"Talked to him, have you?" she murmured.
Tony grinned at her. "Oh, yes. I was treated to a ten-minute lecture on the corruption within government agencies."
Miranda sighed. "On a normal day, very few people really listen to him, and he's mostly harmless. But with all this going on ... I'm afraid he might actually inspire a few of the hotheads to do something stupid."
Bishop said, "We probably don't have too much to worry about as long as they don't have a definite focus for their rage. We certainly haven't a suspect to offer them. And as far as I can tell, not even the gossips have suggested anyone for the role of possible killer."
"That's true enough — today, at least," Miranda agreed. She looked across the table to see Tony drumming his fingers on the legal pad, and said, "Is something bothering you, Tony?"
He looked down at his hand, frowned, "and stopped drumming. Bright eyes moved from Bishop's calm face to Miranda. "I'm feeling tense," he said dryly. "I can't imagine why."
Miranda glanced at Bishop, and decided not to venture down that road. To Tony, she said only, "It's a tense time."
"Oh, yeah."
Bishop also ignored Tony's words. "Sharon called. She's flying back down this afternoon. Says she has something interesting for us. Maybe we'll finally get a break."
"That'd be a nice change," Miranda said. "In the meantime, the town council has called an emergency meeting, and I need to be there."
"Does Justin Marsh know about it?" Bishop asked.
"Not if we're lucky," Miranda replied as she walked to the door. "And since I threatened to arrest anybody who told him, I'm feeling lucky today."
Tony chuckled as the door closed behind her. "I had a feeling she could play hardball if she had to."
"I never doubted it," Bishop said.
Tony eyed him. "You know, even being sensitive to emotions around me, I never understood how tension could be so real you could actually cut it with a knife — until now."
"Learn something new every day."
"Boss, I'm not the only one who's noticed. Take another look out in the bullpen next time you walk through — especially if Miranda is in the room. Every deputy in the place watches you two the way they would a ticking bomb."
Bishop went to refill his coffee cup. "Yeah, I know."
"So?"
"So what?"
"So, what're you going to do about it?"
"There's nothing I can do, Tony. She wouldn't even be talking to me if it wasn't a professional duty."
Tony watched him for a moment longer, then said, "Guess you're right. There's nothing you can do about it. I'm sure neither of you could stand raking up old hurts, not at this late stage. Better to just get through this and get out of her life for good. Much better for everyone concerned."
Bishop shot him a look, but Tony was frowning down at the legal pad and seemed oblivious when Bishop said with more force than he'd intended, "Exactly."
"Say yes, Bonnie." Amy's voice shook and her eyes pleaded. "It's almost four days now, and nobody's seen him. I have to do something, I just have to!"
Bonnie kept her own voice calm. "Not this, Amy. This won't help anything."
"I know he's still alive, I know that, but we reached Lynet before and maybe she knows—"
"You two tried this before?" Seth asked.
"I've tried a dozen times on my own," Amy told him. "All week I've tried, but it never worked for me. But Bonnie made it work, she—"
"I didn't make anything work, Amy."
"Then it worked through you or something. All I know is that Lynet reached out to us before you made us stop. She knows who killed her, Bonnie, and maybe she knows where Steve is."
"Listen to yourself," Seth said uneasily.
"I'm telling you, it worked for Bonnie." Amy tapped the Ouija board she had set up on the table beside the bed. "Some people are more sensitive than others. I read that last night while I was researching this on the Internet. The really sensitive ones can talk to spirits. They're called mediums. I think Bonnie's a medium."
Bonnie sat beside her on the bed. "Stop talking about me as if I weren't here. I'm not a medium, Amy."
"Does Miranda know about this?" Seth demanded.
Amy's laugh was brittle. "Do you think she'd care if we could tell her where to find Steve? Do you think anybody will care?"
"Amy, it isn't that simple and you know it," Bonnie said. "Randy wouldn't like it, and I don't like it either. It's dangerous to play around with this stuff."
Seth frowned. "This is just a game, right? You don't believe the dead speak through this game, do you, Bonnie?"
She returned his gaze steadily. "I believe the dead speak when they realize someone's listening. And I'm telling both of you — it isn't always smart to be the one listening."
Seth would have scoffed, but something in her grave blue eyes stopped him. Not entirely sure he wanted to know any more than he already did, he said to Amy, "Look, I know you want to find Steve. I do, too. But this isn't the way."
"Why? Because you know it won't work? Or because Bonnie believes it will?" Her ferocity challenged them both. "Bonnie, you're my best friend. And you know — you know why I have to find Steve, don't you?"
Seth looked from one to the other and got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Amy, are you—"
"I have to find Steve. I have to." Her trembling fingers rested on the planchette. "Help me, please."
Bonnie surrendered with a sigh. "All right. All right, but remember what I said before. Keep your mind focused on what you want to know. Seth?"
"I think I'll just watch, if you don't mind." He sat down on the stool by the dressing table and folded his arms across his chest, both literally and symbolically removing himself from the attempt.
Bonnie wished she knew whether he'd be able to accept this. The possibility that he wouldn't scared her even more than the very real probability that this entire thing was a terrible mistake. But Amy was her best friend, and for Amy's sake she had to try to help.
Drawing a deep breath, she reached out and placed her fingertips next to Amy's on the planchette.
Instantly, it swung across the board and centered over NO.
Before Bonnie could ask if it was a warning for them to stop, Amy spoke quickly.
"Where is Steve?"
M ... I ... L ... L.
Leaning toward the board unconsciously as Amy spelled out loud, Seth said, "Mill? The paper mill?"
NO.
"Wow," he muttered at the instant response, then watched in fascination as the planchette moved briskly.
M...I...L...L...H...O...U...S...E.
For a moment the teenagers looked blankly at one another, then Seth announced, "I know. That broken-down place out on the river where they used to grind grain. I thought it was barely standing, but I suppose ..."
Eagerly, Amy asked, "Is that it? Is Steve at the old mill house at the river?"
YES.
"We can save him." Amy almost stuttered in her excitement. "We can tell Randy, and—"
The planchette moved frantically.
T...O...O...L...A...T...E.
Amy gasped, her face draining of color.
Bonnie wanted to move her fingers off the planchette, but couldn't somehow. She watched, mesmerized, as the flying indicator repeated the words with almost manic intensity.
TOO LATE . . . TOO LATE . . . TOO LATE.
Seth reached over and knocked the planchette to the floor.
Amy sobbed, as Seth and Bonnie stared at each other, both white-faced. Then a motion caught their attention, and both turned their heads to see the gauzy curtains at her closed window billow inward as though a gust of wind had entered the room.
Or something.
"Oh, shit," Bonnie murmured.
Instead of eating lunch, Bishop went running. He hoped the exercise would work off the tension knotting his shoulders, but even after a forty-five-minute run and a hot shower, the tension remained. And since he was about to walk back into the Sheriff's Department, he didn't expect things to get any better.