When Cole and Paige drove back into Omaha, they were just in time for rush hour. Compared to the snarled tangle of metal and pissed-off commuters they would have found in Chicago or Kansas City, it was nothing more than a time for drivers to slow down and listen to the radio. The heat had eased off and lunch was still a very fond, very spicy memory, so they took their time and moseyed back to MEG Branch 18. Their easygoing mood lasted until they walked through the doors of the ghost chasers’ office.
“There you are!” Rosetta said from behind the front desk. “You’ll never believe this! We caught a break and we can head out to those homes in Valparaiso
Cole blinked and reflexively looked over to Paige. “Really? What happened?”
Mick strode down the short hallway with a spiral notebook in one hand and the nub of a pencil in the other. “I don’t know if it’s what you’re after, but there’s been activity reported. One lady called less than an hour ago and told us she saw some sort of faceless figure in her backyard.”
Still watching Paige, Cole said, “That’s interesting.”
Her poker face held up well enough.
“This isn’t just one isolated instance!” Mick continued. “There really may be something out there. A kid next door to this woman saw a similar figure run down her driveway. She said it had holes in her back and no face. I’ve never even heard of anything like this.”
“Don’t get all worked up,” Paige said. “If we find it, we’ll deal with it.”
“I know, but if there is a presence or some sort of entity there, that falls under our jurisdiction, right?”
Cole saw a flicker of conscience pass across Paige’s face. “Yeah,” she said. “If you find anything in the ghost family, it’s all yours.”
Mick and Rosetta turned to each other, grinned, and went through a few other congratulatory motions. “The lady who called back was freaked out enough to give us free access to her home,” Rosetta said. “I asked about her neighbors and she told me she’d have a word with them. Even if we don’t hear back, once the neighbors see us parked in someone’s driveway, they’ll start asking questions. At the very least, I think we should be able to get in and have a quick look around one or two more houses.”
“Perfect,” Paige said. “When do we leave?”
“I’ve already called Quentin and Val. We’ll have a briefing, I’ll introduce you, we’ll get the equipment together…what’s that smell?”
Cole averted his eyes, but Paige shrugged as if she truly didn’t have remnants of the acrid scent of invisibility oil drifting from her clothes.
Cutting the awkward moment short, Mick said, “We should be on the road by seven-thirty or eight. You guys want to hang out here until then?”
Just as Cole was about to cover for whatever excuse Paige came up with for them to leave, he heard her say, “Sure. I’d like to see what you guys do here.”
Mick and Rosetta were almost as surprised as Cole. Once they got over that, the grand tour began.
“This,” Rosetta said proudly as she waved toward her desk, “is my phone.”
It was just past seven-thirty, and the sun stubbornly refused to drop. In fact, it seemed intent on hanging at just the right angle to blaze directly into Cole’s eyes as he drove toward Valparaiso for the second time that day. It was too low for the car’s visor to do any good and still too high for him to look away. Due to the fact that the driver of the MEG van actually obeyed the speed limit, it took them just over an hour to reach the light blue house Paige had terrorized earlier. The van Cole followed was dark red and had MEG BRANCH 18 stenciled on one side. After pulling into the driveway, Mick hopped out from behind the wheel, waved, pointed toward the front door, and held up five fingers.
Cole parked the Cav and stepped out as the side door of the MEG van noisily rolled open.
The guy who emerged from the van had about a hundred clones wandering the halls of Digital Dreamers, Inc. He was in his mid-to late twenties, a little taller than Cole, but several pounds lighter. Thick, brushy hair looked like an abandoned project residing on his head, and the glasses he wore seemed thick enough to act as windows on a space station.
“Real great to meet you, Cole,” the younger guy said as he approached the Cav. “Is that Paige there with ya?”
Paige got out and shook his hand. “That’s me.”
“I’m Quentin. Historian and director of Special Projects for Branch 18. If you’ve got stories you wouldn’t mind telling or just want to fill me in on what you guys have been up to, I’m ready to listen.”
“He’s not a stalker, by the way,” added a skinny blond girl who looked just old enough to be somewhere in the first couple years of college. “Special Projects is pretty much anything regarding people like you two.”
Quentin nodded. “I probably connected a few phone calls for you both at one time or another.”
Flipping her short hair behind an ear, the blonde stepped past Quentin to say, “And he never lets us hear the end of it. I’m Val. Just an investigator around here, which adds up to a whole lot of walking around in dark rooms and sifting through hours upon hours of video.”
“That cool video they show on TV?” Cole asked.
“Mostly it’s just video of us walking through dark rooms. The audiotapes of that are riveting, by the way.”
Paige grinned and followed Val around to the back of the van. “I like her. Let’s make ourselves useful and unload this stuff.”
While Cole, Paige, and Val unloaded the van, Quentin tried to look busy at a tricked-out laptop. After a few minutes of that, Mick opened the front door of the house and waved at them again.
“Time for us to get set up inside,” Val said.
Paige hefted a large plastic case from the van and set it down on the driveway. “Are all those waves some sort of code?”
“Nah. He waves at us and we do things how we always do them.”
There were a lot fewer wires and cords than Cole had been expecting. Val handed out flashlights, cameras, and digital audio recorders, while Quentin set up his own equipment at the back of the van and Mick escorted the home owner to the next door neighbor’s place. By the time they were ready to head inside, the last remaining traces of sunlight were orange smears across a prairie sky.
“Is there a reason why you always do this in the dark?” Cole asked. “Or is that just to make it all seem scarier?”
“We’re not trying to make anything look scary,” Mick replied. “We need to worry about reflections showing up in pictures or windows, stray light hitting dust particles, not to mention keeping on the lookout for anything giving off its own light. That’s the good stuff, and we can miss it if it’s being washed out by too much sunlight.”
“The short answer for that,” Val said as she walked by, “is yes. There are reasons for doing this in the dark.”
Paige chuckled mostly to herself as she followed along behind Val. “I really do like her.”
They filed into the house, which was an odd mix of decorating styles, including several layers of afghans draped over the sofas and a few pieces of modern art hanging on the walls. The living room was small and led into a smaller dining area, but none of that caught Cole’s attention as much as what was in the back corner near a closet.
“Is that a stripper pole?” he whispered.
Mick leaned over and hissed, “Just keep checking your equipment.”
“If the lady who owns this place has a stripper pole, maybe I should check her equipment.”
“She’s sixty if she’s a day. Besides, we’re not here to make fun of her home. Are you going to do your job or should you wait outside?”
Cole let Val and Paige walk ahead and down a hall that led past a fairly nice kitchen. The light from their flashlights was just enough to cast a dull glow throughout the space.
Mick stood beside him, rummaging through the various pieces of electronics clipped to D-rings on his shirt and belt. “This,” he said while tapping a black box he handed over to Cole, “is a K2 meter. It’s basically a simpler version of our EMF detectors. See those lights?”
The box Cole had been given was bigger than a cigarette lighter but slightly smaller than a glasses case. An arc of little lightbulbs crossing along the top of the box went from green to red as they progressed from left to right. At
