by J N Duncan
“Keep your enemies close at hand,” Shelby said.
“He’s not part of the ghosthunters invading the town,” Nick added. “He might be able to talk to some folk who would otherwise not talk to us.”
“Shouldn’t be hard to track him down,” Jackie said. “He seems to be following us wherever we go. Let me touch base with McManus here before we do anything else.”
McManus got her the number for the sketch artist, someone not at all familiar with her working situation, and Jackie updated him on their progress. A call to Hauser got her Margolin’s cell phone number, and then Nick reminded her to call Cynthia and fill her in. Pat Taggert, the sketch artist, set up an appointment for them tomorrow afternoon, and gave her an e-mail to send as many preliminary details as she could.
Margolin picked up his phone on the first ring. “Margolin,” he said.
“Hello, Margolin,” Jackie said.
“Agent Rutledge! This is a surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure of your phone call?”
Jackie gripped the phone tighter. She wanted nothing more than to tell the ass-hat off. “I want to put your ability to be a fucking pain in the ass to some use. If you’re interested in a story, that is.”
He was silent for several seconds. “Always looking for the story, Rutledge, but then you know that. So, what gives? Last time we chatted you were ready to plant your fist in my face.”
“Can’t say that feeling has changed much, but the good people of Thatcher’s Mill aren’t real keen on talking to a group of ghosthunters.”
He laughed. “I don’t think anyone around here much cares for you. You wore out your welcome pretty fast. It’s that charming way you have about you.”
She covered the mouthpiece and pulled the phone away from her ear. “When this is all done, can I kill him? Please?” Nick smiled at her and Shelby giggled. Jackie put the phone back to her ear. “Putting my charming ways aside for a moment, I think you can help us figure this story out.”
“Really?” He sounded skeptical. “You’re just going to give me the story? Why do I feel like there’s some twist in here you’re not mentioning?”
Jackie sighed. “Look. I don’t like you. Honestly, I hate reporters, but you are apparently good at what you do, and we could use some information. If you can find it for us and it helps us resolve this situation, I’ll give you the story.”
Another pause. Could he actually turn down such an invitation? “OK, I’m game. I’ll listen to what you have to say at least. Where do you want to meet?”
“I’ve got something to check on in the morning,” she replied. “We’ll meet you there at the diner for lunch, and no, I’m not buying.”
Margolin chuckled. “I’ll bet you get all the guys, Rutledge. Diner. Noon. I’ll see you there.”
Jackie clicked off and dropped her phone on the bed. “Ugh. I really hate that guy. We’re meeting him for lunch at the diner tomorrow. That work?”
“Should be fine,” Nick said. “That gives us time to go through reports from the medical examiner in the morning. Laurel, you want to give us descriptions so we can send the artist the info? Maybe by tomorrow afternoon we’ll start to have a few answers.”
They compiled the list and sent it off, by which time it was nearly ten. Shelby had pizza delivered from a place that, thank the gods, the Blessed Mother, and anyone else worthy of thanks, also delivered beer. Settled into Jackie’s head again, Laurel pined over the sausage, onion, and feta.
That pizza and beer looks so good. I think food is one of those things I miss the most.
It’s just pizza, Jackie said. Kind of ordinary, too, far as that goes. The beer, though, that really hits the spot. She popped the top on a second one. Even this crap stuff is good sometimes.
It’s another one of those things you don’t notice until it’s gone.
Jackie felt badly for her. It was difficult to imagine existing in the state Laurel did, to have no physical body, no real sensations to speak of. She wanted to help her. Laur, do you think you’d be able to taste things if you were me? You know, if you had control of my body?
Oh! I don’t really know. I haven’t had opportunity to try it out and see.
You want to? Try, I mean. I can let you take over for a few and see how that works.
Really? Oh, hon, that would be sweet of you. I don’t want to stress you out over a piece of pizza, though. I know how much you hate that sense of not being yourself.
