Sitting her messenger bag on the counter, she leaned against it. “No. He’s at command today, doing fun Chief-of-Policey stuff.”
She put in the obligatory phone call each morning to let her dad know she was still alive, and to make sure he was too. This morning, he’d been on his way to some meeting to update department policies and regulations.
“I was hoping I could have access to some of Zone 2’s public records.” Spider pretended to pout. “My boss has me doing research on one of his cases, and I’m not having any luck on the computer.”
He tapped the counter top. “You came to the right place. What case are you working?”
Smiling, she reached into her satchel and retrieved the list she’d made last night after searching the online archives of the Atlanta Journal Constitution for longer than she cared to admit. Her list contained five names of missing or murdered women from the Buckhead part of Atlanta over the past thirty years. All dark-haired women approximately 20 to 30 years old. One name was circled – Katherine Levine – because her grainy photograph had resembled the woman Spider had seen in the window more so than the other four.
“Can I see the police reports for these missing persons and homicide cases?” She handed him the list.
“Katherine Levine. I remember that one. Sad story from about, what? Thirty years ago? College kid. She had a little boy. Single mom trying to make good. You know?”
Spider leaned closer. “What happened?”
DeLorenzo skirted his gaze around, propped his arm on the counter. “One of her friends reported her missing. Her boy, ah, he was about one or two, I think. He got taken by the state. Wonder what happened to him?” He drummed the notepad against the counter. “He the one who hired your boss?”
Biting her lip, Spider shrugged. “Can’t tell you that. Confidential.” Maybe tracking down the woman’s son would be one of the next things on her list. “Did you work that case?”
“Nah. Don’t remember who did.” An officer was walking past and DeLorenzo called out, “Lanier. Com’ere.”
Oh, no. Spider sank a little lower, wishing the counter could shield her completely from view. She had hoped not to see Jack again anytime soon after that whole accusing-Noah-of-being-a-serial-killer fiasco.
A huge smile engulfed his wrinkled face when he saw her. “Emma! What brings you down here?”
DeLorenzo didn’t give her time to answer. “You remember who worked the Katherine Levine case? College kid whose friend reported her missing. Worked at Wally’s. Remember?”
Smile falling, Jack scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, we never found a body.”
“Who worked the case?” DeLorenzo asked again.
Jack’s brow furrowed as he considered Spider more closely. “Can’t remember. Why?” He arched one brow and pinned her with a half smile. “You’re not still trying to play detective, are you? What is it this time? Another neighbour you suspect is a serial killer?” He chuckled.
So not funny.
His radio chose that moment to squawk a request, which he thankfully answered. He was talking into his handset as he disappeared down the hall, where the private exit was.
DeLorenzo slapped the counter to get her attention. “Come on. We’ll see if we can find these records.”
Thirty minutes later, Spider emerged with the spoils of her victory in hand. Photocopies of the police reports filed to report Katherine Levine missing, along with a handful of others for the other women. Sitting in her car, she dug Katherine’s files out and glanced over them again. A photograph of the woman had been paper clipped to the file, and she’d copied that too. With crinkle lines from laughter around her eyes, the pretty, dark-haired woman smiled back at her with familiar features.
A tingling in her belly sent a shot of adrenaline through her veins. Call it a gut feeling, but she suspected she’d found the identity of her ghost. She skimmed the report from twenty-eight years ago. Katherine, or Kate, as she was known to friends, had never shown up for work one evening at the bar where she waitressed. One of her classmates had filed the report when she didn’t return home either. That classmate, who’d been babysitting Kate’s unidentified son, had assured the responding officers that it was out of character.
“Wonder if I can track down this friend.” Pursing her lips, Spider entered the woman’s name into her smartphone.
No-go. Plus, the woman probably had a different last name by now.
“Well, I wonder if anyone at Wally’s remembers her.” Turning the engine over, Spider directed her old car toward the bar that had recently been remodeled and renamed, but everyone on this side of town knew as Wally’s.
