Ghost Hunter

by Serena Akeroyd

  Her memories are guaranteed to be fuzzy.

  “I’m sure it was just my husband.” The pucker in her brow deepens, which, after all the Botox, tells me how hard she’s thinking. “But why would he do this?”

  “Did he hint at wanting a divorce?”

  Her lips purse. “Why would he want that?”

  I shrug. “Maybe you hinted at it? I don’t know. I’m just trying to think of a motive.”

  Silence falls, and Drake tightens his arm about me. Once again, his presence soothes me enough to remain calm with Paula. I know the details might still be hazy, but the woman’s ego is getting in my way.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “Paula’s hiding something,” I say bluntly, prompting her to demand;

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Come on, Paula. Who in their right mind lets ego get in the way of solving their own murder? Did he want a divorce or not?”

  “He had a younger model on the cards, if that’s what you want to hear,” she snaps at me, her lips curled in a sneer that is anything but pretty.

  Though I surmised as much, it’s still sad. People like Paula and Dietrick are stuck in a weird cycle. Women like her constantly seek rich older men. Men like him constantly seek money-hungry younger women. It’s a painful and esteem-destroying way of life.

  “Are you sure you weren’t sleeping with O’Hara?” She’d said it herself—he was ten years older than her husband. Paula would still be a trophy wife in comparison, quite a treat for someone of O’Hara’s age. And now that I know she has lied to me once, that puts question marks over everything she has to say.

  Her jaw flexes, but finally she admits, “Yes. I was.”

  My earlier belief hadn’t been right then, though the idea of sleeping with O’Hara repulsed her, she’d do it to retain her standard of living.

  Sadness fills me at having to live like that. But, hell, I guess there are worse ways than remaining in the lap of luxury.

  “Okay, so were you going to accept the divorce?”

  “I was fighting it. He wanted to give me a measly settlement. I thought I deserved more.”

  “Were you sharing a bedroom?”

  “No.”

  Curious, I ask, “Was your bedroom at the end of the hall?”

  She nods.

  To Drake, I say, “Dietrick wanted a divorce to marry another woman. Paula was fighting it. But, Paula says the bedroom where Dietrick was sleeping was hers.”

  “He always liked that bedroom,” she tells me. “It’s why I wanted it.”

  To spite him.

  Jesus.

  There’s no shame or regret on the other woman’s face. Nothing that indicates she’s in any way sad about what she’d done, actions that could have led to her eventual murder.

  Her arrogance was almost enough to shock me, but I’ve seen and heard far worse than this sorry tale.

  “Do you think Dietrick is the kind of guy who’d do something like this to get rid of you?”

  Paula studies me a second, then begrudgingly admits, “About six weeks ago, Francis came up from Kentucky. He had this map. Said it led to treasure in Pennsylvania.

  “A shipment of Union gold had been stolen by some deserters and they’d basically buried it in a mine shaft. They’d been digging down there to cross into Confederacy territory. A shaft caved in, and these idiots thought it was a good idea to bury the gold down there until they could safely retrieve it at another time.” She lifts her hands. “Anyway, he’d figured out where the mineshaft was supposed to be.”

  “Why was he telling your husband?” I ask, after passing that onto Drake. I don’t say that I knew O’Hara had been lying to me when he visited me. Shipwreck, my ass.

  “Because one of Harold’s friends owns the land where the mine shaft is buried,” Paula informs us.

  Drake murmurs, “So the treasure’s actually real then? Not something Red Bull magicked up?”

  There’s a point.

  “How was Francis so certain it wasn’t all bullshit?”

  “Said that a man had come to him with the map and some gold from that era. A treasure hunter,” she said, her tone more of a scoff than anything else.

  Drake processes that when I share it, then demands, “Why would anyone go to Francis for help?”

  “Well, that’s obviously Red Bull’s work, isn’t it?” I reply, but Drake shakes his head.

