“Why are you here, Malcolm?”

He brushed past Cass to the living room, the length of her yoga mat, then stopped. There was nothing else to do here…but he couldn’t seem to make himself leave.

“What you told me…about my sister, Lauren,” he said. “That’s something only a few people would know about.”

“Freaked you out, huh?” she asked.

He nodded.

She stepped closer, her eyes glued to his. They were bright green like a fairy’s, he noted.

“You’re wrong, you know,” she said suddenly. “I didn’t kill your sister. Or the woman in the stairwell.” She paused and her eyes became unfocused. “Lauren wants you to know that you’re being stubborn. She says your stubbornness is always your undoing.”

Something inside his head snapped and he leaped forward, reaching for her. She had to stop talking. But he also needed to know.

“Tell me how you’re doing this. Tell me…”

Dear Reader,

If you’ve ever seen John Edward’s show Crossing Over, then you know he can be frighteningly accurate. He’s a medium who claims to communicate with the dead, and passes their messages along to loved ones.

When he was tested by scientists they found his “hit” rate—the number of times he accurately stated something about a person he’d never met before—so high they concluded he had to be telepathic. Because, of course, being a medium was beyond the realm of science.

I loved the idea of scientists having to accept something outside the norm to explain something even further outside the norm. And so my heroine for this story, Cass, was born. Thinking about what it would mean to hear voices from the dead made me wonder…what if some of those voices weren’t so friendly? The next thing I knew I had the idea for her story. Cass may be small, she may be a loner, but her bravery comes from a very big heart.

Hope you enjoy this story. I adore hearing from readers. You can e-mail me via my Web site at www.stephaniedoyle.net.

Stephanie Doyle

Possessed
Stephanie Doyle

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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STEPHANIE DOYLE

has been writing for ten years and very much enjoys contributing to the Silhouette Bombshell line, where she can explore the depth of a heroine’s skill and strength. And while she doesn’t have psychic ability herself, she’s pretty sure her two cats do, because they always know when she’s in the mood for ice cream and will circle the refrigerator until she gives in to her craving. You can visit Stephanie’s Web site at www.stephaniedoyle.net.

For my editor, Wanda,

because you get it, even when I don’t write it.

Thanks.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 1

The hiss of steam hitting milk inside a pitcher echoed. The smell of strong coffee permeated the air. Beyond the bar where Cassandra Allen worked creating espresso concoctions, she surveyed the coffeehouse. Overstuffed chairs. Coffee tables littered with books and magazines. A few straggler customers taking in that last bit of caffeine, hoping that it wouldn’t keep them up all night or maybe hoping that it would.

A tingle on the back of her neck told her it was coming. But from who? One of the customers? She turned to her colleague, who was wiping down the pastry counter in preparation for closing. The sensation grew stronger.

In her mind another familiar sight took shape. A square, white room. Empty except for her. She stood in the center, looking at a lone closed door.

The door opened and a rush of energy blew at her, causing her body to jolt. Cass smothered a gasp. A woman stood on the other side of the threshold. Her features were blurred by the hazy fog that enveloped her, but Cass could sense she was older, plump, and her hair was the color of faded brick. The woman’s voice was faint when she spoke, but her words were clear.

She has to talk to him. He’s so upset. She’s so angry. I can’t go until I know they’re okay.

The door closed suddenly, and, just as quickly as it had formed, the image of the white room was gone.

Her mind clear, Cass cursed as the hot froth foamed over the top of the pitcher and down her hand. Shutting off the steam, she set the heated milk aside and rinsed her hand under a stream of cold water in the sink. It helped to take the sting out of the burn, but the remnant pain of contact still lingered.

The song of a cell phone muffled by a large purse broke through the sound of running water.

Cass sighed, shut off the tap and did what she had to do. “That’s going to be your dad.”

Her fellow barista, Susie, continued to wipe down the counter and ignored the chirping phone under the counter. Her hair was a bright red, probably enhanced by chemicals, but the resemblance was there.

Cass shrugged at the nonresponse. She took the settled milk and poured it over two shots of black espresso into a massive mug, making sure to keep it light on the foam per the customer’s request, then called out, “Large latte, light foam.”

She placed the mug on the counter for the customer, who was on his second drink, to come and collect it. With a silent nod he took his order and returned to his table with his book.

“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually,” Cass said after the ringing stopped.

Susie stared at the purse under the cash register and scrunched her face in denial as she continued to wipe the now perfectly clean counter in front of her. “You don’t know who that was.”

“Call it a hunch,” Cass said.

Susie paused in her task and looked at Cass with a mix of skepticism, suspicion and maybe a hint of fear.

“You are so freakin’ weird,” she accused.

Cass shrugged. It wasn’t like Susie was wrong.

The girl let out a huff. “It doesn’t matter if it was him. I don’t want to talk to him.”

“It’s not about what you want. It’s about what your mother wants,” Cass said calmly.

Although the contact had been brief, the message had been plain. Cass was able to fill in the rest from what Susie had told her.

There had been an accident. Four months ago. Her dad was driving. Her mom didn’t make it, but he did. It was no one’s fault. Just a slick road and fate. Susie was having a hard time coping with the loss. What girl who had lost her mother wouldn’t? But Susie’s mom knew that the only thing that would help both her husband and her daughter was for Susie to find a way to forgive her father.

“Whatever.” A typical response from an eighteen-year-old.

Cass decided she couldn’t, wouldn’t, push it. After all, it really wasn’t her business. It never was.

Rubbing a hand over her face, she suddenly realized how tired she was. It was almost ten—closing time. They still had a couple milling over cappuccinos in one corner, and the man with his recently poured latte and a thick book in another. Cass hated to shoo people out of the establishment. Shooing, in her opinion, was not good for business. But the manager of the coffeehouse had strict rules about keeping the place open beyond operating hours and, besides that, she needed to get home. At this hour, her neighborhood in Philadelphia became slightly more threatening as the denizens of the night came out to do business.

Then the cell phone started singing again.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t any of Cass’s business, but the high-pitched digital song was starting to give her a headache. “Really, Susie, he’s not going to stop until you pick up the phone.”

“Stop saying that. You don’t even know if it’s him,” she snapped.

“Yes, I do,” Cass said simply.

As if she were hoping to prove Cass wrong, Susie reached into her bag and extracted the phone. Her face gave away everything when she spotted the incoming number. With a muttered “Hello,” she waited for the other person to speak.

“No, I’m not coming home tonight, Dad…I’m staying with Peter.”

Trying to give the girl some privacy, Cass turned her back on the conversation. She knew Susie’s father didn’t like her choice of boyfriend. Susie had said as much. Staying with him certainly wasn’t going to help the situation between her and her father.

Again, none of her business. It was just an unfortunate side effect of her unique gift that made her privy to people’s secrets.

Struggling against the physical weariness that seemed to flood her system, Cass rubbed her jaw, twisting it gently from side to side. Her back ached, and her feet, despite being encased in very practical black sneakers, started to communicate to her how long she’d been on them.

The jingle of the bell over the front door chimed and captured her attention. Glancing down at her watch, she saw that there were only ten minutes to closing. Yeah, she was going to have to make sure this coffee was to go. Good business habits or not, she was ready to call it a night.

“You! Are you her?”

Cass lifted her head at the sudden barking. The first thing that registered was the man’s wild, red-rimmed eyes. The second was the gun in his hand.

“Oh, my God! He’s got a gun!” This from one of the lovebirds in the corner.

“Shut up! Shut up, all of you. I just want her.”

Cass had no doubt who he was referring to. She heard Susie drop the phone on the floor. She saw the man in the chair who had been reading his book preparing to stand, and she immediately held up her hands to prevent anyone from doing anything rash.

“I’m right here.”

“I have to talk to you,” he said, the gun shaking in his unsteady hand. He wore a pair of jeans topped with a white, long-sleeved shirt and nothing else, but she doubted he felt the late October freeze that had recently descended upon the city.

“Okay,” Cass said calmly. “We can talk.”

Susie burst into tears, but everyone else in the coffeeshop was deathly silent.

