by K. J. Emrick
Chapter 18
They dropped Jean-Paul and Sapphire off at his house. Miranda saw the smile that came and went from Sapphire’s face. She was looking forward to spending some time alone with Jean-Paul where they could relax together, without worrying if someone would pull a revolver out and threaten to kill everyone.
Miranda was excited to see what might happen between those two. She was thrilled that her friends might become something more to each other. She reached over and held Jack’s hand as they waved goodbye and pulled out of Jean-Paul’s driveway again. At least her friends would get to enjoy what was left of the day.
Butter was going to stay with them for the night, too. Miranda would come around for him tomorrow. Too bad dogs couldn’t talk, Miranda thought to herself. She’d love to get the gossip from him when they came to pick him up.
For Jack and Miranda, the day wasn’t quite over.
“Where are we going now?” came the question from the back seat. Kyle was still with them, too.
“We’re going to the police station,” Miranda answered him. “I know we went over this with you already, Kyle.”
“Twice,” Jack reminded him.
“Oh, right.” Kyle floated back into the rear seat of the van, lounging and sprawling out now that he was their only passenger. “I think I zoned out there for a while. Not exactly asleep because ghosts don’t sleep, you know? Still, being the hero savior of your boyfriend is just exhausting, Miranda.”
Jack rolled his left shoulder, recently bandaged with gauze from a med kit from the back of one of the patrol cars. “What’s he saying?” he asked Miranda.
“He says,” she translated, “that he’s a hero and you owe him your life.”
“Oh, really? If memory serves all he did was throw a couple of pine cones at Josh Bates. They bounced off his head. Not exactly hero stuff. More like a little kid with a slingshot.”
“Hey now,” Kyle protested. “Those pine cones distracted Bates enough that his shot just grazed your shoulder instead of hitting you in the heart.”
Miranda couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You threw pinecones at a murderer?”
“What can I say,” he shrugged. “I couldn’t find any good-sized rocks.”
“Couldn’t find them,” Miranda asked him, “or couldn’t pick them up?”
Kyle slid down lower in the seat and closed his eyes. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“He did save your life,” Miranda reminded Jack. “I don’t want to think about what might have happened if he wasn’t there with you.”
“Yeah, okay, fine. Thank you, Kyle.”
One ghostly hand went up, the fingers waggling in recognition of the gratitude.
“Of course,” Jack added, “I think maybe I should have been more worried about you. Why didn’t you wait to tell Ben Clark you were on to him? If you’d waited for me or for the other Moonlight Bay officers to show up, don’t you think things would have been easier?”
“What?” she asked innocently. “We got Ben Clark in custody, didn’t we?”
“Well, actually, from what I understand it was Butter who caught him.”
“Details, details. We got our bad guy. You didn’t catch Josh Bates, if you remember.”
“No. He got away.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I have a feeling that we’ll see him again soon, and not in a good way.”
“Yeah... I just wish I knew what he wants from me. I mean, why did he come to Ragged Rest in the first place?”
“Good question. I’ll ask him when we find him. After I waterboard him for three days straight.”
“Jack, waterboarding is illegal.”
“Spoilsport,” he told her, with a quirky little smile.
They were in the carpark at the police station now. Jack shut off the engine, and then they sat there, staring out through the windshield for what seemed like forever.
“Are you ready for this?” he finally asked her.
“Yes,” Miranda promised. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
This had been the plan they came up with after turning the scene at the Blue Jay over to the Aussie Federal police. They would handle the investigation into the car theft ring, but the murder of Caleb Owen and the attack of Skye Rogers was going to be handled by the Moonlight Bay police department. Ben Clark was already here, sitting in an interview room, waiting for Jack and Miranda to return.
Jack’s orders had been specific. Ben was to be kept under guard, and no one was to talk to him. No one. There were questions that needed to be answered.
