Free PsyCop 4: Secrets by Jordan Castillo Price Page A

one’s meant to see it.”
    “But we do. Lots of people do.” I tried to remember the statistic Crash liked to quote. “It’s like three or, uh, fifteen people out of a hundred.” I eased up behind a minivan with a kid at each back window pressing his mouth against the glass and blowing so that their little faces blew up. They looked like those carnival games where you have to aim the squirt gun at a clown’s open mouth. I thought of Clayton. And the camcorder. You don’t have to be psychic to end up knowing things you were a lot happier not knowing.
    I pulled off the highway and onto the surface streets, which were packed even more tightly with cars, trucks, vans and busses. I got stuck under the traffic light waiting to make a left turn, and the dead guy wearing the sandwich board that said “Repent your sins” was ranting and raving so close to my car that my side view mirror protruded through his thigh. I hate getting trapped right next to that guy. A bunch of idiots beeped at me as if I could go anywhere, and the doomsday-guy’s hand started waving through the driver’s side window.
    I flinched away. “Go toward the light,” I said automatically. I learned that from the movie Poltergeist . It never helped, but it seemed like the thing to say.
    “You’re kidding,” said Lisa.
    “Huh? Why would I…?” I spotted a hole in traffic and fishtailed out of the turn lane. “The streets are full of ‘em. Or maybe those are just the ones I usually see, since I never went door-to-door to take a census.”

    “Nobody at PsyTrain could do that.”
    “Do what?”
    “Just see them. Just like that. Do they stand in the middle of the road?”
    “Sometimes. Why do you think I swerve a lot? It’s not all just avoiding the potholes—
    sometimes they look alive, until I get pretty close.” I glanced over at Lisa. She was staring at me. “So what could the mediums do at PsyTrain?”
    “They’d say things like: ‘I sense a presence. It’s female. Older. A mother or a grandmother.’”
    Yikes. I hoped I never had to face anyone whose grandmother gave me a visual. “They didn’t actually see things?”
    “Maybe. But not much.”
    I thought of the GhosTV that my good buddies Roger Burke and Doctor Chance had pieced together out of transistors and duct tape…and a bunch of other stuff I’d never been able to identify. Whatever that thing was made of, it had a definite effect on ghosts, to the point where I could turn the volume down and tune the spirits out completely if I didn’t want to see them. Maybe a tuner like that could amplify the ghosts and help low-level mediums get more than just fleeting impressions. And then after work was done, they could turn off their fancy electronics and go home to a nice, normal life. How pleasant for them.
    “Where are you going?” said Lisa.
    “Surprise. I moved.” During the three months in which you weren’t speaking to me. I somehow kept myself from saying that out loud, too.
    She must’ve been able to tell I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the tone of my voice. “I’m sorry, Vic. Okay? If anyone knows it’s hard to be like this, it’s you.” I glanced at her. I really, really wanted to say, Hard? You don’t know what hard is, missy.
    But that was way too melodramatic for me. I settled on, “Hm.” I pulled into the parking spot I’d shoveled out earlier, which was still unoccupied. The cannery’s reputation for being haunted had its perks.
    I took long strides up the sidewalk that Lisa couldn’t match without running to keep up.
    But then I felt like an ass and glanced back at her. She looked small. And sad.
    I suck at holding a grudge. By the time she got to the front door, I was holding it open for her like she was Queen for a Day. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll make you some coffee.” I slung my coat over a peg. Lisa held on to the jacket of her tracksuit like she’d try to bite me if I took it. “Leave your shoes on,” I said. “We’re