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Today was the day.
Callie paced around the living room. The research team was coming for a visit. Carter had found a group that specialized in paranormal research—in Salem, naturally. When it came to historical paranormal phenomenon, that was the gold standard, after all. Dr. Bennett and his team were scheduled to arrive any minute.
She straightened the pillows on the sofa. When Carter had first suggested the idea, she’d been all for it. She still was, except... Things had been going really well. Just like she’d predicted, Adelaide had been happy ever since he had returned. Why upset the apple cart now? It would be easier just to keep him around full time. That sounded like a great plan.
Callie stopped pacing and stared down the hallway. She knew why they had to do this. Adelaide might have calmed down, but she was still in limbo. They needed to help her if they could. Callie just hoped that having a bunch of strangers traipsing through the place wouldn’t upset the spirit too much before they could figure out what they needed to do.
A knock on the door made her jump. She turned, but Carter was already crossing the entryway. He answered the door, and she relaxed when she saw Alice and Mamie.
“Come on in, ladies,” he said. “They’re not here yet.”
Callie waved, but her friends were abnormally subdued as they crossed the threshold into the house. It was quite a contrast to the way they’d jumped around the diner when she’d relented to their constant pestering and told them they could come see the real “cleansing.” If that was what was going to happen today... She didn’t really know.
“Take a seat,” Carter said. “I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
The two stood uncertainly in the entryway. After a while, they shrugged out of their coats and tiptoed into the living room. They sat down so close together on the couch that their shoulders brushed.
Callie knew how they felt. There was a different feel to the house tonight. She hated to even quantify it, but it felt almost... defensive. Like Adelaide knew something was coming.
“There’s a van pulling into the driveway,” Carter called.
She hurried to look over his shoulder out the window. “There are more of them than I expected.”
“Hopefully, that means it won’t take as long.” He let the curtain drop. “I want this to be over.”
“You and me both.” She reached for his hand. She knew he thought this was a waste of time, but she appreciated him enduring it for her.
He wrapped his fingers around hers. “I can send them packing if you want.”
She hesitated for a moment. “No,” she said, tugging on his hand to stop him. “I want to do this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Will you stay close by?”
“So close it will be embarrassing.”
She smiled because she knew he wanted her to. “Let them in.”
There were footsteps on the porch, but Carter opened the door before anyone could knock. “Paranormal Research Guild?” he asked.
“That’s us,” a gray-haired man said. “I’m Dr. Bennett. We spoke on the phone.”
“Chief Landry.”
Carter shook the man’s hand, and Callie bit her lip to hide a real smile. There was her tough guy. She knew the posturing was to keep the visitors in line, but she appreciated it. She wanted the truth, too, not a con job. She gave the researcher a once-over. He looked respectable enough. He wore glasses and a full beard, but it was tidy and trimmed. He looked like he should be teaching chemistry somewhere, not hunting ghosts.
She stepped forward. “Dr. Bennett, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Callie Thompson.”
“It’s a thrill to meet you. Several of us are big fans of your Quick Kate column.”
She lifted an eyebrow. She hadn’t considered that. Had her celebrity factored in to their swift response? Would it affect their findings? She pulled out of the handshake and rubbed her hands together. “Thank you. Please, let me show you around the place.”
Open, she reminded herself. She needed to be open to this, because she really didn’t have any other options left. Besides, Carter had already cornered the skeptic market. She saw the way he was staying back, observing everything. Nobody was going to pull one over on him.
Mamie and Alice were much more receptive. Their cheeks flushed with excitement when they saw the researchers and all their equipment. One man set an electronic device on the table by the sofa as he unloaded his things. Alice eyed it like a two-year-old wanting to touch. “What do you think it’s for?” she croaked in a whisper that everyone within two blocks could hear.
“Maybe it’s an ectoplasm detector,” Mamie whispered back.
“It’s a digital thermometer,” the man said with a grin. He had tattoos on his neck and leather cuffs around his wrists.
“Ooooh!” Alice and Mamie were in love.
“The temperature sometimes falls when there’s a presence in the room,” Bennett explained. “It’s just one of many phenomena we try to capture when we’re investigating a house. If you have any questions about our equipment or procedures, feel free to ask.”
Callie perched on the edge of a chair, but Carter wasn’t letting down his guard. He propped himself up against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. Honestly, she liked him having her back.
Alice and Mamie began cooing over something new that the tattooed guy was showing them. “It’s an electromagnetic field detector,” Mamie said in delight.
“EMF, Mamie,” Alice said. “We gotta get the language down.”
