by Sarah Wynde
“You seem pretty confident.”
“A decade ago, when Max hired me to defend this case, it would have been different. You’d still have a damn good chance of getting off with an eyewitness willing to testify that they were planning to kill you. But the way the law currently stands, you won’t go to trial.”
“You—what? A decade ago?” Jeremy blinked in surprise, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket.
Ty shook his head as he stood, smiling in wry greeting. “Don’t ask. Sylvie’s told me about this place.”
“Ty,” Sylvie started before stopping. How could she ever possibly apologize enough? She’d killed their employer. The reputation of Ty’s company, so carefully nurtured, would be destroyed. Every one of his employees would be out of work. And at Christmas. She’d ruined so much.
“Cut it out, Syl,” Ty said mildly. He scooped up Joshua who leaned toward Sylvie with a joyful yelp. “You’re doing that black hole thing, I can see it. Planning for the worst is great, but expecting the worst is a waste of time. Besides, all I care about is that you’re okay.”
This time a tear overflowed. Sylvie brushed it away, embarrassed, and reached for Joshua. “Shooting the client isn’t going to be good for business.”
“Working for a drug cartel? Also not good for business. At least not the kind of business I care to have.” Ty released the toddler who pressed both hands against the side of Sylvie’s face and gave her a sloppy kiss as Ty pointed to a duffel bag on the ground. “When we got to your boyfriend’s plane, your luggage was waiting. I guess he sent someone to your hotel in DC and checked you out. You want to change before we get out of here?”
Sylvie’s laugh was still slightly teary. She looked down at the blue scrubs she was wearing. She hadn’t minded when the police took her dress as evidence and let her clean up, but it would be a relief to wear her own clothes again.
Joshua was talking to her, long sentences of toddler babble that made no sense at all. She took a deep breath before dropping a return kiss on his cheek and then asking Ty, “Joshua?”
“No sitter. And we didn’t know how long we’d be here. Rachel?”
“With Max Latimer.”
“Let’s go.”
Sylvie managed a smile as Ty tried to disentangle her from the complaining toddler but Ty saw something in her face.
“Problem?” he asked.
Should she tell him about the ghosts?
“Nope, not at all,” she answered, scooping up her bag. “I’ll just change.”
*****
“Christmas in Florida is strange,” said Jeremy. “Do they usually throw midwinter street parties?”
They were walking down Millard Street from the sheriff’s office. The temperate night air smelled of Florida, humid and fragrant with a strong undertone of moldy swamp, and in striking contrast to the twinkling holiday lights and Christmas decorations. But Sylvie didn’t think the people gathered on the street and sidewalks were celebrating. Excitement, curiosity, uncertainty, doubt—the flavor of the crowd was mixed, but she knew it wasn’t a party.
She glanced around, looking for faces she recognized, pausing on the people with the strongest emotions. A young Asian woman had her arms crossed across her chest, almost hugging herself, the strength of her worry not showing on her calm face. Another woman on the other side of the street was facing away from Sylvie. From the back and in the dark, Sylvie could see only that she had dark hair but her emotions were a mix of joy and terror. As Sylvie walked by the door to the restaurant, still searching the crowd, she tasted sheer annoyance from someone inside.
Finally she spotted Lucas. She walked straight into his arms, lifted her lips for his kiss, and let herself get lost for one long glorious moment in the touch, taste and feel of him.
Then she pulled back and said, “What the hell is going on?”
He smiled down at her, his eyes even bluer than usual under the glow from the street lamp and the sparkle of the holiday lights. “The fire marshal kicked everyone out of Maggie’s place while he inspects the electricity.” He slid his arm around her, nodded at the two men, smiled at Joshua, and turned his attention back to the door of the restaurant.
“Electric problems?” Jeremy asked, looking toward the restaurant.
“Where’s Rachel?” Despite the boy in his arms, Ty stayed focused on the job.
