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“They murdered him using a lethal sedative that Fenner provided, stuffed the body into a body bag, and dumped it in the asylum crypt,” Pallas said.
Ambrose drank some more coffee. “By the time I showed up, it was all over.”
“As far as Guthrie, Moore, and Fenner were concerned, that should have been the end of their problems,” Pallas said. “Instead it was just the beginning, because Ambrose called inThe Lost Night Filesto help him figure out what was going on at the Institute.”
“And none of them had any way of knowing that Serenity-Iona was also in a panic,” Ambrose said. “She tried to get a handle on things by volunteering to talk to us about the Carnelian ghosts, but the situation was already out of control. We mentioned Geddings’s disappearance, but she didn’t give herself away with a lie because she honestly didn’t know what had happened to him. She assumed the same thing everyone else in town did—that he was a drug dealer who had probably been murdered by some of his competitors.”
“When she heard about the explosion at Geddings’s house she must have figured she had caught a lucky break,” Talia said. “She hoped you two were the two bodies found in the wreckage. Then you showed up alive. When it became obvious you were not going to give up and go away she started making plans to shut down the project.”
“She murdered Fenner because he knew too much about the mystery drug and what it could do,” Pallas said. “He also must have known that she was the anonymous donor’s intermediary. Afterward she went to the Institute and made sure there were no incriminating records. Then she got into her car and vanished.”
“Calvin is trying to track her,” Ambrose said, “but no luck.”
“It’s as if she simply disappeared,” Talia said.
Amelia got a thoughtful expression. “You know, Pallas, it’s a wonder that she didn’t try to kill both you and Ambrose.”
“I’m sure she considered it,” Ambrose said, “but there were a few problems with that approach. The first, of course, is that there was no way to make us conveniently disappear. There were too many people who would come around asking questions.”
Talia got a fierce expression. “Amelia and me, for starters.”
“Damn right,” Amelia said, equally fierce.
“And then there is my ever-loving family,” Ambrose said. He smiled, wincing a little. “They would have torn the town apart.”
Pallas grimaced. “My family would have had a few questions, too. They might not approve of my career choices, but that would not have stopped them from demanding answers. So the only practical thing to do was pull the plug on the Institute project. But I can tell you Serenity-Iona was not happy about it.”
“Looks like we are now searching for a very wealthy individual who is funding research into the paranormal,” Talia said.
“Don’t be too sure it’s one person who is behind this,” Amelia warned. “It could be a clandestine government agency, for all we know.”
There was a moment of silence while they all absorbed that possibility. Then Pallas shook her head.
“I keep coming back to the feeling that the project in Carnelian had a personal angle for Serenity-Iona,” she said. “She wasn’t justclosing down a drug trial that had run into trouble. She was very upset by the failure. It was personal. I can’t imagine a trained government agent getting so emotionally involved in what was essentially a dangerous science experiment.”
“I agree,” Amelia said.
Talia pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “So do I. When you think about it, that might give us a bit of an edge. It’s bound to be easier to track down a crazy mad scientist or a criminal mastermind than to fight our way through the government bureaucracy.”
“Way to go, Talia,” Amelia said. “Look for the silver lining.”
Ambrose tapped the side of his coffee mug. “I’ll tell you what I’d like to find.”
They all looked at him.
“What?” Pallas asked.
“The list,” Ambrose said.
They stared at him.
“What list?” Amelia asked.
It was Talia who lit up like a lightbulb. “He’s right. There must be a list.”
“A list of?” Pallas prompted.
“The four of us didn’t know each other before we were drawn into this situation,” Ambrose said. “But we all have a few things in common. We’re all about the same age, and prior to our amnesia episodes, we were each aware that we had a bit of a psychic vibe.”
