Always Look Twice

by Sheri WhiteFeather

  Why was she on the freeway? She lived in a loft downtown, just minutes from the police station.

  Suddenly her vehicle chose its own path, forcing her to fight the wheel.

  Battling the entity inside her car, she screamed at it, warning it to leave her alone. Sounds from the road sliced past her ears, fast, furious, overwhelming.

  Her tires hugged the lane, spinning like black holes in space. But when she saw the Highland exit, she knew.

  She understood.

  A ghost, a wanagi in her father’s language, was taking her to him. Not to his grave, but to the motel where he’d blown out his brains.

  “All right,” she whispered. “I’ll go there.” The wheel on the Porsche was no longer locked, but her destination had been forged just the same.

  She drove to the motel, a place she’d been avoiding for years. Aside from a fresh coat of paint, it looked the same, an attractive building on a side street off Sunset Boulevard, with yellow trim and a swimming pool surrounded by empty lounge chairs.

  She parked in front of Room 112 and stared at the heavy beige drapes in the window.

  Now what? she asked herself. What difference did this make? She’d been having visions about her dad since the night he’d killed himself.

  She’d seen it happen before he’d pulled the trigger.

  But her mad rush to save him had failed, even with Detective Muncy’s help. They’d called a list of motels in the Hollywood area, working in alphabetical order, checking registries, trying to pinpoint the location in her vision.

  Olivia stared at the drapes again. The Z-Sleep Inn had been the last place on their list, a motel they’d never gotten the chance to call.

  Instead, another guest had heard the shot and reported it to the front desk.

  In the end Joseph Whirlwind had been found, alone on the bed, blood gushing out of his nose and mouth, the back of his head splattered on the wall behind him, chips of his skull imbedded in the plaster.

  A biohazard removal company had cleaned up the mess, but no one could erase the recurring vision from her mind.

  She looked up at the sky, knowing it was going to happen. Unable to stop it, she waited, her heart pounding with anxiety, with memories tangling like vines.

  Then suddenly the familiar image sluiced through her brain, as vivid as a horror film bursting with surround sound.

  She could hear her father’s erratic breathing. He paced the room, passing the unmade bed. The quilt was a pleasant shade of blue, mottled with a green-and-yellow design. Joseph wanted to shred it.

  Edgy, he glanced at the .44 Magnum on the nightstand. It was an old gun, a weapon he’d had since the seventies. Dirty Harry style, he thought, wishing he’d had a career like Clint Eastwood.

  But Joseph was Lakota, an actor who refused to play parts that stereotyped his people. His agent kept telling him to get over it, to take whatever work he could find.

  Joseph shook his head. He had pride. And honor.

  He picked up the note he’d written to his daughters, studying it one more time. He’d tried to word it simply, to refrain from the drama that had destroyed his life.

  Steeped in emotion, he tucked it into an envelope, holding it, ever so briefly, against his heart. His girls were adults now, young women old enough to take care of themselves. He wasn’t abandoning them. He was freeing them from the depression that swallowed his soul. Besides, he told himself, he was already dead. He’d ceased to exist on the day his wife had left him for another man.

  When he climbed onto the bed and reached for the pistol, Olivia’s heart went weak.

  Don’t do it, Daddy.

  She opened her eyes, but the image wouldn’t go away. She wanted to hate her mother. Except, it was her father placing the gun barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

  The high-powered blast reverberated in her ears, killing Joseph Whirlwind instantly.

  She waited for his spirit to leave his body, praying he would find peace. Yet there was nothing but the aftermath of his suicide haunting the room.

  Olivia went straight home, anxious to see her sister. She found Allie in the kitchen, humming to a Beatles song on an oldies radio station. The kitchen, like the rest of the loft, was decorated in Allie’s eclectic style, with thrift-store treasures and shabby-chic collectables.

  Allie was a full-time artist and a part-time art teacher at a senior citizen’s community center. She had a way with elders. With kids and animals, too. She spoiled a black cat, a stray she’d named Samantha that hissed at everyone but her.

