“Now that we’re alone, Ric, tell me what happened here. This murder scene is what the dowsing rod targeted last night, and I saw it. Only I saw that couple alive, and being killed. I’ve never had daylight nightmares before. You must have had something to do with it. You’re a water witch, aren’t you?”
Ric winced at my last phrase. “Water dowser. It’s a respected . . . faculty among rural folk all over the world. I can do it a bit now, but it’s not my particular gift. It’s not any part of this Millennium Revelation upsurge in supernaturals and freaks at all. I’m not a freak. I’m not a witch or a wizard of anything. Just a guy with a quirky family gene.”
“So what’s your ‘faculty,’ if not finding water?”
He looked away, maybe appealing to the island god for inspiration so that I’d believe him.
“Most dowsers do find water. A very few find precious metals and stones. I’m unique, as far as I know. I see dead people. Underground. That’s what I do. Know they’re there.”
“That’s what you consult about?”
He nodded. “Law enforcement people are pig-headed and pride themselves on that. They just think I’m superbly educated and well-trained.” He gave a self-effacing grin. “Which I was, no thanks to myself.”
There was a story there, but I’d get it later. I can wait.
“A lot of them like to think I’m just lucky,” he added.
“I let them believe that I have a photographic memory for
news stories. Most dead bodies in wrong places are MIAs.
Someone’s missing; somebody’s reported something, if
you look hard enough. Which I do. After the fact.”
He met my eyes again. “You seem to have some folk faculty yourself.”
“You didn’t literally see them, the victims?”
“I don’t see anything that specific. The dowsing rod draws me to the grave. I report it and the authorities always find a body. Or bodies. Sometimes they’re more than human. Or less.”
I shuddered. “Are you saying—?”
“Yeah. Human murder victims are the simplest. Sometimes the bodies are staked vamps, victims of vigilante attacks. Other things.”
“In this case, you didn’t sense the bodies’ pre-death . . . agony? Their—” I didn’t know how to put it.
“Their heat? Yeah. I got that this time, but only through your reaction.” His bedroom eyes apparently couldn’t resist giving me a visual pat down. “It adds a whole new dimension to my work, believe me.”
I was blushing now, and on me, it always showed.
He managed to ignore that, at least. “This crime . . . feels . . . like revenge for infidelity. I’ve never picked that up before, never anything about means or motive. We make a hell of a combo, Delilah. I wasn’t kidding about you being an associate.”
Maybe. But he’d just seen me reacting to what I’d felt. He hadn’t experienced it, not both the glory and the gory. I didn’t like hanging out there on the naked edge like that, my emotions showing like a black lace slip under a white satin gown, literally in some strange guy’s hands.
“I’ve got my own agenda here to take care of.”
“I noticed. Now you know my secret. So what’s eating you?”
I jerked my head toward Sunset Road. “I’d sure like to get an appointment with the man behind that wall but I can’t even get past the driveway gate to the security call box inside.”
Ric turned to eye the imposing property.
“There? Easy. I’ve been hanging in this park long enough to notice the pool service truck that coasts through those gates every day at four P.M. If you can hitch your wagon to a chlorine machine, you’re in.”
“Thank you!”
My watch read 1:00 pm. I had time to plan.
Ric fingered my elbow-length mesh sleeves. Holding a dowsing rod like a psychic set of reins had given him a touch that could veer from sheer gossamer to a grip of iron. I’d felt that as intimately as I’d seen and experienced the dead couple’s passion and death.
“I’ll be in touch, Delilah. Okay?”
Oh, yeah, even though my knees were knocking about what that might mean.
Or maybe because they were.