Zach’s arm muscles had tensed against her fingers, and his whole body stayed alert.
Here she is! Enzo barked. Now some of the phantoms withdrew from around the woman—more like a girl no older than eighteen—so Clare could see her. The nun ducked her head and Clare couldn’t distinguish her features.
Some of the live people shuddered at Enzo’s words, looked in his direction, at Clare and Zach, and headed toward the open ends of the place. Enzo gamboled over to the nun, pressing against the full skirts of her habit and gazing up at her with adoration.
“She wasn’t here earlier,” Clare murmured, clutching Zach. “I would have noticed.” She took a deep breath. “Here we go,” she said aloud, then added, I’m ready.
Ready, he replied in her head.
She matched his slow pace, kept a slight step back so he could continue to use his peripheral vision in his scan of the place. He walked toward a picnic table where a bunch of teenaged boys horsed around on the benches. They saw him coming and left, hurriedly, glancing at him, his cane.
“Cop,” one of them sneered from the sidewalk a few yards away. The word echoed in the concrete-pillared space. More people faded away.
Another sent him a sympathetic glance. “Ex-cop. Let’s get out of here, the girl watching is better up the block at Cheyenne Spring.”
Without another glance at Clare and Zach, they ran or skateboarded in the direction of the roundabout.
Pulse thrumming in her ears, Clare came up to the nun and dipped her head. Hello. I am Clare Cermak and I’m here to help you transition. I’d also like—
The nun lifted the blur of her face, her features young, her mouth a round dark smudge as if she’d opened it. Oh! Oh, you can see me and . . . and you have the power to— Oh, no! I cannot possibly move on at this time. Not now! I must serve the needy! It is the basis of our order, the Sisters of Mercy. I have duties!
Then she simply vanished.
Clare’s knees gave out and she folded onto the picnic bench. Let Zach go.
Enzo? she asked.
Enzo! Zach demanded.
The dog sat and didn’t meet their eyes. She is just shy, he repeated. She will be better next time. An ear lifted slightly.
“Crap,” Zach said.
Clare blinked back tears of disappointment. Her chest ached with hope ripped away, worse than the dull ache of her spectral wound. They’d failed.
* * *
As soon as they left Manitou Springs for the highway to Colorado Springs, Zach heard Clare’s breath release, and she sank back into the tall seat of the truck, closing her pretty hazel eyes. The soft tissue under those eyes showed bruising, the ends of her mouth tucked in with pain.
Hot licks of fury flashed through him, based in fear. He’d just found her, just told her he’d loved her—and she’d told him that, a rare and special gift. He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t lose her.
Damn irritating that the minute the ghost nun saw them, recognized Clare as a ghost seer, the young spirit vanished. How was he supposed to get an idea if she could do the job if he—they—couldn’t interact with her?
Glancing into the truck bed, he noted that no wavery air indicated that Enzo tagged along on the ride, not since they’d left Navajo Spring. He’d taken off just like the nun. As far as Zach was concerned, the phantom Lab–minor spirit didn’t spend as much time with Clare as he should, another annoyance. Clare needed keeping an eye on, for sure.
Zach shot a glance to Clare’s midriff and narrowed his eyes, hoping to see the spectral slash, to no avail. He thought the day’s events hadn’t hurt it much, but he really wanted to keep tabs on it. Get it healed fast.
When they freaking found the ghost again. He’d be on tenterhooks until that happened.
Nope, couldn’t lose Clare.
And despite that favor-trade thing he’d done with the Other, he didn’t trust that spirit as far as he could spit. No, as far as Clare could spit. If Clare wasn’t healed pretty damn quick, he’d play the card of calling on a higher power than the Other. He was pretty sure he and Enzo could do that.
Meanwhile he’d support Clare in every way he could. He pulled through the high stone arches of a portico and stopped in front of the tall glass doors of the resort.
