Nigel hunched his shoulders and leaned his elbows on his knees. He didn’t want to make wild accusations, but… “Ethan was nervous before the seance started. I assumed I was being paranoid like you said earlier.”
“I didn’t?—”
Nigel held up his hand, and Oscar fell silent. “He was also the one to break the circle.”
“He was worried about Ms. Montague.”
Chris cleared their throat. “I didn’t notice anything alarming about her beforehand. Sure she was pale, but that’s to be expected given she was looking at the ghost of her girlfriend who died tragically. We can review the video easily enough, though.”
“Montague didn’t object to him breaking the circle, and she seemed pretty shaken up.” Oscar frowned uncertainly. “Ethan knows her far better than anyone else here. He might have noticed some small sign we’d miss, even if we went back over the footage.”
“You’re not wrong,” Nigel admitted. “Combined with his sneaking around upstairs, though—and all right, maybe it wasn’t sneaking, maybe he was just doing what he was told. But he had a briefcase with him, and I assumed it was just notes, but what if he stole something?”
Oscar’s expression indicated he thought Nigel was being overly paranoid again. “Is that why you think he interrupted the seance? Because he was afraid Robin would tell Ms. Montague he’s a thief?”
When he put it that way… “I just know she was trying to communicate something,” he settled on.
“Does it matter?” Tina piped up from behind her monitors. “Ms. Montague wants Robin removed. And she’s kind of our boss, so…”
“Good point.” Her grant money had saved his job, and not only kept OtP afloat, but bought whatever fancy new equipment they asked for. He looked to Oscar. “You’re our medium. What do you want to do?”
“I hate the idea of removing Robin by force. But she’s passed up chances to move on, and with the storm on the way…”
“We could come back after,” Chris suggested. “Surely Ms. Montague would let us do that.”
“After disobeying a direct order?” Tina shook her head. “We’re not going to get another cent from her if we do that.”
“Not to mention the house might not be structurally safe to set foot in after a tropical storm hits it.” Oscar sighed and stood up. “As much as I’d prefer otherwise, we don’t really have another option. We’ll clear Robin, and Gloria as well, if we can. And since we only have two nights to do it, we’d better get started.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
The stairs to the third floor creaked under Oscar’s weight as he led the way up. They’d loaded up on salt and grabbed the spirit box, EMF rope, Faraday tent, and fresh batteries as a lure if they needed one. Forcing Robin to move on didn’t sit well with him, but she’d had her chance. They’d seen what she wanted to show them, and if she felt the need to say something to Montague, it would have to wait until the old woman joined her on the other side.
They’d talked it over and decided to try to call her to the third floor by the storage room, out of the strengthening wind. If that didn’t work, then it was back to the veranda. Either way, as soon as she appeared, they’d hit her with as much salt as possible. The fresh batteries would be the only easy source of energy nearby, so hopefully she’d enter the Faraday tent and they could seal it up behind her, trapping her within.
It had worked on a previous investigation, so there was no reason to think it wouldn’t again. Ghosts varied in personality, but they all needed energy to manifest.
Too bad they didn’t have more time. Robin had been his mentor, in a way, since it was her journal entries that had first taught him something about mediumship. It was one thing to force dangerous spirits through the veil, but she just wanted to communicate. What they were about to do felt like a betrayal, but what choice did they have? The storm was coming, and Ms. Montague had given them their marching orders.
When they reached the third floor, Nigel came to an abrupt halt. “The door to the storage room is open. I’m certain Ethan closed it—he seemed in a hurry to, even, which was one of the reasons I thought he was up to something.”
“That’s weird.” Oscar took a step toward the room, all his senses on alert.
Robin—she was somewhere nearby, but her presence was faint. She might have expended all of her energy opening the door.
“Robin Sawyer,” he said as he entered the small room, “we’ve already seen what you…”
The desk Nigel had mentioned earlier had been left uncovered. One of its drawers was pulled almost all the way out.
“Did Ethan leave this open?” he called back.
Nigel slipped in beside him. “No. I would have noticed.”
Which meant Robin had done it.
Oscar shone his flashlight inside, but it was empty except for the small amount of dust that had filtered in over the years.
