Aquamarine (11 page)

She sat on a hard plastic chair opposite the main desk while Teague gave his statement. The room was chilly. She hugged herself, wishing she had worn a sweater.

What was taking Teague so long, anyway? She yawned. At this time of night, the place was virtually deserted. Since Teague and the deputy had disappeared into a warren of partitioned rooms, she’d seen only the dispatcher, a bulldog-faced woman who was glued to the switchboard. Since the first searching appraisal, the woman had steadfastly ignored her.
Probably thinks I’m a hooker in this damn dress
.

The minutes ticked slowly by. Shea shifted in her chair, trying to find a comfortable position. She yawned again. A cup of coffee might help.

“Is there a coffee machine around here?” she asked.

Either the dispatcher was ignoring her or the headset she was wearing interfered with her hearing.

Shea stood and stretched, then walked over to the desk and waited until the woman acknowledged her.

Bulldog removed her headpiece. “Yeah?”

“Is there a coffee—”

The front door burst open to admit a noisy crowd that eventually resolved itself into one harassed-looking
deputy, an obstreperous drunk, a clean-cut Ivy League type, and a pale, weepy redhead who clung to Joe College like a cocklebur.

Of the four, Shea recognized only one. “Kevin?”

“Kirsten?”

“What are
you
doing here?” they asked in chorus.

“Son of a bitch blocked my Caddie, that’s what!” bellowed the drunk. “Young snots think they own the whole damn world.”

“We’ll take your statement in a minute, Mr. Walsh,” the deputy told him, then turned to Kevin. “Why don’t you and Miss Ames have a seat, Mr. Rainey? I’ll take your statements after Mr. Walsh has made his.”

“Damn right you will,” said the fuming drunk. “Ask the little punk what he was doing blocking my Caddie that way. Damn kids think they can do whatever the hell they want.”

The officer, his studied courtesy severely strained, ushered the loudmouthed Mr. Walsh toward one of the partitioned cubicles.

Shea raised her eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

Kevin glanced meaningfully at the dispatcher. “Let’s sit down and I’ll fill you in.”

Shea returned to her seat, and Kevin dragged a pair of chairs from the line against the wall, turning them to face Shea.

“I don’t like this, Kevin, and my parents aren’t going to like it, either.” The redhead looked as if she were about to burst into tears.

“Don’t worry, Chelsea. It’s going to be all right.”

“What happened?” Shea asked.

“It was awful!” Chelsea broke into noisy sobs.

Kevin calmed her down, then turned to Shea. “What brings you here?”

“Somebody broke into Teague’s apartment. We came in to report it. Now quit trying to change the subject. Tell me about your accident.”

He shrugged. “Not much to tell. Old man Walsh got a snootful, then decided to play bumper cars in the parking lot at the club. He claims I was blocking him, but the truth is, he was too drunk to maneuver. It’s a tight lot, and I was parked close, but he should have been able to get out without damaging anything. This probably isn’t going to do my insurance premiums any good. They won’t care whether it was my fault or not.”

“What’s the story, Kevin? Wreck your car again?” Teague had slipped up on them unnoticed.

Kevin seemed to shrink in stature as the older man’s biting tone ripped away his thin veneer of sophistication; the boy suddenly looked younger than his nineteen years. He hesitated for a second or two, evidently trying to gauge Teague’s mood.

“It wasn’t his fault.” The redhead spoke up. “Taggart Walsh bashed Kevin’s Fiat in the parking lot at the club. On purpose, if you ask me.” Her voice shook. “Look, is there someplace I can call my parents? It’s getting late. They’ll be worried.”

“There’s a pay phone down the hall by the rest-rooms,” Kevin said.

“I don’t have any money.” She looked as if she was going to start bawling again.

Shea, Kevin, and Teague all whipped out quarters. The girl accepted Kevin’s money and hurried off.

“Your father’s not going to be a happy camper when
he hears what happened,” Teague said. “What is this? Your third accident so far this year?”

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed glumly. “And he’s never gonna believe it wasn’t my fault. He’ll probably throw those gambling debts back in my face too.”

“Gambling debts?” Shea echoed.