“You have to tell her how much I miss her. I know you can do that. I heard from someone…about you. About what you do. I need you to talk to her.”

Surreptitiously, Cass reached under the coffee bar for her oversize handbag even as she answered him. “Yes, I can tell her.”

“Prove it!” He moved closer to her, the gun in line with her face.

“I’m just going to come out from around the bar.”

Adjusting her apron carefully over her black trousers and black sweater, Cass emerged from behind the bar, ducking under the opening rather than lifting the partition. She moved slowly so as not to alarm him until she was standing directly in front of him.

“How do you want me to prove it?”

“Tell me her name.”

“I don’t know her name.”

“You’re supposed to. You’re supposed to know her name or the first letter or something. Like they do on TV.”

Cass shook her head. “Maybe if you put the gun down. You’re scaring these people.”

“I don’t care,” he whispered. He ran his free hand over his scruffy face, then rubbed one of his eyes with his fist. “I need to talk to her, and he told me that you could make that happen, but I want proof.”

Cass closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. The white room started to take shape in her mind, and as soon as it did, the door flew open, slamming back against the white wall. A stinging sensation lanced her brain as the rush of energy hit her. When she opened her eyes, a woman stood on the other side of the door. She was younger. Dark and pretty and dressed in a silk purple teddy. She cried as she spoke.

Cass focused her attention on the desperate man in front of her as she listened to the voice in her head.

“She bought a purple teddy,” Cass relayed. “Your birthday was last month, wasn’t it? The tenth?”

His hand clenched more tightly around the gun and he wet his lips. He nodded. “Yes. It was a Monday.”

“She wanted to surprise you. Shock you a little, I think. But every time she put it on, she always took it off right after. She thought it made her hips look fat. She was very self-conscious.”

His lips wobbled into a distracted smile. “She hated her hips.”

“I know,” Cass said gently. “She wants you to put the gun down, Jess.”

“How do you know my name?”

“She told me.”

“She can’t,” he whimpered. “She can’t talk anymore.”

“Yes, she can,” Cass countered softly as she moved a step closer toward him. The gun practically touched her nose. “And she wants you to give me the gun. She says it’s for the best.”

“Don’t…” Jess muttered.

The man in the chair started to move again, and his actions startled Jess. Predictably, Jess panicked at the sudden movement and in retaliation pushed the end of the revolver against the center of Cass’s forehead.

“Don’t move, man—I’ll kill her. You don’t know. I’ll do it. I have nothing to live for. Nothing.”

Cass shuddered at the feel of the cold steel pressed between her eyes. Trembling slightly, she still managed to lift her hand to signal to Large Latte Light Foam to stay back.

“It’s okay. Sit down.” She turned her head and felt the tip of the gun graze her brow as she made eye contact with the wannabe hero. He was shaking, and she could see that he wanted to act. Not that it would have been an easy task considering he still held a book in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

Mentally, she commended him for the effort. However, if he moved, she had no doubt she would be dead before he overtook Jess. Cass wasn’t overly concerned about the prospect, but she knew it didn’t have to end this way.

“You’re not going to kill me, Jess,” she told him, turning back slowly so that she once again made eye contact. “You’re going to give me the gun. She wants me to remind you about what you said on your wedding day. You said you would never hurt her. You said you wouldn’t hurt a bug if that’s what she wanted. That’s how much you loved her. She doesn’t want you to hurt me.”

With that, he dropped his head and wept deep, gut-wrenching sobs. His arms fell to his side, and the .38 revolver hung loosely in his hand. She reached out and took it. He didn’t seem to notice.

“I need to talk to her,” he gasped. “I have to let her know I’m sorry.”

“She knows.”

“I thought the purple teddy was for…”

“It wasn’t, Jess. It was for you.”

“I know that now,” he snapped. “I read it in her diary.”

Once again she met his wide, wild eyes, and her body tightened in reaction. She placed the gun on the counter behind her, then slowly reached inside the useful pocket in the front of her apron where she typically kept squeeze bottles filled with caramel.

Before she could get her hand free of the pocket, he grabbed her. His fingers wrapped around her upper arms, squeezing them painfully. “You have to tell her something for me. You have to tell her I didn’t mean it.”

“You can tell her yourself,” she replied calmly, tugging gently to extract her hand from the apron. “You’ve always had the ability. Now, I have to make some calls. I’m very sorry. This isn’t going to hurt. Much.”

His body jerked abruptly and for a second the grip on her arms tightened even more, causing her to wince. Then he fell lifelessly to the ground.

Large Latte Light Foam moved to stand over the prostrate man. “What did you do to him?”

Cass held up a strange-looking weapon. “It’s a stun gun. It gave him a jolt, that’s all. Susie, call 911.”

“You’re hurt,” the man said, raising his hand with the book in it, probably for the first time realizing he still held it, and pointing at her nose.

Cass reached for her face, and when she pulled her hand back she saw the blood on her fingers. Inwardly, she cursed. A result of the connection. Jess’s wife had been more intense than Susie’s mom. She dug out a tissue from her apron pocket and held it against her nostrils to stem the flow.

“It’s just a bloody nose. I get them.”

Susie was still staring at the body. “Oh, my God, that was so scary and weird and…”

“911, now!” Cass barked. She didn’t have time for hysterics. There was no way of knowing how long the man would stay down.

“And tell the dispatcher he’ll need to call Homicide,” she instructed. “There’s been a murder.”

The couple from the back had joined the group. The girl clung to her boyfriend as they both stared down at Jess, whose right leg twitched uncontrollably.

“I don’t get it,” the boyfriend said. “What was that all about? What did he want? Who are you?

“I work here,” Cass said.

Large Latte Light Foam snorted. “Why did you want her to tell the cops that we needed a homicide detective if he’s not dead?”

“Because he killed his wife.”

“You can’t know that,” the girlfriend said, muffled against her boyfriend’s chest. “Right? She’s freaking me out, Ted.”

“Sorry,” Cass apologized to the girl. But it wasn’t as if she could help it, and she wasn’t one to hold back the truth, no matter how bizarre it was.

“How?” Large Latte Light Foam wanted to know, his tone clipped, his face a picture of suspicion. It was an expression Cass was used to. “How do you know he did it? He didn’t say he did it.”

“No, he didn’t,” Cass agreed calmly. “But she did.”

Chapter 2

“Cass!”

Cass glanced up at the sound of her name and scowled.

“Dougie, you better have a really good reason for this,” she warned.

She’d been summoned down to police headquarters, located in Center City, Philadelphia, about a half hour ago. It was past one in the morning, and after the night she’d already had she was beyond exhausted.

And the lobby’s hardwood bench was killing her ass.

But Dougie never called unless it was important. When she’d walked into her apartment, the phone in the kitchen had been ringing. Despite the strangeness of the hour, and the likelihood that the call was important, she’d let the machine pick it up. When she’d heard Dougie’s plaintive voice calling to her from the machine, she’d groaned, knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist him.

Once, she’d thought it was his big brown eyes that were irresistible, but now she knew it was his voice. Half man’s, half boy’s, his voice compelled every woman within earshot to want to either save him or cook for him.

Since she’d been pumped up from the adrenaline rush of almost being shot, and since the possibility of falling asleep had seemed remote, Cass had buckled and returned his call.

Now her butt was numb, the adrenaline high was completely over, and all she could think about was how she would have absolutely no problem getting to sleep. Instead, she was at police headquarters, a place, she had learned from experience, where nothing good ever happened.

Detective Doug Brody stopped and checked over his shoulder for any other cops who might be lingering in the area, then shook his finger at her, accompanied by a stern look. “How many times have I told you not to call me Dougie?”

“I can’t help it. It’s your name.”

“Doug. Doug is my name. Dougie is what my mother calls me.”

Cass smiled, knowing he truly didn’t mind because Dougie was also what his wife used to call him. Then she turned her smile into a grimace.

“Don’t mess with me tonight, Detective. I’m crabby and tired. Did you hear about what happened at the coffeehouse?”

“Yep.”

“Then you know we were all stuck there for almost two hours giving our statements.”

“Yep.”

