Haven (24 page)

The tables in the spacious room were far enough apart to offer privacy if a guest wanted to eat in solitude, but he had chosen a table for two, positioned so as to provide an unobstructed view both of the room and the foot of the stairs visible through the wide doorway to the entrance hall.

Resigning himself to having to track both Jessie and Emma down
in what promised to be an extremely crowded downtown Baron Hollow, he sipped his coffee, giving himself time until his head stopped throbbing, and looked around at his fellow guests of Rayburn House. Until now, he really hadn’t paid much attention to most of them.

About half the tables in the dining room were occupied; though the inn had a full house, it was clear some guests either preferred the breakfast room service offered or else chose to eat somewhere in town. Or they slept in.

There were several couples, mostly older and talking to each other or sipping their coffee in companionable silence, with the contented air of retirement and time pleasantly on their hands. One young couple was obviously on their honeymoon.

Very obviously; they could hardly keep their hands off each other. It struck him only then that they must have been the couple he’d picked up on the previous evening.

Navarro averted his eyes from what he supposed they believed was a private caress hidden by the tablecloth, and continued to study the other guests in the room.

There were two other singles he had noted earlier: an older woman who always seemed to be reading a book, and an older man who apparently divided his time outside his room between the library when it was hot outdoors and one of the rocking chairs on the front porch when it was cooler, usually with a newspaper.

Neither appeared to have any wish to be sociable, as far as he could tell. So at least Navarro wasn’t the only one who had kept pretty much to himself.

The three paranormal researchers were at a table across the room, talking quietly among themselves. Navarro thought the woman still looked tired, but she was bright-eyed and smiling, so he supposed she was just one of those people who always looked frail even when they weren’t. Either that or she was determined to pretend she was fine when she wasn’t.

Then she turned her head slightly, went visibly pale, and he saw her eyes widen.

Without even thinking about it, he looked in the same direction, and thought later that his eyes had probably widened too.

There was a woman standing in the doorway of the dining room. She was tall, slender, fair-haired. Early twenties. Dressed casually but definitely for winter. She might have been another guest, or someone from town who had stopped in at Rayburn House, inexplicably wearing a quilted jacket in July.

Except that she wasn’t.

Navarro could see the stairs—through her.

He didn’t recognize her.

As he watched, his coffee cup half-raised, he saw her take a step into the room, then another, her gaze fixed on the table where the paranormal researchers sat. By the third step she took, everything about her had grown hazy, and by the fourth step it was as if a slight breeze had dissipated something formed of mist. She was gone.

When Navarro turned his gaze slowly toward the table where her attention had been fixed, it was to see the brunette woman smiling and talking to her companions as though nothing had happened.

Nothing at all.

“
BISHOP
.”

“Navarro. Listen, I have another question for you.”

“Which is?”

“Do you have somebody down here in Baron Hollow?” Navarro was in the fairly large garden behind Rayburn House, strolling along a brick-paved path that wound among planters and beds and pots overflowing with summer color. He was alone in the area, and he was far enough from the house to avoid being overheard.

Besides, he doubted anyone could hear a quiet conversation going on back here when only a few blocks away it sounded like Armageddon. Or the festival getting under way. One or the other.

Bishop said, “You know we can’t just send FBI agents into situations without evidence of a federal crime or an invitation from local law enforcement.”

“That,” Navarro said, “was not an answer.”

“Why do you ask?”

Navarro knew Bishop, and knew he’d get an answer when the SCU chief was ready to give him one and not before.

Dammit.

“I ask because the paranormal research team staying here at Rayburn House has at least one genuine medium among them. She saw a spirit a little while ago.”

“You’re certain?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“How?”

“
I saw her too.”

Bishop didn’t seem nearly as surprised by that information as Navarro had been.

“Her?”

“Young, blond, dressed for winter. So not likely to belong to the remains I found. I’m told the inn is very haunted, so it’s at least likely she’s one of the resident ghosts. The point is that this medium definitely saw her.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Bishop said thoughtfully, “You don’t see spirits.”

“I never have before. But I saw her. And so did the medium, even if she pretended afterward that she hadn’t.” Navarro paused, then added, “I’d been trying out the spider sense just a minute or two before, trying to get a bead on this place; maybe this time I opened a door on a sense I didn’t realize I had.”

“That,” Bishop said, “is more than possible. You can locate the dead and you’re clairvoyant; maybe it was only a matter of time before mediumistic abilities manifested. It’s the sort of thing that tends to happen during an investigation, when we’re all on…high psychic alert, as it were.”

“That’s reasonable, I suppose.” Navarro pushed that possibility aside for the moment. “But, like I said, this paranormal researcher saw her too. She’s a genuine medium.”

Again, the silence stretched for a long moment. Until Navarro broke it.

“Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think many of these paranormal research outfits boast genuine psychics. Not of that caliber, at any rate. And I think that if any of them do, you know about it.”

“
There are a lot of paranormal research outfits,” Bishop said, his tone noncommittal. “Just check the Internet.”

“Bishop, I just saw a spirit. And so did this medium. I’m asking you straight out if she’s one of yours, an SCU agent or investigator, or whatever it is you call auxiliary members of your unit.”

“We haven’t been invited in,” Bishop said, calm.

Navarro drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Look, all I want to know is who might get in my way in the likely event that things turn nasty. I prefer to work alone, I already have another Haven operative to worry about, and I don’t want to trip over one of your people while we’re both looking for the same thing.”

