Otherworldly [McKnight, Perth & Daire 1] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Beth D. Carter

Something flashed in his eyes. “Zach’s girlfriend? But she’s married.”

  “I know. I believe they were having an affair.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “It’s a long story. Please, do you know her? Is there any way I can speak to her, just to make sure?”

  “Of course,” Dr. Roozie said. “Come with me. You can sit in my office while I go fetch her.”

  “Thank you.”

  He brought her to his office and she sat in the same chair she did the other day, the only difference was now she had a solid lead on Zach’s girlfriend. Once again she called Jonas, but like before it slipped right into his voice mail.

  She waited impatiently, her legs bouncing from nervous energy. As the minutes ticked by, it took her a moment to realize the temperature in the room began to drop. She shivered as chill bumps rose on her arms, and she absently wondered if someone had cranked up the air condition.

  But then the air shimmered as electricity suddenly buzzed all around, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Her knees stopped jumping as all her senses came alive in sharp focus and Charlotte sat up straight. She knew someone was with her, a ghost, but she hadn’t a clue who.

  Having a pull toward a personal item depended on a few things, namely the size of the item and the emotional connection associated with it. It was those differences that told of an immediate pull into a building versus when an object was brought to her. But the sensation building in Dr. Roozie’s office wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt before. Instead of the cold originating from inside her, the cold actually surrounded her. She could feel icy wisps curling around her, like searching fingers gently touching. It unnerved her. Only one other time had she felt something similar, when she’d been in Alice Braddock-Masters’s home.

  “Zach?” she asked softly, looking around.

  And there, right in front of her, a shape formed. The thick, cold air coalesced, first forming the general outline of a tall body. Charlotte could see the head, the torso, and two individual legs. Her heart started to thump as fear shot through her because seeing him, seeing Zach just appear in front of her, changed everything she thought she knew about communicating with the dead. This wasn’t a vision. This wasn’t something she saw through the safety of her head. And now, seeing an actual ghost in front of her blew all her theories, reasoning, and understanding out of the water.

  Sure, she’d known there were certain people, mediums, who could see the dead, but she’d never met any of them. And technically, she’d never actually seen a spirit. Of course, she never thought she’d be fearful of a ghost, especially since she saw them all the time in visions. But to have one actually in front of her chilled her in ways she never could have imagined.

  The chair clattered back as she abruptly stood, taking a step or two away. Before her eyes, Zach’s body continued to form. His arms, his hands, his feet, and even his clothing. And then his face, the absolute perfection of his features, just as she had seen in photographs. He had that same pale, deathlike appearance from the first time she had met him in that first vision. And just like then, he brought his hand up and held a finger against his mouth, telling her to be quiet.

  Charlotte couldn’t move let alone say anything. All coherent speech had fled from her brain, and all she could do was stare at him with wide eyes.

  Then Zach lowered his hand and looked at Mark Roozie’s desk. She followed his gaze, and before her eyes, the bottom drawer blasted out, smashing into the wall. Zach pointed.

  “Save her,” he mouthed, silently, then abruptly faded away.

  As suddenly as the freezing cold in the room had formed, it left. Charlotte’s teeth chattered as she turned all around, looking for Zach, but he was gone. Slowly, she walked forward until she saw the drawer. The metal hook that actually locked the drawer had been bent, as if a great force had snapped it.

  But it wasn’t the lock that held her attention. It was the pair of black leather Louboutin shoes thrown haphazardly in the back of the drawer that knocked the air out of her lungs.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Her heart thudded heavily in her chest as she stared at the shoes. Never mind the reason they had ended up in his office drawer, her head became a little woozy from breathing so shallowly. And then it hit her. She was standing in the office of a killer. The bland, nondescript doctor was Zach’s murderer and possibly his wife’s murderer as well.

  That thought shook her enough break the frozen spell that had come over her. She had to get out of there. She had to get to Jonas to rescue the doctor’s wife. Quickly, she pulled out her camera and took a picture of the shoes lying in the ripped-out drawer. Then she grabbed them before running out the door. She ignored everyone, tuned out the exclamations as she rushed by. She didn’t stop until she hit her car. With shaking hands, she dug out her keys and slid into her rented sedan, throwing the black shoes onto the seat beside her.

  Charlotte took a deep breath and stared out the windshield, trying to process everything that had just happened. She’d seen her first ghost. She’d found the shoes. She’d found the killer! Zach had been having an affair with his boss’s wife, and the woman was still missing. And pregnant. She groaned and glanced at the shoes. Adrenaline and fear crashed through her.

  She pulled out her cell phone and quickly dialed Jonas. But, like before, it went straight to voice mail. So she dialed 411 to get the precinct’s number. A second later she was put through to Degas’s phone, only to have that go to his voice mail as well. And then she didn’t know what to do. Panic began to set in, and she couldn’t think clearly, which was the excuse she used when she found herself dialing Nash.

  “McKnight,” he answered.

  “It’s me,” she said, and even she could hear the wobbly tone in her voice.

  “Charlotte? What’s wrong?” he asked sharply.

