WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
The neat little house in its neat little planned development was lighted from top to bottom, and this time Archer had ordered crime scene tape surrounding the whole house and yard.
Neighbors in the mostly full development remained in their own yards, but some had migrated toward fences with other neighbors, to talk, to exclaim, to wonder. And to stare toward the inexplicable.
Inside the perimeter that only law enforcement and their acting medical examiner and her assistant had entered, a few uneasy deputies hovered here and there, staring at the lighted front porch where a murder suspect sat in a white wicker chair, hands cuffed but still smiling, a faintly inquiring expression on his pleasant face as he looked at the sheriff and two of the feds.
Chief Deputy Katie Cole was inside the house with their acting medical examiner and her assistant.
Archer had sat down in the neat wicker chair that was separated from the other one by a small table and which made up the attractively staged front porch.
It seemed surreal to Archer. It was surreal.
He looked at Hollis and DeMarco, both leaning back against the white-painted railing side by side, only a couple of feet from the chairs, studying the murder suspect with calm, thoughtful eyes.
“He sold me my house,” Archer said to them, wondering vaguely if surreal was going to be his new normal.
“And I know you’re happy with it,” real estate agent Elliot Weston said with his pleasant smile. “I’m very good at my job.”
Archer drew a breath and tried again, as he’d already tried several times, to get the answers he needed and quite desperately wanted. “Elliot, why did you kill them?”
“Kill who, Jack?” He looked puzzled.
“The couple you were showing this house to. The couple lying dead on the kitchen floor, shot with what appears to be your own gun. Why did you kill them, Elliot?”
Weston shook his head, clearly puzzled. “I don’t know why you’d say something like that, Jack. I’d never kill anybody. You know I’d never kill anybody.” His voice was mild, his eyes guileless.
Trying a different tack, Archer asked, “Then what are you doing here, Elliot?”
“Well, this house is one of my accounts. And I stopped by here on my way home just to make a few notes on my phone,” Weston explained, pausing a moment because he lifted a hand to gesture, perhaps even to produce the cell that Archer had earlier removed— along with everything else in his pockets—from his person. It was only then that he seemed aware of the handcuffs. “Why am I wearing handcuffs, Jack? Is this some kind of silly joke?”
“Christ, I wish it were.” Archer looked at the agents. “You two haven’t said much.”
Hollis frowned slightly as she looked at Weston. She kept her voice quiet as she said, “Well, he’s feeling pretty much the way he looks and acts. Calm and a little puzzled. But his aura . . .”
Archer blinked. “His aura?”
“Mmm. One of the tools in my toolbox. Everyone gives off an electromagnetic aura; some of us can see that. Tends to show me someone’s mood even if I can’t read them any other way. And whether they’re holding in too much emotion, too much energy. Or fighting off some kind of attack.”
“Attack?” Archer really wanted this day to be over.
“Energy, usually. The really odd thing is . . . he doesn’t have an aura.”
“Sure?” her partner asked her, his voice quiet as well.
“Yeah. The energy doesn’t seem to be interfering with that. I mean, I can see everybody else’s, so if he had one I should be able to see it. I don’t. And I haven’t a clue what that means.” She looked at DeMarco. “Are you getting anything?”
“Same as you. He’s calm, he’s puzzled. Not really thinking about anything. In fact, his mind is almost completely blank, at least as far as surface thoughts go. He forgets about the cuffs until something draws his attention to them. And he has no idea what the sheriff is talking about. Even more, he doesn’t really care.”
Archer looked at them a moment, then rose and gestured toward the nearest deputy. “Matt, you and Kayla take Mr. Weston back to the station. Don’t talk to him. Don’t ask him any questions. Just put him in a cell and keep an eye on him.”
“A close eye,” DeMarco murmured. “I wouldn’t leave him alone, Sheriff. Not until we figure out what’s going on here.”
Archer nodded to his deputies. “Somebody keep watch. Don’t leave him alone at all.”
“Copy that, Sheriff.”
Somewhat gingerly, Deputies Matt Spencer and Kayla Nelson each took an arm, helped Weston to his feet, and led him off toward their cruiser. He could be heard asking them if they could stop for coffee.
Weston was smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
When they were out of earshot, Archer stared at the feds, his gaze roaming from one to the other, finally settling on Hollis. “Auras? I know people give off energy, plants, all living things, but—you can see that? Colors around people’s bodies? And you’re seeing that around everybody else but not around Weston?”
She nodded, utterly matter-of-fact. “And about what I’d expect. The colors all mean different things, different emotions. There are a lot of colors around everyone else I’ve seen today, and more now because everybody is tense, edgy, and feeling a lot.” She frowned again and rubbed the back of her neck suddenly. “I’m sensing those too. Neighbors are scared, your deputies are horrified, and—you don’t know quite what you’re feeling.”
“Good guess.”
Hollis offered him a faint, rueful smile. “Not a guess. We all have a primary ability; most of us have at least one more, and some of us more than one more. My primary ability is as a medium. And I can see auras. But I’m also an empath.”
“You see dead people.” His voice was stony.
“And talk to them.”
“Empath. Empathy. You feel what other people feel?”
“Yeah. New ability for me, so not really under control. Sometimes it takes us a while to adjust.” She rubbed the nape of her neck harder.
Archer stared at her a moment, then looked at DeMarco. “And you?”
“Telepath.”
“So you read minds.”
“Not all minds. None of us can control our abilities a hundred percent, and none of us can read every single individual we encounter. We’ve theorized, and science has pretty much backed us up on it, that each individual human mind has its own frequency, as unique as a fingerprint. Virtually all telepaths have a limited range. Think of it like a radio. I can pick up . . . stations . . . within a certain range of frequencies, but there are frequencies beyond my abilities to tune in.”
“Can you—”
“Yes, I can read you.” DeMarco didn’t offer more, just looked at his partner, a slight frown drawing his brows together. “If the effects of the energy don’t lessen at all even after dark, then more than one of us is likely to be affected with or without shields.”
She stopped rubbing her neck and straightened, frowning up at him. “Well, I don’t feel the energy lessening, but not intensifying either, not the way it was before dark. Thing is, I’m not sure I could tell at this point, at least not unless the difference was really strong.”
“Emotions getting in the way?”
“Oh, yeah. And that crawly feeling all over, especially on the back of my neck, is worse. Distracting.” She drew a quick breath. “On top of everything else, I don’t think we’re done, even for the day. Something else is going to happen.”
Archer, pushing aside the intense discomfort of even the possibility that his thoughts might well be an open book to one or both of the feds, spoke up then to say, “You can predict the future too?” He was a little surprised at the mildness of his voice, since he wanted to yell and break things.
“No, thank God,” she said with definite feeling. “It’s . . . I think it’s still the empathy. There are so many emotions it’s hard to sort through them, but . . . I can . . . feel somebody out there struggling. Fighting against whatever he’s being urged to do.”