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use of. At worst, it takes over our lives and sometimes makes us question our sanity.”
    “And do you question yours?” he asking mockingly.
    “Only on days like this.”
    DeMarco spoke without haste but still managed to soothe their agitated hostess and silence her brother-in-law, to say nothing of calming Hollis—at least slightly. “I think the best thing to do right now would be for us to begin the reading.”
    Owen muttered, “Don’t you mean ‘séance’?”
    “Hollis prefers the term ‘reading,’ since what she does involves none of the traditional trappings of a séance.”
    She looked at him in slight surprise but was prevented from asking him when he’d decided to toss the séance idea out the window when the butler entered the room silently, carrying a large silver tray.
    Anna directed him to set it on the coffee table and said, “Thank you, Thomas. I’ll pour.”
    “Yes, madam.” He retreated as silently as he’d arrived.
    “Coffee first?” Anna asked tentatively.
    Knowing how cold she was likely to be after the reading, Hollis nodded, with only a glance at DeMarco. “Yes. Thank you.”
    They went through the curiously stilted ritual of being served coffee, both Hollis and DeMarco politely refusing little sandwiches and pastries on a tiered server.
    Owen Alexander ate several of each.
    Hollis thought the polite “visitor” chitchat their hostess doggedly maintained during the rather ceremonial coffee drinking was a bit ridiculous under the circumstances and wasn’t very happy that her partner courteously helped it along.
    Time was ticking away. It was dark now, and she was uneasily certain that they would be invited to spend the night. And Hollis didn’t want to spend the night here. Because her initial guess had been right; this house was definitely what any genuine medium would term haunted. Very much so. She was already aware, on the periphery of her senses, that more than one restless spirit inhabited this old house, undoubtedly with things to communicate to the living.
    It wasn’t that Hollis was afraid of them; she had long ago moved past fear in dealing with spirits even if that had driven her in the beginning to block so fiercely that she had rarely seen and even more rarely been able to hear spirits. Now she wasn’t even sure she
could
block; the “door” that most mediums spoke of tended by this stage of her life to be almost always open as far as Hollis was concerned.
    Almost always. As with most abilities, it sometimes appeared to have a mind of its own, not subject to her will or needs.
    But even with time and experience under her belt, with all the advice and counsel of other mediums in the unit, she still hadn’t reached a place within herself where she found the interaction with spirits at all normal or comfortable. She couldn’t be matter-of-fact about it.
    And haunted houses promised sleepless nights. The dead didn’t need to sleep and didn’t seem to have any problem at all keeping the living up when it suited them.
    She set her coffee cup down on the table and said rather abruptly, “I know you’ve seen quite a few mediums since your husband died, Anna. Do you feel you were ever able to communicate with him?”
    Anna sent an uneasy glance toward Owen and said, “There were a few who seemed able to summon—to reach Daniel. But—”
    “But Google offers more information than they did,” Owen said in disgust. “Flickering candlelight, thumps and bumps, and spirit guides with low-pitched and heavily accented voices notwithstanding.”
    Anna looked acutely unhappy. “I’m just not sure,” she confessed to Hollis. “I thought at the time . . . but Owen is right. They didn’t tell me anything they couldn’t have found out easily beforehand.”
    “What is it you expect him to tell you?” And when Owen snorted, Hollis added evenly, “I’m not asking for specifics, just wondering if you have a particular question in mind or just need to know that