Callie was surprised when another knock came at the door. Everyone who’d been invited was already here. Now was not a good time for surprises. She saw Carter’s eyebrows draw together, and she followed when he went to answer. “David!”
Carter came to a standstill when he found David Hughes on the porch. “I don’t even want to ask.”
David seemed taken aback too, but he straightened his shoulders. “I heard you guys were going to try to contact Adelaide tonight.”
“Yeah. So?”
“I think I should be there.”
Carter let out a quick bark of laughter. “I think not.”
David looked almost relieved. He started to turn away, but Callie hurried to stop him. “No, wait. Come join us.”
She put a hand on Carter’s shoulder. She knew he was already on edge, and her young neighbor always seemed to push his buttons, but she needed all the support she could get. Carter’s muscles bunched, but he stepped aside. She caught David’s hand when he looked unsure. For a moment, he resisted, but then he entered, albeit uneasily. “Go on in,” she told him. “Let me talk with my cop.”
“Really?” Carter said as David trudged to the living room, his head on a swivel. “Like we don’t have enough going on tonight?”
“I know you two don’t get along,” she said, “but his BS detector is nearly as good as yours.”
Carter stopped. “Good point.”
“I have them every now and then.” She went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head and caught her kiss with his lips. His arms wrapped around her, and his hand tangled in her hair. Callie let herself sink into the protective embrace. “Should we get this dog and pony show started?”
“Can’t be soon enough for me.”
They rejoined their visitors in the living room. Callie took a seat again, but Carter chose a new spot against the wall, one where she could see him. David had found a chair in the far corner, and he was quiet as he sat down to watch. Too quiet. She looked at her neighbor more closely. He looked almost green.
“This is Paloma,” Bennett said. He gestured at a redheaded woman. “She’s our psychic medium. We can take all kinds of physical measurements, but her intuition and ability to communicate help us make sense of the data.”
Paloma nodded at the group, but she was already wandering around the room and waving her hands through the air. Every once in a while, she’d come to a stop if she felt something.
Callie would have sworn the woman was blitzed, but Alice and Mamie were star-struck.
“Look at her,” Alice said in her not-so-quiet whisper. “She’s fantastic.”
“Did you see the crystals in her earrings? I wonder if they help.” Mamie turned to Alice as she patted her ears. “We should have brought crystals.”
Bennett picked up a clipboard and adjusted his glasses on his nose. “Maybe we should start at the beginning. Ms. Thompson, Chief Landry told me some of the phenomena you’ve experienced, but I’d like to hear it from you firsthand. What specific things have you noticed that make you think there might be a presence in the house?”
Might be?
“Please, call me Callie.” Unexpectedly nervous, she hooked her hair over her ear. “There have been quite a few things, actually.”
“Like sounds? They tend to be the most common.”
She nodded. “There are squeaks, whines, and thumps. I’ve heard the rocking chair in the attic. The basement can get quite noisy, too, and the television comes on by itself.”
She saw Carter roll his shoulder. She’d gotten him there. Ernie’s cousin hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with the wiring.
Bennett’s eyebrows lifted. “It sounds as if you have a very active entity.”
“Yes, I can feel the energy.” The medium settled a hand over her chest and inhaled deeply. “It’s young, very mobile.”
Carter coughed.
Bennett gestured with his pen. “Please continue.”
Callie rubbed her hands up and down the arms of the chair. Where did she even begin? “My bedroom door locks by itself. Doors slam, food disappears, and there are cold spots.”
“Wait,” Carter said. “Food disappears?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “I told you that.”
“No. No, you didn’t.”
“I left the pie out for her.”
His eyebrows lifted. “To eat? I thought you wanted to see if it would fall onto the floor or something. If I’d known that was going on, I would have dusted for fingerprints in there.”
“Oh, dear,” Mamie said. She flushed when the attention turned to her. “You know me and kitchens. I polished that place to a sparkle after we finished baking.”
“It’s all right,” Callie said. Nothing had ever turned up with the fingerprints, and why would it? Ghosts didn’t leave fingerprints. She shifted in her seat and tried to get her thoughts back on track. “The most distressing incident, though, happened on Halloween night. I saw her.”
“Saw her? How do you mean?” Bennett asked. “Was it a dark shadow? Or movement in the corner of your eye?”
“Oh, no. I saw her straight on, rushing down the hallway at me.”
The researchers all stopped what they were doing.
“A full-bodied apparition?” Bennett’s eyebrows jumped above the rims of his eyeglass frames. “You say this was a female spirit?”
