I cleared my throat, wondering if I’d made a mistake in coming here. He was obviously upset and preoccupied, but I couldn’t just get up and leave without an explanation.
Those glassy eyes were still on me, waiting for me to proceed.
Again I cleared my throat. “I’m wondering if it’s possible for one human being to unconsciously siphon the energy of another. I’m not talking about emotional energy. I mean physical energy.”
“I’m not sure the two can be separated,” he said. “After all, emotional well-being can severely impact physical health, can it not? And vice versa.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But I think I know what you’re asking, and the answer is…maybe. You’re familiar with the concept of a psychic vampire?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“There are two schools of thought regarding the psyvamp. One—there is a paranormal entity within such a per son that feeds off the psychic energy of others. And two—social parasitism. People with various personality disorders or those individuals who find themselves in an emotionally or spiritually weakened state can influence others to the point of leaving them feeling physically exhausted and emotionally drained or even severely depressed.”
I thought of what Ethan had said about Devlin’s emotional state after the accident and the rumors that he had been checked into some sort of sanitarium. If he was emotionally and physically depleted from grief and from his ghosts, might his subconscious search for a way to replenish?
“How do you stop it?” I asked.
“The simplest, most effective way is to simply avoid this individual altogether. Cut them out of your life.” He slashed the air with his hand.
“If that’s not possible…?”
“You can try confronting them, though I’m not sure how much good that would do. As it happens…” He stared across the desk at me, his eyes so bloodshot they almost appeared to glow red when sunlight hit them. “I find myself in a similar situation.”
“You have a psychic vampire?” I asked in surprise.
“Worse. It isn’t my energy that’s being siphoned—it’s my life’s work.”
“Someone is stealing from you?”
He made a helpless gesture. “Years of notes, research…leeched so slowly that I didn’t notice until it was too late. Now they have everything they need.”
I drew a quick breath, alarmed by the note of fear in his voice. “What do you mean?”
He took a long time answering. “I’m very much afraid the killer of that young woman is someone who is in our midst. Someone who is subtle, cunning and unassuming. Someone we would never suspect…”
My hand fluttered to my throat, where my pulse had begun to throb almost painfully. “Are you saying you know who the killer is?”
He seemed to catch himself then and gave a negligible wave with his ring hand. The spark of that silver emblem drew my eyes again. I’d seen it before. I knew I had…but where?
“It’s a hypothesis only,” he said. “I know nothing more than what I’ve read in the paper.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. “You haven’t talked to Ethan about your hypothesis? Or about the theft of your papers?”
“Ethan? No, I haven’t spoken to my son about any of this,” he said with an odd hitch in his voice. Then he swiveled his chair to stare broodingly out the garden window.
I let myself out in silence.
Devlin had left me a voicemail. I was to meet him at Oak Grove so that we could walk the cemetery together. On my way, I stopped by the Emerson library for a quick check of the archives.
As I hurried across the landscaped campus, I kept glancing over my shoulder, keenly aware of Dr. Shaw’s cryptic warning that the killer could be someone in our midst, someone we would least suspect. Even the echo of my footsteps on the stone staircase that led down to the archives seemed ominous and foreboding.
I’d spent enough time in the basement to know exactly where the Oak Grove files and records were stored. Dr. Shaw’s assertion that his own papers were being stolen made me wonder again about that church book I’d been searching for.
As I knelt and ran my finger along some of the labels on the boxes, a shadow fell over me. I was so startled, I rocked back on my heels and nearly lost my balance.
“Are you all right?” Daniel Meakin asked in concern. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought you would have heard my footsteps.”
I’d heard nothing.
He knelt beside me, and as he put his left hand on one of the boxes to brace himself, his sleeve rode up over his wrist bone and I saw the scar. But it wasn’t just
Quickly, I averted my gaze. The light was so hazy in the basement I hoped he hadn’t noticed the slight parting of my lips, the wide-eyed horror of my gaze.
After a moment, he shifted his position, dropped his hand and the scars were once again hidden by his sleeve.
“Are you still searching for names to go with those unmarked graves?” he asked.
“Yes. I keep hoping I’ll run across more records or that missing church book will turn up.”
“I understand,” he said. “I must have looked through these boxes dozens of times, but I still come down here with the hope of uncovering an elusive piece of information or some unexpected revelation. It’s like a treasure hunt.”
“It’s addictive,” I said.
He beamed. “Yes, exactly.” He turned back to the boxes, his gaze moving over them. “It’s a coincidence to find you down here this morning. I was just coming to look through some of the Oak Grove records myself.”
“Really? Why?”
“I was contacted by a police detective this morning. He has some historical questions about the cemetery, it seems. He wouldn’t say much, only that he’d like to stop by later this afternoon, but he dropped one hint that has me intrigued. He asked if there had been any other buildings on the property, other than the old church, before the cemetery was put in.”
“Were there?”
“No…none that I’m aware of.”
I sensed his hesitance. “You would know, wouldn’t you? You said you’d been through everything down here a number of times.”
“Yes, but the records are incomplete. As I mentioned the other day, a lot of the old papers were destroyed during and after the war.”
“Can you tell me anything about the property that might not be common knowledge?”
“Nothing concrete. But I’ve always assumed that Emerson was built on the site of the old Bedford plantation house. The original home burned down in the late eighteenth century and I was certain the house had been rebuilt over the old site. But now that Detective Devlin has posed the question about Oak Grove, I’m wondering if that might have been the site of the original plantation house.”
“Wouldn’t there be some mention of it in the county deed books?”
“Not if they were deliberately removed.”
I glanced up. “Why would someone do that?”
He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “To protect whatever it is that Detective Devlin has uncovered in the cemetery.”
My heart skipped a beat. “You’re talking about someone scrubbing county records, church registers, the university archives…”
“If one has enough money or influence, one can make anything disappear,” he said softly.
“That’s a very interesting observation,” I said.
He shot another furtive look over his shoulder and leaned in a bit. “After our talk the other day, I’ve done
