The man who’d brought the money stood behind DeAngelo, his hands clasped in front of him. Patrick didn’t find that encouraging. In all the times he’d played here, DeAngelo had never sent for cash, had never had a man standing behind him before. Something felt off.
Elizabeth reached for him, stopping her fingers a hair’s breadth away from his hand. He felt it like a shock of electricity, only without the pain. Patrick glanced at her, at the little line that had formed between her brows and the tight line of her lips.
She pulled her fingers back. “Be careful. Please.”
Patrick laid out his cards—four fives—and waited.
DeAngelo’s smug grin fell. “You cheated. You must have cheated.”
Patrick pointed to himself. “Do you think I have a death wish? Come on, DeAngelo, I’m not stupid enough to cheat. All I want is my ring. You can keep your money. The ring is worth a fraction of what’s in the pot.”
DeAngelo’s gaze went from the pot in the center of the table to the ring on his finger. He splayed his hand in front of him, staring at the ring, then slowly twisted it off and tossed it across to Patrick.
Patrick picked it up and almost slid it on before changing his mind and placing it in his vest pocket. He grabbed the stack of bills sitting directly in front of him. There was no point in trying to take the chips; he wasn’t leaving here with any of their money. In fact, judging by the scowl on DeAngelo’s face, he was fairly certain he’d be lucky if he got out of here with his life.
He stood and nodded to DeAngelo. “Good game.”
He made his way around the table, and before he turned to go to the door, he tossed the bills into the face of the man standing behind DeAngelo. The bills fluttered apart in a big green poof, and Patrick sprinted for the door.
He was halfway to the club when the report of a gun echoed through the hall a split second before a bullet pierced the wall to the right of him. Four more paces and he was out of the hall. The club patrons started screaming and running around like ants in an ant farm. Patrick ducked before plunging into the hysteria of the crowd and pushing his way through.
Then Elizabeth was at his side. “Not the front door,” she directed. “Too many people trying to get out there. Try the exit back by the bathrooms.”
Patrick deviated his course and ran to the other exit. She was right: there weren’t as many people there. He pushed through the door as another shot sounded from behind, and made for an alley around the side.
“He’s coming,” she warned him.
Patrick ducked behind a dumpster while Elizabeth stood watch.
“No, it’s not going to work,” she said.
“What’s not going to work?” he whispered back.
“Shhhhh!” She put her fingers to her lips. “You’re going to have to get under the dumpster.”
“What?” The ground was wet, and there was a large pile of mysterious goo by one of the wheels. “I’m not going under there. Even if I wanted to, I won’t fit.”
She faced him. “You either go under the dumpster or in it after he shoots you; it’s your choice.”
He huffed, then dropped to his knees and then his side and scooted between the back of the dumpster and the wall, and slid through the wetness and muck until he was totally concealed. One of his cheeks was pressed against the dumpster, the other against the gooey pavement. Patrick held his breath as people ran by screaming and shouting. He plugged his nose against the putrid smell and tried to ignore the wetness seeping through his clothes.
“Is it clear?” he asked after several minutes.
Elizabeth said nothing.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yeah, you’re good.”
He shimmied out and stood. Glancing at his now sullied clothes, he sighed. “This was my favorite suit.”
She concealed a grin by letting her hair fall in her face. “Come on. We need to get out of here before they decide to do another sweep.”
They ran to the end of the building and turned the corner, coming face-to-face with the man with the gun. Patrick flinched to the side out of instinct, but Elizabeth pulled her fist back and punched the man square in the nose. The punch landed, and her hand made contact like it had when she’d hit the flowers in the market and his and Zak’s foreheads. The man went cross-eyed before dropping like a sack of turnips.
Patrick blinked.
She stared at her hand. “I’m starting to get good at that.”
“Did you just save my life?” Patrick said at the same time Elizabeth said, “Save your life?”
She glanced at him and grinned. “Yeah, I did. Now let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Nine
The moment they arrived at his apartment, Patrick started shedding his clothes. He dumped his vest and shirt inside his bedroom door and shut it behind him before discarding what remained.
“We should’ve taken his gun,” Elizabeth mumbled from the other side of his door. She’d already expressed the same regret when they’d first gotten in the cab home.
“He’d get another one, and you know it.” Patrick was inclined to believe that DeAngelo’s men rotated through guns as quickly as DeAngelo did through men.
Once out of his soiled clothes, Patrick retrieved his ring from his vest pocket and headed for the bathroom. He had mystery goo in his hair and smeared all over his face and neck. For some reason, he found it concerning that the malodorous matter was slightly sweet in its stench. That was all kinds of wrong.
“No, I know. You’re right,” Elizabeth said through the door.
Patrick had seen her face; what she’d wanted to do was arrest the man, but while she’d been able to land that punch, making an arrest as a ghost was an entirely different matter.
“I have to take a shower!” he yelled to her. “I’ll be a minute.” He opened the vanity above his sink. The cool metal of his ring felt so familiar against his skin, but it’d been defiled by DeAngelo. He set it on one of the shelves and decided to polish it when this was all over.
