by Joyce Lavene
Tim ran his hand across his worn face. “Yes. I’ve brought it up at several staff meetings. We all know about the blind spot in the road. The Tennessee Department of Highways is looking into doing something about it, but you know how long that takes.”
“I do. What I don’t understand is the other part.” I leaned across the table and whispered, “My husband wasn’t dead or even badly injured when he left me to get help. When I saw his body at the morgue, someone or something, had ravaged him.”
He sniffed and took another drink of beer, his eyes blank. “I’ve read your statement. Hell, I’ve read a dozen statements like it from survivors. None of them impressed me like yours. The rest I could chalk up to pain and hallucination from the trauma—you know how people get when something happens to them. But you were a cop. You were trained to notice things. I still have a copy of your statement from that night.”
My pulse ratcheted up a few more notches. After three years of sniffing along the edges of this, was I finally getting somewhere?
“Thanks.”
“There was one other survivor from a previous wreck who told almost the same account that you did. I respected his story, too, since he’d just come back from Iraq. The man had seen action. He’d seen people blown to pieces. His statement was like yours, only it was his wife that was dead. He said she was taken from their pickup by something fast and strong. The passenger side door was ripped clean off its hinges. Craziest thing I ever saw since there was no other damage to that side of the vehicle.”
Both our voices were hushed in the nearly empty bar with the streetlight shining through the dirty window beside us. One of the two men at the bar said goodnight and left. Otherwise the silence was only broken by the swish-swish sound of the bartender’s mop on the tile floor.
“Who is he?” I tried not to sound desperate.
“I’ll give you his name and address if you promise to tell me what you find. I’ve gone as far as I can with conventional methods. My superiors don’t want to hear that something weird is happening out there in the woods, you know?”
“I can imagine. No problem. Give me your contact info, and I’ll let you know what I find.”
He wrote a name and address on a card from his pocket and handed it to me. “Is this why you quit NPD? They wouldn’t let you look into your husband’s death?”
“That was kind of it.” I put the card in my pocket. “I couldn’t keep doing the job.”
“I hear you.” He finished his beer. “Where are you working now? Do you have a way for me to reach you?”
I didn’t have a card that said Taxi for the Dead Driver and Zombie Bounty Hunter, but I wrote my cell phone number and email on a napkin for him. “This means a lot to me. I know people thought I was crazy when I said my husband had been attacked after the wreck. No one would listen. I have a few newspaper clippings from some of the other incidents at that spot in the last three years. You’ve given me hope, Tim. I can’t thank you enough.”
We left the tavern together, and I shook his hand. I was thrilled to finally meet someone else with the same ideas.
Even though I’d kept it hidden from Abe, finding Jacob’s killer was one of the things that kept me going. I was here to see my daughter into adulthood and figure out what had killed my husband. That was it. If I could accomplish those two things in the time I had, someone could pick me up and take me back to Abe when my time was up. I wouldn’t complain.
I drove into the small community where I grew up. Wanderer’s Lake, Tennessee, population 3,500 on a good day. It was a tiny spot on the map, picturesque in any season and likely not to become a large city because it was hard to get to. It was built around a pretty lake with barely a two-lane road going in and out of town. The main road could never be expanded unless they put a bridge over the lake.
That had kept many things the same as they had been when Jacob and I had grown up here and met in high school. It was comforting to know that some things didn’t change, especially when the rest of the world around me became so different.
Five years ago, no one could have convinced me that there were sorcerers, ghosts, and undead people in the world. Those were things from movies and books. They didn’t really happen. I knew better now.
Wanderer’s Lake was a quiet place where everything closed by six p.m. during the week and eight p.m. on the weekends. There was bingo at the recreation center on Saturday nights and singing in the town square at Christmas.
Houses were quiet, and there was no traffic as I crept through the dark streets toward Apple Betty’s Inn. Jacob’s parents had run the bed and breakfast for more than sixty years. It had been a popular vacation spot until Jacob’s mother, Addie, had passed three years ago, just a few months after Jacob and me.
Her impending death from cancer had been one of my deciding factors in accepting Abe’s proposal. Kate would have been completely alone in the world, as I had been growing up, in and out of foster homes, subject to the whims of people who didn’t know or love her. I’d been determined not to let that happen.
Of course if I’d known Addie was going to come back the next day as a know-it-all ghost, I might have reconsidered.
New gravel scrunched under the wheels of the Festiva. There was also a fresh coat of white paint on the three-story inn. The newly replaced lights on the building picked out all the details of a well-cared-for-house and yard. You could actually see the base of the inn where the old bushes had been trimmed back. Lucas had brought it back to its former glory since he’d come to live with us.
Addie, my dead mother-in-law, was pleased with it—but not with me as I walked through the back door. A ghost makes a good babysitter but not always a pleasant companion. Addie and I didn’t get along when Jacob was alive. Even though it was her idea for me to sign the contract with Abe, it hadn’t made us any closer.
“I can’t believe you’re dragging in here at this time of the morning,” she raged as soon as the back door was closed. “Why not just stay out all night? You’re not worried about your daughter.”
