Soundbyte (-byte series Book 5)

by Cat Connor

  Light streamed from the open living room door across the darkened hallway.

  Maybe Carla left the light on. Maybe Dad left the light on for me. But I knew that it wasn’t on when I arrived home.

  And it wasn’t on when I first came downstairs. I paused over the idea of a faulty light switch. Clutching at straws seemed a good way to go.

  A long shadow appeared in the pool of light on the carpet.

  Crap.

  Crap.

  Crap.

  I edged toward the doorway with my back against the wall. Every nerve in my body screamed for action. Every brain cell in my skull ran through possible scenarios and came up blank.

  Think, dammit.

  No one could get into the house without the security company knowing about it.

  State of the art security systems. State of the fucking art.

  I leaned against the wall, chewed my lip, and was not in the least comforted by knowing how good my security was.

  Shutting out the noise from my heart pounding in my ears, I concentrated on my surroundings. The quiet clunk of a glass on the coffee table. A glass?

  Screw this.

  I adjusted my hold. Two-handed grip on my Glock, I took a breath, and stepped into the doorway. An arm reached for the glass again.

  I stopped, right foot back, left foot forward, ready to fire.

  Controlling the surging adrenaline was not easy. My right hand shook as I let my left hand fall away from the gun and lowered the weapon. I took another deep breath.

  A dead man with a death wish.

  Asking how he got in my house seemed ridiculous. As absurd as Mac sitting on my sofa drinking. Yet there he was, taking a sip of the yellowish tinted liquid in the glass.

  “This must be what it’s like to disassociate,” I said, and sat on the two-seater opposite him. I slid my gun on the coffee table between us and tried to calm my racing heart.

  “Babe, it’s pretty close.”

  Intense fascination filled me as I watched him lift the glass to his lips. He took a mouthful of liquid and swallowed.

  That shouldn’t be possible. Dead men don’t drink and a live man could not have got through security without setting off the alarms.

  I had no clue how any of it was happening.

  My eyes roamed the room. Everything else was as it should be. The only anomaly was Mac.

  What else did I need? A neon flashing sign that screamed “mental patient” in fifteen-foot letters?

  Yeah, maybe I did. Maybe that would remove all doubt.

  He looked up. His hazel eyes met mine; his dark brown hair slipped forward brushing his top eyelashes.

  “How’s your arm?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my arm.”

  “You’re sure? You didn’t put one through a window in the early hours of this morning, in West Virginia?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Good to know. Not sure that I want to deal with a dead man who isn’t.

  “What do you want?” Under the surface, I felt the bubbling and fizzing of rage. It threw me a little bit. I’d thought I was moving on until the incident at the motel, and now this.

  Damn.

  “To see you.”

  “Haven’t you done that before? You know, with Messenger windows and appearing in the bathroom of the Marriott?”

  “We were interrupted. I needed to see you without interruption.”

  In less than two minutes, the cavalry will storm the house. That will be an interruption.

  “I’m sure there have been many opportunities. I’m not buying it.” I was counting in my head, trying to keep my wrath in check.

  The glass clinked against the tabletop when he set it down. As he leaned back, the cushions dented around him as if he was real and sitting on my couch. My breath caught in my throat, then rose and tangled around my uvula.

  “Is Carla still seeing her therapist?”

  “You tell me, you’re the dead guy with all the answers.”

  “Carla needs help. Something is going on and she’s unwilling to talk about it.”

  As far as I could tell, Carla was all right. Sometimes temperamental and often surly but she’s a full-blown teenager, that’s to be expected.

  “If you know so much then tell me what it is that’s going on.”

  “Joey is involved.”

  I heaved a sigh. “You know what. Forget it.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You heard. Time you left me alone.”

  My patience waned as my annoyance waxed.

  “I can help,” he said.

  Resentment seethed through me.

  “You don’t get to do this, not now.”

  Yet he continued. “There’s something wrong, and you know it.”

  “What’s wrong is you’re dead.” I was trying so hard to keep a lid on my anger. “Carla and I are none of your damn business!”

  A small smile played along his lips. I remembered all the times that smile became a laugh. All the times that smile meant everything was okay. Well, it wasn’t okay.

  “There’s something wrong with Carla.”

  “And you know this? You, the hero, you know this?” It didn’t matter to me that he heard the anger in my voice. He deserved to hear it. He’d earned it. I needed him to hear how I felt and what I hid from the world. How much I wished things were different. How I disliked him for what he did but at the same time loved him more because of what he did.

  Incongruous.

  Oh, I was just getting started.

  “Babe—”

  “No!”

  “Ellie, let me help.”

  Dead people need to keep out of my business.

  “You are dead! A dead hero. What fucking use is a dead hero?”

  “Dead but not blind.”

  “Dead, it doesn’t get any worse than that!”

  His interfering was going nowhere.

  “You left me.” I pointed my finger at him. “You! Left! Me!” I was on my feet, the anger I’d kept so close for so long spilled all over the room. Running down the walls like blood.

  Splashing onto the new carpet. A wave of foaming red rolled over the coffee table, swallowing the glass, lapping at the sofa. Mac was knee deep in frothy blood. “You took off your vest. You left me.”

