“Thank you, Andrew,” Arraf says. “As we reported a few hours ago, a car bomb was exploded at a US military construction site outside the city of Baghdad in Iraq. There were reports of multiple injuries. We now know there are twelve confirmed dead and ten wounded. The list of dead US servicemen whose families have been notified include: Private First Class Derek Sampson, age twenty-three; Corporal Sharlene Kavitz, twenty-six; Private First Class James Woods, twenty-two; Lance Corporal Wayne McDoogle, twenty-seven; Sergeant Patricia Richardson, thirty-one; and military contractors Lawrence Stemper, thirty-five; Brian Robert Farrow, thirty-nine . . .”

My pulse takes off like a rocket. Adrenaline makes my fingers twitch as I turn off the radio, hand Sylvie a bottle of water, and dig the Prilosec packet from my bag. “Take one. Please.” She pops a pill from the silver pack and washes it down with water. “You’ll need to take the entire fourteen days for them to work, okay?” Sylvie nods, her eyes trained on my face. I pull into the passing lane, overtake a Prius, then move back into the right lane.

Brian Robert Farrow. It’s Madison’s brother. She’s just lost her big brother. “How’d you know?”

Sylvie runs her fingers lightly down Chris’s back. “You won’t believe me.”

How the hell did she do it? “I’ll listen.”

“When I touched the charm on Madison’s bracelet, there was a loud blast. It hurt. I smelled smoke . . . heard screams.”

Sylvie covered her ears, winced.

“I knew there was an explosion but didn’t know why, so I asked questions, and you’re right, some were leading, others educated guesses. Maybe I should’ve left it alone, but I rarely do that . . . and then there was a male energy at the red door, very faint. I opened it and he showed me blistered skin, blood . . . he’d died in fire.”

I glance at Sylvie as she wipes the sheen from her brow. Despite my certainty that she’s a fraud, goose bumps rise on my arms.

“The spirit showed me a heart, broke it into two pieces, and held them out. I guessed those were his two sisters. When I told Madison the part about her brother loving her and that he wouldn’t have done anything differently, the spirit’s energy changed, he was at peace.” Sylvie traces a heart on the fogged window, makes a jagged line in the center. “Go ahead. Explain it away.”

The problem is that I can’t . . . unless I believe Sylvie is just really lucky at making guesses. But is anyone that lucky?

TWENTY-SEVEN

Sylvie

Thomas’s face has gone pale. I consider using the information Lucas gave me about Deacan now, while he’s rattled. I could easily fabricate a lie about a young spirit coming through with a message that would lead Thomas to believe . . . but I can’t bring myself to do it. Is it because I’m waiting for a more powerful opportunity, or do I want to avoid hurting him that way?