As soon as she saw me, she jumped into her chair and reached over to lower the volume.
“Ebony,” I said, with a squint of my eyes as I motioned behind me.
The music disappeared, replaced by silence.
“Ebony, this is Mrs. Carleen Hocking.”
“Welcome to our office,” she said with a smile.
“Hello.” The small, blonde woman stepped inside and looked around our shabby establishment.
“This is my personal assistant, Ebony.”
“Personal assistant slash apprentice,” Ebony added.
The blonde cocked an eyebrow. “Nice to meet you.”
“Do you have Mrs. Hocking’s file handy? She claims to have called several times in the last few days.”
Ebony’s eyes fell to the pile of manila folders in between our desks before moving along to the stack of messages sitting on my desk. Damn! Why had I let things get so out of hand? If I kept this up, I was going to push clients towards the Council-approved lackeys. And that was something I definitely didn’t want to do.
I moved past the blonde, headed for my desk.
Ebony strolled over to grab our visitor chair and placed it beside my desk. We don’t get too many clients in the office. Most of our clientele prefer to use the phone or email.
I sat, motioning her to do the same in the ugly, worn, metal chair. Mrs. Hocking scrutinized it before deciding to sit down.
“Would you like some coffee, tea or water?” Ebony asked with a smile.
I was impressed. She was being quite the hostess. Was this a new chapter in the life of Ebony Aikan, or was there an ulterior motive I didn’t know about yet?
Mrs. Hocking looked at our refreshment table and shook her head. “No, thank you, I’m fine.”
“Okay.” Ebony sat back down on her swivel chair, gluing her eyes to the computer screen.
I cleared my head and rifled through the pile of folders until I found the one with the surname of the woman sitting uncomfortably in my office. I opened the manila folder and glanced at the single sheet of paper inside. Our standard sheet included the potential client’s name, details and ghostly problem, which was what I perused. I hoped Ebony had obtained enough appropriate information to decide if the job was worth taking or not. And yes, she’d done a thorough job filling out this sheet before printing it for me.
It was dated the fifteenth. We were falling behind.
I sighed. We really needed to get caught up on these. Judging by the weight of the bundle I’d pushed back to the original position between our desks, the emphasis was on urgency. Why was I allowing myself to get sidetracked when there was so much work to keep us busy?
No point in worrying about it now. “Okay, Mrs. Hocking, according to this, your husband went missing about a week ago.”
She nodded, meeting my gaze. “Please, call me Carleen. Mrs. Hocking makes me sound like an old woman, or a widow.”
I looked down at the paper, trying to ignore the second odd statement she’d made since meeting. “I’m sorry, Carleen, but we don’t do missing people. We’re spook catchers, and from what I can gather, your husband isn’t a ghost, is he?”
“Well…” She bit down on her bottom lip.
“Did you report him as missing?”
She shook her head, the strands of hair moving slightly.
“All I can suggest is that you follow it up with the police. If you visit your local police station and check with them—”
“I’ve already done that.”
“I thought you didn’t file a report yet?”
She squirmed in her seat and avoided my eyes.
“If you don’t feel like you’re getting enough information from the police, maybe you’d like to hire a private investigator. We’ve actually got one here in this building. He’s directly one floor up. I can vouch for him. Jason Papan is a thorough investigator who always comes through with great results.” I felt like a walking-talking ad, but we had this kind of relationship, Papan and me. He was good at his job and certainly deserved more work. From what he told me, sometimes it was hard for him to make ends meet.
Carleen shook her head. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “A private investigator can’t help me.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
Ebony coughed.
I looked up. She motioned down towards my desk but I had no idea what she was trying to say, so I shrugged. She rolled her eyes.
“Ms. Fox—”
“Sierra.”
“Sierra,” Carleen said sitting forward. “I don’t think you understand. My husband first went missing over a year ago.”
I looked down at the sheet of paper. Nope, it said a week ago. “Not according to this.”
“It’s not a typo. My husband returned to me a few months ago. He came back as a spirit.”
I sucked in a breath and released it. “So your husband has disappeared twice, this time in ghost form?”
Carleen nodded.
“Maybe he finally crossed over.”
“No. He was there one minute and then gone the next. I don’t know what happened but I’m sure he didn’t leave me on purpose. He told me something strange was happening to him. That his ghostly frame was slipping away somehow, almost as if there were a magnet trying to pull him away from this world.” She paused, crossed her legs and leaned both elbows on her lap. “I didn’t know what to say or do. I don’t know much about ghosts. I was just so glad he found his way back after such a long, agonizing year. I spent a fortune on private investigators, and you’re right, Jason Papan is an outstanding investigator who found out more information in a matter of days than others did in months.
“After there was nothing left for him to pursue, he actually recommended you. I’m oblivious to ghost phenomena. I didn’t even know someone like you was available.”
I pulled a pad of paper closer, grabbing a pen in the process. “Would it be inappropriate to ask you what happened to your husband the first time he disappeared?”
