“Your mother is a very wise woman,” Alice said. “She’s right. And because Harry and Drake Sebastian and Chief Attridge are a little different, they are going to take care of the bad guys. Meanwhile, we need to get you back to your parents. It’s almost time for dinner.”

“Ah, just one more game with Houdini,” Mark wheedled.

“Nope. Houdini will be wanting dinner, too. He never misses a meal or a snack.” Aware of an unusual silence, she looked around. “Where is he?”

“Hey, I’ll bet he’s figured out that he can reverse the game and hide from us,” Billy said. “He wants us to find him.”

“Houdini,” Alice called. “Game over. Seriously.” She clapped her hands lightly together in the signal they used on stage. “Come on out. Dinner time.”

There was a brief, muffled chortle in response to the word “dinner,” but Houdini did not dash out of the gloom. Alice walked through the crowded space, her unease spiking.

“Houdini,” she said. “Please, come out.”

There was a scratching noise. Houdini appeared on top of a nearby crate. He chortled at her and then scampered down off the crate and disappeared back into the gloom.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Alice marched toward the spot where she had last seen him. “I really do not have time for this. We need to get Billy and Mark back to their parents.”

She made her way cautiously through the warehouse, Billy and Mark at her heels. She rounded the far end of a row of neatly stacked kayaks and stopped when she saw Houdini. He was on the concrete floor and all four eyes were wide open. He was not sleeked out but he was definitely in alert mode. There was just enough of the failing gray light filtering through a dingy window to enable her to make out what had captured his interest: a bedroll composed of several ragged blankets and a well-worn khaki backpack that bore the faded emblem of the Resonance City Ghost Hunters Guild.

“That’s Egan’s stuff,” Mark said. “This is where he sleeps. We shouldn’t touch it. Everyone says he’s crazy.”

“Yeah, Dad says Egan must have got burned real bad by a ghost down in the tunnels,” Billy said. “Mom says that’s why I can’t be a ghost hunter when I grow up.”

“I agree, we are not going to touch Egan’s things,” Alice said. “But not because he might be psi-burned. We’re not going to touch them because they are his personal property. Everyone has a right to his privacy. Come on, it’s past time to leave.”

She bent down to collect Houdini. He rumbled as though in warning but he did not try to evade her. He dropped the object he had been playing with. It landed on the concrete floor with a small clink. Alice straightened, Houdini in her arms, and glanced down.

When she saw the object at her feet, everything inside her went cold.

“Oh, crap,” she whispered. “Houdini, where did you find that?”

But of course there was no answer. Nor did she need one. It didn’t matter now. The only thing that mattered was getting Billy and Mark out of the warehouse.

She picked up the object that Houdini had found, straightened, and looked at the boys.

“We’re leaving,” she said. She spoke very quietly. “Come with me. We’ll go out the back door, it’s closer.”

Something in her tone must have gotten through to Mark and Billy. They followed her out the rear door of the warehouse without asking any questions. She breathed a sigh of relief when they were safely outside and hurried them around the corner of the building.

A moment later they were on the sidewalk and no longer alone. Lanterns bobbed in the gathering dusk. They passed several people who were on their way to various places of refuge for the night.

Billy’s parents and Mark’s father appeared out of the fog.

“There you are,” Mrs. Walters said. “I was starting to worry.”

Mr. Snyder glared sternly at Mark, but his relief was palpable. “Didn’t I tell you not to wander off alone?”

“I wasn’t alone,” Mark said quickly. “Billy and I were playing with Houdini. And then Ms. North found us.”

Mrs. Walters looked at Alice, gratitude in her worried eyes. “Thanks for rounding them up.”

“No problem,” Alice said. “Almost time for dinner. I’ll see you at the tavern in a few minutes.”

“Where are you going?” Billy asked.

“To find Drake,” Alice said. “Is he still at the Kane Gallery?”

“No,” Mr. Snyder said. “I saw him a while ago. He was heading down to the police station.”

“Thanks,” Alice said.

With Houdini under one arm, the object he had discovered in her other hand, she hurried along the empty sidewalk. The windows of the unlit shops glittered darkly in the gathering dusk.

Her intuition was screaming at her now. She focused on finding Drake. The first tendrils of the mist wreathed around her like the tentacles of some monstrous sea creature rising from the depths to hunt on the shore.

She did not sense the dark shadow in the narrow alley until Houdini hissed a warning and went into full combat mode. Instinctively she pulled hard on her talent, trying to go invisible and take Houdini with her.

But it was too late. Neither she nor Houdini could move fast enough to evade the chilling radiation from the Alien weapon. Houdini went limp in her arm.

“Houdini,” she whispered. “No.”

She tried to run but she could not move. Instead the icy psi-light forced her to her knees. Her heart was pounding. Consciousness was slipping away. She managed to put Houdini on the ground. His paws twitched. His hunting eyes were closed but his baby blue eyes were still partially open. She dropped the object in her other hand on the ground next to him.

“Drake.” She did not know if she said the name aloud or not. “Get Drake.”

Drake would come to this place eventually, she thought. He would retrace her steps from the warehouse and find the object. He would understand why it was important.

Egan took no notice of the small object. Perhaps he never even saw it. He was too busy focusing energy through the Alien weapon.

For a terrible moment Alice locked eyes with him. But he was already pocketing the weapon and reaching down to catch hold of her. She tried to scream but she could not manage so much as a whisper.

She plummeted into the abyss. Egan’s hands and the terrible fog closed around her.

Chapter 32

“TUCKER’S CONNECTION HERE IN TOWN IS EGAN,” DRAKE said. He tossed the notes that he and the others had made down onto Myrna’s desk. “None of the other suspects even come close.”

“Crazy Egan?” Myrna frowned at the handwritten notes in front of her. “But that makes no sense.”

“Not so sure about that,” Kirk said, his expression tightening. “When you think about it, he’s the one person who can move around town at any time, day or night, without drawing more than a passing glance. Hell, none of us even sees him after dark because he sleeps in the warehouse.”

“The kids have seen him at night,” Drake said.

Myrna raised her brows. “What do you mean?”

“They’ve been talking about the ghost in the graveyard,” Drake said. “I saw one the other night, too. Pretty sure now that was Egan.”

“Get real,” Kirk said, looking uneasy. “No such thing as ghosts.”

“No, but there are ghost hunters,” Drake said. “Egan is one. He must be the person I saw prowling around the old cemetery last night. I tried to find him, but by the time I got downstairs to the street he had disappeared.”

“Why would he go to the graveyard?” Myrna asked.

“I don’t know,” Drake said. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Nothing that you don’t already know,” Myrna said. “He arrived on the ferry a few days ago with the rest of the Glorious Dawn crowd. According to you, Zara Tucker has been running her operation inside the Preserve for nearly a year. If Egan is her spy and he’s been in Shadow Bay all this time, where’s he been hiding?”