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“He’s afraid of what he thinks I am, Doctor Evans. He’s jumping at shadows.”

Evans looked up at me, his tea forgotten in his big hands. The look was a long considering one. I had an urge to squirm under such scrutiny, but fought it down. “Perhaps you are right, Ms. Blake, or perhaps he has seen something in you that I have not.”

“When you spend all your time worrying that the devil is right behind you, eventually you start seeing him whether he’s there or not,” I said.

Evans stood, nodding. He rinsed his coffee mug in the sink, washing it out with a fresh paper towel and soap. He spoke without turning around. “I do not know if I will ever see the devil, but I have seen true evil, and if there is no devil behind it, still it is evil.” He turned and looked at me. “And we must put a stop to it.”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said, “we must.”

He smiled then, but his eyes stayed tired. “I will work with my colleagues here that are more accustomed to working with the living instead of the dead. We will try and discover why these six survive.”

“And if it’s magic?” I asked.

He nodded. “Do not tell Lieutenant Marks, but my wife is a witch. She has traveled the world with me seeing such things. Sometimes what we find is more up her alley than mine, not often, mind you. People are quite able to torment one another without aid of magic. But occasionally it has been more.”

“Don’t take this wrong,” I said, “but why haven’t you called her in before this?”

He took in a long breath and let it out. “She was out of the country on another matter. Why, you may ask, didn’t I call her home sooner?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t going to ask.”

He smiled. “Thank you for that. I reasoned that my wife was needed elsewhere, and the FBI seemed so sure it was a person.” He glanced at Edward then back to me. “The truth is, Ms. Blake, something about all this frightens me. I am not a man who is easily frightened.”

“You’re afraid for your wife,” I said.

He stared at me as if he could look into my mind with those pale eyes. “Wouldn’t you be?”

I touched his arm, gently. “Trust your instincts, doctor. If it feels wrong, send her away.”

He drew away from my touch, smiling, tossing the paper towel into the trash can. “That would be terribly superstitious of me.”

“You’ve got a bad feeling about your wife’s involvement with this thing. Trust your gut. Don’t try to be reasonable. If you love your wife, listen to your heart, not your head.”

He nodded twice then said, “I will think about what you said. Now I really must be going.”

I held out my hand. He took it. “Thanks for your time, doctor.”

“My . . . pleasure, Ms. Blake.” He nodded to Edward. “Mr. Forrester.”

Edward nodded in return, and we were left in the silence of the lounge. “Listen to your heart and not your head. Damn romantic advice, coming from you,” Edward said.

“Drop it,” I said. I had my hand on the door handle.

“How would your love life be if you took your own advice?” he asked.

I opened the door and walked out into the cool white hallway without answering him.

9

MARKS’ OFFER OF ESCORTING me to the crime scene seemed to have evaporated with his temper. Edward drove me. We drove in almost complete silence. Edward never sweated small talk, and I just didn’t have the energy for it. If I could have thought of something useful to say, I’d have said it. Until then, silence was fine. Edward had volunteered that we were on our way to the latest crime scene, and we’d meet his other two backups in Santa Fe. He told me nothing else about them, and I didn’t press it. His lip was still swelling because he’d been too macho to put ice on it. I figured the busted lip was all the slack Edward was going to give me for one day. I’d told him in the strongest terms I could manage, short of pulling a weapon, to stop the competitive crap, and nothing would change that, least of all me.

Besides, I was still riding in a ringing bell of silence as if everything echoed and nothing was quite solid. It was shock. The survivors, if that was the word for them, had shaken me