“So who do we have left?” Dave murmured sadly. “The mole is either Cam, Jet, or Natchez.” He went to the bench and sank down onto it, clasping his hands between his knees, staring at the ornate carpet. Cassandra followed, sat beside him.
“Can you tell us more about these men?” she asked.
“What about you?” he snapped. “Why can’t you just tap them and tell who’s betrayed me?”
She flinched, almost as if he’d hit her. “I’m sorry,” he said instantly. “I just can’t believe . . . you can’t imagine what we’ve been through together.”
“Our original plan was for me to try to divine their purposes,” Cassandra assured him. “Unfortunately, something happened to me the moment I touched you. I was afraid to speak. And I wasn’t sure until I linked with Jasmine just now. And nothing happened. Then I knew. I’ve gone muddled.”
I guess we were all kind of gaping at her like seals at the zoo, hoping for a jaw full of fish. Tears sprang to her eyes. “It’s not something over which I have any control. One doesn’t plan for these things!”
“What do you mean by muddled?” I asked.
Cassandra tended to play with her hands when nervous. Since she wore multiple rings on her long, slender fingers, it was a wonder little golden circlets weren’t popping off her knuckles like tiddlywinks. She darted one glance at Dave and then refused to look at him anymore as she told me, “Sometimes a Seer who is overwhelmed by a strong emotion becomes so inundated by all the wonderful possibilities that emotion opens up to her that she can See no other visions. That is what has happened to me.”
It took me about a half a second to get it, and then, oh baby, did I! “You mean —”
“Yes,” she interrupted, “exactly.”
“I don’t get it,” said Cole. He moved to sit on the valet chair. His costume looked odd to me, though his beige- and-white-striped shirt and olive-green pants weren’t that different from any of the other guys’. Then I realized I was missing the red high-tops he typically wore. “Are you, like, too scared to See?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Then what is it?” asked Bergman.
Cassandra gave me a pleading look.
I shook my head, too unsure of how I felt about the event to actually describe it aloud. “I think you’re going to have to tell them,” I said.
“Now?”
Dave took Cassandra’s hand in his. Her eyes went wide and a bemused sort of half smile spread across her face as he said, “Look, I’d appreciate anything you can do. Wondering which one of my brothers stabbed me in the back is pretty much killing me.”
“I want to help.” Cassandra ducked her head. “I just can’t right now.” She shrugged, spoke in a voice so low I think only Dave and I heard her. “Maybe love really is blind.”
Dave stared at her for a couple of beats before his whole countenance lifted, as if a plastic surgeon had slid a computer printout in front of his actual face and said, “See, I can make you look ten years younger!”
Before our newest couple could get with the romance, I turned to Bergman. “We need to figure out how our traitor is contacting the Wizard. Nobody left the farmhouse, but either the Wizard or one of his apprentices knew to raise those zombies. What’s that tell you?”
“The mole was probably carrying a bug. Or, more likely, had planted it on somebody else. So the Wizard knew all about the reavers. But he still had to signal the necromancer to raise the zombies, because he wouldn’t have risked coming close enough for you or Cole to sense him.” Bergman looked at Dave, who couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Cassandra, who suddenly found the bedspread fascinating. “Yo, Romeo.” Bergman waved his hands, like a flight deck crew member clearing his pilot for takeoff.
“Uh, yeah.” Dave smirked in a way I hadn’t seen him do since he was eighteen. Good grief, what had happened to our badass military man? Had he truly been taken down by the blurry-eyed psychic?
“I’m thinking silent signal,” Bergman went on, eyeing the couple doubtfully. I wasn’t sure they were listening either. “There are a couple of different methods they might have used. We can test for them if you want. Of course we’ll have to fly to Mars for the equipment, but I’m sure we’ll be back in time for supper.”
Bergman raised his eyebrows at me as Dave glanced at Cassandra and nodded. “He’s got it bad,” Miles whispered.
“And vice versa,” I replied.
“What’re we going to do?” Cole muttered. “We need Dave in his right mind. After all, he’s kind of in charge.”
Actually, if you wanted to be anal about it, Vayl was in charge. But I wasn’t in the mood for technicalities at the moment. I took a second to observe my twin as he leaned toward Cassandra, whose hand he had not relinquished, and murmured into her ear. For a second I couldn’t place his expression, it had been that long since I’d seen it.
“He’s also happy,” I told them. And I realized, whether Vayl had been right or wrong about my reaction to it, I had to back off and let this relationship run its course. “Let’s give him that, at least for the next few minutes.” I was pretty sure neither one of them noticed when we left the room.
Chapter Ten
Cole, Bergman, and I reconvened in the girls’ bedroom. After a repeat of the flying card trick, we discovered no bugs. Not surprising. Still, we all huddled on the silver-framed bed and spoke in the hushed voices of those who are about to tell some truly gruesome ghost stories.
“Okay,” I said, “we have three suspects who we need to learn a lot about in a short amount of time without them realizing we’re doing research. Any ideas?”
“Get ’em all drunk and hire some strippers,” Cole said immediately. “You’ll find out everything you need to know in twenty minutes.”
