Soul Walk

by Melissa Bowersock

  She heard his quiet chuckle. “Not what you expected, huh? But I can see how this could be a… a teaching moment. How we could bust a lot of the myths about ghosts, present them in a much more realistic and respectful way. We could do good things with this, Lace.”

  She was patently dumbfounded, and opened and closed her mouth like a gaping fish.

  “You there?” he asked finally.

  “Uh, yeah.” She swallowed down her surprise. “So you’re okay to meet with them on Friday? Two p.m.?”

  “Sure. We’ll hear what they have to say, make our case for the kind of show we want to do and see what happens. Worst thing they can do is say no.”

  “Right,” she said, still feeling like she’d stumbled into the Twilight Zone. “Okay, I’ll call Diana and tell her we’ll be there.”

  “Great.” She heard his soft laugh. “It’ll be interesting, if nothing else. And Lacey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.”

  ~~~

  THREE

  Lacey picked Sam up early and gave him the map so he could direct her to the Unexplained Channel offices. She’d downloaded a GPS app on her phone after their Griffith Park case, but Sam refused to use it.

  “GPS makes your brain go soft,” he’d said. “Orienteering keeps it sharp.”

  Whatever, she’d thought, but she actually kind of liked having him as her navigator.

  They found the four-story building of black glass without a problem. They couldn’t miss the huge sign with the Unexplained Channel logo. And Diana had been right; they’d passed the Disney Studios just a block earlier. The old and the new of the film industry side by side.

  Inside the steel and glass structure, they approached a central counter where a young woman greeted them. She looked no older than eighteen, a tiny blonde with a short pixie haircut and smiling blue eyes.

  “May I help you?” she asked cheerfully.

  “Yes. I’m Lacey Fitzpatrick and this is Sam Firecloud. We’re here to meet with Diana Lynch and Barry Poldarek at two p.m.”

  “Yes, of course,” the blonde said. “Have a seat and someone will be right down.” She was already punching numbers on the phone as she waved them to chairs.

  Lacey and Sam settled into comfy fabric chairs and looked around. The lobby was cavernous with its high ceiling and black granite floor. Spaced evenly across the back wall were large flat screens looping silent trailers for many of the Unexplained Channel’s shows. Lacey noticed one for The Restless Dead and nudged Sam, pointing with her chin.

  They only got to see Esmeralda’s eyes bulge once with fear before another woman exited the elevator and walked toward them.

  “Hello,” she said, holding out a hand even as her heels tapped out a pattern to their chairs. She was thirtyish, with dark hair and a svelte figure in her navy blue power suit. “I’m Diana Lynch. So nice to meet you.”

  Lacey and Sam rose and shook hands.

  “Nice to meet you,” Lacey said. Sam just nodded.

  Diana beamed at them. “We’re so glad you could come. We’re all really excited about what we might do together.” She turned and motioned them toward the elevator. “Let’s go on up. Barry is waiting for us.”

  They entered the elevator and Diana punched the button for the fourth floor. As the elevator rose, the lobby dropped away in a rush outside the black glass of the elevator’s back wall.

  “No trouble finding the place?” she asked with a smile.

  “No,” Lacey said. “It’d be hard to miss.”

  “True enough,” Diana laughed. The elevator halted with a lurch, settled and opened up. “This way.”

  Her heels clacking on the black granite tile, she led them down a hall to a set of double oak doors. She pushed through into a conference room dominated by black glass windows around a large boat-shaped oak table.

  Barry Poldarek rose to greet them. He was tall with baby-fine blond hair and a narrow, patrician nose.

  “Hello, come in. Barry Poldarek. So glad to meet you at last.” He pumped both their hands eagerly, then waved them to padded, rolling chairs. “Have a seat. Can we get you anything to drink? Coffee, tea, water?”

  “I’m fine,” Lacey said.

  San shook his head.

  “All right, but if you change your mind…” Barry waved toward a counter across one wall, complete with fridge, microwave and coffee maker.

