by D. G. Swank
I turned to glance at Mrs. Briar. She was staring at me in dismay. “Tell me something only the two of you would know,” I told Hank. “Maybe I can prove to her that you’re really here. You can tell her how much you miss her.”
Tears filled his eyes. “Remind her about our first Christmas together. We were so poor we couldn’t afford a Christmas tree, let alone presents.”
“Hank says you were poor your first Christmas,” I said, shifting my gaze to her. “You couldn’t afford a tree or presents.”
Her eyes hardened. “Lucky guess.”
“On Christmas Eve, I brought home a Christmas tree lot reject. We didn’t have lights, so we made tinfoil stars.” A wistful look filled his eyes. “In the world’s eyes, we had nothing. But to us, we were rich. When you have love, what else do you need?”
Fundamentally, I disagreed with him, but I was trying to convince his wife that I could see him, not get into a philosophical discussion. I repeated what he’d said.
“You could still be guessing,” she said.
I glanced back at Hank and held out my hands.
“Tell her I promised her I’d never leave her. And I still haven’t. We promised till death do us part, but I’m still here. I love her. I’m staying until she crosses, but she still has living left to do, and she’s not doing it. She’s squandering her time.”
I relayed his message and her face softened. “When he was dying, I told him to go.”
“Since when have I ever listened?” he said with a chuckle.
I gave Hank a sad smile. “He says since when has he listened.”
Mrs. Briar started to cry, and I spent the next fifteen minutes relaying messages from her husband. Rhys just watched and listened, looking entranced. Finally, Mrs. Briar said, “Hank, you really have to go this time. You’re driving me crazy with all your shuffling at night. You’ve got to go.”
“I’m not leaving you, Maddy.”
“He says he’s not leaving.”
“Why would he want to stay here with me?” she asked through tears. “You’re right. I’m a miserable person.”
I was filled with shame. “I’m so sorry. I never should have said that.”
“But it’s true,” she insisted.
“Mrs. Briar,” I said, taking her hand. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Hank loves you, and his love transcends death. I truly think he’d be miserable if he left you. Watching over you makes him happy.”
She glanced down and shook her head. “I don’t deserve him.”
“Sometimes we don’t deserve the good things we’re given,” I said. “But we’re lucky to be blessed with them anyway.”
She thanked me and tried to give me money, but I refused to take it. I felt like I’d learned some valuable lessons from this visit, and it didn’t feel right to accept the money.
Rhys walked across the street to her car and glanced back at the Briar house. “I never would have imagined the end of that session.”
“Me neither,” I said quietly, but I felt worn out.
“You meeting Jack before your one o’clock?” she asked.
“Oh crap. I haven’t sent him the address, and come to think of it, I haven’t heard from him since I sent him that text this morning.”
“Do you think he’s mad at you for ditching him for Abel?”
He’d seemed fine when we’d texted last night, but you could hide a lot in a text. But then why had he asked me out to lunch? Still, the fact that he’d never texted back this morning made me nervous.
Rhys misinterpreted my silence. “Cheer up. He’ll get over it.”
I sure hoped she was right. “How do you know?”
“Because he’s intrigued by you, Piper. By this whole package.” She flipped the ends of my hair. “Your brains.” She poked my forehead. “And definitely this.” She picked up my left hand and tapped on my palm. “Crap. It changed again.”
She was right. New lines had appeared surrounding the square, lines that looked remarkably similar to the design on the back of the pendant.
I didn’t know what the lines meant, but I suspected I’d be ready to face the demons once I retrieved the daggers out of the safe-deposit box.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I sent Jack a text with the address for my next client, then drove to the bank. He’d answered by the time I parked my car.
See you at one.
I tried not to read too much into it. Guys were usually short and to the point. But something must have changed with him since we’d texted last night. It was strange that he hadn’t responded to my message about the police. But I faced more disappointment when I went inside.
The teller gave me a sympathetic look after I explained my unique situation. “We’ll need to have our branch manager take care of that, and she’s out until four. We can’t approve a locksmith without her signing off on it.”
“So if I come back at four, I can get in the box?”
She made a face. “Well . . . probably.”
“Can you check to make sure the box is still here?”
She grinned. “Of course the box is still here. It’s a matter of whether your items are still in it.”
“Can you check that?” I asked with a fake smile.
“Do you at least know the box number?”
“No.”
“That’s okay. Just give me the names on the account, and I can look it up.” She turned to her computer screen and started typing.
“Todd and/or Piper Lancaster.”
“And are you on the account?”
“I’m Piper. And I have a driver’s license to prove it.”
She typed for a few more seconds and said, “Yes. You still have possession of the safe-deposit box.” She wrote a number on a sticky note. “Here’s the number for when you come back in.”
“Thanks.” I took it from her and stuffed it in my purse. “Say, can you tell me who pays for the box every year?”
