Spirit and Dust

15


WE STOPPED ONCE in Wisconsin to switch drivers, then again near Rockford just before the sun came up. I grabbed my Walmart bag and used the restroom of the Starbucks to wash up and change into the clothes I bought.

When I came out and looked for Carson, I almost didn’t recognize him. He was at a table, poking around on the netbook, wearing a T-shirt and hoodie and a pair of rectangular dark-rimmed glasses, his hair spiked and messy with damp. He actually looked like a college student, harmless and sort of adorable.

I set the bag with my stuff in one of the chairs. “If you’re wearing skinny jeans, I refuse to be seen with you.”

He looked up, then had to take off the glasses to see me properly. “You’re one to talk. We both had the same idea.”

Right. I’d gone for hipster camouflage, too—jeans, layered T-shirts, skinny scarf draped around my neck—but I’d kept my studded accessories and skull-covered sneakers.

Carson held up a twenty-dollar bill. “Grab something to eat while I look up directions to the Institute.”

“Don’t look at the flash drive without me,” I warned, and accepted his acknowledging wave as a promise.

I returned to the table with an egg sandwich, a fruit cup, a muffin, and a venti nonfat latte. Carson didn’t comment on my breakfast, just slid over to make room so we could both see the ten-inch computer screen.

“Wait,” I said, putting my hand on his when he went to plug the mummy flash drive into the port. “If whatever is on here sends us straight back to Minnesota, I don’t want you to say I told you so.”

“But I didn’t tell you so,” he said, confused. “I had no problem following your hunch.”

“I know.” I let go of his wrist. “Which is just going to make me feel worse if we’ve crossed state lines in a stolen car for nothing.”

Rather than offer empty reassurance, Carson just plugged in the drive, and I held my breath.

This memory device is password protected.

Crap. I would rather have listened to “I told you so” all the way back to Minneapolis.

Carson reached for his coffee and contemplated the empty password box and flashing cursor. “Any ideas?”

“Does she have a pet? A favorite color? A favorite movie?”

He started typing things in—birth date, favorite actor, mother’s maiden name—with no luck at all. Finally he rubbed his eyes and closed the netbook. “It’s okay,” he said, when he saw my disappointment. “We’re not any further behind than we were before. We can be in Chicago by the time the museum opens.”

Jeez. It really was that early. I felt like I’d lived a week since heading for class yesterday morning.

A few hours later, we left our stolen car in a park-and-ride lot and caught the commuter train into Chicago, then switched to the subway. I played it cool, copying Carson and trying not to look too freaked out by the close quarters in the train car.

“Not a fan of closed spaces?” he asked as we bounced along the underground track. When I cut him a glance, he nodded at my hands, white-knuckled on the metal pole. I guess I wasn’t fooling anyone.

“It’s not the space. It’s the people.” I loosened my death grip, no pun intended. “The psychic baggage gets a little overwhelming, all packed in here like this.”

“Almost there,” he said, sympathetic. Then he hooked his elbow around the pole, took out his wallet, pulled out a card, and handed it to me. “Here. You might need this.”

“A Starbucks gift card?”

I didn’t think that was funny, but he laughed. “Are you always hungry?”

“Dude. It takes a lot of calories to run this much psychic genius.”

“I’m sure it does.” He tapped the card. “Lauren gave me this for you. This looks like whatever the viewer expects it to look like. You might need ID.”

I looked again and found nothing but a credit-card-sized piece of blank white plastic. I tried not to look as impressed as I was. “Do you know how many college students would give their eyeteeth for one of these?”

He flashed a grin that said he knew very well. “Don’t bother listing it on eBay. It’s only good for a day or so, and it won’t pass a hard inspection. Oh, and don’t try to buy any Starbucks with it. It doesn’t work on credit-card machines.”

I turned the card between my fingers. It must have taken a lot of magical mojo to make, even with the limitations. Lauren might rub me the wrong way, but she was one seriously kick-ass witch.

“How did your boss find her? I mean, is there a listing on Monster.com for witches for hire?”

Carson shrugged. “He has a lot of resources. I think her actual job title is ‘arcane adviser.’ ”

He had deadpan down to an art, that was for sure. “So, what’s your title?” I asked.

“Court jester,” he answered, with funereal gravity.

“No, really.” We stood holding on to the same subway pole, our shoulders brushing with the movement of the train. Close enough that we didn’t have to raise our voices over the noise of the rails. There was a peculiar sort of privacy in the crowd.

