

She felt ill.

Horrified.

No. It couldn’t be.

She turned to run back to her own house. To reach a phone.

But as she stood there, the front door of Ana’s house opened and Dan stepped out. He had a piece of paper in his hand, but he didn’t look at it. He just stood there, then crumpled the paper in his fist.

Even from a distance, she could see the veins stand out in his arm.

She waited, momentarily frozen, as a chilly October breeze gusted past, drawing her hair across her throat.

As if in warning.

She realized that she was partially shielded from Dan’s sight by a large bush, but if she wasn’t careful, he would see her.

She looked around desperately and tried to figure out where to run for safety.

Ana’s house?

Tony’s?

Her own?

She made up her mind and ran.

Adam Harrison didn’t dangle a pendant in front of Katherine’s face and tell her she was getting sleepy. Instead he had her sit in a comfortable chair and close her eyes. Then, in a soothing voice, he described a scene so calm and peaceful that Jed nearly fell asleep himself.

At last Adam told Katherine that she was a child again, living at home, and though her brother was a cop, with a place of his own, he still came to the house a lot. Sometimes he took her and her friends to a movie or one of the local water parks.

“Beau is dating a girl named Grace Garcia, Katherine. Do you remember her?”

“Yes. She’s from Ybor City. Her family are cigar makers. They came over from Cuba.”

Katherine’s voice had changed, Jed realized. She actually sounded as if she were thirteen, not the twenty-five he knew she was.

“So you knew Grace.”

“Yes.”

“And what did Beau say about her?”

“He liked her. But he was scared when he met her.”

“Do you know where he met her?” Adam asked.

Katherine smiled. “I know. I know, because I was with him.”

“And where was that?”

“The pub.”

Jed felt his muscles go tense.

“What pub?”

“O’Reilly’s pub. Lots of people went there. Beau said anybody who was really Irish always went there.”

Anybody who was really Irish.

“I can see Beau now,” she whispered.

Jed went still. He could have sworn he saw the man himself. Standing by his sister—staring straight at Jed.