“Stop being a pain.” Cole lightly swatted at Luke’s hand when my friend tried to take over whatever they were working on. “I know what I’m doing. Give me a second. It’s not my fault your internet is so wonky.”
“They’re portable hubs,” Luke explained. “We have several of them and they usually bolster one another. We haven’t gotten around to booting them yet. Getting in late last night threw us off.”
“Just give me a second.”
I folded my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. They were clearly up to something. There was no reason for them to be hiding in the animal tents.
“Here we go,” Cole announced. “Here’s the newspaper article about the accident. Let’s see what they have here.”
My frown grew more pronounced. They were researching the accident, too. That was interesting ... and maybe a little annoying. No, it was definitely annoying.
“We know it was a family,” Luke offered. “We need to figure out what they know about how the accident happened. There has to be something.”
“Just a second.” Cole didn’t sound testy as much as distracted. “I need a second to read.”
I decided to make my presence known. “It was a father and a mother. Two kids, a boy and a girl. They were both young, under ten, and the girl was holding a teddy bear when she died. All their eyes were open.”
Luke jerked as if he’d been scorched by something hot. The guilty look he flashed me was enough to make me realize they’d been hiding what they were doing from me specifically. The realization was a small tear.
Cole was smoother. “How do you know that?” he asked, unruffled.
“I had a dream.”
“A dream?” He cocked an eyebrow. “How do you know it’s real if you dreamed it?”
“It’s happened before.”
“It has,” Luke agreed, slowly getting to his feet. “What are you doing out here?”
“You mean because you obviously came in here to hide from me?” I was bothered a great deal by what was going on but tried to hold it together. “I came looking for you. We’re leaving to shop in about twenty minutes.”
“Oh.” Luke turned sheepish. “Thanks for telling me. I ... um ... we weren’t doing anything.”
“Right. You were hiding in the animal tent searching for information on the accident from yesterday ... but you weren’t doing anything.”
“We were simply chasing an angle,” Cole volunteered, his gaze speculative as it landed on me. “I can’t shake the feeling that the accident scene appeared off. Maybe it’s just the cop in me, but I’m bothered. We simply wanted to see what they were making public.”
“I believe I said that I was bothered by the scene before you,” I grumbled.
His lips quirked, almost as if he was trying to hold back a smile. “I think we said it at the same time. It doesn’t matter who said it first. I agree with you. The accident scene doesn’t feel right.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” I challenged. “I mean ... you’re out of your jurisdiction. It’s not as if you can muscle your way onto the investigation team.”
“I know that.” He didn’t raise his voice. His eyes didn’t flash with annoyance. He was perfectly calm ... which only served to further fire me up. “I don’t know that we can do anything. I just feel ... uneasy. I guess that’s the right word. I swear that I felt people watching me from afar last night after the sun set.”
My mouth dropped open. Now he was trying to steal my creepy feeling. “I said that first!”
Cole looked taken aback. “Not to me you didn’t.”
“I said it to Kade.”
“Which means Cole didn’t hear it,” Luke pointed out, his expression hard to read. “Are you feeling okay?” He raised his hand and pressed it to my forehead. “You look a little off.”
“The dream was weird,” I shot back, slapping at his wrist. I was feeling out of sorts. It was jealousy fueling me when it came to Cole. There was no doubt about that. I was brutally honest with myself when the need arose and I was clearly out of control when it came to Luke’s love life. I simply had no idea why. “I’m still trying to process it.”
“You’ve had dreams before,” Luke argued. “They don’t usually turn you into a raging bitch.”
That was true. “I know.” I rubbed my forehead. “I’m feeling off my game.” I sank into one of the random chairs placed around the tent. The space was supposed to look as if people were regularly in and out, tending to the animals and carrying out other tasks. On the rare occasions that a state official showed up to check on our animals, we usually had time to get the shifters in the cages before they made it to the back of the fairgrounds. Otherwise, we made the tent look lived in while almost completely ignoring it.
“Well, that’s okay.” Luke lightly rubbed my shoulders. The angle of Cole’s gaze told me the two men were communicating silently with their eyes over my head. “You’re allowed a bad day here and there. Tell me about the dream.”
Because it seemed like part of our normal routine, I did just that. When I was finished, Luke was flummoxed.
“What kind of teeth?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. They were just teeth.”
“Were they attached to bodies? If not, I can see why that would be the worst dream ever. Imagine having floating teeth all around you, snapping all the time.” He shuddered. “Ugh.”
“They were attached to people,” I countered. “Er, well, shadows. I didn’t see any faces.”
“But you heard whispering?” Cole asked.
I nodded. “Why? Does that mean something to you?”
“I don’t know. It could mean a great number of things. You’re the psychic. What do you think it means?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t be this crabby.” I shot him a smile because I felt as if I owed it to him. “I’m sorry for jumping all over you.” I mostly meant it. “I had a rough night and you made a handy target.”
“It’s okay.” He waved off my apology. “Everyone is allowed a bad day.”
As far as he was concerned, I’d had a full week of bad. Now was not the time to dwell on it, though. “I think it wasn’t an accident.” I decided to just go for it. There was no sense holding back now. “I think something else happened, an attack of some sort, and the accident was used to cover it up.”
“I agree with you,” Cole offered, “but I’m not sure how we prove that. I’m not even sure we should be focused on proving it. It seems the most important thing is finding out exactly what happened.”
“Do you think it’s something we’ve dealt with before?” Luke asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t recognize the creatures in my dreams. In fact, it was difficult to focus on them. They were blurry and ... well ... I was afraid. I never grow fearful in my dreams, but I did in this one.”
“What does Kade say?” Cole asked.
“He’s still new to the paranormal game. He’s crossed paths with only a few creatures. I mean ... he’s great when it comes to a fight. He’s extremely helpful and eager to learn. But he doesn’t have a vast knowledge base on this stuff.”