Interesting. “And?”

“And she began…talking with someone.”

The office air was thick with mystery. A chill ran up Sloan’s spine and she tried to shrug it off. “Talking with whom, Detective?”

“Nobody.”

Lieutenant Sloan’s expression didn’t falter. She appeared to be digesting the information he’d just presented her with. Burnette’s face was troubled. He knew what he’d seen—or hadn’t seen. Sloan needed to reassure the troops, needed a diversionary tactic.

She slowly grinned, even chuckled. “Clive, you had me going there for a minute.”

“But…”

“And believe me, I appreciate the humor today. Lord knows I needed the laugh after the earful I just got from the captain.”

But Burnette’s expression remained stoic. Sloan could see she wasn’t fooling him even a little bit. There was no lightening the mood on this one. Her smile abruptly faded, she rolled her eyes.

“Dammit, Burnette,” she muttered at last. “Why’d you bring this to me? You think I like this gray area?”

“Bring it to you?” His eyes went wide. “You think I liked seeing it? Seeing Officer Marcus having a full-blown, eye-to-eye conversation with somebody only she could see? Now, far as I can tell, that can only mean one of two things.”

Sloan rubbed her throbbing temples. “I know.”

“Either Marcus has gone off the deep end, or worse—she hasn’t.”

“I know.” She said it louder, almost angrily. Her hands fell to the desktop and she stared at the detective before her.

“And when I see pictures like what we had the other day…” His voice trailed off. Clearly he was struggling.

“What are you suggesting, Clive?” Sloan stared him down.

But she knew exactly what he was suggesting, they both did.

“I had a chance to spend some time with Marcus this weekend. We moved Officer Reese into her new place.” He appeared thoughtful. “There were times when she just—seemed…off.”

“Define off.”

“Reflective, quiet…damned weird.” He shook his head. “There’s definitely something strange going on with her.”

“You’re telling me you think she’s having a breakdown?”

He looked worried. “I’m telling you I’m scared she is.”

Sloan studied him as he stood before her desk. She then reminded herself of her mission to reassure the troops. Her smile was forced, but necessary.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep my eye on Officer Marcus, and you just keep your eye on the ball, you hear?”

He blinked a few times.

“I’m serious, Burnette. Besides, if I take these insinuations to Briggs’s office, I’m going to need an ass doughnut to sit on. You and I both know he’s famous for shooting the messenger.”

“Understood.”

Sloan’s voice lowered, her eyes went soft with empathy for the detective. “Are you good with this, Clive?”

He arched an eyebrow. “I’m just confused, ma’am.”

She nodded. “Understandable. Let me know if you need to talk about it. In the meantime, you keep your head down and keep this to yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t ma’am me, Burnette. You make me feel old.”

Her effort to lighten the mood was hardly effective. Burnette smiled at her anyway, stood and made his exit.

When the door was shut, Sloan slid open her top drawer and stared at her copy of the picture disk lying right on top. Though she’d only known Guin Marcus for a short time, there was no doubt the woman displayed odd behavior. But compared to what, Sloan didn’t know. Maybe the woman was naturally quirky. She wasn’t familiar with Marcus at baseline.

Jace Sloan herself had spent time in Afghanistan and was happy to have emerged physically unharmed and relatively mentally unscathed. But that hadn’t been the case for everyone in her unit. She’d heard tales of ongoing recovery, even hospitalization, due to severe post traumatic stress. Some folks would never be able to handle even the simplest job again. You don’t live through the stuff some of them had and not come out suffering lasting effects.

She would have been more than satisfied with this explanation for what Officer Marcus was going through after witnessing the death of her partner. Weird behavior. Check. Reckless actions. Check. But seeing Marcus’s fallen partner’s ethereal image in eight megapixel glory?

“No fricking way,” she muttered. She fired up the disk, viewed the images again. Sloan shook her head. It was easy to see how Burnette was having trouble coming to terms with it all. She ejected it, dropped it back into the drawer. Just her luck. “Two weeks vacation and I get entangled with the fricking Ghost Whisperer…”