Agent Boone had already found a new house to host my fake seances before I made it to the DPI office in the morning. Actually, he’d arranged two houses in the same cul-de-sac. He planned for me to perform in one while a team of agents monitored from the other. That showed more trust than I’d thought he’d allow me. I’d have time to kill Smith before the DPI agents could mobilize. I didn’t doubt that Boone knew as much. He truly wanted us to trust each other and set the example, hoping I’d follow his lead. If I did, it meant letting Smith live. If I broke his trust, though, I’d need to be ready to run. He couldn’t forgive me in front of a team of agents.
He drove us to the house Lee picked for me. I tried to think of a way to break the ice between us. Every avenue of conversation felt trivial before I voiced it. So, I sat in silence until we pulled up to the house. Boone took a plastic bin from the back seat and followed me to the front door. I unlocked it with a spell and led him to the living room. I packed my props into the bin he held, wondering how long this silence would last.
“Where did you get the table and chairs?” He asked. His voice didn’t betray any frustration or annoyance he might feel toward me.
“We found them in the attic,” I answered. He moved to put the box of props on the couch. “You don’t need to put that down.”
“Just because we argued last night doesn’t mean I’m going to make you carry all of this upstairs alone,” he said.
“I got it.” I lifted the furniture with a levitation spell.
“Ah, right. You know, witches could corner the market on moving services,” he joked. I guided the floating table and chairs out of the room, and he came with me.
“I’m sure it’s not the only profession supernaturals could overhaul,” I said. After Storm Ryder’s show documented the changes magic made in the film industry the past year, more supernaturals were thinking outside the box with their careers.
“What did you do for money before?” he asked.
“All sorts of things,” I answered vaguely. I didn’t think my history of cons, pick-pocketing, and fighting would help our trust issues.
“Legally questionable things?” he asked.
“I plead the fifth,” I said. The attic door opened at my will, and the chairs drifted in. I rotated the table so it wouldn’t bash the baseboards on its way through the door.
“Fair enough,” Boone said. I hadn’t been joking, but I heard the smile in his voice before turning to face him. He rotated on the spot and walked back the way we came. “So, walk me through your plan. How would the night have gone if our suspect showed up instead of me last night?”
“You already guessed,” I said, not wanting to confess to planning a murder.
“I’m not asking you to tell me how you would have killed him. I’m sure he’d expect a display of your power. What would you have done?“ He asked. We left the house, and I locked the door behind us.
“Faking a seance isn’t too complicated. Mundane humans conned each other with them a lot at one point. I’d have done the magical equivalent. Levitate some stuff, summon a few cold breezes, maybe cast an illusion if he still hadn’t revealed his intention yet,” I explained.
“And you’d just make conversation while you did that?” He put my props in the back seat.
“I’d lead him on a tour of the house and talk about the house’s history while strange things happened in significant rooms,” I said.
“Would you have just made it all up?” he asked.
“No, I had a loose script with facts I found online,” I said.
He pressed a button on the steering wheel. “Call Fleming.”
“Yes, sir?” Fleming answered after the second ring.
“Get me the history of our seance house. I want everything you can find,” Boone ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Fleming said. Boone pressed the steering wheel button again, and the call disconnected.
“You really think he’s going to contact us?” I asked.
“I hope so. And it’s worth being prepared,” he said.
When we arrived at the new house, Boone opened the garage with a remote and drove in. He closed the garage behind us before getting out. I followed his lead. We walked from the garage into a laundry room. The wood floors creaked every so often as Boone led me from room to room. The house fit the aesthetic I wanted well, but I’d lost some faith in the plan after two failed attempts. Now that DPI was involved, I wouldn’t even be getting the extra cash as a consolation prize if we attracted more false leads.
“We’ll install hidden cameras and microphones throughout the house so that we know when you need help,” Boone told me.
“I have something a bit more subtle if you want,” I offered.
“A spell?” he asked.
“Somewhere between a spell and an enchantment,” I said. “I’d need a clear quartz prism for each room.”
“Sal can handle that. We’ll stop by her lab,” he suggested.
“Okay.”
“I think the sunroom in the back of the house would be the best place to set up your table. We can get there through the backyard quickly,” he said.
“That’s fine with me,” I agreed.
By the time we returned to the office, a new message had come through on my Specternet page. The screen name, 5mith64, renewed my confidence in the plan. It had to be him, given the similarities to the screen name he used with Peter. Was he that confident he wouldn’t get caught, or just not as smart as I’d been giving him credit for? I scheduled his appointment for the following night. That gave us plenty of time to get my surveillance system up. Fleming’s research got too thorough, and Boone assigned another junior agent to help whittle it down to things I could use to fabricate a ghost tour.
Sal improved on my idea for the crystals creating a permanent enchantment. They all linked back to a larger piece of quartz, which would project the information the smaller ones observed. Even if Smith noticed the prisms in each room, he’d assume I placed them around the house for my seance. With our quartz surveillance system, the DPI didn’t need to spend any time wiring the house for video and audio. Boone and I just stopped there at the end of our day and spread the crystals from room to room. He dropped me off at my apartment afterward. While I didn’t want to spend the night alone, I resisted the urge to reach out to anyone. I still hadn’t decided what I’d do when faced with Noah Smith, but I feared seeing any of my friends would feel too much like saying goodbye.
