The Stroke of Winter(74)

“I’ve helped out a few times, and that was plenty for me,” Hunter said, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down hard.

“We were short a body and needed someone,” Jane explained. “Grant volunteered Hunter. He has helped us out before.”

“Thank you very much,” Hunter said, glowering at his friend.

Grant rubbed his hands together. “Okay, let’s get to work,” he said.

He opened his case and started unloading their gear—all manner of devices like headlamps, cameras, recorders, and other things Tess couldn’t identify.

“What’s all this stuff?” she said, picking up a handheld device that looked a bit like a big remote control and turning it over in her hands.

Grant snatched it from her. “Be careful with that,” he scolded.

Tess and Wyatt exchanged an amused glance.

All the equipment laid out, Grant began his explanation. Tess got the feeling he had made this same speech many times before.

He pointed to the headlamps. “We’ll be doing this in the dark, so we need these, with red bulbs for night vision.”

“Wait a minute,” Tess interrupted. “Why are we doing this in the dark? Why can’t we leave the lights on?”

Grant squinted at her and shot a glance at Jane.

“Ghosts don’t like the light,” she said. “That’s the short answer. Do you want the long answer?”

Tess shrugged. “Not particularly. They don’t like the light. I’m okay with not knowing why.”

“Don’t feel bad, lassie,” Hunter piped up. “I asked the same thing. It’s all so dramatic, creeping around in the dark when you can bloody well just flip the light switch.”

Tess laughed out loud. “That’s what I’m saying!”

“May I go on?” Grant asked.

“Please,” Tess said.

He held up a small video camera. Tess saw there were several of them in the case. “For recording video, obviously. We’ll each have one of these. I’ll encourage you to record everything, not just if you see anything.”

Tess furrowed her brow. “Why is that?”

“Oftentimes, it’s the recordings that show us what was there that we didn’t see,” Jane explained. “You might go through a place and find nothing, but you’ll watch the recording and see a lot of activity floating around you.”

Grant held up another small rectangular device. “This is the FLIR. Forward-looking infrared recorder. It records temperature fluctuations.”

Tess looked to Jane. “Flir.”

“You’ve certainly heard stories about people who walk into a place and suddenly feel ice cold?” Jane said.

Tess nodded. She had felt that herself, here, in the house. But she wasn’t sure if it was the lack of heat those first nights after the storm.

“That’s a fairly common way to tell ghosts are present. The FLIR records those temperature fluctuations.”

“As if we can’t tell if we’re suddenly cold,” Hunter huffed.

“Of course we can,” Grant said. “The important word here is record. We’ll have a record of when and where we felt them, instead of having to rely on our memories. And some of us, whom I shall not name, tend to run squealing like a baby from the room when they hit a cold spot and may forget exactly where and when.”

Hunter glowered at him as Tess and Wyatt shared a silent laugh.

“What else do you have?” Tess asked.

Grant held up something Tess recognized, finally. “A voice recorder. Nothing unusual about this. We’ve all used them. We keep these on at all times, recording everything we’re saying and hearing, but especially, not hearing.”

Tess furrowed her brow. “What do you mean, not hearing?”

“It’s the same principle as using a video recorder. Many is the time that we’ve investigated a place and not heard anything. But we play back the recordings, and there it is, a voice answering our questions, or otherwise talking to us, plain as day. We didn’t hear it at the time, but it got recorded, all the same.”

Grant reached into his case and pulled out yet another device that looked like one of those giant television remotes found by beds in the hospital. “This is the pièce de résistance,” he said, with a flourish. “The EMF meter.”

“Electromagnetic field,” Jane said, in a stage whisper.

“This baby is the truth teller. When it goes off, you are in very close proximity to a ghost.”

“Or a cell phone,” Hunter added.

“Thank you, naysayer. But it’s true that we need to leave our cell phones somewhere like the kitchen. It picks up electromagnetic fields—that’s what it’s for, smart guy—and cell phones can indeed make it go off.”

Tess scanned all the various equipment laid out on her kitchen table. “This looks like quite the operation,” she said.

Jane smiled. “Some of us do it the old-fashioned way, with sensitive people, psychics, mediums, or people who can otherwise communicate with the dead,” she said. “I have a good bit of that in me. I do it that way. But nowadays, there are all these electronic devices that we can use to get proof, solid proof. People today like data, something tangible, rather than trusting the word of a medium. This is really the cutting edge of psychical research.”