“I had just gotten home when the phone rang,” she elaborated. Dougie should understand the nuances of a guilt trip when it was being given. His mother was a professional at it.

“I know that, too,” he said.

“What are you? Psychic?”

“Cute.” He smirked. “Real cute. No, I heard about the husband and what happened, which was what made me think of you for this in the first place. I called one of the officers, hoping he would bring you here directly, but you had already left.”

“Did he make a statement?” Cass wanted to know. “Jess. Did he tell you where he…put her?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t in the room, but I got it from Steve. He broke down and confessed to the whole thing before Steve even started questioning him. They sent a team out to the house. Turns out he buried her in the basement.”

Cass wrapped her hands around either arm. How sad for both of them. Maggie—that had been her name—had loved her husband. But he’d been too wrapped up in jealousy, pride and ego. He claimed he’d come to Cass for help, but she believed he wanted to be caught. Maggie’s message had been very clear about stopping him, and the dead didn’t lie in her room.

The room itself was nothing more than a mental image she constructed and projected to help her deal with her gift.

As a child Cass had been assaulted by images and voices that accompanied a strange burst of pain that she couldn’t predict. The inability at first to understand what was happening to her, then to control it, had nearly driven her mad.

Over time, with the help of others who understood her mental anguish, she learned to recognize the precursors of contact: the tingling sensation on the back of her neck, sometimes a subtle change in the feel of the air around her. Once Cass was able to determine when contact was about to happen, she could set the imaginary room as a stage for the dead, with them on one side of the door and her on the other as a way to keep herself separate. When the door opened, she knew to brace herself for the searing burst of energy that always followed.

Crossing the barrier between the living and the dead was never a gentle moment.

For her the gift wasn’t like what was described in movies or on TV talk shows. It wasn’t letters of the alphabet, dates and different-colored flowers and serene images of a heavenly place. It was real images and actual voices. It didn’t mean those TV people were frauds: only that for her the gift was different.

Cass likened it to talent. Some people had musical talent or athletic talent or artistic talent. And even within a type of talent there were different strengths. Some artists used watercolors, others oil, still others used metal.

A gift, like a talent, was unique to the individual.

Hers just happened to hurt, which is why she did everything she could to prepare herself for the impact. Conjuring the door to ready her body and mind for what was coming was one way of dealing with it, and using yoga and Pilates to strengthen her body physically so that she was better able to handle the impact was another.

“Are you okay?” He had covered her hands with his and was rubbing strongly to warm her up as well as offer support. “You look a little pale.”

She glanced up into his narrow face and brown eyes. He was smiling gently, caringly. She might have wondered how he managed to stay untouched by the ugliness and despair that surrounded murder and in turn surrounded him. The answer was obvious.

Because he was a good man. Just not her man.

Deliberately, Cass backed away from his touch. “I’m good now.”

He sighed but took a step back as well. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “Apparently, he was saying a lot of stuff in the conference room.” Conference room being a euphemism for interrogation room.

“You said it was Steve interrogating him?”

He nodded. “We both switched to the late shift.”

“Steve thinks I’m a wacko,” Cass said. “I can’t do anything about that.”

“Fortunately, with the confession, you shouldn’t need to get involved. Once the uniforms dig up the body, it will be a slam dunk.”

Cass turned to reach for her purse, which she’d set on the evil wooden bench. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you guys to spruce up the waiting area a little. Some cushions. Maybe a chair pillow or two.”

“Police stations aren’t designed for making people comfortable,” he returned. “I know it’s been a long night for you, and I wouldn’t have called you down here after all that, but I need your help with something.”

“What is it?”

“A case. A girl, about twenty, stabbed yesterday, not too far from where you live. I’ve got her brother, a man named Malcolm McDonough, in for questioning. The name ring a bell?”

“Should it?”

Dougie shrugged. “I guess not.”

“You think he did it?”

“I don’t know. This guy is a city bigwig. Construction, money, politics and all that shit. He’s got the mayor in his back pocket, and if I push too hard and he’s innocent, it’s going to be my neck on the line. I’ve been pressing him for hours, but I can’t get a read on him. He’s ice. Some people, that’s how they react when someone close to them dies. But it’s also how someone acts if he’s a sociopath. I need a feel one way or the other.”

She knew exactly what he meant. It wasn’t the first time she’d worked with the police. After she and Dougie had met, he’d come to respect her in ways that few people ever had. He saw her talent as something that could be helpful, not hurtful, and periodically, usually over the grumbles and jests of his colleagues and superiors, he was given the authority to hire her as a consultant. While she didn’t possess the more common psychic gifts used by other law enforcement agencies, in certain circumstances she could be useful.

Like in determining a suspect’s innocence or guilt.

“We can’t hold him much longer. He’s been in since this afternoon. He hasn’t lawyered up yet, but he’s getting impatient. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Your captain knows I’m here?”

“He knows that a friend of mine might be stopping by this evening.”

“A friend?”

“Whose consulting services will be well compensated for.”

Cass smiled. Unlike Steve, the captain didn’t believe she was a wacko. However, he also couldn’t reconcile the fact that she was what she was. His skepticism had been obvious the second they’d met. But a wise man didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and the captain was a pretty smart guy. The fact that in all the time she’d been doing this she’d never once been wrong didn’t hurt, either. And the extra cash always came in handy.

“Ten minutes,” Dougie said, urging her along. “Talk to him. Do your thing and then I’ll take you home.”

“I have my bike.”

“You mean your scooter?”

“Scooter, motorcycle, whatever.”

“Calling a scooter a motorcycle is like calling a go-cart a car,” he pointed out. “I’m not letting you go home on your own at two in the morning. The damn thing will fit in the back of my Cherokee.”

She was about to point out that she managed to make her way home every other night on her own, but she knew it was useless to resist. Still, pride had her making an effort. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Please. Let me be chivalrous.”

She smiled indulgently. Chivalrous was the only way he knew how to be. Plus, he was looking at her with his warm, puppy dog eyes. Between them and the voice, she knew she wouldn’t be able to deny him anything.

“Have you ever not gotten what you wanted?”

Suddenly, the intentional puppy dog expression was gone, replaced by something much more sorrowful. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Dougie. I didn’t mean to bring up Claire…”

“I know. Forget it. Just come and talk to this guy, okay?”

“Okay.”

She tried to brush her short, dark hair into place over what she was sure was an unnaturally wide forehead. The rest of it she just made sure was flat. It was so short it didn’t really have anywhere to go, but if she was consulting on a case, she imagined she should look somewhat respectable.

Although that probably wasn’t going to happen tonight, neat hair or not. She’d removed the work apron, but she was still dressed in her all-black uniform. An old but serviceable green trench coat covered the simple ensemble and kept her warm on the trip over. Added to that she’d tossed a purple wool scarf around her neck for more warmth and at least a pretense of fashion. Her practical sneakers squeaked against the linoleum as she and Doug made their way through a series of hallways.

She didn’t need a mirror to know she didn’t look like a cop or a lawyer. Which left either victim or criminal as a reasonable guess. Pride had her wishing it were the latter, but a hunch told her it was the former, and once more she tried to straighten her hair. Then she removed the green coat and slung it over her arm, hoping that the bulk of it would cover the milk stains on her clothes.

A few right turns past some doors into different hallways and she found herself in the homicide wing. Precincts with detectives assigned to them were scattered about the city, but all the homicide cops worked out of central. Dougie had started as a beat cop, earned his shield and worked the south division for a while, before moving to Homicide.

The move hadn’t been a promotion, though, so much as it was a calling. Death had touched him, and because it had, he needed to touch it back. Cass had been one of his few friends at the time to actually support the switch. Despite the ugliness of it, contrasting with his inherently good nature, he was a great champion for the dead and for the living who suffered as a result of death.

“Over there.”

The room was open and broken up into two sides with several desks making up each row. There was a smattering of detectives sitting around, some on the phone, others standing together talking about the Eagles’ shot at the Super Bowl this year. The mood was casual, as the graveyard shift sometimes could be, depending on what the night brought.