  “I did my job. I saved her.”

  “Where was it written that you had to sacrifice us to do that?”

  “I did my job.”

  A moment of calm engulfed me. “And this is my life. I’ll take it from here.”

  Somewhere outside a car stopped. Doors opened and closed.

  “Buckle up,” Mac replied.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Buckle up, it’s going to get rough.”

  Sudden anger coursed unchecked. He started to stand up; as he did, my hand wrapped around the grip of my Glock. I lifted my arm. His face registered surprise. “Ellie, don’t.” His words hung in the air.

  “It’s. My. life.”

  I fired twice. My bullets tore through his forehead. Blood sprayed across the back of the couch. The gun fell from my hand, dropping onto the coffee table and sliding across the surface to tumble off the edge onto the silent carpet. I watched Mac fall in slow motion. He crumpled to the floor, just missing the coffee table. His words fell letter by letter and melted on the table surface.

  A voice from the front door called out. “Conway?”

  “Living room,” I replied and sat back in the chair. I could see Mac’s blood all over the couch. I could see the bullet hole in the wall.

  I was going to need hydrogen peroxide and a lot of cold water to clean the blood off the couch and rug.

  Booted feet ran through the hallway from both directions.

  I saw the gun before I saw the man holding it. Sean stepped into the room, looking lethal and dressed head to toe in black.

  “You all right?”

  “Sure.”

  He wasn’t looking at t
he couch or the floor. His steel-grey eyes were on the right side of the room. Another man came in behind him and moved to the left. There were more feet out in the hall, going room by room.

  “Clear,” they both said together.

  Clear? Dead body.

  Hello. Blood all over the room.

  “Did you do that?” Sean said, tilting his head toward the wall.

  I nodded. “I shot him.”

  “Who?” He motioned to the man with him. “Could be a wounded person somewhere.”

  “I killed Mac. Double tap to the head.”

  Sean frowned. “Where is he?”

  Oh, come on. Open your eyes.

  “Right there,” I said pointing to Mac’s body between the table and the couch. I didn’t want to get any closer than I already was, just in case it wasn’t Mac but Whoopi Goldberg. My head was jumping about, flashing between the present, my past, and the movie Ghost. I didn’t want to have shot Whoopi. She was one of my favorite actors.

  Sean turned to the other man and said, “Stand down.”

  I leaned back in the chair until my head touched the leather. Carla’s voice yelled out from upstairs. I jumped to my feet only to have Sean push me back down. He spoke to the other man again. “Stay with her.”

  Then Sean was gone.

  The smell of blood made me feel sick. Its cloying stench permeated the room. I doubt I will ever get used to that smell. “Can I get a drink of water?” I asked the armed man in black.

  He pointed to the glass on the table.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s water.”

  Sean reappeared. He picked up my gun from the floor and shoved it in his waistband.

  “Carla is fine. She heard the gunshots and thought you were watching a movie.”

  “She’s not coming down here?” I don’t want her seeing the blood everywhere. The mess.

  “No, she’s settled and going back to sleep.”

  “Didn’t she wonder about you?”

  “Yes, said I was visiting on my way home from a call-out.”

  Clever.

  “What now?”

  “Now, we make this go away.”

  I killed Mac. That doesn’t just go away. Or does it? The bloodstains on the couch started to shrink. I pointed at the shrinking pools of blood and dissolving splatter. “What the hell?”

  “What?” Sean asked. His line of sight followed my finger.

  “The blood, it’s disappearing.”

  “Everything is fine,” Sean said. I recognized his tone. I used it on Carla often enough, when she was upset or panicked over something. “Just breathe.”

  “I’m okay. You don’t have to talk to me like I’m special.”

  Okay. Yep, I felt okay. I just put two bullets in my dead husband’s head and I felt okay. There were so many things wrong with that, I couldn’t begin to comprehend them all.

  The blood vanished. The smell evaporated. I stood up and peered over the coffee table. Mac was gone. The only thing left was the hole in my wall. “I’m okay.”

  Uh huh. Never better.

  I sat back down.

  “Shall we listen to the audio?” Sean offered. To his credit, he managed to keep his expression neutral despite how insane the situation was.

  My head nodded without my bidding. Audio. Captured by the computer system that protected the house. Sound bites were stored on the secure servers in Sean’s office building. I just hoped I was going to hear two voices and not just mine. Doubt kicked in and escalated.

  He set up his laptop on the coffee table and connected to the company servers. After pressing a bunch of numbers and keying in what I expected to be an elaborate password, a file with today’s date and my initials appeared on the screen. Sean sat next to me and adjusted the speaker volume. He double clicked the file. We listened. I heard my voice. I was talking to someone. Crackling, hissing, and another voice replied. Me talking again. The same crackling and hissing then another reply. It was a male voice replying, there was no doubt. We listened to the whole thing. My yelling, his barely audible replies. What to believe?

  “Can you hear it?” I asked Sean.

  “Yes.”

  “Not just me?”

  “No, I can hear a male voice responding to you.”

  The voice stopped with the gunshots.

  “He was here,” I said. “I shot Mac.”

