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  Dammit. If you won’t save yourself for my benefit, do it for your daughter. For Larissa.

  Larissa. I couldn’t leave her. The spirit was right. Nothing good would come of staying here. If I went with him, I would end up in a different realm, one where my thoughts would order as they should.

  Okay , I managed. I’ll go with you. Let me in .

  What?

  Let me inside, so that our auras can mingle.

  I’m not whole at the moment. Surely you can come inside my spirit if you like.

  Only if you invite me in.

  Sounds scary. Are you a vampire?

  I’ve never lied to you, Baxley. I don’t know what all I am. My power scares me, and you are wise to be leery. Know this. I could never hurt you.

  Made sense, and it wasn’t like I had other options. I was sick of this long freefall. In mindspeak, I responded, Yes, I invite you in.

  My sense of who and what I was blinked and was gone. The terror was twice as stark, more frightening than anything I’d ever experienced, but the endless tumbling ceased. Night faded to the foggy murk of the Other Side. My feet were on what passed for solid ground.

  I tried to catch my virtual breath, but I wasn’t me. I was me and Mayes. When I glanced at my hands, they were his hands. This wasn’t right. Let me out!

  Easy, Dreamwalker. I have you.

  In the next instant, I sprang fully formed from his head. I checked my hands, my feet, my sides. Patted the hank of my virtual ponytail. I was me again. I turned to Mayes and asked, What happened?

  You got stuck in the portal. I carried you through.

  Impossible.

  Very possible. We just did it.

  His voice sounded so smug, so arrogant. Yet it was Mayes. I’d know that darkness he wore like a cape anywhere. You are more than a Dreamwalker. What are you?

  I’ve been called many things by my people. I seem to be a combination of a holy man and a creature straight from Cherokee mythology. It’s a long story, but you’re in no danger from me.

  And you’ll share the myth with me, later.

  Seems like everything with us happens later.

  I don’t have time to soothe your male ego. Thanks for the save. I’m grateful. But we have work to do. Let’s find Mandy, see what she wants to show us, and get the heck out of here.

  Works for me. Which way?

  I don’t know. I think of the person, touch an item they touched, and vector to them. Only this time you did the vectoring. You tell me where Mandy Patterson is.

  I can do that, but only because I still have access to your thoughts.

  Our surroundings began to change. Instinctively, I stepped back into Mayes.

  We’re in her dreamscape , Mayes said in my head. Call her .

  Mandy? I’m here . In the ensuing silence, I recognized flasks, packages, jugs, and other laboratory equipment. I knew where we were: Mandy’s lab. She appeared then, suited up for cooking meth. She didn’t spare us a glance because an image on the security screen caught her attention.

  Mandy ripped off the mask covering her face and hurried to the door. “Doodle, come in here. Hurry.”

  A boy stuck his head out of a nearby room. “You said I could never go in there. You said your work was private.”

  “Someone’s coming. No one comes here by accident. It can’t be good. Hurry.”

  I judged Doodle to be preteen. So this was before or after Derenne came into their lives? Where were the pigs? I didn’t hear or see them.

  “What do you make in here, Mama?” Doodle asked, gazing around in wonder.

  “I’m making your future, son. Remember that if you remember nothing else about me.”

  “Are you leaving me?”

  “I hope not. Listen, we have to be quiet, so quiet that whoever this is thinks we aren’t home.”

  “Did we do something wrong?”

  “Not on purpose. I don’t know this person, and I don’t trust anyone I don’t know. You shouldn’t either. Not ever. Now, shh.”

  They sat on the floor, eyes riveted on the security camera feeds. A sports car pulled up almost to the front door, leaving ruts in the sparsely grassed sand. The female driver sat there for a long moment. She had short, chin- length straight hair and fancy sunglasses, which she ripped off and threw on the dashboard. Silver flashed as she moved her hands. Jewelry. She wore rings on both ring fingers.

