It was impossible.
“Patience,” Tori warned.
The detective looked irritated, but he couldn’t get blood from a stone.
She knew what she needed to do.
“Shelby, you didn’t deserve to die like this. We’re going to find that killer. Was it someone you were blackmailing?” she asked.
Nyx nodded in response.
Arsen wouldn’t be buying any of this bullshit if he didn’t see the dead woman for himself. Maybe this was a trick.
They were in their office.
This could be some camera…
“How do I know this is real?” he asked.
Shelby screamed and the glass in the office shook. One of the coffee mugs shattered on the table. When the detective opened his eyes, Shelby was right in front of him.
Before he could move back, she reached into his chest and squeezed the organ in her hand.
His heart stuttered.
He dropped to his knees in so much pain.
“SHELBY!” Tori ordered, as the man on the floor went gray. It was clear that her mother was holding onto his heart.
This had to end.
“Jules,” she said, glancing over at him. “I need to douse her, and fast.”
He tossed her some holy water.
Tori caught it, and she threw it all over the detective. As soon as it touched him, Shelby backed off.
“Find my killer! I’m not leaving here until you do!” Nyx channeled.
Tori believed it.
“I need peace!”
Then, like that, she was completely gone in an explosion of cold mist.
Tori knelt beside the man and placed her hand on his throat. His heart was back to normal, and it was slowing down.
“Detective, don’t piss off the dead,” she stated. “This is what they can do when you question their existence.”
Yeah, now she told him.
“We have a start. It was blackmail.”
The detective stared up at her from the floor. “I don’t think I like playing with ghosts.”
Yeah, welcome to her damn club.
Neither did she.
* * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *
She climbed the outer stairs on the adjacent building. Lena didn’t stop at the first floor, nor the second or third.
No, she kept going.
She kept climbing, higher and higher until she could overlook the city. She wanted to see the pretty lights, feel the breeze, and be able to get everything in her sight.
This was about climbing to the top and making them pay. They all had to suffer for what they did to her. They helped Lennox Easton. If they thought she’d forgotten, they were dead wrong.
The dead never forgot.
They couldn’t.
So, it was time to get revenge.
Lena, or that’s what they called her, was so high up, that she could see over the crowd of media and get a better view of the office building.
Inside, they were safe—for now—but that would change. At some point, she’d win.
Why?
She hated them all.
When it came down to them or her, she was going to protect herself. She had to take care of herself. It was all that was left in her morose, trapped existence.
There was no way she’d be the victim again and again. The Eastons had made her a victim, and now she was going to be free. There was no way she’d be a pawn for anyone.
With each of their deaths, she’d get her revenge.
This one was first.
She was weak.
She was hapless.
When she died, there would be more energy that would be hers, and she would be powerful.
She would break everyone who had ever hurt her.
This was her day, and now that she had a vessel, and could come and go as she liked, no one was safe.
No one.
This was the beginning of the end.
Her kind would rule.
Forever.
* * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *
They cleaned up the mess and gave the detective a towel to dry off. Truth be told, he was rattled.
While he said he was okay, he wasn’t. It was etched into his face and how his hand kept shaking as he drank some coffee.
So, as they sat in the office, talking about the case, they cut him a break. If they were in his shoes, they’d want that consideration too.
“Is no one going to bring it up?” he asked. “I was able to see a dead woman in your office, and no one else saw her.”
Tori shook her head. “Nope.”
“Why?”
Justin laughed. “Over the last year, we’ve all seen some shit. My wife has dreams that show her a killer or criminal. Beck can touch things and relive them. Hart is a walking lie detector, Nyx channels the dead, and Tori is a medium. What’s there to say?” he asked. “We live in Crazytown, and you being able to see a ghost isn’t really all that shocking.”
“It’s another day in our lives,” Tori said, dropping her boots onto the corner of the table.
Yeah, he could see that.
“So, the dead do haunt us. They really never leave when they cross?”
“Clearly,” Tori said, sipping a bottle of water, “but, some do leave, Detective—the lucky ones.”
“Arsen—like the fire,” he said. “After this, we should probably be on a first name basis. You know…when I have to talk about you to my shrink.”
She laughed. “As I was saying, some leave. The ones who die in a horrible crime or with unfinished business are tied here. I like to snip those strings and send them on their merry way.”
“We all do,” Julian added. “We started as regular PI’s but along the way, we’ve begun specializing. We deal in the dead.”
“I don’t have words.”
“No one ever does,” Julian admitted. “Do you see why we need to keep this quiet?”
He did.
Then again, who would believe this shit? He wasn’t so sure he did.
“Why could I see her?” he asked.
“You have a gift,” Vivian offered. “A lot of people have latent ability but they don’t know it. They manifest when people are stressed or least expect it.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears.”
