Poltergeist

"You don't think this may have been the precipitating incident?”

"It is possible," he snapped. "Probable. But there is no more to find here. This is even older than the death site, useless for anything but rough confirmation. Mere trivia.”

There was a hot spark to his glare and the a

"It grows late and I grow hungry and tired of this. An interesting puzzle does not feed me. If you want more from me tonight, I will require payment—though you'd be a fool for it. There is nothing more I can see here.”

I felt frozen in place, fighting to keep my eyes turned from his. A rumble vibrated the air and my body.

"I'm done," I answered from a dry mouth.

I felt him withdraw, but didn't try to watch him go. I only waited until I was sure he was gone.

I sat down in one of the armchairs and took several deep, slow breaths. I'd been concentrating too hard on the problem of Celia—and the revelation of my co

I picked myself up and went to the front of the shop.

I waved and smiled at the bopping man until he pulled the tiny plastic buds from his ears.

"What can I do for you, pretty lady?" he cooed in a broad Jamaican accent that was laid on with a trowel.

"You must be Germaine.”

"That I am. How'd you know?”

"I know your cousin Phoebe.”

He rolled his head and his eyes. "Oh, man. You're not spyin' for the woman, are you?”

"No," I replied, laughing. "I need to talk to Amanda—she works here.”

He blew out a full-cheeked sigh of relief. "Well, thank God. But she's not in. Not in all week. Poor thing. She stayed at home since her man died. You try her home?”

"No. I was hoping you had the address.”

"Me? Man, no way Phoebe'd let me get at the records. As it is, Hugh make me bring the money and the keys to him every night. I'm just take in the money and send the books out. You could try tomorrow morning when the regular employees be in.”

Given Germaine's ditzy performance, I could understand Hugh's belief that Phoebe would get over her grief just to get him out of her store. I was ready to do a lot just to get him to drop the accent, but instead, Germaine was saved by my cell phone blatting.

I backed away from the desk to answer it, letting Germaine go back to his music.

"Hello?”

"Hey, it's Quinton.”

"Hey. Did you figure out what was bothering you at the séance?”

"Yes." His answer was a little sharper than normal. "I thought some of the old equipment looked different, so I checked my memory and notes against some lists and catalogs. I don't know why he did it or what he's up to, but your client has swapped out about half the original equipment for much cheaper models. It's still decent stuff, not cheap enough to fail under normal use, so he'd still have good data and control, but not like he had—not topflight. It's a bit more in line with what I'd expect a college like PNU to be able to afford.”

"Yeah, you mentioned the school seemed a little strapped.”

"A lot strapped. If they didn't get a big a

"What forms?”

"An inspection report. There was a prior inspection report by the school's electrician for the original installation, but none for the new installation. He had me sign a report for my inspection, but if he doesn't sign off on the installation, it may look like I signed off on the installation of the new parts.”

"Sorry, I'm not sure I'm following this.”

"It's sloppy paperwork, so there's no chain of responsibility between the original installation and the new one. It may appear I did the installation and swapped the parts without documenting them at the same time. If there's any discrepancy in the paperwork when—not if—the project gets audited, I will take the blame for it. I think I'm just as glad I didn't sign my real name on that form.”

It was odd that Tuckman had swapped out parts at this point. "What do you think he's up to?" I asked.

Quinton huffed into the phone. "My gut says he's cooking the books. It could be legit, but without knowing his original funding and budget, I can't guess if he's just trying to stay in budget or if he's trying to skim the difference.”

No wonder he'd been so pleased about Quinton preferring cash. I felt a little spurt of anger and suspected Tuckman was up to his old tricks.

"Write that up for me," I said. "All the details. And your notes about the malfunctions today. I may need to nail Dr. Tuckman to the wall.”

"You got it. I'll drop it off when I'm done.”

I thanked him too curtly and hung up. Germaine kept a nervous eye on me as I put my temper away. Tuckman wasn't my most immediate problem, no matter how irritated I was at that moment.

Plunging out into the wet night, I kept all my senses alert for vampires and things that stream along the corners of the eye to walk in nightmares later.

CHAPTER 21

Thursday morning I went back to research. Carlos had put words to the niggling idea in my own head: controlling and using Celia as a weapon required a psychopathic mind, and according to Frankie and Terry, the project was ripe to breed some. Only one of the participants controlled Celia and that one had to be truly unhinged. Given what I had seen at Wednesday's séance—the way the energy had divided itself over Ian, Ana, Cara, and Ken—I was betting on one of them, but I had to figure out which one and I couldn't take it for granted that Wayne, Patricia, and Dale had nothing to do with it. Dale had the classic excuse of the cuckolded spouse. And I wanted to know more about what Tuck-man was up to as well. He didn't have any apparent Grey co

The deeper I went, the more awful the whole picture looked. Wayne Hopke was the most stable of the lot and his tendency to assume command—and to drink—provided a point of irritation for others and a dice-throw chance of sudden instability. Dale Stahlqvist didn't care for it and the records showed a continuous, low-level battle between them for control of the sessions. I'd seen that in action at the most recent event. The rest—including Terry and Frankie—were in a constant boil of interpersonal tension: fears, desires, ambitions, and imagined slights.

Tuckman's notes indicated he'd picked the members himself. I could only conclude he'd put this group together because of the potential strife, not in spite of it. But the records were thin. They gave ideas and hints, records of psychological tests I didn't understand, and lists of the oddities of the subject's personality, but there was no deep psychological analysis of any of them—as if Tuckman hadn't wanted to bother digging any further once he'd found what he wanted. He'd wanted drama and now rejected the results. Tuckman didn't seem much more reasonable or stable than his subjects. It was only his lack of co