Chapter 18
We found three women in dog kennels, bound and gagged, at the exact address the death echo said they would be. Even dead, Becky still led us to her killer. She saved three lives that day.
I am, predictably, terrible at this.
I can build the stage in my mind. That part is no problem. But the second I open my mouth to talk to Richard, smoke pours through the walls of my mental theater like they’re made of tissue paper.
“I can’t focus on both things at the same time,” I say, trying to recover after my fifth failed attempt.
“Clearly.” Nico leans against the control panel with his arms crossed. “I’m surprised you don’t have more natural talent for this.”
“Are you? Surprised?” I wipe sweat from my brow even though it’s freezing down here. “Thank you for being so encouraging. You know, some people say a student’s failure is actually the teacher’s failure.”
“It’s not my job to encourage you.” He pulls off his own goggles, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “If you need encouragement, go to DJ, but I guarantee you that encouragement won’t get results.”
“Is that what you’re getting right now?” I roll my shoulders back, trying to dispel the ache that has settled there from sitting in this position. “Results?”
“I’d get more if you spent half as much time practicing as you do talking back to me.” He cranks down on a lever, jerking his chin at the glass chamber. “Go again.”
By the time the team meeting starts, I feel like a wrung-out dish towel.
“Do we have to confirm the ghost from the crime scene was Morrow?” I ask from the living room couch, where I’m sitting next to DJ and scratching Bob’s head. “Or is context enough?”
“Nico’s intuition is right ninety-nine percent of the time—honestly, it’s kind of spooky how accurate he is.” DJ tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, making her earrings catch the light. “But we like to confirm things just to be safe, so we listen to the death echoes.”
“The what?” I ask.
“The death echoes?” She says it again, as if that clears everything up, then turns to Benji when my confused expression doesn’t change.
“When a person dies while experiencing intense emotions, those feelings can attach to their body,” Benji explains, yawning into his elbow. “We can listen to a person’s final moments using a device called the Whisper Aid.”
Of course it’s called something dramatic like the Whisper Aid. What’s next, the Boo-Detector 3000? I respect the commitment to the bit.
“We usually only get screaming,” DJ adds.
“But rarely—and I mean rarely, like one in ten times—it picks up words. Names. Locations. Specific details that help us track down the entity. It’s always a long shot, but when it works, it’s incredible.
Like this one time we got an entire address from a victim in Delaware and were able to save the three other women still caged in the guy’s basement before he could kill them. ”
“The guy gave his victim the address before killing her?” It’s a weird way to taunt someone.
“Actually, she found the address herself,” Benji says.
“Becky was resourceful. She acted submissive, following every one of Hayden Radke’s instructions until he realized she could be useful.
Entities can struggle with fine motor skills.
Radke did, more than most. He gave her tasks he couldn’t do well himself, like pulling the tab on a tin of dog food.
Or replacing the battery in his car keys. ”
“Opening his mail?” I ask, guessing where this is going.
“Entities aren’t usually good at remembering to pay bills, but Radke ordered packages regularly,” Benji says. “There was no need for him to raise suspicion at the store when he could get anything he needed delivered to his door.”
“Did he catch Becky telling the other women the address?” I ask. The death echo must have been Becky’s voice, not Radke taunting her like I thought.
“He caught her calling for help.” Nico has appeared in the doorway, folder tucked under one arm, holding a steaming mug of tea.
How long has he been lingering there?
He hands the mug to Donny and stands at the head of the room next to the TV.
He looks my way, ignoring Bob’s growl. “Radke needed help with his phone and left it with Becky, knowing there was no cell service in the basement. Radke died decades ago. Before smartphones existed. He taught himself a lot as an entity, but he didn’t know you can still make emergency calls without service until he returned to the basement and found Becky on the phone with 911, repeating her location over and over. ”
A chill runs down my spine.
“He killed her then,” Nico says. “Probably would have killed the others, too, but he realized the operator couldn’t hear anything. Ectoplasm had ruined the microphone. If the cops had been competent, they’d have followed up. Found those women. We found them instead.”
“That’s awful,” I say, dumbfounded.
“It is,” Nico agrees. “Radke’s interviews have proven useful, at least.” He gives me a pointed look.