“Take your time,” Elizabeth said. “You were almost shot tonight. I think you deserve a long shower.”
He smiled, then thought of the irony of the statement. She’d been shot, she was dead, and she’d saved him from a similar fate. Turning on the hot water, he stepped under its spray and let it run over his head and down his back.
Patrick had known DeAngelo was dangerous, had known since he’d started playing cards at his club, and he hadn’t cared. He’d almost lost his life tonight because he’d let his guard down. For months he’d been playing this guy, rattling him to the point that he saw Patrick’s ring as trophy enough to kill him over. His old self would never have gone that far. Not to say he wouldn’t have pushed some buttons; that was just him. But he didn’t have a death wish. Did he?
A cold shiver ran over him, canceling out the hot water entirely for one brief yet intense moment. Whatever he’d felt or wanted then, he didn’t now. If anything, he felt exhilarated. He hadn’t seen his life flash before his eyes, but it was true what they said about near-death experiences. New lease on life, and yada yada yada.
Scrubbing the gunk out of his hair and off his body with a frenzied speed, he found himself needing company, wanting to be with someone even if that person was a ghost. And possibly especially this person despite the fact that she was a ghost.
Within minutes he was in blue flannel pajama bottoms and T-shirt and out in his living room. Elizabeth sat on the end of his couch with her eyes closed and her hand resting on the armrest. He didn’t think she was sleeping. Did ghosts sleep?
He glanced around as an uncomfortable heat surrounded him. Aside from his couch, bed, and TV, he had nothing but trash in the apartment. This wasn’t living. Had he gotten so low he’d reduced himself to this? His gaze strayed to Elizabeth again, with her eyes shut and lips turned up slightly in the corners if you looked close enough.
He went straight into the kitchen and grabbed his bin, then came out and loaded the trash.
&
nbsp; “Feeling like a new man?” Elizabeth watched as he worked.
“You could say that.” He threw in the last container and sat on the couch facing her. “I know I haven’t been overly enthusiastic about helping you. For whatever reason you’re here with me… I don’t know, but I’ll help you. I’m sorry I’ve been making this entire ordeal more difficult than it needs to be.”
“Honestly, I can’t blame you. It’s got to be terrifying to have a ghost following you around, and equally irritating having her making demands.”
He returned her small smile with one of his own. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll go find your brothers. I promise.”
Not only did he want to find them, but he needed to. He’d wasted so much time on unimportant and frivolous things. It was why he’d become a consultant with the FBI: he’d wanted to help, and his friend, William Rafferty, had gone out of his way to get him on board. After Patrick signed all the paperwork, he’d suddenly felt it was tedious and exhausting. For a while, he’d helped, but in the last little while, he’d found he couldn’t do it anymore.
His behavior was shameful.
All he wanted now was to do something good. Something for someone other than himself.
Without a body, Elizabeth found it difficult to describe what with a body she would’ve called physical reactions. For instance, there had been times in her life where she’d literally worried herself sick. If she had a body, that’s what she’d say now, but nausea wasn’t quite the right word for how she felt. How could it be? She didn’t even have a stomach. But as she listened to Patrick talk to his FBI contact, William, the word nausea was the one that came to mind.
Their taxi driver changed the channel on his radio from soft to classic rock. “Stairway to Heaven” came on and, he started humming along. Elizabeth wanted to rip the radio from the dash. “Stairway to Heaven”? Seriously?
“What did you find?” Patrick held the phone to his ear but tilted so Elizabeth could lean in and listen too.
William Rafferty sounded like an older gentleman, maybe in his fifties or so, and he sounded kind. “At some point, you’re going to have to explain to me what this is about, Patrick.”
“Sure thing,” Patrick said, but to Elizabeth’s ears, it sounded dismissive. And by the deep sigh from the other end of the phone, she figured this Rafferty fellow heard the same thing she heard.
“I’ll hold my breath, shall I?” Rafferty asked.
“I wouldn’t,” Patrick returned. “So…?”
“I haven’t been able to dig up a lot on Detective Shea—her record is closed. I called her precinct earlier today and left a message with her supervisor. If I hear back, I’ll let you know.”
Patrick glanced at her, but she didn’t look back. “That’s not as helpful as I was hoping for.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Rafferty said.
“Meaning?” Patrick shifted in his seat.
“Every article on her said the same thing, word for word, except for what the newspapers found to embellish the articles.” Rafferty cleared his throat. “The media was fed the story.”
Elizabeth sat back and thought for a second, her gaze landing on the fraying gray back seat. “They must still be investigating my death.” That wasn’t encouraging. She hated to think the person who’d done this to her was still out there. She’d have to pray they caught him; there was nothing more she could do.
Rafferty confirmed her thought. “If I had to guess, they’ve set up a sting to find the people responsible for her death.”
“How do we find out for sure?” Patrick asked.
“You can try talking to her boss, but I doubt you’ll get anything out of him. Unless of course I’m wrong and they’re not running an operation,” Rafferty said. “If that’s the case, he should be forthcoming.”
“Thanks, Will. I’ll call you later.” Patrick closed his flip phone.
Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose, the spot where pressure generally built when she was stressed or tired. She wondered at the pain she felt there. It wasn’t the same as having a headache, but it was still uncomfortable. How much of pain is a spiritual thing and how much of it is attached to our bodies?
This entire situation was like a horrible nightmare, one she couldn’t wake from. And to make it worse, she couldn’t find her brothers. Anywhere. They’d spent the last four hours combing the city of all their usual haunts—their apartment, Luke’s school, the library, this little café they frequented, and Patrick had even called Kyle’s and Jake’s roommates in Oakland and her neighbors here. All they’d gotten was one of her neighbors saying Kyle and Jake had come by and picked up Luke the day after she was shot, and nothing more. It was like they’d vanished.
Patrick turned to her. “Are you all right?”
She peeked at the blond man beside her and revised her last thought. Not all of it was a nightmare. In fact, since last night, Patrick had become bearable—more than bearable, in fact. He’d been a downright saint.
“Yes, thank you,” the cabbie said, glancing in his rearview mirror. “How are you?”
They looked at the cabbie. “I’m… good,” Patrick said.
Elizabeth chuckled, then her stomach writhed—or whatever was in that general area since she no longer had a stomach. “Why can’t we find my brothers?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
Now, in the back of the cab, a fresh wave of panic hit. “This is a nightmare.”
Patrick reached for her, his hand stopping inches from her shoulder and hovering before he pulled it back. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find them.”
Had whoever shot her gone after them? Were her baby brothers lying dead in some ditch somewhere because she’d pissed some criminal off—at least enough to kill her? There weren’t all that many people here who would think to look for them either. “I’m going to be sick.”
“You’re not going to project slime on me, are you?” Patrick asked.
She glared at him. She was definitely not going to do that. The sickness she was feeling was not the same as when she’d had a body. There was no desire to vomit. What she felt was deeper, all-encompassing, a dread that filled every inch of her. “This isn’t Ghostbusters, and you’re not Bill Murray.”
The cabbie wiggled in his seat and turned the volume down. “Sir?”
Patrick grinned at her and waved off the cabbie. “No, it’s nothing. Are we almost there?”
“Yes, five minutes.”
“Thank you.” Patrick turned from him, paused, then leaned forward. “And don’t mind me talking to myself back here. I’m running lines for a play.”
The cabbie smiled, exposing crooked teeth. “Really? Which play?”
“Shakespeare.” Patrick leaned back.
“A comedy or tragedy?” The cabbie asked.
Patrick furrowed his brow. “That’s yet to be seen,” he said under his breath, then to the cabbie, “Midsummer’s Night Dream.”
“I love that one.”
Patrick blinked at him.
The dread Elizabeth felt momentarily fled at the ridiculousness of what was happening.
Patrick tilted his head. “A Shakespeare-literate cabbie. That’s unexpected.”
Elizabeth smiled and gestured with her hand for him to proceed. “Well, go ahead, then.”
He sat tall and waggled his brows as he thought for a second. “‘Or if there was sympathy in…’ luck—” Patrick grinned, his gaze darting from her to the cabbie and back. “—‘war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it… let us teach our trial patience. It stands as an edict in destiny.’”
Elizabeth chuckled at his mangled Shakespeare, though to be honest, she was pretty impressed. Luke’s high school had put that play on last year, and he’d gotten a part in it, so she knew the story pretty well, having had to run lines with her baby brother.
Sure, Patrick had taken lines from two different characters, and he’d changed a word or two, but his point was made and made in a way that had made her smil
e. If he’d said to her “We’ve had some bad luck, but be patient, that’s par for the course in these kinds of things,” she would’ve been ticked. It would’ve sounded too much like “Calm down, it’ll be fine.” She hated being told to calm down. But what he’d just done had been funny and clever.
He winked at her.
“I don’t think that’s how the lines go,” the cabbie said.
Elizabeth grinned, then dropped her head to her hands with a sigh.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Patrick said.
Since she’d awoken as a spirit, she’d been in work mode: figure out what’s going on and fix it. She’d kept her emotions all bottled up, and until a moment ago, she realized she’d been on the verge of bawling her eyes out. And that was the last thing she wanted to do, especially in front of Patrick. The last thing he needed was an overemotional spirit on his hands. Having a spirit on his hands was more than enough.
She peeked up from her hands. “Now what?”
“We talk to your boss and see what we can find out.” Patrick tapped his pointer finger against his lips and hummed lightly as he thought.
“What is it?” She sat up.
He shook his head a little. “Nothing.”
She didn’t believe that for one second. She’d only known the man for a few days, but in that time she’d discovered his mind worked in mysterious ways. He’d absolutely thought of something, but she wouldn’t push, not for now. Somehow, after he’d almost been shot last night, they’d formed a comfortable alliance. The last thing she wanted to do was upset that. She needed his help. More than she’d initially thought she did.
If her brothers were missing, then crossing over was the least of her worries. Those boys were her first priority in life and death. In fact, she refused to cross over until she knew where they were and that they were safe. If she didn’t look out for them, then who would?
Chapter Ten
Elizabeth stood behind Patrick and groaned. Why did every turn of this experience have to be so difficult?
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