  The car door opened, and the woman exited gracefully, carrying a clipboard and an ink pen. She mounted the front steps and rapped crisply. “Mrs. Patterson? I’m here for the Census.”

  The woman stood there, staring at the door. She knocked and called out again, the silver of her rings flashing. One ring seemed elevated and more ornate than the others.

  With a furtive glance around the yard, the woman tucked the clipboard under her arm and tried the knob. The locked door didn’t budge. She whacked it with the clipboard, denting its pockmarked surface even more.

  “Where the hell are you?” the woman muttered before returning to her sports car. She hit the gas and tore out of there, not bothering to stop at the Dixon place next door.

  Curious , I thought. Why wouldn’t a census worker stop at every house?

  The dreamscape shifted back to Mandy and Doodle. “She’s gone, son. It’s okay.”

  The boy cocked his head to one side. “What’d she want with us? What’s a census?”

  “Our government conducts a census every ten years to count everybody, but that woman wasn’t from the census.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s the wrong year for the census, she didn’t leave a card, and she tried to break into our place.”

  “We should report her to the cops.”

  “No cops. We can’t ever call the cops. You know that.”

  “Because of your job.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why don’t you get another job? One where people don’t scare you? One where we don’t have to hide and be scared?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  The child lunged for Mandy and wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t want a future. I’d rather have my mom.”

  “Hush up. You’ll have a chance to break the poverty cycle because of the sacrifices I’ve made. You’re smart as a whip, and you can make something of yourself. And you will too, or I will have wasted my life.”

  “If I help you with your work, will you get finished quicker?”

  “I don’t want you caught up in this, Doodle. You run on to your room now and read or draw more of your pretty pictures.”

  “Aw, Mom.” The boy edged out of the room, and Mandy sunk into a rickety chair in relief. Her hands shook. Taking a closer look, I saw her coloring was off. What had spooked her?

  Mandy? Can you hear me? I tried.

  Go away , Mandy said. I showed you the important stuff.

  Your son is safe , I improvised to keep her talking. He’s a good boy.

  He’d better be. I did what I could for him.

  What happened in the lab, Mandy?

  The scene switched back to the day of the fire. I saw a replay of the earlier scene she’d shown me, the one where she ended up in the shower. As before, the scene blacked out with the sound of the explosion.

  Don’t go, Mandy. Was the fire an accident?

  Not an accident , she muttered as she faded from sight.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Back in the real world of Mandy’s former bathroom, I awakened in Mayes’ arms. His chest filled my visual field. I lifted my head and gazed at his handsome face. We were the same height, so his eyes were level with mine. In their depths, I saw many fine qualities. Compassion. Strength. Tenderness.

  He seemed so familiar, and yet I barely knew anything about him. This was only the second weekend we’d ever spent together.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Good.” I drew in a full breath and stepped away before another kiss happened. To be on the safe side, I erected my mental barrier tha
t protected my extra senses and blocked Mayes from direct access to my thoughts. My rose tattoos were cool to the touch. My otherworld mentor was keeping her word about staying away from my dreamwalks.

  Oddly, there was none of the usual fatigue I felt after a spiritual encounter. I brimmed with vitality. “Too good. You shared your energy with me, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged.

  A conversational dead end. I was getting good at recognizing those. When Mayes didn’t want to talk, he kept his own counsel. Whether that was due to his heritage, his career as a cop, or his personality, I couldn’t say.

  We needed to have that relationship conversation, but Mandy’s fire- ravaged trailer wasn’t the place to remind him we were friends and nothing more.

  I glanced at the blue sky overhead, grateful for natural sunshine and balmy weather. Mandy had worked hard to provide for her son, but where were the fruits of her labors? “She told me the fire wasn’t an accident. Someone started it.”

  “Which brings us back to our suspect list: the neighbor, the aunt, the boyfriend, or the son. We should add the voodoo woman to the list too.”

  “The voodoo woman? Really? It was a coincidence her visit to me occurred at the start of this case.”

