by Paige Tyler
His mouth quirked. “Funny.” He dropped the duffel bag he was holding on the floor beside the couch. “Come on, I’ll show you where you can sleep.”
“You don’t have to bother. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a month after what happened tonight.”
“Maybe not, but at least you’ll know where the bedroom is in case you change your mind. I’ll see if I can find something warmer for you to wear, too.”
Now that they were inside, Presley wasn’t nearly as cold as she had been, but she followed Logan anyway. The bedroom wasn’t a separate room, just a space partitioned off by three eight-foot high walls that gave it a little privacy. There wasn’t even a door. Other than the king-size bed, a pair of night tables on either side of it and two tall dressers, the room didn’t have much in the way of decor. On the upside, it was clean. And at least the sheets didn’t look as if they’d been used as drop cloths when the place had been painted.
“The bathroom’s over there,” Logan said, gesturing to the other side of the bedroom wall.
Presley peeked out of the bedroom and was relieved to see the bathroom had a door. Even though the walls didn’t go all the way to the extremely high ceiling of the immense warehouse, the top of the room had been closed in. She hoped it had a real shower. That was when she realized she hadn’t thought to bring anything in the way of toiletries with her. She doubted Logan kept extra toothbrushes around for the hell of it.
Letting out a sigh, she looked at Logan to see him rummaging around in one of the dresser drawers. A moment later, he pulled out a dark blue sweatshirt with the words Property of NYPD written across the front in bold, white letters.
He held it out to her. “It’ll be big on you, but at least it’ll keep you warm.”
“Thanks. I appreciate you letting me borrow it,” Presley said, reaching out to take the shirt. “I don’t want to put you out of your own bed, though. Especially after everything you’ve already done for me.”
He waved away her protest. “Don’t worry about. To tell you the truth, most nights I fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV anyway. Besides, I’ll probably be up most of the night researching this damn ghost.” He was silent for a minute, then cleared his throat. “I don’t know if you’ve eaten yet or not, but I have some leftover pizza in the fridge if you want any.”
Presley smiled. Leftover pizza. She should have known. “I haven’t eaten yet, but I suppose I probably should. Thanks.”
“I’ll let you get changed then.”
As Logan left the room, she took off his jacket, then pulled the sweatshirt over her head, shaking out her hair. He was right about the shirt being big on her. The thing almost came down to her knees. But it was warm and cozy feeling and right now, that was more important.
Logan was on his cell when she came out of the bedroom a few minutes later. “I will,” he said into the phone. “Thanks, Muncie.”
Presley’s ears perked up as she recognized the name of the cop he’d met with earlier. “There hasn’t been another murder, has there?”
Logan slipped his cell phone in the pocket of his jeans. “No, nothing like that. I called him, actually. Half a dozen of your neighbors saw me carry you out of your apartment. I wanted the cops to know you didn’t get kidnapped and that you’re with me.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t even thought of that.
Logan opened the fridge and took out the pizza box, then put it in the microwave and set the timer. “I have milk and orange juice, but I’m not sure how old either of those are. That leaves soda or beer.”
“Soda’s fine.”
When the pizza was ready, they carried it over the couch, along with their drinks. After a bite or two of the still slightly cold pepperoni pizza, Presley discovered she actually had more of an appetite than she’d thought. Even though the cheese wasn’t melty, she didn’t miss the pulliness—was that a word?—mozzarella usually had. The sauce had a subtle sweetness to it that she liked, and the crust wasn’t too thick or too thin, but perfectly in between.
On the other end of the sectional couch, Logan picked up his bottle of beer from the coffee table and took a long swallow. “At the office today, you alluded to what happened the night Del Vecchio attacked you the first time. I know you’d probably rather not get into the details, but it might help me figure out how to stop his ghost if I knew more about him.”
Presley reached for another slice of pizza and put it on her plate but didn’t eat it right away.
“I hate to even ask it of you, Presley, but it’s important.”
