PsyCop: GhosTV Part 19

I looked down at my doodles again. Was there some sort of course on doodle a.n.a.lysis he'd taken at the Twelfth Precinct? I wouldn't have put it past him-he always goes for the extra credit. No doubt it had also taught him that guys who fill up pages of their new notebooks with loops have adult ADD.

"What?" I snapped.

150.

He pressed his fingertip against the page, and whispered, "Words." I lifted the page closer and began to formulate a jab about someone needing a prescription for reading gla.s.ses...and then I saw it, too.

nonononononononono....

Two f.u.c.king pages of nothing but no.

My skin crawled as if it wanted to peel itself off my body and slink under the spare bed. I flipped back to the first few pages. My doodles had started as a bunch of nothing-other than the tiny Anarchy symbol up in the corner which, I remembered, had felt entirely wrong.

And that symbol, with the pen pressure and the slant, actually looked like it had been drawn by a different person than the one who'd looped the loops. Except it was me. I remembered doing it. All of it.

The first several lines were filled with loops, which after a while grew shorter and rounder, and then flipped upside down. Once they firmly looked like letter-o's, they scrawled and spread, line by line, until they turned into scallops. Next page. More scallops. Then scallop-scallop-dip, which eventually tightened up into letter-n's. Nnnn. Finally, after a few wobbly attempts, the word no appeared, plain as day.

And kept on appearing for three more pages.

"I don't suppose it might say on," Jacob suggested.

"Probably not." I squinted at the GhosTV. "Unless it was trying to tell me to turn that thing on." I checked the pages. "But every single line starts with a letter-n. So I'm going with no."

"Karen Frugali," he ventured. "Lisa's roommate. Bert said she was a light worker."

I sensed his line of reasoning was headed somewhere so nasty I couldn't even bring myself to mock the t.i.tle. "You're thinking she was astral, and she was moving my arm?"

151.

"Not astral. If she was able to get her astral arm into somebody and send a message, wouldn't she have done it by now? I think it has to do with you. You're a...medium. What if she's dead?" My stomach bottomed out and I swallowed back the urge to heave- because if Frugali was dead, then Lisa...well, I just couldn't think it.

I'm not superst.i.tious or anything-I don't think my thoughts manifest into reality just because I've thought them. But even so. I was not prepared to go there.

"Vic." Jacob put his hand over mine. He clasped it more toward the wrist instead of the backs of my fingers, but even so, the gentle pressure of his hand tightened my skin, and pain radiated from the layers of scabs across the backs of my knuckles. "Keep it together. We need to work fast."

"Okay. Yeah. I know it." What I didn't know was what, exactly, working fast would entail. My typical method was to find ghosts and talk to them-or let them talk at me. It usually worked. Except when it failed spectacularly. "But how?"

Jacob's gaze slid to the GhosTV. "We figure out how to work it."

"I'm sure Dr. Chance would be thrilled to help me." After considering that for a moment, Jacob said, "She's in Dreyfuss'

office. You have Dreyfuss here. And a plane."

"What? It'll take half a day to get there and back. If she's even willing to talk to me. If she's even still there."

"Do you think Richie would be able to make her cross over if she wasn't ready?"

h.e.l.l, I didn't know if even I could make her go toward the light. I restricted my exorcism efforts to repeaters. I knuckled my eye in frustration and ended up splitting one of the new scabs, and blood seeped out. Great.

152.

If I refused, Jacob would think I was putting my loathing of Dreyfuss and the idea of spending eight more hours in a Learjet with him ahead of my desire to see Lisa safe and sound-and while that was how I felt, my hesitation went a lot deeper. Some simmering gut instinct that told me chasing after Dr. Chance was a big waste of time- one that we couldn't afford.

Jacob put his arm around me and said, "I wish someone could give Dr. Chance a spirit cell phone so you could call her and see how the TV works."

That sent my mind spinning. If I sent a fax, she could read it...but then how could she communicate anything back to me? Through Richie? Don't get me wrong, I'm crazy about Richie, but figuring out how to work through him would probably take longer than flying to Chicago and back.

Maybe someone at PsyTrain had a trick up their sleeve. It would have to be a h.e.l.l of a trick. But supposedly everyone here was psychic.

Right?

"Too bad," Jacob mused, "The only two people who knew how to work the GhosTV are dead."

Wait a minute. I seized his hand so suddenly I left a smear of blood on it. "You're a f.u.c.king genius." I leapt up from the bed, charged through the bathroom and pounded on the door to Dreyfuss' room.

"Okay, okay, keep your pants on." Dreyfuss opened the door at arm's length so I didn't have an excuse to knock on his skull. Typical Dreyfuss-track suit, ponytail, and a platinum Rolex just this side of gangsta-bling. "You got something?"