What could a few minutes hurt? It was a small enough sacrifice to bring Laurel some happiness, even if only temporary. Let’s go for it. Have a slice. I’ll be fine.
Hon, are you sure? I don’t want—
“I’m going to let Laur take me over for a few minutes so she can have a slice of pizza,” Jackie said. “Just, you know, warning you, in case I start praying to the Blessed Mother over my pizza or want to give Nick a tarot reading or something.
You’re a snot. Maybe I’ll go sit in Nick’s lap while I eat.
Don’t you even!
Nick eyed her curiously. “You sure about this, Jackie? You know what you’re doing?”
Jackie shrugged. “No, but Laur deserves no less.” OK. Let’s do this. Push or pull or hit the magic button.
Laurel did, nudging at that indeterminate place inside Jackie where body and soul joined forces, where the bonds had been snapped by Deadworld and now seemed held together by little more than Velcro. The world made a subtle shift, and in one blink of an eye, Jackie found herself watching the world from a distance, peering through someone else’s body, only it was hers.
Jackie listened to her voice moan at the first bite of the pizza. She could tell her mouth moved, but whether it held pizza or a clod of dirt, she could not tell. The beer bottle came up to her lips to wash it down, and she heard herself laugh.
“Oh, this beer really is wonderfully bad.”
The laughter began to melt into sniffling, and Jackie realized her vision had blurred slightly, her eyes blinking rapidly to quell the tears.
Wait. Laur? Are you crying? What’s wrong?
“No, it’s fine,” she said, laughing again. “It just tastes so good. I really missed this.”
Shelby looked at her, at Laurel, her head tilted at an odd angle. There was a look there Jackie had never seen before. Shelby swung her legs off the bed and fell to the floor on her knees in front of Jackie, hands resting on her knees, though she could not feel the pressure of the fingers there.
“Are you really there, sweetie?” Jackie watched her view bob up and down several times and then watched her hands come up to cup Shelby’s face. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
Laurel brushed the tear away with the thumb of Jackie’s hand. “I am. Your skin is even softer than I remember.”
“Kiss me,” Shelby whispered. “Before Jackie changes her mind.”
Hey now! Wench. Laurel hesitated, inching forward an inch, but doing little more than letting Jackie’s fingers brush across the features of Shelby’s face. Oh, good grief. Go ahead, Laur. Kiss her.
Jackie leaned toward Shelby, head tilting to the side, and then the world went dark, burying Jackie in effusive, whispered proclamations, little gasps of pleasure, and the soft, suckling sound of flesh.
And then the darkness was swept aside in tide of green, an eerie, phosphorescent glow. The thin wall between worlds buckled and pulsed with an unfamiliar energy.
Laur? Something’s wrong here.
No, hon. It’s perfect. Thank you.
Another voice, thin and hollow, an asthmatic old man sounding off through a crackling megaphone, rang in her ears. At last. You’ve come at last.
Laur! Jackie pushed away from the strange, frightening voice, pulling at Laurel’s vibrant energy, until she found the connection to her own body again. The green glow faded away and Jackie found herself pulling away from those full, red lips.
Shelby’s brow furrowed with confusion. “Jackie?” She rocked back on her heels. “Why’d you have to ruin ... what’s wrong?
”
Jackie leaped up from the bed, knocking Shelby onto her butt, half expecting there to be a residual, glowing green spot left behind by whatever that thing was that had beckoned to her from the other side.
Nick came to her side, his hand gripping her arm, steadying her. “Jackie? What happened?”
She pointed at the bed, finger shaking uncontrollably. “It was that thing, the spindly whatever-the-fuck-it-is thing.”
Nick looked over her shoulder at the spot on the bed where she had sat. “Did it do something to you?”
“No.” Jackie let out a long, shaky breath. “It was trying to come through, I think. It talked.” Her whole body was trembling now, and Jackie leaned back against Nick for support. “Damn it, Nick. It wants me for something.”
“Shit.” Shelby stood up from the floor. “Clearly, we have to figure out what to do about that thing.”