Cass was convinced it took a certain kind of person to work the hours from midnight to eight when everything was dark and quiet and most people slept. Sure, the night could be peaceful. But it could also be a time when even the most innocuous things turned sinister. When a bush outside a window transforms itself into a monster in front of a scared child’s eyes.

Or when a man who loves his wife suddenly becomes her murderer.

The night shift, like Homicide, didn’t really fit Dougie’s personality. He was an optimist. Nights at a police station rarely fostered optimism. But she imagined there was some reason he had made the switch.

A tingle at the back of her neck intercepted her thoughts. The room in her mind formed quickly, and the face beyond the door was familiar to her.

“Ow,” she blurted as she reached for her ribs.

“You okay?” Dougie asked, his hand at her back guiding her forward.

“Yes, just a hitch in my side,” she told him. She turned to study him and noticed the dark circles under his eyes that hadn’t registered before the visitor in her head pointed them out. “You’re looking tired, Dougie. Are you getting any sleep?”

“I sleep,” he replied enigmatically.

“Enough?”

“I sleep,” he snapped. “Jeez, you sound like my mother.”

“I’ve met your mother. She’s a smart woman and she worries about her son.” He stopped walking, so she did, too. “I take it that’s him?”

There was only one man in the room who appeared to be a civilian. Dressed in a dark gray suit that screamed quality from a hundred feet away, he sat stiffly in a hard-backed chair. His eyes stared out the window to his right as if he were in a trance, but Cass could see even from this distance that his jaw was tightly clenched.

“Mr. McDonough,” Dougie called to him as they approached the desk.

The man turned, and his steel-blue gaze landed first on Dougie, then switched to her and he came to his feet. Once more, she reached up to brush her bangs down over her forehead.

“This is Cass Allen,” Dougie introduced her. “She works for us from time to time on a consulting basis. I wondered if you wouldn’t mind taking a few minutes to speak with her.”

“I do mind.” His words were clipped. Although his tone was seemingly neutral, Cass could feel the heat of anger in the air. “Am I under suspicion? I came here after hearing about…after seeing what he did to her…to answer any questions that might help you in your investigation. That was over ten hours ago. I wanted to avoid calling my lawyer, but if this is going to go on…”

“I told you we just wanted to talk to you,” Dougie assured him. “There is no reason to call your lawyer. Unless of course you think you need counsel, then by all means…”

The muscles around his jaw flexed. “I don’t.”

“A few more minutes,” Dougie said.

“A few more minutes,” he repeated softly. “That’s a few more minutes that you’re not out there looking for my sister’s murderer.”

“Looking for someone, until we know everything there is to know about Lauren, her habits, her friends, her routine, would be a waste of time. Let us do our job. Talk to Cass. She’s going to ask you some questions.”

Cass’s eyebrow shot up, but she resisted the urge to shoot Dougie an uncertain glance. She didn’t have any questions. She just needed to spend time with McDonough to see if anything happened. Dougie was counting on the fact that something would, but nothing was ever certain. There was never any way of controlling it. Some people she connected with and others she didn’t. She used to question it, but it became pointless when she learned she was never going to find an answer.

As the tingle started she acknowledged this was one she connected with, and she focused on forming the room in her mind. The familiar door opened slowly, almost cautiously, and Cass waited for impact.

A powerful blow shot to her midsection, causing a whoosh of air to escape. She could sense both men looking at her, but she straightened slowly and ignored their curiosity. Instead she smiled and concentrated on breathing.

A serene face greeted her on the other side of the door. Beautiful. Blond.

Lauren.

“So, you’re Malcolm McDonough? And your sister was Lauren,” Cass stated.

He merely stared at her, his eyes moving up and down, taking in first her sneakers, then the rest of her apparel, with a slight sneer.

“You don’t look like a consultant.”

“I got her out of bed,” Dougie told him. “Can’t really expect her to be at her best at this hour.”

“I suppose.”

“I think I need some coffee,” she said.

Dougie hesitated for a moment, but then nodded. He walked off, his agile gait eating up the distance between the desk and the coffee machine.

Carefully, the man in front of her took his seat again.

You have to help him. He won’t know what to do. How to handle this.

Cass felt the words inside her head and tried to make sense of them even as she focused on the seated man. It was sort of like trying to have a conversation with someone while listening to someone else speak into her ear. Like people tried to do with their hands-free cell phone units and usually failed. However, for Cass, keeping the two conversations distinct while acting normally had become an art form. While dramatic pauses made for great television for TV psychics, in real life they tended to make people uncomfortable.

The space between the desks was tight, and she found herself having to step over McDonough’s feet in order to get to the chair that was across from Dougie’s desk. Turning the chair a little, so she could face him, Cass struggled with what to ask him.

“Long day?”

His face hardened noticeably. “Yes.”

He’s so hurt. I can’t leave until I know he’s going to be all right. Make him talk to you.

“What’s the matter with your eye?”

“I’m sorry?” Cass looked up and met his gaze.

“It’s bruised. Did someone hit you?”

“Uh…no…uh, I’m clumsy and I bent down and you know…bang.”

He said nothing.

“I know that Lauren lived on Addison. I live on Addison. It’s a nice neighborhood, but it’s going downhill a little. I just moved a couple of blocks down the street to avoid the danger zone.”

He continued to say nothing.

“Did she have any friends that lived nearby?”

“Of course she had friends. She was a very sweet girl.”

“Anyone you know?” When he remained silent, she pushed. “Were you two close?”

“No.”

“Oh.” She waited for him to say something else, but she was getting the impression that he wasn’t the type to volunteer information, so she had to ask the obvious. “Why not?”

His jaw clenched. “There were several reasons. She is…was…my half sister. There were many years between us. And we were very different.”

We were close. As close as he would let anyone. He loved me. He wouldn’t hurt me. Remind him…about the nurse.

“I think you loved her. I think you’re putting on a pretty good facade right now, but inside you’re hurting.” Cass gulped when his face remained impassive. “You strike me as someone who needs to be in control. I hear you’re somewhat of a big shot. You have your own business. Something like this happens, and all of a sudden nothing is in your power. Nothing that you can change. I imagine it’s extremely difficult to accept that. But you have to know that Dougie, Doug, will find whoever did this.”

“Who are you?”

Cass avoided the question and instead turned her head, searching for Dougie. He was still on the other side of the room with two cups of coffee in his hands, waylaid by one of the other detectives.

“I’m…a consultant,” she answered pathetically.

“I see. What kind?”

“I’m not sure that matters.”

“Oh it absolutely matters,” he told her, his voice colder than it had been when speaking to Dougie. “You suggested that this was difficult for me? This afternoon at my office two police officers came to inform me that my sister was dead. That she was slain in her apartment, murdered in cold blood, stabbed several times and, for the final injustice, had her tongue removed with a knife. The blood that poured out of her mouth seeped into the floor so that eventually it could be seen by the people who lived in the apartment below her. That’s how they discovered she was dead. I demanded to be taken to her apartment to see what had happened, and now that image will forever be burned into my memory.

“Since then I’ve been made to sit here for hours while I’ve been asked and have answered the same questions over and over again, including those about my whereabouts during the time in which she was murdered. All this while my sister’s killer continues to walk free. And then the detective gives me you. You with a coat that I wouldn’t give to the Salvation Army. You, who, if I had to guess, is barely over the legal age limit. You, who has absolutely no idea what you’re doing. So I’ll ask again. Who are you?”

Tell him about the nurse.

The door to her room closed, and Cass now focused all her attention on Lauren’s brother. Who was innocent of his sister’s murder.

“My name is Cassandra Allen, and Dougie wanted me to talk to you.”

“Detective Brody wanted you to talk to me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Cass shrugged. There was no point in lying to the man. She’d stopped hiding who and what she was years ago. But somehow she suspected that what she had to tell him was not going to go over all that well.

“He’s hoping I’ll be able to determine if you killed your sister.”

He breathed audibly. “And how exactly will you be able to determine that?”

“Actually, he was hoping Lauren would tell me.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, sir. You see, sometimes…the dead…they speak to me.”

His jaw dropped slightly, then his eyes narrowed. “You’re a psychic.”

Although the way he said the word, it sounded more like “fake.”

