Page 34 of It takes a Psychic

He angled his head in Roxy’s direction. “Think the dust bunny will stick around?”

Maybe changing the subject was his way of trying to de-escalate the tension between them, Leona thought. If so, he got a couple of bonus points. She could de-escalate, too.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I hope so.”

She heard some excited chortling and looked at the big pond. Roxy was perched on the rim. She was not alone. Two children, a boy and a girl who appeared to be about eight or nine years old, were in the process of placing a remote-controlled miniature boat in the water.

Leona suppressed an uneasy ping. It was just two kids, a dust bunny, and a toy boat. What could possibly go wrong?

She turned back to the restaurant box and chose one of the few remaining sandwiches.

Oliver helped himself to the last scone. “Roxy makes a handy little partner in crime.”

“If that was meant to be amusing, it landed badly.”

“That happens a lot with my jokes,” he admitted.

She could no longer get a read on his eyes because of the dark glasses, but she was very aware of his energy field. The effect on her senses was as strong as it had been last night. That was both unsettling and intriguing. It stirred things inside her that had not been stirred in previous encounters with the male of the species.

Late last night as she lay awake in bed, she had told herself that her reaction to Oliver was due to the ambient energy in the atmosphere, first in the artifact-filled gallery and later in the psi-flooded tunnels. Everyone got a little buzz in the Underworld. Then, too, there was all that adrenaline pumping through her bloodstream. It made for a potent bio-cocktail.

But now they were outdoors in a public park, not in the tunnels, and no one was chasing them. Nevertheless, the frissons of deep awareness—ofrecognition—were as strong as they had been during the night.

Focus, woman. Your life is a hot mess at the moment. You can’t afford to get distracted.

“We’re here to exchange information,” she said, determined to take charge of the conversation. “You go first. Tell me about the yellow crystal.”

He munched, swallowed, and evidently made a decision.

“The most important data I have on that pyramid is what I learned last night,” he said.

“What is that?”

“It’s hot, it’s tuned, and you can resonate with it.”

She paused in mid-chew. “Sounds like I might be useful to you.”

“Oh, yeah.”

She thought about that while she swallowed the last of the sandwich.

“Look, I’m a professional para-archaeologist,” she said. “My ability to resonate with certain crystals is a side effect of my core talent. I can’t tune them like my sister does, but I can usually sense the energy locked inside.”

“And unlock it?”

“Sometimes,” she said smoothly. “I happen to have a crystal that appears to be the same kind of stone as the pyramid, so yes, I want to know more about both.”

“Here’s what I think. You know more than you’re letting on. I assume you’re not going to tell me that it was just an amazing coincidence the pyramid crystal turned up in Pandora’s box on the very night you were scheduled to not only authenticate the box but open it for the Society?”

She flushed, Molly’s words ringing in her ears.What are the odds that a rare stone like the one you and I wear just happened to turn up in one of the artifacts that you were supposed to authenticate at the reception?

“No, I don’t think it was a coincidence,” she said. “But I swear I haveno idea what was going on last night, and neither does anyone else in my family.”

That was nothing less than the truth.

He nodded, reluctantly accepting her denial. “Okay.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I realize you don’t trust me. The feeling is mutual.”

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