I turned to study her profile. “Interesting good or interesting bad?”
“Beetles are signs. If you dream about one, it means you have a destructive force at work in your life and a lot of negative energy surrounding you.”
Her words struck a chord. “What should I do about this destructive force?”
“My grandmother would tell you to pay attention to your nocturnal activities to see if you can pick up on any more signs. Be wary of unexpected journeys and be especially mindful of synchronicities.”
I pulled my jacket more tightly around me. “Synchronicities?”
“According to Grandmother, when you experience a series of what she calls meaningful coincidences, it’s because they’ve been arranged by your spirit guide and should never be ignored.”
“This all sounds vaguely new-agey,” I said. “I’m not even sure I know what a spirit guide is.”
“Some people call them angels, others think of them as energy. To some they may appear as the ghost of an ancestor.” She gave me another curious scrutiny. “I’m very surprised that someone like you isn’t more in tune with your guide.”
“Someone like me?”
“You have a quality about you,” she said. “An aura. It’s like a warm light. Almost a beacon, I would say. I find it very soothing.”
My mind drifted back to Rosehill Cemetery and to the first ghost I’d ever encountered. I hadn’t given much thought to the old white-haired man since my return from Asher Falls where I’d seen him for the second time, but now there he was in my head. For what purpose, I had no idea. Papa had been afraid of him, and so I was afraid of him, too. But maybe he had appeared to me that day for a reason. Maybe, like Shani, he was trying to tell me something.
Maybe every ghost that had ever crossed my path had tried to tell me something, but Papa’s rules had kept me from listening.
It was an unsettling thought.
Clementine murmured something, and I turned back to her. “I’m sorry?”
“You said you were seeing beetles everywhere.”
“Yes. Earlier, I saw one on my shoe at the cemetery.” And then later, all over a dead man’s face.
“On your shoe?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes, why? Does that mean something?”
“A beetle crawling across your shoe is considered a death omen.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Clementine pulled to the curb in front of Isabel’s house, and my gaze went immediately across the street to the Charleston Institute for Parapsychology Studies. The lights were still on, and I wondered if Dr. Shaw was there alone or if Layla might still be around.
I hadn’t thought much about her since my conversation with Temple, but the fact that I’d seen the woman in the blue Victorian house on America Street had to mean something. I didn’t trust her nor the circumstances of her employment at the Institute, particularly if she had close ties to Goodwine. I still couldn’t forget that Dr. Shaw’s first episode had occurred right after she’d brought him the tea.
Clementine turned off the engine. “Is something wrong?”
“No, sorry. I was just lost in thought for a minute.”
We went through the front garden and up the porch steps together. Clementine let us in, then led me down a dim hallway toward the back of the house. The door to the bathroom stood open, and I caught a glimpse of Isabel at the sink washing her hands. She looked up as we walked by, and my heart gave a little jerk as our gazes met briefly in the mirror. Then she reached over and closed the door. The eye contact lasted no more than a split second, but I felt unnerved by her stare.
At the end of the hallway, Clementine opened a door through which a soft light spilled. The blinds had been drawn to shut out the night and a lamp glowed from one corner. Candles had been lit, too, which struck me as an odd touch for this occasion.
Clementine stepped aside for me to enter, and I saw that Devlin waited for me in the room. He turned when he heard the door, and I caught my breath. He was shirtless, and the play of candlelight over skin and lean muscle ignited an unwise impulse. I couldn’t tear my gaze from him.
He reached for his shirt and I noticed then the bandage on his left forearm. Isabel’s handiwork, I thought, and wondered briefly if the blood that Fremont had envisioned on her hands had, in fact, been Devlin’s. I didn’t want to resent her. She’d patched him up, according to Clementine, and I knew I should be grateful, but her first aid was yet another intimacy between them.
Clementine backed out of the room and closed the door softly behind her. I went straight to Devlin. “Are you all right?”
“It’s just a cut. Nothing serious.”
A dot of blood had already seeped through the bandage. “Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor?”
“Isabel went to medical school. She knows what she’s doing.”
“And now she’s a palmist.”
He gave a careless shrug. “That makes her no less skilled.”
“No, of course not.” I wondered if he felt camaraderie with her because of the choice she’d made. He’d gone to law school but instead of joining his family’s prestigious firm, he’d enrolled in the police academy. In that respect, the two of them had far more in common than he and I ever would.
Then I reminded myself sternly that this wasn’t a competition. Whatever his history with Isabel, he’d sent for me. He’d wanted me here, and that was the only thing that should matter.
He struggled into his shirt, but as he reached for the buttons, I made a choice. Putting my hand on his chest, I said, “No, leave it.”
Heat flared in his eyes, and he pulled me to him roughly, kissing me deeply. I clung to him for the longest time, shiver after shiver rocking me. His hand moved to my breast, his lips to my ear. A flick of his tongue, a dark whisper. My head dropped back as I savored the slow, perfect seduction.
Finally we broke apart and he cupped my face, dark eyes burning into mine. “Do you have any idea how much I want you?” he said on a ragged breath. “I can’t stop thinking about that night at my house. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
His confession both thrilled and terrified me. He wasn’t yet free of his ghosts, might never be free of them, so where did that leave us? With a life half lived before twilight?
I sighed. “I think about you, too.”
He pulled back. “Even when you were in Asher Falls?”
“Especially when I was in Asher Falls.”
“Good,” he said, and kissed me again.
Now it was I who drew away, searching for his ghosts. Had the candles kept them at bay? Or that faint scent of sage and incense? Where were they? I didn’t trust their absence.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
He still held me loosely as I glanced over his shoulder. “Nothing. I was just wondering about all these candles.”
“Isabel lit them.”
I didn’t like the way he said her name. It reminded me of the way he said
“Isn’t it lucky that she was here to take care of you?” I said coolly, not at all proud of my jealousy.
“She’s always been good in a crisis.”
“I can imagine.”
“She reminds me of you in that respect.”
I sent him a frown. “I don’t think we’re at all alike.”
“But you’ve only met her once.” His eyes glinted as if my annoyance amused him. “You don’t know anything