An excited energy buzzed along her nerve endings now. Was this how her co-workers felt when out in the field? It was thrilling, addictive.
When she’d been a teenager, she and her dad had often stopped at Wally’s for its out-of-this-world burgers. The décor had been tacky and dark, and the place didn’t smell like anything a man should bring his daughter around, but that was her dad. Stepping into the bar now, she stopped in the entryway to take inventory of the sleek, new atmosphere. The update, in her opinion, was a nice change from what she remembered. Light-grey walls were painted with sports emblems and team logos. Gleaming silver chairs and tables had replaced the yucky booths and wood tables that had once greeted patrons.
Much brighter. Huge improvement.
“What can I get for you?” The middle-aged bartender asked when she stepped into the raised bar area.
Pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head, she waved her hand dismissively. “Sweet tea. Thanks.”
The silver-haired man, who looked to be in his fifties at most, eyed her quizzically but moved to get it ready. “Never seen you around before.”
She drummed her fingers against the counter, looking for any members of the staff over the age of forty. This guy seemed her best bet. “I’m trying to find someone. Maybe you can help?”
“I’ll try.” He slid the tea in front of her and winked.
“She used to work here about twenty-eight years ago?”
“Yeah? My uncle owned the place then. I used to wash dishes in the back. What was her name?”
“Kate Levine.”
“Kate. Yeah, I knew Kate.” He reached for a rag and began wiping down the bar top. “If you’re looking for her, you’re not the only one. She went missing, long time ago. Who did you say you were again?”
“I didn’t.” She leaned forward. “Do you remember if there were any suspects in her disappearance?”
He shrugged, nonchalant. “Not that I remember. Everyone thought she ran off. She’d been seeing some guy, getting serious. I figure they went away together. He probably didn’t want her kid, so…”
“What happened to her kid? Do you know?”
“Heard he got put in the system.” He narrowed his gaze on her. “You and the guy who was just up here – you together? Cause it seems odd, two people in one day coming in to ask about Kate.”
Excitement widened her eyes. “What guy?”
He nodded behind her. She turned. Noah was sitting at a table not far from where she stood, watching her. He lifted his glass, and smiled.
* * *
Noah had no idea what Emma was doing here, but it was embarrassing the way his palms had started sweating when he’d seen her walk in. Heart thumping out of beat, his breath had caught and held until his brain reminded his lungs to start breathing again. Discreetly wiping his hands on his knees under the table, he’d been grateful she didn’t see him right away. Gave him a chance to pull himself together, watch her, figure out his next move.
Figure out what the hell she was doing here.
When she saw him, she looked about as affected as he had. Cheeks flushing with red, she opened her eyes wide and her mouth fell open in a way that might have been cute in any other circumstance. Then her eyes narrowed, her lips thinned and she glared at him.
Turning back to the bartender, she said something, grabbe
d her bag, and advanced in his direction.
Oh, hell.
He took in his fill of her, almost laughing aloud when he read the writing beside the cartoonish tyrannosaurus-rex on her pale-blue t-shirt: “If History Repeats Itself, I Am So Getting A Dinosaur!”
Damn, but he’d missed her.
She stepped up to his table and put her hands on her hips. “Are you following me?”
He leaned back. “Me? I was here first. Ask him.” He nodded toward the bartender.
Her mouth made an ‘O’ as her gaze skittered around. “Well, what are you doing here?”
He lifted his mug of soda and looked at the half-eaten burger on his tray. “Eating. What are you doing here?”
She crossed her arms. “I dunno.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing here?”
She half shrugged before spinning on her heel and walking away. Noah found his feet, tossed a few dollars onto the table and hurried after her, catching the door before it closed on him.
“Emma, wait!”
She kept walking. “Not talking to you.”
He jogged to catch up to her. “Why won’t you let me apologize?”
“Apology accepted. Buh-bye.” She waved him away as if he was an annoying pest.
