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  Once full dark settled, they turned off all the external lights they could and waited. There was a security light down along the driveway, but since it was one set up by the power company, they couldn’t do anything about it. Fortunately, its light didn’t reach into the backyard, and Brad unscrewed the bulbs on the motion-detector lights on the back side of Tammy’s house.

  Brad and Mina went out first with voice recorders and the FLIR, walking along the fence line and even a few feet inside it where the barbed wire was down, but not venturing deep into the underbrush. They picked up an animal they suspected was a raccoon on the thermal, but nothing else.

  When they returned, one of the motion detectors positioned on the far side of the yard went off, immediately followed by one of the trail cameras tripping. When they checked it, they found a picture of a small deer.

  “You know,” Sachi said, “a deer’s eyes catch and reflect the light. If one was looking at the house and was hit by the security lights, that might have been what you saw.”

  Tammy patiently smiled. “I know what a deer’s eyes look like. It wasn’t that. I told you, they looked like really large fireflies in the distance. Deer come into the yard all the time.”

  “Are you sure deer didn’t maybe move the hose? Or even wild boar?”

  “I haven’t seen any signs of wild boar around here in over a year. No digging or anything. And a deer wouldn’t uncoil and recoil a hose differently.”

  True. Sachi had seen the pictures. Although those weren’t proof. It was possible, although Sachi highly doubted it, that the woman had moved the hose herself and simply forgotten.

  Or maybe on purpose.

  She allowed her focus to shift so she could study the woman’s aura. Nope, no sign of deception. When someone lied, Sachi could almost always sense it, because dark flashes would appear in the colors.

  Tammy’s aura still looked strong, that fresh, spring green color unclouded.

  Then again, if she’s got dementia, she might not think she’s lying.

  And yet Sachi still saw no sign of that, either.

  The only successful thing she’d accomplished so far that evening was figuring out how to mute the two men’s auras so they weren’t quite so distracting to her.

  By two in the morning, they hadn’t picked up any signs of anything supernatural. No EVPs recorded, either. Sachi left everyone on the back porch and took her red flashlight into the house with her to go use the bathroom. Even though the powder room just off the living room wasn’t visible from the back porch, she didn’t want to turn on any lights and screw up her night vision.

  She set the flashlight on the counter before pulling down her shorts and sitting on the toilet.

  The flashlight went sailing off the counter as if someone had slapped it, hitting the floor and going out, leaving her in complete darkness.

  Her body locked up as she sat there and listened, now unable to complete the business she’d sat down to start.

  Closing her eyes, she silently counted to ten, holding her breath as she did. When she opened her eyes again, a pale, light blue aura hovered in the corner of the bathroom.

  What sounded like an older man’s voice spoke very faintly, as if from a distance. “Please believe her. Help her.”

  Sachi leaned forward, stretching, her hand frantically swatting at the wall where she knew the light switch had to be.

  Squinting as the light came on, she found herself completely alone in the bathroom.

  Fuuuuuck!

  Chapter Eleven

  “You know damn well it takes a lot to freak me the fuck out, but I am officially freaked right the fuck out,” Sachi said to Brad from where she stood behind him in the bathroom doorway.

  Frowning, he nodded as he carefully scanned the darkened bathroom with the FLIR camera. In the corner where she’d seen the faint aura, and where the voice had seemingly spoken from, there was a cooler spot than the rest of the bathroom. Unfortunately, it was also the same direction the AC vent pointed and could be attributed to that as well.

  “I believe you,” he said as stepped out of the bathroom and turned to her in the light of her red flashlight.

  “I mean, it slapped the damn light off the counter!” Fortunately, the light had only switched off, not broken.

  “Show me where you were.”

  She scowled at him.

  “I mean, put the toilet lid down and sit exactly the way you were sitting. And where the flashlight was.”

  She stepped around him, with everyone watching, and did just that.

  He stepped in again and seemed to be gauging the distance. “Flap your elbows out.”

  She did. There was still plenty of clearance in the powder room between her elbow and the flashlight. “I didn’t hit it. Don’t you think I wouldn’t have freaked out had I hit it?”

  “It’s okay. You know the drill.”

  Yes, she knew the drill damn well, but usually she was on the other end of the drill, the one staying calm and asking the questions and trying to find the alternate—and usually more likely—nonsupernatural solution.

  Tammy looked serenely triumphant in the light of the red flashlights. “It was Herbert. It had to be.”

  John and Oscar both wore understandably dubious expressions.

  Great. Now they’ll think I’m a damn nutjob.

  Since Sachi had been the focus of the activity, Brad had her try to speak to it again, both alone and with someone else in the bathroom with her. Then they repeated it with him, Anna, Mina, even having Tammy step in with one of the investigators.

  Nothing.

  All they captured outside were two more trail camera pictures of a raccoon and an opossum.

  Nothing supernatural.

  “Well, I still say this was a successful night,” Tammy declared as they started breaking down equipment a little after five in the morning. “At least now you know I’m not making this up.”