“Really,” he echoed, lightening his tone but sticking to his script. “I’m the king’s fool.”

I studied him with a bit of a squint, trying to bring him into focus, figuratively speaking. “I think you’re wise enough to play one. I’m really out on a limb here with you, and I don’t even know if Carson is your first or last name.”

He gave in with a sigh, his eyes on the sign over my shoulder, displaying the next subway stop. “I’m management in training. Don’t ask me more than that.”

“Why not?”

The train came to a halt, and I almost missed his answer in the shuffle of riders to the door. “Because I don’t want you to think even worse of me than you do. Come on. This is our stop.”

He caught my arm so we wouldn’t get separated in the jostle on the platform. I was glad to let him steer while I processed what he’d said. That he cared about my opinion. That he was at least ambivalent about his role in the Maguire organization. He seemed to dislike, maybe even hate Maguire. It was a safe bet he didn’t work for the man by choice. But what hold did the big boss have over him? It couldn’t be as simple as college tuition.

Maybe that was wishful thinking, only why would I wish that? I didn’t like morally ambivalent bad boys. I liked good guys—like rookie FBI agents open-minded enough to take on cold cases with a teenage psychic. But as we emerged into the biting Chicago wind and I glanced at Carson’s Roman coin profile, I wondered why I didn’t think worse of him than I did.


The Oriental Institute was located on the University of Chicago campus. It didn’t look Near or Far Eastern, but totally Western, with gables and ivied stone walls and Art Deco accents.

We arrived minutes after the posted opening time. On the front steps, I paused like I was studying the carved panel above the doors.

“What’s wrong?” asked Carson.

“Nothing.” I was just getting ready to enter a building with a millennium or two of history inside it. “Museums can be tricky. Just reel me in if I start talking to mummies or singing ancient Sumerian drinking songs.”

“Awesome. A floor show.” He pulled open the heavy front door and gestured me in with a flourish. “I’ll look forward to that.”

The building felt of age and academia, and I found myself treading lightly, like in a library. Only the smiling volunteer behind the info desk convinced me we weren’t trespassing.

“Are you students at the university?” she asked, handing us a brochure map of the place. “Or visiting from out of town?”

Carson gave her our prearranged cover story. We’d decided we couldn’t be students in the Egyptology department, because they probably all knew each other. “We have this crazy sketching assignment for one of our classes. It’s sort of like a scavenger hunt.”

The volunteer gave a sympathetic nod and a glance at our clothes. “Ah. Art students.”

“Our art history teacher’s a little bit of a head case,” Carson said, with just the right mix of drama and indifference to fit the stereotype. He was scary good at this. “We’re supposed to sketch something called the Oosterhouse Jackal.”

The woman’s frown seemed genuine. “I’ve never heard of any pieces called that.”

“Any jackals you can think of?” asked Carson, with a hint of that devilish grin.

She smiled back like she couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes for the same reason. “Down that hall and to the right is the Egyptian gallery,” she said, pointing to a pair of double doors leading off the foyer. “I’m sure there are plenty of jackals represented there.”

“Thanks,” said Carson. “One more question.” He took out his phone and pulled up a picture of Alexis. “This is the girl we’re trying to beat to the prize. Has she been in here recently?”

The lady looked carefully at the photo, then shook her head. “I’ve never seen her. But I only work here on Thursdays.”

Carson thanked her again, and she waved us on, wishing us luck.

I’d already started down the hall, drawn by the ginormous carving at the end of the gallery. It covered most of the wall—a winged bull with a man’s head. Assyrian, maybe? The distinction was probably important to someone who knew it.

There were no individual shades or remnants that I could sense. But the carefully curated artifacts saturated the air with history, bearing ancient witness to births and deaths and dynasties. My head was full of snatches of sound and color—Iron Age forges and sun-saturated desert.

“Hey, Sunshine.” A hand waved in front of my eyes. “Twenty-first century calling.”

I blinked myself back to the world as it was—high ceilings and climate-controlled cabinets and an almighty crick in my neck from staring up at a seventeen-foot-tall statue of a pharaoh. I looked around, surprised to find that I’d gone from ancient Iran to ancient Egypt without noticing.

“Boy,” said Carson. “You were not kidding about museums being tricky.”

“I warned you,” I told him, like it was his fault I’d gotten lost in time. Narrowing my focus, I circled the gallery and gingerly poked around with my extra senses, checking the room for any psychic hot spots. “Do you see anything … jackal-y?”

