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go back and do what I can to help. I can’t just leave poor Dr. Creason to—” She broke off as the guard Johnson emerged from the open doorway to the room where earlier she’d been interviewing Spivey.
    “You okay, Dr. Stone?” Johnson called.
    “I’m fine.” Charlie slowed down to a fast walk. In response to the questioning look Johnson directed at her bandaged hand as she neared him, she held it up for him to see. “All taken care of.”
    “You were just in the infirmary, weren’t you?” Johnson’s eyes were bright with curiosity as he looked at her. The ringing of the alarm had stopped abruptly a few seconds before. “What’s going on in there?” he asked.
    “I don’t know exactly,” she replied, working hard to keep her voice sounding normal. “Something’s wrong, is all I can tell you. It’s been shut down.”
    “Full moon this week, you know? Inmates are all going crazy.” Johnson shook his head. “Hole’s already at capacity. Somebody else is acting up, we’ll have to start pulling people out to make room. Orwe could always just shoot ’em.” The wide grin with which Johnson accompanied that told her that it was an attempt at guard humor. “You know how the politicians are always harping on prison overcrowding. That’d be a primo solution.”
    “Asshole,” Michael growled at Johnson, with whom he had been unhappily acquainted while alive.
    “Let’s hope that the excitement in the infirmary turns out to be nothing.” Charlie ignored Michael in favor of replying to the guard. As she passed the open door of the interview room, she glanced inside. The bright yellow vinyl suits and clear face masks worn by the people wiping down the surfaces made her frown. “Who are they?”
    “Hazmat team,” Johnson replied. Then Charlie understood: they were following protocols for cleaning up blood. Hers, which shouldn’t amount to much, and Spivey’s. The guards who’d stormed to her rescue hadn’t been gentle, and Spivey had been bleeding pretty copiously by the time they’d dragged him out. “Been a hell of a day.”
    Charlie pushed through the door into her office. This was her world. In here, evil was abstract, researchable, something she could quantify and work toward preventing. As the door closed behind her, some of the dread that gripped her eased. About twice the size of the tiny interview room, her office also had no windows. It held her L-shaped desk with her laptop on it, two plastic chairs opposite the desk, for visitors, and a tall black filing cabinet topped with a crystal vase filled with a dozen red roses (courtesy of FBI Special Agent Tony Bartoli, sent to mark the occasion of her return to work yesterday after she was nearly killed as part of his team; the arrival of the flowers had prompted a derisive snort from Michael, who was no fan of Tony’s). A big picture of a sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains hung on the wall behind the desk. A dry erase board with the names and some notes about the various serial killers she was currently studying stood on an easel in one corner. Except for a few personal touches (the roses, the picture), the room was institutional and unattractive. Ridiculous as it might be, though, she felt safe in this small space she’d made her own.
    Until she considered the fact that the infirmary door almost certainly had been, or was about to be, opened. Of course, the guards might keep Creason inside until an investigation was completed, but she couldn’t count on that: if whatever was possessing Creason left his body, all bets were off. Spirits weren’t hampered by physical barriers. This one could just appear. Anywhere. Like right here. Right now.
    The realization made her go cold all over. It also made her hurry toward her desk, which held her purse, which held a mini mobile version of her Miracle-Go (i.e., spirit banishing) kit. Throwing her lab coat on her chair, she bent toward her desk drawers.
    “Grab your stuff. We’re out of here.”