Without looking, Lucas nodded toward the sidewalk on the other side of the street, safely away from the crowd. Sylvie glanced that way and then frowned in recognition at the sight of the scared but happy dark-haired woman. “Is that—” she started.
“She’s with her mother,” Lucas confirmed.
“Her mother?” Ty and Sylvie said the words almost simultaneously.
“I had her sent for as soon as I heard the news. She got here about twenty minutes ago.” Sylvie could tell from his distracted tone that Lucas was still mostly focused on what was happening inside the restaurant.
“Why?” Ty demanded.
“Pre-emptive strike,” Lucas answered absently. And then he must have felt Ty’s response, because he finally turned his attention back to them.
“Against who?” Ty must have tightened his grip on Joshua, because the little boy started to fuss.
“Not you.” Lucas put a hand out and patted Joshua gently on the back, drawing his attention. “Child protective services here in Florida would have Rachel in foster care faster than you could blink if they knew her custodial parent was dead. The same should be true in DC. Unless you want her in state care until an executor is found and Chesney’s estate is settled, she needed an emergency guardian.”
“I could have—” Ty started.
“With Sylvie’s involvement in her father’s death?” Lucas interrupted him. “Under the circumstances, you wouldn’t get temporary custody.”
“The authorities had no reason to know that Rachel needed anyone to have custody.” Ty’s voice got quieter.
Jeremy must have recognized the danger signs, because he reached for Joshua, firmly taking the boy from his husband’s grasp, and saying, “Come on, Joshua, let’s go look at the pretty lights.”
“Raymond Chesney’s death is under investigation and Sylvie’s future is at stake. We are not covering up Rachel’s unaccompanied presence here.” Lucas’s voice also got quieter, but gentler as well.
“Stop it,” Sylvie snapped at both of them. If they kept this up, in two minutes one of them would haul off and punch the other. “Go meet Rachel’s mom,” she ordered Ty. “Reassure yourself that Rachel will be safe with her. And be nice—she loves her daughter but she’s scared.”
Ty scowled at her and she narrowed her eyes at him and added, “She’s Rachel’s mother.”
With only a minor grumble but a strong feeling of annoyance, Ty turned and headed across the street.
“As for you . . .” Sylvie punched Lucas lightly on the arm. “Efficiency is nice. I appreciated the clothes. But Rachel was my problem to worry about. Don’t be so damn managing.”
Lucas’s smile was crooked. “Rachel’s situation was a very small problem. We have bigger issues.”
“The police?” Sylvie’s heart sank. She’d known that was all too easy.
“No.” Lucas shook his head quickly. ‘Dillon.’
‘What about him?’ Sylvie responded wordlessly.
‘He’s in trouble.’ He nodded toward the worried woman Sylvie had noticed earlier. ‘Akira can explain.’
Taking her hand, Lucas tugged her toward the woman. As they got closer, Sylvie recognized the man standing with her as Zane, Lucas’s younger brother, all grown-up now. She couldn’t help a quiet hum of appreciation.
‘Hey,’ Lucas protested, slightly indignant but also amused.
‘He looks just like you,’ she told him, an unrepentant grin on her lips, and then she sobered as Lucas introduced her to Akira. They exchanged greetings and then Sylvie turned to Akira and asked, “What’s going on?”
“I wish I could see better.
” Akira’s eyes were back on the restaurant storefront, almost as if she hadn’t heard the question. And then she said, softly, “I can’t be sure.”
“About what?” asked Sylvie, confused.
“A ghost has taken over the restaurant,” Zane answered.
Sylvie shook her head. She didn’t understand. Why was it a problem for Dillon to be in the restaurant? Or was Chesney making trouble still?
“As I understand it,” Lucas said, picking his words carefully and glancing at Zane and Akira for confirmation, “a ghost can get so upset that it loses control and becomes sort of a vengeful spirit.”
“Like on Supernatural?” Sylvie asked, feeling doubt rising within her.
“Like on what?” Lucas responded.
“The television show?”
He shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
“Ah. Well.” Sylvie shrugged. Somehow she didn’t think that she and Lucas would be curling up together to the adventures of the Winchester brothers any time soon. “Go on.”
Zane took over. “When our mom died, she became a ghost, too. But she couldn’t communicate and her ghostly energy was . . . dangerous.” He stopped.
“Not to everyone. But she killed me,” Akira reported matter-of-factly. “Killed me and possessed my body. It’s what vortex ghosts—the ghosts that have lost control—try to do. And they destroy other ghosts.” She sighed and started chewing on her lower lip, still watching the restaurant.
“You seem pretty alive?” Sylvie’s tone made the tentative words a question.
Akira waved a hand dismissively without looking. “Defibrillator. Resuscitation. No permanent damage. That time, anyway.”
“So do you think Chesney’s one of these vortex ghosts? Could he have destroyed Dillon?” Sylvie’s horror was like vomit rising in her throat. She would rather have gone to jail for the rest of her life, for eternity, than learn that Chesney had taken his vengeance out on Dillon.
Lucas put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him, but Akira shook her head.
“I’m not sure.” Akira uncrossed her arms and put her hand on her stomach. “There’s a lot of energy there. I can feel it from here. And Rose is gone, too.”
“Rose?”
“The other ghost that lives in Akira’s house,” Lucas told Sylvie quietly.
“I can’t tell what’s happened. And I can’t . . .” Akira let the words trail off as she stroked her hand up and down, across her shirt.
Sylvie recognized the gesture, putting it together with a memory of Lucas babbling in the coffee shop. “You’re pregnant.”
Akira nodded. Zane put his hand on the nape of her neck, his love obvious in the touch, and she leaned into him.
“And you can’t get close enough to help Dillon because the ghost, whoever it is, might kill you,” Sylvie said flatly.
Akira nodded.
Sylvie took a long deep breath. For an instant, she desperately wanted to go for a run. Not to run away, but to hit the rhythm where she could block out the world and let her brain go numb. It had been a very long day. And then she firmly suppressed the desire and pulled herself back to the moment at hand.
“What can we do?” she asked.
The men looked at one another. Akira’s arms went back up, crossing herself like a hug, and Zane shifted so that he stood behind her, his head resting on her hair, his arms around her protectively.
“I used to think the ghosts were literally a vortex, like a whirlpool pulling other ghosts in, but I’m not sure about that anymore,” Akira said.
“What do you think it is now?” Sylvie asked.
“A portal to another universe,” Zane answered for Akira, his voice touched with enthusiasm. They all looked at him, Akira turning her head up so that she could see his face without moving. He shrugged and his arms tightened around Akira. “Admit it, it’d be cool.”
“Not another universe,” Akira corrected him. “Another dimension.” She looked over at Sylvie, almost as if Sylvie had voiced her skeptical response. “Do you know anything about quantum physics?”
Sylvie’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t smile. “No.”
“Human beings are limited by our ability to perceive the world only through our senses. Physicists have known for decades that ordinary matter,” Akira stamped a foot on the ground, as if to indicate its solidity, “makes up less than five percent of our universe’s mass. We can see from the ways the stars and galaxies move that there has to be a lot of mass out there that we aren’t able to perceive.”
“Okay.” Sylvie nodded. What did that have to do with ghosts?
“Particle physicists call the missing matter ‘dark matter’ and are searching for a subatomic particle to explain it. Proponents of string theory, specifically M-theory, postulate instead that there are dimensions that we can’t see or experience. The dimensions would exist only at the quantum level, but they might contain energy that could affect the dimensions that we do see.” Akira paused, eyebrows raised as if to question whether Sylvie wanted her to continue.
“Okay,” Sylvie agreed. “So . . . the energy inside those dimensions moves the stars?”
“Exactly.” Akira sounded pleased.
Sylvie didn’t want to diminish her enthusiasm by asking what quantum physics had to do with Dillon, but she was lost. She glanced at Zane.
“Ghosts are energy,” he said. “Energy that most human beings don’t have any way of seeing.”
