“No.” He paused, frowning. “Did Sam tell you about my preference for working alone?”
“No.”
Judson’s irritation was palpable. “You can read that kind of personality trait in an aura?”
“I didn’t get that information from your aura.” She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. “Five minutes in your company was more than enough to reveal that aspect of your character, believe me.”
She jumped down and slammed the car door a little harder than was necessary.
JUDSON CRACKED OPEN the driver’s-side door and got out. Together they went up the steps, crossed the porch and stopped at the door.
He watched her take the key out of her tote. When she got the door open, he moved into the front hall ahead of her. Energy whispered in the atmosphere, cold and intense. She knew that he had heightened his talent.
“The electricity is still on,” she said. She stepped into the hall behind him and flipped a switch, illuminating the small space. “No need to work in the dark.”
“Which way?”
“Down the hall to your right.”
Judson moved along the hallway. “What happened to the Ballinger study?”
“Evelyn stopped it after the second member of the study group was found dead. She realized that something awful was happening, and she sensed that it was connected to her research.”
“I’m going to want to hear about the three people who died two years ago,” he said. “Especially how you came to find the bodies.”
She had known this was coming, she reminded herself. She was prepared.
“I assumed you would want the details,” she said.
He looked back over his shoulder. “Show me where you found Ballinger’s body.”
“All right, but I think I should show you this picture first.” She took a photo out of her tote and handed it to him. “I found this on the floor beside her this morning. I’m not sure what to make of it but I think it might be important.”
Judson studied the photo. “I recognize you. Who are the others?”
“It’s a group shot of the members of Evelyn’s research study. She kept it thumbtacked to her bulletin board. The fact that it had been ripped off the board and dropped on the floor bothered me for some reason.”
“Ballinger is not in the picture.”
“She was the one who took the photo. Three of the people in that picture are dead. Mary Henderson, the blonde on the left, Ben Schwartz, the man standing next to her, and Zander Taylor. Taylor is the good-looking dark-haired man in the first row.”
“You’re standing next to a serial killer.”
She shuddered. “Don’t remind me. His goal was to take us down in the order in which we were posed in the picture. It was all a game to him. He was annoyed because he had to make me his third target. He said I had interfered with the proper sequence of play.”
Judson’s eyes heated. So did his ring. “He told you that?”
“Shortly before he went over the falls. Yes.”
“All right, we’ll finish this conversation later. Let’s take a look at the scene.”
Gwen kept her talent tamped down so that she would not see the ghost in the mirror. She reached around the corner of the door frame, found the wall switch and flipped it.
Shock lanced through her when she registered the chaos inside the office. Desk drawers and cupboard doors stood open. Books had been swept off the shelves. Files had been pulled out of the metal cabinet and dumped on the floor.
“Good grief,” she whispered, stunned.
“I take it things didn’t look like this when you got here this morning?” Judson said.
“No,” she said. “Someone searched this room sometime after I left today.”
She was already tense and on edge. Her startled response to the scene in the office kicked up her talent. It was an intuitive reaction. Before she could suppress it, she was looking into the mirror.
The ghost appeared in the glass.
“Well, you knew that this was going to get a lot more complicated, didn’t you, dear?” the ghost said. “That’s why you brought along your very own psychic investigator. I must say, he looks interesting. Definitely a high-end talent. I do hope he’s competent.”
“You and me, both,” Gwen said under her breath.
“What did you say?” Judson asked.
“Nothing.” She dragged her attention away from the mirror, lowered her senses and looked at him. “Talking to myself. I do that sometimes. Bad habit.” She swept a hand out to indicate the overturned office. “What happened here?”
“I’ll go out on a limb here and say that it sure looks like someone was searching for something he expected to find in Evelyn’s office.”
“No kidding.” She paused, frowning. “Maybe the killer didn’t find whatever he was after on her computer so he came back to take another look.”
“I don’t think so.” Judson prowled deliberately through the office, stopping briefly to brush his fingertips across the top of the desk. “I think we’re dealing with someone else. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection between the second person and the killer, though.”
“What makes you think that there was a second person here?”
“There’s a lot of desperation and growing rage in this space. Whoever conducted the search started out with a high level of urgency and left in a frustrated fury.”
Gwen was fascinated. “You can sense all that?”
“Sure,” Judson said, “providing the emotions were laid down with a lot of intense energy as they were in this case. It’s what I do, Gwen.”
“All right, let’s think about this. If there was a second intruder, maybe he was searching for whatever was on the computer or the cell phone, in which case he didn’t find it because the killer got to the information first.”
“That’s a reasonable assumption.” Judson crouched on the floor and shuffled through the folders that had been dumped on the carpet. “Some of these files go back thirty years.”
“I told you, Evelyn devoted her life to the study of the paranormal. But in the end, she was never able to prove anything to mainstream science.”
Judson opened several folders and examined the contents. “Looks like most of her research was focused on dreams.”
“Much of it was, yes. That’s why she and I became so close. I met Evelyn when I was in high school at the Summerlight Academy. She was a counselor there, the only one who really understood my psychic side. My aura vision is linked to my lucid-dreaming ability.”
“Yeah?”
She flushed, remembering how bad things had gone that night in Seattle when she had made the mistake of offering to fix his dark dreams.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “It’s complicated, believe me.”
“I believe you.” Judson got to his feet with the languid grace of a tiger. “You and Ballinger stayed in touch after you left Summerlight?”
“Yes.” She watched Judson move through the room. “Well? What do you think? Did Evelyn die of natural causes because of the shock of a random home invasion? Or was she murdered?”
Judson stopped in the vicinity of the space where Gwen had found Evelyn’s body. Energy heated the atmosphere.
“She was murdered,” he said quietly. “No question about it.”
Gwen thought she was prepared for that answer. It was the same conclusion that she had arrived at that morning. Nevertheless, Judson’s matter-of-fact certainty made her catch her breath.
“By paranormal means?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Damn, just like last time.” Gwen made fists with her hands. “I was hoping I was wrong.”
Judson did not respond to that. Instead, he did another short circuit of the room and stopped again near the desk.
“What?” she asked. “I can tell that something isn’t coming together for you.”
Judson met her eyes. “Ballinger died here, where I’m standing. But I’m almost positive that the killer was not physically close to her when she died. He was standing over there, near the door.”
“Oh, crap, are you sure?”