by Lori Drake
“What about me gives you even the remotest idea that you can tell me what to do?” she challenged, looking up at him in that way she had of seeming taller than she was. She was so fierce, so independent. It was one of the things he loved about her.
He couldn’t help but smile. Anonymity did have some benefits. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful when you’re angry?”
Joey blinked, sputtered, then turned abruptly to stalk toward the stairs.
Grinning, Chris followed her. “Hmm, I’ll take that as a no.”
Joey snorted, not saying another word as they descended, but outside she rounded on him. “We should get some dinner. And before you get all smart alec-y, no that’s not me asking you on a date.”
“Are you sure?” Chris asked, chuckling. “That sounds an awful lot like a date.”
“I’m hungry. We didn’t have lunch, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.” The memory of that encounter rose easily to mind, and with it no small amount of anger toward his host. Whatever lingering guilt he might have felt about using Dean’s body wafted away, but as much as he wanted to remain with Joey, he couldn’t bring himself to deceive her further.
“I can’t, I’m sorry,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I have an appointment. But call me in the morning and we’ll figure out where to go from here. Okay?”
Joey looked very much like she wanted to argue the point. Jaw tight, she nodded. “Alright. But tell Chris—”
“Just tell him. He’s here.”
“Oh, right.” Joey flicked a glance around them, her eyes eventually settling somewhere over Dean’s left shoulder. “I’m sorry for losing my temper. What you did was shitty, but I know your heart was in the right place. And we have this opportunity now to make amends… God, how many people get that?”
Chris swallowed. Guilt warred with relief, swirling within him. In a body or out, his emotions were on overdrive.
“I—he says he’s sorry too. For all of it. And that, for the record, he didn’t make it a habit of keeping things from you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. He watched her struggle to hold them back. They glistened like diamonds caught in her lashes before sliding down her cheeks.
“Liar,” she said softly, turned, and walked away.
He watched her go, frowning in confusion and trying desperately to figure out what that had meant. She climbed into his car and drove away. It felt like his whole world went with her.
She couldn’t have known he was inside Dean, so what had she meant? Did it matter? She was right. Even as he was apologizing for keeping secrets, he’d done it from behind a veil of deception.
Growling in sudden anger, he flung the helmet in his hand against the pavement. It bounced harmlessly and rolled away, but as he followed its path with his eyes he caught a glimpse of the motorcycle parked on the street nearby. The sudden realization that he didn’t know how to ride it sparked a helpless laugh.
“You fucking idiot,” he said to himself, but took the helmet over to the bike and hung it on the handlebars before walking off down the street. He wasn’t any closer to figuring out how to get himself out of his current predicament, but he knew one thing: there was a food truck down the street that served killer burritos and he never thought he’d get to eat one again.
19
It was a long, lonely drive home.
“I don’t know if you’re here or not,” Joey said, glancing at the empty passenger seat while sitting at a red light. “But I get why you did it. I just wish you’d told me.”
There was no answer, not until a horn honked loudly behind her. The light had changed.
Joey was annoyed with Chris, but the bulk of her anger had faded. She’d never been able to stay angry with him for long. At least that hadn’t changed along with everything else.
At home, she spent the rest of the night obsessing over what they could possibly do next. Sometimes to herself, sometimes out loud in case Chris wanted to chime in. He never did.
Emma returning the cash she’d stolen was a given. They could make that happen easily enough, but if the asshole she’d stolen it from was as much of an asshole as she claimed, it probably wouldn’t be enough. What would be? More money? Intimidation? Blackmail? Was any of the information Emma had about his operation something they could use as leverage?
Then there was Tasha. Maybe she would relent when she got the information she wanted from Chris—not that it would do her much good, with Emma and Cheryl in the wind. Regardless, their only hope of peace for Chris was that Tasha would release him. Unless they could find her, somehow, and make her do it.
Even after she went to bed, Joey lay awake late into the night, going over and over everything in her head. She stared up at the ceiling until her eyes started to burn, then lay there with them closed a while longer.
Sometime around 2 a.m., she migrated across the hall. Curling up in Chris’s bed, Joey turned her face into his pillow. It still smelled like him. So did his blanket. She wrapped it around her and curled up beneath it, eventually drifting off to sleep with thoughts of him watching over her from the other side lingering at the edge of her consciousness.
She woke later than usual the next morning, still shrouded in Chris’s scent. The clock said nine forty-five, and she groaned softly as she rubbed her bleary eyes. The previous day’s events filtered back through her mind until the urge to cover her face with a pillow grew too hard to resist. It didn’t help block the thoughts crowding her brain, alas. Prominent among them was the notion of calling Sam and bringing him into the loop. It was probably the right thing to do, but the way he’d shut her out of his investigation still stung.
Deciding to put off the decision until after she’d had coffee, a shower, more coffee and talked to Dean—probably in that order—she rose, stretched, and headed for the kitchen.
It was almost eleven by the time she called Dean, but he still sounded half asleep when he answered.
“Mmmhello?”