Sylvie frowned and looked back at Akira. “Are you saying that ghosts are dark matter, then?”
“No, no.” Akira spread her fingers wide as if to say stop, and then closed them. “Well . . . .” She tilted her head to one side as if to consider the idea and then glanced back at the restaurant window. She shrugged, her dark eyes thoughtful, and leaned back into Zane. “I’ll have to think about that one.”
Sylvie waited, but apparently Akira was planning to think about it right now. Her thoughts were a jumble, none of the words adding up to anything that made sense to Sylvie, while the silence lengthened and dragged on. Finally Sylvie broke into Akira’s thoughts impatiently, “Okay, but what do we do?”
Akira shook her head slightly. Sylvie could feel her unhappy worry but she didn’t say anything.
“There must be something,” Sylvie prompted.
At the restaurant door, a man who had to be the fire marshal emerged with Max Latimer. They were talking and the man shrugged. Max shook his hand, clearly thanking him. Inside the restaurant, the lights came back on.
And then suddenly Akira’s mood changed. Sylvie glanced at Lucas to see if he felt it, too, as joy swept through Akira.
“What just happened?” Lucas demanded.
Akira ignored him. “Rose, Rose!” she called out, her smile unforced and grateful. She pushed herself onto her toes and waved at the door. “Rose!”
“At least one ghost made it out,” muttered Zane.
“What happened? How did you break free?” Akira was talking to empty space in front of her as if someone were there. “Did you—but—all right, that doesn’t make any sense.” Akira frowned. “Rose, I’ve seen this before. The vortex should have—what do you mean you’re not really a ghost anymore? That’s . . . oh. Well . . . .” Akira glanced at Sylvie and shrugged. “Sure, that should be all right.”
“What’s happening?” Sylvie’s frustration built. She’d been focused on Akira but even with Lucas present, she couldn’t understand what the other woman was thinking.
“Rose wants you and Lucas to go into the restaurant. She says that Chesney is gone, but that Dillon is stuck and she thinks that if he sees you, he might be able to figure out how to get unstuck.”
Unstuck? Sylvie was so ready for a nice straightforward white light to show up.
“Is it dangerous?” Lucas asked.
“Who cares?” Sylvie responded, grabbing his hand and starting to pull him toward the restaurant door. Other people were going inside and it didn’t matter to her if it were dangerous. She
wanted to know what was happening to their son.
“Not to you,” Akira called after them. “You’ll be fine.”
Chapter Seventeen
The lights were moving around.
When the white light moved away from him, Dillon yelped in protest. He liked that light. He wanted it to stay near. But it was moving toward the iridescent blue that had to be Akira, and he knew that he couldn’t go near her.
He stopped himself from moving after the white light with an effort and tried to think.
The lights were people. He couldn’t talk to them and he couldn’t hear them, but he could see them. He wondered what his light looked like to them, but then he realized that none of them would be able to see him. He’d never been able to see these glowing images when he was alive.
Maybe Mrs. Swanson, the old woman who claimed to see auras, would know what he was looking at. But he couldn’t talk to her to find out what she knew.
He looked around him again. The void was endless. It went on forever. He understood why his gran had despaired because the thought of staying here filled him with horror. But he had an advantage that she hadn’t had; he knew what had happened and he knew that it was possible to escape.
But not by taking over Akira’s body and killing her in the process. He wouldn’t do that, not even if it was the only way out.
Energy.
That had to be the solution.
He’d fallen into this void by overloading on energy. What would happen if he tried to get rid of the energy?
Lights were coming closer, shifting and bobbing around him. Two seemed to pause next to him, one a warm fiery red, the other a golden red. He felt as if he should recognize them, but the colors didn’t mean anything to him.
The white light moved back toward him, too, and Dillon relaxed. The white light soothed and encouraged, its warmth comforting. As long as it was close, he thought he could search for a solution without fear. He wondered who it could be.
The little voice in the back of his head gave a disgruntled harrumph.