Clare jerked from her dozing, looked around, and did a double take. “Where—” Her voice came out a little high and squeaky and made him smile. She cleared her throat, “Where are we?”
“Bubbling Springs Resort.”
She frowned. “I made reservations at one of the commercial hotels by the airport, far away from the oldest part of Colorado Springs.”
“And this is even farther, north of the city, a brand-new community that went up within the last half decade. Gorgeous, isn’t it? You like the golf course?”
“I don’t play golf.”
“Two swimming pools, a full spa to pamper you.”
“I don’t need pampering . . .”
He turned to look at her, took both her hands in his. “Yes, Clare, you do. The last month’s been rough on you.”
“Month and nine days,” she muttered.
“There’s my Clare.” He leaned over and pressed his lips against hers, the tip of his tongue tasting the flavor of her mouth, a tender kiss, a caring kiss. Then he released her seat belt and his own. “Let’s go get the keys to our villa.”
“Our. Villa.”
“That’s right. As you pointed out, for efficiency’s sake we need to stay in the area. This land was prairie during the time period you’re sensitive to, so it should be safe. It’s modern and contemporary luxury—”
“Are you quoting the brochure?”
He shrugged. “You need the best sleep and food and just rest, a good space and ambiance to work. A standard hotel won’t provide that. Let me do this for you.”
She put her hands on his face and stroked his cheeks, giving him a soft smile. “All right.” Then her smile widened. “A very nice spiel from you, Zach.”
“And it’s all true.”
She nodded. “Probably, and thank you for not pointing out that I’m . . . frugal.”
He opened his door, “Clare, we both know that you tend to be cheap. This isn’t the time for that. We need to take care of you.”
Then she stiffened and he realized he’d gone too far, so he tried to hurry over the speed bump. He shifted, gave a little grunt, put a hand below his left knee where he’d been shot. “Be nice to stay in an upscale place for me, too. Swim in the pool. I think our villa has a hot tub.” He could get a swimsuit at a big-box store in town.
“Of course, Zach.” She frowned. “Does our villa have a kitchen?”
“The resort has two restaurants, and there are plenty of good restaurants in Colorado Springs—in areas with no ghosts. But, yes.” He smiled. “I liked the look of one of the villas with a large tower. It contains an open two-story living room–kitchen.” He wiggled his brows. “Only one bedroom.”
“We need only one bed.” Her eyes lit with a smile.
“That’s right, but in this particular villa there’s an office, and a desk in the living room. Places where we can both work. The resort caters to conventions and business travelers.”
“That does sound good.” She moved her shoulders, and he thought he could feel the weariness coming off her in waves. By the time he’d returned from the main hotel lobby with key cards, she snoozed in the seat. He pulled up in front of the red sandstone villa, approving the setup, a small rectangular building attached to the two-story living room–kitchen. Nice and with a contemporary charm. No damn standard hotel room. Something special for Clare . . . for them both.
He began to think that he deserved a really nice hotel room, too, not to mention that he’d gotten used to a hot tub.
* * *
That evening, Clare spent researching while Zach watched sports
on a huge-screened television. Yes, they—he—would have to get one for their house. She’d given him the basement for his man-cave and the exercise room. He could put a gigantic monitor down there—and probably a smaller one in the exercise room, too. But she drew a line at a television in the bedroom. She intended that to be for more intimate and personal hands-on activities.
All right, they could have a little monitor in the sitting room upstairs, too. Zach seemed to have more need of news and entertainment from videos than she. She recalled Great-Aunt Sandra had been a news junkie, always filling her house with programs if she didn’t have a client. She’d also been an extrovert. That might matter, too.
As for Clare, she skimmed online sites—governmental, tourist, and legends—about Manitou Springs, the history and stories, to fix them in her mind. She culled information, consolidating what she thought were true facts as opposed to stories—ghost and otherwise.