  He and Diana took seats on either side of Lacey and Sam, and Diana set a clipboard on the table, a sheaf of papers secured by the spring clip.

  “Well,” Barry said, folding his hands on the table in front of him. “I know Diana has explained to you what we hope to do here. You two have been making quite a name for yourselves, and we’d love to partner with you and really get you out there in front of the public.” He grinned broadly. “Have you seen the show? The Restless Dead?”

  They both nodded. “We’ve watched a couple of episodes,” Lacey said.

  “And?” he asked expectantly. “They grab you, don’t they?”

  Lacey glanced at Sam, but he seemed reluctant to comment. “They do,” she said. “No doubt about that. But we have to tell you, we don’t work quite the same way Webb and Esmeralda do.”

  “Oh?” He leaned forward, pouring water from a bottle into a glass. “What do you do differently?”

  “First,” Lacey said, “we work together through the whole case. We discuss it as we go, bouncing ideas off each other. My research depends on his impressions, and his way of clearing the ghosts depends on my findings. It’s a give-and-take process.”

  “Hmm,” Barry said, pondering that. “So you never work independently?”

  “For a short time, yes, as I’m doing my research. We don’t sit together at the computer, if that’s what you mean. But as soon as I uncover information, I relay it to Sam and we talk about what it means and the best way to proceed.”

  “I see.” He tapped his water glass with one blunt-cut fingernail. “All right. What else?”

  Lacey cut a glance at Sam but he seemed perfectly comfortable with her taking the lead.

  “Sam is… quieter than Esmeralda. He doesn’t talk much as he’s working, and he rarely… gets emotional.”

  “Uh huh,” Barry said. He leveled a look at Sam. “But you do say what you’re feeling?”

  “Yes,” Sam said.

  “You know what?” Lacey had an idea. “Do you have a laptop or a tablet? I could access my cloud storage and show you some video from some of our cases.” She scanned the room but didn’t see any electronics, and thought viewing on her phone would be difficult.

  “Here.” Diana slid a tablet out from under her clipboard and passed it to Lacey.

  “Oh, great.” Lacey tapped on the browser and navigated to her cloud storage. A password and a few more taps and she had her video directory.

  “Are these available to the public?” Barry asked.

  “No. We may show them to our clients so they can see what Sam found, but we don’t post them anywhere public.” Which one to show? She tapped on one directory and opened up a video.

  “This is the second case we worked on together,” she said as the video loaded. “It was a murder case in San Clemente.”

  “Was that the one that was passed off as a boating accident?”

  “Yes,” Lacey said, surprised Barry knew that.

  “We did our research, too,” he said with a smile.

  “Oh, yes, of course.” She found the place she wanted and started the video, then passed him the tablet. Diana came around to take the chair on his other side so they could watch together.

  At first there was just silence, as she’d known there would be. In her mind, she saw Sam walking slowly down a hallway.

  “Blood,” he said in the small, tinny voice. “All along here. All down the hall.”

  Silence again. Lacey noticed Barry and Diana exchanging looks.

  “This is where he died,” Sam said. “Shock, anger, revenge. Tryin
g to get something in the closet. Just out of reach…”

  More silence; Lacey remembered Sam walking to the kitchen then. She glanced over at him, thinking back to those early times. It had all been so new to her then. He had been so new. Now, with his dark eyes on her, she felt the warm touch of his slight smile. Maybe he was thinking back to how it was at first, too.

  “She grabbed a knife. Couldn’t take it anymore. He laughed at her. Didn’t think she’d do it. When she did, it was a total shock.”

  Lacey watched Barry and Diana. They seemed absolutely engrossed in the video. She couldn’t help but wonder if they were really caught up in it, or if they were watching with an eye to their viewers, wondering if it was exciting enough? Titillating enough?

  The video ended. Lacey cleared her throat. “There’s another one, later, when we wanted to see if we could find enough blood to get DNA. Would you like to see that?”