Kevin gave her a shamefaced look. “I got a little carried away betting on football last fall. My allowance wouldn’t cover my losses, and I had to ask Dad for help. He was
not
pleased.”

“To put it mildly,” Teague said. He turned to Shea. “I’m finished here for the time being. Why don’t I take you back to the lodge?”

“I have my own car,” Shea reminded him.

“So I’ll follow you. I want to make sure your room is secure.”

They left Kevin at the police station feeling extremely sorry for himself.

Shea’s room hadn’t been ransacked; that was obvious as soon as they opened the door, but Teague spent a good ten minutes checking the locks on the doors and windows anyway before pronouncing himself satisfied.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what?”

She smiled and his heart gave a jolt. “For caring enough to make sure I was safe.”

He cleared his throat. “Least I could do. I suppose I should go back to see if the deputies have discovered anything.”

“Probably.” She smiled again and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet.

He cleared his throat. “They’re probably waiting for me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They want me to inventory my stuff as soon as they finish dusting for prints. Apparently the intruder jimmied the back door. Used a crowbar.”

“Not a pro then,” she said.

“Kids, the cops figure.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m a suspicious bastard by nature. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I see what’s missing. Speaking of which, I should get going.”

“Yes, I suppose you should.”

Still, he didn’t move. “This isn’t the way I had hoped to end the evening,” he said at last.

“Why? What had you hoped to do?”

Teague pulled her into his arms and kissed her—thoroughly.

When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, he stared steadily into her face, not saying a word.

Shea blinked a time or two. “Oh,” she murmured faintly.

He brushed a strand of soft dark hair back off her cheek. “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” she whispered, making it sound like a question.

He left her slumped against the wall, breathing hard and looking dazed. Dazed, but happy.

And despite the fact that he probably wasn’t going to get any sleep at all, Teague whistled all the way back to Strawberry Point.

Shea didn’t head immediately for Massacre Island the next morning even though she was anxious to get through the rest of the photo albums. She went first to the Liberty Public Library to see what information they had on possession. There she enlisted the aid of Emily Freitag, the local librarian. Ms. Freitag was eager to help Shea locate sources for her hypothetical psychology research paper since she herself had a strong interest in psi phenomena, having grown up in a haunted house.

As she put it, “I’ve always adored reading about ‘ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties / And things that go bump in the night.’”

Since Ms. Freitag looked like the stereotypical librarian, prim and elderly with a salt-and-pepper bun, lavender-flowered dress, and glasses slipping halfway down her nose, her tastes surprised Shea, who’d had the woman pegged as the Danielle Steel type.

“I’m mainly interested in actual case studies of possession,” Shea said.

“Hmm.” Ms. Freitag adjusted her bifocals. “There was that incident with the boy in suburban Washington—the one William Blatty based
The Exorcist
on.”

“Isn’t that movie about a girl who’s possessed by demons?”

The librarian nodded. “Right. In the book and the movie. But the actual case involved a little boy, and in my humble opinion, it sounded more like poltergeist activity than possession.” She fell silent for a moment, staring fixedly at her computer monitor.

“Anything else?”

“Of course there are always the poor deluded souls who’re convinced they’ve been possessed by Elvis or Napoleon.”

“I don’t think so.”

Ms. Freitag frowned. “How about that little girl from Illinois,” she said slowly, frowning fiercely as she dredged the details from the depths of her memory. “Funny name. Yancy? Delancey? Something like that. She was purportedly possessed by the soul of another girl who had died some years before.”

“That sounds more like it,” Shea said.

The older woman gave her an odd look. “More like what?”

“More like what I’m interested in,” she said hastily. “Not possession by demons or celebrities but by plain ordinary people.”

“Plain, ordinary
dead
people.”

“Okay, dead people, but ordinary people who lived ordinary lives, not devils or demons or even historical figures. Where could I find something about the girl with the odd name?”

Ms. Freitag tapped away at the keyboard, then
printed out a list of relevant references. “Good luck,” she said.

Volumes had been written on the topic of possession, much of it scientific or pseudo-scientific, and none of it describing phenomena resembling that of her own experiences. Even the story of young Lurancy Vennum, the Watseka Wonder, whose body supposedly had been inhabited for some months by the spirit of Mary Roff, a girl who’d died twelve years previously, offered little parallel.