Something occurred to him. “Shit! Is there a God?” he asked.
“Bethany?” Tori called, throwing it out there to the expert in the room.
The pen on the table danced across a piece of paper. As of late, that was her preferred method of communication.
‘Not that I’ve seen. There is only life or death.’
He couldn’t speak. “Really?”
“She doesn’t lie. She’s been dead almost a century. She’s wandered that long. She’d know.”
He reached into his shirt and pulled the crucifix from around his neck and dropped it. “Well, then I guess this isn’t needed.”
“AGAIN. CROSSES. DON’T. KEEP. US. AWAY.”
The cross began sliding across the table.
“Bethany! I know you like shiny things, but that’s Arsen’s cross.”
He stared at it.
“Yeah, she can have it. I think I’m good. I don’t know what to think. I can see the dead.”
“Have you ever seen something in your peripheral and when you looked nothing was there?” Tori asked.
“All the damn time.”
“You’ve seen them.”
He stared at her.
“Look at me,” she offered. “What do you see around us if you use your peripheral vision?”
“Shadows moving.”
“Yeah, me too. There’s a lot of dead in this room, wanting to communicate. Some of us see, some of us hear, and some of us dream about them. Don’t let it freak you out.”
Yeah, there was the understatement of the century.
“Let’s stop talking about it,” he said, as his cross continued sliding down the table. “It’s wigging me out.”
They cou
ld see that.
Since he wanted to change the subject, Tori was good with that.
“How about that list of cell numbers?” Tori asked. “I seem to have kept my part of the bargain. You got to talk to the dead woman.”
He’d gotten more than he bargained.
“I still can’t believe.”
Beau pulled out his wallet and removed a picture from behind his driver’s license. “Here.”
He took it.
Then he dropped it.
“Shit! That’s what she was wearing.”
“It was her favorite outfit. She’d wear it out to walk in the rain. At one time, she wasn’t all bad,” he offered. “I don’t know what happened to her.”
Tori let it go.
She wasn’t bad to him. To her and Trey…yeah, that was debatable.
“So, I really saw your mother.”
“Shelby,” she corrected.
AGAIN.
“The list?” Julian asked.
“Yeah, I’ll share what I have. It’s only fair.” Arsen pulled out a paper and began reading from it. “It seems that the victim made around six phone calls to people. They were fairly regular ones, too, so that fits the whole ‘blackmail’ thing.”
Tori made notes.
“Who were they?” she asked.
He scanned the list. “You have Fredrick Raymond. He’s been called the most, and he goes back the furthest. I tried to talk to him. He’s a lawyer, and he’s not having it.”
Great.
“So, you’re telling me he won’t even help?”
“Nope. If what your…Shelby, said is true, he might be one of her victims. I doubt he’s going to talk or incriminate himself.”
Well, that sucked.
There had to be a way.
“Who is next?” Beckett asked.
“We have Leon Brewer. He works at a local bar. I interviewed him, and he admitted, after some forcing, that he hooked up with her.”
“Yep, this is getting worse,” Beau stated. “I don’t want to think about her getting her…Shelby on.”
Tori snorted at the terminology.
The detective had news for them. “Well, it does get weirder.”
She waited.
“He’s younger than you, Beau.”
That really made him wanted to puke. “Great. My mother was a family-ruining cougar. Isn’t my life awesome?”
Tori leaned back. “Well, you’re not alone. People know she gave birth to me. This day really sucks. In fact, this last week has really blown. Can we get a redo?” she asked.
They wished.
“I can’t give you that,” Arsen offered, “but I can tell you that it’s only bad from your angle. Your mother wasn’t all that much older than you. She had to have you young.”
The radio clicked to life.
“IT. IS. GROSS. NO. ONE. LIKES. MOM. PUSS…”
“Trey!” Julian shouted, before he could finish the last word. He didn’t want to be sick. “Let’s not go there. It puts uncomfortable pictures in all of our heads.”
Tori really laughed for the first time that night.
She couldn’t help herself.
“We should move on,” she suggested. “So, we have a lawyer and a bartender. Who is next?”
“You have Wyatt Grant. He is some computer nerd. In fact, he is about two blocks from here. He talked to me, and he swore on a stack of Bibles that he didn’t know her.”
“How many times did she call him?”
“Four.”
“That’s too many times to be a wrong number,” Tori stated. “He’s full of shit.”
He agreed.
“Plus, when I spoke to him, he was edgy. It looked like he was hiding something.”
Tori made a mental note. They were going to be re-interviewed all over again. Well, maybe except for the lawyer. They didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting in to see him.
“Who was next?” Julian asked.
“We have Xavier Lake. I couldn’t find him. He’s supposed to be this loner. No job, no career, but he has a place to squat. I don’t know what he does for a living.”