“I have a gift.”

“You see things?”

“No. I’m not clairvoyant.”

“Feel things then. Isn’t that how it’s done?”

“That’s clairsentience. And I don’t have that gift either. I can’t read your mind or see the future. I’m a medium, Mr. McDonough. I make contact with those who have passed through their loved ones. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” he repeated, his voice calm and moderated but as sharp as glass. “You disgust me. People like you who prey on the innocent and trusting. The grieving. A gift? More like a sham. You are the worst sort of con artist. How do you live with yourself?”

“I’m sorry you don’t believe me.”

“Don’t apologize. Detective!” He stood then and raised his voice enough so that Dougie turned and came rushing back to the desk. “Are you part of this ridiculous scam?”

Dougie looked at Cass, and she merely shrugged in defense. “Mr. McDonough, Miss Allen has been a consultant for the PPD now for some time and…”

“I don’t give a damn what label you stick on her. I am done with this pretense of an investigation. Psychics! That’s who you bring in to help. No wonder you haven’t found Lauren’s killer. Is the mayor aware of your current police procedures?” He shook his head. “I’m leaving. If you insist I stay, you’ll be insisting to my lawyer.”

“It’s okay, Dougie.” Cass squeezed through the two men, who were facing off and looked pretty close to coming to blows. At the slightest brush of her shoulder against his chest, she felt Malcolm shrink away from the contact, his revulsion evident.

The physical slight didn’t stop her from revealing the truth. “You can let him go. He’s innocent.”

McDonough quickly turned his angry gaze on her, pinning her in place with his fury.

“You sure, Cass?” Dougie asked, not giving an inch of ground. “The guy sort of looks to me like he has a bad temper.”

Instantly, Malcolm pulled his eyes away from Cass to meet Dougie’s hardened cop face.

“I’m sure. You see, Mr. McDonough hates blood. Can’t stand the stuff. He gets physically queasy any time he sees it. Something he’s worked his whole life to hide, especially when he’s on a construction site. When Lauren was young, she had to have her tonsils out. A nurse came into her hospital room to draw some blood while he was there. Malcolm saw the needle, went after the nurse, pushed her off his sister and then stuck the needle in the nurse’s…well, in her bottom.”

“How could you…” McDonough cut off his words, his incredulity proof enough that the story was true.

“What’s that got do with what happened to Lauren?” Dougie wanted to know.

Cass shook her head. “Don’t you get it? He didn’t stab his sister. He certainly didn’t watch her bleed to death or cut out her tongue. He couldn’t have. He wasn’t her killer, Dougie. He was her hero.”

Chapter 3

“I’m really sorry. I had no idea he was going to go off on you like that,” Dougie said.

He had won the battle and was driving Cass home, her motor scooter tucked safely in the back of the Cherokee. After everything that had happened that night, she hadn’t put up much of a fight. It was late. At midnight, the neighborhood was sketchy, so she couldn’t imagine things improving at 3:00 a.m. It made sense. It just didn’t sit well with her to have to rely on anyone, even Dougie.

“He was definitely pissed,” Cass agreed. Although the word pissed barely scratched the surface of the man’s outrage.

“I didn’t think you would actually tell him about…you know.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t planning to, but he kept pushing. And you know I don’t lie about that stuff anymore. Anyway, he never really even yelled. Just spoke to me in that kind of tone that makes you feel like you’re ten years old. I had this irrational urge to show him my ID and prove I was almost thirty.”

Dougie glanced over at her quickly, then focused again on the road in front of him as he navigated the narrow city streets around Logan Square. “He wouldn’t have believed it. When you’re fifty you’re not going to look thirty.”

She pointed to the thin, elfin nose that tipped up ever so slightly at the end. “It’s the nose.”

He laughed and made a right turn then slowed to a stop in front of her apartment building.

“You should move closer to Old City.”

“Ugh. I just moved to this place because you were on my case. It’s fine. I’m not saying I’m going out jogging on my own after midnight, but I haven’t had any problems,” she said.

He double-parked in front of her building. She hopped out and made her way to the trunk to get her scooter, but Dougie had beat her to it and was already lifting it to the ground.

“I can take it from here.”

He merely scowled at her and rolled the thing toward the building. It was only three stories tall, each apartment having its own entrance off of a series of cement steps. Hers was the basement apartment. Walking in front of him, she made her way down the steps and used her key to let herself in.

“Seriously, Dougie. I could have carried it,” she said as she stood back and let him set the scooter inside what she called the foyer but what was really part of the kitchen. “I do it every day. I’m not as weak as I look.”

“You look like you’re barely five foot and a hundred pounds wet.”

“Ah, ha! See how wrong you are. I’m five foot two and a hundred and four pounds wet.”

He chuckled and set the scooter aside, using the kickstand to stabilize it. He proceeded to check the place out, looking for bogeymen in the closets, she imagined.

“Where are the creatures?” His affectionate term for her cats.

“They’re probably on my bed sleeping.”

“Good,” he muttered.

“You really need to get over this paranoia.”

“They don’t like me.”

“Maybe that’s because you look at them and wonder why they’re not dogs.”

“All pets should be dogs,” he insisted.

“Spoken like a dog lover. What I don’t get is, if you love them so much, why you don’t just get one?”

He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. “My schedule is too…whatever. Hey, check that out. Is that furniture?”

He was pointing to the futon she’d recently purchased that sat in the corner of her sparse apartment. The foyer off the door opened up to a small kitchen that was no more than a space with a stove/oven, a counter with a sink that held most of her dishes and a refrigerator. Beyond that was the living room, although living room seemed too fancy a name for the compact square area beyond the kitchen.

Dougie’s joke about the futon wasn’t completely off base. Cass liked to call herself a minimalist because it sounded as if there was a reason for the lack of furniture. Mostly, she just didn’t like clutter. She was a lousy housekeeper and the less she had, the less she needed to keep clean. Plus there were fewer places to leave dirty clothes.

She had a low Japanese-style table where she knelt to take her meals, a small TV to catch the evening news, a yoga mat that spread almost the length of the living room and some Pilates bands that she was incorporating into her workout. And now the futon. The cushion covering the oak frame was bright red and amazingly comfortable for napping.

Down a narrow hallway there was a bathroom on one side and a large closet that she liked to call her bedroom on the other. As a home, it wasn’t much, but the economic apartment and everything in it suited her needs. Which, in her mind, was all space and furniture were supposed to do.

She shrugged off her coat, hung it on a hook on the foyer wall and turned to putting the events, all of the events, of the night behind her. She didn’t kid herself that it would be easy. McDonough’s harsh words stuck with her.

How do you live with yourself?

Not easily, she thought, but not for the reasons he assumed.

Cass tried to be understanding. After all, his sister was dead and he was devastated. Sometimes people didn’t mean to hurt others, but they did anyway. No one knew that better than she did.

Or she could forget about trying to be sympathetic and just write him off as a jackass. Maybe not as noble that way, but it was a hell of a lot more satisfying.

“Is there going to be any fallout? From tonight, I mean. Can McDonough make trouble for you?”

“Like I said, he’s got connections with the mayor. If the mayor talks to the chief about you…The chief knows about what you do, but you know he’s never liked the idea. If the mayor brings heat…I don’t know.” Dougie walked over and sat on the futon. His expression indicated that he was as surprised as she had been at how comfortable it was.

“What is the connection with the mayor?”

“Business. McDonough is one of the up-and-coming contractors in the city. A real rags-to-riches sort. His dad was an ironworker who married a socialite, Lauren’s mother. Malcolm went to college but eventually got into construction. He made money by establishing a reputation for bringing in jobs for less. Then he started speculating and he was never wrong. He had all the right money contacts because of his stepmother. And the union loves him because they think he’s one of them.”

“But he isn’t?”

“What do you think?”

Hard to tell. There was something about the way he carried himself. The way his suit fit. It all screamed class, money and sophistication, making it hard to picture him in a pair of jeans with a hammer in his hand and a tool belt around his waist. Plus, with his short, dark blond hair, blue eyes and chiseled face, he would have to be described as classically handsome rather than ruggedly handsome. He wasn’t as tall as Dougie, maybe only six foot. Still, to her five-foot-two frame, he’d seemed rather large. Especially when he was standing over her, berating her and calling her disgusting.

