“I have excellent hearing,” she said.
“He was unconscious when we recovered him.”
“I don’t know, Aidan. I thought I heard him. Rollo showed us the way. If I hadn’t come across the entry, someone else would have.”
She saw that he’d consumed all the food on his plate.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, taking the last few bites of her toast.
“No, thank you. That was excellent.” He lingered at the table, watching her.
“I’m good with dishes. Actually, I’m a better dishwasher than a cook.”
“I just rinse them and put them in the machine.”
“I’ll help.”
When they were done, he said, “Well, I guess I’ll get back. I should have a few more coworkers coming in. Once they’re here, I’ll sleep for a while. I promise I’ll keep you filled in on whatever’s going on. And if you need anything—” He paused, as if not sure what she might need from him. “Call me,” he finally said.
She nodded and walked him to the front door. Rollo trotted beside her, his toenails making the little tap-tap-tap sound that was so reassuring.
At the door he turned to her. “Thank you again. For your work—and for coffee and breakfast.”
“Finding J.J. is the kind of thing that...that makes everything worthwhile,” Mo told him. “As for breakfast, that was certainly easy enough.”
“I owe you a meal.”
“Hmm. A lovely lobster with an exceptional bottle of wine,” she teased.
But he didn’t laugh or demur.
“You choose the time and the place,” he said.
When he left, she closed and locked the door. As she turned, she would have collided with Candy had Candy been flesh and blood.
“I like him!” her resident ghost announced. “And you found a lost boy— Oh, that’s so wonderful! You and Rollo found the boy! I’m so proud of you, Mo. Now, I really do think you need to be friendly to this agent. He’s a delightful man. Reminds me of my dear colonel. Granted, he was a Confederate officer, and he fell in love with me! This man is like Daniel, yes. Ready to fight, longing for peace. A man of his time, yet so far ahead. And he likes you, Mo.”
“He looks at me like I’m alien spawn, Candy. He’s grateful to me, that’s it.”
“I personally think you’re showing a bit of cowardice there, my dear,” Candy chastised her.
“Candy—”
“You want him, but you’re afraid of rejection.”
“I can’t be afraid of rejection when I’ve already been rejected.”
Candy shook her head. “No, give him time. Oh, and lead him to the truth. Gently.”
“You heard him— Whatever he had he lost.”
Candy laughed. “What was lost can be found again. Oh, and speaking of which...”
She crooked her finger, leading Mo to the window again. “The curtains, please. It’s exhausting for me to move them.”
Intrigued, Mo pulled back the curtains.
He was there again.
The ghost of Richard Highsmith stood at the edge of the woods.
He moved toward the house. Suddenly he stopped.
He seemed to shimmer in the sunlight for a moment.
Then he was gone.
Mo started for the front door.
She felt the brush of Candy’s hand on her shoulder.
“No,” Candy said. “Don’t chase him. He’s gaining his strength. He will come to you.”
Mo nodded slowly. “I hope so,” she murmured.
“I’m glad you’re listening to me. What are you going to do now?”
“Sleep!” Mo told her. And smiling, she raced up the stairs, Rollo at her heels.
9
The sound of Aidan’s alarm was pitiless.
He’d actually fallen into a deep sleep for the few hours he’d allowed himself.
Logan Raintree, one of the unit heads, had shown up with Will Chan soon after he’d returned from Mo’s house. While Aidan was still new to this unit—and he’d feared that being part of it labeled him odd, to say the least—he liked the Krewe members and had an instinctive trust in the men and women who were now part of his team.
Before joining the FBI, Logan, like Sloan Trent, had worked in Texas; he’d been a Ranger, while Sloan was a Houston cop who went on to become an Arizona sheriff. Will Chan—a tall striking man with family roots in Trinidad—had actually come to the FBI via a different path. He was a self-termed “master of weird trades.” He’d been a professional magician among other things. But he was an expert with film and computers.
Once Will and Logan had arrived, they all met briefly in Aidan’s suite. Directly afterward, Will got to work, setting up cameras in the hallway and the elevators. Taylor Branch, Muscles, Mischief and Magic wouldn’t be going out or coming in without the Krewe’s knowing it.