by Belle Aurora
Edna nodded, waving her scanner along the counter. “It’s commonly accepted that spirits are the cause of the unexplainable EMF readings. Don’t you have the internet, Mr. Finney?” She squinted at the readout. “I’m getting really low levels as well. I have to agree with Madame Zia—there is a definite spiritual presence here.”
Finn turned to Officer McCarthy. “Well, there you have it. I guess we don’t really need you after all. These two have cracked the case with their Inspector Gadget gizmos and they’ve confirmed that Casper the friendly ghost is the culprit. You might have a little trouble getting the handcuffs on him, though.”
Jake and Mac chuckled, but Edna put a hand on her hip and gave him a steely stare. “You can joke all you want, but we don’t know if this Casper is friendly or evil, so I wouldn’t go spouting too much sarcasm. Madame Zia is a renowned psychic, and if she says she feels evil, I trust her.”
“Thank you, Edna.” Zia turned to Mac. “Have there been any missing persons cases recently, or any suspicious calls to 911? I think someone was murdered here last night. Maybe someone called in reports of a gunshot or something.”
“Not that I’m aware of. But I don’t see any evidence to suggest murder.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll just take a quick look around, and then I need to head back in. I’ll ask around and let you know if I hear anything, and be sure to call me if anything else happens.”
“Don’t worry, we will,” Edna said. “I’ve got your number programmed into my phone.”
Mac raised an eyebrow. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.”
Edna absently waved him away. She stood at the bookshelves, opening jars and bottles and peering in or sniffing their contents. “Do you have any dragon tears or eye of newt? Every time I google spells or magical recipes, they always ask for animal blood, eye of newt, or the tears of a dragon. Just who is making all these dragons cry? And what the heck is a newt? And how many poor blind newts are stumbling around in the darkness because their eyes are an essential ingredient in almost every magical spell?”
***
Finn spent the afternoon cleaning his office and putting his files back together. He’d ordered a pizza in for delivery and had considered taking a slice over to Zia as a goodwill gesture, but reconsidered at the last minute. She probably didn’t even eat pizza. From what he’d learned of her today, she was probably a vegan and only drank purified water from a natural spring in the Himalayas. He couldn’t imagine her desecrating her body by guzzling greasy cheese and spicy pepperoni.
Oh great. Now he was thinking of her body again. He’d been shocked when he’d walked into her office earlier and saw her without the robe. The snug top and short skirt filled in all the blanks that his imagination had been guessing about. And they were great blanks. Slender waist, curvy hips, toned legs, and breasts the perfect size to fit in the palms of his hands.
His hands twitched as he imagined filling them with the heavy weight of her breasts and sliding his fingers across the pale crests that peeked from the top of her blouse. He envisioned pulling her to him and crushing those perfect red lips with his while his hands explored every curve and swell of her body.
Hmmm. He was getting a swell of his own just thinking about it. What was going on? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had afternoon wood just by daydreaming about a dame. Why was he letting this crazy chick with her ghost gadgets and spiritual nonsense get into his head? Maybe she had put a spell on him.
He checked his watch and was surprised to see it was already past five. He should just go home, take a shower (a cold one), then put his feet up, find a game on the tube, and forget about this woman with the long hair and the weird notions.
Yeah, that was what he should do. But maybe first he would just check in on her real quick. Make sure she hadn’t had any other trouble. In fact, he’d had an odd client stop by that afternoon and he wanted to mention it to her. She’d probably already gone home for the day anyway.
It couldn’t hurt just to check.
***
Zia had her back to the door, but she knew instantly who had just walked through it. Not through any psychic abilities but because she could smell his aftershave. She inhaled the scent, a deep, musky smell that seemed to wrap around her and reach into her soul.
She must be tired. Plenty of men wore great-smelling aftershave. And they weren’t close-minded jerks who were too full of themselves and their own ideas to explore new realms of possibilities. But she’d never had another man’s scent connect so deeply to her, and she wondered if their animal counterparts were somehow similar—that would account for the craving she suddenly had to mate with this man.
Mate with him? Ugh! Where did that come from? She needed to be calm and act cool right now. She sent up a silent request to the Earth Mother for patience and wisdom as she turned to Finn.
He looked tired too. He stood in the doorway, not quite in the room, as if waiting to be invited in. A lock of his sandy brown hair fell across his forehead, and she had the urge to reach up and brush it from his face. “Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Finney?”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Sorry. Finn.” She crossed the room and gestured for him to come in then closed the door. She’d taken her shoes off, so he stood a good several inches above her. She looked up at him. The colors of his aura swirled around his head, and she itched to take his hand and check out the lines on his palms.
Okay, she really just wanted to hold his hand, but reading his palm was a good excuse. “Was there something you needed?” Like a night of hot sex with a barefoot psychic? Oh gosh, what was wrong with her? She needed to get a grip and quit thinking about mating with this guy. Maybe her aura was off.
“I’m getting ready to head out for the night and just thought I’d check on you. Make sure you were all right. Not spooked by the break-in.”