“Where did you look?” she asked.
“I went to the address tied to the cell number, and he wasn’t answering his door.”
That was suspicious.
“Lawyer, bartender, tech guy, and a jobless loner?” Tori asked. “Does anyone know how that connects?”
Justin shook his head.
Kane did the same. “If I were a betting man, I’d say they don’t connect.”
“Yeah, me, too, Kane. Go on,” Julian admitted.
He did.
“Next we have Sabrina Adams. She’s the next second highest of calls. She owns her own accounting firm. She handles the whole city’s finances.”
Tori made notes.
This was a start. “Was she willing to talk?”
“Yes, she was. Mrs. Adams was vague. All I could get out of her was that she ‘knew’ her, and that was more her alluding than directly stating that.
Tori wasn’t sure. “Shelby, a wandering con-woman, and someone with a power job know each other? That doesn’t fit for me,” she offered. “Beau?”
“I’ve never heard of her before.”
“What about Regina McCann?” Arsen asked. “She’s one of the two people we can’t locate.”
“I’ve never heard of her either,” Beau offered. “Honestly, my mother didn’t socialize much—not once I got back from serving. Who knows what she did before that?”
He had a point.
“Well, we have two suspects in the wind,” Arsen stated. “One of them might be involved, or both.”
Tori knew what that meant. That was where they needed to begin their investigation. “Team, find her and while you’re at it, find Xavier Lake too.”
“Tomorrow,” Julian added. They weren’t going to burn their team out on day one.
“There’s one more on the list,” Arsen offered.
“Who?”
“His name is Marshall Wolff. He’s a local soldier. I interviewed him at the local base. He was only called once, and he said it was a wrong number. I don’t know if I believe him or not.”
“What do we know about him?”
“He’s a rich kid who followed in his father’s footsteps to become a lifelong military guy. He’s around Beau’s age. Maybe a little younger by a year at the most.”
“Army?” asked Justin.
Tori laughed, knowing where he was taking that.
“Does that really matter?” she asked. “Are you going to date him?”
Vivian tried to give him a stern look, but she was borderline laughing at the look on his face.
“No, just curious.”
“He’s a Marine,” the cop offered.
He stuck his tongue out at Tori.
She rolled her eyes at his silliness. Tori knew what he was trying to do, and she appreciated it. The whole team was treating her and Beau with kid gloves.
And that’s why she loved them.
“That’s all I have on my list,” Arsen said, sliding the paper across the table toward her.
He hesitated.
“What?” Tori asked.
“I had a gut feeling, but I didn’t follow up on it. My partner told me I was crazy.”
They wanted to hear this.
“Tell us, and we’ll let you know what we think,” Tori offered.
“When I was checking Beau’s alibi, we interviewed the florist.”
They waited.
“She gave us the information, but…”
“But what?” Julian asked.
“When we showed up, she broke down in tears. I get the feeling she knows something we don’t. I wanted to dig deeper, but this case has been a mess.”
That was interesting.
“So you think maybe she was being harassed by Shelby, or one of her victims?”
He did.
“Yeah, she began babbling, and the second I told her we
were there to confirm if Beau had been there—and the time—she shut it off. She looked…relieved.”
That was curious.
“I know she’s not officially on the list, and she didn’t get any calls, but…”
Tori knew what it was like for her gut to be screaming.
“I say we follow it. What can it hurt? With Shelby, who knows what she was up to?”
He relaxed.
Arsen was glad someone saw it from his perspective. His partner had told him he was crazy.
Julian added her to the list.
“We’ll work it. No lead is too small,” he admitted.
“I really feel like Alberta Nicholson is hiding something. While I can’t ‘harass’ her, you guys might be able to get something out of her if she’s not feeling threatened.”
It was a good plan.
And, well, it was good enough for them. It gave them a place to start, and that was better than what they had before.
Tori was grateful for his help. After today, he could have made their lives hell. This looked like it was going to run smoothly after all.
They had nothing to worry about. They were on their way to getting Beau off, and they were going to save the business.
She was sure of it.
Just as she was about to thank the detective, there was a blood curdling scream from outside the building. It was so loud, they could hear it inside.
“What was that?” Julian asked.
No one knew.
Then, from outside, there were more shouts and screams. It sounded like bedlam.
Running outside, they were faced with the media reacting to something across the street in front of the adjacent building.
Their building.
It was the one that Clarissa lived in and where she watched the kids. Julian didn’t know what was going on, but his heart began pounding in his chest.
As the detective, Tori, and Julian broke through the crowd, they saw the blood.
It was everywhere on the sidewalk. It looked like someone had jumped.
Then they got closer.
Tori gasped and turned her body into her husband to block out the visual. It was that damn horrible.
Julian couldn’t believe it.
Kiss of Souls Page 14