Putting aside his appearance, however, there was definitely a hardness about him that acted in contrast to the sophistication. So, while she couldn’t readily see him with a hammer, something told her he knew how to use one.

“You sure he didn’t do it? I mean really sure?”

“Nothing’s for sure, I suppose. The messages are never that clear. But I got the feeling she was worried about him. Worried how he would handle her death. Like she knew it was too much of a shock for him to take in. If he was shocked by it, he couldn’t have done it. That and the story about the nurse and the blood…she told me that for a reason.”

“Maybe. Maybe he lost it, and the shock was about what he had done. There were bruises on the body. She was engaged in a fight with her killer for some time before he eventually stabbed her.”

“But the tongue thing…that was done after?”

Dougie winced. “Yeah.”

“That smacks of a process. Intent. Not something a man might do after he’d realized that he’d just killed his sister in a rage.”

He stood then and moved toward her, close enough to knock a finger under her chin. “Listen to you, Miss Detective.”

“Comes from spending too much time with you.”

“Ah, you can never spend too much time with me.” He smiled charmingly, then his gaze sharpened on her face. “Hey, McDonough didn’t get rough with you, did he? You’ve got a…”

“Bruise. I know. I bent over at work and bang. It’s nothing.” She pulled away a little, not wanting to encourage further inspection. Dougie didn’t know what it cost her to make contact, and she wanted to keep it that way.

He nodded. “I’ve got an idea. I know this bar that stays open until six in the morning for the restaurant people. We’ll go. We’ll have a few drinks, unwind and forget about McDonough and his sister.”

“I don’t think so. I’m really beat.”

He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “You find an excuse every time I ask you out.”

“I do not. We’ve gone to lunch plenty of times.”

“Lunch, yes. But never dinner. Never drinks.”

“Dougie…” She sighed.

They’d covered this ground before, earlier in their relationship. She wasn’t sure why he was bringing it up again, but she knew that she didn’t want to have to rationalize why they couldn’t date. He didn’t know what had made their one night together such a disaster but she would never forget it. What had happened would always be reason enough for her to keep her distance romantically. There were times she thought it might be easier if she simply told him, but not tonight. Three contacts in the span of a few hours. It was a lot even for her. She was exhausted.

“All right. I’ll let it go. For now. But someday I’m going to convince you.”

No, he wouldn’t. He was trying to move on with his life. She granted him that. But he had no idea how much further he still needed to go before he’d be over his wife’s death. If he would ever be.

“Lock up behind me,” he said as he made his way through the kitchen to her front door. “And thanks for the help. My gut was telling me he was clean despite the ice man routine, but confirmation doesn’t hurt. You’re right about the tongue. There was something about it that smacked of…psycho-city.”

“Psycho-city.” She smirked. “There’s a technical term. I take it to mean you think this person is deranged.”

“I…I should shut my mouth. Who knows what this is. I don’t want to give you bad dreams.”

“Thanks for seeing me home.”

“Sure.” He paused for a second, but she was a good two feet away from him. Too far away to even attempt a move if that’s what he was thinking.

“She wants you to get some sleep,” Cass told him, understanding more than he did why he didn’t leave right away. “I connected with her briefly back at the station. She doesn’t think the insomnia will go away just because you’ve switched to nights. You’re not sleeping during the day, either.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“Oh.” It would be a first if it were true. Dougie loved his wife. More than most, she supposed. Her death had almost killed him with grief. Cass often worried whether or not their friendship stemmed from the fact that she was his only link to sanity. His only link to Claire. She liked him enough that she didn’t dwell on it. He was her only real friend. If she had to give him a message from Claire from time to time to make him happy, she was willing to do it. But it forever prevented their relationship from going any further. “Well, she does. It’s why I mentioned it.”

He nodded, then turned, and she shut the door behind him.

Maybe it was some new phase of his recovery, she decided. Maybe he was truly ready to move on. If that was the case, she would be thrilled for him. He was a good man who deserved someone special in his life.

That person just couldn’t be her.

Turning the dead bolt and linking the chain, Cass thought about maybe asking him to lunch so they could talk about it. There was no way she was going to risk their friendship over one night’s weakness that for whatever reason he couldn’t seem to put in its proper place.

The locks secured, Cass turned around and smiled when she spotted her feline friends. Two shorthair Americans, one black, one gray, both with mint-green eyes. They practically materialized out of nowhere to welcome her home.

“Oh, I see. He’s gone so it’s okay to come out.”

They didn’t answer. They didn’t need to. They simply walked toward her, then through and around her legs, purring affectionately.

“Come on, girls. Let’s go to bed.”

She was about to bend down to pick them both up when she saw that the red light on her combo phone/answering machine hanging on the wall was still blinking. She had erased the message from Dougie earlier, which meant this had to be new. She didn’t know that many people, and it was too late for work to be calling.

Unless maybe it was Susie wanting to talk about what had happened or Kevin, the coffeehouse’s manager, checking in to see what exactly had gone on that night. Susie had called him right after she’d called the police.

Cass hit the button, heard the soft dulcet voice inform her that she had one new message, listened to the beep, and waited.

“Cassandra, it’s Dr. Farver. I would like to talk to you. I’ve been trying for some time. I’m surprised you didn’t let me know your number had changed. But…that’s not the point. I’m calling because there’s someone I want you to meet…”

She hit the erase button before he could finish. She didn’t have to listen to the rest of the message to know what he was going to say. She’d heard the same song often enough before, which had been her reason for not giving him her new number. Not that it had worked…obviously.

And the fact that he had called after 1:00 a.m. was no surprise. Once Leonard Farver struck upon a new idea or found a new candidate to research, he could be relentless. She knew that from experience.

Someone he wanted her to meet. More like someone he wanted her to read so he could test, monitor and poke at her. Not anymore. Cass had promised herself a long time ago that she was done being his lab rat despite what he’d done for her.

She waited for the guilt that usually surfaced anytime she blew him off, but this time she felt nothing. Exhaustion trumped guilt every time.

She made her way down the short hallway and let herself fall face forward into the double bed that took up most of the room. She could have gone with a twin bed and added a vanity or dresser, but the cats slept with her and they needed their space, too.

Bone-weary, Cass considered crashing in what she was wearing, but knew the discomfort of her bra would only wake her up later. Sitting up, she shucked off the shirt, toed off her sneakers and kicked out of her pants. Then sighed blissfully when she unhooked and discarded her bra. In nothing more than a pair of white panties, she scooted under the covers.

“Spook. Nosey.” She felt one then the other leap onto the bed. One settled by her feet, the other against her side. Their soft purring served as the best kind of lullaby. After what could have been only seconds, she felt her body and her mind drift off to sleep.

Cass dreamed she was at a ball. There were women in gowns and men in tuxedos. A champagne fountain emitted tiny bubbles in the center of the ballroom, and tables laden with all sorts of exotic foods surrounded a large dance floor. And she was on that dance floor, moving, spinning and twirling like a little girl playing Cinderella to the beat of an orchestra that played a waltz.

When Cass glanced down at her feet in amazement, knowing that she had never danced like this before, she saw that she was wearing sneakers instead of glass slippers. Black work sneakers coated with the dust of coffee beans and dry milk. She wore her apron and her green Salvation Army coat.

The ballroom now silent, she stopped, aware that everyone was watching her.

Looking to the side, she saw her grandfather on the edge of the dance floor, shaking his head. She couldn’t decipher his expression; she’d never seen it before.

Talk to me, Cassie. Please.

But she didn’t want to talk to him. Her grandfather was synonymous with betrayal. And worse—guilt. She didn’t want to ever have to talk to him again. She turned to leave, but a gasp from the crowd as Malcolm McDonough walked out onto the dance floor stayed her. It was his party.

She wanted to hide, she wanted to run, but her feet were stuck to the floor.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

Cass opened her mouth to tell him that his sister had invited her, but before she could get the words out, the ballroom was gone and she found herself alone in an empty white room.

