Nobody had. Ben called through the door, “Can I help you?”
“Tell Kitty to let me in,” a voice answered. I recognized the voice and made a dash for the door.
“Why am I not surprised?” Ben grumbled.
“I’ll talk to him. It’ll only take a minute.”
I cracked open the door to find Peter Gurney, young, intense, focused, slouching in his canvas army jacket, standing on the porch outside the room. This was such bad timing. I didn’t know what he wanted—to accuse me of lying again or to demand more information that I didn’t have—but there had to be a better time for it.
We regarded each other for a moment. “Peter. As much as I’d love to talk to you, this really isn’t—”
“I want to talk to them,” he said and pointed into the room behind me.
I looked at the PI team, who were now staring at us with interest, and back at Peter. I fought past the cognitive dissonance—what did Peter even know about them? “Oh? Why?”
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“I’ll tell them,” he said, almost surly. He was nervous, his hands fidgeting with the hem of his jacket. He had to work to summon this bravado.
“What’s happened?” I said. “What have you been up to, besides following me around?” He had the grace to look chagrined at that. That didn’t stop him.
“I need to talk to you.” He called this over my shoulder, toward the table where the Paradox team gathered. This couldn’t have been great timing for them, either. I wondered: Was Peter a fan? Did they get accosted by fans a lot?
I said, “Peter, I’m sure you’re upset, but this isn’t a good time. Maybe you could come back—”
“I have a job for you,” he said to the team, glaring at me as an afterthought. I blocked the doorway, or he might have shoved his way in.
“Sounds serious,” Tina said.
“Maybe not to you,” Peter said. “But it is to me. I want to hire you.”
“Got a place that’s haunted, then?” Jules said.
“No. Not really.” He was still nervous, his gaze darting. I got the feeling he really didn’t want to be here, but he was desperate. He said, “I need you to talk to my brother.”
“What?” I said, disbelieving. Of all the ridiculous . . . Desperate didn’t begin to cover it. My sympathy ran out, all at once. This wasn’t grief—this was not being able to face reality. “Peter, what are you thinking?”
“I’ve been following you—”
“I know,” I said.
His gaze was stone cold and dead serious. “If you were lying about Ted, I’d follow you and maybe you’d lead me to him.”
“Except he’s dead,” I said, more harshly than I wanted. T.J. was dead, and I didn’t want to keep dwelling on it.
He shut his eyes tight and marshaled words. “I know . . . I know that now. I believe you. But since I’ve been trailing you, I’ve been watching her.”
He gestured to Tina.
“I know about you. If there was another way to try this, I would, believe me. But I don’t think there is. I want you to try to talk to him. Maybe . . . maybe he can tell you what happened. I just want to talk to him one more time.”
God. He was a kid again. That was all he wanted, for his older brother to tell him he loved him. Some reassurance that he hadn’t been abandoned. I understood the feeling. I kind of wanted to talk to T.J. right now myself. Maybe ask, Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother? Why didn’t you tell me you ran away from your family? Why didn’t you tell me anything?
The Paradox crew watched him, silent.
Peter kept trying. “I can pay you. I’m not looking for a conversation, I just want . . . something. A sign. Some kind of proof.”
“You and every other bloke in human history,” Jules muttered.