by JL Bryan
If I told him up front that we’d located his neighbors’ stolen property, though, he’d surely insist on recovering it right away.
I only had one option—bluff and bluff some more.
“Call the police all you want,” I said. “There’s nothing in that house right now. You’ll just look foolish if you did it tonight. But if you waited until...” I shook my head and turned back toward the van. “Come on, Stacey.”
“Wait!” He held up one hand, palm out, with the authority of an experienced crossing guard. “What’s going to happen?”
“Don’t tell him,” I said to Stacey, as if she were about to speak. “He’ll blow the operation.”
“What operation?” Nobson looked from me to her, bewildered. Then he folded his arms and drew himself up a little. “You’ll have to coordinate your activities with the neighborhood watch going forward.”
I glared back at him, just to hint at how mean I could get if he really wanted to push me. Then I sighed and slumped my shoulders, as though the weight of his authority had defeated me.
“Fine,” I said, “We’ll coordinate with you. But anything we say needs to be kept in strict confidence. Top secret.”
“Of course.” He nodded as if we were now on the same wavelength.
“We broke their code,” I said. “The walls in there are covered with markings—you can see them through the window. We think they use it as a rendezvous point before and after their burglaries, and a drop-off and pick-up point for stolen goods. Not just from your community, but all over town.”
Nobson’s eyes widened and he nodded, gaping a little as he took in the wider conspiracy I had invented.
“The markings are one way they communicate,” I said. “Pretty smart, if you think about it. There’s no cell phones, no way to listen in at a distance. We’ve determined the date of their next robbery and their next drop-off and pick-up.”
“When?” Nobson was just about salivating for the information.
“That’s classified,” I said.
Nobson frowned at me and huffed impatiently. Behind him, Stacey was fighting to keep a serious look on her face.
“I thought we were coordinating,” he said. “This is a joint operation now. We need to share intel.”
“We operate on strict compartmentalization,” I said. “I can tell you that it will be within the next month, and we will bring you in for the planning phase three days in advance. That should be more than enough time.”
“Okay.” Nobson seemed to accept this, probably realizing that meant nothing was going to happen anytime soon. “Three days should be plenty. We’ll need to coordinate with local authorities. The police are familiar with me from neighborhood watch business.”
I bet you call them twice a week. “That can be your department, as soon as we give the go-ahead,” I said.
“If I had a better idea of when it was all going to happen...” he said.
I shook my head. “I’d need clearance from my boss to give out that information.”
“Understood.” Nobson nodded sagely, really buying into this cloak-and-dagger stuff. I hoped it would keep him at bay long enough to wrap up the case.
“It’s good to have another security professional in this field with us.” I held out my hand, and he looked surprised for a moment before shaking it. He turned and shook Stacey’s hand, too.
“Glad to be of service,” he said.
“We’re actually done for the night. So...you know.” I nodded at the golf cart.
“I’ll disassemble the roadblock,” he said. “I appreciate you briefing me on the situation.”
We returned to the van—I was ready to drive now—and Stacey gaped at me from the passenger seat while we waited for him to load up his cones and move out. Each orange traffic cone had a yellow stripe down the front, with NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH USE ONLY printed sideways in bold type.
“What was all that?” Stacey laughed. “You really pulled some rabbits out of your hat there.”
“I just hope it keeps him at bay long enough for us to close the case,” I said.
“But to be clear, he’s not going to actually be involved with anything, right?”
“Of course not,” I said. “Unless he sticks his nose in again.”
“Doesn’t sound like something he’d do at all.” Stacey shook her head.
After taking another long look around, Nobson finally puttered away in his golf cart. I grimaced as I followed behind him, until we reached the roundabout encircling the park and I could pull around him.
“How’s the trap at our clients’ house looking?” I asked.
“I’ll check.” Stacey unhooked her seatbelt and climbed into the back with the monitors.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nothing had disturbed the trap yet, unfortunately. It would have been handy to come back and find the banshee all bottled up and ready to go, but my luck rarely turns that way.
I settled down in the basement to wait for her, watching the candles flicker in the ghost trap.
Sophia never arrived, though, and neither did any other ghost. They tend to do that. Just when you’re actually prepared for them to show up, ready to trap the ghost and finalize the case, they decide to go on vacation. I’m not sure where the dead take their vacations. Cape Fear, maybe. Or the Dead Sea. I’ll be here all evening, folks, tip your waitresses.
After sunrise, Stacey and I stopped for breakfast at Henry’s on Drayton Street. Even though it was not really on the way between the client and the office, the place has an amazing breakfast selection. It’s a buffet but it’s not gross. I filled on up fresh fruit. Okay, and bacon. I was almost positive bacon would somehow help me heal from my injuries, which included an attractive purple bloom on my face, a scratch over my eyes, and a swollen lip. I was getting a lot of glances from other patrons.
“How bad do I look right now?” I whispered to Stacey. I should have taken more time to clean up before going out in public.
“Uh...on a scale from month-old zombie to mummified Egyptian corpse?” she asked.
“That’s what I thought.”
I finished breakfast as quickly as I could. We shut the van away inside the garage door at the office, then split up and went home.