  “Francis might be a fool for letting himself get involved with Paula, but he’s obviously not too much of an idiot. He’s wealthy. He’s made his fortune.

  “Why would he think a man who had access to the treasure, enough to bring some to the surface to show him, would need a partner? Why not just get enough gold to self-fund the project?”

  Paula disregards that. “Francis said the mine shaft was totally destroyed. When the treasure hunter went down, he made it worse. Nearly killed himself down there. The only way to get to it now is from the ground down, not from the tunnels.”

  Drake nods when I pass that on. “Okay, that seems feasible.”

  “I think Red Bull still had a hand in it,” I tell Drake.

  “Very likely, but it’s easier to manipulate people if it affects them personally. So, the treasure hunter might have been manipulated into going to Francis, sure, but only because Francis knows someone who knows the owner of the property.”

  “Or, maybe the hunter couldn’t get to the owner of the land or even Harold because Red Bull was stopping that from happening?”

  Drake murmurs, “Exactly. Cutting off point A makes you look for point B.”

  To Paula, I ask, “When did your affair start with Francis?” I can hazard a guess it was the day he brought the treasure map in… and sure as shit:

  “Pretty soon after he arrived in New York.”

  “And when did you know your husband was petitioning for a divorce?”

  Her lips tighten. “Four months ago.”

  “Did Francis know?”

  Paula clears her throat. “I told him.”

  “Did you tell him why the divorce was happening?”

  She squints at me a little, and I can tell she wants to hide from the truth but can’t. “I told him Harold was a cruel man and that I wanted out of the marriage before he hurt me more than he already had. I wasn’t lying,” she ends on a brittle, defensive snap.

  “Harold was violent?”

  “He could be. In bed, especially. I used to have a lot of bruises to hide.”

  “Was he sadistic?” Drake asks, after I share that with him.

  “Very. I’ve been with kinky lovers but he used to really take it too far. There’s spanking and then there’s beating. He used to hit with all his strength.”

  When Drake processes that, I ask Paula, “Do you know who the treasure hunter is?”

  She rubs at her eyes like they’re aching, then shaking her head, sighs. “No. It’s there. But not clear. Michael DiCesare or something like that. A really Italian surname with a very normal first name.”

  Drake inserts, “If Dietrick is aware of Red Bull, then it’s highly likely that Dietrick murdered Paula. All this information we’ve gathered just confirms it. It certainly gives him motive.” He runs a hand across his jaw. “I wonder if Arroyo would have tested the tumbler if you hadn’t said something.”

  “Surely she would have? Paula’s a rich man’s wife. It looked like an intruder had broken in and attacked her. That kind of case gets a lot of attention from the cops.”

  “Yeah, but would she have looked to the tumbler for clues? That was in the bedroom. I looked at the file. The cops thought she’d gotten up to go to the kitchen and was attacked then, for disturbing a robbery in progress… A few ornaments had been stolen too. They’d gather all the evidence together, like the tumbler, for example, but maybe they wouldn’t test it. Funds aren’t limitless, and forensics costs a bunch. Why would they test the tumbler when they thought the murderer came from outside, not in?”

  “Surely they check
ed Dietrick’s alibi out?”

  “Well, I’ll bet they did but if it checks out, then they’d have less reason to test the tumbler, wouldn’t they?”

  “There’s only one way to find out for certain.” I reach for my phone again. “Arroyo? It’s Jayce. Look, you know the screen test that came back?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “Did you ask to check the tumbler because of what I said? Or was it already being processed?”

  “Nah. You told me about something going down in the bedroom, and I remembered there being a tumbler on the bedside table but there was nothing else in the room. So, I asked forensics to see if there was anything funky in the mug.”

  Drake nods, satisfaction lining his face at guestimating this right.

  To Arroyo, I ask, “So, until I said anything to you, your belief was that an intruder was behind the crime?”

