“So Brandi relied on Ginny.”

“And vice versa. You never saw the two of them apart.”

Not even in death.

I FINISHED UP with Mulligan and left with a business card, as he jokingly promised to set me up with a “real bike” if I ever got tired of the Triumph. I had about an hour before my dinner with Michael Kennedy, so I retreated to the motel to do some research. I started with a call to Jaime, my necromancer contact, to see whether this ritual sounded like anything she knew.

Jaime Vegas was a celebrity spiritualist. She mainly did live shows these days, where she contacted the dead to reassure the living. Great gig for a necromancer ... except most times, Jaime faked it. She had to. The messages that the living need aren’t necessarily the ones the dead want to impart.

There’s one ghost whose messages Jaime does occasionally pass on. My mother’s. Some necromancers have spirit guides, and my mother is Jaime’s. She’s not supposed to convey messages to Mom’s loved ones—it’s considered disruptive to both the living and the dead—but we bend the rules ... just not often enough to get Mom reassigned.

I consider Jaime a friend, even if she’s over twice my age and I’ve known her since I was a kid. That’s how it is with most of my really good friends. I grew up with these people. I sat backstage at Jaime’s shows. I went to art galleries with Cassandra DuCharme, a four-hundred-year-old vampire. I spent summers with the werewolf Pack—Elena and Clay and Jeremy. It’s a strange way to grow up, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

Jaime answered on the fourth ring. She sounded out of breath. I waited, not too worried that she was fleeing mortal danger or anything. If Jaime’s out of breath, it’s from overdoing it on the treadmill.

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with Paige,” she said. “Has she already left for Hawaii?”

“Yep. Anything I can help with?”

“No, just council business. Hold on.” I heard her muffled voice talking to someone. She came back with, “Sorry about that. So are you holding down the fort alone?”

“Actually not holding it down at all. I’m off on a case.”

“Really? That’s great. Where?”

“About an hour from Portland.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed, like she’d been hoping I was close enough to visit. “So you’re going home at night, then?”

“No, staying in a motel. Getting some experience living on the road.”

“That’s a good idea. A great idea,” she said, with more enthusiasm than it warranted. “With everyone else gone, you might as well have some fun. Take your time, too. You deserve a break.”

“Uh, okay. Speaking of breaks, we’re still on for New York later this month, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great, now if you have a second, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Sure.”

I described the chalk marks and the silver object, and she said there were a few rituals that came to mind and asked me to send the pictures for a better look.

Then we talked about our trip for a few minutes. Summer was almost here, and I needed a new wardrobe, which meant a trip to New York with my favorite shopping buddy.

Going to New York to buy clothes is my one real indulgence. I’m independently wealthy—a phrase I’ve come to love, to Adam’s unending annoyance.

My dad, being the scion of the Nast Cabal, left a fortune to his kids. Or to his sons, at least. My half brother Sean is sure our father had rewritten his will to add me when he discovered he had a daughter. Kristof Nast might have been a cold-blooded bastard, but he’d loved my mother and he loved his children. After his death, though, only the original will was found—the one dividing his estate between his two sons. My grandfather refuses to acknowledge me, so if there was a new will, I’m sure he got rid of it.

If Sean thought I should have been included, though, he was going to make sure I got my share. So he’d set up a trust fund for me with part of his own inheritance. Until I was twenty-five, it only paid an allowance-five thousand a month—but I reinvested most of that. My salary covered my daily expenses, and it didn’t feel right, blowing my inheritance when it had come out of Sean’s money.

I supposed when I got access to the funds, I’d buy a condo or something. I didn’t have any firm plans. That applied to most of my life right now. I liked where I was. Occasionally, I got the feeling I should be leaving home and setting out on my own, but it never happened. I’d go when I was ready, I guess.

AFTER SAYING GOOD-BYE to Jaime, I read the reports, which could be summed up as “three young women were murdered.”

The coroner’s report did mention the object in Claire’s hand. A pewter bead. A note on the file speculated it came from something she’d been wearing, but no one had found a necklace or bracelet. Had it been yanked off her killer? That was a possibility. A plain piece of pewter, though, was more likely symbolic.

I searched the reports for Ginny and Brandi. No mention of anything found in their hands or of any pewter in the vicinity. I could ask Bruyn, but if it was supernatural in origin, I didn’t want him to know it might be significant.

I moved on to Internet searches. As I expected by now, the motel didn’t offer Internet service. Luckily, Paige showed me how to tether my laptop to my iPhone, which was a relief, because as cool as that little browser app is, it’s a bitch for doing serious Web work.

The first person I looked up was Michael Kennedy. With a name like that, can you imagine how many hits I got? Even knowing he was from Texas didn’t help.

Eventually, I found a newspaper article about a case he’d worked. Being a photogenic guy, his picture was included—one of him turning away, unimpressed with the prospect of being captured on film. It was clearly him, though, so his story was legit.

Next on my list: Cody Radu, a name that was much easier to search. The first hit I got was Facebook. One look at the picture and I had my guy, and a read through his profile gave me more information on him than I cared to know. That alone suggested the diner folks were right about Cody. He was one of those people who pretends to be an open book, putting every bit of minutiae about himself into the public domain, as if to say “See, I’m not holding anything back,” which tells you that he is.

I tried pairing up Cody with search terms like drugs, sex, gambling, everything I could think of that might link to illegal activity. Nothing. If it were that easy, though, Bruyn would have nabbed him by now.

So I switched to Alastair Koppel. Plenty of hits for him. There was a Facebook group and a Web site run by the parents of girls who’d joined his commune. Neither were exactly flattering to the old guy.

He wasn’t that old, though. Midforties. Decent enough looking. Dignified. The kind of guy whom lost little girls would flock to.

Flock they did. Megan hadn’t been lying about that. I found a dozen message boards with young women asking how to get into the commune, and more from young women agonizing over why they hadn’t been accepted.

Megan hadn’t been lying about the cookies either. The small business had been written up in a handful of magazines as a model of entrepreneurship. Of course, they glossed over the commune part, preferring to praise the company’s “unique and philanthropic” model, which combined rehabilitation with enterprise.

As Megan had said, Alastair was a therapist, though the sites run by the girls’ parents were quick to point out he had a bachelor’s degree, not a doctorate. They also noted his work history, which showed that the guy liked to move around. And he changed wives as fast as he did jobs. Four ex-wives, the dates of the weddings running close enough to the divorce decrees that you knew he hadn’t finished with one before starting on the next. Each divorce petition charged infidelity. Alastair liked variety. Surprise, surprise.