Spence sighed and Jamie rolled his eyes. That irritated me more than I could say.
“Ambi,” Spence said, his tone soft and soothing. “There’s nothing going on. But my brain is fried and I’m starving, so can we please go for some food before I have to beat up Jamie for that Snickers I know he has in his backpack?”
Jamie laughed and adopted a defensive pose. “Get your own damn bar, Hoss.”
Spence made a darting move toward Jamie, who then took off down the hall with Spence giving chase. I scowled after them.
“Juveniles,” I muttered, but I couldn’t help smiling. And yet, it worried me that Spence had been so dodgy. What was that subtle exchange between him and Jamie? My mind flashed back a few weeks to that scene on the porch when Jamie had handed something to Spence and told him not to tell anyone, even me.
When I’d asked Spence about it, he’d said it was nothing, but then, after I’d pressed him about it, he’d finally admitted that Jamie had taken money out of his savings account to give Spence a small loan to help make ends meet. And I knew that things were very tight at the Spencer household of late. I’d felt so guilty about the fact that he’d spent money he didn’t have buying Bailey that I hadn’t asked him anything else about it.
But now I was wondering if what Spence had told me was the truth. Something was up between him and Jamie, something secretive and perhaps bad. I wondered if whatever it was that they were hiding was legal. Small tendrils of doubt were starting to fray the fabric of trust that our relationship was built on, and it was keeping me up at night. To my knowledge, Spence had never lied to me. In fact, I’d thought of him as the most honest person I knew. Lately, though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed.
But if Spence wouldn’t talk to me, then what were my options? I watched him and Jamie wrestle with each other down the hall. It was all good-natured fun, but it bothered me to see them pretending everything was all right when I knew that it wasn’t.
I felt myself getting angry over it, and I made up my mind then and there to get to the bottom of it. Somehow, some way, I’d figure out what was really going on. If only for the sake of my own sanity.
“YOU MUST BE FEELING LIKE you’re going a bit insane,” Dr. Van Dean said to me.
He was a short, nearly bald man with a perpetual smile. His squinty eyes observed me over the rim of his reading glasses.
“A little,” I admitted.
“And I’m sure this feels a bit far-fetched to you as well,” he added.
“It’s just…” I said, lost for the best way to describe it.
I looked to Mom and Cole for help, but it was Dr. Van Dean who said, “Weird?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry,” I added, with an apologetic smile.
“Don’t be,” Van Dean told me. “I spent much of my twenties and thirties living in India where the concept of reincarnation is taken for granted. A majority of the society believes in it, so I know what it’s like to live in a culture that is both accepting of it, and one that is not. Ours is not. At least not yet.”
“So you really believe in this?” Mom asked him.
Van Dean pointed to the rows of filing cabinets that lined nearly his entire office, which was large, but cluttered.
“In every single drawer are cases and cases and cases of reincarnation that we’ve actually been able to verify, Dr. Bennett. So, you might say that after twenty-five years of extensive investigation, I’m convinced by the overwhelming evidence that suggests it’s very real.”
“What kind of evidence?” Cole asked. I was a bit surprised he’d spoken. He’d been fairly quiet on the ride over, but maybe that was because my quick explanation to Mom about why Cole was coming along had made the drive a little awkward.
The doctor steepled his fingers. “What kind of evidence? Well, all sorts of things,” he said. “We’ve been able to verify names, dates, manner of death, relationships, family histories, and even a few family secrets that were known only to elder family members.
“Basically, what my colleagues and I do in these cases of suspected reincarnation is conduct extensive interviews with the subject, who’s almost never older than ten, and based on those interviews we begin to research through census data, interviews with extended family, court records, obituaries, newspaper clippings, and other resources whether or not the memories the child has of his or her former life match the life of someone who’s deceased. The accuracy and detail some of those children convey would make your hair curl.”
I turned my head to gaze at all the filing cabinets. There were dozens of them. I began to understand the scope of what Dr. Van Dean was researching.