I slept a little, but I was restless, turning all the loose pieces of the case around in my head. I kept seeing flashes of the ghosts behind my eyes. The ice-cold eyes of Sophia, the banshee who’d fed on me. McCoyle, the ruins of his face hidden behind cloth. Sleep would just bring nightmares.
Eventually, I gave up and drove back to the office, thinking I’d look again through the information we had and review more of the video footage. I was tired but keyed up at the same time. Maybe some work would knock me down to just tired. There was an old couch in the workshop for naps. Anytime you get a job where there’s a nap couch at the office, hold onto it for dear life, that’s what I say.
A black Acura sat by the front door, parked slantwise the way police do, taking up multiple spots but enabling a fast getaway.
My pulse quickened. The sight of the car, knowing Calvin was alone in there, filled me with as much dread as the dark, empty eyes of the ghost I’d seen the night before.
Panic filled in the details for me. Maybe they’d been casing us for a robbery, but we didn’t have too much to steal beyond obscure and specialized ghost-hunting equipment. A few video cameras didn’t seem worth the effort. The only other thing we had was a giant safe full of potentially cursed items from past cases, plus a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cash...
They knew about the money. Maybe they’d known about it the whole time, or maybe they’d been spying on us for other reasons and seen us with the cash.
Now Calvin was the only thing between them and a small fortune.
If they’d taken over the place, they’d probably be watching the front door, so I pressed the accelerator and shot around back to the loading docks. I reminded myself to slow down and come to a quiet halt outside.
; I snatched the stun gun from my purse and stalked toward the back door, next to the garage door where we kept the van. I couldn’t help remembering the night I’d found Calvin in that attic, lying in his own blood after a highly focused attack by a powerful fearfeeder ghost. I was terrified of finding him that way again, injured or worse.
If they’d hurt Calvin, I would zap them, then I would beat them. Fear and fury competed for dominance inside me. I decided, at the moment, it was probably safest to side with fury.
I found the back door unlocked, so I threw it open and charged recklessly inside. A tiny voice told me I should have called for help before barging into the situation, but I wasn’t going to leave Calvin alone in there.
My dramatic entrance into the workshop, stun gun held high and ready to blast the first goon I saw, went entirely unappreciated. Nobody was in the room.
The safe and the money were down in the basement.
I didn’t hear Hunter barking, and that worried me, too. The bloodhound would probably not get aggressive in a home-invasion situation—he was more likely to hide his droopy head under the nearest sofa—but they might have shot him anyway.
I listened carefully as I crept down through the very no-frills concrete stairwell that connects the three floors of the buildings, but I didn’t hear anything. Putting my ear to the door didn’t reveal anything, either.
I sighed, then raised my stun and burst through in another dramatic entrance, ready for a fight, expecting to dodge bullets.
Again, nobody and nothing. The big safe was closed, but there was no sign of Calvin. On the bright side, there was no blood or signs of a struggle. Maybe, hopefully, things hadn’t reached that point. I certainly didn’t care about the missing money as long as they’d left Calvin unharmed.
I checked the store rooms and closets, but didn’t find anything. Back on the first floor, I looked out into the lobby, but nobody was there.
The door to Calvin’s office was closed.
I crept up to it, trying to move in the way that cats and ninjas do, making no sound. I’m not sure I was successful. I put my ear to the door and listened.
Voices. Low, murmuring.
Time for dramatic entrance number three. I flung the door open and leaped into the room, raising my stun gun, ready to zap anyone who stood in my way. For maximum effect, I screamed at the top of my lungs, hopefully startling the intruders and slowing their response time. It was a nice little stress-breaker for me, too.
I landed in the middle of the cluttered office, just inches from Calvin’s desk. His walls were lined with bookshelves bowed under by the weight of everything: bundles of old paranormal journals and tabloids, arcane texts on the occult, obtuse texts on parapsychology and ESP. More of them were heaped around the floor. I was lucky I didn’t crash into any of it.
Calvin sat behind his desk, eyebrows raised at how I’d chosen to enter his office. Hunter, on the carpet beside him, lifted his head just a little in acknowledgment of my presence, then resumed his one-eyed nap.
Two other people sat across from Calvin. One was a severe, pinched-looking older woman, gray hair, maybe in her sixties. She wore a peach suit that was no match for the sour set of her mouth and the glittering cat-green of her eyes. It was as if the Wicked Witch of the West had tried to pass herself off as a human resources person at some mid-size American corporation.
Beside her sat a younger man, maybe a couple years older than me, dressed in an actual three-piece suit—I’m not that attuned to fashion, but I know lavishly expensive clothes when I see them. His dark amber eyes looked me over, taking me in.
Everybody in the room was perfectly calm and relaxed. Except me, of course. I’d just come running through the door screaming, a stun gun crackling in my hand.
“Don’t shoot,” the young man said, and his smooth English accent caught me off-guard. “We surrender.”
“What’s going on here?” I asked, looking among the three of them.
“I should ask you the same,” Calvin said, turning and rolling toward me, concern in his eyes. “You like you lost a fight with a grizzly bear.”
