two stopped coming.”
“Wonderful,” he muttered, shaking his head. No one in their right mind would buy this house. Hell, even if he did try to give it away, who would take it? He turned to the window. A thin layer of grime covered the glass in a brownish-yellow film. Outside, golden sun spilled over the forest, turning the pockets of remaining fall foliage into brilliant bursts of orange and red. Most of the leaves had given up their hold on the tangled branches, and from where he stood he could see the black water of The Devil’s Eye.
“Since the arrests, those girls might be willing to resume their positions, especially given the state of the village. There isn’t much work to choose from just now,” Stella said.
“That would help.” But what would he pay them with? Good thoughts?
Movement at the edge of the bog caught his eye. Someone was down there. Declan squinted to try to see who, but he was certain he already knew.
“I have to go,” he said, turning back to Stella.
She blinked and sputtered, “But I’ve paperwork, and—”
“I’m sorry. Leave the paperwork with me and I’ll drop it by your office later today,” Declan said, ushering the woman back downstairs to the front door. “I’m really sorry about this. I just remembered another appointment.”
Not true, but he wasn’t about to admit he had to chase away some crazy woman hunting ghosts at The Devil’s Eye.
* * *
“My God, Carly, I’ve never seen numbers like these.”
Carly nipped at her bottom lip to keep from smirking. Standing at the edge of the bog, she stared down at her rippling reflection in the black water and somehow managed to keep from telling Andy she’d told him so.
As she’d predicted, the geomagnetic field readings were practically off the charts. Excitement welled inside her when she considered the possibilities. As well as setting up geomagnetic meters at opposite ends of the bog, she and Andy had set up voice recorders and she’d snapped a few pictures of the area.
Both Brynn and Eleri James had claimed to have seen shadow people in the woods, and Reece Conway had been bombarded with voices once he managed to get past the gate. To be fair, Reece was sensitive, a natural medium. The odds of Carly hearing anything he could were low. But Brynn and Eleri were about as sensitive as the rock Carly was digging out of the mud with the toe of her boot.
She’d asked Reece to come with her. Having worked with him back when she was an undergrad and he was a teenager assisting his uncle—also a natural medium—she knew he was good, better than any medium she’d worked with since.
Reece had turned down her invitation to return to Stonecliff. Not only had he given up using his gift to go build boats in Holyhead on the opposite side of the Isle. Of Anglesey, but he was also engaged to Brynn, who never wanted to set foot on the estate again.
How could someone have a gift like his and not use it, not explore it or take the time to understand it? Such a waste.
“Carly?” Andy’s sharp tone jerked her from her reverie. She turned to see him standing behind her, a frown etched into his boyish features. “I asked you if you believed the source of the energy was coming from the bog? Maybe there’s a fault zone running beneath it.”
She jerked a shoulder. “It’s possible, but I’m more interested in what that energy is producing.”
“The shadow people?”
“Voices, footsteps, strange noises. Both sisters had physical experiences. One was pushed down the stairs, the other trapped in a stairwell by a door with no lock. So the question is—does all that activity stem from this place, The Devil’s Eye? Is the energy given off by the bog producing paranormal phenomena, or is it a source of hallucinations?”
She turned back to the dark water. The afternoon sun reflected off the black surface like a white pupil in a black iris. A shiver slithered up her spine.
“I thought you believed the energy was evil.”
“Energy is energy,” she murmured, then turned to face him. Andy looked up from his hunched position next to one of the geomagnetic meters. “But what if evil acts could manipulate that energy and draw more evil to it? Some believe shadow people are manifestations of evil.”
Andy snorted and shook his head. “You’re not trying to claim the energy here influenced those people who killed all those men, that The Devil’s Eye made them do it.”
“No, but what if it drew them here?”
“All three were local—the pub owner and his wife and the village doctor. They’d lived here all their lives and their families before them.”
Carly sighed and left the water’s edge, walking toward Andy. “But why here? They could have murdered people anywhere in Cragera Bay, or anywhere on the island for that matter. Why The Devil’s Eye? And don’t forget that nurse who murdered two people this past spring, completely unrelated to the bodies in the bog.”
“If your theory’s correct, and The Devil’s Eye is attracting murderers, then I suppose we’re lucky to still be alive. We could have been killed in the short distance between here and the car.”
Andy laughed at his own joke, and Carly rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I brought you in on this.”
“Because no one else would have been crazy enough to come. Still,” Andy said, with a shrug. “I think you might be onto something here.”
Andy, after all, wanted the same thing as her: for his work with the paranormal to be taken seriously. While Carly had her own issues in academia, her work considered little more than a pseudoscience, Andy was still a builder by day, paranormal investigator by night. His own work viewed as an amusing hobby by some, a crackpot waste of time with no scientific merit by others.
Carly pushed the envelope, walked a very thin line between right and wrong to get what she wanted—and in the case of The Devil’s Eye she was well over that line—but Andy was willing to do all that with her because if her work could be taken seriously, then so would his.
She grinned and folded her arms over her chest. “Was there any doubt?”
He snorted. “Should we start tidying this lot up? Before his lordship realizes we’re here.”
“I suppose,” she murmured, nipping at her bottom lip again. She just hoped they’d gathered enough to convince Meyers to give them access to the property.
“If we did manage to catch something while we were here,” Andy said, setting the voice recorder back in its case, “do you think Meyers will change his mind?”
He must have been reading her mind. Carly opened her mouth to answer, but a man’s voice cut her off.
“No, he won’t change his mind.”
Carly whirled around. Declan Meyers stood in the opening between the bog and the path that led deeper into the woods toward Stonecliff. His gaze burned like black coal, sharp-angled features twisted into a furious scowl.
“He might, however, have you arrested for trespassing.”
Chapter Four
Crap! Carly’s pulse fluttered in her throat, her mind spinning in a thousand different directions trying to decide the best way to defuse the situation. She opted for pretending nothing was wrong.
She smiled as if she were delighted to see him. “Mr. Meyers, what a surprise. We’re just about finished here.”
He threw his hands up with furious incredulity. “Are you deranged or just stupid? I told you yesterday to stay the fuck away from Stonecliff.”
“You did,” she agreed, nodding slowly. Should she go ahead and show him the numbers they’d