of the boxwood labyrinth … no, two figures. Katrina and Tyler were walking together, meandering really, with no apparent purpose.
Laurel stood looking down on them. She glanced back through the door into her room at the mess of clothes on her closet floor, and another thought struck her. Are they both conspiring to juice up the investigation—Katrina to please Brendan, Tyler for his own amusement? It was more than possible.
She was both shocked and uneasy that Brendan was being so credulous, and she wondered if the whole experiment was already compromised beyond repair. On the other hand, they had carefully set up the project to be a study of the participants more than the phenomena. There was still an interesting study to be made here, if she could keep her own head.
Part of her whispered that she’d already lost her head, or she’d be gone from here, already.
And there’s no mistaking who you’ve lost your head to, is there?
She pushed that thought away and looked out over the gardens again.
Tyler and Katrina had disappeared in the paths beyond the labyrinth. Now they reappeared suddenly beside the reflecting pool, two tiny figures, far away.
Tyler glanced back toward the house—surreptitiously, Laurel thought, and then led Katrina toward the overgrown garden house.
Looks like Tyler’s about to execute Plan A. Miss White Sugar is toast.
But it’s Brendan who Katrina wants—that’s entirely obvious.
She stepped back inside her room and looked at the scattering of clothes, dumped out on the floor.
Someone did it. Both of them?
Time to find out.
CHAPTER FORTY
Outside Laurel moved down the brick steps and onto the gray gravel path toward the garden house. The path meandered along the reflecting pond and she was startled to see large orange and white shapes in the murk: Koi, overgrown and bloated and barely able to navigate the snarls of weeds and straggling lilies, yet somehow still surviving.
Even as neglected as the pool was, Laurel could feel the power of that carefully designed meditative walk: the long pool on one side, the soaring wall of weeping cherry on the other. Ahead, the garden house was a hobbit den of river rock; the roof had caved in in places and the yellow jasmine had done its aggressive damage, working tendrils in through cracked windows and wrapping itself around the beams of the covered patio until the wood splintered and sagged, but the structure was still reasonably in one piece. Laurel approached it cautiously, debating …
If they’re only out here having sex, I definitely don’t want to see it.
And it was a perfect spot for a tryst—given the social history of the house it had no doubt been used hundreds, even thousands of times for that very purpose.
She was about to turn back, when she heard Tyler’s voice. There was something stilted about it, not his normal speaking voice, but almost a stage voice. She frowned and moved quietly up along the side of the house toward a broken window.
She inched closer, and could now distinguish Tyler reading aloud from something.
“ ‘Every poltergeist haunting is a contract between the percipients, the investigators, and the house… .’ ”
Laurel felt a jolt of shock.
What?
She leaned closer to listen in at the broken window, fascinated.
“ ‘In its first stages the poltergeist plays with ordinary reality. It breaks down the laws of physics, and in its very randomness creates a sense of helplessness and dependence among its human observers. As there is no predicting what the poltergeist will do, it is completely in charge of any given situation. Further, there is an order to the occurrences that is seductive, they have a logic all their own. A logic that is incomprehensible to the human percipients, yet undeniably a logic, and thus all the more fascinating—’ ”
Tyler broke off for a moment to break into an eerie “Mwah hah hah.”
Katrina’s voice overlapped his, an irritated drawl. “Shut up.” There was the sound of a slap, though not very hard.
Tyler said something that Laurel couldn’t catch and then there was a pause… . Laurel suddenly smelled a strong, familiar green odor drifting from the cottage.
Oh, great—on top of everything they’re getting stoned. And then she almost laughed. That might have an interesting effect on the experiment. I wonder if Dr. Leish had this problem.
Inside the room, Tyler spoke again. “Wait—this is where it really starts getting good—
“ ‘The poltergeist has all the power, because the human percipients give it that power. It seeks to lull the percipients into a state of amusement and fascination and