“Yes, it was Adelaide Calhoun.” Callie picked up a file from the coffee table. “I put this together for you. She used to live in this house back in the 1800s. She worked with the Underground Railroad freeing slaves. There’s a picture of her in there.”
“Yes, yes. The Underground Railroad. I picked up on that, but I didn’t quite know what it was.” Paloma turned in a slow circle with her fingers fluttering in the air. “She’s adventurous. There’s a daring quality to her.”
Alice and Mamie nodded in quick agreement.
“Where, exactly, did you see this apparition?” Bennett asked. His voice had risen a notch. “Was it this hallway here? How long did she manifest? Did she interact with you, or did she not seem to notice you?”
Tattoo Man grabbed one of his electronic detectors.
“Everybody, ease up,” Carter said in a low voice.
They all stopped on a dime, including the medium.
Callie dug her fingers into the armrest. The energy in the house had risen. She could feel it. That was dangerous, especially with Adelaide. The spirit was easily riled. “It’s all right, Carter. They need to know. It’s why they’re here.”
She pointed to the hallway. “Adelaide was over there. She started out at the end of the hallway and came toward me. She lifted her hand, and... and told me to run.”
“She talked to you?” Bennett scribbled furiously on his clipboard. “It’s very rare to have a combined visual and auditory experience. It takes a lot of energy for an entity to do that.”
“She was full of energy that night,” Callie said with a nervous laugh. Suddenly, Carter was there, squeezing her shoulder. The contact eased the band of tension surrounding her ribcage. “She yelled, ‘Run, Calina. Run.’ So I ran.”
“Of course you did.” Bennett’s brow furrowed as he looked down the hallway. Dusk had settled in, and the shadows were growing.
“There’s residue of her rage in the air,” Paloma said, giving a dramatic shudder.
A sudden thud from the basement made everyone jump.
Paloma moved to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She knelt and began to move her hands experimentally over the floor. “She’s over here. The floor is practically jumping. My toes are numb.”
“I’ve got something over here, too,” Tattoo Man said from the far side of the room near the bookcase. “The temperature just dropped almost ten degrees.”
Paloma took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Come to us, Adelaide. We mean you no harm. Let us know what’s upset you so.”
She turned in a slow circle, and the room of people fell silent as they watched her. Including Carter. He didn’t look happy, and Callie’s hope fell. This was not what she’d asked for. Did this woman really expect anyone to fall for her act?
Then again, maybe Callie had asked for too much. Maybe the real deal didn’t exist.
The possibility made the pit of her stomach grow cold. What would she do then? This had to work. She had no backup plan.
“Come to us, Adelaide,” the medium repeated. She lifted a hand to her forehead and began to shudder. “Come to us. We welcome you.”
“Lady, you are so full of crap.”
David was suddenly on his feet. Anger and disgust radiated from him. He was focused on the woman with all the drama, but he took a step back when heads spun toward him.
Paloma let out an offended gasp, while Alice croaked, “Rotten boy.”
Inside Callie, though, something began to resonate.
“David?” She slowly stood. It wasn’t like him to make himself the focus of attention. Yes, he acted out, but usually he was ducking his head and trying to avoid confrontation. At least with Carter around—and Carter was planted right behind her with his muscles bunched and bad attitude intact. “What is it?”
On cue, the teenager’s chin dipped. He fidgeted as he looked for an exit. “Nothing. Sorry, I gotta go.”
She stepped forward, blocking his way. She knew this kid. She trusted him. “Tell me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck as he stared at the floor. “Adelaide Calhoun isn’t floating under the floor of the kitchen.”
Paloma let out a huff. “How would you know? You don’t have the gift.”
David’s head came up.
“No, but I do have the curse.” His hand shook as he pointed toward the bookcase. “Adelaide Calhoun is standing right over here, and she’s laughing her fool head off at you.”
* * *
CALLIE’S ATTENTION went to the bookshelf. The man with the thermometer took a cautious step back, and Alice and Mamie clutched at each other. Carter, though, kept his eyes on David.
“She’s laughing,” David said numbly. His gaze darted over the onlookers, and his face went pale. He looked like a six-year-old who’d just been pushed out to center stage.
Carter felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The kid was a troublemaker, but this wasn’t his style. This... wasn’t a performance. Carter looked toward the bookcase. He didn’t see anything. He didn’t—
Wait, there it was. He recognized the charged electricity in the air. He’d always just thought the house was dry and static-prone, but it was only now he realized it wasn’t that way all the time.