An image flashed unbidden to mind, of the medium still in bed, those dark curls all mussed from pillow time. Stopping herself before she could wonder if he slept shirtless or not, Joey refocused on the task at hand.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she said cheerfully.
There was a quiet grunt from the other end of the line, and the rustling of sheets.
“Joey?”
She laughed softly, amused by his sleepy confusion. “The one and only. Late night?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, pausing to yawn. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to check in. I don’t know how involved you want to get in this, but I could really use your help. I mean, maybe Tasha will let Chris’s spirit go when she’s done with him or maybe she won’t. Do you have any connections that might help us find her? Emma said tracking magical signatures was easy and you didn’t seem all that surprised about the whole witch revelation.”
There was a pause. Joey held her tongue, letting him think.
“My retainer is five hundred per day plus mileage,” he said.
“After yesterday’s consultation, that seems almost reasonable,” she said, smirking. At least he sounded a little more awake.
“Might want to reserve judgement until you find out where we’re going. Is your passport current?” His voice lacked levity.
“Um. Yes?” she replied, having to think about that for a moment.
“Great,” he said. Running water started in the background. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“Where are we—” She glanced at her phone with a frown. He’d hung up.
Dean arrived at her apartment just shy of an hour later, as prompt as their first meeting. Joey was glad to see him, but she did her best to play it cool. For whatever reason, his presence boosted her confidence that they’d figure this out. Plus, there was something very reassuring about a man who knew how to show up on time.
Standing on her doorstep with a helmet under each arm and the buckles on his jacket glinti
ng in the midday sun, Dean cocked his head to one side and asked, “Ready to go?”
Smirking, she caught his arm and tugged him inside. “Almost. First you’re going to tell me where we’re going.”
“Fair enough,” he replied, setting the helmets on the dining table. “But we have to get on the road if we’re going to get there before dark.”
Joey folded her arms. “Better get to explaining, then.”
“Well, I know you want to find Tasha, but until we have some idea of how to break her link with Chris…”
“Finding her is only half the battle. Okay, so what’s your idea?”
“There’s something special about Chris. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been doing this for a few years and I’ve never encountered a ghost I could hear but couldn’t see. Plus, I don’t think he’s as weak as I thought.”
Nodding, Joey thought about that for a moment. “Well, I’m no expert but I agree. I don’t think he’s weak either. How does knowing that help?”
“We need information. Spiritual guidance, if you will. There’s a guy on the other side of the border that might have some answers for us. He knows a lot about spirits, way more than I do. But he’s a total technophobe, doesn’t even have a land line. We have to go down there if we want to talk to him.”
Joey smirked. “How much is that going to cost me?”
“Don’t worry about it. He and I go way back.” He picked up one of the helmets and offered it to her. “Ever ridden a bike before?”
Joey took the helmet and jammed it on her head. “No, but I’m a quick study. Let’s go.”
Riding a motorcycle, as it turned out, was thrilling. While they moved around the city at low speed, Joey fought the urge to rip her helmet off and feel the wind on her face and in her hair. She managed to restrain herself, and once they got out on the highway she was glad for the face mask. There wasn’t anything she wanted hitting her face at seventy miles per hour. Or more. She couldn’t exactly see the speedometer.
Dean seemed like a competent rider. He didn’t scare the piss out of her, at least. Sitting behind him on the motorcycle—which was an honest-to-goodness Harley-Davidson with a blue dragon in flight painted on the gas tank—Joey felt pretty at ease. For the first time in days, she was able to just be close to someone else without worrying about the expression on her resting bitch face or having to come up with something to talk about besides the elephant in the room.
Chris probably wouldn’t have appreciated being the elephant in that metaphor.
She wondered where Chris was. Was he zipping along beside them in a spectral sidecar? The thought made her smile, though it seemed profane to contemplate saddling the magnificent machine with such a contraption. Nonetheless, she could picture him there, wearing an aviator cap and goggles like sidecar riders always did in those old black and white movies he loved.
San Diego was situated close to the Mexican border; it was a little more than thirty minutes from Joey’s apartment. Traffic slowed as they approached the checkpoint, but it wasn’t too bad. They produced their passports for a cursory inspection from a border patrol agent and were on their way moments later, zipping past the much longer line of bumper to bumper traffic trying to go the other direction.
Dean circumnavigated Tijuana and continued south and west until they rode along a coastal highway. The view was stunning, and for a time Joey was able to forget her troubles and the unfortunate business that had brought them down there in the first place. There was nothing but the road, the vibrating machine under her backside and the open water. Poor Dean was reduced to little more than a piece of furniture to hold onto.
They exited the highway a few miles past Ensenada and headed down a side road. The sun had dipped considerably by then; it was late afternoon. She couldn’t decide what was more beautiful: the mountains to the east or the ocean to the west. Either way, her view soon turned more local as they motored through a residential area. The homes were close together at first, but became more sparse the farther they went. A mile or so past the last residence, they turned onto a private drive.
