A late-arriving fed caught his eye, a tough, slight-looking woman in a black leather jacket, jeans, and hiking boots. He watched her pop some pills into her mouth and wash it down with coffee while they both looked out in his direction, scanning the crowd. There was an easy comfort to the way they interacted. Partners, Nick figured. The coffee drinker donned an FBI jacket and walked toward the tree, and Nick wondered if she might be the one in charge. Not a good sign. Female law enforcement were generally harder to handle. Their bullshit meters were far more finicky. He wondered how long it might be before he was having a conversation with her. A day? Two, perhaps?
The other one came toward the crowd, and if it was not for the FBI-emblazoned jacket, Nick would never have pegged her for law enforcement. She had none of the swagger or stern confidence most portrayed at a crime scene. She looked far too soft for that, far too kind around the eyes.
It was the eyes that grabbed Nick’s attention though. She scanned the crowd, but her gaze was unfocused, miles away. He watched her, curious about what she could be looking for until she got within about ten feet of his spot. Those distant and vacant blue eyes came abruptly into sharp focus, and what little color she had slowly evaporated from her face. The cold, probing fingers of psychic energy pushed around him then, and Nick swallowed the bile that rose in his throat.
Christ! A medium.
He gave off a definite and profound sense of death, or so his assistant Cynthia claimed. She was a powerful medium in her own right and, after meeting fifteen years before, had told him he felt like a walking cemetery. Not the most endearing sentiment, but apparently true. Nick had hired her on the spot. She had taught him how to know when a psychic was looking around for the dead, opening themselves up to the spirit world. It was a very distinct feeling, and now here he was, face-to-face with one who worked for the FBI who was standing five feet away from him at a crime scene he would undoubtedly be tied to sooner, if not later.
She wobbled on her feet, pale as the death she must have been sensing. Nick could see she did not suspect him in the slightest, but she felt him, and it scared the shit out of her. It would have been a good time to casually shift off into the crowd.
“Miss? Are you okay? You look a bit pale.” The gesture of goodwill was out of his mouth before he could stop it.
“No, no. I’m fine, thanks. Just lost in thought,” she said, managing a friendly smile. “How are you?”
She had a sense of wholeness about her that Nick found striking. It had his mind conjuring up an image a century and a half old, sweet and bitter at the same time. His comforting smile faded. “Disappointed I have to see things like this. You sure you’re all right? I thought you might pass out there for a second.”
The scared look in her eyes began to dissipate, replaced with wariness. “Fine. Really. I imagine you’ve been asked, but have you seen anything unusual around here today?”
Nick caught the subtle inflection, but years of listening to such questions had honed his response down to nothing. “No, I haven’t. I was just walking through the park and stopped to see what all the fuss was about, and I think I’ve seen enough. I’m not fond of the circus folks make of these things.”
“No,” she said. “Neither am I, but we’ll catch him. Don’t you worry.”
Nick gave her a faint smile and nod before backing away and heading slowly out of the crowd. He waited until she continued her search in another direction. It was time to leave. A medium was going to be hard to deal with, and any snooping around would have to be very quiet. The time had come to inform everyone else. Shelby would be pissed he had failed to inform her earlier. Reggie would be eager for action, but then he was always ready. The dead were good that way. Poor Cynthia had not heard any of this story.
He picked up the pace once he reached the edge of the park, and Nick could feel the creeping pangs of hunger. It was time for some blood.
Chapter 3
Laurel did not look at Jackie when Jackie stopped a few feet in front of her. She sat on the hood of the car, feet on the bumper, her elbows propped on her knees. The cigarette between her fingers glowed for a brief moment in agitation before leaving her mouth.
Jackie sighed loudly and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, what gives?”
She finally flicked her gaze upward. “There’s something here.”
Jackie closed her eyes. Great. First a boy drained of blood and now something supernatural. She stepped up and sat down on the hood next to Laurel. “Give me one.” She didn’t really want a cigarette. Six months without and she had kicked the habit yet again, but it was one of those camaraderie things. “So what the hell is it?”
“Hush,” Laurel said, putting a finger to her lips. “He’s close and might hear you.”
Whatever it was, it was dead. Being quiet didn’t much matter for Jackie. Still, Laurel actually looked frightened, and that was enough to be worried about. The spooky stuff rarely did that, so when it did you paid attention. “Sorry. You want some pics of the area?” When she nodded, Jackie waved Denny King over and had him go run off a gigabyte’s worth of photos in the direction Laurel had pointed. While he was doing that, Jackie grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off the car.
“Come on. Come get a look at our boy.” It was best to get her mind off whatever it was that had scared her. It was not the first time supernatural shit had hit the fan, and much like the normal shit in life, Jackie knew you had to just wipe it off and keep walking. She prayed to herself that whatever was out there stayed away from the case.
Pernetti had thankfully vacated the scene when they stepped up to Archie. It was difficult to get the deflated-balloon image out of Jackie’s head. Someone had just drained the life right out of him. What sort of person were they dealing with here? The familiar knot of self-righteous anger began to burn in her gut. This was a fucked-up guy they were after. The sort that needed a swift and permanent removal from this world.
“What an awful thing to do to someone, and a child at that,” Laurel said, squatting down next to Jackie beside the body. “They finished with him?”
She nodded. “Yeah, think so. Go ahead.”
Laurel reached out and laid her fingertips on the boy’s hand. A moment later, she jerked back. “Shit. It’s here, too.”
“It?” Jackie stood, half expecting the boy to sit up from the tree. “What it?”
“The… spirit or whatever it was. Its residue is on the boy.” She rocked for a moment on the balls of her feet and then tentatively touched Archie again, lingering longer this time. The firm set of her mouth turned into a frown.
Jackie stared down at her. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” Laurel pulled back and gave her an “excuse me” look. “Sorry. I hate when your freaky ghost shit gets involved in a case. So are you saying the thing out there had something to do with Archie’s death?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t even think it’s the same spirit. This one is… bad news, Jackie. Really bad.”
The knot in Jackie’s stomach dissolved into something else. Trepidation. “And the one out there was nice in comparison to this?”
“Different.” She got to her feet, leaning lightly against Jackie’s arm. The effort had obviously drained her. “Whatever this is, it isn’t here anymore. The thing out there…” Laurel dug her fingers into Jackie’s arm for support and perhaps a little courage. “Goddess help me, Jackie. It was so strong. I felt like I’d opened a door to the other side.”