“Can’t I explain?”
She stopped and looked at him. “Sure. Why were you really spying on us?”
“I told you. I was hired by an attorney. Worker’s comp case or something.”
Rolling her eyes, she started moving forward again.
“I’m not lying.”
She stopped, rounded on him. “You are so full of it! How come you never mentioned you recorded a video of your haunting? Or do you consider omitting certain facts not to be a lie?”
His forehead tightened. “You saw that?”
She snorted. “Not only saw it, I decoded the message in it.”
“What message?”
Her face crumpled into one of disgust as she looked at the sidewalk. “Dammit, I wasn’t going to tell you that yet.”
He grabbed her forearm. “Emma, what message?”
Frowning, her gaze searched his features. “A woman whispers something. I know what she says.”
His hand fell away. “What does she say? Tell me.”
He wasn’t fully aboard the my-birth-mother-is-a-ghost train of thought yet, but if solving this mystery helped him reconcile his own past, he was in.
She glanced toward the Wally’s entrance and shuffled her feet. Leaning close, she lowered her voice. “She says, ‘I was killed near here.’”
Dizziness threatened to send him backwards. He reached out, clasped her arm to steady himself.
“Noah, are you okay?”
Deep breaths. In and out.
“Yeah.” He held onto her because he liked the feel of her skin. Soft and warm. “How did you know about Wally’s?”
She tugged her arm out of his grip. “What do you mean?”
He turned away, ran a hand through his hair, and wondered how much of this he should share. She was listening, so he might as well. “I keep having this dream about a woman. It’s like a memory or something. She gets into a car with a man, mentions she’s late for work—” He gestured to the sign. “—at Wally’s. He locks her in the car, and I wake up. I know her name is Kate, but that’s all.”
Her mouth fell open again. “Oh. My. Gosh!” Reaching for her bag, she dug out some papers. “I knew she was the woman I saw in the window! I knew it!” She tapped a copy of a printout. It was an old article clipping, and a small, grainy photograph in the corner was labelled Katherine Levine.
Noah’s legs threatened to give way.
The smiling, dark-haired woman pictured was the same Kate he’d been seeing in his dreams.
“She went missing twenty-eight years ago. Her body was never found. Noah, do you know what this means?”
His heart was racing, trying to spin out of his ribcage. He could barely breathe, let alone talk. “What?”
“She’s your ghost! She wants us to find her killer!”
Her declaration was so loud, the couple passing them on the sidewalk turned and stared. Noah pushed Emma toward her car, sitting at the curb. “Too damn bad you destroyed my hard drive. I’d like to hear this message for myself.” His hunch told him she’d have a backup somewhere.
She pulled away from him, thoughtful. “Yes, it is a shame, isn’t it?” She dug her keys out of her bag. “Well, it’s been fun. Gotta go.” She hurried around to the driver’s side door.
“Wait a second. I thought you said she wanted ‘us’ to find her killer. That implies we need to work together.”
She feigned a look of innocence. “Sorry. This is your problem now. I’ve got other things to do.”
“Like what?”
She waved, ducked into her car, and slammed the door shut behind her. A couple of seconds later, she pulled into traffic like a bat out of hell.
Noah stared after her, feeling a bit like he’d just been tossed up in a tornado.
Emma Fisher turned him into an awkward schoolboy again, and he didn’t like that. If he was smart, he’d leave her alone – but how could he?
She knew too damn much. More than he did.
He glanced at his watch, wondering what time the library closed and how hard it would be to track down the article she’d found in the archives. He’d let her go, for now, but he wasn’t done with her yet.
Chapter 12
Excitement zinged through Spider’s brain, sending tremors of anticipation down her arms and legs as she stepped up to the mahogany door and pressed the doorbell. She bit her lower lip and primly clasped her hands in front of her to keep from smiling inappropriately, or heaven forbid, doing a triumphant Snoopy dance on the front porch of this extravagant-looking home.
