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“Oh, hell yes. Snag me an iced café au lait and an order of beignets.”
“You got it. Maybe I should grab some empty calories and fuel for the rest of the gang, too. Are you heading out soon?” I heard a vehicle door slam over the line and assumed that he’d parked.
“Just throwing stuff in the car now,” I said and then got behind the wheel. “Did you talk to Dev at all this morning?”
The murmur of voices came through the phone, and I knew he was getting into line. No matter the time of day, Café Du Monde was always busy, but it was worth the wait and more.
“No,” he answered. “But I did talk to Birdie for a bit. She wanted me to bring some things so she could do what she needed to do with the chest you found in the crawl space—or whatever it is.”
I’d almost forgotten about that. All that hair and jewelry and . . . I shrugged off a shiver. “What kind of stuff?” I asked, wondering why I cared.
“Holy water, a small crucifix, and a Saint Michael medallion. She mentioned bringing some Florida water and Himalayan salt from her stash, as well as some charged jasper chips, and said she asked Dev to bring a gris-gris bag and some other items from his armory. I think she wants to throw everything we have at this thing. Just in case, you know? Especially after she walked the place and felt what she did.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. Larken was labeled avery giftedpsychicandpracticing witch—things that I couldn’t entirely wrap my head around but accepted as fact, nonetheless. Even I had to admit that she was good at her job, and there seemed to be more to reality than what the average person could perceive. When she visited the mansion with us after the events at Arborwood, she’d told both Pax and me that she believed we might be dealing with some dark forces. Said she’d felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow, and the heavy weight of oppression—and that was only her first impressions without any digging.
“I suppose that makes sense,” I said. “It was weird. And, even energetically, we don’t need anything messing with the investigation. Besides, given what Roch has told us so far about the shit that his guys were seeing and experiencing, we should probably have that stuff on hand anyhow. Along with things to combat any environmental causes.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “All right. I’m up next. See you in a few.”
“Okay. Later. Thanks for breakfast.”
“Anytime.”
He disconnected, and I tossed my phone in the cupholder before popping on my sunglasses, starting the car, and finding my favorite classic alternative station. The day was another gorgeous one. The sun shone brightly and dappled the road with interesting shadows as it peeked through the trees. The wind had picked up a bit overnight, and blossoms scattered in the breeze and tumbled across the pavement in an air dance as the branches shed their adornments.
When the mansion came into view, I felt a weird pang in my chest. There really was something about the place. I had wanted to explore it for years and was so excited when Dev told me that Roch had reached out to see if we could investigate it. It was strangely captivating and yet almost familiar in a bizarre sort of way. But under it all was a miasma of intrigue that I couldn’t wait to delve into more.
I parked where I could and grabbed my gear. It looked like I was the first one to arrive, so I dug the key out of my bag and headed through the gate. I felt a shiver when I got onto the porch and looked over my shoulder. Nobody was there. Maybe the wind had hit me just right and tricked my nerves.
We’d found out the entire door was new, not just the gorgeous stained-glass window. Roch had told Dev they’d had to replace it because it’d randomly cracked and shattered when two of his tile guys were working in the foyer. One of the workers had gotten cut badly enough that he’d had to go to the emergency room for stitches. We’d been trying to come up with testable theories for that ever since and hadn’t come up with anything definitive for why or how it’d happened.
The porch was too far away from the road for anything to have flown up from a car. Something from the tree could have hit the window just right. Or, given the time of year it happened, it could have just been temperature variances and pressure affecting a hairline crack already there. Who knew? We honestly weren’t sure, but it went into our column of unexplained.
While the non-woo-woo folk on the team generally lived and died by the adage,when in doubt, throw it out—something we’d actually copied-slash-borrowed from another well-known paranormal crew—we had to think outside the box. However, we didn’t like to waste too much time debunking or having the psychically gifted research something stupid when there were always more exciting things to explore.
I walked into the parlor where the team had set up the command center and stashed my stuff near the desk in one of the plastic totes we’d brought in for just that. As I stood, I swore I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned, looking at the bank of computer monitors that Turner had brought in the last time I was here. Nobody had come in, and the drapes on the windows were closed.
I looked at the desk again. It appeared as if Van and Halen had been in at some point, too, since a bunch of their equipment sat near the soundboard. As I was inspecting a device I hadn’t seen before, I saw something in my peripheral vision again and turned the other way, just barely catching movement in the reflection of one of the blank computer monitors. I turned more and tried to figure out what it might have been, but I didn’t see anything.
My head started to pound more, and I moved to my bag to dig out some ibuprofen. Just as I tossed them back, the front door opened, and Dev and Hanlen walked in, Dev’s blue nose pit bull terrier between them.
Mystique saw me and stopped, then wagged her tail and came bounding over. She knew me. And she loved me. I crouched and met her with a huge smile, accepting her little hops and doggie grunts and whines. She was such a sweet girl, but I had no idea why she was here. I gave her one last good rub behind the ears, kissed her on the forehead, and stood.
“Is it bring your daughter to work day?” I asked Dev.
Dev smiled, and Hanlen laughed. “It is, actually,” he said. “I was going to tell you guys earlier, but we decided to surprise you instead. We’ve been training Myst to be an investigator.”
“Oh. My. Goodness,” I said. “Stop it. Are you serious? That’s incredible. How does that work, though? I mean . . . I can see it totally being a great thing. She can smell critters in the walls. She can sense electromagnetic energy. This is fantastic.”
Dev rolled his ocean-water-blue eyes and shook his head of silky curls, a grin on his lips. “Yes, she can do all of that. But she can also sense the spirits before we can. Sometimes, Lark can’t tap in psychically right away, and they don’t let me see them unless theywantto be seen. Myst can sense them and alert us, especially if we think we’re on to something already. And, yes, she can help you guys with all the science stuff, too.” He pulled Hanlen close and gave her a one-arm hug. “Hanlen’s been working tirelessly with her at the plantation since we moved in. We’re going to use today and day one of filming as our trial runs to see how she does in real-world situations. During and since the Arborwood investigation, we’ve been getting her used to our ghost crew, and she’s done really well.”
Ah, yes, the “ghost crew.”
He squatted and patted his knees. Myst propped her front paws on his lap and licked his face. “Yes, you have. You’re a good girl, aren’t you, baby?”
“I love it. I think it’s brilliant. And not for nothing, but the viewers are going to go apeshit.”
“I know, right?” Hanlen said, a huge grin splitting her beautiful face. She had her long brunette hair up in a ponytail today and it just highlighted her gorgeous amber eyes. “I said the same thing. I’d pick a ghost-hunting show with a beautiful, sweet dog over any of the competition any day. EspeciallyGhost—”
