But he was already shaking his head. “That’s not possible. You should go home. I’ll come by later and we can talk then.”
She stepped closer, clutching his hand in both of hers, her voice dropping all the way. “I don’t need to talk. I need to go back in there.” She met his eyes determinedly. “Please. Just for a minute. There’s something I have to know.”
For a moment she thought he would continue to deny her, and she tightened her grip. But then his shoulders sagged and she knew he was giving in. “Is it that important?” He didn’t ask her why she needed to go inside.
She nodded. “It is. At least . . . I think so.”
He sighed. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take you in, but you can’t touch anything, Violet. I mean it. Stay right with me, and when I say it’s time to go, we go. Got it?”
Violet nodded again, and when her uncle started leading her toward the house, she saw Rafe, his forehead creasing as he watched her, behind the spectacle of flashing colors that crowded her periphery as she left him behind on the lawn.
Inside, there was that same over-air-conditioned feel, and that same smell of moldering coffee grounds.
Violet walked exactly where her uncle did, following in his footsteps as if she were walking on stepping-stones. They passed Sara, who had stopped talking to one of the officers—or maybe detectives, Violet didn’t know for sure—as she watched the two of them with thoughtful consideration, her icy brows raised inquisitively.
Violet was prepared this time for the explosion of colors that burst behind her eyes, and for the disturbing image of the family spread out before her on the couch, bloodied and gashed. They reminded her of flowers—fragile and delicate. Like death in bloom.
Her suspicions were confirmed as she focused on the colorful explosions and the smell of old coffee.
One of these bodies had no echo. At least none that she could discern.
She took minuscule steps, moving closer to the family, until she was standing near the end of the couch where the man had been propped up, set up to look as if nothing were out of place, as if he were spending an ordinary evening with his family.
Bending at the waist, Violet leaned in, keeping her gaze directed solely on him.
The result was instantaneous. The kaleidoscope of colors exploded behind her eyes, blinding her and making it impossible for her to know if anyone was watching her. Blocking out all else.
That echo belonged to him.
She flinched, drawing away, and bit by bit her vision gradually returned, clearing with each millimeter of space she put between them. Then she turned to the woman beside him.
She almost didn’t need to approach the woman to know . . . the coffee grounds were most definitely hers. But she did so anyway, tilting toward her ever so slightly, in the same way she had the man. And in that instant, the smell became so overpowering that Violet nearly gagged from the stench alone. She pulled back, more slowly this time, shuddering as she tried to find a breath of uncontaminated air in the too-chilled room.
There was only one body remaining. The boy.
Violet approached him more tentatively. Her music-box imprint seemed to swell in her own ears, but it had nothing to do with the boy. Likely it was only her imagination that made her more conscious of it.
She wanted to glance around her, to know who was still in the room with her because it felt like she was all alone now. Just her . . . and the bodies. Somehow, though, she couldn’t manage to turn her own head. She couldn’t stop watching the child with his lifeless eyes.
The echoless corpse.
She crept nearer to him and felt her heart stutter. At any other time she’d have felt something by now. At the very least, her skin would have prickled, her nerves tight with the awareness that she was so near a body. Even if the echo was faint and hard to find.
But not now.
Now there was nothing.
She turned to her uncle and dropped her voice until it was almost nonexistent. “I know you said I couldn’t, but . . . can I try . . . I just need to touch him. I promise I won’t disturb anything.” She couldn’t imagine how much more disturbed the scene before her could possibly be.
Her uncle looked around, considering her request uncertainly. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves—the kind she’d seen at other crime scenes on the people gathering evidence.
It was all the confirmation she needed and Violet slipped her hands into them before he could change his mind. She took another short step, watching her feet as she closed the gap. She didn’t want to touch him, but she wasn’t sure she had any other choice.
She watched her own fingers, thinking how stiff and cold they looked—so very much like the ones she bent forward to touch. Hers brushed across his, and she could feel the bloodless sensation despite the latex that separated them, yet the only thing she was aware of was the glaring absence of anything from him.
She stared at his blood-soaked T-shirt, noting the way his head slumped against his mother’s shoulder, and she knew that what she felt wasn’t possible. She knew this boy hadn’t died of natural causes. He had been killed, just like his parents had been. He had to have an echo.
Yet . . .
She shook her head as she drew her fingers away, wrapping her other hand around them. Fingers that felt as if they’d just betrayed her. Lied to her.
It wasn’t possible.
Still . . .
“What’s the matter, Vi?” It was her uncle, standing at her back now and staring at the same thing she was but seeing something entirely different.