“You tell me.”

I didn’t understand what he meant until I looked with my eyes instead of my Sight, going from one limestone-encased cabinet to another, scanning the artifacts on display.

“Wow. There are a shit-ton of jackals in Egyptian art.”

“Hardly surprising,” said a stranger’s voice. I whirled. Carson turned calmly, as if he’d seen the guy approaching. The young man went on, “The jackal-headed, or sometimes dog-headed, god Anubis played a vital role in funeral rituals and afterlife beliefs.”

He seemed nonthreatening, speaking with a sort of friendly condescension, as if he couldn’t quite help himself. He looked way too young to be wearing a tweed blazer with patches on the elbows. Whatever look he’d been aiming for, all he hit was nerdy.

“Do you work here?” Carson asked. Silly question—dressed like that, where else would the guy work?

“I’m in the graduate program. Sarah—the volunteer at the front desk—told me you’re looking for something called … What was it?”

“The Oosterhouse Jackal.” I watched him for a reaction to the name. “We’re supposed to sketch it for art class.”

“I don’t know about a jackal,” he said, without any artifice that I could tell. “But there was a Professor Oosterhouse here during the nineteen twenties and thirties. Could that be related?”

“Maybe,” I said, a lot more “Here’s hoping” than “Eureka.”

He gestured to the exit. “Let’s go up to the research library and see if there’s any information in the archives.”

Carson didn’t move right away, but this seemed like an excellent plan, so when Elbow Patches led the way out of the gallery, I followed him and Carson followed me.

“I don’t trust him,” he murmured, when Elbows was far enough ahead not to hear. “Why is he being so helpful?”

“It’s a research institute,” I whispered back. “This place exists to help people find stuff out.”

Carson stared at the back of Elbow Patches’ head like he could see into his skull. “He was looking at you funny.”

“People always look at me funny.”

He made a noncommittal sound. I let him stay on his guard. One of us should be wary, I figured, even of a nerd with a slightly rabbity smile.

We went up a flight of stairs and down a hallway lined with office doors, finally reaching the reading room of the archives. Elbows opened the door for me and I had to hold back a squeal of delight. It looked like something out of Hogwarts.

There were rows of tables, shelves along the walls and more toward the end of the long room. The ceiling was vaulted, buttressed with oaken arches, and intricately painted. At the end of the room was a window with a lotus flower design filling the room with morning light.

Faint wisps of remnants eddied through the room like snatches of mist. Students at the desks. A tweed-suited librarian shelving books. None of them paid the living any attention—even me. They were merely impressions of the past, going about their business.

Elbow Patches led the way to a computer. “We’ll check here first and hope we get lucky. The Institute has so many documents and books that it’s an ongoing project getting the older stuff into the database.”

Carson hung back, arms folded, so I made nice. “That sleek computer looks almost out of place. I’d expect a cabinet with drawers of manila cards and a librarian with a rubber stamp.”

“Oh, we have that, too,” said Elbows. “The card catalog, I mean. But people log in from all over the world looking for specific papers, maps, and things. Stuff you can’t find anywhere else.” He finished typing into the search box, and a block of text rolled up the screen. “Here we go. Carl Oosterhouse, German-born archaeologist. Born 1887, died 1941. Expeditions to Egypt in 1924, 1926, 1930, 19—well, about seven in all.”

He’d reached the end of the short biographical paragraph. “Is that it?” I asked, disappointed even though I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. “I don’t suppose it says where he was buried.”

Elbows checked. A lot of people might think that was a weird question. But not, apparently, an Egyptologist. “It just says he died at sea. The circumstances aren’t listed.” He turned back to me, explaining, “He’s not one of our better-known faculty. I’ve only heard of him because I’ve run across his work in the archives.”

I waited for him to go on, but when he didn’t, I prompted, “What kind of work? Articles and stuff?”

“Oh.” He shook himself and returned his gaze to the computer screen. Carson was right. Elbows had been looking at me funny. “Journal articles, yes. And we should have his field notes from his Institute-funded expeditions. Upper Nile valley, 1931, lower Nile valley—”

Carson interrupted the recitation. “Would the field notes say what sort of things he found on his expeditions?”

Elbows looked from me to Carson and back again. “What kind of project did you say you were working on? You must really want a good grade.”