I removed my shoes and left them in the mud room, a habit even when it wasn’t raining or snowing. “I was busy. Things went bad with my pick up. I did the best I could. Is everything okay?”
Her ghostly form wavered a little, but she had much better control now. She could lift almost anything and even ventured outside the inn sometimes to watch Lucas work.
“Everything is not okay when I have to tuck Kate in at night with her asking for you. You’re supposed to be here for her. And don’t give me that stuff about work. You decide that, my girl.”
I didn’t like to argue with her. Sometimes it was all I could do not to argue with her. I had learned to grit my teeth and keep it to myself. She’d always believed I wasn’t good enough for her son and criticized my parenting skills, even while Jacob was alive. She was a tough old bird in life. Death hadn’t softened her. But I didn’t know what I would’ve done without her watching over the one thing we had in common—Kate.
“Was there a problem?” I walked carefully around her. I’d walked through her before. It wasn’t pleasant. “If not, I’m tired, and I’m going upstairs.”
“There wasn’t a problem because Lucas was here to get notebook paper tonight at the store. Kate needed it for school tomorrow. If we’d waited for you, she’d be writing on her hand. You couldn’t even bother to call and check in to see if we needed anything.”
“Lucas has a car?”
“He fixed up the old truck that’s been sitting in the back for the last ten years. He spent some time and a few dollars on it for this kind of emergency.” She sighed. “Sometimes he reminds me of Jacob—even if he is a sorcerer or whatever. He was down on his hands and knees today scrubbing the tile in the bathrooms. That man isn’t afraid to do anything that needs to be done around here.”
“And to think you thought it was horrible that I brought him home.” Guess you’re not right about everything, are you?
“He’s very handy an
d a hard worker, I’ll give him that.” Her already prim mouth became a thin line in her face that had lost so much of its transparency. “It’s still wrong for you to sleep in his bed.
I picked up the mail from the side table. “I wish he had a credit card so he could pay some of the bills too.”
“At least he’s interested in the inn. We could reopen this place and make some extra money with his help. You should at least consider it, Skye. I still get letters and cards from people who want to book a reservation.”
“Yeah. A ghost, a sorcerer, and a dead girl run a bed and breakfast. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.”
“I still think you should consider it. I’d do it myself if I could.”
“I’m thinking. Goodnight, Addie.”
I jogged up the stairs to the second floor. Even though it was late, I had to see Kate. I quietly pushed open the door to her dark room and watched her sleep for a few minutes. She was growing up smart and strong. Not only did she get straight A’s in school, she questioned everything and kept at it until she had the answer.
She was like Jacob that way and looked more like him than me too. Soft brown/blond hair. Big, soulful brown eyes. She had my nose though and my stubbornness. Sometimes that was all I could see of me, but it was enough to see so much of her father in her.
Curiosity and stubborn refusal to look the other way was why she knew everything that was going on now. I hadn’t planned to tell her about my deal with Abe until she was older—at least fifteen or sixteen. Not eight. I wanted her to be prepared for the day I had to leave. She was still too young to deal with having a ghost for a grandmother and understanding that her mother was on borrowed time.
But she knew the truth, and she’d coped with it. She’d asked a few questions like why Jacob wasn’t working for Abe too or why he wasn’t a ghost like Addie, and that was it. I hoped she wouldn’t need therapy someday because of her weird upbringing, but at least we were weird people who loved her.
I kissed her cheek before I left her. Jacob would be so proud of her. She wanted to be a forensic investigator when she grew up. She’d be safe in that field and still part of law enforcement as Jacob and I had been. I couldn’t believe she even knew what that was at her age.
The light was still on upstairs. Lucas slept in the turret room on the third floor. He’d kind of taken it over since he first arrived. None of us had ever even gone up there after Addie’s death, even though it had been the most popular room at the inn when it was open for tourists.
I slowly walked up the stairs. I wasn’t much of a housekeeper, but Lucas never let the upstairs get full of cobwebs and dust as it had been when he’d arrived. It was no wonder Addie approved of him.
“You’re late.” He was sitting in front of the big stone fireplace in the turret room. Even though it was summer, Lucas was usually cold and had a fire burning up here.
Something common for sorcerers? I would probably never know.
The room was large and five-sided, with a smooth-as-satin wood floor and three tall windows overlooking the street. It was spotlessly clean and smelled of lemon oil and incense. The big wrought iron bed was plumped up and covered in clean sheets and a red velvet comforter. There was a red Persian carpet on the floor that looked old and valuable.
Lucas had brought the carpet with him from wherever he was from. Sometimes I wondered if it was a magic carpet, but those were only times when I’d had too much to drink.
There was a large, claw foot tub in one corner of the room. Candles were lit on every flat surface, like always. I wasn’t sure where those came from unless he also made candles between his other chores around the inn.
It wouldn’t have surprised me.
“Was there difficulty at your employment?”
Lucas had been trying hard to fit in. He’d looked and sounded like a Ren Faire character when I’d found him in Nashville. He’d learned contractions, and he’d taken over the maintenance of the inn and grounds. He’d also become our cook, dishwasher, and the one who washed and dried our clothes.
