Not only had the police been here clouding the energy, but others, too, had trod upon this very spot. Emotions sizzled through the air. Anger. Curiosity. Fear. Disgust.
Too many voices.
Concentrate, she told herself.
Filter out the noise.
Find him.
She took a deep, calming breath.
Slowed her heart rate.
Her eyelids fluttered, her teeth chattering just a bit.
Then it happened.
The slight tremor in her body.
As if she were experiencing the rising of William Huber’s escaping spirit.
Come back.
But Billy’s essence didn’t stop rising, only paused to look down at the bloody scene and his own broken body.
He wasn’t alone. A man bent over him. An angry man who yanked a blade from Billy’s bearded neck. Furiously, the man wiped the bloody blade against his thigh before tucking a stone beneath Billy’s shell of a body and scuttling away, toward the woods.
Inside, Sol turned to ice, the night curdling cold.
Who is he? Who did this to you?
In her mind’s eye, the dead body twisted to stare at her with unblinking eyes.
“Who?” she said aloud.
The dead man’s lips didn’t move, but she heard his voice, clear as a clarion call: “Who did this to me? The damned spawn of Satan, that’s who.”
And then he disappeared.
But that wasn’t all, she knew.
Billy Huber’s wasn’t the only death … oh, no. She’d caught a glimpse of another soul this night, and she knew, with a blood-chilling certainty, there would be more.
The day hadn’t quite dawned when Nikki, unable to stand it a second longer, brought up the investigation. Pierce was just finishingbreakfast, while Chloe was propped in her booster chair and giggling as she plucked Cheerios one by one from her plate and dropped them to an eagerly waiting Mikado.
“You’re going back to the Huber place?” she asked.
While Pierce had showered, shaved, and dressed in a navy suit, she was still in her PJs and robe, no makeup, her hair caught in a very messy bun, tangled from a bad night’s sleep, her thoughts swirling over what had happened to Billy Huber.
“After the office.” He no longer seemed angry with her, thank God, but he wasn’t chatty either.
“No news?”
“Nikki,” he warned.
“Don’t say it. Police business. Iknow.”
“Good.”