Carleen sighed and sat back against the old chair. She seemed agitated. “Roger was always intrigued by the unknown—spirits, ghosts, demons and other strange things. I didn’t understand the fascination, couldn’t wrap my mind around why he was so interested in it.
“At first it was just books he’d find online or in some bizarre bookshop. I was never sure where he got all the things he accumulated. But when he started buying relics, awful ugly things that looked disgusting and scary, I got a little worried.”
“What did your husband do for a living?” I interjected while she rubbed her eyes.
“He was an antique dealer. I guess it was only a matter of time before his interests moved from pieces of furniture and historical relics to otherworldly ones.”
I jotted down his profession. “Did he keep these things around the house?”
“He kept everything in his study.” She met my eyes for a second before averting them. “I went in there one time. I actually dared to look at some of those books and totems, but he caught me and told me to never go in there again. He claimed to be working on something wonderful, something that would keep our souls together forever. As you can imagine I was a little freaked out by this, thought it was just a bunch of mumbo jumbo that would never amount to anything.” Her voice trailed off as tears slipped from her eyes. “He kept the study locked after that.”
Ebony inched a tissue box towards her.
“Thank you.” Carleen sniffed and wiped her face. “I’m sorry about this, it’s just so warped.”
I took a deep breath, scrawling the information without looking at my notebook. I wanted to list everything—what she was saying, as well as how she was reacting. “Do you know how he went from a collector to a user?”
Her blue eyes, now clear from tears, were fixed on mine. “He found a message board, which led him to a chat room. I think he ended up involved with some kind of cult. I’m sure it was a cult. They met once a week, on a Wednesday, and spent hours insid
e some sort of abandoned chapel.”
“Abandoned chapel?” I echoed, writing it down at the same time.
“Yes, I followed him a few times. It was in the abandoned lot behind the city. I really wish they would clear that place out. I’m sure it’s been used for devil worshipping or some sort of witchcraft.” Carleen took another tissue and blew her nose.
I exchanged glances with Ebony. Her eyes sparkled before she averted them back to the screen.
“Did you actually see anything odd?”
Carleen shook her head. “I was always too scared I’d get caught. I’d sit in my car for an hour or so before driving home to cry myself to sleep.”
“What did you think he was doing in there?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was afraid to find him in the middle of a blood-filled orgy or something.”
An orgy? This woman had watched too many B-grade movies.
“All right, so he might have been involved with a cult, then what happened?” I asked. So far, everything she’d said was hearsay.
Carleen took a deep breath, her hands shaking. “I’d hear him in the middle of the night sometimes. He’d get out of bed and wander downstairs. I don’t know what he was doing, but sometimes I could hear him chanting or smell incense burning.”
“And you never went down to check it out?” It was Ebony who asked the question.
“I couldn’t bring myself to. I just couldn’t. That kind of thing scares me.”
This guy must’ve been into some heavy shit, but what I wasn’t sure. “Just curious, how did he treat you during this time?”
“Roger was always a good husband. Even during all the crazy stuff, he was wonderful. He just seemed distracted and determined. We were trying really hard to have a baby beforehand, and we kept with it.”
“Did you get pregnant?”
She nodded. “After so many years of trying without results—so many tests, so many needles and drugs—none of it worked. But one day, out of the blue, I found out I was pregnant. But I didn’t get a chance to tell him. It was the day he disappeared. The first time he went missing.”
This was getting worse by the second. Could her husband have been meddling in some strange fertility magic to give her a child? It was possible. People got into weird stuff for lots of different, desperate reasons. “Did you have the baby?” I asked the insensitive question. She didn’t look like a woman who’d given birth recently.
The tears returned and I was sorry I’d asked. “You don’t have to answer.”
“It’s okay, Sierra,” she said through her sobs. “I-I lost the baby a few months later.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, it was probably for the best. The doctors didn’t know what happened. It wasn’t an average miscarriage. I broke out in a terrible rash, something contaminated my skin so badly I was kept in the hospital for four months. No one knew what it was.” Her eyes were wet and glazed over, as if she was lost in memories. Hard and painful memories I was making her remember. Sometimes this job could be really horrible.
“You got sick as a result of the pregnancy?” I asked, hating myself a little more with every question. But we needed to get to the bottom of this. I no longer doubted this was something we could look into.
Carleen shrugged. “It could’ve been the pregnancy, maybe it was the distress of losing Roger. Whatever it was, it’s still inside me.”
“What?” Ebony blurted. Until then, I thought she’d been lost in her own work, not listening to us.
The slim blonde stood. Carleen avoided eye contact as she pulled off her gloves, followed by her jacket. She folded them neatly, placing each item on the chair.
My eyes widened when she lifted her shirt sleeve.
What the hell was that?
“Oh my Goddess,” Ebony whispered, her eyes wide with shock. They were her natural gray-blue today, no strange contacts. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of Carleen Hocking’s skin.
I pulled my gaze away. It was the most disturbing thing I’d ever seen, and I’ve seen some pretty gross stuff. This was what nightmares were made off, inhumane things lurking under our skin. Things our human eyes weren’t supposed to witness as the lazy afternoon sun filtered in through the twin windows behind my desk.
