Dead Silence (The Body Finder 4)

Jimmy was the one who caught us as we were searching through the files. We told him what we suspected.

Muriel said she was thinking of quitting the Seven. All the while I was calm, almost too calm, as if Jimmy were manipulating me. Then he said that she couldn’t quit, they wouldn’t let her.

They, he said. It was ominous, and my feelings were exactly what they should have been. Fear. He told us that no one leaves the Circle.

He didn’t say “the Seven,” which is what the rest of us call ourselves. He said, “the Circle,” as if the number changes. As if we weren’t the first group they’ve assembled.

July 15, 1987

Muriel is dead. And I know why. She tried to quit the Circle.

I have to find a way out.

Violet sat back on her heels, as the goose bumps that had started at the base of her neck bloomed outward, spreading over her body, until she was covered in them.

The Circle of Seven. They’d been just like her team. Just like Rafe and Gemma and Krystal and Sam. And whatever phantom organization had directed the Seven, from behind the scenes, assembling them and then giving them tasks, was so eerily similar to whoever was running the Center—it made Violet’s head spin.

What if those similarities weren’t just a coincidence? What if there was some connection between the group her grandmother had belonged to and the team she was on now?

Except, how was that even possible? The members of the Seven had been asked to participate in corporate espionage—even if it was of the psychic variety. Their skills had been used to manipulate financial dealings, had been utilized for personal gain and wealth. Violet’s team wasn’t like that.

They were helping to find missing persons and stop killers. There was nothing selfish about that, nothing materialistic about what they did.

Besides, that was almost thirty years ago.

Yet . . .

She thought of the Center, where her team met. She pictured the state-of-the-art facility and the high-tech feel, with the computers and LCD monitors . . . and yes, even the security. The cameras and the keypads at every entry. Hadn’t her grandmother mentioned the security?

She thought too of the fact that her mom had always told her that her grandma had never found a dead person before, not the way Violet had. That the echoes she’d discovered had always been limited to animals she’d come across.

Lies, Violet knew now. Lies that her grandmother had been forced to tell to protect her family, to keep them safe from a group she suspected were capable of murder.

How many other secrets had there been? How many other lies?

Still reeling, Violet was about to close the journal when she saw something sticking out from between the pages. A slip of paper, maybe. She stuck her finger between the pages of the journal, and just as she was opening the book, a photograph drifted out, floating to the floor in front of her.

She didn’t have to pick it up to realize what she was looking at. Who she was looking at. All she had to do was count.

They were all there, the Circle of Seven.

Gingerly, she plucked up the image, holding it close and inspecting it. She recognized her grandmother right away. She was younger than Violet remembered her, and smiling, making Violet think this picture had been taken before she’d known what the group was all about. Before she’d grown to fear them.

Her eyes roved over their faces, and she realized that all of these people were older than the members of her own team—even Krystal, who was their oldest member at twenty-one. These were adults, all of them. Most closer to her grandmother’s age than to her own.

And then she felt the floor drop out from beneath her as all of her doubts evaporated in a single instant.

Dr. Lee . . .

Violet looked at the picture again, letting her finger wander over the faded paper—but not so faded that she couldn’t see him, couldn’t recognize his face. Even thirty years younger, she knew it was him.

She tried to recall whether any of the entries she’d read in her grandmother’s journals had named him, but then realized that they had, she just hadn’t put two and two together. Why would she? Jimmy, or James rather, was a common-enough name.

He was the young man who could make others feel calm.

Violet crossed her arms in front of her, trying to ward away the chill that enveloped her, cupping her elbows and drawing her arms against her chest. She took that in as she thought about the visits she’d had with Dr. Lee.

How much of what he’d taught her was truly technique—meditation, hypnosis, breathing—and how much of what she’d felt was simply the result of his own unusual ability to make those around him relax? To take away their stress, their discomfort?

But for someone who could put others at ease, he certainly hadn’t always used it. He’d let her be angry and suspicious in the days and weeks since he’d forced her hand. He hadn’t calmed her when she’d been sullen or disrespectful during their mandatory sessions.

She supposed he had no reason to stop her from feeling those things; she wasn’t hurting anyone really. She’d never actually left the team, despite all her frustration and fury with him.

But then she remembered . . .

He had used it on her, she was sure of it . . . when she’d asked him about Rafe and Gemma coming to her school. The way she’d blindly accepted his explanation, and his involvement in the decision to have them attend White River.

She remembered, too, how she’d felt later, when she’d gone home and thought about it; she’d been frustrated with herself for not questioning him further, for not arguing with him. Suddenly she questioned everything. Everyone.