having dreams of hangings and burning men. In New York City, a police investigator wanted help with an unexplained seepage in the apartment of an unnamed celebrity; the fluid tested as human blood, but when they'd taken down the stained ceiling they'd found no source for it, and as soon as they'd rebuilt the ceiling, the seep returned.
In other words, the world went on as it always had, its seen and unseen dimensions maintaining their uneasy coexistence.
Sunlight came and went as an endless flotilla of little clouds moved across the sky: The Sound and the Olympics were dappled with cloud shadows that slid down the near slopes and skated across the blue-green water. The Emerald City, Cree reflected. It was good to be back.
They'd been going over the finances for half an hour before Cree really noticed Joyce's excess of professionalism. She was dressed in a snappy pants suit and was being businesslike to the point of brusqueness, and though Joyce could be very efficient this wasn't like her.
Cree put down her pencil. 'Joyce. What?'
Joyce looked caught out. 'Nothing. What do you mean?'
'What'd I do now?'
Joyce let her shoulders slump. She stared longingly out the windows as if wishing she could escape to the open spaces. 'You asked me. So don't blame me when I tell you, okay? The same thing I've been saying, Cree.'
'We've been over this!' Cree moaned. Joyce had been in Cree's room when Paul had called the hotel, the day before they left. When Cree had refused to speak to him.
'Yeah. Let's see… first you couldn't be with him because of the Mike thing. Then you told him about Mike, and he understood, and it was good for you to get it off your chest. Okay, so then you couldn't be with him because he didn't believe in ghosts and thought you were nuts because you did. But then he had a doozie of a convincing experience at the crypt, and he's a believer now. So what's the latest excuse?'
'He was a… double agent, Joyce! A hypocrite, a… a liar! The whole time, he was spying on my investigation and talking to Charmian! He nearly got Josephine and me killed! Jesus, he – '
'Stop. Cree, you wouldn't listen to him when he tried to explain! You told him to shut up. But after you hung up on him, he called me in my room and explained everything. Look at it from his perspective. He's recruited by old friends of his family to help Lila. He's a highly regarded psychiatrist in New Orleans, he stands by old family loyalties, so he says, 'Sure.''
'He knew everything right from the start! He could have – '
'He didn't know anything except he's got a patient who thinks she's seen a ghost! He starts therapy, but before he gets very far, this ghost buster comes to town and starts shaking things up.' Cree started to speak, but Joyce raised a hand to cut her off, eyes savage. 'Before long, you find Lila bashing around the house, and he's very concerned – she's at risk, he may need to have the family's cooperation to get her into appropriate treatment. Naturally, he talks to Charmian – '
'He had no business talking to Charmian, to anyone outside the confidential relationship with his patient!'
'His patient was in crisis! He thought there was a good chance he'd need the family's help! Anyway, Cree, hey, talk about the pot calling the kettle black? You do it all the time! You're Cree Black, the mystic maverick shrink who has some special dispensation to take every kind of license with the therapeutic process, remember?' Joyce waited until Cree gave one small nod of contrition. 'Charmian's realizing she underestimated you, you're onto something. She tells Paul his father once helped the family in a time of crisis and asks if he'd do the same. 'Of course,' he says. 'What sort of crisis?' 'Nothing that bears upon Lila's situation,' she assures him, 'but something that if it turns up in Cree Black's prying, it'll damage the family name. And that wouldn't be good for Lila, would it? Given how shaky she is?' 'No,' he agrees. All she asks is that he keep her generally informed of where your investigation is heading. He thinks that's not unreasonable.'
'Bastard.'
'He believed Charmian to be an upstanding community member, as her husband had been. Anyway, however screwed up her efforts may have been, she was trying to protect her daughter.'
'He deliberately steered me toward Richard. He brought me over, had me look just at the Epicurus photos from 1969!'
'He thought that was the truth, Cree. Charmian had told him what you'd find if you looked in the 1969 files. He thought he was showing you the real story at last. Charmian set him up! Paul didn't know it, but it was her last line of defense – you were finding out everything. Suppose the ghosts revealed to Lila or you that Lila killed Richard? The only way to mitigate her guilt was if he had raped her, if he did deserve it. But Paul didn't know about Brad, or Richard's murder. He brought you to the archives because he really wanted your help to deal with what he believed was Lila's rape by her beloved father.'
Joyce went on, methodically, logically, remorselessly. Cree was feeling her carefully nurtured, righteous anger unraveling, and it scared her. It had been sustaining her for a week.
'Joyce. The fact remains, he cut a deal with Charmian. They concocted these half-truths, they deceived Lila!'
Joyce gave her the dead eye. 'Unlike you, of course. Who didn't cut a deal with Charmian. Who didn't agree to any half-truths to protect Lila.'
Cree's resistance suddenly ran out of gas. She turned her own eyes to the window. Somehow she hadn't seen it quite that way. It really was simple, wasn't it? Joyce was right. Joyce was always right.
The problem with accepting any of it was that it left her with only one grievance with Paul: his terrifying, penetrating insight. The hard truths he'd told her about Mike. And she couldn't think of a good excuse to flee that.
Joyce knew she'd scored a direct hit and was smart enough to know when to leave it. She gathered her papers and went to the door.
'So what do you recommend I do about it?' Cree called softly.'Given that it's a little too late.'
'No way, Cree. No more advice to the lovelorn, it's not in my job description. You're the one with ESP or whatever it is, you figure it out.'
Ed got into the office around noon. Cree heard him bumping through the outer office door with his equipment cases, heard him greet Joyce, heard the big kiss he gave her even through the partially closed door. Cree decided she needed one of those, too.
They hugged in the outer office, a solid, thorough hug, as Joyce busied herself with paperwork. The familiar length of his body felt good against her, but the kiss felt rather measured, deliberately administered. She realized she had been worried about him. They made small talk as she helped carry some of the cases back into his office, then helped him put things back on the shelves.
Ed had thrown himself slouching into his desk chair. He was looking around his big room, looking vaguely dissatisfied and drumrning his fingers on the desk. 'You want to take a walk? I haven't eaten lunch. We could take a stroll and then find a bite.'
'You don't want to debrief?'
He hesitated. 'Sure. Yeah. But let's do it as we walk.'
They turned south on First Avenue, ambling toward Pioneer Square. The weather was cool and changeable, and at cross streets where the long views broke through, they could see the clouds roiling in from the west, sending shadows down the piebald slopes of the mountains. After a few blocks they turned downhill toward Alaskan Way, with the assumption they'd talk for a while and then grab lunch at Pike Place Market. They hadn't even discussed it, but of course Ed would know Cree needed the ambience of flux: The energy and flow made a safe haven for an empath. Both were new enough to Seattle to enjoy the bustle and color of the market's stalls, the endless variety of fresh fish and fruit and vegetables and breads, displayed so beautifully and temptingly.
Cree told him about her last days in New Orleans. They agreed that Richard's ghost had had a very typical double aspect – his memory of the beating, and of Lila in the swing, had been clearly linked with his experience of the moments of dying. But Bradford's doubleness was a different matter. The boar-headed phantom had been a remote generation. Its lack of an apparent link to its origin as a memory of a dying man, coupled with its high degree of independence, troubled them both.
Cree talked about the red herrings she'd considered: the idea of Richard as a multiple personality, and
