“I don’t believe in what I can’t see.” He looked around for a coffee machine and couldn’t find one.
“Which would include God, viruses, and radio waves.” She put the tea canister back on a shelf that didn’t include anything markedcoffee.
“Viruses can be detected by microscopes. Any number of devices detect radio waves. There is no such thing as a ghost detector. Energy can be measured and detected but can’t be self-directed, as your ghosts claim to be.”
“You, personally, can’tseeparanormal energy self-direct. I get that. I can see it, but I understand I’m rare. Doesn’t mean it isn’t possible for everyone to see paranormal energies once we develop the right device—except only people like me believe, and we’re unlikely to invent anything.”
Jax snorted his agreement to that very true statement.
She didn’t let that stop her. “The shame is that you are suppressing a very powerful force which might work for the benefit of all. But you prefer to believe anything not in scientific texts doesn’t exist, which I assume means souls and psychic phenomena. Go back and play with your computers. If I were you, I wouldn’t believe in the internet. I can’t see it.”
She poured hot water into her teapot and carried it out.
Jax noted she didn’t bother offering him any.
He didn’t know why he felt insulted. Yes, he was accustomed to having women wait on him. But he knew how to take care of himself. He didn’t want tea anyway.
He returned to his computer and ordered a coffeemaker and beans with expedited delivery. If he had anyforceat all, it was his intelligence. He knew how the internet worked, and it wasn’t on spectral energy.
He returned to scanning the files of Post assets until he found the one that had crashed the system.
It was labeled Lakeland-Lee’s Forest.
* * *
Carryingthe Siamese cat called Psy, Loretta crept down the stairs in the dawn light. She had been told she had exceptional night vision and acute hearing, but she didn’t need either to know the adults were sleeping. Jax snored and Evie didn’t move. Loretta had thought her always-restless hostess dead until she’d detected breathing.
Until these past months, Loretta had thought she knew who to trust. The supposed death of her parents and the greed she saw in everyone who knew of her wealth had caused her to doubt her abilities. Once upon a time, she would have trusted an open soul like Evie. Now, she knew to worry about whether Evie was really on her side.
She didn’t know a great deal about her money except that lawyers handled it, and other people wanted it—which made Jax equally worthy of suspicion.
She also knew Evie hadn’t believed the fake guardianship papers, even though they were excellent forgeries. Most people would have taken them straight to the bank. Instead, Evie had scoffed and ignored potential wealth. She’d also fought for Loretta, so there was that.
Loretta poured some milk for herself and the cat.
“I need to decide, Kitty,” she whispered, scratching the cat’s head as she’d seen Evie do. “They may have shut down my credit card. I could test it at the cash machine at the bank. How far could I go on a thousand dollars?” She knew that was her credit limit.
The cat stopped to clean its whiskers.
“But Evie’s family listens to me. Who else would do that?”
The cat purredMeeeand leaped into Loretta’s lap.
Loretta giggled at her imagination. Her mother would have smacked her if she’d said the cat had answered her question. The teachers would have sent her to a therapist. They already had once, when Loretta had told them the PE teacher had a disturbing bubble and touched the first graders inappropriately.
She didn’t take PE, had only met the teacher once, and she should never have mentioned bubbles. The school had decided she was a troublemaker. The therapist had been unable to persuade her that she was imagining things. So Loretta had talked to all the kids until she’d convinced one of the little girls to tell her parents what the teacher had done. The result had been... unpleasant.
“Is it good or bad that I caused a teacher to lose her job?” she asked the cat. The first graders had happier bubbles now, she knew. The other teachers had taken to eyeing Loretta warily.
Smmarrrtthe cat purred, before jumping down to nose the empty kitty dish, rattling the pan.
The snoring in the back room halted. Loretta didn’t understand adults the way she understood little kids. She supposed she should study the situation a little longer before running again.
She liked it here. Evie’s family didn’t laugh at her or treat her like a freak.
Mr. Jackson, however, had a very strange bubble. So did those weird men sleeping in the van parked in the alley.
She climbed on a chair to reach a sweater hanging by the back door. Putting it on over her pajamas, she tugged it around her. “Want to go for a walk?”