If anyone thought it was unusual for Jack to bring Miranda in with him when he started his interrogation of Ben Clark, they didn’t say so. When the Senior Sergeant wasn’t here, Jack was in charge. He’d earned the respect of the people he worked with.
He’d earned Miranda’s respect, too, and her affection. She loved Jack, and she trusted him, and he returned those feelings to her every day.
Now they sat in the nearly empty interview room. Just the table and four chairs, two on each side, and a recording device on the tabletop. Instead of a one-way mirror like most interview rooms had, this one relied on a video camera in the corner of the ceiling.
The first thing Jack did when they got into the room was to disconnect the video feed to the camera.
“Well, well,” he said. “It would appear, Detective Clark, that you are in deep, deep trouble.”
Ben was handcuffed, and the chain on those cuffs was inside a metal ring bolted to his side of the table. He slumped in his chair, not defiant like he had been but not as humble as Miranda would have expected him to be. “I heard all of your evidence already,” he said, pointing with the fingers of both hands at Miranda. “She already told me all about it. Do you think we can cut to the chase? I’d like to be home before the rain starts.”
Jack looked from him to Miranda and back again. “What rain?”
Now Ben shrugged, as if he’d won some point against Jack. “You don’t have the same sort of abilities that me and Miranda do. You’ll never understand. We see glimpses. We talk to people who are dead and gone, and it might be in your best interest to show me a little more respect, don’t you think?”
“Speaking of those who are dead and gone,” Miranda said, choosing to ignore Ben’s boasting. She wasn’t better than anyone because of her gifts. Neither was he. “Yes. Speaking of the dead, why don’t you tell me about Caleb Owen’s ghost.”
His smile turned nasty. “Ah. Now I understand why you shut off the camera feed. Can’t have anyone listening in on that kind of talk, now can we?” He turned an inquisitive glance on Jack. “Although, I have to say, I’m surprised that you aren’t more weirded out by that question… oh. You know about what me and Miranda have in common, don’t you? Well, that’s a twist.”
“I know that you and Miranda can both see ghosts.” Jack nodded. “I also know that’s the only thing you two have in common. She’s better than you in every single way. Now. She asked you a question. Tell us about Caleb Owen’s ghost.”
Ben spread his hands against the handcuffs. “Figured that one out too, did you?”
“Yes, I did,” Miranda told him. “He was murdered. Strangled to death. There was no way that his ghost shouldn’t have been hanging around and looking for answers, or revenge, or the meaning of the universe. There had to be a reason his ghost was gone. Since there was another someone there who could talk to ghosts, it didn’t take me long to figure out that you were the reason.”
“Yes,” Ben said, “I was.”
“So,” Miranda said, “you probably told his ghost that everything was all right and he could leave. You sent him away.”
“Uh, well… sort of.”
Miranda didn’t quite understand. “Sort of?”
“Sure. I guess there’s no reason not to tell you this. It’s not like you can ever use it against me in court. Yes, Caleb’s ghost came right to me after he died. He thought I was going to help him, because we were friends and such.
He didn’t remember it was me who killed him. You know how it is with ghosts. They forget things like that.”
Which was true, Miranda knew. Even Kyle had forgotten the particulars of his death when it first happened. It had been a mystery they solved together, like so many of them after that. Kyle was still out in the van right now, where he said he wouldn’t have to put up with the likes of Ben Clark. Too bad, she thought to herself. He was missing all the good stuff.
“Anyway,” Ben continued, “he came right up to me and I told him if he wanted to find out why he died he needed to go on walkabout. I figure he’s still wandering through the Outback somewhere. He’ll come back eventually, only then it will be too late. Everyone will be gone. His body will be buried. If he’s lucky he’ll find a way to cross over and forget this life. If not, well he wouldn’t be the first ghost to walk the Earth forever.”
Miranda couldn’t believe he could be so callous about it. Keeping a ghost from finding their way to the afterlife? “You really are a monster.”