Jackie laughed. “Yeah, well I’m open to suggestions, other than going over and having a chat.”
Nick’s hand settled on her shoulder. “I don’t know. We have no idea what we’re dealing with.”
She walked over and grabbed another beer. “All I know is that ghosts on the other side are terrified of it. That’s enough for me.”
Shelby sighed, clearly frustrated—mostly, Jackie suspected, from losing her opportunity with Laurel. “I vote for some sleep. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
Sleep? Jackie’s heart rate had yet to return to normal. “Probably a good idea. I’m stepping out for some air first.”
“I love you, baby,” Shelby said, looking Jackie in the eye.
Jackie turned away. “She loves you, too, and I really wish you’d stop doing that, Shel. It weirds me out.”
Shelby reached out and turned Jackie’s face back to her own, smiling and kissing her briefly. “I love you, too, so don’t feel bad.”
“Gee thanks,” Jackie said, shaking her head and walking toward the door. “Stepping out now.”
She does, Laurel said. She likes you a great deal.
I know. It’s just odd having her look at me to look at you, and the way she looks. It’s unnerving.
Laurel chuckled. I love that look. It makes me all squishy inside.
Just try not to squish on me while you’re in there, OK?
Jackie stepped out of the main lobby, stood outside the main door, and sipped on her beer. The cool air felt wonderful on her face. Sadly, there was little to look at for soothing her nerves, with an Olive Garden across the parking lot on one side and a doctor’s office on the other. The wet asphalt reflected streetlights, but at least it was not raining.
How had life gotten so strange? Who knew it actually drifted so far from the center? Six weeks ago, she was just a plain old FBI agent, catching bad guys. Now her partner lived in her head, she was trying to date a vampire, and she was dealing with a town full of ghosts. Who had fucked with the highway signs of life and sent her down this dark, freak-show road?
The sliding entry door came to life, making Jackie jump. Nick stepped up beside her, beer in hand. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, for now at least,” she said. “It’s just ... I don’t know, Nick. This thing on the other side, it scares me. Ghosts and vampires, I can deal with, or at least I’m beginning to, but this? I don’t like things I can’t make sense of. At least ghosts and vampires are human.”
“Me either,” he said and draped an arm around her shoulders. “Would it help if I said that thing scares me, too?”
She laughed. “Not really. You and Shelby are supposed to be the experts on this dead stuff.”
“It might not be dead,” he replied. “You’re a living soul that can open the door to the dead. It’s a unique ability, and I’m wondering if whatever it is can sense that.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’m just hypothesizing, trying to figure this out, but I wonder if it wants you for what you can do.”
She turned and looked up at him. “You think it wants to come here? To cross over?”
“Maybe. I don’t know, but it’s certainly a possibility. Perhaps it’s trapped there.”
“God.” Jackie drained down the last half of her beer. “I can’t imagine letting that thing loose among the living. Who knows what it is or what it can do?”
“Exactly,” he replied. “But, if it were here, maybe we could deal with it.”
“Or not,” Jackie said. She tried to wipe the image of those glowing green eyes from her mind. “Do you want to take that chance?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t, but I don’t want you living in fear for the rest of your life either.”
“Shit.” Jackie had not even gone there. She laughed nervously. “Thanks for that. I hadn’t even considered that it might never leave me alone.”
He reached up, cupping her cheek with his hand, and Jackie leaned into the comfort of it. “We’ll figure it out. Somehow.”
“I hope so.”
Nick leaned down and kissed her, soft and fleeting. “We will.”
Jackie opened her eyes, staring up into the depthless, faint glow of his. Nick’s stolid, firm voice always sounded reassuring, no matter what was said. “Again?”
He smiled, a soft curl of his mouth. “We will,” he said and kissed her again, longer and deeper than the last.
