Then disappeared. Gone, just like that. Not as much as a shimmer.

Charlie didn’t even have time to brace for the wave of nausea before it hit.

CHAPTER SIX

“Dr. Stone.” Bartoli’s hand curled around her upper arm. Charlie felt the warm strength of it against her chilled skin, glanced around to find his eyes on her face, and did her best to suck it up. So she’d seen a ghost, and now she wanted to hurl. Absent a convenient toilet and a little privacy, hurling wasn’t happening. And there didn’t seem to be a damned thing she could do about seeing ghosts. Sad as it was, it looked like that was her fricking fate.

What’s up? Bartoli’s eyes asked, but he didn’t say it. Maybe because Haney was watching them. Maybe because Bartoli knew what she would reply: Not a thing. After all, they’d had the equivalent of this conversation before.

“This was the boy’s room, right? Where was his body found?” Charlie strove to sound normal as she unobtrusively detached her arm from Bartoli’s hold. Her skin was cold and clammy; her pulse was jumping. As long as Bartoli was touching her, he was privy to proof positive that something in her world wasn’t all fine and dandy. It was always difficult, trying not to reveal what she saw. Which was one among a number of really excellent reasons she tried not to see anything everyone else didn’t see. Glancing around, she spotted the chalk outline between the beds on the hardwood floor, and had the answer to her question even before Haney moved to the foot of the nearest bed and pointed it out.

“Trevor was found right there,” Haney said.

Oh, God, I can’t think of the kid as Trevor.

There were bloodstains on the floor where Trev—the kid had died.

Charlie felt cold sweat breaking out around her hairline.

“We think he was asleep when the unsub attacked him,” Haney continued. “The amount of blood on the sheets leads us to believe he was stabbed in his bed, then either managed to get up before collapsing on the floor—or rolled or was pulled onto the floor, where he died.”

“Defensive wounds?” Bartoli asked.

Haney shook his head. “None. Two knife wounds to the chest. Either would have been fatal.”

“Where was the woman found?” Charlie asked as an excuse to turn away from the pathetically small outline on the floor, and was proud of how cool and steady her voice sounded. Inside, her stomach was roiling.

“Master bedroom,” Bartoli answered. “Husband, too.”

With Haney in the lead, they were all on their way out of the room when the TV came back on. A glance around told Charlie that the kid was once again ensconced in his chair, controller in hand, his thumbs as busy as the rest of him was still.

“Goddamn thing,” Haney muttered, abruptly changing directions to head for the TV. This time, after he turned it off, he yanked the cord out of the wall for good measure. “Driving me crazy,” he said shamefacedly as he turned to find both Charlie’s and Bartoli’s eyes on him.

Trev—the kid—continued to sit in the chair, his face a study in concentration as he worked the controller as avidly as if the game was still on. Which Charlie supposed it probably was, for him. The dimension he existed in was governed by an alternate reality that Charlie didn’t perfectly understand, but in it she was sure the video game still played. Certainly he worked the controller as if it did. He showed no evidence whatsoever of being aware that she, Bartoli, and Haney were in the room. Just like most people didn’t see ghosts, she had realized over the years that most ghosts didn’t see living people. Which had its good points and its bad.

“He’s just a little kid.” The words escaped her throat of their own volition. Impossible not to feel something for the murdered boy, no matter how hard she tried to remain detached. Damn it.

“We’re going to catch whoever did this,” Bartoli told her as Haney once again started moving toward the door.

“Fucking sick bastard.” Haney’s voice was hard with agreement.

Even as she and Bartoli followed Haney from the room, the kid got that terrified look on his face, jumped from the chair, and ran toward the closet again.

A loop was what she was seeing, Charlie realized. Trevor’s traumatized spirit was caught up in re-experiencing the last moments of his life over and over again.

A lump formed in Charlie’s throat. Goose bumps chased themselves over her skin.

Kid shouldn’t have died like that.

“The boy hid in the closet,” she said as she and the men crossed the landing toward another door. Haney was slightly in front, while Bartoli stayed beside her. “He was sitting in the chair playing a video game, heard or saw something that terrified him, jumped up and ran for the closet. Probably the killer found him in there. Either the boy tried to run for it when the door was opened, or the killer pulled him out. Either way, you should check for forensic evidence in the closet.”

Both men stopped walking to stare at her. The look Bartoli gave her was sharp with curiosity. Haney’s face creased into a frown.

“You got some basis for thinking that?” Haney inquired.

“It’s what I do,” Charlie replied. “Believe me, I’m not wrong.”

“I’d believe her,” Bartoli advised. “She’s the expert.”

“Yeah.” Despite the fact that his voice was heavy with skepticism, Haney turned away from them to walk to the top of the stairs. Cupping his hand around his mouth, he bellowed, “Baldwin!”

“Yeah, boss?” The reply from downstairs was faintly muffled.

“You and Rutledge get up here. Bring your stuff.”

Another answer floated up, followed a moment later by the thud of ascending footsteps. Charlie realized that a pair of hazmat-suit-wearing cops lugging bags of equipment were climbing the stairs to join them, that they were talking with Haney, that they were looking hard at her and talking some more before disappearing into the kid’s bedroom, but she was only peripherally aware of any of it.

That was because, through the master bedroom’s open doorway, Charlie was caught up in watching Julie Mead rise up from the far side of the stripped king-sized bed, then glide around it and float across the room toward her. Transfixed, Charlie saw that the woman was drenched in fresh blood. Whatever she was wearing—some sort of sleep shirt that ended just above her knees—was wet with it. Streaks of glistening scarlet matted her badly mussed, chin-length blond hair. Her throat was cut from ear to ear. It looked to have been freshly slashed, because blood still streamed from it, pouring down over her shoulders and chest, adding to the gore on her shirt. Her mouth worked. Her eyes were wide with horror—and then they fixed on Charlie.

She knows I can see her. An electric frisson of connection ran down Charlie’s spine. Her heart thumped. Her breath caught.

“You’ve got to help us,” the woman begged, flying toward her with her hands outstretched. “Please!”

Several things happened at once: Charlie felt another onslaught of nausea slam her. A terrible flashback to Diane Palmer’s murder all those years ago made her go weak at the knees. Even as she thought, They’re the same, a wave of freezing cold air blasted her as Julie Mead’s spirit reached her. The sheer force of emotion surrounding the spirit made Charlie take a couple of staggering steps backward.

She fetched up against Bartoli, who was standing behind her. His arm came around her waist.

“Are you all right?” Bartoli asked in her ear. Charlie heard him, felt the hard strength of his body, registered the steadying grip of his arm. She was able to do this because Julie Mead was no longer around to rivet her senses. As it had reached the threshold of the master bedroom, the specter had vanished into thin air.

Charlie found that she could breathe again.

“I’m going to be sick,” she said, because she was. There was no holding it in this time. She could see just a glimpse of the en suite bathroom off the master bedroom. “I’m sorry, excuse me, I have to—”