  “Cops don’t believe in coincidences. She’s involved in this somehow, either for her personal gain or for another reason. Could be she has a client that wants you sidelined.”

  The palm reader had been starving when she visited. She seemed keen on helping her grandmother, but other than that, I didn’t know much about her. Other than her attacking me with voodoo. “Someone hired Cipriona Marsden to hurt me?”

  “We need to talk to her. If she acted as an agent for someone else, and that someone realizes she failed, her days could be numbered.”

  “I know where she lives.”

  “We should go there next. Anything else you want to touch in the trailer?”

  “No. I’d hoped something might call my name or spontaneously occur, but this place feels empty now.”

  Mayes took my hand, led me out, then stopped short in the yard. “I want to check for hidden cameras.”

  I gazed over my shoulder at the gaping front doorway. “The fire destroyed the cams on the trailer eaves and over the door.”

  “But at least one camera covered the approach to Mandy’s residence. Perhaps the perimeter cameras survived.” We halted in the shade of a towering pine. Mayes closed his eyes for a moment. “I remember frames from three cameras that covered the front door, the back side of the trailer, and the front yard. But I also recall one road view.”

  There was a lot of vegetation and only two of us. “How will we find hidden cameras?”

  “Assuming she bought the latest in technology, those cams would be wireless and communicating with individual receivers at her internet hub.”

  “What about her cellphone?”

  Mayes frowned. “Oh. An app. She could’ve had an app on her cell. With that, she could keep track of visitors even when she wasn’t home. Heck, a top system can send messages when someone approaches. Good thinking.”

  “Not so good if her phone burned up.”

  “Still worth considering. Doodle’s cell may also have the app, or he may know how to access it. Better yet, the images may have been relayed to an offsite utility, like a cloud server. We need to talk with Doodle again about that possibility.”

  “Meanwhile, we should search for remote cameras we saw in the dreamwalk feed. The view of the front yard came from over there.” I pointed in a southwesterly direction. “I’ll check it out.”

  But when I got to the tree line and searched high and low, I found nothing. “Rats. No camera here.”

  Mayes had been poking around in the same general area. “Your first instinct was right. I believe that fresh gouge in the tree trunk is where a camera used to be mounted.”

  “We’re too late, then.”

  “Maybe not. If I set up this security system, I would’ve added a backup, in case of a bust or worse.”

  “What’s worse than a bust?” He gave me a barbed look, and my thoughts jolted. “Oh, like a fire or a homicide. You’d have wanted someone to know what happened. For justice’s sake.”

  “Or retribution.” He paced the woods, turning to check the line of sight from each stopping point. “Where are you, little camera?” he asked.

  I used a stick to part the underbrush before I stepped. “How big would this secondary camera be?”

  “Trail cams are about the size of a cellphone or smaller. The case is big enough to hold a few batteries, the lens, and a data storage card. It would be watertight.”

  “You would make an excellent bad guy.”

  “It’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

  We moved branches, stepped in and out of the tree line, all to no avail. I pointed at an oak a little deeper in the woods. The remnants of a tree fort were tacked on the tree limbs and trunk. “What about up there?”

  “Hmm. It’s higher than we’ve been considering, but the line of sight fits. If the boards leading up to the platform are in good shape, I’d say it’s a strong possibility.”

  We tromped through the underbrush. I would need a shower and a thorough tick check when we were done here. At the live oak, the weathered boards turned out to be scraps from one of those fancy composite decks. When Mayes applied his weight to the lowest rung, it held.

  “I’m going up.” He easily scaled the eight boards nailed to the tree trunk and sat on the platform.

  “See anything?” I craned my neck to keep my eyes on him.

  “The view’s terrific. I have clear line of sight to the front and this end of the trailer, along with the turn in from the road. It doesn’t look like this platform has been here too long. The nails still look new. This platform wasn’t a kid’s hideout, but it would’ve made a great hangout. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t look up.”

  “The trail camera? Is it there?

