She just smiled at him and stayed silent. No way she could explain how she touched on souls with her work. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you find that you use anything like that yourself? Psychics or any kind of energy work?”
He shrugged. “I see energy around people and objects. I’m told it’s auras, but I have never put it to any good use.”
“I’ve heard that from a lot of people. If you look just to the side, out of the corner of your eye, people can see things that we wouldn’t have expected, like the energy around an object.”
“But what good does it do us?” he asked, with a smile.
“Well, if you see something different than the normal white energy,” she said impulsively, “it’s supposed to tell you something.”
“Well, if I look at you,” he said, “I do see the white border around you. But I also know that, before I come, it’s usually wider, and then, when you see me, it shrinks.”
She looked at him, smiled, and said, “Well, yours changes too. It does that when you approach people.” Of course she didn’t add in what happened when he approached her. The trouble was, she loved that his energy was all over her. There wasn’t anything threatening about it. It was almost protective.
He looked at her in astonishment. “Why would it happen with me?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It happens with a lot of people when they come toward me. I figure it’s because they don’t like me. Maybe it’s the same way how people view you.”
He settled back on the bench and shook his head. “I don’t have any reason to not like you,” he said, “so that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Nothing makes sense in a lot of ways,” she said tiredly. “Like a beautiful light such as Elena being snuffed out before her time.”
“What was her aura like?”
“Calm, beautiful, soothing. I felt at peace when I was near her,” she said abruptly, not sure how to explain how special Elena’s energy was.
“As if somebody had been through the shit and had come out okay on the other side?”
Again she felt that start of surprise at his perceptiveness. “Somebody who’d been through the worst in life, found herself, made it to the other side, and was comfortable, regardless of what accusations, criticism, or jealousy was thrown at her. She was centered. And nothing seemed to faze her.”
“If she was in the room right now with us,” he said, “what would her reaction to you be?”
“She would tell me, C’est la vie,” she said instantly. “She never expected to live long, and she always said that the good went early. She’d lost several friends throughout the years and found it easier to almost ignore their deaths than deal with it.”
“Interesting,” he said. He glanced around. “Have you ever considered going to a medium to see if they can contact her?”
She leaned forward and asked, “Have you?”
He frowned at her.
“If you’ve got connections in the police department, why don’t you bring Stefan in on the case?”
“Because we don’t have budget money for it because it’s not yet high profile,” he said, emphasizing the yet, “and it’s hard to get permission for things like that. Stefan does a few pro bono cases, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt, but … all his cases for us can’t be free of charge.”
“Right,” she said with a smile. Just then her phone rang. She put it down on the bench between them and said, “I’m not answering that.”
“You might want to see who it is,” he said.
She tapped the top of her phone, letting her in, and they both stared when they saw Stefan Kronos’s name show up on her phone.
He gave her a hard glare. “I thought you didn’t know him.”
“I don’t,” she said, puzzled.
“If his name is showing up, it means he’s in your Contacts.”
She shook her head mutely.
He tapped the Answer button, putting it on Speaker. “Go ahead and answer.”
“Yes, do answer, please,” Stefan said, his humorous tone coming through the phone. “It’s already a trick to do this. I could reach you in other ways, but it takes more energy than I have to spare right now.” And, indeed, fatigue was evident in his voice, but it was mingled with humor.
“Hello, Stefan,” she said. “I know of you from Dr. Maddy, but I’ve never spoken to you before.”
“No, you haven’t, and of course you have Detective Henderson sitting there with you, right?”
Shocked, the two looked at each other.
Henderson, his voice hard, snapped, “How did you know that?”
“Because of energy,” Stefan said. “I don’t really have a ton of time or my own energy to expend trying to convince you of this. I do not know Cayce and haven’t spoken with her before, but it’s important that both of you realize a darkness is around you, around both of you.”
“What kind of darkness, and why do I care?” she asked in confusion. “This makes no sense.” She studied her phone, wondering how the hell that trick worked and what the specific energy was that he spoke about.
“There’s a killer, not targeting you but targeting your work, your life, your soul,” he said.
“This makes no sense,” she murmured. She stared down at her phone in shock. When she raised her gaze, she saw the doubt and disbelief in the detective’s gaze as he stared at her. She glared at him. “I had nothing to do with this.”
“No, she didn’t,” Stefan said, his voice quiet. “Henderson, you need to check into my files if you don’t understand that.”
“I know of you,” Richard said, “but I don’t know you. I’ve never worked with you.”
“Well, you can talk to a couple people,” and he named off a few names.
She didn’t know either of them, but, based on the look on Richard’s face, he did.
He nodded. “Okay, fine. So you have
