PsyCop 3: Body and Soul by Jordan Castillo Price Read Free Book Online

lamely. "Um ... his family was good. I think they want to become ghost hunters."
    "Good," she said. "I knew they'd like you." Lisa knows lots of things. Anything that she thinks to ask herself that can be answered with a simple yes or no.
    "There was something a little weird," I said, and a wave of fatigue washed over me as I thought about Leon's bloody spectral arm flopping around next to the mashed potatoes,
    "but I'll tell you about it later. You might be able to stump your professors with it. Listen, why I really called...."
    "Wait a second, Vic."
    "Yeah?"
    "Before you say anything else, I just wanted to..." she sighed, and I suddenly caught the awkwardness in her voice, the stilted timing. I tried to imagine what was up. It couldn't be good.
    "If you're gonna ask me something," she said, attempting to start fresh with a new sentence, "I mean, a 'si-no,' then ... don't."
    "Why? Is something wrong? You're not taking anti-psyactives, are you?" I felt Jacob glancing at me as he drove, but I didn't want to make eye contact with him, not until I figured out what Lisa was trying to tell me.
    "No. I don't need the pills. It's not like seeing ghosts, where you can't ignore them if they're there. I just ... I don't have to play the 'si-no' if I don't want to."
    On one hand, I was relieved. I never wanted Lisa to go to stinking PsyTrain to begin with. I don't trust any of those psychic mills as far as I can throw 'em. But on the other hand, I didn't liked what I thought she was trying to say.
    "Vic, it's too hard to have all the answers. You know?"
    "What, are you tired? I thought playing 'si-no' was as easy as saying your name. It never seemed to wear you out before."
    "It's not like that," she said, and she was still choosing her words too carefully for my taste. "But ... I just don't want to be the one with all the answers. I want to be myself."
    West coast psychic airy-fairy granola bullshit. "How does the 'si-no' make you any less yourself?"
    "I doesn't—if I don't let it. I've got to stop doing 'si-no' with you for a little while."
    I hadn't realized how important the "si-no" was to me until it was slipping out of my grasp. Heck, I probably wouldn't have let Jacob get me into bed if the "si-no" hadn't told me he was on the up-and-up. "Lisa, this is crazy. The 'si-no' is part of you...."
    "And you have a question."
    My mouth worked. I couldn't exactly deny it.
    "I know you do," she said, "because I asked the 'si-no' when my phone rang."
    "Well, yeah, but...."
    "You only call me when you have a question."
    "Don't normal people call other normal people when they have questions?" I asked her. "Not that I'd know what the hell normal people do, but maybe we can pretend for the sake of argument."
    "I knew you were gonna be mad."
    "I'm not mad," I lied. "I'm just wondering when you started resenting me for asking you questions."
    "I don't resent you," she said.
    Even I could tell it would be a bad idea to have her prove she didn't resent me by telling me which apartments on Jacob's new list were free of spirit activity. "Is everything really okay there?" I asked. "Nobody's forcing your eyes open and making you listen to Beethoven while a slide show is playing?"
    "It's good here," she said. "And I'm okay. I'm gonna go right now. I just need some time. Goodbye, Vic."
    I listened to the dead air after she disconnected and gritted my teeth.
    "Is she okay?" Jacob asked me when I flipped my phone shut.
    I sighed and sagged into the car seat. "I think Lisa just broke up with me."

Chapter Five
    The sinking feeling I'd been expecting to feel in the pit of my gut at the sight of my new partner, Zig, wasn't as much like riding a roller coaster with a stomach full of stale beer as I'd thought it might be. It was more like the nausea you get from reading too long while the car is moving. I'd made progress.
    It helped that I had a stack of missing persons files on my desk to stare at. The people in those pictures paperclipped to the manila