She turned to Gabe, “Travis and I are going outside to practice blowing things up.”
When his eyes widened, she clarified. “Not literally. But we’re going to amplify what we can do.”
“If you go out, I’m going too.”
When she headed for the door, he picked up the automatic rifle and followed, settling into one of the lawn chairs to stand guard.
* * *
From his comfortable lawn chair,Gabe watched Olivia and Travis at their strange weapons practice. It was like nothing he had ever witnessed in his life. There were no actual weapons. All the force of the attack seemed to come from Olivia’s body, although logically, Travis must be an equal partner.
Gabe could see when Olivia set up a can on the step stool they were using. Other times, it would look like a can was floating to the stand, only Gabe knew that Travis was carrying it. Once a can was in place, Olivia would face it. He could only see her, but from her stance, he could tell that Travis was also there, either holding her or being held by her, as he was the one launching the power bolt.
Gabe couldn’t help imagine the intimate contact, the natural way Olivia fit against Travis. They must be completely comfortable with each other. More than that, they must have a warm, satisfying relationship—whatever that would be with a ghost.
As Gabe watched Olivia’s graceful movements, he found himself contemplating what it would be like to be intimate with her. When he realized he was mentally putting himself into the role of her partner and her lover, he brought himself up short.
Don’t even think about it, he warned himself. She was bonded with Travis. She’d said she’d never been close to anyone before the ghost. There was no way another guy—one who wasn’t a result of Dr. Solomon’s experiment—was going to horn in on that relationship.
It was just a damn shame that she couldn’t have a normal sex life. Or could she? What was it that she and the ghost did together?
His gaze cut to her, knowing Travis was nearby and hoping the ghost couldn’t read the thoughts of the man who was watching them with envy.
* * *
Olivia and Traviskept up the practice as long as they could, trying different variations. Usually, they stood together. Sometimes they tried it several yards apart. And they also kept increasing their distance from the target until it was simply too far for a bolt to hit the can.
After a couple of hours, Olivia could see that their strikes were losing power.
The effort had exhausted her, and she could tell that Travis was flagging, too.
Were they going to defeat the purpose by burning out?
“Maybe we’re overdoing it,” she finally said.
From where he sat watching them, Gabe voiced his agreement. “You look like you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns,” he said. “Pack it in now, and you can see how it goes tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she agreed, silently admitting that she welcomed a reason to stop.
* * *
Surprisingly quickly,Harold’s facial recognition program hit pay dirt, partly because he was limiting his search area to Maryland and Delaware, the most likely places where Gabe’s little helper might reside.
It turned out she was Olivia Langston, and of all things, she was an artist who painted furniture—which was carried in some of the shops in St. Stephens. Maybe she’d run into Carson on one of her trips down here.
He went back to the database that listed all children from the Solomon Clinic. Jackpot. She was on the list. But after a few times, her mother had stopped bringing her back for testing. And Carson’s father had never brought him back.
Harold scrolled through her record. Her parents had been a wealthy couple who had probably thought that rules and contracts didn’t apply to them. They had died in a small plane crash on the way to their vacation house. Their main residence was in Frederick, and Olivia had inherited it after their deaths. He found an interior design magazine that featured her work, as well as pictures of her workshop that looked like a converted old carriage house. There were mentions of awards in the local paper and even in theBaltimore SunandWashington Post.
He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. Her notoriety presented a problem. Carson had been a nobody fishing-charter captain. She was a local celebrity. If he had her shot after interrogation, the police were going to do some investigating. Better to arrange an accident at sea for both her and Gabe Bowman. Yeah, maybe they’d been dating or something and had gone out cruising—and met with some nautical disaster.
But he was back to square one as far as his assessment of the Solomon Clinic spawn. Travis was dead, and there weren’t any other clinic children for her to hook up with. How the hell had she gotten tangled up in the detective’s investigation?’
Still, something out of the ordinary had happened to Roka. Did she have some powers on her own? Like he had suspected with Carson? Or was it some trick the detective had been able to pull off? It would have to be a trick, because there was no reason for him to have any paranormal powers.
Harold sat down at the computer, reviewing the videos that the cameras had taken of the car. Roka hadn’t been able to describe what had happened. As he watched, Harold couldn’t either. He just knew that something very odd had gone down.
Well, maybe he couldn’t get to the bottom of it—yet. But he wasn’t going to take any chances. When he scooped up the woman, he was going to make sure she was incapacitated before getting anywhere near her.