“It’s more of a prize, actually.” I nudged Carson to get out his phone. “We’ve got competition. I don’t suppose you’ve seen this girl around here?”

Carson showed him the picture of Alexis. Elbows glanced at it, then looked closer. “I’ve met her. She came to an event for prospective graduate students. I think she was there with one of my classmates.”

Without visibly changing his posture, Carson seemed to go on high alert. “What’s his name?” Carson asked.

“Michael Johnson. He’s a first-year.”

“Is he here today?”

Elbows shifted uncomfortably. The way Carson was firing questions at him, I would squirm, too. “I haven’t seen him.” He gestured at the computer. “Do you want me to print out the call numbers for those journals?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said, extra nice to make up for Carson. “We really appreciate your help.”

Elbows turned quickly to the keyboard, but his ears went pink, giving away his blush. I grabbed Carson’s arm and pulled him to one of the tables.

“Now we have a name,” I whispered. “Have you ever heard of this Michael Johnson?”

Carson frowned. “I didn’t even know that Alexis was thinking of going to graduate school.”

“What else is she going to do with a degree in Latin and Greek?” I glanced over to make sure Elbows was still at the computer. “I think we should call Agent Taylor and give him the name.”

That left Carson speechless for a whole second. “You think we should call the FBI? Is that a royal we, Sunshine? Because I’m not doing that.”

“Don’t be stubborn.” I hissed, like we were arguing over whose turn it was to pick up the check. “Taylor can look this guy up, trace his movements. The feds have resources we don’t.”

“If I want resources,” he said, “I’ll call my boss.”

Someone cleared his throat before I could answer, and we both looked up. Elbow Patches stood nearby, holding a huge stack of books.

“That was quick,” I said, changing gears and hoping he hadn’t heard anything. I jumped to help him put the heavy volumes on the table. “Are these actually from the nineteen thirties?”

“Or bound facsimiles. That’s why getting everything online is an ongoing process.” He seemed pleased that I was impressed. Then he said, “I’ve been trying to think where I’ve seen you before.”

Poor guy. That was the best line he could come up with? Carson, out of the grad student’s view but directly in mine, rolled his eyes. “Maybe around campus?” I suggested, because it might not be so funny if he’d somehow seen me on the news from Minneapolis.

“Oh, I figured it out,” said Elbows. “Here, look.”

He laid a book on the table. I caught a glance at the cover before he opened it. Female Pioneers in Archaeology. He turned to a grainy black-and-white picture of a tall, slim woman in a desert setting. She wore jodhpurs, riding boots, a dark jacket, and a don’t-mess-with-me attitude. The caption underneath said Professor Ivy Goodnight, Thebes, Egypt, 1932.

I didn’t quite gasp, but only because I stopped myself. I knew every inch of that photo from the family albums at home. The Goodnight lineage isn’t lacking for pioneers who don’t make the history books. Magical contributions to society are either secret or rationalized. But Aunt Ivy had managed to do something marvelous by normal standards as well as secret, supernatural ones.

I slid the book closer. “This is my great-aunt. Do we really look that much alike?”

Carson leaned over my shoulder to look, his breath tickling my ear. “It’s a strong resemblance.”

Elbows shrugged. “Compare enough representations of pharaohs, you start to see family traits. Bone structure, supraorbital process, zygomatic arches …” He trailed off into awkward silence, his gaze sliding away from Carson’s. “Not that I was staring. Dr. Goodnight features in the archives because of her work, and … Er, well, I’ll let you get down to business, then.”

He scurried off, which unfortunately made him look even more rabbity than before. I winced in sympathy and turned on Carson. “You want to be a little less cranky with the guy helping us out?” I asked. “There’s a saying about flies and honey.”

Carson pulled the top book off the stack and sat down with it. “I don’t trust anyone that helpful. And he’s got no reason to be so interested in your zygomatic arches.”

“It means cheekbones.” But I blushed anyway. “Medical examiners talk the same way.”

“He was way too interested in all of you.” Maybe he was being protective (and maybe I got stupid girly flutters at the thought), but more likely it was plain old suspicion.

I slid into a chair across the corner from him. “Not everyone is working an angle, you know.”

“No.” He didn’t lift his eyes from the index of the book in front of him. “I don’t know.”

That? Was really, really sad.

You would think that with what I do—talking to the dead, solving murders—I would be more cynical. But in bringing them justice, or at least rest, I was adding to the ledger of good in the universe. And I knew how many people were striving to do the same.