Joey peered over Dean’s shoulder curiously as they roared down a dirt road toward a small, dingy white house with a Spanish tile roof and a gorgeous view of the ocean. It was the sort of view that would have automatically added millions to the property value in California, but down here? Who knew.
Dean parked beside a dusty brown pickup. On the other hand, it might have been gold and just looked brown because of all the dirt.
Joey pulled off her helmet, climbed off the bike and wobbled, catching herself on Dean’s shoulder. Pulling off his own helmet, he flashed her a knowing smile.
“Give it a minute, you’ll get your sea legs back,” he assured her.
“Isn’t it more like land legs?” she wondered aloud, but let go of him while he dismounted, steadier on her feet with each passing second. He took her helmet and hung both from the handlebars, then stretched.
About that time, pandemonium broke out in the form of a small pack of tiny dogs exploding from inside the house. The screen door banged shut behind them as they, yapping non-stop, ran over to greet the new arrivals.
Joey and Dean were soon surrounded by the creatures, who barked with such force that their tiny paws actually left the ground with every yap. There were at least twelve of them, Chihuahuas in shades of black, brown and tan. Joey had a hard time counting, the way they were crowding around. They did not, however, seem particularly threatening. They were just excited to see someone, even Joey—whose relationship with canines was typically standoffish at best. Something about her wolf nature usually put them off.
Dean peeled off his fingerless gloves and bent to offer a few rubs and pats. The whole herd migrated toward him, since Joey wasn’t giving them more than an amused, tolerant look.
“Well, look what the wind blew in,” a voice said from the porch. Joey had been so preoccupied by the dogs that she didn’t notice the man that had emerged after them. He leaned casually against one of the roof supports.
Whatever Joey had been expecting Dean’s wise old friend to be, the man before her defied expectations. He wasn’t Mexican, for one. No, he was definitely a gringo. A very tan gringo, but a gringo nonetheless. He was older, probably in his late fifties, with a full head of dark hair gone white at the temples.
The man whistled and the dogs immediately turned tail and ran back to the porch. Some sat or laid down, while others milled about, sniffing things they’d probably sniffed a hundred times before.
Dean lifted a hand in greeting and straightened once more. “Buenas tardes,” he said, rolling the R and everything.
Joey was a little surprised—and impressed—by his accent, but the greater surprise was when he reached for her hand and drew her toward the porch. She went along and offered the stranger a smile as they approached.
“Long time no see,” the other man said, meeting them just underneath the awning. The two men slapped palms and leaned into a hearty handshake, clapping shoulders.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” Dean replied, lips quirking in a half-smile.
“If you listen to the wind, you might be surprised what you can hear,” the other man replied, before shifting his attention to Joey. He held out a hand, but when she reached to shake it he clasped her fingers gently and brought her hand to his lips. His mustache tickled her skin as his lips barely brushed the back of her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Grant.”
His eyes were a deep stormy blue. As they caught hers and held them, she couldn’t quite dismiss the notion that he was peering into her soul. It was unsettling, and it distracted her from the fact that somehow this stranger knew her name without any introduction.
Joey broke eye contact and reclaimed her hand as soon as she could, stuffing it in her pocket for good measure. “You too, Mister…?”
“Harper,” the man said. “Why don’t you come inside and tell me why you’re here.”
“What, the wind di
dn’t tell you?” Dean quipped, flashing Joey a wink as he held the door open.
Joey chuckled awkwardly, still put off by Harper’s enigmatic ways and intense eye contact. Nonetheless, she followed him into the house. It was dark, especially in comparison to the bright afternoon sun. She squinted while her eyes adjusted, but even as the shapes and colors in the room resolved themselves it didn’t get much lighter. The decor was masculine; there was no hint of a woman’s touch to be seen. The furniture, floors, walls, everything was dark wood, charcoal grey or navy blue. Over the fireplace hung a portrait of a Mexican woman in a black dress with a red flower in her black hair. The flower was the only hint of red in the whole room, so it stood out.
The dogs came inside with them, flowing like a furry river toward the overstuffed sofa. Some made two hops to perch on the arms or back of the sofa while others settled on the seat cushions.
Harper led them through the living room to the kitchen. This room was much lighter, thanks to pale blue cabinets and a wide window without any sort of covering. The window was open, letting the ocean breeze roll into the room.
“Have a seat,” Harper invited, motioning at the table on his way past.
Joey and Dean settled on one side of the table, while Harper poured three mugs of coffee from an old-fashioned percolator pot. He really did seem to have known that company was imminent.
“So, what brings you to this side of the border?” Harper asked, once his guests were served and settled. “If you’ve come to ask for his hand, I’m afraid it’s not mine to give.” He winked at Joey.
“She’s a client,” Dean said, quickly setting the record straight before Joey had a chance.
“Ahh, I see. Still involved in that nonsense, are you?” Harper queried, lifting a brow and sipping from his mug as he settled across the table.
Joey glanced between the two men curiously, but Dean merely shrugged.
“Have you ever heard of someone being able to torture a shade?” He asked, getting right to the point.
Harper’s lips turned down, forming a wide arch under his mustache. “Can’t say that I have.”