This place she knew. Here, she was comfortable. This is where they came to talk to her. Where she welcomed the dead who wanted to speak.

Cass stared at the door and wondered how she could be here, now, in her sleep. Was it possible that she was preparing to make contact? Part of her mind rejected the idea. The definition of a medium was being in the middle. A conduit between two people, one living and one dead. If the dead were trying to come through, then who did they want to talk to?

Her? In the dream, she’d seen her grandfather. But she’d always been able to block his connection. It had been so long since he tried that she thought he might have given up, if such a thing was possible of the dead.

The door to her room slammed open. Cass struggled to brace herself for the energy to hit her, but the image that was forming beyond the door had her gasping for breath. It wasn’t a man or woman.

It was a monster.

With a piglike snout and horns that burst out through its head, it reared back and shouted with a horrible reverberating baritone voice. It was the size of a man, had a powerful chest and stood on two legs. But hooves replaced hands, and fangs replaced teeth. It shouted again and the sound was as crippling as the pain of impact. In the room, Cass dropped to her knees.

When she looked up, she saw it was moving toward the door. The certainty that if that thing reached the entrance it would do what no one else had done and cross into her room filled her with a strange panic.

Struggling against a lethargy that pulled at her, Cass pushed to her feet and forced herself to move across the empty space. She reached for the door and watched as the thing on the other side stepped closer and closer, the whole time shouting indecipherable words at her. Instinctively, she did the only thing that seemed logical. She shut the door in its face.

As she let out a heavy sigh of relief, the white room faded away.

Cass woke up with a start, clutching the covers to her chest.

Someone had brought a monster from the beyond. Who? How?

The questions assaulted her, as did the essence of danger, which meant she needed to stop for a second and regain her mental balance. Using techniques she’d learned through yoga, she took a cleansing breath in and then let it out slowly.

Cautiously, she sat up in bed, wondering what the physical effects of the strange encounter would be. Although the pain was in her head, her body always manifested physical evidence of the contact. A bruise here or there, a bloody nose. This time the energy that had overwhelmed her had been intense. Her mouth hurt. With her tongue, she stroked her bottom lip. It was swollen as if she’d been hit.

Checking for her cats, who routinely slept at her side, Cass noted their absence. It was morning, early morning based on the hazy quality of light outside her single bedroom window, and earlier than she normally would have awoken. Typically, the girls never left the bed until she did. This morning they were gone. She wondered if she’d thrashed about during the strange dream.

“Spook? Nosey?”

No morning meow to signal they had gone in search of the dry stash that she left out in the kitchen. No galloping feet to suggest they had been caught napping on the new futon during what was supposed to be their nightly vigil. The silence was disconcerting. The memory of what she’d dreamed…experienced…made it that much more unsettling.

Cass rolled out of bed. Dismissing her discomfort, she found a robe in her closet and made her way from the bedroom down the short hallway to the living room.

She found her girls in the foyer, sitting silently, motionlessly, in front of the locked door. As she came to stand behind them, their two heads turned, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise, in her direction.

There was a message conveyed in their feline eyes. Cass thought maybe she was being dramatic, but, after what had happened, she didn’t think so. The lingering sense of evil still shook her, and she knew without a doubt that death waited for her on the other side of the door.

Chapter 4

Cass stood unmoving as she and her cats stared at the door. She was certain there was something wrong outside. She didn’t need any kind of psychic ability to know that. This was pure gut instinct.

Someone had brought that monster into contact with her. It was the only way her gift worked. The monster was on the other side so there had to be someone on this side. Someone living. Someone close.

Was that person still out there? Was he waiting for her? More important, could someone who had been touched by something as horrific as that monster in life not be a possible threat to her physically? Because whoever had brought that thing to her room last night had known evil. Had lived with or had been connected to evil.

It stood to reason that a person like that had a pretty good chance of being evil, too.

Backing away from the door, she considered hiding in her bedroom for a time, waiting until she was sure the person was gone. However, as soon as she found herself hesitating, Cass pushed herself into action. Because there was another possibility.

What if the person the monster was trying to contact needed her help?

With hands that were less than steady, she undid the series of locks and opened the door. Her bare feet made contact with cold concrete and she winced, reminded that she was still dressed in a robe, panties and nothing else. Bolting back to her bedroom, she threw on a pair of sweats, a tank top and some flip-flops that were the first pair of shoes she saw.

It was early and the narrow city street was still thick with parked cars on both sides. A cyclist sped past, and an old woman bundled in a coat and a blue wool hat walked her dog. Cass could hear the sound of the pooch’s claws tapping the pavement, as well as the occasional yap, but nothing else.

No one cried out for help. No one leaped out from among the cars to attack her.

She stopped halfway down the road and shook her head. Maybe it had been a dream. Maybe the monster hadn’t been real. After almost twenty years, she thought she had a grasp on her gift, but she’d never experienced anything remotely close to that beast. Yes, there had been impatient messages, sad messages, even angry ones. Mean spirits.

Cass was never sure what name to apply to those who made contact. Ghost, spirit, soul. To her they were people. They just happened to be dead. Wasting time on semantics or philosophizing on the religious implications of what her gift was about didn’t interest her. Getting the messages and giving them to the right people so that the dead would stop hassling her and the living would know some resolution—so she could go on with her life—that interested her.

But this thing last night had been different. Angry, yes, but the anger swirled around it, mixing and blending with other emotions. If she closed her eyes, she could remember the fear she’d felt because she knew that on the other side of her door was everything that was wrong with the human element. Hatred, rage, greed, power and pain. Pain that it liked to inflict on others.

And it had almost come inside. A trickle of unease had sweat pooling under her arms and dampening her palms despite the coolness of the crisp fall morning. Part of the purpose of her mental room with the single door had been to keep the dead at a certain distance. Cass lived with the very real fear that one day contact wouldn’t be enough for them, that only possession would suffice as a way to express their message.

What if the monster was some kind of foreshadowing? What if the images from last night, the sense that it was getting closer, were a way of letting her know that the dead were coming for her?

She wouldn’t allow it. Mentally, she was too strong to let herself be used. Wasn’t she? A lingering memory of a night about a year ago flashed behind her eyes. She and Dougie on a bed. Entwined. Connected. And Claire, his dead wife, in the shadows of her mind just beyond the door…watching. Instantly, Cass quashed the remembrance. She didn’t want to go there. It was too disturbing and opened up too many questions she didn’t want to have to answer.

The small dog that was being walked by the old woman broke loose from its leash and took off down the quiet street, yapping frantically. The shrill sound snapped Cass out of her thoughts, reminding her what she was doing outside in the first place.

There was something wrong out here.

Following the dog’s direction, Cass jogged down the street after the woman, who was desperately calling her pet. The older woman was moving as fast as she could but was losing ground to the animal, which had an impossibly speedy gait considering how short its legs were. The dog rounded the corner and descended steps that led to a brick apartment building similar to Cass’s. The old woman came to an abrupt stop on the sidewalk in front of it.

The woman’s stillness was unnerving—and it wasn’t because she was simply out of breath. Cass came up behind her and circled her so she could meet her head-on. The old lady’s mitten-encased hands covered her mouth and her eyes were wide. She was so pale Cass feared she might faint.

“Are you all right?”

The woman merely pointed to the steps that dipped below the level of the sidewalk. Two slim, bare feet stuck out from around the bend of the cement steps. They didn’t move. The dog, out of sight around the corner along with the rest of the body, continued to bark.

“Call 911.”

The older woman shook her head. “I…don’t…I don’t…have a cellular phone. My daughter wanted to get me one, but I said I didn’t want one. I don’t like cell phones very much and…”

Cass put a hand on the woman’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her before she carried on about the evils of cell phones in general.

“Down the street a little farther, there’s a convenience store,” Cass pointed out. “It’s early, but they sell coffee in the morning so they should be open.”

“I buy my Powerball tickets there,” she muttered.

“They’ll have a phone. Tell them to call the police. Tell them they need to get in touch with Doug Brody. Can you remember that name? Detective Doug Brody.”

“Doug Brody,” she repeated mindlessly.

