“I trust Evelyn,” I told him. “And I need you to trust me.”
“Of course I trust you,” he snapped. “But you’re so worried about proving you can handle this fluke of a repeater that you’re losing sight of what’s really going on here. National is sending out a feeler to see exactly what you’re capable of. And you’re showing them every last thing.”
“Evelyn wouldn’t report on me,” I said. Not just because I could turn her in for making me toss my cookies with her invention, either. “She’s a good person.”
“Fine. Let’s say she is. That doesn’t mean someone can’t manipulate her into studying you. All they’d need to do is tell her it’s for your own good. Next thing you know, National hauls you off…and I never see you again.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AS JACOB BEGGED me not to use the SPECs, his voice was controlled…barely. But his dark eyes were filled with emotion. Empaths might not be able to feel it, but I knew Jacob was vulnerable inside. No matter what he did or didn’t project.
I hated that I couldn’t just wash my hands of the whole thing. But what choice did I have? “Jacob, I can’t leave Sarah’s body to traipse off to Disney while her spirit keeps Boswell prisoner.”
“Talk her out of it somehow. You got her here, didn’t you?”
Sure I did. By telling her she could have the last word with her jerk of an ex. “That’s the thing. I was just stringing her along.”
“Thenkeep stringing. And give her a push.”
“Fine. I’ll give it one more shot—for your sake.” Hopefully Boswell would be able to pitch in and help.
We went back into the fray. It looked like another preschool slap-fight at first glance, but eventually I figured out that Sarah’s spirit (in Boswell) was trying to give her own body some kind of up-do to hide the hacked-off hair. And the body was none too thrilled.
Evelyn, meanwhile, was watching the whole thing through narrowed eyes, with her arms crossed firmly as if to shield herself from whatever emotional storm we’d brewed up.
“Okay, Sarah, here’s the deal,” I said. Both Boswell and the body paused their swatting. “We don’t know how long this process will take, and we want to make sure we’ve got it right. So we need everyone to start getting on the same page. Right now. So that you’re ready when Zach gets here.”
An equally blank look regarded me from two very different faces.
I addressed the one who’d hijacked Boswell. “Get back inside your own body.”
“I’m working on it,” she said petulantly. “This is all new to me. You can’t just expect me to know how everything is supposed to happen.”
I turned to the body. “Are you blocking her?”
The body shrugged. “I’m not doing anything.”
For a high-level psych, I’m not actually into all that woo-woo talk about the universe. But there’s something to be said for rightness—the way things just pop into place when they’re supposed to be there. Like two jigsaw puzzle pieces meant to fit together. This rightness is the only reason my exorcisms are effective—because when it’s all said and done, what I do is toddler-slap at ghosts and let the veil do the rest. And it works—because etheric entities don’t belong on this plane. And the grand balance does the heavy lifting to help me put things right.
“You should fit inside your own body a hell of a lot better than you do in Boswell’s,” I told the spirit. “Try harder.”
“I am trying!”
“Okay…how about this? Try less. Just clear your mind. And center your thoughts. And think about what it feels like to be yourself.”
She scrunched up Boswell’s face. “I dunno what to tell you. It’s, like, really hard.”
“Boswell,” I snapped, in an attempt to appeal to his spirit. “Help her out, here.”
Evelyn approached, pointedly circling me to avoid Jacob. She held out a familiar black case and said, “I tweaked the intensity of the ramp. It should be a lot smoother this time.”
“You don’t need those,” Jacob said.
“Is that your professional opinion, Agent Marks?” Evelyn asked. I’d never heard her sound so cold.
“Based on my twelve years as a PsyCop, my specialized FPMP training, and the fact that I know Vic better than anyone…yes, it is.”
“If Vic were able to reunite the forms, he would have done so by now. Isn’t that right?”