Chapter 16
Who were they? Charlotte continued to brush through Rebecca’s hair, yanking through the tangles and ignoring her gasps of pain. Ma-ma and Pa-pa were downstairs polishing and dusting things that did not need it in order to avoid her wrath. Carson said they were a group of ghosthunters, come to check out Thatcher’s Mill, but this was no ordinary group of hunters, if that was even what they were, not when one was a former FBI agent. Ghosthunters did not come to town with their own ghosts either, especially one as self-aware as that one had been. That one had actually seen her and bolted the moment she realized that she had been recognized.
That meant she likely knew what Charlotte was. The living were easy enough to dupe, but the dead knew. They could feel it. That reporter was convinced they were using the ghosthunter guise as a cover for something else. So why else would they be here if not to investigate her? If the FBI were somehow involved, then some serious problems could be coming her way. People like that had access to information, and Charlotte knew that a little digging into the town of Thatcher’s Mill would turn up a lot of strange things, like why the Thatchers had two daughters they shouldn’t actually have.
“Ow, Sis!” Rebecca finally yelped after Charlotte pulled through a particularly stubborn tangle.
“Hush,” she replied into her ear. “Quit being such a baby.”
“Are you still angry with me?”
Charlotte sighed. “No. I wasn’t angry with you in the first place. I was angry at the woman who came to the door.”
“Do you really think she’s here to take me away?” Rebecca asked in a quiet, fearful voice.
Charlotte smiled and kissed the soft, exposed part of Rebecca’s shoulder. “I was just upset when I said that. I’m not really sure why she was here, but I can’t discount that possibility.”
“But why?” she replied. “Why would she want to take me away from my family? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?”
Charlotte swallowed the warm knot in her throat. Jessica had become one with her so much easier than many of the others. It was as though she truly did belong. The effort required to entrench the belief that this was truly her family and where she belonged had been slight. Jessica wanted to be here, wanted to be Rebecca, and that had always been half the battle. There were times, especially late at night when they each lay in their beds after the lights had been turned off, and they talked in quiet voices about the mundane activities of the day or when they might again go for a ride on the motorcycle or walk up through the woods to where the stream fed into a pool, and they could lose their clothes and splash each other in the cold waters, that Charlotte could almo
st forget that this was not the real Rebecca. It had been so long since she had found someone who slipped so easily into the new persona.
She was probably ready, if it came to that, to try the next step and become her sister in the way that mattered most. Charlotte had hoped for more time, had wanted more, but these strangers in town were threatening that. If they somehow managed to find out who Rebecca really was, then they might bring her real mother here, and when Jessica failed to recognize her or have any interest in going back to her old life, things would become difficult. Worse, Rebecca might want to return to being Jessica, and that would not be allowed to happen. Not when her best chance at having her sister back in fifty years had come along. Charlotte would not allow that to happen.
Charlotte set the brush down on the bed. “You’ve done nothing wrong at all, Sis. They have no reason to take you away from me. Unless, of course, you would want to go.”
She turned to look at Charlotte with a wide, watery stare. “I would never leave you. I’d rather die!” Rebecca threw her arms around Charlotte and hugged her tightly, sniffling into her shoulder.
“You’re so sweet,” Charlotte said and kissed her head. “We’ll be together forever, Sis. I would kill anyone who tried to take you away.”
“Oh! I would, too,” she said, pulling her head up. “You’re the only thing in the world that matters to me.”
Charlotte reached up and brushed the tear off of Rebecca’s cheek with her thumb. “Likewise.”
Perhaps it was time after all. Why take the chance these people would find nothing and leave them alone? She thought the likelihood of that to be low. One did not come to Thatcher’s Mill by happenstance to look for ghosts. Everything added up to them focusing on her, which meant they would have to be dealt with somehow, preferably a subtle little influence to leave town. And if they did find out who she had here at her house and everything blew up in her face? If she couldn’t take them down, then she might be forced into the unthinkable situation of leaving and starting over.
No. She knew without a doubt that starting over was not an option. This life, this place, these people were hers. If someone was going to try and take that away, then she would take them all down with her. The end of her would be the end of Thatcher’s Mill.