"I dunno-maybe you've got something. There was a third guy on the GhosTV team, the guy with the crewcut who played the world's most surly B&B owner. What happened to him?"

"Jeffrey Alan Scott." The info was right at the tip of his tongue. He 153.

hadn't even blinked. "Mr. Scott is the Feds' guest at the Metropolitan Correctional Center for 25 to 40, but he could always parole sooner for good behavior."

"Did anyone ask him how the GhosTV works?"

"Lots of people asked him lots of things. Lots and lots." Pain shot through my knuckles. I hadn't realized I'd been so keen to pop him one I was making a fist. My blood dripped to the floor, dark red splatters against the octagonal vintage tile. I heard the clatter of Jacob pulling a hank of toilet paper off the roll to wipe it up.

I breathed and did my best to stay calm, and in my most reasonable voice, said to Dreyfuss, "We need to be able to work this thing." He nodded. "I honestly wasn't trying to be a p.r.i.c.k when I said that I figured you already had it down pat. Who would know better how it worked than the only guy strong enough to actually see the results?

You say it's important? Okay. I'll see what I can do." Just like that? Wow.

As he turned to retreat, someone started hammering on the room's front door. "Vic?" Faun Windsong. Or whatever her name was. Katrina.

"Are you in there?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you want to come down for lunch in the staff dining room? You and Jacob?"

Jacob looked to Dreyfuss and said quietly, "What about you? You want in?"

"Nah, I've got a fetish for white bread and pudding cups. Plus I've got a phone call or thirty to make. Enjoy your carob and sprouts." Katrina/Faun was a wall of chatter I tuned out from the moment we left our room to the instant we walked through the dining room door 154.

and found everyone staring at us. The staff lounge was quite a bit smaller than the cafeteria where we'd cooled our heels waiting for the rooms to be shuffled when we'd first arrived. Not small and cozy, though. Small and opulent.

We made the rounds of introductions. A telepath, an empath, a bookkeeper, two precogs (one specializing in dreamwork), and holy c.r.a.p- a bona fide telekinetic. Everyone was an instructor, except the bookkeeper. Although I suppose it wouldn't hurt for a Psych to learn how to balance his checkbook.

A member of the kitchen staff took our order. It was kind of like being at a fancy wedding; we had a choice of vegetarian souvlaki or salmon. Here I'd thought Dreyfuss was being a smarta.s.s when he'd made his carob and sprouts comment. I went for the salmon. And I wondered exactly how familiar Con Dreyfuss was with PsyTrain.

"We weren't clear," Jacob said, smoothing the napkin over his lap, "what Karen Frugali was studying."

"Mediums.h.i.+p," said the dream coach, but Katrina/Faun corrected her with, "Light worker skills," before she'd even finished the last syl-lable of the word.

I took a drink of water and tried to size up the dream coach without being too obvious. She was younger than the rest of the staff, maybe thirty, with dyed red hair in a rockabilly ponytail and Marilyn Monroe eyeliner. There were a few extra pounds on her that she carried mostly in her midsection, though her plunging neckline and a heavy-duty pushup bra would draw the eyes of any straight man well away from her m.u.f.fin top.

Everyone else at PsyTrain was in the forty-and-up granola demograph-ic. Maybe dream girl wouldn't mind talking to a couple of PsyCops from Chicago.

If we could ever figure out how to see her without Faun b.u.t.ting in.

155.

"I'll bet you were surprised to find your old friend from Heliotrope Station here," Faun said to me.

Jacob caught my eye and quirked his eyebrow ever so slightly. I might not have said it out loud, and he might not be a telepath, but he seemed to hear Whichfriendwouldthatbe? loud and clear.

"I would never have pictured you as a cop," she said, "but, you know, I think it suits you pretty well. You look good. You look happy."

"Thanks."

The kitchen guy wheeled out the tray of lunches. The salmon looked too fancy for inst.i.tutional food, more at par with something Jacob would have cooked up at home as a way of saying, I'msorryIstood youupatthatpartywhereallmyfriendswereflexingsohardyou couldbarelyfitintheroomwiththeirdelts.

"I wonder sometimes," she droned on, "how my life would have been different if I would have accepted that PsyCop job." If...what? Wait a minute.

"At the time it seemed like so much money, you know? Enough to tempt even you. We were all surprised you'd left Ste-" she cut her eyes to Jacob, then started the sentence over. "I mean, you just didn't strike any of us as a cop. You know?"

I stuffed some salmon into my mouth. It was okay. A bit on the dry side.

"But obviously it agrees with you. Really, you look terrific." She slid her gaze to Jacob again as if she thought he was a pretty good catch, too. Or maybe just to imply that the decoy bed wasn't fooling anyone.

"Thanks."