  Olivia stood back, watching her younger sibling. Although they were only a year apart, eighteen and nineteen when their dad had died, she’d always been protective of Allie.

  And for good reason. Most of the time, Olivia’s sister floated through life, ignoring her surroundings. At the moment she wasn’t paying attention to anything except the health-food groceries she was arranging in a walk-in pantry.

  “What if I was the Slasher?” Olivia said.

  “What?” Allie spun around, her waist-length hair whipping across her body. She wore an ensemble of Southwestern-style clothes, gauzy fabrics decorated with turquoise jewelry she’d bought at a pawnshop.

  “You didn’t even hear me come in,” Olivia told her. “I could have been the killer.”

  “The door was locked. You have a key.” Allie stacked several cans of vegetarian chili on an already crowded shelf.

  “That’s not the point. You’re oblivious.”

  “I have street smarts.” The younger woman gestured to a nearby window, where designers, retailers, manufacturers and apparel marts converged in the Fashion District. “Look where we live.”

  Olivia shook her head. Their loft was located above a trendy little shoe store and a gourmet coffee bar that baked fresh muffins throughout the day. Even now, the aroma of banana-nut bread wafted through the air, along with the scented candles Allie routinely burned. She existed in a dream world, right along with the fantasy creatures she painted.

  “I’m going to teach you to shoot.”

  Her sister’s dark skin paled. “No. Not after what Dad did.”

  “You need to learn to protect yourself.”

  “Not like that.” When Allie cocked her hip, the shiny belt cinched at her waist made her look leaner than she already was. She was tall and graceful, stunningly lithe. Their mother had been a dancer when she was young. Olivia and her sister had inherited Yvonne Whirlwind’s long shapely lines. Of course Olivia had inherited more than that.

  Their mom was psychic, too.

  The woman who’d walked out on them, she thought. The woman who’d purposely disappeared.

  “It’s bad enough that I have to put up with your arsenal,” Allie said. “Most girls collect pretty trinkets. But no, not my sister. She collects weapons.”

  Enough of this, Olivia thought. “A wanagi was in my car today.”

  Allie’s skin went pale again. A sun catcher in the window bathed her clothes in a prism of dusk, giving her a gypsy-in-the-mist quality. “What did it want?”

  “It led me to the motel.”

  The younger woman hugged herself. Then she walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, where the massive loft nearly swallowed her whole. The walls were covered with a mural she’d painted, with unicorns and fairies and an armor-clad knight slaying a winged dragon.

  Olivia followed her. “Don’t shut me out, Allie.”

  “I’m not.” She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. “Sometimes ghosts bring messages. Dad used to say that.”

  “I know. But I’m not sure what this wanagi was trying to say.”

  “Maybe we should leave some food out for it, the way our ancestors used to do. If we don’t, we might offend it.”

  Olivia thought about the vegetarian chili Allie had packed in the pantry. “I don’t think it would like that healthy crap you eat.”

  They looked at each other and laughed, breaking the tension. To the Lakota, ghosts were wakan, hard to un
derstand. Sometimes they haunted people, twisting their mouths and eyes. And sometimes they whistled outside someone’s home. Olivia’s ghost had done neither.

  “Maybe it just wanted me to confront the motel,” she said. “To quit avoiding it.”

  Allie sank onto a velvet sofa laden with embroidered pillows, a fat white candle flickering on the wrought-iron table beside her. Shadows swirled on the walls, making her mural come to life. “Maybe the wanagi was Dad.”

  The room nearly tilted. Olivia hadn’t considered that possibility. She glanced at the gun cabinet in the corner. She still had the .44 Magnum he’d used. “Why would he make me go there?”

  “To stop those visions you keep having of him,” her sister said.

  “If that was his intention, it didn’t work.”

  They sat quietly for a moment, lost in thought. The banana bread aroma was gone, but vanilla-scented wax filled the air, like a milkshake melting over a flame.

  “Who do you think is staying in that room?” Allie asked.

