CHAPTER TEN

Callie had volunteered to pick the team up at the airport and drive them straight to the apartment. The Sanchezes ran around the place making sure it was as tidy as possible. They wanted to make a good impression. Marco even made an army of breakfast food and left it simmering on the stove as they awaited help for Teresa.

Callie, on the other hand, was white knuckling her steering wheel as she waited on the loading curb for someone that looked like a medium. Her only frame of reference were photos of Elise Rainier. But she knew she wasn't looking for an old woman with an easy smile despite a hard life. Luckily, Steven had passed on a description of her and her car to this Nathan guy and his team. So, when a casual guy with light brown curls shaved at the sides above his ears dressed in a big Hawaiian shirt, a tied off tan colored jumpsuit, and horn-rimmed glasses approached her car with a friendly wave, she wasn't startled.

She rolled down the window and he smiled wide. "Are you Callie Lambert? I'm Nate."

She unlocked the doors and gestured for him to get in. "Yeah, that's me. Aren't your friends with you?"

"Shin and Nomi are just getting the checked luggage," he replied easily. He had an approachable handsomeness about him – round nose, round face, buoyant bushy hair. He seemed light and happy. It didn't really match the origin story Steven had given her about him. But she guessed if Elise could have been smiling and as alive as she was after the life she had, this guy could too.

A few moments later, a slightly older Japanese couple were approaching the car with wheeled cases behind them. The woman was petite and elegant with straight black hair, dressed maybe too warmly for the summer. But they were coming from Washington. The man with her had at least a foot on her in height and more freckles on his face.

Nate hurried out of the car to help them get their stuff in her spacious trunk. Then they were all piling into the car and leaving for Elings Park.

"So, is there anything we should discuss while the family of the victim are not around?" the woman asked from the seat behind Callie's.

"Not victim, not yet," her husband countered. "The little girl."

"Not victim at all if we have anything to say about it," Nate said with ease.

"Did Steve tell you about my family?" Callie asked as she drove, giving her whole attention to the road and traffic.

Nate nodded. "Briefed us up. It's a bit new to me if I'm honest. But I'm up for the challenge."

"Well, I didn't get the chance to tell him that I saw one yesterday, in Teresa's room," she revealed to them.

"I thought your father and your oldest brother were the only ones who astral projected," Shin said from the backseat.

"They could be drawing more power to become so visible," Nate said. "And we know the other family members have seen spirits in the house."

"I'm not a traveler," Callie said. "I used to see them when I was a kid. It stopped around middle school. Except for a handful of nightmares. So far, I can identify three spirits that surround Teresa. I don't know if they're all insidious, but I know Teresa had contact with them before she went into a coma. One she named in her drawings – another little girl, Carmela. Everyone figured it was a return of the imaginary friends stage since their parents got deported back to Mexico last year."

"That's understandable," Nate mused. "How would you describe the other two?"

"A woman who cries blood and a dark evil man," Callie said. "Um, the man is the one I saw. I recognized him too. He used to haunt my room, starting when Dalton went into his coma. Based on my mom's descriptions anyway."

"Well, shit, that seems coincidental, huh?" Nate said wryly. "Malevolent spirits attaches to you in LA and now it's around this girl you're tenuously connected to in Santa Barbara? Sounds super sus."

"Super sus?" Callie repeated dubiously.

"Suspicious," Shin drawled from the back. "He's a teenage girl in an adult man's body."

"Well, whatever it is, Teresa comes first," Callie said sternly. "She's an innocent little girl in danger, in a world she didn't understand was real."

"The Further, as Elise called it," Nate said.

Callie eyed him from her seat. "Did you know her?"

He shook his head casually. "No – well, only by reputation really. She died before my time in the business. Carl found me in the asylum when I was fifteen about two years after everything went down with your family. But he, Specs, and Tucker told me about her all the time."

Callie eyed him even more, forcing herself to pay more attention to the road. "Asylum?"

Nate snorted. "Sounds more dramatic than it is. As a kid, I didn't understand what I was experiencing or that it was even real. I thought I was crazy – and so did my parents. So, they checked me in. Carl found me through an enlightened doctor on staff and told me I wasn't crazy. Since I was underaged, I couldn't just leave. But he kept in touch, assuring me that I wasn't crazy. Once I was eighteen, I was out, and he took me in."

"Your parents…?" she was afraid to ask.

"They still think I'm crazy – the black sheep of the family," he said easily. "But my brother keeps in touch and my wife's family is great to me."

"You did save their son's life," Shin drawled. "Least they could do is bless your marriage to their daughter."

"Tell me more about the Sanchez family dynamic," Nate swiftly changed the subject.

"Well, it's Raul, Marco, and Teresa in that order. Valentina is a cousin to the siblings," Callie explained. "Raul is 25, Marco 16, Teresa is 9. Raul feels responsible for Teresa's condition, he takes a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Works two, going on three jobs. Very involved as a parental figure now that the parents aren't around. Marco tries to grow up too fast so he can help ease his brother's burden and not feel like a burden himself. Works a part-time job at a coffee shop, athlete, above average student. On track to becoming the first in their family to go to college. Teresa, obviously, being the youngest didn't have a lot of pressure to grow up. She regressed after the parents were taken away, so everyone put that down as the reason for her strange behavior. We now know different. Valentina got more involved with the family after Teresa got sick. She told me what was going on and it reminded me of everything my mom told me about dad and Dalton."

"Why did your mom tell you—" Nate started to ask.

"Did she see any doctors before the coma?" Nozomi asked first, business like.

"Valentina mentioned that she saw a psychologist arranged by the family's social worker," she answered. "She's the one who identified Teresa's behavior as a childhood regression due to the loss of her parents' presence in her life. She believed the people she drew and talked about were imaginary friends she created to personify her complex emotional state."

Nate hummed in thought. "That's not out of pocket."

Callie giggled. "Okay – even I know that that phrase is almost older than I am."

He clicked his tongue at her. "Whatever."