"It makes sense to put someone who's not quite so sensitive out 156.

there in the field where they're vulnerable to all the negative energy that comes with the job. Accidents, killings and whatnot...." Whatnot? What the f.u.c.k was whatnot? "Just homicide," I said. "I'm a homicide detective. Not a beat cop." I was starting to get testy, and it carried in my voice. The bookkeeper and the empath were murmur-ing to each other, and Jacob was trying to catch my eye and give me a "calm down" look.

The dream coach leaned across the gap between her table and mine and said, "You don't think anyone's been murdered. Do you?" I chewed a hunk of flesh with a small, flexible bone inside, clipped the bone in half with my incisors, and swallowed it.

"We have no evidence of that," Jacob said smoothly. Yet. That was unspoken.

"Of course not," Katrina/Faun said. "Think about the combined talent of everyone in this room. Sensitive empaths and telepaths and precogs. If someone, one of us, met a violent end...we'd know. I'm sure of it."

Bert Chekotah stepped into the room and Katrina's gaze swung to him. Her eyes went wide and glittery with awe, and she smiled as if the mere sight of him transported her to a blissful plane.

Chekotah, on the other hand, just looked frazzled. Sure, his bone structure was still model-perfect, but his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was parted funny as if he'd washed it and let it dry without combing it, and his linen suit was more rumpled than the last time I'd seen it. "What would we know?" he asked.

Katrina hopped up and got him a gla.s.s of water with a lemon slice in it from the beverage cart. "Don't worry about it now. Drink-you've been staying up 'til all hours. You're fatigued and dehydrated. Have some food. Let it go for a few minutes and let your subconscious work through your problems."

157.

He dropped into the last empty chair-next to me-shook out a cloth napkin and let it fall across his lap. "I heard you sat in on one of our cla.s.ses," he said as he dug into the basket of stone-ground whole grain rolls. "You're welcome to, of course. But how does that bring you any closer to finding Lisa?"

"We can't discuss an ongoing investigation," I said. It sounded funny coming from me, since it was usually Zig who was the mouthpiece.

"Sorry," Jacob said. He managed to make himself sound sincere. I suspected that as strange as it was for me to be sans-Zigler, it must be a refres.h.i.+ng change of pace for Jacob to be partnered with someone who didn't flinch every time he lied.

Jacob made small talk while we finished our salmon, and I tried to get a feel for the personalities-but I can't say I was cut out for the task. When she wasn't raiding the bread basket, Katrina talked over everyone else. They let her, though I couldn't tell if that was because telling her to shut up was useless, or if they were treading lightly around her because she was Chekotah's personal cheering section.

I did notice the dream coach leaned away from the other teachers when they spoke-if they could get a word in edgewise around Katrina-and that she even crossed her arms a time or two. Not a member of the love-in, that one.

Once Chekotah finished his veggie-topped mound of meat subst.i.tute, the kitchen guy rolled out a cart of desserts, which was exciting for a few seconds, until I realized it was mostly fruit. When he rolled up to me, I spied some cookies that had been well-hidden between the mango cups and the slightly green bananas. Chocolate chip. Nice.

I grabbed one and took a big bite. It had the wheaty dog biscuit taste of something that was way too healthy. Even the chocolate seemed gritty...and then I remembered Dreyfuss' parting words. "Is this carob?" I managed around a mouthful of abrasive roughage.

The kitchen guy nodded. "You want another one for later?"

158.

"No thanks." Would anyone believe I was on a diet? Doubtful. "I'm watching my gluten."

He wrapped one in a napkin and handed it to me, beaming. "It's made with brown rice and spelt. Today's your lucky day." Right.

159.

Chapter 18.

I washed down my mouthful of minimally-processed twigs with all of my water, and as I drained half of Jacob's gla.s.s too, my phone rang.

I pulled it from my pocket and checked the caller. Crash. The Psych staff was regarding me with varying levels of annoyance for being gauche enough to let my phone ring at mealtime, except for the dream coach, who thought it was funny, and Chekotah, who looked too wrung-out to care. I let Crash leave me a message and set the phone to vibrate.

The teachers began pulling napkins off laps, draining herbal teas, and pus.h.i.+ng away from the table. Quarter after one, almost time for afternoon cla.s.ses to begin. My phone vibrated against the outside of my thigh. I ignored it, and stood to intercept the dream coach before she got away. "Listen, uh...."

"Debbie."

"Debbie. Do you have a few minutes?"

"We'll have to talk on my way to cla.s.s."

I glanced at Jacob, who gave me a small nod as if to say we'd cover more ground if we split up, so I tagged along to Debbie's cla.s.sroom.

She walked fast for a girl, especially a girl in retro tango heels, and when we got to the elevator, I saw she was breathing fast. She jabbed the "close door" b.u.t.ton for all she was worth, and then we were alone.

160.