  “I found the killer,” she whispered. “It’s Dr. Roozie. I was in his office. I found the shoes. And…and…I saw Zach. What do I do?”

  “Did you call Daire or Villarosa?”

  “They’re out. I only get voice mails. So I called you.”

  She heard him curse under his breath. “Listen to me, Charlotte, go to the police. Go to their Lieutenant.”

  “But the girl, Nash, the girl is still missing. What if Roozie gets back to his office and sees I took the shoes?”

  “The police will protect you. Tell them what happened.”

  “They’re not going to believe me. What do I tell them? Oh, the spirit of a dead man led me to these shoes, so, ta-da, here’s the murderer?”

  “I’ll call the precinct to bring the lieutenant up to date on what’s going on.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”

  With those words, everything cleared in her mind. She knew that by the time the police move on this, Mark Roozie would go to his house and do what he could to cover up what he did. And to do that, he’d have to get rid of the only witness.

  “Zach held on long enough so I would piece it together,” she said out loud, forgetting that she was on the phone with Nash. “He needs me to save her.”

  “You don’t need to save anyone,” he told her harshly. “Charlotte—”

  “I have to go,” she told him and clicked the line off.

  Charlotte tossed her phone to the passenger seat, and it landed next to the shoes. She started the car, but as she went to pull out, another thought hit her. She put the car in park and picked up her phone to tap out another number.

  A second later, Al answered.

  “It’s me,” she said without preamble. “Listen, I need the home address of Dr. Mark Roozie right now.”

  “Charlotte, what’s going on? You sound frantic.”

  “Please, Al, it’s a matter of life and death.”

  There was silence on the other end, but she could hear him breathing. And just when she thought he wouldn’t help her, she heard keys being struck as he
typed something.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Charlotte lunched for her purse and pulled out some paper and a pen. “Yes,” she said.

  “281 Mariposa,” he told her. “Take Seventh off Main for about two miles and then make a right on Mariposa.”

  “Thanks,” she told him and abruptly hung up. She tossed the phone aside again but this time didn’t pay any attention to it, even when it rang. Something told her it was Nash. She threw the car in drive and hurried out of the parking lot.

  Following the directions, she sped to Mark Roozie’s house. Her entire focus came down to saving the wife. Hell, she didn’t even know the woman’s name. Of course, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure that Dr. Roozie had her there, but if he had murdered her, then Charlotte hoped she’d be able to get some type of pull, letting her know if they were dealing with another homicide. Zach needed her to be strong, and for once in her life she wanted to be the girl who was brave.

  Several minutes later she pulled up the house, a nice brick rancher on a meticulously groomed landscaped lot in an ordinary suburban neighborhood. It looked rather benign, another home that sort of blended in with the others, the type that matched his personality.

  Charlotte got out of her car and looked around, making sure she didn’t see Dr. Roozie suddenly barreling down on her. But the street was nice and quiet. She made her way up the driveway and to the front door, where she touched the exterior. Nothing. She rang the doorbell and then knocked, but still nothing. So she decided to check out the back and walked around the side. A concrete slab with a very nice wooden table and chair set was the only decoration, and she walked up to the sliding glass doors to peek inside. A perfectly bland but clean kitchen and breakfast nook met her gaze. Charlotte knocked on it but again but felt no pull or coldness in the pit of her stomach.

  But she did hear something. A thump. Pulling back, Charlotte looked at the windows to her left. They were a little too high, so she picked up the chair and moved it over to under the first window. Standing on it, she peeked inside but it was a bathroom.

  She got off and moved it to the next window.

  As soon as she looked inside, shock flooded through her. Her eyes met and held the very scared ones of a woman who was chained to a metal hook in the ceiling. The woman’s right hand was encased in a steel bracelet, which was attached to a long chain. It only took Charlotte a minute to assess that the chain was only long enough to reach the essentials like the bed and a chamber pot in the corner. There were some books on a nightstand, but other than that, there wasn’t anything else in the room. Not a dresser, not a television, not a clock, or even clothes. The woman could either sit on the bed or sit on the floor

  “Are you all right?” Charlotte called to her through the window.

  “He’s kept me here like this for weeks!” she called back. Charlotte saw tears streak down her cheeks. “He…he killed a m–man. He killed my Zach.”

  Charlotte nodded. “I know. We’ve been looking for you. Are you all right?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Give me a moment! I’m going to get you out of there!”

  Charlotte jumped down from the chair and looked around. A small garage lay a few feet from the house with a door that had rectangle glass panels on the front. Though totally useless for security reasons, Charlotte thanked her lucky stars that fate was working with her on this. She picked up the chair and swung it, shattering one of the small glass panels near the doorknob. Then she used her shoe to clear the lingering pieces of glass before sticking her hand through the opening and unlocking the door. The first thing that caught her eyes was bolt cutters. She grabbed them and hurried back outside to stare at the back of the house. The deck had sliding glass doors, and from experience of her own house, she knew those doors weren’t as easy to smash as the movies made them out to be. So she opted for the bedroom window. She got the chair again and placed it back under the window.

  She looked back into the window and saw the woman standing too close.