  “Ma’am, we never said you were,” Sachi said. “But you have to understand, we go into every investigation with the mindset of debunking things until we can’t debunk them. It’s nothing personal.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant now John and Oscar know someone else heard and saw something, not just me. They will be less inclined to believe I’m senile.” She looked at the men. “If you two would just move in with me, you’d be here all the time and when I see something, I could show it to you right then.”

  The men exchanged another glance. Sachi was too tired and her nerves too frazzled to try to interpret it.

  By six o’clock, Sachi and the others had returned to the store with a promise to call tomorrow to schedule another investigation. Their policy was not to have back-to-back nights of investigation, if they could possibly help it, to give everyone a chance to recover. Not to mention some of the staff had family and day jobs that had they had to schedule investigations around.

  Anna and Mina headed home in their cars. Sachi locked up the Element and left the keys with Brad. They’d unload it later after they got some sleep.

  When she got home, her father was up and in the kitchen getting ready for work.

  “Everything go all right, sweetheart?”

  “All right” wasn’t exactly how she’d describe the investigation. “I just need a lot of sleep,” she said, giving him a brief hug before heading to her bedroom. She stripped and fell into bed, too exhausted to even think about a shower.

  * * * *

  When Sachi awoke a little after eleven, she texted Mandaline that she was alive and would come in later. Fortunately, her dreams had been filled only with sexy-time fun thoughts of John and Oscar, not the bad dreams of the night before.

  Two nights before?

  She was so tired she didn’t even know.

  After checking her schedule and realizing, thankfully, that she didn’t have any skeet students that afternoon, she reheated a mug of coffee in the microwave and headed to the shower.

  She knew what she saw and what she hear
d. She knew without a doubt that she didn’t whack the flashlight herself. Something else had smacked it off the counter.

  It didn’t escape her that, had someone else told her the story, she’d approach it skeptically, regardless of their apparent level of sincerity.

  At first she’d planned to go to the store, but then she pulled on shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and headed to Tammy Evans’ house.

  She was there, alone, and pleased to see Sachi. “Did you get some sleep, dear?”

  “Yes, thanks. Can I see the powder room again?”

  “Of course.”

  Tammy stood in the doorway while Sachi sat on the toilet lid again, flapping her arms several different ways. The only way she could have accidentally knocked the flashlight off the counter would be if she’d leaned forward and reached up and over the counter.

  Which she hadn’t.

  The toilet paper roll hung on the wall to her left, while the counter was to her right. So she couldn’t have accidentally bumped it while doing that, either.

  Sachi stared at the corner where she’d seen the aura appear. “Between you and me, I want to tell you that I do believe you about some of the phenomenon you’ve reported. I know what I saw and heard. That doesn’t mean we won’t be able to debunk the lights or other stuff.”

  Tammy’s smile broadened as she nodded. “I understand, but it’s nice to hear you say that.”

  Sachi stood and switched off the light as she stepped out into the hall. “Would you mind if I poked around in the backyard for a little bit?”

  “Not at all. Go right ahead.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sachi walked across the mowed backyard to the fence line. Looking out there, in the slightly cloudy afternoon, she couldn’t see more than twenty or thirty yards into the underbrush before it grew too thick.

  It definitely wasn’t something she wanted to go hiking through on her own.

  In the distance, she heard a rumble of thunder off to the west and realized it wouldn’t be an option that day anyway. The afternoon rains were back and moving in quickly.

  She said good-bye before leaving, but when she reached the end of the driveway she shifted her car out of gear and held her foot on the brake so the car wouldn’t roll.

  Pulling out her phone, she called up the map feature and studied it. Once she was sure of the way, she shifted back into gear and headed the opposite way she’d come in. Less than a mile down the already rough asphalt road it turned into a graded clay road. Trees and bushes and fences along the sides of the road were dusted with orange kicked up from passing cars. Once the afternoon rains hit, it would likely rinse much of that away, leaving a muddy, mucky road in its wake.

  The road hadn’t been graded recently, either, Sachi having to slow down because of the washboard bumps.

  But when she passed a wooden forestry sign to her left, she knew she was heading the right way.

  Twenty minutes later, she pulled to a stop and shifted the car out of gear again to consult with her phone. The very faint trail led south off the road and was likely the one she’d seen on the satellite photos. It wasn’t very wide, and wasn’t rutted, like vehicles had used it. It looked more like a foot or bridle path, except the thick coating of pine needles on it indicated it hadn’t been traveled lately. Or, if it had, the travelers hadn’t disturbed the ground cover.

  But yes, the dot on her phone indicating her current position according to GPS corresponded with the satellite pics, too.

  She was considering whether or not to park and walk down it until she found the back side of Tammy’s property when another clap of thunder, this one nearly overhead, startled her. Her foot slipped off the brake and the car nearly rolled off the road into the ditch next to it before she got her foot on the brake again.

