"Sorry, Earl," he said, panting. "I didn't see her, she came by so fast. Come on, miss. Let's go—"
But I didn't move. Instead, I pointed.
"I know him," I said, looking down at the body that lay, shirtless, on the frozen ground.
"Jesus." Rob's soft breath was warm on my ear.
"That's my neighbor," I said. "Nate Thompkins."
Marty and Earl exchanged glances.
"He went to get whipped cream," I said. "A couple of hours ago." When I finally tore my gaze from Nate's bruised and broken body, there were tears in my eyes. They felt warm, compared to the freezing air all around us.
I felt one of Rob's hands, heavy and reassuring, on my shoulder.
A second later, the county sheriff, a big man in a red plaid jacket with fleece lining came up to me.
"You're the Mastriani girl," he said. It wasn't really a question. His voice was deep and gruff.
When I nodded, he went, "I thought you didn't have that psychic thing anymore."
"I don't," I said, reaching up to wipe the moisture from my eyes.
"Then how'd you know"—He nodded down at Nate, who was being covered up with a piece of blue plastic—"he was here?"
"I didn't," I said. I explained how Rob and I had come to be there. Also how Dr. Thompkins had been over at my house earlier, looking for his son.
The sheriff listened patiently, then nodded.
"I see," he said. "Well, that's good to know. He wasn't carrying any ID, least that we could find. So now we have an idea who he is. Thank you. You go on home now, and we'll take it from here."
Then the sheriff turned around to supervise what was going on beneath the flood lamp.
Except that I didn't leave. I wanted to, but somehow, I couldn't. Because something was bothering me.
I looked at Marty, the sheriff's deputy, and asked, "How did he die?"
The deputy shot a glance at the sheriff, who was busy talking to somebody on the EMS team.
"Look, miss," Marty said. "You better—"
"Was it from those marks?" I had seen that there'd been some kind of symbol carved into Nate's naked chest.
"Jess." Now Rob had hold of my hand. "Come on. Let's go. These guys have work to do."
"What were those marks, anyway?" I asked Marty. "I couldn't tell."
Marty looked uncomfortable. "Really, miss," he said. "You'd better go."
But I didn't go. I couldn't go. I just stood there, wondering what Dr. Thompkins and his wife were going to do, when they found out what had happened to their son. Would they decide to move back to Chicago?
And what about Tasha? She seemed to really like Ernest Pyle High School, if her enthusiasm about the yearbook committee was any indication. But would she want to stay in a town in which her only brother had been brutally murdered?
And what was Coach Albright going to say when he learned he'd lost yet another quarterback?
"Mastriani." Rob was starting to sound desperate. "Let's go."
I didn't realize precisely why Rob was sounding so desperate until I turned around. That was when I very nearly walked into a tall, thin man wearing a long black coat and a badge that indicated that he was a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Hello, Jessica," Cyrus Krantz said to me, with a smile that I'm sure he meant to be reassuring, but which was actually merely sickening. "Remember me?"
C H A P T E R
5
It would be hard to forget Cyrus Krantz. Believe me, I've tried. He's the new agent assigned to my case. You know, on account of me being Lightning Girl and all.
Only Cyrus Krantz isn't exactly a special agent. He's apparently some kind of FBI director. Of special operations, or something. He explained the whole thing—or at least he tried to—to my parents and me. He came over to our house not long after Mastriani's burned down. He didn't bring a pie or anything with him, which I thought was kind of tacky, but whatever. At least he called first, and made an appointment.
Then he sat in our living room and explained to my parents over coffee and biscotti about this new program he's developed. It is a division of the FBI, only instead of special agents, it is manned by psychics. Seriously. Only Dr. Krantz—yeah, he's a doctor—doesn't call them psychics. He calls them "specially abled" individuals.
Which if you ask me makes it sound like they must all take the little bus to school, but whatever. Dr. Krantz was very eager for me to join his new team of "specially abled" secret agents.
Except of course I couldn't. Because I am not specially abled anymore. At least, that's what I told Dr. Krantz.
My parents backed me up, even when Dr. Krantz took out what he called "the evidence" that I was lying. He had all these records of phone calls to 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU, the missing children's organization with which I have worked in the past, that supposedly came from me. Only of course all the calls, though they were from my town, were placed through pay phones, so there was no real way to trace who'd made them. Dr. Krantz wanted to know who else in town would know the exact location of so many missing kids—a couple hundred, actually, since that day I'd been hit by lightning.
I said you never know. It could be anybody, really.
Dr. Krantz made this big appeal to my patriotism. He said I could help catch terrorists and stuff. Which I admit would be pretty cool.
But you know, I am not really sure that is something I would like to subject my family to. You know, the vengeful wrath of terrorists, peeved that I caught their leader, or whatever. I mean, Douglas gets freaked by call-waiting. How much would terrorists rock his world?
So I politely declined Dr. Krantz's invitation, all the while insisting I was about as "specially abled" as Cindy Brady.
But that didn't mean Dr. Krantz had given up. Like his protégés—Special Agents Smith and Johnson, who'd been pulled off my case and whom I sort of missed, in a weird way—Dr. Krantz wasn't about to take no for an answer. He was always, it seemed, lurking around, waiting for me to mess up so that he could prove I really did still have my psychic powers.
Which was unfortunate, because he was neither as pretty as Special Agent Smith, or as fun to tease as Special Agent Johnson. Dr. Krantz was just …
Scary.
Which was why when I saw him there in that cornfield, I let out a little shriek, and must have jumped about a mile and a half into the air.
"Oh," I said, when I'd pulled myself together enough to speak in a normal voice. "Oh, Dr. Krantz. It's you. Hi."
"Hello, Jessica." Dr. Krantz has kind of an egg-shaped head, totally bald on top, only you couldn't tell just then, because he was wearing a hat pulled down low over his eyes. I guess he thought this made him look like Dr. Magneto, or something. He seemed like the kind of guy who'd want to be compared to the X-men's Dr. Magneto.
His gaze flicked over Rob, whom he'd met before, only not in my living room, of course.
"Mr. Wilkins," he said, with a nod. "Good evening."
"Evening," Rob said, and, letting go of my hand to grab my arm instead, he began pulling. "Sorry. But we were just leaving."
"Slow down," Dr. Krantz said, with a creaky laugh. "Slow down there, young man. I'd like a word with Miss Mastriani, if I may."
"Yeah?" Rob said. He was about as fond as scientists in the employ of the U.S. government as he was of cops. "Well, she doesn't have anything to say to you."
"He's right," I said, to Dr. Krantz. "I really don't. Bye."
"I see." Dr. Krantz looked faintly amused. "And I suppose it was only by coincidence that you stumbled across this crime scene?"
"As a matter of fact," I said, in some surprise, since for once I was telling the truth, "it was. I was just passing by on my way home from Rob's."
"And the fact that I overheard you tell those gentlemen over there that the victim happens to be your neighbor?"
I said, "Hey, you're the government operative, not me. You ought to know more about this than I do. I mean, I'd feel pretty bad if a kid got killed during my watch."