We all sat around a small, circular table, not really saying anything. After Emily kicked out of the dark room, she stayed a little while longer to finish developing her pictures despite the broken doors. She brought out some photos that had finished drying and had handed them to Leon, which appeared to be a custom of theirs.
"Looks like we're quite the situation, huh?" Emily commented.
"Detective," Danny started diplomatically. "You have to see that we can't just let you go. We take missing officers very seriously."
"Missing. Right. Who are you again?" Emily asked pointedly.
"I'm Detective Danny Prince. I was transferred and assigned as your partner shortly before you were declared missing," he answered.
For some reason, she didn't quite believe him. It was strange. She thought his words were true enough. It was more along the lines that he was keeping something secret. Which he wasn't. I checked. She laughed. "Okay. Tell you what. I'll have you take Chief North my letter of resignation. You can explain to her that I can't go back or say where I am. I'm fine. I'm safe."
She turned her heads toward me and my barely belligerent look. "You look like you've got something to say, Elenora."
"I don't like him," I summarized. "He got you away from the people trying to kill you, and that's fine, but you need to get as far away from him as possible."
Leon's head popped up from looking at the photos. "Oh, are we talking about me now?"
"You shouldn't have established any sort of personnel connection with Chus. It's dangerous, and he's been lying to you," I continued.
"He's not lying, Elenora. I may not be psychic, but I know enough to tell when a person is lying to me. Besides, I love him. I'm not leaving him." God, she could be so stubborn.
"I really do love her by the way. I wouldn't lie to her," Leon supported my sister. "She..."
"You're lying by ignorance," I interrupted before I had to bear any more of their love fest. "You jumped to conclusions and shared those false findings with Emily. Our mother was not crazy; she was possessed."
"Oh, not this again." Emily rolled her eyes. "She had no motive. Even if she was possessed, she wouldn't have had strong enough connections to them to attack the Chus like that. Besides, spirits are usually bound to something. She shouldn't have been able to leave the asylum."
"So, she got possessed by a really strong spirit." I tried to keep myself from shaking. "I don't want to talk about this. None of you were there. None of you know."
They didn't say anything. I tried to hold back the trauma from welling up.
"Look, we're not here to drudge up the past. I don't think it's good for Emily to be near the Chus either. They might be able to find her through him," Danny cut in.
"You may not be aware of my place in the syndicate, but it was my job to make people disappear, including myself," Leon stated. "If the rest of the syndicate were to find us, it wouldn't be because of Emily and me. It'd be you guys. Nothing says lead like a psychic and a hotshot detective."
Danny didn't have any sort of rebuttal to that. I closed my eyes. "Leon Chu. Son of Liang Chu, former syndicate leader and my late mother's employer. Your identity was kept secret mostly due to your mother's insistence and the boarding school in London. Once your father died, you were kept in England and with your mother's side of the family in order to keep you safe. You decided to come back into the syndicate once you were older in order to find out the truth. From there, you quickly became fascinated and fell in love with Emily..." I stopped there. "Long story short, he's the heir. No wonder Yao was so desperate to find you, his nephew. You must be pretty arrogant to think you'll be able to escape so easily."
Leon was surprised but quickly broke out in a grin. "Uncle Yao was right about you. You Callaways really are something. That would probably be pretty frightening if I was as superstitious and paranoid as him."
"You should be," I snapped.
"Okay, settle down," Danny said. "No need for the third degree here. Nora, it's not like we can bring them back with the Chus after her neck. We can go back, tell Susannah, and maybe try to workout some sort of deal."
I was unhappy with the smug aura coming from Emily. I tried to put things in perspective. It didn't matter that she betrayed my trust. It didn't even matter that it was someone from the Chu syndicate. She was away from the asylum, and that was going to have to be enough.
Leon was unhappy, too, but for an entirely different reason. He had gotten to the bottom of the stack of pictures. "When did you take this photo?"
"When we met. Why?" Emily answered.
"I mean, it's a good picture of me, but I do not remember that lady being there," Leon went on.
Emily swiped the photo from Leon's hands. Her eyes went wide. "She definitely wasn't there when I took this. Does that mean...?"
"You used Mom's camera?" I concluded with a question. I took the photo from my sister's hand. I was surprised by what I saw. Behind Leon was one of the clearest spirits I had ever seen from a picture. To the point that the whisps of white and gray had taken a humanoid form. A face and wild tendrils of hair were clearly visible. Her eyes had a menacing glare and glowing bright purple. I stood up so fast my chair fell over.