“Thank you,” he said, rather unexpectedly. “Coming from a meddlesome little busybody like you, that means hardly anything.”
Jack could sense her anger, and he had to know at least the implications of what Ben had done, because he immediately changed the subject. “Since you’re in such a talkative mood, Ben, why don’t you tell us what you know about Josh Bates.”
Tapping his fingers against the table for a long moment, Ben finally sat back in his chair again. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, where can we find him?”
“I don’t know,” was the answer.
“Okay. Who else would he go to? Who would help him hide out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s he been staying all this time?”
“I don’t know. Well. I mean, he’s been staying in that van we gave him. Caleb stole it out of a little town on the other side of Melbourne. Nobody was going to be looking for it out here. Other than that… I don’t know.”
“Seems to me,” Jack pointed out, “that there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“A smart man knows his limitations, Jack. That’s just one way I’m smarter than you.”
“Then tell me this, smart guy. How did you and Josh Bates come to be working together? He some sort of smart guy like you?”
“Ha! Hardly. You know what, Jack, I like you. I know you’ve got me, dead to rights so to speak—”
“Poor choice of words,” Jack snarked.
“Whatever. You’ve got me, and there’s no changing that, so I’m going to give you a gift and answer your question for you.” He smiled, as if he really was doing them a favor. “I hired Josh Bates for one reason only. He had a tour boat, and he had an excuse to go running around the open water with nobody looking twice at him. It was a good cover whenever we needed to dump hot car parts, or license tags, or whatever. The ocean swallowed it all up and nobody ever found it again.”
Miranda followed that to its logical conclusion. “That’s what you were trying to get Bates to do for you when you called him. You wanted him to snatch Caleb’s body and dump it in the ocean!”
“Of course. There’s a saying in police work. No body, no crime. Jack here will tell you how true that is.”
Jack nodded. “It is true, up to a point. So you were hoping to stop the whole investigation by making the body disappear for good.”
“See? Police officers understand these things. Only problem was, you guys showed up. You called in the cops before Bates could drag himself out there and do what needed to be done. The man was slow, and if I’m being honest he was a little creepy.”
“Then why work with him?” Miranda asked. “If he was so bad to work with, why do it?”
Rattling the chain of the cuffs against the security ring in the metal table, Ben pointed. “Because of you, Miranda Wylder.”
She hadn’t expected that answer at all. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, that’s the great part of all this,” Ben answered, obviously pleased with himself. “Josh Bates actually came to us. He’d heard about our little criminal organization, and he wanted in. He said he had something to offer us. Something we couldn’t turn down. Somehow, and I don’t know how, he knew that I could talk to ghosts. He said he could help me out. He said he knew someone else who could do the exact same thing. Said he had an in with this woman because he used to know her aunt, and he was convinced that he could bring her on board with us.”
Miranda gasped. “That… that was me. Josh Bates was going to recruit me to help you… steal cars?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I would never have helped you do that!”
Ben laughed out loud at that. “You think we needed you to help steal cars? Oh, come on. Give us a little credit. Caleb Owen was the best in the business at that. I almost hated to kill him. No. See, I consider myself a well-rounded man. I’m into several different, shall we say, activities. Being able to see ghosts can be really lucrative. A ghost can tell you if there’s thousands of dollars stuffed under their mattress. A ghost can tell you if there’s a safety deposit box that no one knows about, and how to get into it. A ghost can tell you all sorts of blackmail-worthy stuff on business partners. I’ve figured out how to use my gifts to my benefit, see?”
A heavy silence fell on the room as Ben continued to grin like an idiot. Miranda was processing what Ben Clark had just told them. All her life, she’d tried to help the dead, and the living too, with her gifts. Never once had she exploited a ghost for profit. She would never have even considered such a thing!
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Ben grumped. “I figured out how to use my gifts for something important, and you’re still living a lie, hiding your gifts from everyone. You’re just like me, lady, no better and no worse.”
