“Maybe she hasn’t gone yet. Maybe we should all meet up there.”
“And to think I once really enjoyed that café!” she said.
“Grab my phone and call Jane. See if they want to meet us there for an early dinner. Someone should stay at the Horse Farm, though.”
“All right.” As directed, she got his phone. Jane hadn’t been to the café yet; she and Abby had spent most of the afternoon on the computer, hacking into her coworkers’ social network sites.
“You can do that?” she asked Jane.
“Sometimes. Pretty easy in this case. Your coworkers use their email addresses as their user names and the name of one of the horses as their passcodes. It wasn’t terribly hard.”
“And?”
“No red flags, but we’ll talk at the café.”
Olivia leaned back in the passenger seat.
“Tired?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “Well—I’m tired of being on edge,” she said. “Uh, where are we sleeping tonight?” She meant the question to sound very casual.
“Your house,” he told her. “Jane and Sloan will remain at the Horse Farm, and Malachi and Abby will go and stay at Marcus’s house—or more accurately, your other house.”
“Oh,” she said. “Will everyone know that?” she asked carefully.
She thought he was smiling. “I don’t think Malachi will mind.”
“He’s kind of protective....”
“He just wanted to make sure I knew how extraordinary you are.”
“He is my cousin.”
“I assured him that I think you’re completely extraordinary.”
“Ah,” she murmured.
He was quiet for a few minutes. “We’ve talked a little about what others see as our strange experiences. Do you remember the first time you had one of those experiences—when you saw a ghost?”
“It was the general,” she said. “I saw him sitting proudly on his horse. He was so dignified. And I wasn’t afraid.... And, of course, there was Malachi’s resident ghost. He lives in the family home in Virginia. I sometimes wondered when I was young if I really saw him or if it was just Malachi’s way of teasing me. But...he was a good ghost. A family ghost. You’d never be afraid of him. I haven’t spent my life having conversations with ghosts, though. Not the way it seems the rest of you have.”
“Ghosts don’t always have a reason to speak or make themselves known,” Dustin said. “But once you’ve gotten accustomed to the fact that the dead can walk—and speak—you can seek them out. Not everyone, of course. But you definitely have the talent.”
“Talent,” she echoed. She closed her eyes. “If I didn’t have the ‘talent,’ as you say, I would’ve been forced to accept—whether I really believed it or not—that Marcus had relapsed. And in that case...Aaron might still be alive. There might be hope for the Horse Farm.”
“But Marcus Danby deserves justice. You know that.”
“I do.”
“But...” he began. He didn’t finish. It was almost as if he regretted speaking at all.
“But?” she demanded. “Don’t you dare give me a ‘but’ and then go silent!”
He looked over at her. For a moment she wished she’d met him under better circumstances. She loved the line of his jaw, the strength of his conviction and inner resolve and, admittedly, she loved lying in bed with him....
“Jackson would find a place for you,” he murmured. “Jackson Crow. Working with one of the units. You could even be based in northern Virginia.”
She laughed. “Dustin, I know how to fire a tranquilizer gun, but I’ve never held a real firearm in my life. I’m a coward!”
“If we didn’t have the sense to be afraid, we’d be worthless. Fear can consume you—or it can make you wary and intelligent about what you do and how you do it. I’m just saying that if you were looking to move...on to something else...”
“If the Horse Farm goes under and we’re forced to find homes for the animals and sell the land, I’ll have to,” she said.
“It hasn’t happened.”
“It is happening.”
He squeezed her hand again. “We’ll find the truth, and the truth could repair all the harm that’s been done.”
“So far it looks as if our founder died of an overdose and our first-in-command was so off his rocker that he nearly drowned and then managed to electrocute himself in his bathtub. The other alternative—to the average observer—is that one or more people who work at the Horse Farm is a devious, bloodthirsty murderer.”
“The truth could still salvage the situation,” he insisted. “Whatever that truth is.”
They’d driven off I-40 and taken the back road. She could see the café ahead; the SUV in which Malachi and his team had arrived was parked in the lot.