  “Yeah. We had visible signs of a break-in, then a few pieces of art have gone missing. We’ve been looking for them, but no, we haven’t found them yet.”

  “Now that you’ve found that tumbler, do you think Dietrick’s involved?”

  “Well, it looks that way. Drugs in a tumbler certainly changes the theory. We thought she’d been out of bed to get something from the kitchen… that’s highly unlikely with Rohypnol in her system.”

  Paula pipes up then. “Ask her if she took his passport from him or told him to stay in the country.”

  “Why?” I mouth.

  “Jayce?” Arroyo asks. “You still there?”

  “Just one second.” To Paula, I ask aloud, “Why?”

  “Because he was due to go to Ecuador on business.”

  “Ecuador doesn’t have an extradition policy with America,” Drake tells us.

  “And his little slut of a girlfriend was Ecuadorian,” comes Paula’s bitter retort.

  To the detective, I ask, “Did you know Dietrick was having an affair and petitioned for a divorce?”

  Silence falls on the line. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Seriously.”

  “The divorce I knew about, but according to the courts, the filing was dropped about six weeks ago.”

  “Don’t you think that looks suspicious?”

  “Well, considering you don’t have to divorce a dead spouse, yeah. Who’s the girlfriend though? Dietrick looks squeaky clean.”

  To Paula, I ask, “How do you know he was cheating on you?”

  “Fuck!” Arroyo explodes down the line. “Don’t fucking tell me you’re talking to her goddamn ghost? What the hell does she say? Does she know her husband killed her?”

  “Wait a minute, let me talk with her.” Ignoring the detective’s eagerness, I ask Paula, “How did you know?”

  “She was his PA. His company has executive apartments at the top of their building. That’s where they fucked.”

  “You had evidence of this?”

  “I had a private detective following him. He managed to get a job at the company. Said the two of them used to disappear up there for hours.”

  “That’s no proof,” I tell her.

  “He hacked into the CCTV. Saw them up there. Screwing.”

  Jesus, private detectives had come along since Moonlighting days. A time when Bruce Willis had hair, and clip on earrings meant you had it made.

  Simpler times...

  “Who’s the private detective?”

  “Alan Carter. Works over on Madison Avenue. Trident Security.”

  “You know an Alan Carter on Madison Avenue, Drake?”

  He blinks at me. “Should I?”

  “That’s the private detective Paula used.”

  He snorts. “You know how big and how many offices there are on Madison Avenue, right?”

  “True,” I tell him, wrinkling my nose at his very sensible reply. To Arroyo, I ask, “Did you catch that? Carter has proof Dietrick was having an affair.”

  “Jesus. Wait a minute, let me see if we have anything on him.” Silence falls and I could hear the clack of keys on a keyboard being pressed. Then, a long hiss comes down the line.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s an Alan Carter formerly of Trident Security lying in our morgue.”

  “Holy shit! Dietrick killed him too?”

  “Well, according to this, it was a mugging gone wrong.”

  Eyes wide, I pass on the information to the room at large. Paula demands again, “Ask about the passport.”

  “Did you take his passport from him?”

  “From Dietrick? No. I told him to stay close to home but…” She lets out a pained sigh. “He went to the Captain, said he had business overseas. Because I had no reason to believe anyone other than an intruder was involved, there was no reason to suspect him. Her tox screen came back today, but I put a rush on the tumbler yesterday. Only got it through this morning because I pulled in a favor.”

  “When was he due to go overseas?”

  “Today.”

  “He’s going to Ecuador,” I tell her, when Paula urgently repeats that his destination is a country without an extradition agreement with the US.

  “Son of a bitch. I’ll put out an APB on him. Gotta go. Thanks for the help.”

  “You do realize you just dove in headfirst, Jayce?” Kenna asks me, letting loose a shaky sigh when I put the phone down.

  “I know, but what choice did I have? I can’t let that bastard get away with it. You know I’m not wired that way, Kenna.”