“Not from this,” she said. “But we can pull it from a different file and let you know when you come back at four.”
Just one more question for my list.
I pulled up in front of the Williams house five minutes early. This was the second meeting I’d gone into completely blind.
A car pulled up behind me, and Jack got out with a backpack slung over his shoulder. I took a deep breath, then climbed out to greet him.
“Hey,” he said, looking me up and down. It only lasted a fraction of a second, but I caught it.
“Hey,” I said. “I was worried when you didn’t text back this morning. Did you get my message?”
“Yeah.” He’d hesitated before answering. Why?
“Did Detective Lawton call you?”
“Yeah. And I let him know you were with me until you left.” There it was again . . . a hitch in his voice. I hadn’t misread the situation—he was different today. What had changed? And then it hit me. How could I have been so stupid? It had been beyond arrogant for me to assume this was about me. “So you know there was another death.”
He glanced up at the house and swallowed. “Yeah.”
I reached out and rested my hand on his upper arm. “This is not your fault, Jack.”
He shook his head and his eyes turned glassy. “You don’t know that, Piper. If I hadn’t been so cocky. If I’d bound it properly . . .”
“No. You did the best you could. Besides, that demon is after me, Jack. He’s doing this to get to me. And it might not have killed her. There’s at least one more demon out there now. I’d bet the new one killed that woman.”
His eyes bugged out as he turned to me in horror. “Another demon? How do you know that?”
Crap. We had some catching up to do. “I met it last night. It’s a lesser demon, not as strong as Valvad, but I think it’s capable of killing . . . as evidenced by the murder last night.”
“Valvad?”
“That’s the name of the demo
n that attacked you.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “It told you its name?”
“No . . .”
His expression darkened. “You found out from Abel. You ran after him last night.”
“I saw him watching on the street corner.”
He was silent for a moment. “Did you get the answers you were looking for?”
“More than I expected.”
“Anything you can share?”
I trusted Jack more than I trusted Abel. “I’ll tell you everything after we finish here.” I would even tell him about finding the daggers, but now wasn’t the time. The homeowner—a trim middle-aged woman—had been watching us through her storm door for the past several seconds with an anxious look.
“Do you want me to do anything particular inside?” he asked.
I looked him over. He wasn’t wearing his priest collar, and with his white-and-blue plaid short-sleeve shirt and jeans, his styled hair and his bright blue eyes, he looked more like a model than a priest. “Just watch. I’ll tell you if I need backup.”
He nodded and lifted his shoulder, drawing my attention to his backpack. Had he brought more holy water? “I’m here to help if I can.” He held out his hand and my necklace dangled from his fingers. “I tried to give it back to you last night, but you seemed pretty intent on catching Abel.”
I snagged the chain from him, then tucked the necklace into my pocket.
“You’re not going to wear it?”
“I want to try this without it. I could see the ghost this morning much more clearly. In fact, I didn’t realize he was a ghost at first, so I want to see what happens before I put it on.” But even as I said it, I wondered if that was the right way to go. Abel had claimed it would hide me from the demons, which was a good thing, but after everything I’d learned this morning, I didn’t fully trust him. Better to go with my gut. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Jack followed me up to the house, and rather than make up any sort of elaborate backstory, he simply introduced himself as my friend. Thankfully, Jamie Williams was much more receptive than Mrs. Briar. We stood in the living room while I asked her about the activity in her house, and she told me it had been centered in the basement. After my experience at Evelyn Crawford’s house, the thought of going to the basement gave me a bad feeling.
“How long has the activity been going on?” I asked.
“A few weeks,” she said. “And it’s getting louder and more violent.”
I cast a glance to Jack and caught his concerned expression.
“When you say violent,” he said, “what does that mean?”
“Things flying off shelves—paint cans, tools.”
“Have you felt like you were in danger?” I asked.
Fear filled her eyes. “I won’t go down there. And my washer and dryer are down there.”
Jack gave me a hard stare. “I don’t think you should go down there, Piper.”
I shot him a warning look, then offered Mrs. Williams a tight smile. “Have you seen the objects move or just heard them?”
“You think I’m making this up?” she asked, getting indignant.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “But if you have seen something, I need to know what you observed.” When she hesitated, I said, “I’m not sure what’s in your basement, but there are dangerous entities in this world. If you have a dangerous entity in your basement, I need to be more careful about how I proceed.”
“Oh.” From the way she said it, I could tell there had been plenty of people who hadn’t believed her.
“Usually I don’t ask my clients about the house’s history. I like the spirits to tell me themselves, but if this entity is violent, I suspect it won’t be so cooperative.”
“You want to know if someone died here?”
“Yes.”
“Not that I know of, and I’ve lived here for nearly twenty years.”
“Has anyone in your family died recently? Not in the house, anywhere else.”
