Just one man sitting guard outside the double doors. He’d stood when we came into the office foyer, and he and Carson exchanged nods. “The boss is expecting us,” said Carson, and the guard straightened his jacket before tapping on the door. I knew from my FBI associates that jackets never fell quite right over a shoulder holster. I reached automatically for the psychic lay of the land. Some people do a tactical assessment, counting exits and potential threats. I read the room for remnants, telling me who to watch out for, which way lay danger. So far there hadn’t been any spirit resonance worth mentioning, but that wasn’t weird for a semipublic part of a house. I got a bit of a buzz off the door guardian, like maybe a loved one lost, and the goons behind me carried the whiff of violence and threat, but not actual death. That was good, I guess. But these rooms where Maguire did business? Unnervingly blank. It was as if all the psychic fingerprints in the place had been wiped clean.