  “Yes, please.” Barry passed the tablet to her. He arched an eyebrow at Diana as Lacey keyed up the next video. She ran it forward to the money shot, then passed it back.

  “I had brought a chemical formula with us that reveals blood that’s not readily visible,” she explained. “Sam pinpointed the area, I sprayed the chemical, and we had our blood.”

  The tiny sounds of her and Sam, and Alan and Janet Weiss as they all worked together. Sam directing them to the place on the wall. The faint sound of the spray, the liquid splattering on the wall.

  Alan’s voice. “My God! It looks like a slasher movie!”

  As she’d thought it would, that sequence clearly startled Barry and Diana. They watched with rapt attention as the rest of the video played out. More blood in the back bedroom, all around the closet door. Discussion about the carpet. The realization that they had enough evidence to clinch the case.

  The video ended. Barry laid the tablet down and sat back in his chair, his eyes bright. He grinned at Sam and Lacey.

  “Wow,” he said. “That was terrific.” He looked over at Diana. “I wish we’d been in on that one.”

  Diana nodded. She was clearly pleased as well.

  Barry turned back to Sam and Lacey. “I think Sam’s style works well,” he said. “True, he’s not as animated as Esmeralda, but the understatement actually gives it more gravity, not less. I think we can work with this.”

  Lacey chanced a look at Sam. His eyes told her nothing. She wondered if he were having any feelings of misgiving, as she was.

  “Well,” Barry said, slapping his hands on the table, “what we’d like to do is this: we’ve got a place in Malibu, a little bed and breakfast. The owners bought it knowing it was said to be haunted, but didn’t put much stock in it. Now they’re finding it’s a little more than they bargained for. They’ve had guests tell them—”

  “No,” Sam said, holding up a hand. “Don’t tell me how it’s manifesting. If I’m going to walk it, I don’t want to know anything ahead of time.”

  “Oh, right, right,” Barry said, slapping himself in the forehead. “Of course. Well, what we’d like to do is set this up the way we normally do, but with you two instead of Webb and Esmeralda. We’ll film you two walking it, then work out the research part as we go. You know, it’s not real exciting to watch someone sitting at the computer, but as we uncover the story, we can set up small reveals depending on what we find. That work for you?”

  Lacey looked to Sam. He shrugged. She turned back to Barry and nodded.

  “Okay,” Barry said, warming to the subject. “We’ll film this as a pilot, see how it goes and then take off from there. We’ll have contracts drawn up and get those to you—”

  “One thing,” Sam said. He paused, making sure he had their attention. “This must be done respectfully. I’d like Lacey and I to have final approval.”

  “Final—?” Barry smiled as if Sam were joking, but then the smile faded. “Uh, well, we don’t normally…”

  “It’s important,” Sam said. “This is not just entertainment. It’s about people’s souls.”

  Barry lapsed into silence, his mouth sagging a bit. “Souls,” he repeated dully.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Souls. It must be done respectfully.” Lacey recognized the steel in her partner’s voice, the uncompromising look in his eyes. He would not be moved from this.

  “Uh, well, I’m not sure…” Barry rubbed a hand across his forehead, what looked to Lacey like a nervous tic. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. We’ll, uh, get with our legal team and see what we can draw up.” He turned to Diana. “Let’s see about building in checkpoints along the way. Review points. Make sure we’re all on the same page as we go, so there are no surprises at the end.”

  Diana nodded, making quick notes.

  Barry turned back to Sam and Lacey. “Okay, as for pay, we’ll start you out at the minimum, as I’m sure you’d expect. Do either of you have a SAG card?”

  “SAG?” Lacey repeated.

  “Screen Actors Guild.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Of course, she thought. “Uh, no, we don’t have those.”

  “Okay.” Barry looked over to Diana, but she was already making a note. “So here’s what it’ll break out to be…”