“Good. Go on now.”

“Is that girl dead? Is that why Muffy won’t stop barking? I’ve never heard him bark that way.”

“I’ll watch Muffy. You go.”

The woman hesitated but seemed ultimately to understand that she didn’t want to have any part of walking down those stairs. Swinging her arms as if to speed up, she took off down the sidewalk for the convenience store.

Cass took the stairs slowly, watching to see where she stepped, knowing from what she’d seen on TV shows more than anything else that even a flip-flop can mess with evidence. By the time she got to the bottom, she could see around the bend of the brick portico that framed the apartment door.

Muffy, a brown cocker spaniel, barking unceasingly, stood steadfastly at the head of the victim, who unfortunately could no longer hear him. The woman wore only a sheer nightgown. It wasn’t ripped or torn to suggest the attack had been sexual, but there was no doubt that it had been deadly.

The stranger’s eyes were open in a death gaze that, for all her experience with the dead, Cass had never seen. The worst, however, was the blood. It was smeared all around her mouth and face and underneath her body. Cass could see that the welcome mat was saturated with it. She thought about what McDonough had told her earlier about his sister and shuddered. So much blood.

And why?

Not wanting to disturb the scene any further, Cass moved around the body to the dog and plucked him up and into her arms. She stroked him until he calmed down, limiting his barks to about one every other second.

Backing out and up the stairwell, Cass and Muffy waited for the old woman, the police and, most important, Doug. He would understand what this meant. She could only hope he would know what to do about it.

A light from a street-level window above the stairwell caught her eye.

Palm Reader—Fortune Teller.

It was a red neon sign with the outline of a crystal ball in its center. Cass could see that it belonged to the same apartment whose doorway the woman lay in. Guessing from the nightgown, Cass had little doubt that it was the dead woman’s apartment, which meant that she was likely the palm reader. Not that Cass could ask her.

Cass turned back and stared down at the still motionless feet.

“I’ll bet you didn’t see this coming,” she mumbled, more to break the morbid silence than anything else.

There was no reply to the bad quip. Not that Cass expected one. She never communicated directly with the dead. Except in one case, which was completely different altogether.

Of course, there was the monster to contend with, but the resolution of what that thing was, was still too far off to consider. Was it connected to the woman at the bottom of the steps? Was it too much of a stretch to believe that it wasn’t?

Cass wasn’t ready to think about it. Better to wait for Dougie and let him decide what had happened before she started leaping to conclusions she couldn’t back up with facts. She trembled involuntarily and Muffy squirmed in her arms. She set him down, careful to keep a firm grip on his collar so he couldn’t return to the body. Turning to her right, she spotted the older woman scurrying down the sidewalk as fast as her aging body would carry her.

“The police are coming. They’re coming,” she huffed as she came within hearing distance of Cass.

Cass nodded in thanks, then handed her back her dog. The woman reattached Muffy’s leash and together they all stood in front of the stairwell like sentinels standing guard over the body.

Minutes later, sirens broke through the early-morning quiet. Two cars screeched to a stop as uniformed officers popped out and started barking orders to one another.

“Do we need an ambulance?”

Cass shook her head at the stocky officer who approached her first. “No. Maybe to take her to the morgue…”

The cop’s face didn’t change with her answer. “Right. We’re going to ask you to wait over there. We’ll need to ask you some questions in a little bit.” He was pointing to a stoop a couple of feet away and numbly Cass nodded. Sitting suddenly seemed very necessary. She tugged on the arm of the woman, who was trying desperately not to look down the steps as the uniformed officers secured the area.

“Come on. We should get out of their way.”

From the third step of the stoop, Cass watched as two standard-issue city cars pulled up. She wondered how it was that detectives were always so shocked when they were made so easily by the criminal element. The car reeked of cop.

Dougie’s long form emerged from the vehicle and instantly he spotted her. Ignoring her for the moment, he checked on the scene. The uniforms had taped off the stairwell, and soon the techies would be by to snap photographs and collect evidence from the apartment and from the victim. Evidently satisfied with the progress they were making, Dougie made his way to where she sat with the old lady at her side.

“How…”

“I don’t know. I think she was stabbed.”

“No, I meant how are you here?”

Cass knew what he meant, but there wasn’t an easy answer. She certainly didn’t want to elaborate with the woman, Ethel, she’d come to learn was her name, and her dog sitting next to her.

“My Muffy found her. My Muffy was very brave,” the woman interjected.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dougie replied politely. “Very brave. The PPD thanks you very much for calling this in and for waiting so that we can question you. If you would head over to the officer with the blond hair, he’s got some questions for you.” Dougie pointed to one of the uniformed cops, who looked to be just out of school. Surely someone so young wasn’t able to handle the responsibility of standing between evil and the rest of society? Someone with a job like that should at least be shaving, Cass decided. Then again, given her youthful appearance and the fact that Ethel called her honey as if she were soothing a child, she guessed she couldn’t throw stones.

“Just tell him everything you saw and heard. And don’t leave anything out,” Dougie said.

Ethel nodded slowly as if to suggest that she took her civic duty very seriously. “Of course I will.”

Cass stood and reached for the woman’s elbow, helping her to her feet even as Dougie reached for the woman’s other arm. On legs that probably weren’t as steady as they had been when she’d set out that morning, Ethel managed the few cement steps until she was back on the sidewalk. “You’ll catch the person who did this? That’s your job.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied, Ethel led Muffy to the blond kid in the blue uniform.

Once she was out of earshot, Cass asked, “Does the PPD thank me, too?”

“No,” he growled softly. “The PPD wants to know what the hell you’re doing here.”

How could she tell him? What would she tell him?

There was a monster in my mind.

To her it sounded a lot like having one under your bed or one in your closet. Like the kind of nightmare a child might have. Only she wasn’t a child and it, whatever it was, hadn’t been a nightmare. She was pretty sure of that now.

She was afraid that Dougie, despite all his good intentions to be open-minded where she was concerned, wouldn’t get it. He might believe she spoke with the dead, but this was asking too much of anyone.

“I think you must be grumpy because they got you out of bed.”

“Absolutely I’m grumpy but not because of a lack of sleep. It’s the lack of answers that’s annoying me right now. Talk to me, Cass.”

She took a breath and tried to explain. “I had a thing. A weird thing. I felt…”

Fear. A deep and gut-wrenching fear of the dead, something she’d never felt before. And a darkness. She’d felt that, too. Beyond the beast, there had been inky blackness rather than the hazy fog she’d become used to.

As if the horns hadn’t been sinister enough.

No, there was no point in telling Dougie this. Not when she couldn’t explain what it meant.

“I heard a dog barking,” she said. “I came out here, followed the sound and there she was.”

“That’s not even remotely convincing.”

Cass shrugged. “It’s the best I can do for now. Let’s just say…I had a gut feeling.”

“Right.” He snorted somewhat disgustedly. “Look, I’ll let it go for now until I can pull all the facts together. But we’re eventually going to have to talk about this. Whatever happened to this girl…”

“She had her tongue cut out, Dougie.”

He didn’t bother to issue the standard police line that nothing was certain and that until evidence was gathered and analyzed nothing would be accomplished by leaping to conclusions about the relationship between two seemingly unconnected victims. She knew better.

“I don’t have to tell you to keep this quiet.”

That made her laugh. “Who am I going to tell?” Her world consisted of about three people, one of whom was standing in front of her.

“I’m just saying we don’t need the press…”

“Dougie? It’s me. I’m not going to talk to the press. Ethel you might have to talk to.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Two women, a few blocks apart, both missing their tongues and no signs of sexual assault. This doesn’t smell right.”

“At least one thing is for sure,” she reminded him. “You know now that Malcolm McDonough didn’t kill his sister.”

“Great,” Dougie muttered unenthusiastically. “Mr. Connections goes free, but there’s a wacko loose in the city.”

“A psycho-city wacko,” Cass repeated, recalling his description from last night.

Dougie looked back to the stairwell where they were finally bringing the body up. That they had tried to be careful with her was obvious, but the body bag was still covered in the woman’s blood.

“Definitely.”

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