“No. My cousin died five years ago.”
“Have you recently brought anything old into the house?” Jack asked. “Like an antique or something from a thrift store?”
His question caught me by surprise. I never would have thought to ask that.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes widening. “I bought an old mantel clock.”
“And where did you put it?” Jack asked.
Her mouth dropped open, and she whispered, “The basement.”
“Piper,” Jack said in a tight voice. “A word?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling anxious.
He led me over to the front door and leaned close. “I think she’s carried something into her house. It’s possible for spirits to attach to objects they loved.”
“So it’s a ghost,” I said, feeling relieved.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “It could very well be a demon, especially since it’s violent.”
I glanced down at my palm. “It’s not tingling, so I’m hoping it’s a run-of-the-mill ghost.”
Jack released a gasp as he reached for my wrist and pulled my hand up higher. “It’s changed.”
I couldn’t help noticing that while I didn’t mind Jack holding my hand, I didn’t feel the sparks I felt whenever Abel had touched me. But my attraction to an inappropriate man was hardly the biggest issue in my life. “Last night the square and circle got darker, and the other marks appeared after my meeting this morning. And it tingled last night—that’s how I knew there was a demon close by.”
He looked up into my eyes. “It perfectly matches the pattern on the back of the pendant.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that too. Any new ideas about what it means?”
“I’m not sure. I confess I took advantage of having it in my possession and studied it last night, but I didn’t come up with anything more definitive.”
I gently pulled my hand free. “We can deal with that later. Right now I need to deal with an unruly ghost.”
“You were wrong a second ago,” he said. “You called it a run-of-the-mill ghost, but it’s been moving things. Making loud noises. It could be a poltergeist.”
“Like the movie?”
“Not quite, but they aren’t to be trifled with. They’re the kind of ghosts that don’t go gently into the night. They sometime require exorcisms.”
“Ghosts?”
“Poltergeists don’t act like normal ghosts. You haven’t run into one yet?”
“No.”
“I know this is your job, but can I suggest I get out a crucifix and some holy water before we go down there?”
I nodded. “Yes. Definitely.”
He slipped the backpack strap down his arm and opened the bigger section, removing a large bottle filled with clear liquid and a six-inch-tall crucifix. Well, he’d certainly meant business.
Mrs. Williams shot us a worried look.
“I wasn’t entirely honest earlier,” Jack told her. “While I am Piper’s friend, I’m also an Episcopalian priest, and I’m concerned about what might be in your basement. I’d like to be prepared to protect Piper should the need arise.”
She nodded, relief filling her eyes. “Of course.”
Jack glanced over at me. “You ready?”
No, but I still needed to go down there. “Yeah.”
Jack opened the door and started down the stairs before I could stop him. After his attack a month ago, I knew he had to be scared shitless, yet he was charging down there anyway. To protect me. To help Mrs. Williams.
I followed him down the wooden stairs until we reached the concrete floor. The basement was unfinished and metal shelves lined the walls on either side, stacked with various boxes, paint cans, and tools. There were several pieces of furniture shoved in the middle of the room for storage, and the potentially haunted mantel clock sat on a table directly in front of us. It was about a foot and a half long and a foot tall. It had a large white round face with roman numerals surrounded by a rich red wood with miniature columns
on either side. It looked perfectly harmless.
“So far, so good,” I said under my breath.
“Do you see anything?” Jack asked. His words were tight.
“No. I’m going to call to it.”
“Is your hand tingling?”
“No.”
He nodded, but his back was stiff.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Piper and I’m here to help.”
Nothing.
“I’m sure you don’t like it down here,” I said. “I can help you go somewhere better.”
A gust of wind swept past me, and I heard a voice say, “Nothing can help me now.”
Jack’s eyes widened.
“I take it you heard that,” I said.
“Yeah. Can you see it?”
“No.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out the necklace, and quickly put it around my neck. As soon as the clasp was fastened, I saw a young man sitting on the table next to the clock.
As soon as he realized I was staring him in the eye, he leaned over and grabbed a paint brush off the shelf next to him.
I barely ducked before it came flying at me.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“I don’t have to tell you shit,” he snarled. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, and the style of his clothing and hair suggested he had died in the 1960s.
“You’re right,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me anything, but I might be one of the only people who can help you.”
He gestured toward Jack. “Then what’s he doing here?”
“He’s here to assist me.”
“Huh.” But he didn’t look like he was contemplating Jack’s role in my visit; he was clearly trying to decide how to torment me next.
“You really like that clock, huh?” I asked.
“That clock is mine,” he said in a hateful tone. “It doesn’t belong in this basement.”
“Where would you like it to be?” I asked.
“Where it belongs,” he countered.
“I’m trying to help you here. Why won’t you tell me your name?” I asked.
“Names hold power,” he said. “If I give you my name, you’ll have power over me.”
