a test in which students attempted to influence the fall of the dice with their minds.
“Did you guess the dice?” she asked.
He shook his head adamantly. “You think hard and you make them fall.”
Not just ESP but PK? Laurel glanced toward the kitchen and flashed again on the dancing forks and spoons from her dream.
“Can you show me?”
The look of alarm on his face was immediate and overwhelming. “Oh, no no no. No no.” He stood from the chair, shifting back and forth on his feet as if about to break into a run. “No more. Margaret says no.”
He shot a frantic glance toward the hallway door, then the study window, then the door out onto the screened porch. He was making soft worried sounds like the crooning of a pigeon.
“It’s okay, Uncle Morgan—it’s okay. I’m sorry.” Laurel hastily gathered the cards and put them back in her purse. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe we can just play, then?”
He lit up and scurried to an end table that she just then realized had an elegant poker caddy on it, with stacked chips and packs of cards.
It had been a long time since Laurel had played two-handed bridge, but her mother was an avid solitaire player and had taught her Hearts and bridge and gin rummy (Laurel always suspected it was so they wouldn’t actually have to talk). Laurel was able to keep up with Morgan’s hands, although it was clear he was a professional-level player and was beating the tar out of her. But winning was of no importance to Laurel: her uncle had completely relaxed into the game, his concentration completely on the cards, the worried wariness gone.
“I’ve been reading more about the lab, Uncle Morgan,” she said casually.
Morgan didn’t lift his eyes from the cards. “Your trick,” he said, and for a moment, she had the distinct feeling he was being literal, instead of referring to the game.
“I’m very curious,” she continued after a minute, more carefully. “And I wondered if you knew. I just don’t understand why the lab was closed so suddenly.”
“Your draw,” he said, looking down at the cards. He would not look at her, and she suppressed a sigh. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, and she didn’t have the heart to press him.
Dutifully she reached for a card—and Morgan abruptly stopped her hand with his. “No,” he said, and she looked at him, startled. “You’re not paying attention.”
His gaze locked hers … in the moment his rheumy eyes were startlingly clear. He looked down at the cards, passing his hand gently over them—and then reached for a different card than the one she had been about to draw.
He turned it over and she saw the Jack of Diamonds—the precise card she needed to complete the hand. She drew in a breath, and looked up at him.
“You need to pay attention.” He reached his index finger and touched the center of her forehead.
Her heart was beating faster and she felt tingling behind her ears.
Morgan didn’t look at her as he collected the cards and shuffled them, shuffled them again. Then he started dealing cards face down in two piles. The majority of cards he dealt into one stack, but every few cards he put one card aside in a smaller stack. Laurel watched, mesmerized by the soft slapping of the cards. When he had gone through the entire deck, he took the smaller pile and laid them out in a row, face down, in an order known only to him. He looked down at the row of cards, changed the place of one, then started at the head of the row and turned over one card after another, to reveal a complete set of hearts, in a perfect Ace-to-King order.
Laurel stared at the cards in complete awe.
“Uncle Morgan,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. “Why did the lab shut down?”
“It was the house,” he said softly.
“What house?” she asked, not daring to breathe. “The Seaford House?” He shook his head slowly. “The Folger House.” He met her eyes with a clear gaze, but before she could speak, his eyes clouded again with confusion, and yes, a hint of fear.
He collected the cards silently and began to lay them out, and would not speak again, no matter what she did to engage him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There was no record of a Folger House, or a Folger investigation. Not on the Internet, not in the catalog list Laurel had