"Is it a spirit?" Emily asked excitedly. "I've never seen one, so I couldn't tell..." She reached to try to take the picture back.
"I need to talk to you," I said curtly. Emily expected it to be her, but I dragged up Leon by his collar.
"Hey! What..." Emily argued, afraid I would attempt to hurt her lover.
"Emily, it's cool! Ack! I'll be right back," Leon choked out as I dragged him back to the dark room. The door was still broken, but I managed to close it behind us
I got straight down to business. "Do you know her?" I pointed to the ghost in the photo.
"What? No!" Leon answered.
"Shit..." He wasn't lying. "Shit, is there anybody dead who might have a grudge against you specifically?"
"No!" Leon answered again. "I've never killed anyone. I'm actually pretty new to this whole syndicate business. I mean, I was betraying it from the get go..."
"Whoever that spirit is, it's attached to you. I need you to take Emily and..."
"Whoa, wait. I thought you were against Emily and I being together," Leon interupted.
"Well, it's a bit too damn late for that, isn't it?" I hissed. "Pay attention. You need to keep moving. That spirit is strong to muster up enough energy to have a form like that, but there's a good chance she hasn't followed you this far yet. As long as you keep moving, it will be a while before she catches up. Now, if Emily starts acting strangely, like murderous strangely, contain her and get in contact with me. Call the precinct. That would probably be the fastest way to get in touch. Emily may not be very psychic, but she's apparently enough to capture the spirit's imprint on Mom's camera. The spirit may be wanting to try to possess her to get to you. I'll track down the spirit and try to get her to the other side."
"Can you really do that?" Leon asked.
"Yes." I nodded. "As my mother has and the generations before her, I help spirits find peace." I breathed. Upon my mother's death, it had fallen into my hands to take up her mantle. "Just...keep Emily safe for me."
As I reached for the door to get out of the dark room, I heard loud boisterous laughter. "No! No! Nora and I aren't anything like that. There's no way she could possibly..."
Oh now this was just ridiculous. I left them alone for all of fifteen seconds, and they were already like this. Danny got way too chummy with my family. First my father and now Emily...
"Look, all I'm saying is that if Nora didn't like you, she would have ditched you a long time ago. Trust me, Detective, she likes you a lot more than she lets on," Emily said. She was talking loudly on purpose, while Danny was just naturally obnoxious. "A lot more," she tried to insinuate.
I clenched my fist around the doorknob. She thought I was in love with him. She thought I was a hypocrite. But that couldn't be true. I wasn't.
"My sister hardly ever shows her emotions. Thinks it makes her vulnerable or something, but just because she denies her feelings doesn't mean they don't exist. She's just stubborn."
"Thanks, but we're only together in a business relationship. If she wants anything more, she'll have to let me know herself."
I sighed. There was no denying that Danny wanted that something more. He was practically begging for it. Despite his screaming optimistic hopefulness, he was leaving things up to me.
"So, are we going to go or..." Leon said behind me.
"Danny," I announced loudly as I left the dark room, impatient with the situation. "It's time for us to leave. We should probably tell Susannah everything that's happened."
Danny had the modesty to clear his throat. "Right. I've got Emily's letter of resignation. Chief will be wanting this right away."
Sure you don't want to stay a little longer? I'm sure we've got a lot to catch up on," Emily said.
I didn't say anything. I knew she was trying to get on my nerves by talking to Danny about that. I simply walked up to her and wrapped her up in a hug. She never saw it coming. My grip on her was tight, despite her wiggling.
"Maybe some other time, little sis." I placed a kiss on the side of her head.
"Ew gross! What is wrong with you?" she protested. Signs of affection were few and far between when it came to me, but it was because of that I was able to make my sister as uncomfortable as she was trying to make me.
"Goodbye, little sister." I let her go.
"Yeah, bye," she said, still rather disgusted.
The last thing I heard when I walked out of the shop was, "Hey baby, how would you like to go on vacation?" At least Leon was taking my advice.
"Hey, are you okay? What did you and Leon talk about? What was in that picture?" Danny questioned while we walked away
"Just your run of the mill angry spirit. I can take care of it." Even to me, it sounded like a lie. This spirit was not normal. Normal spirits didn't have glowing purple eyes. What had Leon gotten my sister involved in?
Danny didn't say anything about it though. He wouldn't have understood anyway. I could barely wrap my head around it.
We got back to his red convertible. The clear day we started out with had clouded over. It was opaque and brooding like my looming stress but was warm enough to keep the roof open. We headed back to where we came from, but I dreaded the work that waited for me in that cursed little town.