“I’m nothing like you,” she said reflexively, although she wondered if the thought of what Ben Clark had been doing was so sickening to her for exactly that reason. Maybe there was a little bit of her who liked the thought of getting something in return for all the times she’d put her life on the line to find a killer, or help a spirit move on from this life to the next. Maybe…
No. She would never have it in her to use the dead like that. Ben Clark would never understand why that was wrong. She knew, in her heart, that there was no sense in trying to explain it to him, either.
But now she knew why Josh Bates had shown up on her doorstep asking about her Aunt Connie now, after all this time. He wanted her to join this merry gang of criminals that Ben Clark had created. He was a horrible, horrible man, trying to use the memory of her missing aunt like that. She’d sensed something was off with him. From the moment he first arrived, she’d felt something odd whenever she looked at him. Now she knew why. Sort of.
Was that all there was to it? Or was there something more to the story of Josh Bates and the disappearance of her Aunt Connie?
Regardless, she didn’t need to let Ben Clark know any of what she was thinking. He was going to be paying for his crimes for a long time to come, and she would never need to worry about him again. “I would never have helped you with anything like that,” she said instead. “My secrets are my own to keep.”
“Ha!” Ben Clark exploded in laughter again. “Not after this, they aren’t. I’m going to tell everyone about the mystery novelist who can see ghosts. Everyone’s going to know your name, Miss Wylder. That’s going to be my little bit of revenge for what you’ve done to me. You’ve got me dead to rights, sure, and I’m going to go away for a very long time, but don’t think you’re going to get out of this without a few problems of your own.”
Miranda’s heart sank. She knew he meant it. He would blab to everyone about her, and then she would never know a moment’s peace. She would be hounded from all sides, from people who wanted her to look for their long dead relatives, to people calling her a crackpot. Her book sales would drop. Her life would be ruined.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said to her, seein
g the look on her face. “Everyone’s going to know. You hear me? Go ahead and put me in prison, but your life is going to be over too. I will never stop. Everyone’s going to know, because I’m going to tell them.”
“No,” Jack told him, very matter-of-factly, “you won’t.”
“Oh, really, Detective Travis? Well then why don’t you tell me, since you’re obviously better at this whole cop thing than I am. Why don’t you tell me what’s going to stop me?”
“I am.”
Now Jack stood up, towering over the other detective who was trapped in his chair by the handcuffs holding him to the table. “Because if you breathe one word of what my girlfriend can do, to anyone, then I’m going to tell everyone about you. Yes, that’s right. Things are going to be hard enough in prison for an ex-cop like you, without everyone thinking you’re crazy on top of it. You want to make things hard on Miranda? I can make them ten times harder for you, Ben.”
He froze in his chair. He didn’t speak, he didn’t even look Jack in the eyes. Miranda, on the other hand, smiled from ear to ear. Jack wasn’t bluffing any more than Ben had been. He would do whatever it took to protect her.
She loved him for that, with all her heart.
Ben was done for. The only thing he had to look forward to was a lifetime in prison. Skye Rogers, when she recovered, would spend most of her natural life behind bars too. She was an accomplice to the car thefts. She was an accomplice to the murder of Caleb Owen. The guilty would be punished for their crimes. The only one who had escaped justice was Josh Bates.
Miranda decided not to let that worry her too much. There were too many other things to concern herself with. Things that were much more important.
Like getting Jack home, and all to herself.
Chapter 19
By the time they finally reached Ragged Rest, Miranda was exhausted. She’d been reading while waiting for Jack to finish up, just to keep herself awake. She was bringing the book home with her to finish reading it.
Talking with Ben Cark had drained her. Once again, they had looked into the very depths of human depravity. There were dark places in a human heart that no one should ever have to see. Somehow, Miranda constantly found herself running straight into those places. It was her friends who brought her out the other side again. Jack, and Kyle, and Jean-Paul and Sapphire, and even Butter.