Something writhed beneath the scarred skin of Carleen’s arms. Whatever was causing her skin to look lumpy and stretch so unnaturally moved like a slithering snake.
I held a hand up to my mouth several times, followed by deep breaths. The salad I’d eaten was trying to climb out of my mouth. I was going to be sick. Not an ideal thing to do in front of someone forced to bear such a disturbing entity, but I couldn’t help it.
“Are you in any pain, Carleen?” I managed, fighting to keep my composure.
She lifted one narrow shoulder in a half shrug. “No, it doesn’t hurt, but that doesn’t make it any better. I don’t even know why I’ve got this inside me, or what it is.”
“And this happened after your miscarriage?”
Carleen nodded, lifting the shirt over her flat stomach. The thing wiggled underneath, horizontally, traversing over her midsection until it disappeared. She pushed her shirt down, put her jacket back on, slipped on the gloves, and sat down.
I sighed, hoping she didn’t notice. “Maybe you weren’t pregnant.”
She looked confused. “I don’t know what you mean. I had a pregnancy test and it was positive, and a blood test to confirm it.”
This was going to sound really heartless, even worse than anything I’d said until now. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but maybe you weren’t pregnant with a child.”
Her face contorted with disgust. She pressed her back against the chair, slumped. Was she going to pass out? “What…what are you saying? That my husband injected me with something other than human sperm?”
I held her gaze. “Could be, I don’t know. I’m not an expert in demonic seeds.”
“Demonic seeds?” Tears trembled inside her eyes.
I hated being the one to tell her this, especially when I didn’t know for sure. “Yes, it looks like there’s something alive inside you. Did the doctors mention anything strange about the fetus after you miscarried?”
“No, why would they? I’d just lost a child and my husband. Why would they rub salt in the wounds with something so outrageous?” The shimmering tears disappeared, and the cold stare she gave me spelled out just how insensitive she thought I was. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t come to me to become friends. Carleen Hocking wanted help.
And I was willing to help her. No one should be forced to carry something so alien inside them without knowing the consequences. Still, she’d probably have to face some pretty awful truths about her husband.
“The movements under your skin—were the doctors able to explain that?”
Carleen looked at me then down to her lap. Her fingers intertwined with the tissue she still held. “I think the doctors were too freaked out to deal with it. They sent me home in hope of never seeing me again and claimed it was muscle spasms.”
I shook my head. “That’s not a muscle spasm.”
“I figured as much, but I didn’t know where else to go. Are you able to help me?” Her suspicion seemed to fade again, but the hurt and confusion didn’t.
I dropped the pen. “Why did you come to us, Carleen? Was it so we could find your husband or to figure out what’s living inside you?”
She took a deep breath, still avoiding my eyes. “I’d like you to find my husband because I don’t want to lose him again. But if, by any chance, you’re able to supply an answer to this condition as well, I’d be grateful for that too. My life’s a living nightmare. I need some sort of explanation.” Carleen paused. “Sometimes I get the feeling I’m being followed, but with something like this, I guess paranoia is just another symptom.”
It was definitely possible for someone to be following her. I wasn’t convinced human doctors would simply send her on her way without the need to i
nvestigate and experiment further. Thanks to her husband, Carleen could be in a hell of a lot of danger if she fell into the wrong hands.
Mr. Hocking certainly had a lot to answer for.
“And you haven’t tried seeking answers from other sources?” I asked. We needed to know how many people could be involved. By taking her case on, I could be placing myself and Ebony in the direct line of danger.
“I didn’t know where else to go. I only know about you because of Mr. Papan.”
“The cost for something this involved isn’t going to be cheap.” I cringed inwardly. This was my final attempt at having her walk away. We were reaching the point of no return, and as much as I wanted to help her, I had a bad feeling about her situation.
Ebony slid one of our price lists along the desk.
Carleen pocketed her tissue and grabbed the price list, then tucked it into her small handbag without a glance. “I’m willing to pay whatever it takes. Money’s not an issue.”
“Okay then.”
The phone rang. Ebony snatched it up on the second ring.
“Sierra Fox, spook catcher, Ebony speaking. How can I help you?” she sang into the receiver. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at the computer screen and listened for a while before removing the receiver away from her ear. She covered the mouthpiece and said, “It’s for you, Sierra.”
“Can you take a message?”
“Can’t, he’s pretty insistent.”
“He?”
“Yeah, uh, an Oren McKee…he wouldn’t tell me where he’s calling from. In case you didn’t notice, I couldn’t get a word in.” She rolled her eyes. “The name doesn’t ring a bell. Do you want to take it?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Ah, yeah, I’ll take it.”
“But we’re in the middle of—”
“Just give me the phone.” I held my hand out and waited. “This won’t take long, Carleen. I’ll be with you in a second.”
Ebony raised her eyebrows as I took the receiver, but I ignored her curious glance to concentrate on the call.
A Patch of Darkness Page 8