I scratch Bob behind his ear, and he angles his neck into my fingers. “Are you going to do this death echo thing to the men who were found in the dumpster?”
“If they were forced to participate in trials, there’s a high probability the entity left specific instructions before they died,” DJ says. “Rules for the trial, maybe? Or threats about what would happen if they didn’t comply.”
Griffin stretches his arms over his head, his chair creaking under his weight. “Who’s making the morgue run?”
“I’ll go,” DJ volunteers, bouncing slightly in her chair. “And before anyone even thinks about suggesting it, no, I’m not taking Griffin.”
Griffin throws his hands up. “Why not?”
“Because you always get into trouble, and I’m tired of cleaning up your messes.” DJ turns to face him, her ponytail swishing with the movement.
“Name one time I got into trouble.”
“Remember the library thing? Or the bar four days ago? What about that time you got us kicked out of a museum gift shop?”
“First of all, the library thing wasn’t my fault—how was I supposed to know she was married? Second, as we already talked about, those guys at the bar started it, and third, that cashier was on a power trip.”
“You tried to buy a postcard with a twenty and then asked the cashier if she wanted to ‘discuss your change over dinner’—”
Donny clears his throat, and DJ immediately goes quiet.
“DJ will handle the morgue visit.” Donny lifts his mug to her. “She can choose who she brings.”
Griffin mouths ‘Fuck you’ at DJ, who blows him a kiss.
“The bodies are at Pittsburgh Memorial,” Nico says, opening a folder and handing the entire thing to DJ. “I made a call. They’re expecting two research fellows from Penn State at the autopsy this afternoon at three. You, and whoever you choose to go with you.”
I shift forward on the couch, clasping my hands together. “Can I go?”
“I didn’t realize ghost hunting required so much reading,” I admit, as DJ leads me back to the library.
“Ghost hunting is 90% research, 9% waiting around, and 1% action,” she says.
I must make a face because she gives me a sympathetic look.
“I know. It’s unfortunate. But I’ve never listened to any of Alan Morrow’s interview tapes. Benji’s listened to every tape in here and can give you exact details of them when you ask. He’s insane.”
“He sounds like he would have been the more logical choice to go with you.”
“Benji sweats when he lies—like, a lot—so he’s not good at collecting information under false pretenses.
Plus, he’s the baby of the team, and still nervous about doing field work, so he’s only gone into the field when shadowing Nico.
I’m hoping Benji will feel up for shadowing Griffin or me soon—otherwise, it’ll be a long time before he gets the experience he needs.
” DJ sets a folder on the table, along with an old cassette tape.
“The FBI interviewed Morrow extensively after his capture. If we’re going to listen for his voice at the morgue, we should know what we’re listening for. ”
I point out that he’d be possessing someone, so it actually wouldn’t be his voice at all, but DJ reminds me that his speech patterns would be the same and spends a good fifteen minutes giving me a complicated background on forensic linguistics before pressing play.
The voices are tinny, like they’re speaking through soup cans connected by a string.
“Mr. Morrow,” a male voice says. “In your research on interpersonal relationships, what patterns have you observed?”
Silence stretches long enough to make me wonder if the tape is broken. Then, a voice so quiet that I have to lean closer to the speaker to hear it: “People lie about the nature of their attachments.”
The hairs on my arms stand up. Morrow’s voice is measured, almost professorial, and it’s so high-pitched that it sounds squeaky. I wonder if he’s trying to make himself sound less threatening on purpose.
“Could you elaborate?”
“What most people call love is only a chemical abnormality in the brain.”
DJ fast-forwards through sections of silence, stopping when Morrow speaks again.
“If a person were to design an experiment to test this hypothesis,” the interviewer says, “how would they select participants?”
“Well, obviously, this person would need first to identify subjects who demonstrated strong emotional bonds.” He pauses, and I can almost hear him thinking. “The entire purpose of the study demands subjects who truly believe their connections are unbreakable.”
DJ hits pause, turning to me. “See how he uses big words like he’s trying to sound smart, but he’s so readily playing into what the interviewer is asking him?
The interviewer is being so obvious about the framing, and Morrow is falling for it.
He may be technically smart, but he’s not actually that emotionally smart. ”