  Fat, heavy drops of rain began spattering her windshield and bouncing off the roof of her car.

  “Okay, so not today, then.”

  She got her car backed up and turned around without, fortunately, getting stuck, and headed back toward town.

  * * * *

  “You went out there by yourself? Sachi, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  She’d gone home to change before returning to the store. Now Mandaline looked at her like she’d just sprouted a unicorn’s horn in the middle of her forehead and had started ramming people up the ass with it.

  “Hey, I was on public property, and I didn’t go hiking down there alone.”

  “But you would have if it hadn’t started raining.”

  Sachi’s protest died before she could speak it. “Okay, you got me there, but I didn’t see any signs of anyone having been there for awhile. It would have been fine.”

  “You don’t know that!” Mandaline’s normally complacent demeanor had been replaced by her fearful, protective momma bear mode. “You need to promise me you won’t go traipsing around there without someone with you.”

  Sachi crossed her arms over her chest. “Do I need to sign that in blood, or is my word good enough?”

  “Dammit, this isn’t funny!”

  “Yeah, it is, kind of. You’re telling me you wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing?”

  Mandaline’s jaw clenched. “That is totally beside the point!”

  “No, it’s exactly the point. You put me in charge of this investigation, witchypoo. You can’t do that and then tell me not to investigate.”

  “I’m not telling you not to investigate. I’m telling you not to go running off into the woods, alone, without telling anyone where you’re going first!”

  Sachi would have burst out laughing at her friend’s overreaction had both their griefs not been so fresh from Julie’s death. Julie had gone on an investigation, alone. Refused to take Mandaline with her.

  And Julie had been raped and murdered.

  And it had been Sachi who’d refused to go with Mandaline to investigate Ellis and Brad’s house in the beginning without a shotgun coming along for the ride.

  She pulled Mandaline in for a hug. “I promise I won’t go do that again. All right? But I do want to go take a look at it at some point.”

  “Thank you.” Mandaline’s reply sounded muffled against Sachi’s shoulder. “Sorry I’m going off on you, but you know why.”

  Sachi tightened her embrace. “Yeah, I know, sister. I get it. I’m sorry I triggered you.”

  Mandaline sniffled before finally stepping back. She wiped at her eyes. “I can’t help it. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

  “Neither do I.”

  * * * *

  John grabbed a short nap that morning before heading into work. He handled paperwork and permitting issues and was almost through everything when he realized Sachi’s inspection was due. After making a call to the county, he found out the inspector had an opening for that afternoon and would be in her area.

  “Let me call the customer and get back to you.” He still hadn’t had time to process the previous evening. The irresistible draw he felt toward Sachi wasn’t damped at all by what she claimed she heard and saw in the bathroom.

  She didn’t strike him as someone who’d make up something just to stir things up. In fact, she struck him as exactly the opposite, someone who hated to be the center of attention, especially when it came to one of their investigations.

  That might be naïve thinking on his part, but for once in his life, he didn’t care.

  He believed her.

  He dialed her cell phone and fortunately she picked up after the first ring.

  “Hey, it’s John. The county inspector can come by your house this afternoon for your permit inspection, if you’re available.”

  “Um, oh. Okay. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “So had I. I was catching up on paperwork today and realized it hadn’t been done. Sorry about that.”

  “What time?”

  “Four, if that’s okay.”

  “Will you be there, too?”

  He started to say no when his brain processed her tone.
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br />   Hopeful. Like she wanted to see him.

  “I can be.”

  There was a slight pause. “I’d like that.”

  “Then I’ll be there.” He wouldn’t give himself a reason to not go.

  Hell, he wanted to go.

  More importantly, he wanted to ask her over to their place for dinner.

  “I’ll see you then,” she said.

  He called the inspector back and got it lined up. When he walked out of his office, his office manager looked up at him and frowned.

  “What are you so happy about?” she asked him.

  “What?”

  She laughed. “You’re grinning like an idiot.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged. “Just in a good mood.”

  “Do that more often. You’ve been a real sourpuss lately.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Now the question was did he ask Oscar if he wanted to go. Although that would sound really fishy. How did he explain that to Sachi?

  He couldn’t.

  But he could at least clue his friend in. He called him. “I have to go by Sachi’s for the inspector.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since she asked me.”

  Oscar paused. “Are you rubbing it in my face?”

  “No! I wanted to ask her to come over to our place tonight for dinner with us. I wanted to run it by you to make sure you’d be home and were up for it.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause John couldn’t label. “Sure. Okay. Thanks.”

  “You didn’t seriously think I’d cut you out, did you?”

  * * * *

  No, Oscar hadn’t consciously thought that, at the time, but the little bit of jealousy that rolled through him when he thought maybe John was hinting he wanted him to make himself scarce left him feeling sick at heart.

  The fact that John actively wanted to include him in the dinner gave him hope.

  “What were you thinking about for dinner?” Oscar asked.

  “Burgers. Something easy.”