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handlebars, the scene around him vanished. He was somewhere else. On a road out in the country, pedaling along, unaware that a car was coming around the curve too fast, heading straight for him. But he found out pretty quickly, when the vehicle loomed in front of him. Whoever had been riding the bike swerved off into the weeds at the side of the road and landed with a splash in a drainage ditch. And Rafe had slammed back into his own consciousness, shaking, disoriented, and terrified. That first time and a few times afterwards, he hadn’t understood what had happened, and there was no one he could talk to about it. Certainly not his father whose brain was tied firmly to the reality around him. It would have taken longer for Rafe to figure out what had happened if he hadn’t read a science-fiction story about a guy with the ability to touch things and get impressions of the people that had held them. That was similar to his newfound power—except that he got more than impressions. He went back in time—to a memorable event in someone else’s life.
    Sometimes he could go for months without an incident. And sometimes it was an invaluable tool in solving a crime. At first he’d had no control over the experience once he got there. Then he’d found that his own consciousness could be a secondary participant. He was someone else, but Rafe Gascon was still there.
    He got up and stretched his legs, wondering what Cumberland was hitting Eugenia with. While he was waiting for her, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Pete Grady. Rafe and Pete had grown up together in Bywater. The two of them had gotten into some scrapes together, and they’d been friends up until Rafe had left town.
    They hadn’t kept in touch because Rafe had cut his ties with the city when he’d left except for his father. But he was pretty sure Pete would talk to him.
    He kept an eye on the door, watching for Eugenia to come out. Then he dialed his old friend.
    Pete was still on duty and picked up after three rings.
    “Detective Grady.”
    “Hey. This is Rafe Gascon.”
    “Rafe. I could ask what you’re doing here, but I already know.”
    “Yeah.”
    “It sounds like you got into something with your old friend, Cumberland.”
    “Unfortunately.” He dragged in a breath and let it out. “I’m with a company called Decorah Security. We specialize in unusual cases.”
    “Like a society restaurant owner getting mixed up with voodoo?”
    “Yeah, like that,” he answered, although that wasn’t precisely the reason he’d been hired. He cleared his throat. “We probably shouldn’t talk about it over the phone.”
    “Right.”
    “We could meet for coffee tomorrow morning, and you could fill me in on what you’ve been doing since I left town,” Rafe said, although he had a folder on Pete’s career in the NOPD. And his friend undoubtedly knew Rafe’s main interest was in tapping into a source of information about the Villars case.
    “How about Café LaBret around seven?”
    Rafe remembered the place. Its beignets were as good as Café du Monde and breakfast that was better than the Magnolia Grill. But it wasn’t as pricey.
    “Sounds good.”
    He hung up, glad he’d made the contact. Although he wasn’t going to jeopardize the man’s job by pressing too hard, he wanted a source of information in the police department—in case Cumberland decided to do something stupid—like setting up Rafe Gascon and Eugenia Beaumont for a murder charge.
    He glanced at his watch. It was after eleven. Too bad Eugenia was getting the third degree in there.
    As he waited for her, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the past—his and hers. They’d met when he’d gone to her house with his father to help out with a brick patio the old man was building in the Beaumont backyard. There had been a lot of bricks to carry and a lot of sand to haul, and Rafe had been the one doing most of the heavy lifting.
    The project had taken three days, and