“I’m outta here,” David said as he turned on his heel.
“Wait!” Callie rushed over and caught him by the shoulder. “Tell me about her.”
David wavered as if the need to get gone was strong. “What do you want to know?”
“I... I...” Callie froze.
Carter felt like he was teetering on the edge of something. None of this made any sense to him, but he went all in. For Callie. “You said Adelaide was standing. Can you see her?”
David’s hands tightened into fists. “Yeah, I can see her.”
“You said she was laughing. Can you hear her?”
The poor kid looked like he wanted to be sick. Callie caught his hand. Carter wasn’t surprised when David’s clenched fist opened and his fingers wrapped around hers.
“Sometimes.” He rubbed his head. “There’s a lot of static, though. It’s hard to understand.”
Carter let out a slow breath. He was a skeptic, but he trusted his gut. Right now, his instincts were ringing so badly to get Callie out of the room, away from danger, that he could hardly hold himself back. She couldn’t run this time, though. This time, she had to stay. He kept his voice calm. “Have you seen Adelaide before?”
“Lots of times. In the window upstairs.”
“Is that why you would never come inside?”
David shrugged. Carter could understand why he wouldn’t admit out loud that he’d been scared.
“Why tonight?” he asked.
“To protect Callie.”
“From Adelaide?”
“From these quacks.”
Paloma let out a huff and flipped her flame-red hair over her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Bennett said, trying to calm everyone. “Tell me what you see, son.”
Paloma didn’t like losing the limelight. She stamped her foot on the floor to remind everyone that she was still in the room. “I still sense something below.”
The nut job. Carter rolled his eyes, but not before he caught the expression on David’s face. It was fear. Not fear of anything he was seeing, but fear of not being believed.
“What does our equipment say?” Bennett finally broke in.
“My money’s on the gypsy,” Alice croaked. “That kid’s never told the truth a day in his life.”
Mamie turned on her friend and crossed her arms under her hefty bosom. “Would you put a sock in it? I’m so tired of listening to you berate that boy.”
Alice’s mouth dropped open so wide, a 747 could have flown through it. Mamie ignored her and turned back to David. “I believe you, hon.”
David wiped his brow, and his shoulders relaxed an inch.
The researcher with the tattoos cautiously approached the bookcase. He looked down at the monitor he had in his hand. “The EMF’s jumping all over the place, and I’m still registering a cold spot. It’s freezing over here.”
The researchers snapped out of their stupor and went to work. Cameras started flashing and digital recorders started rolling.
“Bring that equipment over here,” Paloma said. She waved her hands in a circle around her. “Right about here.”
The research team started to move away. Everyone spun in their tracks, though, when a book hit the floor.
Carter wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it. The book hadn’t slipped off an edge; it had tilted out of its place amongst all the others and tumbled down. There just hadn’t been anybody around to nudge it.
He pushed Callie behind him. “What’s she want?” he asked David. “Why is she still here?”
Paloma gave up with a flounce. She threw her hair over her shoulder and stomped into the kitchen.
“Phony,” David said.
“Show some respect,” Carter snapped.
David blinked in surprise. “Not me. Adelaide called her that.”
Callie tried to work her way around Carter, but he looped his arm around her waist to hold her back. That didn’t stop her from peeking around him. “Can you talk to her, David?”
“I... I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
“Can you? Ask her why she keeps trying to scare me out of the house.”
David gathered up his nerve. He looked across the room. “Why do you—”
He tensed.
“She can hear you.” His brow furrowed. “It’s hard to make out what she’s saying.”
“Try,” Carter practically growled.
“It’s something like ‘family.’ Protect?”
“She knows I’m family,” Callie whispered.
“She’s pointing at the chief. Something about a flower?”
Carter’s chin snapped back as if the kid had jabbed him.
“Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah,” Carter said in a raw voice. He glanced at Callie, whose brown eyes were huge. Too much sense.
“What else, David?” Bennett said. “Tell us everything you’re hearing.”
The teenager ran a hand through his hair. A sheen of sweat was on his forehead. This was taking a lot out of him.
“There’s something she needs to do. She’s worried.” He shook his head before anyone could ask. “She won’t say what, but she’s tired of waiting.”
Suddenly, his eyes popped open.
“What?” Carter demanded. He caught David’s shoulder when he wobbled.
“She said, ‘Be careful. Danger.’”
“Oh Lord, help us.” Mamie grabbed Alice with one hand and started fanning herself with the other.
“What kind of danger?” Carter asked. They were entering his territory now.
