“Of course not. I told you, I reacted intuitively.”

He gave her a slow, satisfied smile. It was the first time he had smiled since he had sat down at her speed date table.

“You used the artifact to ice his aura, didn’t you?” he said. “Nice work. I knew the seizure story was bogus.”

She winced. “I had to come up with a believable explanation for the client. Roger Gossard knows I’ve got a psychic vibe, but he certainly doesn’t think I can do anything so . . . so physical with it. Neither did I. Roger would be horrified if he knew the truth. I’m pretty horrified myself.”

Harlan raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted to be alive, but I’m still trying to process what happened that night. The thing is, Roger and I agree that if the police and the media get hold of the real story it would be the end of Lark and LeClair. You know what would happen if it got out that we claim to solve cases with psychic powers.”

“Sure. Lark and LeClair would become a joke as far as serious clients and law enforcement are concerned. You would start attracting people who want you to hold séances.”

She shuddered. “Yes.”

“Right. Tell me about the camera.”

She sank down on the side of the bed. “I found it in a local antiques shop. The moment I saw it I recognized it.”

“You’d seen it before?”

“Not in real life. It’s in a painting that my mother did.”

Harlan watched her intently. “Where is the painting?”

“Hanging on the wall of the Fogg Lake house. It wasn’t just that the camera looked familiar—it felt familiar.”

“You recognized the psychic signature.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s definitely not a traditional camera from the last century. There’s no way to put film in it. No way to open it without taking it apart. The lens is a crystal of some kind, not ordinary glass. The two buttons are crystals, too.”

“Did you run any experiments?”

“I tried pressing the buttons a few times but nothing happened. I could feel the power locked in the camera but I did not know how to activate it.”

“Until you were attacked. Then you suddenly knew how to work it.”

She looked at the camera. “Like I said, intuition.”

“Sounds like the intuition of an oracle,” Harlan said quietly.

“I. Am. Not. An. Oracle.”

She clenched her hands together in her lap and took a deep breath. There was no point losing her temper with Harlan. All he cared about was his agenda. She had other problems, one of which was that she was in her bedroom with a man she had met only a few hours earlier and she was wearing a nightgown.

“Damn,” she said.

“Think of something else about the camera?” Harlan asked.