“Don’t change the subject,” I said. I glanced at the severe old woman and the quietly smiling man. “Who are they? Why have they been watching us?” My gaze shifted to the table, where I saw a lot of very unfamiliar paperwork plus a few glossy brochures. A company name stood out, its logo at the top of every page.
PARANORMAL SYSTEMS, INC. The logo was a triangle encircled by a tilted ring that made me think of Saturn. The symbol was familiar to me. I’d definitely seen it somewhere before.
“They’re from a company called Paranormal Systems,” Calvin said.
“My sharply honed detective skills are picking up on that,” I said, gesturing at the brochures.
The English-sounding guy stood up and extended his hand. His closely trimmed hair was midnight black, his eyes a sky blue. He wasn’t tall and broad-shouldered like Michael, but he exuded some kind of strength and power. I might have even found him attractive, if I hadn’t also disliked and distrusted him on sight.
“Nicholas Blake,” he said. “Or Nick. Most people skip the second and third syllables. You must be Eleanor Jordan, lead investigator.”
“You would know, since you’ve been spying on me,” I said, shaking his hand. Weird electric tingling. I felt like his eyes were looking through mine. His expression reminded me of Jacob, when he was focused on the spirit world, scooping up impressions. I pulled away quickly.
“Sorry about that, Miss Jordan. It’s standard procedure during the assessment period,” he said.
“During the...?” I asked.
“With me is Octavia Lancashire, our general director.” He presented me to the older woman, who nodded very slightly as she looked me over, but she let Nick do all the talking. He seemed to slip into some kind of sales-presentation mode. “Like your agency, we identify and remove spectral entities for our clients. We have offices in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Providence, and several other cities.”
“None in the UK, though?”
“We are one-hundred percent all-American,” he said in his polished Oxford accent. “Wave the flag, have a hot dog with crisps. Aside from our branches in England and Wales, of course.”
“Right,” I said. I noticed Calvin was being completely silent. “And you’re here because...”
“Just a general assessment of the region,” he said. “We’re curious as to what sort of activity you have down here and what your approach has been.”
“They want to buy the agency from me,” Calvin said.
“What?” I did my best not to scream the word at him, or to look as horrified as I felt. “No. That can’t...you’re not going to do that, are you, Calvin?”
“We are just in the early stages of a friendly dialogue,” Nick said, smiling a little more. The lie detector in my brain was pinging off the charts. “Nothing serious. We’ve not even made a formal offer. This is our first conversation with Mr. Eckhart.”
“Does this mean you’re done following me around?” I asked.
“I am sorry, once again. As I said, just an assessment of the degree of activity, really, and your methods.”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded, trying to look calm and collected, like my world wasn’t crumbling around me.
“Naturally, an acquisition would bring a substantial investment on our end,” he said. “This agency could be providing entity-removal services to the entire region. Atlanta, Augusta, Charleston--”
“We already do,” I said. “That’s my job.”
“And we would obviously want an experienced investigator like yourself on our team,” he said. Just the way he said team made me ill. “Ghost removal, however, is just one of our multi-tiered suite of services.”
“How many tiers does our suite of services have?” I asked Calvin, who only replied with a brief, humorless smile.
“I’m sensing just a little tension in the room,” Nick said, and I raised my eyebrows at him. Ya think? “I
propose we break for now and pick up our conversation later. Unless Mr. Eckhart has any additional questions for us?”
“Good idea,” Calvin said. “Let’s have a break.”
“I hope we’ve given you something to think about.” Nick offered his arm to the older lady and helped her stand, though she didn’t seem at all fragile to me. Her face remained stern as she looked at me. I wouldn’t say she radiated grandmotherly warmth. If she ever baked cookies, they’d probably be laced with broken glass and arsenic.
“You certainly have.” Calvin accepted a handshake from Nick, then from the very bubbly and chatty Octavia Lancashire.
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Eckhart.” she told him, her raspy voice low and measured. I’ve heard murderous ghosts with sweeter voices.
“You, too, ma’am,” he replied. “Let me walk y’all out.”
Nick turned to me with another smile and handshake, which I reluctantly accepted.
“I hope we can speak again soon,” he said. “It’s so rare to meet anyone who can chat about the work.”
“You’re a ghost hunter?” I asked him.
“A ghostjacker, they call us at home.” He smiled, and I noticed he hadn’t let go of my hand. His dark eyes again seemed to look through me, reminding me of Jacob.
“Are you a psychic?” I asked him.
“We’re all a little psychic,” he said, releasing me and really trying to turn on the charm with his smile. “People, animals...probably plants, too, if we found a way to test them for it.”
“It sort of feels like you’re dodging the question,” I said.
“I would say it feels as though you knew the answer before you asked,” he said. “Until next time, Miss Jordan.”
I wanted to tell him that only telemarketers called me that, but I didn’t want him to mistake it as an invitation to get more friendly and familiar with me. So I just raised my hand and waved for him to leave, as if he were standing much too far away for me to reply.
While Calvin escorted his guests to the front door, I remained in the office alone, looking over the papers from Paranormal Systems, Inc. I recognized them a little more now—I’d skimmed past their internet ads several times, probably because of my own ultra-weird search history.
