Hollis was still frowning. “Being in the gray time was just . . . creepy. More than usual. Maybe because we weren’t on a case and it was . . . startling . . . to be yanked there. Maybe. Those victims being in color made it extra creepy.”

“What else?” Miranda asked her.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, then said, “Something about the guide, I think. About Daniel.”

Quentin looked at Diana and said, “You were bothered about him earlier. About him maybe being stuck in the gray time. Until he appeared to guide us to a victim on the mountain.”

“I think . . . I know I was bothered by something about him. Maybe that was it. Even him appearing to me on this side of the gray time was different. That’s rare for me; we all know that. And him leading us to a victim—that was also rare.” She frowned at Hollis. “What about Daniel was bugging you?”

“I dunno. Something about the way he talked to us, the way he smiled. Maybe.” Both her uncertainty and her frustration with it were clear.

“How did he talk to you?” Bishop asked her. “What was different?”

Hollis said, “Like I said, it’s really more Diana’s time or place than it is mine; I haven’t been there that many times. So maybe it wasn’t as odd as it felt to me. I mean, Daniel was fairly unhelpful, which is the rule with spirits and spirit guides, we all know that, but . . .”

DeMarco was watching his partner steadily. “Which of your senses are strongest there?”

She looked at him, surprised. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“So?”

“Well . . . it’s a disorienting kind of place, at least to me. It’s cold and looks weird and smells weird, even sounds weird when I speak or Diana does or the guide. I feel cold and tired there almost at once. None of my senses seem to work right there.”

“None of them?”

“The usual five are sort of muffled or just different there. The spider senses definitely don’t work. At all. At least not for me, not so far. Empathy . . . Huh. This is the first time I’ve been there since I became an empath. I think. I don’t remember feeling any emotions other than my own.”

“Clairvoyance?” Bishop asked.

“I’m not clairvoyant.” But it was said more or less automatically, and she was still frowning.

DeMarco said, “Gut feeling. What did you know when you were there? About Daniel.”

“He didn’t belong there.” She looked surprised again.

“Why not?”

“I . . . don’t know.”

SIXTEEN

It was a bit later than normal that evening when Nellie and Finn shared a table at one of the downtown restaurants, late enough so that there were only half a dozen other customers, including the two deputies who ate their own supper at a table near the front windows while they waited to escort Nellie and Finn home.