Lurancy hadn’t just inherited Mary’s memories; she’d also inherited the girl’s identity. Her own personality had disappeared. For the period of her possession, she had recognized her own family only as acquaintances, claiming Mary’s family as her own. Shea’s experiences weren’t quite like that.

Still hoping to find a clue, she expanded her reading to include theories on racial memory and clairvoyance. The more she read, the more farfetched any of it seemed as an explanation for her own strange intuitions.

By eleven-thirty her head was aching and she was bored out of her skull. Somehow the exorcism of the nuns of Loudun in the 1600s just didn’t seem relevant. Also, the increasingly loud complaints from her empty stomach had begun to interfere with her concentration.

After a frustrating couple of hours at the sheriff’s office, Teague stopped off for an early lunch at the Liberty Lodge Coffee Shop. He was just about to order when he spotted Shea and waved her over.

“I hope your morning was more productive than
mine,” she said, settling across from him with a sigh. “I’ll take the special,” she told the hovering waitress.

“Make that two,” said Teague.

She was wearing her hair in a high ponytail, secured with a red scrunchie that matched her T-shirt. She looked about sixteen, whereas he, after a short night and a bureaucratic nightmare of a morning, felt like a senior citizen.

“Any news on your break-in?” she asked.

He frowned. “Not much. I finished the inventory. All that was taken was my TV, VCR, and CD player. Funny thing is, the cops found the stuff already—dumped in the lake near the boathouse.”

“That’s weird. If they were just going to dump it, why take it in the first place?”

“Good question. And why did the burglar leave such a shambles behind?”

“Maybe robbery wasn’t the real motive.”

“Or maybe the burglars stole something I’m not admitting to. That’s what the investigating deputy suspects. He asked some very pointed questions this morning.”

“What kind of questions?”

“About possible connections with known drug dealers or militias. Apparently he assumes I had a large sum of cash hidden on the premises, that I’m either dealing in drugs or illegal arms.”

The waitress gave him an odd look as she set a cup of coffee in front of him.

He dropped a couple of ice cubes from his water glass into his coffee, then took a careful sip. “So how was your morning?”

“Not as depressing as yours.” She grinned. “I went to
the library to research ghosts, possession, and related phenomena.”

“And?”

“My experiences are different from any of the stuff I read about. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe I’m just losing it.”

Lunch arrived then, big bowls of corn chowder and fresh homemade rolls. As Shea dove into her food, Teague realized with a stab of guilty pleasure that once again he was getting aroused just watching her eat. She enjoyed food on a sensuous level. And if she got this excited over soup and bread, he reflected, chocolate would probably send her orgasmic. He smiled into his coffee cup. Might be interesting to find out.

After lunch Shea bummed a ride with Teague to the island. As they neared the crest of the path, they heard the roar of a chain saw. “Doesn’t sound like they’ve been slacking off in your absence.”

“I’ve got a good foreman,” he said. “Nick keeps everyone in line.” He raised an eyebrow in a sardonic look. “Including me.”

“You’re going all the way to the house?” she asked, surprised when he didn’t take the fork that led to the gazebo.

“Got some details to talk over with Jack.”

He wasn’t touching her, but Shea’s skin felt hot and prickly anyway. She was very aware of his shoulder just inches from hers, aware too that he was spending more time watching her than the path. He stopped suddenly ten yards from the house.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, turning to him, her heart beating out of control at his intent expression.

“Nothing.” The air between them all but snapped with electricity. Teague’s gaze held hers prisoner. “Have dinner with me tonight?”

An innocuous request, but she responded to the silent subtext, nearly drowning in the resulting wave of desire. Her pulses pounded; her stomach fluttered. She trembled in a response so powerful, it was almost painful.

Or was it Kirsten’s reaction she felt?

“I’d like that,” she said.

“Seven all right?”

“Perfect.”

He shot her another of those high-voltage looks.
Complete core meltdown
, she thought muzzily. That pretty well summed up her reaction to Teague Harris, and frankly, she didn’t care if it was secondhand emotion or not.