Hollis went to look at the photo, and it only required a moment for her to be certain. Lucius Matthews was the spirit she had seen in the restaurant with the gunshot wound in his head.

The one who had warned her that the monster they hunted was not sick but evil. And had always been evil.

—

THEY MET UP back at Hales in the early afternoon, all the team plus Finn, Nellie, and Leo.

“No sign of Danny Dryden at his condo here in town,” Bishop told them after filling in Quentin and Diana about what they’d learned from Megan’s sister and from the postmortem. “The family home where his mother and grandmother live is out in the valley.”

“Danny Dryden? Daniel?” Diana exclaimed. “You mean . . . our Daniel?” She looked from Bishop to Hollis.

“I don’t even know if it’s possible, but it’s what I’ve been fairly convinced of. Because I don’t believe in coincidences, not like that would have to be,” Hollis confessed, frowning. “Is it? Can one of your spirit guides be not a spirit? And a lot older than he appears in the gray time?” Her own theories aside, Hollis believed no one knew the gray time as well as Diana.

But Diana only looked baffled and uneasy. “I . . . don’t know either. I don’t think it’s ever happened before.”

Hollis looked at Bishop. “I’m betting you have theories. Do any fit this situation?”

Bishop looked at Finn. “Dryden is a Hales cousin—a first cousin, according to Megan’s family. I assume they’d know for certain if, at the very least, he’s shown any mediumistic tendencies.”

“Yeah, related to the Hales that close they’d know. His mother was born a Hales. And now that I think about it, his grandmother was a Hales cousin.”

“Does the Hales family history, that bloodline, show more signs of inbreeding than in the other families?”

Finn grimaced slightly. “Well, it isn’t something anybody advertises, but my father always said the Hales should have gone outside the valley for mates a long time ago. Danny was the first son of his line in about three generations, and apparently his mother had several miscarriages before he was born.”

“Is he known to have Talents of any kind?”

“Well . . . not that I ever heard. There are very few in the Hales family, even in the direct line, with Talent, and it’s always, always the same Talent.”

“Telekinesis?”

“Right. Difficult to control even when it’s not a strong Talent. And it’s usually not, at least not according to the family lore. Maybe because it’s so rare nobody ever found a way for it to be really useful, so nobody was encouraged to use it. Controlling something like that is difficult, but necessary. Maybe because it’s one of the few Talents that genuinely make people fearful.”

“And it’s not a Talent that can be used without the awareness of anyone watching,” Bishop said.

“Yeah, exactly. Pretty damned visible if you move things with your mind.”