“People need to know. Can’t be found.” David pressed his hands to his head as if it hurt. “Hide. People are searching.”
Carter was in full police chief mode now.
“Hiding. Hiding. She keeps repeating the word hiding,” David said.
Down in the basement, the furnace thumped. Paloma examined her manicure. “I told you so.”
“Could that be another spirit?” Bennett asked.
David looked woozy as he stared at the bookcase. “I don’t have that much control over it.”
Bennett signaled his team. “You two, get down there. We’ll keep working up here.”
“She’s getting frustrated. I’m losing her.” David’s voice was thin, and he pressed his fingers to his temples. “Hide. Run.”
“The Underground Railroad!” Alice squawked.
“Of course,” Mamie said. “She hid slaves on their way to freedom.”
Callie pounced on the file of information she’d collected. “She thinks she’s still back in the 1850s.”
“It makes sense,” Bennett said. “Maybe she hasn’t been able to pass over to the other side because she thinks she still has work to do.”
“No,” David said softly. “She’s shaking her head.”
He slumped, but Carter caught him before he went down. He hefted him into a nearby chair. He pushed the kid’s head between his legs so he wouldn’t faint, but David pinned him with a look.
“She left, but she said one last thing.” The color was gone from the teenager’s face, and his eyes were unblinking. “She pointed at you and said, ‘Protect her.’”
Carter clenched his teeth. “You’d better not be messing with me.”
David stared at the floor. “Yeah, this was fun for me. A real blast.”
Mamie jumped to her feet. “I’ll get you some water, hon.”
Footsteps sounded on the basement stairs, and the research team returned.
“Did you find anything down there?” Bennett asked.
The guy with the tattoos shook his head. “We took some pictures and did an EVP session, but didn’t get any responses. There wasn’t any reaction on the EMF meter.”
“All right.” Bennett rolled up his sleeves. “Then we’ll concentrate on the data we took in this room. Let’s all take a moment to think. How can we help Adelaide complete her mission? We need to figure this out if we’re going to help her.”
“What if the mission isn’t for Adelaide?” Carter couldn’t believe he was participating in this, but there was one thing that made sense. He turned to Callie. “What if the mission is for you?”
Her eyes rounded. “The letters.”
“And the quilt.”
“Can you explain?” Bennett asked.
“Some of Adelaide’s belongings are in the attic,” Callie said. “I’m writing her life story, but maybe she wants more?”
“Spirits have been known to attach to physical objects. Can you show us? I’d like to take some readings around her belongings.”
The entire group moved to the back staircase, but out of the corner of his eye, Carter saw David push himself unsteadily out of the chair. He didn’t want to let Callie out of his sight, but there were plenty of people with her, including Alice and Mamie. He decided to follow David.
“Hey,” Carter called. He caught up to David in the entryway.
David spun around. He looked like he’d been through hell. An embarrassed look came over his face before he turned defensive. “Freak show’s over, man.”
He grabbed the door handle, but Carter pushed the door shut. They came face to face. The kid was getting tall. Hell, Carter could remember an eleven-year-old who’d hardly come up to his chest. Now, they were nearly eye to eye. Maybe it was time to start treating the kid like a man.
“Want to tell me what just happened in there?”
“God, can’t you ease up just once?” David ran a hand through his slick hair. “I’ve got a killer headache going on here.”
Carter cocked his head. “How long has this been going on? How long have you been able to see these things?”
David pressed his lips together.
“How long?”
“Ten.”
“Ten what? Ten weeks? Ten years?”
“Since I was ten, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Not really. Carter had seen what had happened in that room. The kid looked like he’d been run over by a truck. If it took this much out of him now, if it scared him that much, how would he have reacted at the age of ten? “Did you ever tell anyone about it?”
David’s face turned sour. “What do you think?”
His parents. A colorful curse passed through Carter’s lips before he could stop it. They’d threatened to send David away on more than one occasion. Only now did he understand the true impact of what that meant. They weren’t planning on sending their son to any military academy.
Carter shook his head. He was starting to get some answers to questions that had been bothering him for a very long time. “Is this why you act the way you do? Is this why I get calls about you practically every weekend?”
David’s tough-guy look finally faltered. “I just want to be normal, man.”
“Having a juvie file two inches thick isn’t normal, pal. Normal teenagers don’t even have a rap sheet.”
Shame showed on David’s face. It was subtle and quickly hidden, but it had been there. Carter had seen it.
The kid shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know how to handle it, okay?”