Navajo Spring was one of the oldest springs, and Clare spent a good hour tracing photographs of the place, from the wide stream, a basin in the ground next to a huge boulder that showed up in most of the antique pics, pavilions of tree branches to red stone . . . then it disappeared inside the arcade. Seeing that particular patch of terrain change . . . the building around the boulder taller than a man until it became a part of a plaza, looking much diminished . . . saddened her.
She also searched for photographs of the Sisters of Mercy and found some, but none of the women were the young nun whose apparition she met. The one who would repair the rip in her etheric body.
Finally, Clare downloaded an e-book on ghosts of the town, wanting to know what other phantoms she might encounter. She stretched out on a cream-colored leather sofa not quite as soft as the one she’d inherited from Sandra.
Clare would be sure to avoid Redstone Castle, considered one of the most haunted houses in Manitou Springs. Since it was owned privately there was no reason to visit, and she’d make sure the people didn’t get her business card. Her brows went up as she saw the main ghost was supposed to be the sister of the coffin-race Emma Crawford, Alice Crawford Snow. Checking the date, she saw that woman had died in 1917, thankfully out of Clare’s ghost seer time range since the woman sounded as if she’d gone from desperate to crazy. So far Clare had dealt with only one crazy ghost—the evil one who’d bitten her.
She noted in her memo app the places to avoid, if possible. She also made a list of the ghosts who might be considered major projects to be assigned to her by the universe, though she thought that her job would be to help the nun move on. Something she felt in her bones, and how glad she was to have bones.
All in all, the stories gave her goose bumps, rather creepy and made more so by eerie antique black-and-white pictures.
When the last game ended, Zach eyed her, and apparently deciding she looked healthy enough, he took her hand and led her to the hot tub part of the bedroom for some of their always-good sex. He dried her and they slipped into the sheets and spooned together. He comforted her, and she was sure she did the same for him.
* * *
Clare moved through the dreamscape, not awake, but not totally asleep, either. And not lucid dreaming, in charge of her dream.
She’d been studying up on various unconscious states. She looked around, but saw only a thin gray mist, felt the touch of the droplets of not-quite rain on her skin, more like a trickle of tears.
Waving away the mist, she concentrated on seeing. For a minute she stared down at herself and noted no cord from her middle to her etheric body. Not doing what people called out-of-body traveling or astral projection. So she wasn’t hovering around in . . . the villa bedroom . . . she remembered she wasn’t home! No, she didn’t float in the bedroom, she didn’t think.
Her body wore her silk sleep shirt, the hot red appearing black. When she looked down, that seemed the same. Perhaps she lingered in the gray dimension she visited so often, that flat no-emotions, no-life place between death and the next existence.
She couldn’t see Zach! Couldn’t even sense him. And the thick fog returned.
Fear flooded her, slithered through her veins like a chill. Not dead, then, either—but hadn’t it been the long stays in what she called the gray dimension that had worn down the ghosts of her era? Had muted their feelings? They had shown some emotions. Maybe she had passed on from life to death. She inhaled to the bottom of her lungs—or tried. She didn’t seem to be breathing, and at that she felt her heart speed and her throat dry, more echoes of physical sensations than real.
And the fog changed from cool and going colder to warm with a humidity that nearly choked her . . . a wetness in the air that she hadn’t experienced in a long time. A pair of huge lavender eyes appeared, heavily lashed—a projection of the Other, the not-so-minor being who shared the Labrador ghost form of Enzo, whom she’d become comfortable with.
She didn’t really like the large eyes.
You are too slow, as always, Cermak woman, the Other sneered. Typical—the sneer and comment. Even to simply heal, as defective as all your kind. An invisible force hit her, sent her tumbling feet over head, searing along her etheric tear. Just enough to get you through the day without collapse. Contempt laced its tones.
She gasped and screamed and fell from the gray dimension into the cool, dry air of a Colorado autumn.
Her mouth opened and a small cough emerged and she sucked in air, then snorted loudly as it came right back out.