I pulled the book with Aunt Ivy’s picture closer and turned the page to a photograph of her working on the excavation of the massive stone pharaoh I’d seen downstairs. Aunt Ivy had always been my hero because of how she’d made her mark in two worlds, but I hadn’t realized until that moment how much it would mean to me to be in her old stomping ground.

Hang on. I was about to have a moment of brilliance dulled only by the fact I was a moron for not having thought of it a lot sooner.

“Carson,” I said, sliding the book toward him, “I know how to get more information on Oosterhouse, and maybe this Jackal of his.”

He studied Ivy and the excavation and put the pieces together quickly. “You think there might be a remnant of your aunt attached to the statue downstairs?”

“Yeah.” I made sure my voice was low and Elbows was nowhere near. “The problem is, I didn’t feel anything when I was there before. Which means that I’m going to have to get my hands on the thing.”

He followed my meaning there, too. “So you need to worry about an alarm.”

“Maybe, maybe not. No one could steal that without heavy-lifting equipment. I’m more worried about security cameras. I’m sure someone would have something to say about my copping a feel on the pharaoh.”

Carson tapped his thumbs on the table, looking around as if searching for something to MacGyver into a solution. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “I can give you a minute or two, I think. But we’ll have to split up.”

“What are you going to do?” The last time we’d parted company, he’d stolen a car. Splitting up made me nervous.

“Something with the electricity or the camera feed, I imagine.” He stood and closed the book. “I’m making this up as I go along.”

“Then how will I know when it’s safe to do my thing?”

“Give me ten minutes, then go.”

“I don’t have a watch.”

“How do you not have a watch?”

“I always use my phone, but someone stole it.”

He calmly unfastened his wristwatch, fiddled with it, then took out his phone and set a timer with the clock app. “Ten minutes from … now.”

He started the timer as the second hand on the watch hit twelve. I put out my hand for the phone, but he handed me the watch instead. Obviously he didn’t trust me that much after all.

“I’m going to the restroom,” he announced, stacking up the books. “Meet you downstairs?”

“Sure,” I said, playing my part. “I’ll just put away these journals and be there in a jiffy.”

Jiffy earned me an eye roll. But he sauntered off like he knew where he was going. I waited until he was out of sight, then dashed over to one of the catalog computers to see if I could access the Internet proper, but no luck. Then I remembered all the offices we’d passed on the walk from downstairs. I rebelliously ignored the sign telling me to reshelve all materials and hurried—trying not to look like I was hurrying—out and down the hall.

I felt slightly guilty for what I planned to do with my ten minutes, but the geas wasn’t weighing in on the subject, so I squashed my conscience and ducked into the first empty office I came to.

The tiny room was its own archaeological excavation, with layer upon layer of books, papers, maps, sketches, more books, and in the middle of it all, a desk with a fairly ancient computer, big enough to hide me from the door.

I woke it with a tap on the keyboard, checked Carson’s watch, then opened a browser window and my web mail account. I had a hundred sixty-seven new messages, all from family members. I guess the Goodnight Alarm System was operational.

I skipped all those and started a new message to Agent Taylor. It was going to have to be short, no time for sweet.

Check out Michael Johnson, grad student at U. of Chicago. Alexis’s boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend? I have a feeling. I hesitated a second, then added: Trust me. —D.

There wasn’t time to do more than click Send and close the browser window. I needed to be downstairs and in position in six minutes and seventeen seconds.

I checked the hall before I headed for the stairwell. I was almost there when I heard my name, at a very un-librarylike volume.

“Miss Goodnight!” I turned to see Elbow Patches hurrying toward me, a lock of blond hair falling into his eyes. My first thought was, Crap, I’m going to get into trouble for not reshelving my materials. My next was, Crap, he knows my last name. And now everyone on this floor knew I was here, too.

He was holding out a book, open to a detailed line drawing. The pages were aged, but not worn; it wasn’t a book that had seen much use. “I found this,” he said, excitedly. “It’s the field notes of Dr. Oosterhouse’s last expedition. Do you think this could be what you’re looking for?”

I took the slim volume from him to look closer, because the sketch was of a jackal-headed man, with an Egyptian collar and skirt. The notations underneath said that it was made of lacquer over wood, with gold leaf and enamel details. I didn’t get any kind of psychic rush, but hope was its own kind of adrenaline. “It could be. I must have missed this in the display downstairs.”

