“That’s it?” she said. “That’s all you’re going to say. You just expected me to know?”

He nodded once, jerkily.

The bad temper washed out of her; he looked so . . . broken. A tough guy barely hanging on.

He scrubbed his free hand over his mouth, his eyes, as if he could wipe away things he had seen or said. As if the whole problem could be erased. Then his shoulders went back, stiff and strong. “So, you going to tell me what happened? I mean, what . . . it did when it had control?”

Sylvie studied the juncture of cuff and bench, a spot worn slick in the terrazzo. She wasn’t sure she had an answer to his question—two questions in one, really. The covert one was a plea for assurance that there was a ghost at all.

Setting aside her default paranoia, Sylvie wasn’t convinced that there had been anything more at play than the sleep spell messing with a man already fighting his own mind.

“Did it try to hurt—”

“You were helpful,” Sylvie said. “You were useful. A little mouthy, a little logy, not all that different.”

Wright’s mouth twisted, rejecting what should have been good news. Sylvie reminded herself that cops had their own instincts, and he was reading between what she had and hadn’t said. His voice deepened to a growl, an angry pitch she hadn’t thought he could reach. “I recognize that look. You’re going to dump me and my problem on someone else.”

Sylvie bit back her first, second, third retorts, before saying, temperately, “I just don’t think it’s my kind of problem.” A police station was not the place to have this talk. This discussion should be happening in the privacy of her office, not under the bloodshot eyes of an overworked cop. But Wright was as pushy as the best cops tended to be.

He swallowed hard, his throat working, his chest rising rapidly beneath his thin T-shirt. “I thought you were supposed to help me. Thought you were supposed to believe all this shit.”

Sylvie scooched over on the bench to put her mouth close to his ear. “What ‘shit’ is that? Wright, all I’ve seen so far is a man with a blackout. And that’s explicable by lots of things: drug abuse”—she held up her hand to forestall his instant protest—“psychological trauma, organic trauma, just plain exhaustion. Just because there are monsters doesn’t mean that every shadow is cast by one. You have a high-stress job in a high-stress city that just had big problems. You have money problems. You’re having trouble in your marriage. And you died. You’re the poster boy for stress-related disorders.”

“I dreamed you. Isn’t that proof enough?” He picked fitfully at the fraying denim on his knee. She addressed herself to the high blade of his cheekbone, the bronze stubble blurring his tight-held jaw.

“Tell me what type of possessing ghost would be so helpful? Possession isn’t a good thing, Wright—”

She ignored his dry Tell me about it and bulled on. “Possession means taking over someone else, trammeling their will beneath your own, claiming their flesh. Not the mark of a good guy. Not the mark of a nice guy. Yet your supposed ghost helped out. Do you see why I’m having doubts?” It sounded good. Believable. Solid. Everything she said had been true. Facts. Logic. The PI’s best friends.

Yet she couldn’t quite shake the tiniest doubt in herself. The idea that Wright’s ghost might be a very real threat.

“You don’t want to take the case, fine. Don’t lie about it,” he shot back, and he was hissing in her face now, red-flushed, a vein pulling tight in his neck. “If you don’t believe me, tell me why Cedo Nulli makes you flinch.”

“You’re mangling the Latin,” she said.

The intake cop growled another warning.

Wright leaned back, let bleach-scented air drift between them; the red heat faded from his skin before he said, “I’m not leaving. You don’t believe? Just wait. You’ll get your fuckin’ proof. I’ll be your sidekick if I gotta. But I’m sticking around.”

“You could help your cause,” Sylvie said. Her voice was sharp, torn between guilty relief that he wasn’t going to let her push him away, anger for the same cause. “You got someone else in your head, and you know nothing about them? Not even a name? C’mon, Wright, you want me to believe you? Give me something. Give me a name.”

Wright’s eyelids fell closed, shutting off that fever-bright gaze. The last of the hectic flush faded, leaving him ashen. His brow knotted. Behind his eyelids, movement, searching his own mind. She found herself holding her breath.

“It’s . . .” His hands fisted, his jaw tightened, and he gritted the words out. “I don’t think it knows. It’s all broken glass; edges and bits and pieces. Like those toys, kaleidoscopes, and you turn ’em and you turn ’em and it’s pretty and shiny but it never makes sense. It’s like there’s a piece missing.” He went back to picking at his jeans.

She didn’t say anything. She might be a bitch, but she didn’t kick a man when he was down. Unless he deserved it.

“I’m still sticking to you like glue,” he muttered.

She licked her lips, hated to give him false hope, but ghost or not, his distress was real. “I’ll get someone to take a closer look, do a proper diagnosis. I can help you that much.”

A rude laugh interrupted their talk; Felipe Suarez loomed over them. His partner, three steps ahead, holding two cups of coffee, paused on his way toward the exit. “Shadows, you don’t help people. You fuck ’em over. I’d run back to your wife, Chicago, if I were you. Or you’ll end up on a slab.”

“Felipe, man, c’mon,” his partner urged, and silence fell in their wake.

Wright cleared his throat. “So, why exactly are they out to get you?”

“Rafi . . . Rafael Suarez was an employee of mine, as well as related to a good chunk of the force.”

“Was?”

Yeah, trust a cop to home right in on the point.

“He died. We tangled with some would-be sorcerers, and he got killed.” It cost her something still to winnow Rafi to cold fact and report his death in a level tone.

“They blame you,” Wright said. “ ’Cause grief makes people crazy. I get that. So our arresting officer?”

“First cousin, Felipe Suarez,” Sylvie said. “And if it hadn’t been him, it could have been one of Rafi’s brothers, his uncle, his sister, or his father. They’re a big family, and they bleed blue. So, they lose my permits and give me the runaround. We’ll sit, they’ll yell at me, maybe fine me. Depends on how bad their day went.”

“Lightner!” A big-voiced man in a rumpled suit poked his head into the hall, saw her cuffed, and sighed. He scrubbed at his face, stubble dark along his jaw, eyes weary. The very picture of a tired man about to go off shift and finding that he had one last unwelcome task to complete.

He disconnected her from the seat, the jangle of hand-cuffs, and pointed her down the hall. “You know the way.”

She wiggled her fingers bye-bye at Wright and let Detective Adelio Suarez lead her into one of the interrogation rooms.

THE ROOM WAS A FLUORESCENT HELL: CHEAP LINOLEUM, CHEAP paint, cheap video camera aimed squarely at the table bolted to the floor, all of it reflecting the flicker-shine of the false light. A rectangular window high up, filled with wire-mesh glass, showed a sky going blue and bright outside.

Here we go again, she thought, stiffening her spine. It was hard: With all the other Suarezes, she felt equal portions irritation and patience. With Adelio Suarez—she just felt guilt. Rafael had been his son, and when Rafi had come to work for her, she’d told Adelio she’d keep him safe. He’d been pleased. One child out of the line of fire.

He stabbed his thumb at the chair. “Sit.”

Disobedience ran deep in her soul, but she dropped into the wooden chair, heard it screek against the faded turquoise linoleum as she shifted her weight. The sooner she shut up, the sooner she’d be out of here. He paced behind her; then, just when she was preparing to start the game by asking for a phone call, he said, “Wait here,” and left the room. A total change of pattern. It made her wary.