"Big surprise."
He sighed. "Well, we had to try."
Samantha watched him steadily, forcing herself to stop rubbing her temples before he commented on it. "You think the kidnapper will take someone else soon?"
"I think he'll make some kind of a move. He has to know that the longer he's active here in Golden, the more time it gives us to find him." Lucas shrugged. "It'll take time to check out every property in the area, but it can be done. The town's small enough that we can probably talk to every household individually, not just the remote ones."
"And he's bright enough to know that. He can't afford to stay here for much longer. So he has to move faster, force your hand."
"I would, in his place." He studied her, then said, "I never could get used to talking to you as Zarina. It's not so much the shawls and turban as it is the makeup. You do a very skillful job of aging yourself."
"A true glimpse into the future." She smiled wryly. "It takes less makeup now than it used to, of course."
"Without the makeup you still look like a teenager."
"I wasn't a teenager even when I was one. You know that."
"I never knew it all, though, did I?"
Samantha wasn't at all sure she wanted to drift into this territory with Lucas, but the strange and unsettling day seemed to have done something to the guards she normally kept raised solidly between them. Her head throbbed, and she reached up again to briefly rub her temples, hearing herself say, "You didn't ask. I didn't think you needed to know."
He took a step toward her and leaned his hands on the back of the client's chair. "Would you have told me, if I'd asked?"
"I don't know. Maybe not. We were sort of busy, if you recall. There wasn't a lot of time to dredge up the past."
"Maybe that's what we should have done. Taken the time to do."
More than a little surprised, she said, "You were obsessed with the investigation, remember?"
"Missing kids do that to me."
Again, Samantha was surprised, this time by the defensive tone in his voice. "I wasn't criticizing. Just stating a fact. Your focus was on the investigation, as it should have been. The timing for anything else was, to say the least, lousy."
"So I'm forgiven?"
"For what happened during the investigation, there's nothing to forgive. I'm a big girl, I knew what I was doing. For what happened after… Well, let's just say I learned my lesson."
"Meaning?"
Samantha was saved from replying when a new client appeared hesitantly in the curtained doorway. Lucas was forced to retreat to the area behind Samantha, and he was clearly not pleased by the interruption.
As for Samantha, she had to mentally prepare herself yet again to read, even as she was automatically beginning her spiel for at least the tenth time that evening.
"What may Madam Zarina see for you on this night?"
The teenage girl sat down in the client's chair, still looking hesitant, and said, "I'm not here for a reading. Well, not really. I mean, I have this"-she placed her ticket on the satin-covered table- "but I didn't pay for it. He paid for it."
Everything in Samantha went still, and she was conscious that, behind her, Luke had frozen as well. Relaxing her voice into its normal tones, she asked, "Who paid for it?"
The girl blinked in surprise at the change, but answered readily, "That guy. I don't know him. Actually, I couldn't see his face very well, because he was standing in the shadows near the sharpshooting booth."
Because she couldn't help it, Samantha said, "You're a little old to need to be warned not to speak to strangers. Particularly strange men."
"Yeah, I thought about that," she confessed. "After. But, anyway, there were people all around, and he didn't come near me. He just pointed to the edge of the counter there at the booth, and I saw a folded twenty and this ticket. He said the twenty was mine if I'd come tell you that he was sorry he missed his appointment."
"His appointment."
"Yeah. He said to tell you he was sorry about that, and he was sure he'd see you later." She smiled brightly. "He seemed awfully sorry about it."
"Yes," Samantha murmured. "I'll just bet he was."
Jaylene said, "We've checked the phone lines, Caitlin. The phone company says they're working fine. There's nothing wrong with them."
Sitting down on the edge of her bed, Caitlin said, "I'm not surprised. Or very reassured." She eyed the other woman uncertainly. "Sam told me that if anything happened, I should call you. She said you'd understand."
Jaylene sat down at one of the chairs at the table and smiled faintly. "I do understand, believe me. And if it helps, what you experienced is fairly common, one of the most common events in the annals of the paranormal."
"It is? But I'm not psychic."
"No, but you shared a blood connection with Lindsay; the bond between sisters is usually one of the strongest, no matter how emotionally distant that may seem during adulthood. There are many documented cases of recently deceased persons appearing or speaking to relations. Since you were her sister, it makes sense that if she tried to reach out, you would be the one best able to hear her."
"Through the goddamned telephone?"
Jaylene said, "It does seem weirdly prosaic, doesn't it? But, again, it isn't terribly uncommon. Our best guess is that, like so much about psychic ability, it has to do with electromagnetic fields. Spiritual energy appears to be based on that, so it follows that the need to communicate could be directed through the natural conduits of power and phone lines. Energy manipulating energy."
"So she couldn't just talk to me, she needed to use… a device?"
Jaylene hesitated, then said carefully, "I've been told by mediums that there's a transition time between death and the next phase of existence. During that time, it requires an exceptionally powerful or determined personality to communicate at all to a nonpsychic. It's fairly difficult for them to communicate even to psychics. The fact that Lindsay was able to reach you is remarkable enough. That she was actually able to speak to you…"
"Have you ever talked to the dead?" Caitlin demanded.
"No."
"Well, it's creepy, let me tell you." Caitlin shivered unconsciously, then frowned. "What about what she said? The warning to Samantha?"
"I'll certainly pass it on. My partner is with her now, so she should be safe enough." It was Jaylene's turn to frown. " 'He knows.' Knows about what?"
"Beats me. But it must be important, or Lindsay wouldn't have worked so hard to get through to me." She eyed the unplugged TV uneasily. "At least, I think that was her, scanning through the channels. It didn't hit me at the time, but when we were kids she used to drive me crazy turning the channels constantly. So do you think that was her?"
"Probably. Televisions seem more easily affected by spiritual energy, or so I'm told. Something about the literal transmission of energy through the air around us."
Caitlin was more interested in results than in methods, at least at the moment. "Do you think… she'll try to get in touch again?"
"I honestly don't know, Caitlin. If it's important enough to her, then maybe. Try, at least. Though it may take a while to refocus her energy." Jaylene studied her for a moment, adding, "If you'd rather not be alone, then I'm sure we can arrange something."
"No. No, that's okay. If Lindsay wants to communicate, I want to hear what she has to say. I didn't listen enough when she was alive, so I'm damned well going to listen now."
"She wouldn't want to scare you, Caitlin."
"She would if that's what it took to get my attention. She was very single-minded, my sister."
"In that case, you may be hearing from her again."
Dryly, Caitlin said, "Anything you want me to ask her?"
"Well, I would suggest you ask if she knows who killed her, but we've tried before and that question never seems to get us anywhere."
Briefly distracted, Caitlin said, "I wonder why?"