Page 98 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

Wyatt opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Wise move.

“Have the investigators found any clues?” I asked.

“Nothing new. We’ve canvassed the nearest neighbours, but nobody saw anything. Crazy. Two women abducted on a residential street and not a single witness. Too bad Kimberly isn’t around to do her ghost thing.”

“Keep your voice down, would you?”

I’d wiped the whiteboard, but Steve/Stewart was still in the room, checking the notes and reminders pinned to Kim’s corkboard.Buy plant food. Make salon appointment.A shelf next to it held a motley collection of paper-clip animals, and for some reason, those made my gut twist. Kim didn’t keep much personal stuff in the house, but those…those wereher.

“Sorry.”

“And itistoo bad, because according to Kim, there’s a ghost in her living room where I found the broken necklace, and she probably watched the whole thing go down.”

“A ghost lives in her house? That’s freaky, man.”

“Not to Kim. They seemed to be friends.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes, yet again displaying a remarkable lack of empathy. “Can’t you hold a seance or something? Get a psychic in? Late-night cable’s full of them.”

“One of those fakes? Are you serious?”

“How do you know they’re fake? You believed Kim, didn’t you?”

“Kim’s different.”

“How? Because she chooses not to monetise?”

“I don’t know, she just is.”

“Think about it. Eight billion humans in the world and she’s the only one who talks to dead people? If she’s the real deal, then statistically speaking, I bet there’s more like her.”

There were. She’d said as much. At least three more that she knew of, and what if Wyatt was right and one or two of these people who claimed to be psychic weren’t actually charlatans? I thought back to the trip to the grocery store in Cincinnati, to the conversation I’d had with Kim about vampires. She’d seen no evidence they existed, but she didn’t know for sure. What if the same could be said for true mediums?

“I’ll ask around. There’s an internet forum I’m on for private investigators, and some of those guys use unorthodox methods.”

Wyatt patted me on the shoulder. “Do that. And in the meantime, I’ll stick with the forensics. At least weknowthat works.”

Asshole.

CHAPTER 29 - KIMBERLY

“YOU’RE TRYING TO lead. Let me lead.”

I gritted my teeth and squirmed in the stupid ballgown. The seams itched, and the skirt was too long for dancing. Oh, and then there was the teensy issue that Peter couldn’t dance in the first place.

“Fine. Just stop stepping on my feet.”

“Everyone was a beginner once. Even you, Noelle.”

“Stop calling me that. Why didn’t you just wait for a girl whose name actually began with the right letter?”

Peter sighed. “I knew you’d be difficult from the start, back when you insisted the barman at the Park Plaza bring a fresh bowl of pretzels in case somebody else had touched them.”

“Hygiene’s important.”

“So is obedience.” He gave his head a little shake. “I almost picked an easier girl, but then your boyfriend kept poking around outside the embassy. I tried to distract him by posing as his sister again, but then you got involved and he only dug deeper. You’re like a dog with a bone, Noelle. If you’d just quit when you were ahead…”

“Where would the fun have been in that?” I muttered through gritted teeth.

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