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.”Roman Hadley was the rarely seen, head of the university’s paranormal investigative society, and one of the donors financing its entire existence.He was the silent watcher, the unseen eye that inexplicably saw every move they made, every bit of research that took place.They were stunned at how he had known so much so quickly, including Tracy’s death.The team had never met him, so all of their correspondence was by phone or e-mail.“We also don’t want this attached to Tracy’s memory,” Brett said.“Soon enough, the story would become some urban legend.”“And I think we can all agree that we don’t want that,” Dylan finished.“The story is that we were all taking part in an intervention,” Susan said.“We were there to confront Tracy about her drinking.She participated, but when our backs were turned, she fled from the house before we could stop her.It was simply an intervention gone awry.I was the psychiatrist involved, and Tracy is still listed as my patient.So, let the blame fall on me.This will avert suspicion, and there will be no reason to check Tracy’s e-mail and find the letter she sent you.”She reached out and touched Sidney’s hand; he scoffed under his breath.This perfect emergency bandage provided by Dr.Logan had gained her a seat on not only the team, but on the society’s board, and Sidney would be seeing much more of her on a permanent basis.“Well, isn’t that convenient?” Sidney said.“So, now what? We still have to meet with her parents and Marcia.We are telling them the truth, which means I have to look them in the eyes and explain that it is my fault that Tracy’s dead.”So Sidney was now accepting blame, Susan thought, much the same way Tracy had over David.So many eerie coincidences and similarities, as though history were repeating itself.“Sidney, are you to blame for Tracy’s alcoholism?” Susan spoke as the psychiatrist now, exposing a fact she’d discovered much too late.“Tracy had been avoiding me because her drinking had escalated.It was alcohol that had caused David’s accident and subsequently Tracy’s.She never healed from losing him, Sidney.But what I didn’t see then, because she had abandoned our sessions, was that she couldn’t heal because she’d progressed into an alcoholic.”“I did put my foot down, Sid, when I first noticed her drinking,” Dylan said, “but everything in that house was happening so fast I—” He broke off, unable to finish, not wanting to remind them how they had silenced him.Couldn’t miss out on the discovery of a pipeline connection? The thought was implanted in Sidney’s mind, yet he refused to say it.There was enough blame to go around.He began to sweat and felt one of those headaches he’d felt lately when the deafness came upon him, and the voices of the dead spoke out.“In many ways,” Susan said, “this is my fault, Sidney.It’s not as though I’m lying.”A somber silence hushed the room as guilt and failure hung in the air, then Brett broke the silence.“I have analyzed all of the footage taken, Sid.There is more than enough proof of not only poltergeist activity, but a pipeline connection as well.There was danger in that house, and it fed off of her turmoil, her grief, and then her drinking.”The video footage, as well as the audio recordings, had been seized by the society heads who were now reviewing them behind closed doors at some clandestine location.They would be the reason that Roman Hadley would soon be paying them a conference call.Dylan thought it unwise to reveal this to Sidney right now.“You figured it out on your own, Sid,” he said.“David was trying to warn her, to save her from herself.You didn’t fail; Tracy failed herself.”Sidney kept envisioning the hourglass, remembering the voices that first whispered, then shouted, guiding him in the race against time.After the crash, the voices had remained silent.He imagined that they saw him as the failure he’d seen himself as.“Do none of you understand?” He spoke with sharp rebuttal.“I had help.I possess something the rest of you don’t, except you.” He pointed to Leah, the tears streaming down his face.“I had visions and heard the voices.It was my job to stop what was going to happen to her!”“So, who do you think you are? God?” Leah’s eyes narrowed in on him.“We are not heroes, Sidney.We have something we don’t fully understand and we never will [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]