“Can’t be sure, but it’s a real possibility,” he said. “If I’m right, the instrument is a paranormal weapon. I’ve come across a small number of them during the past five years.”

“Paranormal weapons?”

“Yes. Not all of them were products of the Bluestone Project.”

She glanced at him, startled. “Really?”

“Bluestone wasn’t the first effort to weaponize paranormal energy, Olivia.”

“So?”

“So, I learned some stuff while I was ducking the Foundation. There are a few laws of paranormal physics, one of which is that firing a paranormal weapon is not easy. It requires considerable talent and a tuning process.”

“I was able to use the camera as a weapon,” she pointed out. “No tuning process required.”

“I’m sure that’s because you inherited your grandmother’s psychic vibe. It was tuned to her energy field. Evidently your paranormal profile is similar to hers—close enough, at least, to let you activate the device. But even in your case, you needed a strong talent. Got a feeling you’ve been unconsciously resonating with the camera ever since it came into your possession, learning how to use it.”

“You think the recorder player is a strong talent, not just some random sociopath who happened to find the crystal weapon.”

“Right.” Harlan straightened and began to prowl the small room. Everything inside him was quickening. A Venn diagram began to take shape inside his head. Interlocking circles appeared. Connections. “We know a few things about the camera now, including the fact that it’s dangerous.”

“And worth a fortune in the underground antiquities market,” Olivia said. “It’s a working paranormal weapon with a Bluestone provenance.”

“It’s possible a rabid collector lured your mother into the woods to steal the camera, but if that’s the case the artifact would have disappeared into a private vault.”

Olivia looked down at the camera in her hands. “Instead it wound up on the sales floor of a local dealer who sold it for less than a hundred dollars.”

“We need to talk to the dealer who sold you the camera.”

“Gwendolyn Swan. She won’t be able to tell us much, though. If she had considered the camera a valuable relic she would have stored it in her basement vault. She knows paranormal artifacts.”

“Do you think there are any other holographic images locked in the camera?”

“To be honest, I’m nervous about trying to find out.” She shivered. “Pulling up the holograms feels like summoning ghosts.”

“That’s true of all photographs, if you ask me. The people in them are ghosts in another dimension. You can see them but you can’t communicate with them.”

“Great. I’ll never be able to look at another photo without thinking about ghosts.”

She concentrated. Harlan felt energy shift in the atmosphere. When she pressed a button the image of the recorder player disappeared. No new images appeared.