quickly toward the stairwell. The first thing Wade noticed in the cellar was the smell—different, sweeter than the stench from the kitchen. Dominick dropped down to help Jake tear at the floor.

“They’re here, under the boards,” he said to Jake. “You smelled them, didn’t you?”

Wade had completely lost control of the situation. He’d lost control of Dominick, lost control of reality. Then he looked up from the sight of the two men pulling at the floorboards to a painting resting against the wall, a misty, ethereal oil painting.

“Dom, come look at this.”

His friend ignored him and kept on digging like a man possessed. Wade walked over to the painting. Her face was unmistakable: the girl in the photo upstairs. Her eyes stared out at him as though she were right here and alive.

Down at the bottom of the portrait was an unintelligible signature and a date: 1872. Was it authentic? How could this girl be the same one in the photo upstairs? Her great-great-grandmother perhaps? He looked closer. No, it was the same girl. No two people could share eyes like that.

Jake began choking. Without turning around, Wade let his mind drift into the young, retching policeman’s. He saw through Jake’s eyes and found himself staring at a half-decomposed woman with red hair. He wasn’t surprised.

“Dom, please stop digging and come look at this.”

A moment later, he felt his friend standing next to him.

“Touch it,” Wade whispered. “It’s the same girl, isn’t it?”

Dominick stared at the painting for a long time. Then he reached one hand out and placed it over her face.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” Jake managed to spit.

Wade ignored him. “Is it the same girl?”

Dominick’s china-blue eyes somehow seemed even lighter than usual. His fingers ran softly over the painting as though in a caress.

“Yeah, it’s her. I can’t tell anything else. She’s like a wall. Maybe the painting’s too old.”

“Will you two get away from that picture and call the coroner? We’ve got a mess over here.” Jake’s voice had grown stronger.

The room seemed small. Wade had turned to answer when Dominick’s hand closed over his wrist. It hurt.

“They aren’t going to believe us, Wade. They’ll say we’re crazy or put us on vacation.”

Everything in Wade wanted to argue, wanted to play this horror by the book. To do otherwise would mean making decisions. But he knew Dominick was right. Captain McNickel wouldn’t want to hear this, much less believe it.

“We’re on our own,” Dom said.

Wade didn’t look at the bodies. He stared at a mass of painted wheat-gold hair. “Don’t say anything yet. We still need the precinct computers. I saw a red Mazda parked out front.”

Dom was aggressive and high-strung and hard to know, but this time he was right. They were on their own.

chapter 10

Wade pulled away from my mind suddenly and shut me out. For a second I felt disoriented. Who was I?

“Eleisha,” he said aloud.

The past few hours came rushing back. Maggie was dead. I glanced at Wade’s watch. An hour had passed. An hour, and I knew his life story—or most of it. I braced both hands against the cheap carpet.

“Let me back in. What happened after you found the bodies in Edward’s cellar? Did you tell anyone?”

His narrow face glowed softly in the darkness. He didn’t say anything.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why did you push me out?”

“I always wondered what that must feel like,” he breathed. “I’ve read so many minds, judging sanity by what I see, but no one has ever . . . What do you think of me now?”

The intensity of his question threw me. I was worried about getting William out of Dominick’s reach, and Maggie’s death kept flashing by like a real-life horror film. Somehow, Wade wanted me to turn my thoughts to him, to the questions and fears that had haunted him most of his life. No, it wasn’t even that. He didn’t seem conscious of such a self-centered desire. But in one hour, he had poured his life—his private life—all over the floor for me to see.

How else could he feel? Yet such concern was difficult, almost impossible for me to achieve. I was a survivor.

Was my human life so far behind me that I no longer understood it? Maggie had told me, “I once lived with a professional baseball player for eight months.” The concept had stunned me. Could she have comforted Wade? Could she have conjured up pretty words and put his mind at ease?

“What do you want