Page 57 of Into the Dark

As they reached Ms. Montague’s tent, Ethan stepped outside, placing himself in the way. “Dr. Lawson,” he said with a small nod. “Ms. Montague asks that you?—”

“Get out of my way, you simpering toady,” she snarled and gave him a hard shove.

The physical contact seemed to shock Ethan. He stumbled a little, mouth flapping open, but by then she had charged past him and flung open the tent.

“Patricia! I—what the fuck!”

Oscar followed her inside, hoping to calm the situation, but what he saw within stole his voice.

One wall of the spacious tent was entirely occupied by monitors. Some of them showed the views from the static cams, and one displayed the feed from Chris’s cam. Someone, perhaps Ethan, had hacked into their signal.

Other monitors held views of their living quarters and the command center, where Tina was even now abandoning her chair to come see what was going on.

Ms. Montague had been spying on them the entire time.

“Whoa,” Zeek said, coming to a halt beside Oscar. “Not cool. Seriously—not cool.”

Ms. Montague herself sat in a comfortable chair, dressed in a pale blue suit that matched her eyes. Her wrinkled mouth was drawn into a stern frown, her attention focused on Dr. Lawson. “What is the meaning of this, Ruthie?”

Dr. Lawson’s nostrils flared. “Don’t play dumb with me.” She stabbed a finger in the direction of the monitors. “You know damn well we found your generator. What thehellwere you thinking?”

“We have limited time to investigate this location,” Montague replied, without the slightest hint of remorse. “Installing the Van de Graaf gave the spirits enough strength for us to get truly interesting results.”

“Us?” Adrienne asked, folding her arms over her chest. “What do you mean, ‘us?’ We’re the ones who’ve been doing all the work and taking all the risks!”

“And you’re being very well compensated for it,” said Ethan from behind them.

Dr. Lawson shot him a glare. “Shut up. You’re not a part of this conversation.”

“Don’t speak to my staff in that tone,” Montague said, an edge to her voice now. “And Ethan is quite correct—bothOutFoxing the ParanormalandZeeking the Unknownwould be, well, unknown, if not for my patronage.”

“Hey, we had followers before,” Zeek objected. “Not as many as we do now, sure, but still.”

“Money isn’t everything,” Chris said tightly. They’d lowered their camera, expression stormy.

Ms. Montague sighed. “Of course it is. We live in a capitalistic society. It takes money to make money, as the saying goes.”

“Oh really?” Dr. Lawson fixed Ms. Montague with an angry stare. “How much was Robin’s life worth, then?”

Her shot struck home. Ms. Montague’s mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. “That’s not…”

“Of course it is.” Venom coated Dr. Lawson’s words. “You were the rich girl who only had to snap her fingers to get whatever she wanted.”

“I don’t remember you complaining when I paid the rent on our apartment.”

Oscar had known there was history between the women, but never guessed they’d been close enough to live together.

“Or when I bought the video recorders, or any of the other equipment we used that was high tech back in the day,” she went on.

“We didn’t love you because of the money!” Dr. Lawson shouted.

Silence fell. Oscar glanced around, wondering if they should leave, but everyone else was transfixed by the scene.

Ms. Montague looked as if she’d been slapped. “I…I never said that…”

“Your money isn’t what got Robin into that house.” Lawson’s tone was low, vicious, her words sharpened to hurt. “You were so fucking sure this was what we needed. We’d capture her brilliance as a medium. The university would throw its support behind my work in survival research. She was worried, but you?—”

“I didn’t force her to go in there!”

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