  Olivia recalled the heavy beige drapes in the motel window. “I don’t know. Lots of people have stayed there.”

  “But who’s there now? Who was the ghost trying to make you aware of?”

  Olivia’s heartbeat blasted her chest. And suddenly she knew.

  Ian West.

  The special agent with the glowing eyes.

  Chapter 2

  Olivia parked her Porsche around the corner and entered the office of the Z-Sleep Inn, where the woman behind the counter gave her an empty smile.

  Good, she thought, the clerk’s mind was on something else, and preoccupied people were easy to fool.

  Olivia had covered her jumpsuit with a long black sweater, a bulky cardigan that toned down her look. But that was part of her ploy.

  “May I help you?” the other woman asked.

  “Yes. My husband is checked into Room 112. His name is Ian West.”

  The clerk merely nodded. She was a color-treated blonde with wire-rimmed glasses, an averagely attractive girl in her midtwenties whose name tag identified her as Carla.

  When Olivia’s sixth sense kicked into gear, she realized Carla was new to the area. That she was trying to sell a screenplay.

  That was even better.

  Olivia opened her sweater, exposing the skintight jumpsuit. “I flew in to surprise Ian. He’s here on a business trip.” Next she adjusted the bondage belt around her hips, flashing an I’m-going-to-handcuff-my-husband-to-the-headboard smile.

  Carla’s eyes grew wide, but she didn’t overreact. This was Hollywood, after all. And she was trying to fit in.

  “I need the key to his room,” Olivia said.

  “Oh, oh…of course.” The clerk took a moment to do her job, fiddling with her computer, making sure Ian West was registered to Room 112.

  Bingo. Olivia saw the recognition on the other woman’s face. She secured the key and thanked Carla, leaving the blonde staring after her.

  Agent West was still at the police station, where he intended to remain for a while. That much Olivia could feel.

  With a deep breath, she entered the room, closing the door behind her. When it clicked into place, her pulse jumped to her throat.

  The decor had changed. The Z-Sleep Inn had updated their color scheme, using light woods and maroon accents. It didn’t look like the place where her dad had taken his life.

  But it was.

  Olivia went to work, trying to get a reading on West, hoping to uncover something that revealed more about him. He was annoyingly tidy, making her job more difficult. He would notice if she left something out of place. His belongings were carefully unpacked, his underwear and T-shirts tucked neatly into a dresser that doubled as an entertainment center.

  She went through the drawers, searching for witchcraft tools, possibly a vile of blood, a black candle or a bundle of dried herbs.

  Nothing, she thought, as she restacked a handful of printed boxers. Strange, but she’d pegged him for a white-briefs kind of guy. Yet there wasn’t a pair of bun-huggers in sight.

  She paused, glanced around, then poked through West’s toiletries on the vanity counter outside the bathroom. He used disposable razors and a generic brand of shaving cream. His designer cologne was a bit more costly. She removed the cap and sniffed. Nothing suspicious there. It actually smelled pretty good.

  So what was the deal? Olivia frowned, wondering why West was staying in her father’s old room. There had to be a mystical reason, something the special agent was hiding.

  Finally she opened the closet. He favored dark suits, pale shirts and narrow ties. Apparently, the only shoes he’d brought were Western boots.

  Stupid urban cowboy.

  She checked the pockets of his suits, digging around for magic stones. Onyx, jet or a sturdy hunk of geode. Geode, a mysterious rock formation with a hollow cavity, promoted psychic ability, something West coveted.

  His pockets were empty, not even a piece of lint. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all. He hadn’t left behind one shred of witchlike evidence.

  Olivia closed the closet door and turned to look at the bed. Should she try to invoke the wanagi to help her? She knew that calling upon a ghost was a dangerous game.

  Was the entity her dad? Was he trying to warn her about West? Or had West conjured the ghost? Was it part of his magic?

  Suddenly she heard a vehicle.

  Damn it.