  ~~~

  By the time Sam and Lacey left the office, their heads were whirling.

  “Holy cow,” she said as they walked to the car. “That’s more than we’ve made on all our other cases combined.”

  “And that’s the minimum?” Sam said.

  “Yeah.” She grinned at him as she started the car. “That’ll buy a lot of Happy Meals.”

  “Happy Meals, hell,” he said.

  She pulled out into traffic and headed for the freeway. “But did you notice how both of them were, watching the video? It was like people going to drag races and praying for an accident. Hoping to see bodies flung across the pavement.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” Sam said, his voice hard. “Which is why I insisted on final approval.” He sighed. “That’s exactly the kind of sensationalism I want to get away from. I’d like people to really understand what we’re doing—helping lost souls find their way to the next plane—and not think of it like some Halloween scare fest.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “So I guess we wait until we see the contract and go from there.”

  Sam, lost in thought, only nodded.

  ~~~

  FOUR

  The next morning, they started early—early by Sam’s standards. Lacey had a couple of big boxes packed with clothes and personal items, plus some things that Sam didn’t have: a blender, a crock pot, her favorite kitchen ware. If she was going to cook for two—four on the weekends—she wanted her own cookware. Later, she felt sure, they might do some rearranging and take into account her TV and other duplicates to add to his.

  By the time he arrived with his truck, Lacey had already packed her car. She had a cooler on the back seat with food from her fridge, more dry goods in boxes. They loaded the rest in the bed of his truck and caravanned to his apartment.

  Their apartment.

  Unpacking was trickier. They had to make room for the extra stuff, so rearranging was necessary.

  “I guess this would be a good time to go through my junk and throw some stuff out,” Sam said as he wedged his not-favorite socks and underwear into his drawers in the dresser, leaving some open for Lacey.

  “I think we can both do some of that,” Lacey said. She sighed. “You know the old saw: however much room we have, we expand to fill it up. I’ve been in that apartment for two years, but I think I still have some stuff in boxes that I never unpacked when I moved in.”

  Sam snorted. “And we have extra time now to do that, in between TV shows.”

  She laughed. “Luckily we can take our time. It’d be tougher if we had a deadline to close out my place. Baby steps, right?”

  When the time came for Sam to go pick up his kids, Lacey tossed him her car keys. “Take mine. The kids like riding in mine better.”

  “I’ll pick up some lunch on the way back,” h
e said. “No sense trying to do anything in the kitchen before we get it organized.”

  “Good idea. I’ll see if I can clear out some of these boxes before you get back.”

  Lacey marveled at the changes in their lives in such a short span of time. Moving in, combining households, then this TV deal. Who’d have ever guessed? It made her wonder what else was in store for the private investigation team of Fitzpatrick and Firecloud.

  The kids, of course, were thrilled that Lacey was moving back in. Her earlier exit—she didn’t want to call it a desertion—had hit them hard. They had seen so many changes in their young lives. She hoped this time to model permanency for them. They deserved some of that.

  “Lacey!” Kenzie squealed as she barged through the door. She wrapped her arms around Lacey and hugged. Lacey hugged back.

  “Hiya, kiddo,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Good,” Kenzie said. “I got an A on my spelling test this week.”

  “That’s great.” She waved to Daniel knowing he was in a no-hugging phase. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” He waved back. “Dad got hamburgers.”

  “Cool. I’m ready for some lunch. You guys want to help me clear the table so we have some place to eat?”

  Over burgers and fries, Sam explained about the possibility—and he stressed that point—of the TV show.

  “Really?” Daniel asked, his eyes wide. “Wow, your very own TV show?”

  “Maybe,” Sam cautioned. “We’re still working it out. But it may mean that Lacey and I have to work odd hours. We’ll see how it goes.”

  “That would be cool,” Daniel said.

  Kenzie nodded, grinning. “Dad would be a movie star.”

  Sam rolled his eyes at Lacey, but she caught the telltale color that rose in his cheeks. She muffled a laugh.

  When bedtime rolled around, Lacey was surprised again how quickly it all seemed normal; There was some bickering about who hogged more time in the bathroom, but then Kenzie settled in her bed in the spare room, and Daniel hauled a sleeping bag out to the couch. Lacey and Sam both said goodnight to each of the kids, and retreated to their room.