“They’re not suffering,” I reassured her. “They’re not…personalities. They’re nothing more than a surge of trapped energy.”
As we headed for the car, I caught Jacob eyeing her bag as if he might abscond with her experimental SPECs and get a good look at all the local repeaters for himself. But he refrained from the suggestion.
Evelyn, for her part, stayed quiet as we headed back to HQ. It was only normal to be freaked out by the idea that we’re so surrounded by death. No doubt that knowledge shed a whole new light on her invention.
But as Jacob pulled into the garage, she surprised me by saying, “Tell me more about the repeaters.”
“They’re like…the afterimage you get when you look at a bright light too long, then look away. Not visually,” I clarified. “But they’re more like a residual image of something that’s not really there.”
“Not in the physical plane,” Evelyn said. Then she considered, and added, “Maybe not even in the etheric. But one of the other planes of being we spoke about—places we don’t have a name for yet? Maybe that’s where your repeaters live.”
“Maybe so. But the fact remains, a repeater will only manifest from a sudden death. They can’t travel around like a strong ghost can. And Records hasn’t found any evidence of a death, violent or otherwise, in Boswell’s apartment.”
Even as I said it, my cop sense piped up,That just means there’s noevidenceof a death.
That wasn’t entirely true, though. There was evidence.
It just took a medium to see it.
Back at HQ, we hadn’t even gotten our badges scanned before Jacob’s phone buzzed and he answered with that automatic professional calm. I only heard his end of the conversation. “I’m here now. Uh-huh. Right away.”
Jacob had gone still. Not the easy stillness he wore when he was thinking through a case, either…but the tight, cautious stillness he gets when something’s up. He tucked away his phone.
“I’ll debrief the Director on the case.” He was trying for a casual delivery, but it came out stiff. Maybe he just referred to Laura as “The Director” for Evelyn’s sake, so we didn’t seem too chummy with our boss in front of National. But when he lookedat me with a suspiciously bland smile that didn’t reach his eyes, I felt my stomach drop.
It wasn’t just that he was uneasy with her. There was that damn review, too—the “satisfactory” rating that read like a warning.
“I could go fill her in,” I offered.
“And let you weasel out of the paperwork?” Jacob nailed the playful tone chillingly well. “Not a chance.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EVELYN WATCHED ME watching Jacob head off to meet his fate. “You’re concerned about him,” she observed.
Empaths.
I cocked an eyebrow at her.
“No one likes dealing with their boss,” she said. “Even when you have a decent relationship, they’re still an authority figure. And that comes with all kinds of baggage. But he’ll be fine. He’s nowhere near as apprehensive as you are.”
So most empaths would believe. But if Jacob ever decided to go civilian, he’d have a great career as a poker player.
“You don’t know him like I do,” I said vaguely, and headed off to start tackling the paperwork. It was a slog. It always is, when I have a fat load of “nothing” to write up. I found myself missing Carl yet again. He might not be much of a conversationalist, at least not when he wasn’t role-playing a normal person. But he didn’t balk over doing the tedious parts of the job.
Eventually, Jacob rejoined me. I wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d spent with Laura, either, as he found me thumb-deep in helping Blip wend his way through a “solar flare of distraction.”
“Are you…playing a game?”
“I’m focusing,” I said. “Well, in theory, anyhow.” I slipped out my earbuds and tapped out the remaining few lines of my lackluster report. It would have to do. I hit send.
I couldn’t really ask him how his meeting with Laura went. Not while Big Brother was listening. So on the way home, we chatted about the same things we always did in the car. What’s for dinner. When the electric bill was due. Whose turn it was to pick up the dry cleaning. Normal couple things, we’d both agreed. But I cared so little about them, I was relieved to stop for “groceries” so we could finally talk.
We left our phones in the car, picked the cart with the wonkiest wheel, and strode up and down the aisle where the canned music was the loudest. “What did Laura want?” I asked him.
“Just what she said. A debriefing.”
I gave him the side-eye. “And what else?”
