Page 100 of It takes a Psychic

“Probably not.”

A short time later the boat shot out of the exit, heading back to the dock. For several seconds the abrupt shift from deep darkness to bright desert sunlight made it hard for Leona to focus. When her vision settled down, she saw that she and Molly were alone in the vessel.

“Definitely not good,” she said.

“Nope.”

The screaming started then—real screams. A sense of dreadwhispered through Leona. She and Molly turned to look at the boat that had followed theirs into the dark ride. The two passengers, a young couple in their teens, mouths agape in horror, eyes glazed with shock, clutched the safety bar that pinned them to their seats.

“Did you see it?” the woman shouted to Leona and Molly. “There’s something in that tunnel. Something real.”

“Uh, no, no, we didn’t see anything,” Molly said.

“Probably just a trick of the light,” Leona offered.

She turned around quickly in the seat. The boat came to a halt at the gate. The attendant opened the safety bar.

“What happened to the dust bunnies?” he asked.

The young couple in the following boat arrived before Leona and Molly could explain. They started shouting, talking over each other in a frantic attempt to make the attendant understand.

“…Something weird inside the tunnel,” the man said. “For sure it’s not one of the special effects.”

“They were, like, for-real monsters,” the woman said. “They had four eyes. That’s all you could see in the darkness.”

Another boat emerged from the tunnel exit. Two women were yelling. The man with them looked grim.

“…Really huge rats, I think,” he said to the attendant. “You need to shut down the ride and get an exterminator in there before you send anyone else through.”

Molly looked at Leona. “I believe we have the answer to your earlier question.”

“What question?”

“Your exact words were, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ ”

“Oh, yeah, that question. All I can tell you is that I had a plan. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Oliver is right. One should always have a plan B.”

Chapter Forty-Six

“We haven’t been able toprove or disprove that the Willard brothers and their sister were descended from Vincent Lee Vance,” Eugenie said. “But we’ve turned up a few interesting details, one of which is that the twins attended a private boarding school that claimed to have a unique method for educating high-talent children with symptoms of psychic instability.”

“Interesting.” Leona put the phone on speaker and set the device on the kitchen counter, freeing her hands so that she could spoon freshly ground coffee into the coffeemaker.

She and Roxy were alone in the apartment. They had just finished a light lunch of cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, and she was getting ready to hit the grocery store to stock up. When you had a man around the place, you had to make sure there was food on hand.

A man around the place.She wasn’t clear on the definition of the phrase. Likerelationship, it was a frustratingly vague concept, at least whenapplied to Oliver and herself. But whatever was going on between them was vastly different from what she had experienced with Matt Fullerton or his predecessors. No question about it, her days as a free spirit were over. For now.

They had returned from Lost Creek the day before yesterday, and even though Oliver had not officially moved in, their lives together had begun to take on a domestic routine. After breakfast, he had left for his office at the museum. He had called an hour ago to let her know that he had heard from his contact in the Bureau, who had informed him they were still actively investigating the scene in Lost Creek. As of yet, no one had been arrested.

“Anything else on the Willard brothers?” Leona asked.

“Some bits and pieces,” Charlotte said. “Cyrus tried to erase all traces of his branch of the family tree, too, but he was not nearly as thorough as his brother. We were able to track down the sister, Agnes Willard. The poor thing was committed to an asylum at an early age because of severe psychic instability. She was deemed to be a risk to herself and others. Turns out she died a few months ago.”

“All of which goes a long way toward explaining why the Willard brothers tried to make their ancestry records disappear,” Eugenie added. “Just the rumor of psychic instability severe enough to require permanent hospitalization is enough to destroy a family. In any event, Nigel and Cyrus managed to get through college and launch careers as scientific researchers. But they apparently had a falling-out at some point, and for all intents and purposes, Cyrus disappeared.”

“That’s probably when he went to Lost Creek, found Vance’s notebook, and eventually the Vortex machine,” Leona said.

“There’s one more item of interest,” Eugenie added. “Nigel appears to have died without issue. But we’re not sure about Cyrus. We’re looking into the possibility that he may have had offspring.”

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