“Oh, it’s not downstairs. I looked it up by the catalog number.” He reached across to tap a number under the drawing. “It’s out on loan.”

I checked the watch. Four minutes and twenty-something seconds. “Where? Please don’t say Australia.”

He chuckled longer than that deserved, being as my desperation was no joke. “No. Not so far as that. Just St. Louis. The St. Louis Art Museum.”

Despite the ticking watch, I wanted to express my gratitude to Elbows. “Thank you,” I said, giving him back the book. “You’ve gone beyond the call of duty.”

He blushed. “I’m an archivist in a very specialized museum. I don’t get to show off very often.”

As he took the book from me, something slipped from the pages. We both bent to grab it and nearly bumped heads. He got flustered, and I got the manila card that had fallen to the tile floor. At first I thought it was the catalog card, but when I turned it over I saw, drawn in what looked like Sharpie, an ear. Vaguely anatomical, definitely recognizable.

“That’s an odd sort of bookmark,” said Elbows.

Yes, it was. I had no sense for magic, but I had two brain cells to rub together and a bad feeling about this. If it was some kind of spell, what else would an ear mean but that someone was listening?

So much to think about, but the clock in my head was ticking. I ripped the card in half, hoping it would break the spell, then turned again to Elbows. “Can you look up who last checked out this book?”

“Well, you can’t check out books from the archives,” he said, sending that lead into a nosedive. Then he added, “But I can probably see who last pulled it up in the catalog.”

“That would be so great.” Maybe I laid it on a little thick, but my gratitude was very real. Spell or not, whoever last looked up Oosterhouse and his Jackal could be the best lead for finding Alexis.

It would be even more awesome if he could go look that up quickly so I could get downstairs in the next two minutes and fifty-seven seconds. When the silence stretched to awkward, I pointed toward the stairs. “I’ll be right back. I just need to, um …”

“Oh!” He blushed again, and I was happy to let him assume whatever kept him from asking for details. “I’ll just be in the …” He sidled back the other way.

“Awesome.”

The instant his back was turned, I hurried down the steps, with the pieces of the manila card still in my hand. I put the scraps in my pocket as I reached the ground floor, and not-quite-ran toward the Egyptian gallery. I reached it with a minute to spare …

… and no privacy. The gallery was full of people. I mean, not packed, but inconveniently occupied. It had to be some kind of tour or class, because a docent was giving a talk around a sarcophagus and showing no signs of moving on.

Whatever Carson was going to do was going to happen in twenty seconds. Short of yelling “Fire,” I didn’t know how to get the group out of there. The mummy inside the sarcophagus might be quietly sleeping, but the guide was going to have plenty to say if I stepped over the low velvet cordon to put my hands on King Tut.

I was still racking my brain when the lights went out, plunging the gallery into pitch-black, holy-crap-I’m-in-the-dark-with-a-mummy darkness.

“Everyone hold still,” the docent ordered. “We don’t want you crashing into anything in the dark.”

Forget that. The faint remnant traces on the artifacts in the cases mapped out the room for me as I ran for the majestic sentry at the other end of the room. But I’d forgotten about the ankle-high cordon. I tripped with an almighty clatter of the brass stanchions, fell flat on my face, and only dumb luck kept me from concussing myself on the basalt pedestal.

“I said don’t move!” shouted the docent.

“I’m okay,” I yelled back, worried someone would come check on me. But I was not okay. I had to make contact before the lights came back on.

The stone was cool under my hands, and the hieroglyphs carved into the base were rough under my fingers. I called into the past, not as far as the ancient artists with their chisels but a hundred years back, in the psychic equivalent of a shout from the rooftop. Ivy Goodnight, if there’s any trace of you here, please answer.

Silence.

Aunt Ivy, I need your help!

All I got were approaching footsteps and the bobbing glow of flashlights.

Hope collapsed under the crushing weight of failure, and I dropped my head onto the floor with the rest of me. What now? This was the one thing I could do—talk to the dead. If this didn’t work, what good was I to Alexis?

There was the lead I’d emailed to Taylor. Michael Johnson. And the fact that Alexis had been here with him. And the clue of the ear card. And the jackal statue that was in the St. Louis museum. And the flash drive we hadn’t yet unlocked.

There were all those things, waiting for me to get up off the floor.

There was also a pair of worn leather boots right in front of my nose. Sand-dusted boots that I could see perfectly well in the pitch-dark, what-did-I-summon blackness.