I hadn’t asked him to take over those responsibilities. He was the kind of person who just saw what needed to be done and did it.
He wore Jacob’s old clothes, mostly jeans on his long legs and T-shirts on his lean muscular chest. Lucas claimed that he couldn’t remember anything about his past. His use of magic was limited, perhaps because of it.
It was possible he was a murderer, as Abe had accused, and one of the most feared sorcerers in history, as I’d read online about a man with his name, Lucas Trevailer. Maybe he was a French sorcerer that had vanished from 1312, ending his reign of terror—brought forward in time for some nefarious purpose.
But as yet, he hadn’t done anything that wasn’t good for me, Addie, and Kate. That was all I cared about.
I sat in the big, comfortable velvet chair he’d claimed as his own from the attic. “Besides a complicated runner situation that wrecked my van, Abe’s new magic user was killed in the alley outside Deadly Ink.”
He poked the roaring fire again before sitting closer to me. “I suppose Abe suspects me.”
“You killed his last magic user, necromancer, or whatever you want to call him.”
“But you explained that I had no choice in the matter since Jasper had wanted to kill me.”
“For the tenth time, yes.” I tried not to watch his face for signs that he was lying to me. It was an old professional habit. Maybe I wouldn’t even be able to tell if a sorcerer was telling the truth. There was a lot about magic, and Lucas, that I didn’t understand. “I don’t think he believes me. Even worse, he still thinks you want to work for him.”
Lucas got to his feet, tall and lithe. His black hair gleamed in the firelight, much shorter than it had been when he’d first arrived. His unusual green eyes—the color of jade—stared into my face. “And you, Skye. What do you believe?”
“I don’t think you killed Harold the Great, but his death was from dark magic, according to Abe.”
“He should know since his life swims in it.” Lucas removed the blue robe he wore and slid, naked, into bed. “But tell me, what does he qualify as black magic?”
I pulled up the picture I’d taken of Harold in the alley. “This. I was skeptical at first, but I don’t see any way a normal killer did this, do you?”
He still handled the cell phone as though it was made of crystal, carefully keeping his fingers on the edge of the device. “Yes. I see what you mean. Definitely magic.”
“Would you be willing to come and take a look at it, at Harold? Abe wants me and Debbie to figure out who killed him.”
“Of course he does. I’m sure he doesn’t want to be near anyone who could do this.” He handed the phone back to me. “Not tonight, surely. Are you coming to bed?”
Abe’s people don’t sleep. When he’d first told me that, I thought it would be a great thing. Think of the things you could do besides sleeping. Not to mention feeling as though I would never sleep again after Jacob’s death.
But two years into my life as a zombie, I realized why people sleep—boredom and an empty feeling at night when everyone else was asleep around you. Maybe if I’d had a job at night it wouldn’t have been so bad. As it was, I would have begged for just a few hours of unconsciousness.
When Lucas had come into my life, I’d found that he could provide that quiet. When I lay beside him I could close my eyes and the world faded away. It was such a blessed relief that I’d taken to being with him every night.
Addie said that I was disgracing Jacob’s memory and that I was a dim-witted slut to spend my resting time with Lucas. It was the only thing she didn’t like about him. In the balance of things, she found it was easier to blame me than him since he did so many other wonderful things that took care of her beloved home.
“No. Not yet. Maybe not tonight.”
He searched my face. “There is more, isn’t there? It involves Jacob, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
; “I can help, if you’ll let me.”
“Thanks. But not tonight.” I touched his handsome, angular face. “I’ll be up when I’m done if Kate isn’t awake.”
He looked a little hurt that I didn’t want his help and that I didn’t want to sleep with him. But I needed to be alone with my thoughts about Jacob’s death and the riddle of what was killing people in the woods on that curve.
Chapter Seven
Sometimes I felt as horrible and guilty as Addie always reminded me that I should by being with Lucas. I had expected to spend my twenty years mourning my husband. I hadn’t expected Lucas to pop into my life.
Sometimes I even managed to feel guilty about him. I didn’t know how he felt about me, but I didn’t love him. I had just come to depend on him.
He’d claimed when we met that I was a witch because no one else could have yanked him from his own time and into mine. As far as I knew, he still believed that. We never talked about it anymore.
He may have been an evil sorcerer, as the Wikipedia page had claimed. Abe’s necromancer, Jasper, had said the same when he’d come to the inn to kill him.
I’d seen Lucas do magic, but it was always as though it had burst from him during an emotional response. He never used magic to clean the house or trim the hedges. If he was a sorcerer, evil or otherwise, he was content living without his magic.
At least as far as I knew. Lucas was careful with what he said. I wasn’t sure what he was holding back, but my cop gut told me there was something.
He claimed Abe’s magic was dark and that he was taking advantage of all the LEPs. He’d promised to free me from it without taking away my time with Kate. But he’d never said how or when he was going to do it, and I hadn’t asked.
I wandered through the quiet inn, listening to the sounds of the old house settling and birds sleeping in the rafters. I could close my eyes and find my way through the darkness. Light and dark were the same to me. I had seen things I’d never seen before I’d died. My senses were more acute.
