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“Yes,” he said. “For me it’s like a window. When it’s closed the glass is fogged up. I can sense that the people around me have auras, but I don’t have to see them in detail unless I want to. That’s when I open the window.”
She stopped at the doorway of a vintage bathroom, complete with claw-foot tub and a badly chipped green sink. Every drawer was open, and so was the medicine cabinet.
“For me it’s more like slipping into a waking dream,” she said. “I was terrified by my other vision at first.” She turned away from the small room. “It was shocking. Frightening. I thought I was goinginsane. But during the past few months I’ve gotten a lot better at handling the ability. It almost feels natural now.”
“Same with me. It’s not surprising when you think about it. We wake up one morning and discover that our rather unusual but not particularly scary sixth sense has suddenly been kicked up several notches. It’s like discovering that your normal vision now extends into the UV end of the spectrum or you’ve developed preternatural hearing. It makes sense that it’s taking us a while to figure out how to process the new information we’re receiving.”
“We didn’t suddenly develop our new vision,” Pallas said. “Someone conducted experiments on us.”
“And someone at the Carnelian Sleep Institute has at least some of the answers,” Ambrose said. “Emery Geddings wanted to sell me that information. That’s why he was murdered.”
Pallas stepped over a pile of towels and sheets that had been hauled out of a linen closet and dumped on the floor.
“Does it occur to you that we’re both seriously obsessed?” she said.
“Yep.” Ambrose kept his grip on her hand as she led the way into a bedroom. “I wonder if whoever tore this place apart found what they were looking for.”
Pallas studied the space with its ancient bed and battered chest of drawers. She shook her head. “I don’t think so. All I’m sensing in here is more of what I picked up in the other rooms. Anger and intense frustration.”
He surveyed the cluttered, tumbled space. “If there was anything to be found here, it’s probably long gone.”
The door of the closet was open. Green scrubs, faded camo shirts, and several pairs of cargo pants had been yanked off the hangers and dumped on top of the heavy boots on the floor. The shelf above the hanging rod had been swept clean.
Energy seeped from the back wall.Excitement. Anticipation. Anxiety.An adrenaline rush.
“Ambrose,” she whispered.
He glanced at her. “Pick up something?”
“There’s a lot of heat coming from inside the closet.”
Ambrose followed her gaze. “Trapdoor in the floor?”
“Not the floor.” She went closer. The energy became more perceptible. “The wall.”
She reached inside the closet and flattened one hand against the wooden panels that formed the interior wall. They felt solid to the touch, but the sense of energy got stronger. And there was something else as well. A draft of outside air.
“I think there’s something behind the panels,” she said.
“Let me take a look,” Ambrose said.
She stepped back. He kicked the clothes on the floor out of the way and moved into the closet. She watched him run his fingers around the seams in the wood.
“You’re right,” he said. “Air is seeping in from somewhere. It looks like the bathroom is on the other side of the closet wall, but I think that’s an optical illusion.”
Together they moved the remaining clothes out of the way and began a methodical, tactile exploration of the panels.
“Got it,” Ambrose announced.
He looked at her, waiting for a verdict.
“It’s okay,” she said. “But go slow.”
He pushed against the seam between two panels. There was a squeak. One of the panels popped open, revealing a dark opening behind the wall. Damp sea air swept into the room.
Ambrose took out his phone and aimed the flashlight into the darkness. Pallas saw a set of worn steps that descended into the depths.
“It’s an old smugglers’ tunnel,” Ambrose said. “Probably dates from the days of Prohibition.”