Zach muttered beside her . . . and she closed her eyes and went limp, cherishing every one of the sensations around her that she’d missed during her time in the gray dimension, the silkiness of her nightgown and high-thread-count sheets under her, Zach’s smell of earthy sage and sleep perspiration, the sound of cicadas chirping outside the window.
And the warmth of the feather comforter atop her, the heat radiating from Zach’s muscular body.
Heat. Even in the sunlight she’d been cold today. She prayed that the weather stayed good. Manitou Springs was set in steep hills, getting colder by the day as fall turned into winter. She wouldn’t last long in the chill if she had to help major ghosts transfer to the other side.
But right now warmth cocooned her, even her toes, and sleep tucked around her like a blanket. She stretched and sighed and gasped again as she realized her wound felt better.
The Other had helped her. Huh.
With friends like him, she didn’t need enemies, trite but damn true.
Chapter 15
Zach, Zach, Zach! With each sharp snap of his name, a cool wash slid over his body, the contrast and the cold had him grunting awake. They hadn’t turned the heat on in the villa, and the fall mornings had become chilly. He reached out for Clare and touched her body under a puffy comforter.
Zach! Worse when not even a sheet covered him and a ghost dog walked up and down—well, through, his prone body. Squeezing bleary eyes open, not that that would help him see the Lab, he managed a grumpy, “Enzo?”
Yes, Zach, it’s me, Zach! I love you! The dog’s standard greeting.
Rolling over and sitting up in the bed, rubbing his face and feeling beard stubble against his palms, Zach glanced at the wide bedroom window and noted low gray clouds just above the blue mountains of the Rampart Range. A couple of white streamers dipped even lower, and it had snowed on the hills during the night. The window faced west and he squinted, trying to see any hint of sunshine. Nope. Not today. Another cloudy morning to wake up to.
He swiveled his head and got an eyeful of red digital clock numbers and grunted. Yeah, he’d have to put some more time in on the Utzig case this morning. See if he had any bites on his lines at the shelters, or with the DPD.
He considered going up to Denver . . . but not yet. He wouldn’t leave Clare until he had a lead or a meeting with an undercover cop. Much as his gut tightened thinking about young Tyler, the worst could have already occurred. He shuddered.
Clare sighed.
He couldn’t lose her. Gritting his teeth, he wondered if her injury and his new case would rip him in two, emotionally.
A ripple of cold through his body, thump, thump, thump. Enzo hopping up and down?
You must listen to me, ZACH! the phantom Lab insisted. It’s about this case and Clare and the healer ghost and her wound.
“The healer ghost’s wound?” Zach asked, more to stop the dog’s running around through him, especially near his groin, than anything else.
A whiff of ice came near Zach’s face. Touching Clare’s neck for a better connection, he saw that Enzo had tilted his head, and his forehead had wrinkled as if in thought. Oh. Well the healer ghost must have some sort of hurt if she won’t leave the nasty gray dimension between life and death and go on to the bright, huh, Zach? Enzo began to pace back and forth through Zach’s chest, continuing, She must be a good person. Zach—
Trying to stop Enzo from babbling hadn’t worked. Zach raised a hand. “Just spit it out.”
The dog sat, right in Zach’s other arm. Unlike Clare, Zach felt just a cool draft. Though that was bad enough this morning. But Enzo’s gaze had gone serious. Zach blew out a breath, said, “What, Enzo?”
Now the spirit had his attention, Enzo rose to his feet and skittered around. Zach suppressed a sigh. “Enzo?”
Enzo surged up to him and licked Zach’s face. I love you, Zach. But you are not as cheerful as I am. Or as Clare.
Zach shrugged. “I have a tendency to brood, so what?”
This will be a hard, hard, HARD time for Clare. She must have NO negativity around her!
Zach scowled.
Yes, just like that. Nothing like that. Can you TRY to be positive and cheerful for the next while?
Ghost Maker Page 12