“I don’t think you’ll do that.” Hardly pausing, he added, “You’ve found no further evidence of a serial operating in Baron Hollow?”

“No, nothing solid.”

“Well, if Jane Doe was murdered, that’s definitely a crime the local police know occurred.”

“Yeah, but with no way to ID her, and no locals or transients reported missing within the right time frame, I doubt they’re doing much investigating. In fact, the chief as good as told me that much. The state ME won’t even be able to give them a decent basic description of Jane Doe for weeks, maybe months, if what the chief said about the backed-up lab is accurate.”

“He’ll have the report sooner than he expects.”

“How much sooner?”

“By Monday.”

Navarro was unwillingly impressed; it was hell to get anything
official done over the Fourth of July weekend. But all he asked was, “Will it help me?”

“You’ll have to let me know about that,” Bishop replied.

“
HIGH PSYCHIC ALERT?
”

“Don’t start with me, Tony. I’m not in the mood.” Despite his words, Bishop’s voice was almost absentminded.

“One of these days,” Tony said in a musing tone, “somebody’s going to do you a mischief. Before now, my money would have been on Galen. Now I’m thinking Navarro.”

Bishop sent him a look but didn’t respond.

“Seriously, Boss, you do have a maddening way of putting things, especially to agents or operatives trying to investigate in the field.” Tony thought about it for a moment, adding, “Or not putting things, as the case may be.”

“Navarro is a big boy,” his boss said calmly. “He’ll figure things out on his own.”

“I’m not saying he won’t. I’m just saying he might come after you when it’s all over and done with.”

“That,” Bishop said, “depends on how things turn out.”

Tony cocked a curious eyebrow at him. “You mean you don’t know?”

“I didn’t see the end of it.”

Catching the faint emphasis on the pronoun, Tony said, “But somebody else did?”

“Pass me that file, will you, please, Tony?”

Sighing, Tony did so, but he couldn’t help adding, “At least tell me all the secrets down there aren’t going to get somebody else killed.”

“I wish I could, Tony.” Bishop’s voice was sober. “I really wish I could.”

IF EMMA HAD
been given to outbursts due to frustration, she would have been ready to scream by the time the Arts Festival was in full swing. But it wasn’t her nature, so despite what had become increasing anxiety over Jessie, and frustration because her sister had been even more maddeningly elusive and enigmatic, she buried her own feelings and went about the business of being the Arts Festival Band Nazi.

The festival really was a major event for Baron Hollow, and it drew quite a crowd to the downtown area, with people coming from miles away. Rayburn House was full, as were the half dozen smaller B and Bs and the larger chain motel out on the highway.

Main Street was closed off at either end, the street lined with tents and booths and tables displaying the local artwork the town was famous for, and more tents and tables and trucks and carts provided every sort of food and (nonalcoholic) beverage possible. There were also both an ice cream truck and another selling flavored ices.

Since it was the Fourth, there was always a patriotic element to the celebrations, taking the form of red, white, and blue bunting draped over anything stationary—and over a few people and dogs on leashes as well. (Emma’s Lizzie, who disliked loud noises, was back at the inn with Penny—who also preferred peace to the semiorganized chaos of the festival.) There were American flags flying
proudly
and
displayed on hats and T-shirts and painted on skin, and rather amazingly varied interpretations of the national anthem were played at least once by every band.

Small-town America, celebrating the Fourth of July.

It was also clear, sunny, and about as hot as Baron Hollow ever got, which was pushing ninety-five. Which meant that tempers less even than Emma’s got more than a little frayed now and then.

“Hey, Emma, did Three Pin say we could borrow their amp? Ours just blew, dammit.”

“Emma, our drummer got sick; who can we use?”

“Emma, you’ve got to tell Mayor Sharp that, no disrespect, but we can’t keep playing the national anthem! The audience gets tired of standing at attention, for one thing.”

“Emma, some kid just threw up in Bo’s guitar case!”

“Emma—”

The Band Nazi. It was a fun gig. Most of the time.

Experienced, Emma coped. She had to stay fairly close to the courthouse for the most part, but she did her best to keep an eye on what else of interest was going on during the festival.

Such as her sister.

Jessie had not offered to help with the festival and was most certainly avoiding her sister, but she was at least presenting a public display of interest and enjoyment as she wandered around Main Street all during the morning. Emma saw her once eating a hot dog, much later enjoying an ice cream cone, and at some point she had allowed one of the artists offering the service to paint a small flag on her cheek.

Emma also saw her sister talking, with what looked like some intensity, to several people. Victor was one, and whatever was being
said between them, neither looked happy about it. Later in the morning, Emma also saw her sister speaking to Nellie Holt, and then, some minutes later, to Nellie’s boss, Sam Conway.

Since she kept losing sight of those…encounters…because of the shifting crowd, Emma had no idea how long each lasted or even whether Jessie and whomever she was speaking to parted amicably. But there was something about her sister’s posture that made Emma believe that the specific encounters were planned on her part, that this was Jessie seeking out the puzzle pieces of information she needed.

For her missing memories?

Or to help point her toward a killer?

Emma didn’t know, and it was maddening not to know, to be always conscious of the uneasy feeling that there were undercurrents here she felt she should understand—no matter how much or little Jessie was willing to tell her. Busy as she was, she kept trying to figure that out, to understand why her fear for Jessie was coupled with an odd, cold, and nervous anxiety that was more about herself.

At least, she thought it was. It felt like something at the extreme edge of her awareness was…settled there, waiting for her to look at the right person or thing or in the right direction in order to see and understand what she needed to.