  She knew it was West’s rental car. She could feel his energy connected to it. The son of a bitch had tricked her. He’d left the station earlier than he’d originally planned.

  There was no escape. Motel rooms weren’t equipped with back doors. Olivia darted into the bathroom, which wasn’t much bigger than a photo booth. She glanced at the commode. The seat was up.

  Because flushing herself down the toilet wasn’t an option, she drew her gun and hid behind the door, leaving it slightly ajar, the way it had been before.

  She sure as hell hoped that West didn’t need to use the bathroom. Or he wasn’t hankering for a shower.

  With any luck, the special agent would dump his briefcase, change into some casual clothes and head back out to grab a cheap meal. She doubted the FBI had given him a luxurious per diem.

  Olivia heard him enter the motel room: the click of the door, the dead bolt sliding into place. She waited, listening to his footsteps.

  Then she cursed. Something was wrong.

  There was no time to ground out another expletive. He’d stopped breathing, stopped moving. She could feel his pulse, feel him reaching for his gun. Damn him all to hell.

  He knew someone was in his room.

  Olivia didn’t have a choice. At this point, catching him off guard was her best defense. She waited, listening to him scan the room. And just when he focused on the closet, she swung open the bathroom door, taking aim.

  He was just as fast. Within a heartbeat, his gun was pointed at her, too.

  They faced off, an even match.

  “I smelled your perfume the minute I came in,” he said. “I suspected it was you.”

  What was he? A wolf? Her fragrance wasn’t that strong. “Holster that thing, West.”

  “You first.”

  She didn’t budge. “What compelled you to stay here?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This motel. This room. One-twelve.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” And his gun was still pointed at her chest.

  She blinked, but she didn’t stumble. A vision flashed across her mind. West was in her loft, kissing her, pushing his tongue into her mouth. And she was kissing him back, putting her hands all over him, dragging him to her bedroom.

  No, she thought. No.

  Olivia steeled her emotions, tempted to aim the Glock at his fly. “I asked you about this room.”

  “Humor me.” He watched her. Aware, it seemed, that she’d nearly lost her composure. “Give me a clue. Tell me why this motel matters.”


  “My father committed suicide here.”

  “Christ.” His gaze shifted, but only for a moment. “In this room? I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  He seemed sincere, but she wasn’t going to back off. Not until she found a way to frisk him, to check his pockets for magic stones, to search for an amulet around his neck, something, anything that could be used against her.

  “When?” he asked. “When did it happen?”

  “Ten years ago.”

  “How he’d do it?”

  “A .44 Magnum.”

  “Christ,” he said again, only this time he sounded as if he were praying. “Can we put these away now? Or are we going to keep this up all night?”

  “Fine.” She agreed to holster her weapon at the same time as him, waiting for another chance to strike.

  She stepped out of the bathroom, inching closer to him. He remained where he was, studying her through those bone-chilling eyes. They weren’t glowing, but they looked right through her, nearly penetrating her soul.

  “Who told you I was staying here?” he asked. “Muncy? Riggs?”

  A blast of betrayal gripped her hard and quick. “They knew?”

  “They could have found out, I guess. I gave the lieutenant the name and number of this place. Right before I left the station tonight.”

  Which meant Muncy and Riggs didn’t know. “Casper warned me that you were here.”

  “Who?”

  “The friendly ghost.”

  West frowned. His tie was loose, and a strand of his hair fell across his forehead. His features were taut, strong and serious. She wondered if his wife had left him for another man.

  He blew out a rough breath. “My grandfather says that when you pass a graveyard, you should chew a little ginseng, then spit it out on each side of your mouth, four times each way.”

  “That drives away the ghosts?”

  “He thinks so. He never said anything about motel rooms, though.”

  “Your grandfather is a superstitious man.”

  “A lot of Indians are.”

  Olivia could see West’s profile in the vanity mirror. For all she knew, his grandfather was a witch. “I heard about an ancient Creek belief. Supposedly they wouldn’t allow their children to congregate where old people were conversing because the elders might bewitch them. Is that true?”