Teddy wanted to hate him at that moment. But he obviously cared about his job. About helping people. Plus, he was hot.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t have a goddamn clue how any of you do what you do. It’s more than a little spooky to the average cop. And frankly, we cops don’t like someone else knowing more than we do and making us look stupid.” He extended his arms, palms up. “You know what I say to that? Tough. It’s time to put our egos aside and work together.”
Teddy knew that her peers would be won over by this speech. Most of them—at least the Misfits—felt like weirdos out in the “real world.” They’d grown up knowing that what made them different should be kept hidden. And here was FBI Special Agent Nick Stavros telling them that their psychic abilities could actually save lives. In the end, that was all they wanted. Why else would they put up with the grueling physical tests and emotional trials—the bullshit insanity of Sergeant Boyd—to be here? Even the shocking knowledge that Clint and Nick had manipulated her into coming to Whitfield hadn’t deterred Teddy. Infuriated her, yes. Convinced her she couldn’t trust them, absolutely. Despite that betrayal, she had stayed.
“All right,” Nick said. “Casework. Let’s get to it.”
He returned to his laptop and hit a key. The adobe structure in the desert disappeared. In its place was a photograph of a striking young man, a teenager in baggy shorts and a T-shirt. He was lean and long-limbed, with shaggy sun-streaked brown hair and a brazen smile.
“Corey McDonald,” Nick said. He studied the photo for a moment, then swiveled back to look at the class. “Instant impressions. Throw out the first word that comes to mind.”
The answers varied. Athletic. Attractive. Young. Rich. Californian.
“Interesting. A roomful of psychics, and not one of you used the word murderer to describe him.” Nick clicked to the next image, which showed the same young man in an orange jumpsuit. “Who said Californian?”
Kate raised her hand. “I felt like he was near water, sand, a beach. So, Californian.”
“Corey McDonald went to San Jose State. And so did she.” The next image showed a pretty brunette with big brown eyes. “Marlena Hyden.” Nick turned to the class once again. “Initial impressions?”
“Gone,” Ava said flatly.
Nick closed his laptop. “Corey McDonald, a nineteen-year-old kid with no criminal record, was convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Marlena Hyden. McDonald maintains his innocence, and so does his family.
“That’s where all of you come in.” Nick scanned the room. “An appellate court will review McDonald’s case. That’s on the docket three months from today. You’ll divide into two teams and perform a psychic analysis of the case. Then one representative from each team will accompany me to interview Corey at San Quentin in the weeks leading up to hearing. Look for anything that might have been overlooked during the first trial. There was a lot of media attention on this case, a lot of pressure to put it to bed quickly. If the investigating DA and local cops got it wrong, push us toward the right perpetrator.”
Nick scanned the room. “Each group will get the same information, but essentially, it’s a race against the clock—and each other—to find anything we missed and make sure justice is done.”
Henry was already whispering to Kate. Even though Teddy and Kate had formed a convenient alliance after their first exam, Teddy knew how the teams would shake out. Misfits vs. Alphas. And the Alphas had a claircognizant, two clairvoyants, a telepath, someone who received messages through dreams, and a medium. The Misfits had a weirdo who could sometimes predict someone’s death, a free spirit who could mostly talk to animals (both on this side and the next, to be fair), someone who was so crippled by her ability to read emotions that she’d just had a nervous breakdown, a bad boy with the ability to set things on fire, an awkward psychometrist, and a telepath who could barely control her own powers. Which team was going to win again?
“There’s an extra incentive to solving the case,” Nick said. “In addition to seeing justice done, the star student on the winning team will get a private tour of the FBI field office in San Francisco.”
Teddy couldn’t care less about the tour. Sure, she was sick of losing to the Alphas, but now she had a chance to do something important.
Dara raised her hand. “When do we start?”
“Now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE MISFITS SPENT TWO PAINFUL weeks going through every piece of paperwork associated with the case. None of them had gleaned any insight from the astral plane, so they were determined to mine the physical one and learn the case inside and out.
Here was what they knew: a jogger had discovered Marlena Hyden’s body in a marsh along a wetland trail roughly twenty miles from San Jose State. Since the body had stayed in the water for so long, the coroner could not definitively determine the cause of death; in court, he said that he believed the bruising around Marlena’s neck indicated she’d been strangled, but physical evidence was inconclusive. It was the perfect case for psychics.
Here was what they guessed: Corey’s shifting account of his whereabouts the night of Marlena’s disappearance, physical evidence found in his car, and testimony given by dormitory residents that he and Marlena had fought before her death had led to his conviction. The DA had sold the murder as a crime of passion. The night of Marlena’s death, the DA claimed, Corey had snapped.
What they needed—and none of them saw a way around it—was to examine the evidence kits.
After trials, Nick explained, journalists and third parties were sometimes allowed to go through pertinent physical evidence. He made a call, pushing hard for the district court to release kits from both the prosecution and the defense. Ten days later, as Nick handed out
