Sarah was getting used to driving the van by now. Her turns were a little wide, but other than that, she’d figured it out. Hopefully she wasn’t getting too comfortable in Boswell’s body, though it couldn’t possibly be a very good fit. Not because her center of gravity was off, but because these subtle bodies of Sarah were the girly-girl parts that painted their toenails and lugged around expensive purses. If the thought of her bodycutting her nails was alarming, I couldn’t imagine how jarring it would be to morph into a lumbering middle-aged man.
Evelyn must have sensed the dissonance, too. She sat stiffly on the bench seat between us, careful to touch Boswell as little as humanly possible and keeping her focus on me, instead. “I really was glad to hear from you today, because I’ve got something to give you.” She pulled a smartphone out of her purse. “It’s just a cheap pay-as-you go—and actually, when I jailbroke it to do some custom installations, the SIM card quit working, so it can’t call in or out. But I was able to pull something from the cloud. Something you might be pretty interested in.”
She handed me the phone and I powered it up. There wasn’t much on it beyond the standard apps…and one that was just the letters BG. I tapped it open. A title screen flashed that read,Binaural Games by Dr. Evelyn Hall.
“It’s the precursor to Mood Blaster.”
Mood Blaster was a colorful kids’ game. This app looked nothing like it, more like an old school text-based computer adventure, with pale gray lettering on a blue background. The menu items were different, too. No enticing graphics, no cutesy names. Things were arranged in a familiar way, though, from Delta to Beta. The pixel games looked less like Asteroids and more like Pong…but they functioned the same. Beneath the cosmetic differences, the interface was essentially identical to my old beloved app, before they ruined it by adding a bunch of paywalls—and that stupid goldfish. And when I plugged in a set of earbuds and tapped into Alpha, I immediately recognized the whub-whub-whub.
“It’s not the only binaural beat generator out there,” she said. “But I thought you might find it useful.”
I nudged the rectangular paddle into place and experienced the satisfaction of blocking a drifting pixel. “It’s…perfect.”
Too bad it wouldn’t be enough to deal with the whole Sarah problem. But while I had no desire to reacquaint my poor brain with whatever vibes the SPECs put out, unfortunately, I knew there was no other way to get all of Sarah’s parts to cooperate.
I still had keys to the apartment, as I hadn’t been back to the office since I officially “wrapped” the investigation. Thankfully, we didn’t blunder across any prospective renters touring the space. And if the neighbor’s loud TV was any indication, the fourth quarter was nearly done.
Sarah strode in—in Boswell’s body—and headed for the can. Would he object to her handling his—?
“You can totally still see the burn on the ceiling,” she said. I thought she was talking to me, but then she added, “If the stove wigged you out, you should’ve just used the microwave.”
“Boswell’s still in that body,” I told Evelyn.
She nodded. “And that emotional fragment is contained. I’m not sensing the spike of fear anymore.” We could see the bedroom now from the hall, and Evelyn paused at the threshold. “I’ve really underestimated you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked—and I hoped I sounded casual. But wasn’t that the part where someone would reveal that they justlookedlike a friendly older woman, and they were in on some nefarious plot all along, and now that I’d shown my cards, it was off to the psychic gulag for me?
Evelyn just shook her head. “All this time, I thought you were the source of the fear I felt in that room. But it wasn’t you, it was the fragment. Now that it’s gone, it couldn’t be more obvious. Isuppose it’s human nature to make connections—we’ve evolved to spot patterns. I know better, though. And even so, sometimes I still connect the wrong dots.”
“So the place doesn’t give you the willies anymore?”
“No. It just feels empty.”
I peered around the doorjamb at the mismatched closet door and scatter of salt and catnip on the floor. In my mind’s eye, I could still see that spray of luminol on the wall. Emotionally haunted or not, I’d be glad enough never to set foot in this place again. But if we were to reunite all the pieces of Sarah, it should be here. For all we knew, some kind of mojo lingered here, or maybe bits of other subtle bodies scattered around like salt, and I didn’t want to miss anything. This was where she’d come apart—this was where we’d pull her back together.
“You need to take a chill pill,” Sarah was telling Boswell with his own mouth. “It’s just a regular oven. I made cinnamon rolls all the time and it’s not as if they poisoned me.”
“What is it?” Evelyn asked me gently.
Huh. I was having a strong feeling after all. And I hadn’t identified the pang of guilt until she pointed it out. “I really screwed up with Boswell.”
“How so?”
“Even though I knew damn well how high his talent was, I didn’t give him any tools to deal with the ghosts. And now look at him.”
“You couldn’t have known this would happen. Besides, you only just signed him up. You can’t expect to convey years of training in the time it takes to print out a name badge.”
Maybe not. But if I had taught him anything—even something as basic as the white balloon—maybe he could’ve kept Sarah out from under his skin.
“Are you sure Zach is coming?” Sarah called out to me in Boswell’s voice. “’Cause I wouldn’t put it past him to blow you off, just to prove a point.”
“Everything’s going to plan.” At least, I hoped so.
Just a moment later, I answered a knock on the front door. Sarah’s body waltzed in, looked around, and said, “This place is empty!” Jacob followed. It turned to him and said, “You made it sound like it was a total wreck. Don’t go thinking you can weasel out on our deal. It’s not my problem there’s nothing here to clean up. I showed up. I get my ticket.”
“You talked her into cleaning up the apartment?” I guessed.
“She wants to go to Orlando,” Jacob said.
