Page 3 of Shattering Dawn

Amelia tried to suppress her disappointment. She told herself not to give up. It wasn’t like she had a lot of alternatives. But the interview with Gideon Sweetwater was not going well.

The address of Sweetwater Investigations had been her first clue that Sweetwater might not be the private investigator she had been hoping to hire. Instead of the parking lot of a commercial building, she had found herself in the driveway of a lushly landscaped SpanishColonial bungalow. The house was in an exclusive, gated community perched on the bluffs above the Pacific. It was the sort of neighborhood that had not only a guard at the front gate but actual, roving security.

It had immediately become evident that Sweetwater Investigations was a one-man agency. There was no sign of any staff.

She had told herself that Gideon Sweetwater had to be very good at his work if he could afford such a high-end residence. Her next thought was that she hoped he was serious about his “negotiable” fees. That morning Bridget Hampstead, one of her real estate clients, had left a message explaining that the can’t-miss deal on the McCall listing had fallen apart and that the payment for the property photo shoot would be delayed. Again.

The upscale address of Sweetwater Investigations had given her an uneasy feeling but the real shock had been Gideon Sweetwater himself. He looked like he had recently survived a serious accident. He was not in a neck brace or a cast, but he was not in good shape. He had answered the door leaning on a cane. When he led her down a hallway lined with creepy, depressing, dystopian landscapes, he limped. When he sat down in the chair behind his desk he had winced and gingerly touched his ribs.

He had not offered any explanations for his injuries and she told herself it would be rude to ask about them, so she was pretending not to notice his beat-up condition. She knew she was probably in denial. She couldn’t help it. She was a desperate woman.

He considered her in silence for a long, unnerving moment, as if he had never before encountered a client like her. Fair enough. She had never met anyone like him.

She was not sure how professional private investigators dressed,but she had not expected one wearing a button-down oxford cloth shirt, chinos, and wing tips. It was all very ordinary.

The man, himself, however, was anything but ordinary.

Her photographer’s eye was intrigued by his watchful, hazel eyes and fiercely etched profile. The whisper of energy in the atmosphere around him tugged at her senses. She could not see his aura or his energy prints, because her new vision only worked at night or in deep darkness. Nevertheless, she had been sensitive to the energy of other people for most of her life. That ability told her that Sweetwater radiated the centered strength of a man who had mastered himself. He would make a very good friend or a very bad enemy.

A very interesting—make that fascinating—man, but probably not her type. The fact that the thought even crossed her mind was alarming. The closest thing she’d had to a dating relationship in the past seven months was the therapy sessions with Dr. Pike. She wasn’t looking for a type. She needed a qualified investigator.Focus, woman.

Gideon’s office was as unexpected as the man himself. It was more of a private library. There were a lot of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Many of the books on the shelves were old and worn. A few were bound in leather. There was an assortment of nonfiction, memoirs, fiction, and poetry. Judging by the titles she could make out from her position in front of the desk there was a disturbing theme to the collection. All of the volumes she could see appeared to deal with the subjects of dreams and visions.

There were several more of the end-of-the-world landscapes on the walls. Like the paintings in the hallway, the bleak scenes raised the fine hair on the back of her neck.

There were no helpful placards to provide details but she was pretty sureVisions of Nightmareswould be an accurate title for the collection.

“I was hoping you would find the photos useful,” she said.

Gideon glanced again at one of the black-and-white pictures and shook his head. “I don’t see how I can use these to identify anyone. Perhaps the lighting was bad? Nighttime photography is complicated, especially when you’re using film instead of a digital camera. Even the experts have difficulty getting good images after dark.”

She gave him her most polished smile. “Iaman expert, Mr. Sweetwater.”

“Right. Well, these pictures might qualify as art, Ms. Rivers, but I don’t see how I can use them to identify anyone.”

“They aren’t examples of art photography,” she said. “I assumed you would recognize the pictures as aura and energy prints.”

“I’m aware that sort of fake photography was popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but I didn’t know people were still claiming to be able to take pictures of that kind of thing.”

Crap. Now he was watching her as if he was wondering if she might be delusional or, possibly, a con artist. The situation was deteriorating rapidly. So much for her intuition.

She had not plucked his name off a search engine at random. She had selected him because she had every reason to believe he possessed some genuine psychic talent. If that was true she did not expect him to advertise his ability. It was only to be expected that he would try to keep a low profile. Everyone she knew on theLost Night Filespodcast crew had a sixth sense, and they were all careful to maintain a veneer of normalcy.

And if, like her and the others involved on the podcast, Sweetwater had experienced a night lost to amnesia and awakened with enhanced abilities, he had every reason to be wary of her.

She had to convince him to take her seriously. There wasn’t time to find another private investigator. She was certain that whoever was hunting her would act soon.

She would have to take the chance of showing a few of her own cards first.

“Yes, Mr. Sweetwater, I see auras and energy prints, but only after dark,” she said, doing her best to sound crisp and self-assured.

“Interesting,” Gideon said, his tone unnervingly polite. “And you believe that you can photograph that kind of energy?”

She plunged ahead because it was too late to bail.

“Yes, but only with a traditional film camera, one that uses old-school prism-and-mirror technology. Digital cameras don’t work for me. Even if they did, I would prefer not to use one, because it would leave a digital trail. I see energy fields in color, but unfortunately color film isn’t technologically capable of capturing the various shades of aura light, because they come from beyond the normal, visible end of the spectrum. You know, like ultraviolet light.”

Was she flailing? Talking too much? Did she sound delusional? She could not be sure, because Gideon’s reaction was unreadable.