“I’ve never heard a bad word spoken of him,” Archer agreed, then frowned at her. “Why’re you rubbing the back of your neck?”
Katie realized only then what she’d been doing, and forced her hand to drop. The nape of her neck was still tingling, and it felt to her like a warning. A less definite warning than the first one had been, but a warning all the same.
She wanted to reach out with her mind, to probe, but that first warning had been all too definite.
She had to protect her mind with every shield, every barrier she had learned to build around it. She was vulnerable in ways most others weren’t. Vulnerable the way those she expected to come help would be vulnerable.
Awful to be so sure this is bad in ways we don’t understand yet and worse is coming. And I still don’t know how to tell him. Hell, what to tell him. How can I?
All she said in response to the sheriff’s question was, “I’m feeling tense, I guess. I’ve never . . . seen anything like this before, Jack.”
He appeared to accept that. “No, me either. Not even in Charlotte.” He paused. “Where the hell is Doc Forest?” He was not the Bowers family doctor, but the one Archer had chosen to call out for this because he had worked in an ME’s office in another state and knew his way around bodies in ways the average doctor in Prosperity didn’t.
Prosperity didn’t have an official medical examiner or coroner, because they’d never needed one and because Archer could always draw on the state network of specially trained doctors qualified to serve as medical examiners.
“He’s on his way,” Katie reported. “Said from the way I’d described it we’d probably have to call in a proper ME, but he couldn’t be sure until he sees what’s here.”
“You told him we’re having doubts about it being a suicide,” the sheriff said, not accusingly.
“Well, he asked. And I said it looked like it but didn’t really make sense to us. But didn’t make sense as an accident or a murder, either. He said if it isn’t suicide, and he can’t find anything to satisfy us that it was, or even that it wasn’t, that it could have been an accident or even murder, we’d need to call in an ME because as good as he is, as good as the equipment in the hospital is, we may need somebody more used to looking at crime scenes than he is. Said in his work at that medical examiner’s office, he was the one who stayed behind and assisted in autopsies and lab work, not the one who went out in the field.”
“He might have told me that sooner,” Archer said with a sigh.
“Yeah, that’s what I told him. He said there hadn’t been any reason to until today.”
Archer shifted restlessly, his gaze still fixed on the body. “I don’t want to call in an ME from the state network unless I have to. But if I have to, I will. I just sure as hell don’t want to declare this a crime scene without anything but my own gut to back me up.”
Katie nodded in agreement, but said, “One good thing, if I can call it that, is that if this is a crime scene, it’s pretty contained. I believe Stacey didn’t come more than halfway down the stairs, and since then it’s just been you and me here. I mean, we can lock the basement door and seal it, post a deputy, and nobody we don’t okay is coming down here.”
“Yeah. Look, I don’t know if the doc will bring a camera with him, but we need pictures of this whole space, and before anybody disturbs anything. Use your cell phone, and I’ll use mine. Just to be on the safe side.”
His department didn’t have an official photographer either, something Archer made a mental note to change. ASAP.
“Copy.” Katie was just glad to have something to do, especially when the sheriff began taking pictures of the body and that area of the basement and she could turn to look elsewhere in the very ordinary basement where something not ordinary had happened.
She did her best to ignore the crawly tingle on the nape of her neck.
The sheriff would have to know, of course. Sooner or later. But right now Katie still wasn’t at all willing to try to explain something she couldn’t prove—and couldn’t even really define. Especially to a man as practical and rational as Jackson Archer. They had never discussed the paranormal, but she was fairly certain his first reaction wouldn’t be one of acceptance.
Not, at least, until he was faced with something even his practical and rational mind could accept as much further beyond normal than even an inexplicable suicide.
Katie was just afraid of what that might be.
THE GATHERING
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
—HELEN KELLER
Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
—HENRI-FRéDéRIC AMIEL
SIX
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
The “study” of the mountain house was in reality a highly functional command center, its true purpose only betrayed, at first glance, by the massive conference table in the center of the room, which could seat a dozen people in comfortable office chairs without crowding, and more if need be. At second glance, it was clear that various high-tech toys were cunningly integrated among bookshelves and gleaming cabinetry that lined two walls, and at least three workstations were tucked into comfortable niches spaced apart, each with spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Completing the huge room and effectively removing any lingering sense of being in a place designed only for work were several comfortable seating areas scattered about invitingly, including a large grouping of two long couches and a couple of wide, deep chairs in front of a rock fireplace where gas logs burned cheerfully and warded off the deepening chill of an October afternoon.
Olivia Castle was one of half a dozen people sitting there, maybe avoiding the conference table and the tablets and paper files and legal pads already assembled during the day because she wasn’t quite ready to truly confront the seriousness—and the scary uncertainty—of what they were going to face but more probably because she still felt chilled and welcomed the warmth of the fire. Rex, curled up in her lap after spending the entire morning exploring and happily meeting new friends as well as greeting old ones, was certainly enjoying it.
Especially since he was out of the hated carrier, and because there was a cook in residence who understood the delicate palate of discerning cats.
Hollis Templeton and her partner, Reese DeMarco, had arrived earlier than expected late in the morning, bearing a map and at least the beginnings of an unsettling theory of why they had all been summoned. Or, at least, why Prosperity. Right now, they were silent, faces thoughtful, possibly considering various introductions made in the last hour or so just as Olivia was; they shared one of the big overstuffed chairs, with Hollis sitting in it and DeMarco sitting on one of its wide arms.
The partners never seemed to get very far away from each other, Olivia noted. Not that they were clingy or anything like that, just . . . connected. Obviously connected.
Hollis was a slender, almost delicate woman of medium height, with short, no-fuss brown hair and eyes of an unusual shade of blue very bright and aware in her lightly tanned face. Her other features were good without being in any way remarkable, but that changed the instant she smiled and animation transformed the ordinary into something more than beautiful could ever be.