ENTANGLED by Jennifer Estep, Cynthia Eden, Allison Brennan, Dale Mayer, Lori Brighton, Liz Kreger, Michelle Miles, Misty Evans Edie Ramer, Nancy Haddock, Michelle Diener Page B

Zavier loomed on the threshold.
     
    “He’s here, isn’t he?” Martha demanded from her stance at my elbow.
     
    I met her troubled gaze. “Yes, ma’am.”
     
    “Speak with me, ghost woman!”
     
    I held up a finger to indicate Zavier needed to hold his horses, then I looked over my shoulder at Brick.
     
    “I’m not going to talk to him before you have a chance to document with your equipment, but you might want to get an electromagnetic field meter over here. Now.”
     
    Brick looked at Martha. “Mrs. Harrison, may we proceed?”
     
    She waved a hand. “Yes, yes. Do your setup, and be quick about it. I want this investigation completed and my home quiet again.”
     
    She went off in the direction of the kitchen, her cane punctuating her footsteps, while Brick quietly gave the order to set up. I kept my eyes on Zavier’s husky form floating three feet off the floor.
     
    As on the day I’d done Martha’s intervention, Zavier presented himself in dark knee breeches, a light shirt with lace at the neck, a long dark coat and boots. I vaguely recalled he’d lived in St. Augustine even before the Castillo de San Marcos had been constructed, and that was in the 1700s. Or was it earlier? I did a mental shrug. Hey, being born and raised here didn’t mean I stored historical dates and events on the front burner of my brain.
     
    “Colleen?”
     
    I startled at Brick’s voice, and he laid a warm hand on my shoulder that zinged a shiver of awareness from the top of my head to my toes.
     
    “You want to tell me where the ghost is?”
     
    “And mess with your objectivity?” I shook my head and stepped back. “Find him yourself.”
     
    Brick spared me a probing glance, then moved toward the parlor with the EMF meter. In seconds, the lights on the device danced and Brick called to his team. They came, they saw, they murmured in subdued but excited voices. Then they scattered to set up video cameras and digital recorders, stringing cables in their wake.
     
    Zavier retreated to the ornate fireplace where he paced, shot me the occasional glower, and then paced again. Since the spirit showed no sign of leaving the parlor, I could’ve told Brick to set up there alone. But Martha had reported noises in the attic, so I kept my mouth firmly closed on that score. However, I did have a quiet word with Zavier asking for his patience. He didn’t like the ghost investigation activity, but he agreed to wait. I then cooled my own heels by the front door to be out of the way.
     
oOo
    Twenty minutes later, Brick motioned me into the tech-littered dining room. Three flat screens shared space on Martha’s carved dark walnut table, again wires running helter-skelter. I recognized most of the ghost hunting toys arrayed on the table, including the EMF meters, digital thermometers, and recorders. Heck, I used them in my interventions when I ran into ghosts that wouldn’t communicate with me directly. A tidbit about my work I doubted Brick knew.
     
    “Dan and Melody will watch the monitors first,” Brick said. “Don and Deirdre, bring the usual equipment with you. The two of you, and Colleen and I will start in the parlor. Anything else we need, Colleen?”
     
    Whoa. Did Brick know about my ghost hunting tools after all?
     
    Stunned as the question left me, I had an answer ready. “An infrared thermal scanner and a 35mm camera, if you have them. Old school black and white film sometimes catches what digital doesn’t.”
     
    Brick looked to Don. “You still have your camera?”
     
    “In the car. I’ll get it.”
     
    Don scooted past me with a shy smile that might’ve conveyed a smidge of respect. I wondered if Brick had already played the recording of Da for his team. Intuition said no. He’d analyze my chat with Da as part of the entire body of evidence he collected tonight. I hoped there’d be a lot of it.
     
    When Don returned, he handed the camera to Brick. “Loaded and ready.”
     
    “Good deal.