Living With the Dead (Otherworld 9)

"Right." She hit the speed-dial button, didn't raise it to her ear. Just let it ring twice, then hung up and said, "I'm going to take a look. If I freeze up, don't worry unless you hear anything. Then just yank me back."

Hope eased past Robyn. She was still a foot from the edge when she went rigid. Then she backed up.

"It's not Adele," Hope said.

"What? You didn't see - "

Hope held up a finger as her phone buzzed, the vibration as loud as a ring. Robyn circled past her, to peek around the corner.

Beside the boy's body crouched the man from the bookstore. The one who'd brought that display carousel crashing down.

They were in the rental car, heading... Robyn wasn't sure where exactly, and she supposed it wasn't important.

"So you said you recognized his scent?" Hope was saying to Karl in the front seat. "He was the guy following us earlier, right?"

"At the diner and the bookstore, yes. And earlier than that. Remember Friday night, when you were getting takeout... ?"

"You thought a guy was watching us and followed him around the back. That's where you knew the scent from. It was him. So he's involved. He clearly knew the boy. The grief and guilt was so - "

Hope's head jerked up.

"Do you sense something?" Robyn leaned farther over the seat.

"No, I hear something."

The bzz-bzz of Hope's cell phone vibrating. As Hope struggled to get it from her back pocket, Karl reached over and deftly plucked it out.

"Thanks. I'm sure it's just that detective again. He keeps calling from other numbers, hoping I'll answer if I don't recognize - " She glanced at the display. "Whoops. This one I do recognize."

She answered. "Hey, Lucas. Do you have more on clairvoyants for me?"

Hope's smile dropped. "Who?"

She glanced at Karl. He'd stopped at a light, and was frowning at Hope as if he could hear, which Robyn supposed maybe he could.

"Are you sure?" Hope paused. "No, I understand." Another pause. "Sure, how about..." She glanced at her watch. "Tell him half an hour."

Hope hung up. "We need to make a pit stop."

* * *

ADELE

Adele watched through the car windows as a stretcher carried Colm's body away.

Colm was dead. Thank the gods.

She put the car into drive and continued past the ambulance and the cruisers lining the road. Two officers glanced at her car as she drove by, then returned to their watch. As long as she didn't stop to gawk, they weren't interested in her.

Driving past hadn't been a step she'd wanted to take. Added risk. But she'd had to know. Adele had been remote-viewing Robyn when she'd run onto the roof and Adele had seen Colm jump.

If he wasn't dead, she prayed that he'd still be there, and she'd get to him first so she could put him out of his misery. Suffocation, she decided - it could be attributed to the fall. She couldn't take him, injured, back to the kumpania or she'd have to explain how he got that way.

On the drive, she'd cursed Colm. She'd trusted him and he'd betrayed her with his incompetence. After all she'd done for him.

But now, seeing that he was dead, she granted his memory a smidgen of grudging respect. He might have screwed up, but he'd realized his mistake and made the right choice, protecting her.

Still, she'd have to explain his death to the kumpania. As she drove, she crafted a few stories, rejecting each as casting too many droplets of blame her way. Before she passed the city limits, she realized the solution - the man at the bookstore.