“Have there been others besides Adelaide?”
The kid shrugged, which meant “yes” in Carter’s book.
“How often does it happen?”
“Too much, okay?”
“Maybe you should see somebody about it.”
David might as well have come up swinging. His fists clenched and his shoulders pulled back. “I’m not crazy. I’m not going to see a shrink.”
“I didn’t mean a shrink.”
“I think he meant me.” The voice came from the archway behind them.
Carter looked over his shoulder. Most of the group, including Callie, was standing there. He didn’t know when they’d shown up or how much they’d heard.
Bennett stepped forward. “I might be able to help you, son.”
“You?” David said. “Help me? That quack psychic was able to fool you.”
Carter rolled his shoulder. Nice. Real smooth.
Bennett let the jab roll off him. “She’s proven effective before. You do have a lot more experience with Adelaide.”
David’s chin was still held high. Carter could feel him edging toward the door, ready to run.
“I’ve heard about your type,” David said flatly. “You’d try to test me like a lab rat. Nobody’s attaching electrodes to me. Nobody.”
Bennett rubbed his chin. “Electrodes. Now, that might be interesting.”
David’s eyebrows shot up until he figured out that he was being teased. He gritted his teeth. “Seriously, man. What do you think you can do?”
The researcher pushed his glasses up on his nose. “From what I’ve seen, you have a highly developed sense there. If we study it, you’ll understand it better. That would be comforting to me. If I had the ability you have, I would be scared to death.”
David shrugged, but Carter could see that the guy had hit the nail on the head.
“With more understanding, we might be able to figure out a way for you to control it. We’re conducting some very interesting work with people like you right now.”
David went very still. “There are others like me?”
“Not many, but yes. There are others like you. You might not all have the same abilities or sensitivities, but you are not alone.”
Carter reached up to rub the back of his neck and glanced over to Callie. Her eyes were full of tears. She’d been right: David had needed someone to listen to him. He was just lucky the right people had been here to hear him. Carter knew that if he’d learned this on his own, he wouldn’t have believed it in a million years.
Now, though, he was reconsidering.
“I told you the boy was special,” Mamie said in a dramatic whisper to her friend.
“Ack,” Alice said with a wave of her hand.
David had ears just like everyone else in the room. In fact, he’d already proven that his sense of hearing was better. “Mrs. Gunthrie, you know how your garden tools keep moving around in that shed of yours?”
“Is that you?” Alice snapped.
“No,” he said with a smirk.
“Oh!” Alice croaked like a frog when she got the message. “Oh! You! Mamie, I told you something funny was going on in there!”
The group broke up into smaller chunks as Bennett and David went outside to talk. The researchers planned to stay the night, and they began discussing where they should set up all their equipment. Carter heard Mamie and Alice talking to them about EMF meters and the tool shed.
“How are you doing?” he asked Callie.
“Better,” she said with a tired smile. The lines of stress around her eyes had faded, and her body didn’t seem as rigid with stress.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
If all this mumbo jumbo was helping, that made it worth it. Carter brushed his lips against her temple. She slipped her arms around his waist and leaned into him.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
Her brown eyes went soft. “For making this happen, but most of all, for what you did for David.”
“You liked how I busted his chops?”
“I liked the way you gave him a second chance. I told you he wasn’t a bad kid.”
Carter sighed. “I didn’t do it for him.”
“I know. You did it for me... and Adelaide.” Callie rested her head against his chest. “I hate to think of her being stuck like this. We have to help her, Carter.”
“Relax, honey. We are.”
“The poor soul has been waiting for years. We have to put things right. It’s what she’s been waiting for.”
* * *
THEY HADN’T UNDERSTOOD!
Adelaide dropped her head back and nearly howled in frustration. She’d come so close. She’d finally made contact, yet the connection had been cloudy. The boy had tried. He’d tried so hard. She paced around the attic, too full of frustration to sit in her chair. Her strength was waning, but desperation kept her holding on.
Things had not yet been made right. Her message hadn’t been clear enough, but she didn’t know how to communicate with the police chief to let him know. And now there were others, strangers running around her house with their shiny gadgets and strange behavior. She didn’t know them. She didn’t want to talk to them. They couldn’t help her.
She sank to her knees before the trunk filled with her belongings. Her treasures. Her heart. Her shoulders slumped. Weakness was swiftly overtaking her. She needed to rest and regain her strength. If she could. This time, she might have gone too far... used too much...
Footsteps sounded on the staircase, and she let go. She’d find a way back.
She had to find her way back to him.