“I know.” She took a gulp of soda. “It seems so unreal now. One minute, I was talking to my roommate, Darla, about going out that night and the next, Del Vecchio was at the door demanding to see her.”
Logan’s brow furrowed. “I read in the news he was her boyfriend.”
Presley nodded. “Ex-boyfriend. They’d been going out together for a while, but then he got abusive and I convinced her to dump him. He said he wanted to talk to her, but I knew what he was like and I should have called the cops. Instead, I opened the door to tell him to go away.”
“You had no way of knowing what he was going to do, Presley,” Logan said quietly.
Tears stung Presley’s eyes and she blinked them back. “No, but I knew he’d abused Darla and that he’d been pissed off she’d broken up with him. I was the one who got her killed. Not only did I tell her she shouldn’t put up with his crap, but I was the one who let him in that night. If I hadn’t done that, Darla would still be alive. It’s my fault she’s dead.”
Even as she said them, the words shocked Presley. She had never admitted to anyone that she felt responsible for her friend’s death, not even to the hospital psychiatrist who had come to help her with post-traumatic stress. But she realized now it was true. If she hadn’t opened the door, Darla would still be alive. The realization made her feel sick to her stomach.
But Logan was shaking his head. “No, it isn’t your fault. You already said he was abusive. If she kept going out with him, it would have only been a matter of time before he flipped out and killed her. You did what a good friend was supposed to do. You told your friend to bail. You did the right thing.”
She swallowed hard. “And what about opening the door that night? You can’t tell me that was the right thing to do.”
“You didn’t know he was there to murder your roommate. He probably would have kicked the door in and killed Darla anyway. Or waited for her to go to work, or to the store, or for a walk. Del Vecchio was a psycho, and if he wanted to kill your friend, there was nothing you could have done to stop it. What he did isn’t your fault and your friend wouldn’t want you to blame yourself. It’s pointless.”
Presley considered Logan’s words. What he said was logical and she wanted to believe him because it made her feel better. Which was probably the reason he’d said it.
“There’s something else I should probably tell you. Since I'm telling you everything else, I mean.”
Logan waited while she nibbled on the corner of her pizza. She swallowed the bite and washed it down with a swig of soda, then took a deep breath.
“I'm not really a romance writer, and I didn't show up on your doorstep because I needed details for a book.” She hesitated for a moment, checking to see if she’d pissed him off. When it looked like she hadn’t, she plunged on. “When I woke up in the hospital, I could see ghosts.”
When Logan still didn't comment, she continued. “First, I saw Darla, sitting right in a chair by my bed. At the time, I thought it was a dream or a hallucination brought on by the painkillers they gave me. But then I started seeing people wandering up and down the halls of the hospital…people that no one else could see.”
“So that’s why you wanted to tag along with us. To see how to handle ghosts?”
She gave him a sheepish look. “At first I was hoping you’d be able to convince me ghosts weren’t real. That I was just bonkers and should let the doctors medicate me. But once I saw the g
host in Delphi, I had my answer.”
Logan took a big bite of pizza. “That explains what happened in the basement then.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She frowned. Oh hell, no. If there was something she needed to know, he was going to tell her. “What is it? Tell me.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I don’t want to freak you out even more, but I think you probably died at some point the night Del Vecchio tried to kill you. Either in your apartment, or at the hospital.”
She swallowed hard. “I did.”
“I thought so.”
“But what does that have to do with anything?”
“For a period of time, you were on both sides of the divide—one foot in Darkness, one foot in the Light. Remember, Mav and I thought you might be a medium? That's usually how it happens— a near death experience.”
“So that really was Darla at my bedside?”
Logan gave her a smile. “Probably. She was likely hanging around until she knew you were all right. And to let you know that she didn’t blame you.”
She gave him a tremulous smile of her own. “I hope so. It’d make me feel better knowing she forgives me. Trouble is, I’m not sure I can forgive myself.”