  Sean nodded. “I heard him.”

  “I don’t know how to process what happened here tonight.” Honesty tumbled from my lips. “I don’t know how to make sense of this.”

  “Sit tight. I don’t know either, but I’m going to figure it out. We’ll start by cleaning this recording to make it easier to hear that other voice.” He rubbed my shoulder. “Once it’s cleaned, I’ll have it compared to sound bites we have on file.”

  “You have Mac on file?”

  He smiled. “No, but I’ll bet he’s in one of the FBI databases.”

  “Good bet. We all are.”

  A chicken walked across the coffee table and paused at the laptop before moving on. My first thought was one of finality. My brain was overcooked and I was done. The very familiar chicken stopped, turned, and looked at me with beady black eyes. Her rusty brown feathers shone in the light. Her name rolled around my mind, stirring up memories of her before the Son of Shakespeare nailed her upside down to the door of my home in Mauryville. Abigail pecked at the pale table surface, pausing at the glass. She stuck her beak in and tasted the liquid. It didn’t agree with her. With a violent shake of her head, she disappeared.

  Great. First, I shoot my dead husband and now, my pet chicken, which I also shot but for different reasons, comes back from the grave.

  I curled my legs up underneath me. I needed a drink and I didn’t want water. I wanted to know what was in the glass on the table. Something chickens don’t like.

  “What’s in that glass?” I said.

  Sean leaned over and sniffed it. “Tequila. You weren’t drinking?”

  “No, Mac was.” And then Abigail tasted it and was most unimpressed. Best to leave that out.

  He turned to the other man and said, “Don’t touch this glass.”

  “Sean, will you call Kurt, please.”

  He smiled. “Sure, you feel okay?”

  I shook my head then stopped. “I clearly have no concept of what okay is. Just get him here.”

  I stole a furtive glance around the room, hoping there were no more ghosts lurking.

  “Done.”

  The man with Sean went away. I heard him and other men talking. They left the house.

  Sean rose, walked over to the hole in the wall, and stood next to it but facing me,

  “Ellie, how tall was Mac?”

  “Six foot one.”

  “And you double-tapped him?” He pressed his index finger into the middle of his forehead. I looked from Sean to the hole. The hole was level with the middle of Sean’s forehead. That put it above Mac’s head. Sean is six feet seven inches tall.

  “I didn’t shoot him?”

  “Not unless he grew in death.”

  “But … I …”

  “Imagined shooting him but aimed high.”

  “I didn’t shoot a ghost.”

  “No doubt you wanted to and you thought you shot him.”

  “So is this good or bad?

  “Good question. Audio confirms a male in the room.”

  “Great. Still insane then.”

  Sean and I went through to the kitchen. He made coffee while I sat on a bar stool at the counter and tried to figure out what happened.

  A priest was starting to look like a good idea.

  As loathe as I was to admit it, perhaps a psychiatrist as well.

  Nah. No need to hit that particular slippery slope.

  Soft footsteps in the passage way caused Sean to look over my head at the man walking up behind me. I knew the footsteps. No need to turn around.

  “Sean.”

  “Kurt.”

  �
��Conway.”

  “Kurt.”

  Yeah, I was smiling a little. ‘Who’s on First?’ popped into my head. Abbot and Costello were winning. Who’s on first? What’s on second?

  I needed help. Sean was talking and I was lost in an ancient comedy sketch. If I were to be honest, I wasn’t listening because I didn’t want to hear.

  When I did start to pay attention it was as Sean said, “If you’ve got this, we’ll get going.”

  “I got it,” Kurt replied. “Thank you.”

  They shook hands.

  Sean came around to me. He shook my hand, and then gave me a fast hug. “I’ll find out what that was. I’ll take the glass that is on the coffee table with me.”

  “Thanks.”

  I watched as he walked away. The front door closed. Car engines fired. Then silence. It was not a nice silence. Not a comfortable silence. It was thick with unasked questions.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Kurt said.

  “Coffee?”

  “Not a good idea. I’ll make you a hot chocolate.”

  “You’ll make me hot chocolate?”

  He smiled. “I’m multitalented.” With that, he warmed milk in a pot and found a block of chocolate in the pantry. Real hot chocolate. I watched as Kurt dropped four squares of chocolate into a mug then poured hot milk over it while stirring.

  “That’s not enough, put more chocolate in.”

  “You’re lucky your migraines are not triggered by chocolate,” he said, adding another three squares and stirring the hot milk with vigor.

  “Yeah, lucky.”

  A warm mug of hot chocolate.

  “Come on, upstairs.”

  Kurt carried the mug. I could see how that was a good idea. I saw my gun in his waistband. Sean must’ve given it to him. As I walked behind him up the stairs and along the hallway, I realized I was being rather obliging. That’s so not right.

  Kurt stopped at my bedroom door, his hand rested on the door handle. “Is it okay if I come in?”

  I nodded like an idiot. He turned the handle and swung open the door. My jacket was still on the bed.

  “I want to check on Carla,” I said as Kurt went into my room.

  “Good idea. I’ll come.”

  Oh, now I got it. I’m not to be alone. “I’ll be right back, stay here,” I said.