Page 57 of The Instruments of Darkness

“I’m not being facetious,” said Drew, “but she looked dead.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“I could see bruising to her neck. That was how she died. He strangled her.”

“?‘He’?”

“She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear and smell him. It was a man. She wasn’t sure if he meant to kill her. He was trying to get her out of the car and she fought him. He pressed his hands hard on her neck and she felt something break inside. Then she was gone.”

“Why couldn’t she see him?”

“He put a bag or hood over her head when he abducted her.”

Pascal was taking notes. If, by some wild stretch of the imagination, there was a shred of truth to what he was hearing, the man who had abducted Verona Walters didn’t want her to see his face. Either he didn’t wish to look at his victim as he killed her—and some killers preferred not to—or he intended to release her, possibly after sexually assaulting her or following the payment of a ransom. But the Walterses weren’t wealthy, which hardly made them an attractive target for a kidnapper.

“So you say he killed her?”

“I don’t,” said Drew. “Verona does.”

“And then?”

“He buried her.”

“If she’s underground, how could she have helped you to create a map?”

“Is that supposed to be a clever question, Detective Pascal?”

For the first time, she expressed irritation.

“Just a logical one,” he said.

“Her body is down there, but another part of her isn’t.”

“Her soul? Her ghost?”

“Call it what you like. I don’t have a name for it, or any of them, not beyond ‘the dead.’?”

“Them? You mean there’s more than one?”

“Not with Verona. I’m speaking in general terms. She’s not the first for me.”

“And do they all speak to you?”

“Only some. The rest talk to themselves, or to the people they’ve left behind. I’m not convinced all of them can see me. If they do, it may be that I’m present as a specter, a flickering in the dark, much like they sometimes are to me. The majority don’t stay very long anyway. I blink, and they’re gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Since they don’t come back, I’ve never had a chance to ask. Nor would I wish to, even given the opportunity. I try not to have unnecessary discourse with them. I find it’s best to ignore them unless they’re insistent, or I can be of help.”

“Why is that?”

“Because, Detective, the dead are very dull, and the ones that aren’t dull are frightened, angry, or sad. That’s not company anyone would willingly keep.”

“Yet you say Verona Walters spoke to you.”

“And I to her.”

“Why?”