Aww. He was worried about her. That was nice, in a Neanderthal kind of way. Like she couldn’t take care of herself. “On the contrary, I’m not spooked at all. In fact, I’m quite intrigued by the whole thing.”
He shook his head. “Who says ‘on the contrary’?”
This time she raised an eyebrow at him. “Was there something else or did you just stop in to insult my vocabulary?”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. I just can’t figure you out. In my line of work, I have to get a feel for someone quickly, and I’m usually pretty dead-on with first impressions. But I can’t seem to get a read on you. You’re an enigma.” He grinned. “See, I can also use a fancy word to when I need to.”
Why did this man infuriate and amuse her at the same time? “I am a woman, Finn. You were not meant to figure us out. Besides, even if we came with instruction manuals, men never read the instructions anyway.”
He laughed. A soft chuckle that went all the way to his eyes. He did have great eyes. Brown with flecks of gold. If someone asked her to describe Jerry Finney in one word, it would have to be “average.” He was of average height and build. His face was average and he tended to blend in with the people in the room.
But it was when she got in close that she realized he wasn’t average at all. His eyes were intelligent and sparked with amusement. He hid great muscles under boring Oxford shirts and had a gun holster strapped on under his tweed jacket. Tweed jackets were the poster children for boring and stuffy. Maybe blending in was just part of his job, a way for him to observe and not be noticed. Maybe he wasn’t as dull as she’d thought.
“Well, I was just getting ready to head home and catch a game on TV, and wanted to check on you.”
Nope. She’d been right. Totally dull. “Thanks. I’m fine.”
He stood awkwardly by the door as if he didn’t quite want to leave, but didn’t have a reason to stay. “I did want to tell you that I had an odd client come in today. A gal named Phyllis stopped in and wanted me to look for her missing husband. She filed a missing-persons report but since he’s only been gone since y
esterday, she doesn’t think the police took it very seriously. But she’s sure he’s gone. She claims they’ve been married forty years and he’s never missed dinner. Until last night.”
“She stopped in here too. Phyllis is one of my regular clients; she comes in every Friday. She’s a sweet lady but she was really upset today. She told me she thought her husband had gotten himself into some kind of trouble. She wouldn’t tell me everything, but I know it had something to do with some jewels, and I kept feeling diamonds around her. I was going to come over and tell you about it, but I know you think this is a bunch of nonsense.”
“You still should have told me. I don’t believe in coincidences, so if she came to see both of us, maybe this is connected to what happened last night. You were asking that cop earlier about any recent missing-persons cases.” He rubbed his jaw, and she could tell he was thinking through each possibility. She could almost see the puzzle pieces of thought clicking into place. “Diamonds, you said? I was just reading an article about a jewelry heist that happened a couple of days ago. Maybe this is connected.”
“I saw that too.”
He looked at her quizzically.
“Like I saw it in the paper, you dope. Not I ‘saw’ it in the future.”
“Sorry. I don’t know how all this works. I’m really not trying to be an ass. I just have a hard time believing in any of this mumbo-jumbo.”
She gave him a wry look. “No, really, calling my profession ‘mumbo-jumbo’ is not being an ass at all.”
He grinned. “You’re right. I apologize. My mind is just too analytical. I look at facts and evidence. And I’ve seen too much fraud and deceit. It’s hard for me to accept any of this.” He gestured around the room.
Reaching for his hand, she looked up at him. Touching him sent a little thrill all the way up her spine, but she ignored it in an effort to convey the sincerity of her thoughts. “Haven’t you ever lost someone? Someone close to you?”
She watched his eyes soften as he swallowed, and thought she might have a glimmer of a chance to make him understand. “If there was a way to connect with them, even in a small way, wouldn’t you want to try? I believe that there is. Not always, but sometimes. I believe that there’s a whole other spirit realm that exists, and in certain circumstances our realms can connect and we can glimpse the other side. But the first step is believing that it’s there and reaching out to connect to it.”
Still holding his hand, she felt the pulse in his wrist speed up. Was it because of how close she stood, or were her words really getting to him? He leaned slightly forward, and her breath caught as she wondered if he might kiss her. Afraid to move, even to breathe, she looked up at him from under dark eyelashes, willing him to lean closer still.
A glass bowl fell off the counter, smashing to the ground, causing her to jump and let out a little shriek of alarm. She turned to see the cat streaking off the counter, her tail most likely the culprit of the smashed bowl. She laughed, but the moment was lost.
“I appreciate what you’re saying, Zia, but too many times there’s a logical explanation for things that people claim are illogical.” He stooped to pick up the pieces of glass. “Like your cat’s tail knocking this off.”
“That’s why I’m staying here tonight. I feel like something more is going on and our culprit might return. I’m setting up the video camera and plan to wait here all night.”
“Like a stakeout? Now you’re talking my language.”
“Would you care to join me?”
“Okay. But have you ever done a stakeout? Usually you hang around for hours, bored out of your mind, and the only time anything happens is when you grab a thirty-second break to take a piss.”
She grinned. “Then it will be good to have a stakeout partner. We can keep each other from getting bored and can serve as lookout in case one of us needs to…er…piss, I guess.”