  “I know. I just hope the repercussions aren’t too bad, Jayce. We have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into, don’t forget. ”

  I start to bite my lip, then to Drake, ask, “Do you know any Voodoo priestesses?”

  When he doesn’t even blink at me, just frowns thoughtfully, I only realize then how deep I’ve pushed him down the rabbit hole.

  When a man doesn’t turn an eye at being asked about Voodoo priestesses, he’s either head-over-heels in love with you, or used to your batshit crazy ways.

  Considering I know he loves me and is used to my batshit crazy ways, I guess that’s as close to a romantic hat trick as you can get.

  Chapter Eleven

  Drake

  “They didn’t get him?”

  Shit. Watching Jayce scowl on the phone to Arroyo, I send her a commiserative smile.

  “Too late,” she mouths.

  I nod, as annoyed as she.

  “Is there anything to tie Dietrick to Alan Carter’s death?”

  I cock a brow at her in question when she stays quiet, processing what Arroyo has to say.

  She shakes her head. “Keep me in the loop, Arroyo, won’t you? I’ll be in touch. There might be another angle we can catch him on.

  “You know the treasure map Francis has been talking about? Well, Paula says a treasure hunter got in touch with him about it. She can’t remember his name, but as soon as she does, I’ll let you know it.”

  Watching as Jayce ends the call, I sink back into the sofa and absentmindedly rub the back of my neck.

  “You look deep in thought.”

  Her comment has me shrugging. “I guess I am.”

  “Your neck hurting?”

  “A little.”

  She rounds the back of the sofa and comes up behind me. When her hands get to work on the knots in my shoulders, I grimace. “Jeez, didn’t realize I was so tense.”

  “Things have been crazy this past few days. Makes sense we’d be feeling it in our bodies.”

  Frowning at that, I ask her, “Are you doing okay? You haven’t been waking up with nightmares and hiding in here again, have you?”

  “No. I promise. I think I feel better because I spoke to you about it, but also because I’ve decided I’m not going to let myself be scared by what Red Bull can do. I know that might sound nuts, but there’s no point in fearing something I can’t control. And I can’t be afraid to be myself because that’s more terrifying than anything he can do to me.”

  I reach up to squeeze the hands that are busy massaging the he
ll out of my shoulders.

  “Everything will work out,” I try to reassure her.

  I can sense her nervousness, her agitation, and wish like hell I could do something to ease it, but I can’t. I have zero idea how any of this shit works, and the only thing I can really do for her is be a sounding board for ideas.

  “What do you want to do?” I ask her when she falls silent, just carries on rubbing my shoulders.

  “I think we need to go and see the treasure hunter.”

  “I agree.”

  “You do?” She blows out a breath. Her relief is evident.

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, I know I’ve already flipped Red Bull the proverbial bird, but isn’t that going a little too far?” she asks, even though we’re in agreement. I figure she’s trying to make sure she has my permission before we really piss Red Bull off and bring World War Z on our heads.

  I can do nothing less than shrug. “I guess. But if you’re going to piss him off, at least go the whole hog, right?”

  She snorts. “I’m not sure if that’s how this kind of thing works.”

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Either way, we’ve lost Dietrick now. He’s in another country and there’s no getting him back. We’ve already thrown ourselves into the deep end, so we might as well make sure the right man is the one in jail.”

  She turns to me. “Maybe that means we don’t even have to bother looking into the treasure.”

  “It will corroborate Francis’s story.”

  “Does it need corroborating? We’ve practically proven that Dietrick is behind Paula’s death.”

  “Have we though? Isn’t everything circumstantial? We’ve proven she was drugged. It could have been consensual. The murder scene still looks like an intruder was the perp.”

  “What about the fact he was screwing his secretary and stopped the divorce from happening? That looks so beyond suspicious. Plus, hello, if the SOB doesn’t come back home, then that’s all the proof they need, surely?” She shoots me a look. “You just want to speak to a treasure hunter.”