Which Becca would not have waited to hear anyway. She filled her lungs with fresh air and shook off the intensity of the last thirty minutes with every step she took away from the spooky scientist’s lair. Walking faster, toward Charlie’s and her friends, Becca pictured the immense hot fudge sundae awaiting her, and she homed in on it like a bat on a convention of grasshoppers.
Jo turned the bolt of the heavy inner door. She watched out the beveled glass pane as the blond woman hurried up the street. The bars between them were a tangible and welcome shield. Shivering with relief, she turned back to the solitude of her refuge.
She’d seen the pity in Becca Hawkins’s eyes as they shook hands. With long and hard study, Jo had learned to read facial expressions as well or better than anyone. Often, the emotions that prompted them still mystified her, but pity was never hard to grasp.
She moved silently across the dim room. The glass case containing her prized collection of Spiricoms reflected her image in the meager light. Jo recognized a muted excitement lingering in her features. The intellectual thrill of this new study intrigued her. The chronology was unusual — the birthdays. This mother died on her daughter’s fifth birthday, then spoke to her on her sixteenth, then again on her thirty-ninth. This implied a meaningful pattern of contact, a consistent sequence that was generally absent in EVP.
Jo lived for it, the wonder of these voices. That a soul could be so connected to the world they were able to reach through death to speak to the living. To be so bonded to humanity, they were compelled to break the ancient command of silence after death. Human connection was Jo’s alien frontier, her life’s mystery.
The familiar contours of her chair and the burnished wood of her desk comforted her. She smoothed her hands lightly over the keyboard of her notebook. The Hawkins woman presented a more mundane puzzle.
She tapped up one of her programs on microexpressions, checking her conclusion with expert results. Jo would never be a great font of insight into human behavior, but the woman’s minute, fleeting facial expressions during this initial interview all told the same story.
Becca Hawkins was lying.
Chapter Two
Bran muffins. Joanne Call was a bran woman; Becca was sure of it. If she wasn’t, she desperately needed to be. Becca bit deeply into her huge chocolate cupcake as she walked, juggling the extra muffin and two cups of coffee.
Broadway was relatively quiet this afternoon, bright and hot. Becca wended around the parking kiosks, missing Khadijah’s friendly hand on her shoulder. Marty had offered to hide in the closet of Becca’s old house as backup today, should things get too bizarre. Becca nearly took her up on it. She wasn’t looking forward to entering the house again. Before her birthday two days ago, she hadn’t set foot in the place in more than thirty years.
Had not the illustrious Dr. Call gruffly cleared her throat, Becca would have walked straight into her. She came to an abrupt halt and blinked up into twin reflections of her own face. Dr. Call wore aviator sunglasses that mirrored Becca’s startled eyes while completely concealing her own. She tried to say something civil, but her mouth was still full of chocolate cupcake. She strived for a dignified expression, chewed furiously, and swallowed hard.
“Breakfast, Ms. Hawkins?” The aviator sunglasses nodded at the burdens Becca carried. “You sleep in rather late.”
Ignoring this insinuation of sloth, Becca handed over one cup of coffee and the muffin. “I thought we were meeting at your office.”
“We’re standing in front of my office.”
Becca glanced at the barred gate, three feet to her left. Ach. So they were.
Dr. Call examined the bran muffin, which was the size of a cannonball. A curious transformation came over the part of her face that Becca could see, a slight softening around the mouth. A dimple actually appeared in her cheek.
“Was I that rough on you last night?”
Becca liked her getting the joke. “Eh, I’m not the easiest interview. I guess we both did all right.”
Dr. Call nodded, turned, and walked up the street. Becca sighed and appealed to the heavens. All right, there were signs of humor and humility in the lentil queen, but small talk was not her forte. She trotted to catch up.
Jo walked the shaded avenues of Capitol Hill often, but always at dawn, before Broadway fully awoke. There were few other pedestrians blocking the sidewalks now, which suited her. Her mind had charted an efficient path to the address Hawkins had provided and they could be there in ten minutes. The muffin was actually quite tasty, and the coffee an excellent chaser. She tried to remember if she had thanked Hawkins for them.
“Hey, Batman. You’re giving me bunions.”
Jo turned, surprised. Hawkins was far behind her, limping. She waited. “I’m sorry, Ms. Hawkins. I didn’t mean to race.”
“You have very long legs and I have very cheap Target sneakers.” Becca braced herself on a splintered wooden pole, which was stapled with a hundred flyers advertising local bands, and adjusted her laces. She pointed at the small satchel Jo carried over her shoulder. “Can I ask what’s in there?”
“Oh. I’ve brought some instruments to measure the acoustics of your house. Some recording devices. Is it occupied right now?”
“No.” A shadow passed over Becca’s features. “It’s not my house. My uncle owns it. A family friend shows it to prospective renters for him. She’s going to meet us there. It’s between tenants.”
Jo wondered at the shadow, then wondered why a family would hold on to a house with such painful memories for so many years. She clasped her hands behind her and walked on, shortening her stride so Hawkins could keep up.
She noted an attractive flush coloring Hawkins’s high cheeks. Her propensities for chocolate, sleeping in, and bad sneakers aside, Becca Hawkins seemed healthy enough, even vigorous. She couldn’t be called trim, but her full curves were aesthetically pleasing. She was dressed in a light blue T-shirt and cotton shorts, and Jo looked down at her own pristine white shirt and black slacks. She envied this woman’s easy informality.
“How did you get into this work, Dr. Call? You can call me Becca, by the way.”
Damn. Jo considered simply walking faster to evade that most onerous of social conventions, the personal conversation. Why did people always begin with that insipid question? As if she could explain her belief system in a sound bite. She summoned the stock answer she used in interviews. “My doctorates are in organic chemistry and transpersonal psychology. The latter involves the self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience. I suppose exploring EVP was a natural offshoot of my earlier studies.”
“Okay. A little Wikipedish, but fascinating.” There was no mockery in Becca’s eyes, just a benevolent teasing. “Transpersonal psych. That has to be the coolest degree on the books. Does it still excite you, exploring these ghostly realms?”
Usually a brief summation of Jo’s career satisfied the casual inquiry. If it didn’t, she was asked about the technical aspects of her research, not her feelings for it. Becca’s expression was friendly and open, and to her surprise, Jo found herself answering in kind. “Yes, it does still excite me. Every single day.”
“I can tell. When you talk about your work, your face changes. Something in you lights up.”
“I see.” Jo was unaware of ever lighting up, but she didn’t particularly mind this perception. She realized she was walking alone again, and turned back. “Ms. Hawkins?”
Becca was looking into a store window. She seemed only momentarily distracted; one inexpensive sneaker was lifted to take the next step. But her foot was frozen in midair, and an odd, rigid stillness held her body. She looked like a photograph, flat and lifeless. Jo walked back.