Jennifer Ritzer-Abercrombie.
Who had tracked down Kate Levine’s friend all by her lonesome? That would be me – cyber security specialist turned field investigator extraordinaire. Ha!
Seriously, Zach might start using her to do legwork on cases if she ever revealed to him how good she was. A search through the public records database the agency employed had given her a probable lead, which she’d followed to this wealthy neighbourhood not too far from where Zach and Hannah lived.
The door opened, and a middle-aged blonde peeked her head around. “Yes?”
Recognizing the woman from her driver’s license photo, Spider smiled. “Mrs. Abercrombie, I’m Spider Fisher with the Collins Security Firm.” She held out a business card, and the woman opened the door wider to take it. “I’m investigating the disappearance of Kate Levine, and I wondered if you would have a few minutes to speak with me?”
“Kate?” Frowning, the woman glanced over her shoulder and back again, opening the door wider. “Yes, of course, but I’m not certain I can help you in any way that matters. That was a long time ago.”
“I understand. I’ve been reviewing the old files and saw where you reported her missing, so I’d love to find out what you remember from that night.”
“I’m curious enough to ask who hired you. Kate didn’t have any family she was close to, only her son.” Eyes widening, Mrs. Abercrombie lifted a hand to her chest. “Oh, dear, is he the one who hired you?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I can’t actually say who—”
The slap of pounding footsteps grew louder, causing Spider to turn at the approaching noise. Her lower jaw dropped.
“I’m sorry I’m late!”
Noah jogged to her side, winking at her when she could only manage to gape at him. Sliding his hand around to her back in a far too familiar gesture, he held out his other hand to the petite woman. “Noah West. My apologies, but I got held up. I told my colleague here to go ahead and see if you were available to speak to us.”
Mrs. Abercrombie blinked at him. “I was just about to invite her inside.” She moved back and gestured into the entryway. “Won’t you both come in?”
Smirking like the
jackal she knew him to be, Noah swaggered inside without looking at her. The jerk! He must have followed her, and what could she do about it? Create a scene and lose the only opportunity she might have to question her as-of-now only witness?
Nails biting into her palms, Spider followed him, certain by the heat in her cheeks that her face was probably red and unbecoming. He was gonna be in so much trouble when they left here.
Mrs. Abercrombie offered them drinks, which they both declined, and led them into a sitting room. Spider avoided getting too close to Noah – if he was sitting, she wasn’t – until she had no choice but to dance around him to take a seat on the settee. A sigh of relief escaped her lips when he remained standing, moving behind the furniture and out of sight.
“As I said before, I can’t imagine who would have hired you to find Kate after all these years.” Taking the seat across from the settee, the older woman adjusted the burgundy-coloured wrap that fell over her white silk blouse. The silver bracelets at her wrist clinked together, and Spider couldn’t help but wonder if she came from money or had married into it. “Not that I’m not glad someone is trying to find her. The police at the time didn’t seem to care very much.” Offering a smile that didn’t reflect in her eyes, she looked at Noah. “What questions did you want to ask me?”
Ha! Noah probably had no idea who this woman was, let alone what to ask her. He surprised her though. “How did you know Kate?”
Reaching out to pour herself a cup of tea from the pot sitting on the table between them, she smiled fondly. “We met at school. I was failing history, and I hired her to be my tutor. We shared a love of Elton John and ‘Remington Steele’ and immediately became friends.”
Spider jerked her gaze up. “Elton John?”
Holy moly. Was that why she kept having bizarre dreams about the singer? Because Kate had been communicating to her while she slept, like Connor had suggested? It had to be, but … why Elton John? What kind of clue was that?
Mrs. Abercrombie smiled, genuinely this time. “We were huge fans. In fact, I bought Kate a ticket to go see him with me when he was in concert about a month before she disappeared. She rarely got to go anywhere like that because of Billy.”
Spirited Away Page 13
