“Are you sure? No weird feelings, cold spots, strange dreams…?”
Just of you. “No. Mom, Dad, and I play along, but truth be told—and if you tell Grammy, I’ll feed you to your precious big cats—we worry she’s lost touch with reality. Or a portion of it.”
Should she tell him about that dream all those years ago? Would it help, or would he think she was as nuts as her gram?
A cool wind blew across Shay’s shoulders, giving her the chills.
Believe.
There it was again, that voice in her head. Her subconscious? But why would it be a man’s voice if it came from her own mind? What would Colin say if she said she heard someone whispering to her? He’d probably have her locked up with an ‘I love me’ jacket.
It’s what she’d do if the roles were reversed.
Believe.
“Oh, shut it, brain,” she muttered. At Colin’s startled look, she waved a hand and shook her head. “I need sleep and for you to tell me exactly what you found.”
“We picked up nothing unusual on the video cameras. Unfortunately, we didn’t have one set up in the kitchen with us Friday. As for EVPs, I picked up one really good recording from Friday. There’s a couple of questionable moments from Saturday and Sunday, but I’m thinking that was one of the guys and they just don’t remember saying anything then.”
“Did it sound like one of your team?” she asked, totally intrigued by his revelations.
“The voice is male, but it’s very faint. The thing is, all of the EVPS are on my recorder. The others got nothing and I find that strange since they were with your grandmother and I wasn’t. I was with you the whole time.”
Like he had to remind her of the fact. It was no wonder that what little sleep she’d had over the past couple of days had been filled with dreams of Colin. They’d spent so much time together during the investigation, and he’d been incredibly nice and funny and oh, so sexy in his reading glasses, all she wanted was more of him. It was like being surrounded by her favorite dessert but only being allowed to look and not taste. After awhile, it was all she craved.
“What did the voice say?” She held her breath, afraid to hear the answer. What if the voice in her head was actually O’Malley talking to her?
Colin frowned and shook his head. “I’ll let you listen and decide. If I tell you, it might influence your decision. If it weren’t for the timing…”
It hit her then, why he was even considering the impossible. They must have picked up the voice around the time the faucet exploded. Well, that could have easily been one of the other guys. If they could hear Shay and him talking on their recorders then it stood to reason that the same was true in reverse.
“I want to hear this evidence.” She reached out to grab his arm as a thought hit her. “Wait, you didn’t tell Grammy, did you? I don’t want to get her hopes up after all this time only to find out it was Dave or one of the others talking.”
Colin threaded his fingers with hers and brought her hand up to his mouth. He kissed the back ever so lightly. If she hadn’t seen it, she would have thought it was the wind. “A promise is a promise. You’re the first person I told.”
As soon as Shay found out Colin had his computer and gear in his car, she insisted he retrieve everything and meet her back at her small cottage, which was located just a short walk from the hotel. When she got home, she took the precious few minutes she had alone to jump in the shower to wash off the sand and grime of the day before slipping on a breezy sundress.
There wasn’t much to the place, a small living room, a kitchenette and one bedroom with a bath. A few pieces of furniture supplied by the landlord and a half dozen boxes containing her life. She shoved cardboard containers into one corner, tossed her pajamas into the closet, and pulled up the blankets on the double bed just as Colin knocked on the door. Why she bothered cleaning up her room she had no idea, as she didn’t plan to invite him that far into her life. At least not tonight.
His gaze slid down and back up, twice, and had her gulping for air even though he hadn’t laid a finger on her. Maybe it was a good thing she’d showered and picked up because it looked like her plans might have changed.
Colin looked around and headed for the couch. “Here, this will work.”
Okay, they were going to skip the preliminaries. Well, it wasn’t like they didn’t know each other, hadn’t explored every inch of each other’s bodies more times than she could remember. Still a little romance would be nice.
Colin waited for her to sit. Always the gentleman, even if he was a bit impatient tonight. She expected him to take the cushion next to her, to crowd her and eat up her space. Instead, he sat on the rickety coffee table across from her and handed her a pair of headphones.
Huh? Not what she was expecting after he’d practically eaten her alive with his look. Maybe she’d been reading the signs wrong all along. She’d have to remember to look up dream interpretations and see what they really meant. Or maybe she should just be glad he was keeping his head out of the cloud and on business, right where hers should be. Her body may want to say yes, but she wasn’t sure her heart was ready to do the same.
“I want you to close your eyes and just listen. When you hear it, if you hear it, let me know.” He held the laptop so she couldn’t see the screen. “If you need me to play it again, just ask.”
He must have hit play because suddenly her head was filled with white noise and then she heard their conversation from Friday. She was talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s quote and about giving Colin a second chance. He said thank you and then. . .wait.
Was that? No. Yes, it was the same voice. Maybe.
Ugh. The word was crystal clear but could it really be O’Malley talking to her after all these years? And why did she keep hearing the word believe? What did he want her to believe in? Him? Herself? Colin?
“Play it again,” she asked, as she wasn’t quite ready to admit what she’d heard. Grammy had full-on conversations with her granddad, so why did she only get one-word responses?
“You heard him, didn’t you?”
She met Colin’s hopeful gaze, afraid to give him the answer he wanted, to give him the truth. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t trust him to keep his promise—he’d already done so once and, well, you couldn’t hold a person’s past mistakes against them forever. Admitting out loud what she’d heard meant she’d been lying to herself all these years. Even worse, she really was just like Gram.
Crazy as a loon.
“Shay? Hey, are you okay?” His voice caressed her nerves, brought her back to this moment and unsettled her more than hearing her dead grandfather’s voice ever could do.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Not really sure what I heard. Maybe the word ‘believe,’ but I’m not convinced it wasn’t one of your team talking.”
He sat back. All softness gone as he probably prepared for her attack. Shay reached out and took Colin’s hand.
“I’m not saying you guys doctored the recording. Think about it, though. Dave, or was it, PJ, heard you and me in the kitchen on his recorder and we weren’t that loud. How are we to be sure it wasn’t one of them and they just don’t remember saying it? You know, Gram has this sign hanging in her room: All things are possible when you believe in love. Maybe someone was in there and reading it in their head and didn’t realize they’d said one of the words out loud?”