  He reached underneath the platform and withdrew a small box. “Bingo.”

  A moment later, he stood on the ground beside me, the box, a bulge in his pocket. “We need a computer, fast.”

  No kidding. We returned to the truck and headed to Bartow Road. A shirtless bantam rooster of man came huffing up to us, greasy hair trailing behind him.

  “Help!” Ricky Dixon yelled. “She’s got my gun.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Who’s got your gun?” Mayes asked, turning in his seat to block me from Dixon, the next-door neighbor.

  His protective behavior annoyed me. The likelihood of Dixon carrying a concealed weapon in his sagging camo shorts were small. I climbed out of the truck and circled to Dixon. Two hundred proof fumes wafted up my nose. Dixon had either been drinking heavily or swimming in booze. A glance at his bloodshot eyes and his unsteady gait convinced me it was heavy drinking. Mayes joined me outside the truck, doing his best to stay between me and Dixon. I grabbed his hand so he’d remain in one place.

  “My wife. She got hold of my twelve gauge.” Dixon gestured emphatically with his arms and paced around us, his feet leaving deep impressions in the sandy road. “Said she’d kill me if I didn’t let her out of bed, so I did. Now she’s done run me off, out of my own house.” He swore a string of ugly words.

  I heard everything he said, but it didn’t quite compute. Was he for real? “You keep your wife in bed? Tied up?”

  “It’s for her own good. That woman’s got a mean streak a mile wide. I should tape her mouth shut too because the words that come out of it are pure filth. God almighty. You gotta stop her.”

  So far, he’d told the truth, or at least a truth he believed. He’d been drinking both times I’d met him, and now his wife, whom I’d believed to be bedridden, was actually a prisoner in her own home? That was against the law. What other crimes had Dixon committed?

  A loud blast interrupted my thoughts. It came from the Dixons’ place. Mayes and I exchanged worried glances, and Dixon yowled his frus
tration. “She’s shooting my stuff. Go arrest her. Lock her butt in jail and see how she likes that. She’ll be begging to come home.”

  “I’ll walk Mr. Dixon home.” Disentangling his hand from mine, Mayes tapped his temple several times with his index finger. “Why don’t you write up our investigation notes and then follow us in the truck?”

  “Er, sure.”

  What notes? Was he protecting me again by shutting me out? I didn’t like that one bit, but I had to pick my battles. Why had Mayes tapped the side of his head? It wasn’t a gesture I’d ever seen him use.

  In case he was signaling me, I lowered my extrasensory barriers and shot him a telepathic message. Mayes?

  Finally. Look, I’ve got my hands full with this drunk. Call Wayne. Get some backup out here, ASAP. We may need a SWAT team.

  Wayne’s the best sharpshooter we’ve got. SWAT is a no-go unless we bring in outside forces , I sent him back, rapid-fire. What should I tell the sheriff?

  Exactly what happened. We were in the area and heard a shot. Mr. Dixon flagged us down.

  What about the trail cam in your pocket?

  I’ll give it to him when I see him. Let’s focus on the immediate issue. Something odd is happening next door. We’ll get back to the murder investigation soon enough.

  You think the Dixons are a separate issue?

  All I know for sure is the status quo changed over there. Dixon seems slimy enough that I’d be happy to arrest him for murder, but we have no proof of any wrongdoing at this point.

  Dixon’s wife was alleged to be bedridden. If she’s up and armed after being forcefully detained, she’ll be royally pissed.

  Never thought I’d say this, but ask Wayne to send the guy with the Taser. I’d rather avoid more gunshots, if possible.

  Will do. Bax?

  Yes?

  Will you keep the channel between us open? That way I’ll know you’re safe.

  For now, but stay out of my head unless it’s important. I’m not used to having real voices in my head. Only dead ones.

  Of course. You won’t even know I’m here.

  The connection faded until it barely registered, like a quiet engine on idle. Better than what I thought it’d be. I phoned the sheriff and filled him in on the situation.