  “Back up,” she yelled. “I’m going to smash the window.”

  The woman retreated as far as she could and even took the blanket off the bed to shield herself. Taking a deep breath, Charlotte grasped the bolt cutters firmly and swung with all her might. The glass shattered, flying wildly. Half expecting an alarm to blare, she was surprised when all remained quiet.

  Now would be a good time for the neighborhood watch to be on duty!

  Charlotte cleared out the lingering shards and then eased herself up and over, tipping into the room headfirst. She fell with a thud, luckily not on the glass shards.

  “Ow! Damn it!” she grumbled.

  “Are you all right?” the woman asked, coming forward as far as her chain would allow.

  “Yes, though I’ll feel loads better when we’re out of here,” Charlotte said as she scrambled to her feet. “Let me see this chain.”

  The bolt cutters were heavy and large, probably twenty-four inches, and the chain easily fit between the jaw. Relief flashed through Charlotte. She hadn’t too much experience with bolt cutters but suspected if the interlocking links had been too large she wouldn’t have the strength to get through them.

  “What’s your name?” she asked the woman.

  “Linsey.”

  “Nice to meet you, Linsey. I’m Charlotte. Now, let’s try to get this chain off. Can you come over here by the dresser?”

  “No, he deliberately moved everything out of my reach.”

  “Okay,” Charlotte said and pulled out a drawer. She dumped it upside down on the bed and then used it to support the cutters. “Let’s align the link. Great. Here goes.”

  It was way easier than she thought it would be. The side of the link snapped under the pressure of the cutter, and Charlotte quickly went to the other side. A second later, Linsey was free.

  Charlotte dropped the bolt cutters and grabbed Linsey’s hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The two women hurried to the front of the house. Charlotte couldn’t help but notice how everything was neat and orderly, with the smell of cleaner lingering in the air. Charlotte clicked open the dead bolt and unlocked the door.

  But as they opened it up, they both saw Dr. Mark Roozie pulling into the driveway.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jonas followed Degas as they walked back to the car. He sucked in a lungful of moist air and let it out slowly.

  “Well, that was a waste of time,” he said, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.

  “We have to check out every lead,” Degas reminded him. “And the lieutenant said you could come along with me.”

  “Yeah, but I have a hunch he agreed because he knew this was always going to be a dead end.”

  Degas didn’t reply, which only made Jonas’s frustration all the more sharp. They got into the car and soon were on their way back to Alecia Falls. The drive had been over an hour into nothing but green forest and while the scenery had been beautiful, Jonas couldn’t help but feel as if he were being placated. Jonas knew that he couldn’t be involved with the investigation. His relationship with Zach made his judgment and emotions too compromising to have clear objectivity. Still, it irked him being on the receiving end of cop bureaucracy.

  “What’s up with you and Charlotte?” Degas asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “She’s staying at your place, right?”

  “Yes. Because of the burglary.”

  “Come on, man. I’m not stupid.”

  Jonas sighed. “She has issues with water, specifically with bathtubs. So I offered her my spare room. No big deal.”

  “In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never allowed a woman to become so intrusive in your life. And even more astonishing is that you just met her. I think you might be in lust.”

  Jonas shrugged. “So what if I am?”

  “Seems awfully out of character for you.”

  “Perhaps you don’t know my private character.
”

  A pause fell between them for a moment.

  “I have to admit…she sort of freaks me out,” Degas said.

  “I know. But she’s been on point with so many things. I mean, we have DNA from the blanket at his place.”

  “No offense, but Zach was a healthy male. I’d have been surprised if there wasn’t DNA on his blankets.”

  “Okay, that’s a given. But she’s just found so much out.”

  “What about the ex-boyfriend HS Agent?” Degas finally asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Is he really an ex?”

  Before Jonas could answer, his phone vibrated in his pocket. By this point, they were only about fifteen minutes from the outskirts of Alecia Falls. He withdrew his phone and saw a Seattle number.

  “Jonas Daire,” he answered.

  “It’s McKnight.”

  Instantly, Jonas felt his body tighten.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Charlotte called me. She couldn’t get ahold of you. She’s in trouble.”

  Jonas’s stomach bottomed out. “How do you know?”

  “When is she not in trouble? Listen, she called me about five minutes ago saying she found Zach’s killer.”

  “Hold on, let me put you on speaker phone.” Jonas pushed the button and held his phone up so he and Degas could both hear. “Go ahead.”

  “She kept saying she found the shoes, that they were in Dr. Roozie’s office. I told her to go to your lieutenant, but I just got off the phone with him and she never showed.”

  “Mark Roozie?” Degas asked, stunned.

  “Yes. I did some digging into his background. It wasn’t easy, but I found out he had some trouble in his early twenties, had a psychotic breakdown while in med school. He had a girlfriend he became fixated on and when she tried to break up with him, he went slightly crazy, tying her up in his dorm room for three days before his roommate showed up and freed her.”

  “Wouldn’t he have been kicked out of school for criminal charges?” Degas asked.

  “For some reason, the girl never filed them. She dropped out of school. This incident was written in a campus report as only a prank.”