“You will,” Logan said quietly. “In time, you will.”
* * * * *
Something told Presley he was speaking from experience, but before she could ask about it, he spoke again.
“What else can you tell me about Del Vecchio? Did your roommate talk about him much or did he ever hang out at your apartment while you were there?”
Presley shook her head. “Darla knew I wasn’t crazy about him, so she didn’t talk about him much. When they got together, they usually went out.”
Logan nodded, but didn’t say anything.
She gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry I’m not much help.”
The corner of his mouth edged up in another smile. “You’re doing fine. Finish your pizza. I’m going to do some research.”
After the conversation they’d had, Presley didn’t have much of an appetite left, but she picked up the slice of pizza still sitting on her plate and took a bite as Logan walked over to the bookcase. He grabbed an old leather-bound book from the top shelf, then walked back over to sit down on the couch again. Curious, she glanced at the title and saw it was a book on ghosts. Definitely not the kind of book everyone had on the shelf.
Wondering what other kinds of books Logan had, she uncurled herself from the couch and walked over to check out the bookcase. There were a lot of other books on ghosts, but there were also ones on vampires, ghouls, zombies and werewolves, as well as quite a few other creatures she’d never heard of. If she’d seen the same collection of books a few days ago, she would probably have labeled Logan a whacko. But after the ghost encounter up in Delhi and her recent run-in with Del Vecchio, she was beginning to suspect there might be a lot more things that went bump in the night out there than she’d thought.
The idea made Presley shiver and she walked back over to the couch to sit beside Logan.
“What are you looking for in there?” she asked.
“I’m hoping I can find something that can explain why Del Vecchio’s ghost is able to do what he does.”
She sipped her soda and waited impatiently while he read some more before she prompted, “Any luck?”
He shook his head. “Not yet, but this isn’t an exact science. It might take me a while to find something this unusual. Like I was telling you last night, normally a ghost is tied to a location because it had some deep significance for him or her in life. It could be a childhood home, the scene of a murder, the place where a loved one lived. But this thing seems to be able to go wherever it wants.”
She frowned as she remembered the conversation from the diner the night before. “What about the ghost you and Mav mentioned, the one who followed the antique mirror around?”
“That ghost didn’t follow the mirror. It was tied to the mirror. It showed up any place the mirror went. Del Vecchio’s ghost is showing up in places he’s never even been. That shouldn’t be possible.”
Logan got up to get a second book, then sat back down to compare the information in it to the first one as he ate another slice of pizza. Presley sipped her drink again as she read over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry about snooping around your office the other day.”
She should probably be quiet and let him do his research, but she felt like talking.
Logan stopped reading to look at her. “It’s okay. Actually, I should be the one apologizing to you. I kind of overreacted a little.”
Her lips curved. A little? Yeah, she supposed he could say that. “I saw in the photos that you used to be a cop.”
Something flickered in his eyes at that and for a moment, Presley thought it might be pain, but he looked away before she could be sure. “Yeah, I was one of New York City’s finest.”
“Why did you quit?”
The muscle in his jaw flexed. “I didn’t. I was medically retired.”
Her brow furrowed. “Were you injured?”
He hesitated, the muscle in his jaw flexing again. “No. I made the mistake of telling the brass I saw some creature that wasn’t human. They thought I was nuts, so they put me out to pasture.”
Presley gave him a small smile. “You don’t seem nuts to me.”
Logan snorted and tossed what was left of the pizza crust back in the box. “Thanks. I’m having a good week.”
“What happened? Did you see a ghost?”
He picked up his beer and took a swallow. “Something like that.”
She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. While she was curious about what happened, she didn’t want to push him. She knew better than anyone what it was like to not want to talk about something. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me about it.”