He chuckled, and the sound of his laughter gave her a little tingly feeling. Why did she suddenly feel like a schoolgirl who’d just agreed to sneak out to spend the night with her crush?
“Since you’re the expert, what would you suggest we bring to this stakeout party? I’ve got the video camera, and I was going to run home to grab some snacks and change into something more comfortable.”
“I can’t believe you would use ‘stakeout’ and ‘party’ in the same sentence. There is nothing festive about them. But yeah, I would wear something comfortable, and I guess you can bring some food if you want. My stakeout fare usually consists of a thermos of coffee and a bag of sunflower seeds.”
She checked her watch. “Okay, I’ll run home now. Let’s meet back here at eight. We can set up the surveillance equipment then.” She rubbed her hands together in delight. “Let’s catch ourselves a ghost.”
Chapter Four
Finn knocked on Zia’s office door. He carried a green thermos of coffee and had a lunch-size cooler and a backpack full of surveillance equipment slung across his shoulder. He wouldn’t trust anything she captured on some crazy gear she bought off the internet. In fact, he wasn’t going to believe that anything supernatural was going on until he saw it with his own two eyes.
Eyes that bugged out now as Zia opened the door. She’d changed clothes and wore a snug black t-shirt and skintight black jeans tucked into black knee-high boots.
Her outfit hugged every curve of her body, and he found himself speechless, his mouth dry as his mind raced with thoughts of holding that body against him. Against him, under him. Hell, over him would be good too.
He cleared his throat. “Nice outfit. I thought you were going for something more comfortable, like those yoga pant deals. You look like you’re getting ready to rob a bank.” Smooth move, Ex-lax. Way to win her over. Women love it when you make fun of their outfit choices.
She grinned, apparently unfazed by his mocking. “Too much? It’s my first stakeout and I just wanted to be prepared. I always go overboard. Sorry.” She wrinkled her nose and gave a nervous little giggle.
“It’s okay. You look…fine…er…I mean great. You look great.” Could he be any more of a dork? He cleared his throat. Back to business. “Where do you want me to set up?”
“Oh, I thought if we put the camera by the register then we could wait behind the counter so we’d be hidden if someone came in through the front door.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Do ghosts usually come in through the front door?”
“No, but I’m trying to keep my mind open to all possibilities. Like I hope you’re doing. Whatever is happening, I want to be prepared for anything.”
As annoying as he found her kooky fortune-telling nonsense, he found that the more he was around her, the more he liked her. She always seemed to look at things in a positive light, and he hadn’t heard her complain yet. Even when her office had been trashed and her things had been destroyed, she seemed unfazed. Most of the women he’d dated spent half the night complaining about everything from their weight to the high price of cosmetics. Like he gave two hoots about the cost of mascara.
But Zia was different than anyone he’d ever met before, and he found himself drawn to her. Not just her curves, but her smile and her easygoing manner. She was fun to be around, but he didn’t think he could get past her weird ideas and crazy notions. She’d flat out told him she was a witch. What was he supposed to do with that?
He held up the thermos as he walked across the room and dropped the cooler and his backpack. “I grabbed some of my equipment and some food. And I brought coffee.”
“Oh, me too.” She pointed at the drink carrier on the counter holding two carryout cups from a fancy coffee joint. “I brought us some pumpkin spice lattes. And I had them put in extra shots of espresso.”
“Pumpkin spice what?”
She laughed and handed him a cup. “Pumpkin spice lattes. Don’t you ever get out? People line up for these when they come back every fall.”
“No people that I know.”
“Just try it.”
He gingerly took a sip. Just to prove he could be open-minded too. It was warm and cinnamony, with a little kick. He shrugged. “Not bad. Kinda good, even. It tastes like Thanksgiving in a cup.”
She grinned. “Exactly. See what you can discover when you try new things?”
Hmmm. Why was he imagining her as one of the new things he’d like to discover? Like one of the New World explorers, he could envision scaling her peaks and surveying her valleys. Just like Magellan, he could start an expedition across her unexplored territory.
She eyed him curiously and with a tiny gleam in her eye, as if she could actually read his mind. He was in big trouble if she could. He was afraid his man’s mind would be disappointing and fairly predictable, considering his thoughts usually tended to the topics of sex, food, and work, or some combination of the three, like “what should he eat for lunch at work and when did he think he would be having sex again?”
He set up his equipment, and she grabbed some throw pillows and blankets and made them a little nest on the floor behind the counter. He gingerly sat on a blue pillow and leaned his back against the wall. “This is the most comfortable stakeout I’ve ever been on. I’ve never brought a pillow before. Wouldn’t want to fall asleep.”
“I figured since there were two of us, we could take turns sleeping while the other kept a lookout.” She locked the door and turned out the lights. A soft glow filled the room from the display lights under the counter, and she plopped onto the floor next to his outstretched legs.
Yeah, right. Like he was going to fall asleep with her sitting this close to him, the smell of her perfume filling his every sense. “Do you really think we’re going to see something?”
She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. I know we are. I can feel the upheaval and terror in this room. I know something evil happened here, and I just know whatever’s happening is not finished.”
