Closer: Bay City Paranormal Investigation, Book 4

cynicism might be right on target.”
“Maybe so. I—” Bo staggered, his shoulder hitting the wall. “Oh. Damn.”
Alarmed, Sam hurried to his side. “What’s wrong? Is it your leg?”
“No. It aches a little, but no more than it usually does. I just…” Bo leaned against the wall, brow furrowed. “I don’t know.”
Sam took the camera from Bo’s shaking hand and switched it off. “Tell me what happened.”
Bo closed his eyes, his head resting against the bricks behind him. “I saw something. Or rather, I suppose you could say I saw nothing. For a split second, I felt like I wasn’t here, but someplace else. Someplace cold and dark, where the air was too heavy to breathe.” He opened his eyes, staring at Sam with a blend of wonder and dread. “It was so strange, Sam. I felt like I was there forever, but it was all over in less time than it takes to blink, and I knew that.”
The hairs stood up on the back on Sam’s neck. “I had a dream like that earlier. It woke me up when you were downstairs talking to everyone else after they came back from last night’s investigation.”
Bo’s expression hardened. “We’re both getting too much sun and not enough rest, and it’s causing us to hallucinate.”
Sam frowned. “Maybe so, but we don’t know that. After everything we’ve experienced in the past few months, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this as imagination.”
“Not imagination. Hallucination. There’s a difference.” Pushing away from the wall, Bo held out his hand. “Give me the camera, and we’ll continue our sweep up here.”
Sam handed over the camera, then grabbed Bo’s arm to stop him from moving away. “Bo, come on. Don’t you think we ought to at least consider the possibilities here? You just had a…I don’t know, a vision or something, that was exactly the same as my dream. Don’t you think that’s enough to act on?”
“Act on how, exactly? What do you suggest we do?”
“Leave,” Sam said with a sudden rush of conviction. “Right now. And stay away.”
The look in Bo’s eyes told Sam what he was going to say before he ever spoke. “No. That’s ridiculous. We’re not leaving. Whether we come back or not is another question, but at this point I think we should, if only to prove to you that there’s no danger here.”
Anger and frustration heated Sam’s cheeks. “I don’t know why you bother to ask my opinion, when it obviously doesn’t matter to you what I think.”
Bo snatched his arm away from Sam’s hand. “Did you sense anything when I had that hallucination? Anything at all?”
“No. Not that that proves anything.” Sam crossed his arms and glared at Bo. “And I notice you didn’t even bother to try and convince me you do care what I think.”
Bo’s eyes narrowed. For a second, Sam thought the argument was about to degenerate into blows. Then the hard, angry expression melted from Bo’s face. He closed the distance between them, wound his free arm around Sam’s neck and kissed him.
“I do care what you think,” Bo declared, his voice soft but firm. “I know I’m opinionated and overbearing at times, but your opinion is always important to me. You are important to me. Never doubt that.”
Sam nodded and forced a smile, but his heart wasn’t in it. He knew Bo loved him, and that he was important in Bo’s life. But when it came to this particular incident, it was clear that his opinion didn’t even register with Bo.
It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. When Bo made up his mind about something, there was no getting through to him. Either he talked himself into changing his own outlook, or it didn’t happen. Sam knew that and accepted it as one of the less endearing aspects of Bo’s personality, but accepting it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
If Bo noticed Sam’s strained smile, he didn’t let on. He kissed Sam again, fingers caressing his neck, then stepped back. “Okay. Enough of that for now. Let’s finish this up.”
Sam pretended to fall into the half-trance from which he normally connected to the realm of psychic energy, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to actually do it. Instead, he watched Bo through slitted eyelids.
Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t pinpoint what, exactly, but the certainty that everything had just changed in a fundamental way hooked its talons into his gut and wouldn’t let go.
The worst part was, he knew he would figure it out eventually, and part of him