He didn’t answer but instead stared down at the books opened on the table in front of him. After a long time, he spoke. “My partner Tom and I were chasing a suspect near the docks beside the East River one night. The guy was a pawnbroker who’d been fencing some stolen jewelry and we tracked him to the warehouse where he hid the stuff. He spotted us and took off, so we chased him along the docks and followed him into an old brick building. We didn’t know which way he went, so Tom and I split up. That was probably my first mistake.”
Logan paused and Presley could tell from the faraway look in his eyes he was reliving that night. The anguish was plain on his face.
“The place was a maze and I was moving down a long hallway when I heard a noise. I thought it was the suspect, so I headed in that direction and ended up following who I thought was our guy outside. The damn door locked behind me and I had to run all the way around the side of the building to find another way in. By the time I got inside, my partner was in deep shit.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Tom was standing over what was left of the guy we’d been chasing, reloading his weapon. I never saw him look so scared before. When I started to run over to him, he told me to stay where I was, that there was something else in the building with us. Not someone, but something. I was about to ask him what the hell he was talking about when this thing jumped down from the rafters. It was all wings and claws and teeth, and so damn fast Tom didn’t even have a chance to get off a shot at it before it knocked him to the floor. I aimed my weapon at the bastard, but I couldn’t shoot at it without hitting Tom. All I could do was stand there and watch as the thing tore him to pieces.” He swallowed hard. “It was over in seconds and when the thing was done with him, it took off into the rafters again like some big-ass bat. I managed to get off a few rounds at it, but I couldn’t tell if I hit the thing. It was fast and at the time I was more concerned for my partner.”
“Was he…?” Presley hesitated.
Logan shook his head. “No, he was alive. He was a mess after what that thing did
to him, but he was still alive. I was shouting into my radio for an ambulance, trying to figure out the freaking address of the building when Tom grabbed my hand and told me to go get that thing before it got away. I tried to tell him there was no way in hell I was going to leave him, but he begged me to go after it. He didn’t want it doing to someone else what it had done to him.”
“Did you go after it?” she asked softly.
He nodded. “Yeah. To this day, I wish I hadn’t, but I did. I knew Tom wasn’t going to last another five minutes, but I left him anyway. I left my partner there to die by himself and went after that damn thing.”
“It’s what he wanted you to do,” Presley said gently. “He was a cop. He didn’t want that thing hurting anyone else.”
“I know. But that doesn’t make what I did any easier.”
The pain and regret on his face tugged at her heart and she had to resist the urge to reach out and take his hand. “What happened after that?”
“I made sure dispatch had Tom’s location, then I told them I was going after the attacker.” He picked up his bottle of beer but didn’t drink it. “I ran up to the second floor and went out the same way the creature had. The exit led to a fire escape, so I raced up it, figuring something that could fly like that thing would want to get as high as it could. I didn’t think I’d catch up to it. Not the way that thing could move. But when I got to the roof of the next building, the damn creature was still up there, like it knew I would follow and was waiting for me. I popped off another round at the thing and it took off across the roof. It leaped off the edge and sailed to the top of the next warehouse. I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time otherwise I probably wouldn’t have kept chasing it, but I threw myself across the open space and somehow made it to the far side. The creature was crouched there like it didn’t expect me to make it across. It looked shocked when I did.”
He lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a long drink before continuing. “I got off a clean shot at the creature while it was sitting there staring at me, so I knew I hit it, but it didn’t even flinch. It was like the bullet had bounced off. I fired a few more times before it ran across the roof and took off again, gliding to the next building. I followed it again, though I’m not sure what the hell I thought I was going to do when I caught up with it since shooting at it didn’t seem to do a damn thing. The next roof was a lot further away than I thought, though, and that time, I didn’t make it. I would have bought it for sure, if it hadn’t been for an exterior maintenance ladder that was attached to the wall of the other building. I slammed into it and was lucky enough to get my arms tangled up in the rungs. I hung there for a few seconds, trying to get my breath back, but it was enough time for the creature to get away. When I finally got to the rooftop, it was gone.”
