“And your mom is okay with her kids being in the middle of all of this?”
“Okay might be putting it too strongly. Mom’s finally gotten to the point where she accepts that Taylor won’t sit back and, as Molly’s grandmother would have said, ‘hide her light under a bushel.’ At least not until she sees some justice done where Molly’s concerned. And me? I guess I could hole up in some back room and crunch numbers or whatever, but Mom knows that would make me crazy. I need to do work where I can actually put this ability to use or my life doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, her one normal offspring can’t seem to stay put—”
He makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “And I’m ranting about Daniel again. Sorry. This whole thing just has me wound up. I mean, it’s nice seeing some sort of confirmation of what I’ve suspected, but an article on a conspiracy website wouldn’t hold up in court any more than . . .”
“The testimony of Molly’s ghost?”
“Exactly.” He finishes his slice of pizza and turns back to the computer. “So we’ll have to find out who Conspiracy Guy actually is, then track down his source. Must have been one of the people working at Meade with my dad.”
“Except Conspiracy Guy claims it was near Aberdeen. That’s only, what? Ten miles from the house where Molly was taken?”
“Yeah. Could be they moved the program at some point. Or maybe Meade was just where Dad told Sam and Mom he was working.”
“So . . . here’s what I don’t understand. Porter goes around spreading my claim that I’m channeling Molly, and suddenly, I’m on Cregg’s radar, even though no court in the land would accept my testimony as evidence. If your theory is correct, it’s because one of my parents was with Delphi. But they know your dad was connected to Delphi. Apparently they believed he was enough of a problem that they killed him. So why haven’t they scooped you and Taylor up for testing?”
“Well . . . on paper, we’re not his kids. He adopted us when he married Mom. She listed someone else as the biological father for all three of us, because of the contract he signed that prohibited marriage and families. Although anyone who snooped carefully might question that. Taylor and I look more like Dad than we do Mom.”
“Okay, then—why Molly? How did she get pulled into the mess with your dad?”
“Her mom was with Lucas on and off from the time Molly was a baby. He was bad news from the beginning, mostly low-level drug dealing, petty theft, that sort of stuff. Sam, Porter, my dad, all three of them arrested Lucas at some point. If Cregg was looking for someone to get information on my dad, someone with a beef against him, Lucas was a natural choice. And I guess Cregg found a few other jobs for him after that, from what Molly said.”
A car passes by outside, the tires churning up the water on the street. Exactly like every other time that has happened today, I can’t keep myself from going to the window to check. In case there’s something unusual. This waiting, just waiting with no news of any sort, is killing me.
The view outside the window is a study in grays and blacks. The sky, the water, the rocks along the shore. Even Aaron’s car in the drive is black. It’s eerie. Almost as though you could step through the door and enter some ancient TV show like The Twilight Zone. When Aaron touches my shoulder, I jump, and the wooden slat slips through my fingers, setting the rest of the vertical blind in motion.
“Whoa,” Aaron says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Relax, okay? I know that’s easier said than done, but if there’s anyone out there, I’ll know before you see them.”
“Only if they’re planning something violent. You didn’t sense anything when Dacia walked into the police station last night. Just when she left, right?”
“Yeah, but . . . that was a police station. It’s one of those places where my head starts buzzing as soon as I step in the door from all of the low-level violent thoughts. Hard to pick out anything that’s not a white-hot rage in places like that. Here, though . . .”
I give him a questioning look and he nods toward the street.