Soul Thief (Blue Light Series) by Mark Edward Hall

lover. Who the hell knows why these nut jobs do the things they do.”
    “So you’re assuming the guy who did this is human?” Jennings said.
    Spencer smiled dryly. “Aren’t you?”
    “I’ve never seen a human do this.”
    “So you’re willing to buy into the possibility that he’s not?”
    Jennings narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m willing to buy into, Spencer. This whole thing has been crazy from the get-go. I thought it was over a long time ago. Christ!” He sighed in frustration. “What about that symbol beneath the words?”
    “Photos have been sent to Washington.” Spencer shrugged. “We’re working on it. It seems to have somehow been transferred onto the wall as though it’s a real object and not just a drawing. If you look closely it appears to be in bas-relief and it looks like it’s made of either stone or pitted metal.” Jennings put his hand up as if to touch the symbol. “Don’t touch it!” Spencer said and Jennings’ hand froze midway. “We’ve got a team coming in to remove that piece of wall, take it back to the lab. No one’s ever seen anything like it and we don’t want it contaminated.”
    On the stand beside the TV Jennings spied a family photo. Not able to wrap his brain around the image on the wall, he strode over and picked the photo up to examine it. “This is them, right?” He said, pointing at the images. “The whole family.”
    Spencer nodded.
    “There are four people in the picture. I only saw three bodies,” Jennings said. “Where’s the little girl?” But even as he asked the question, Jennings thought he knew.
    Spencer motioned for Jennings to follow him. In the kitchen he spoke in low tones. “That’s the part I didn’t want to mention over the air. The little girl, her name is Ariel. She’s six years old and she’s missing.”
    Jennings sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
    “We’re not jumping to any conclusions just yet,” Spencer said. “There’s no evidence she was taken.”
    Jennings croaked out a harsh laugh. “Well, where the hell is she then?”
    “We’re looking into it, checking with all known relatives and close friends. So far she hasn’t turned up.”
    “Who found the bodies?”
    “When the father didn’t show up for work and nobody would answer the phone, his employer sent someone over. The porch door was open and he saw the boy.”
    “Did he go into the house?”
    “No way. He went back to his car and called the police on his cell phone.”
    “So he didn’t see the little girl.”
    Spencer shook his head. “Nobody saw her.  Listen, Rick, we have a very strange situation here.”
    Jennings eyed the agent. “She’s missing, right? Either she ran away and hid somewhere or she was taken.”
    Spencer ’s expression was dour. “This is the strange part, the part I probably shouldn’t be talking about, but I really do need your help on this. Truth is there’s no forensic evidence in this house that proves she ever existed.”
    “ What?” Jennings said.
    Spencer said, “Her clothes are in her bedroom along with her toys, pictures, even a birth certificate. She’s got relatives and all the neighbors remember her. They all say she’s a gifted little girl; some sort of savant actually, and that she has a kind and pure heart. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that there’s no scientific evidence that she was ever in this house, no scientific evidence that she ever existed at all, for that matter. No fingerprints, no hairs, no epidermis. There’s nothing in her bed or the bathroom or the kitchen. Nothing! The house is filled with forensic evidence of all the other family members. That’s just normal. When you live in a space you contaminate it with your presence. Either she hasn’t been here in a very long time or she was never really here at all.”
    “Come on, Spencer, are all those people wrong? It’s not logical.”
    “You see anything this morning that’s logical, Rick?”
    “Then