He shook his head. “I couldn’t bare that. Besides, I’ll be back before you know it,” he told her, believing the impossibility of his words just enough to remove himself from the bed with a strained smile. He took Lia’s hand and brushed a kiss against her knuckles before grabbing a suit jacket from his closet and heading through hidden bookshelf entrance into his office.
He had ten minutes to type up a false exam file, and if he was very lucky, he would have enough time left over to put together a clumsy survival plan.
His mind raced through a rough list of the resources at his disposal. There was no time to call for assistance, and even if there had been, there was no one he wanted to put in danger on his behalf. He would have to take care of this dilemma on his own.
This far out of his element, he had to ask himself, What would Graham do? The vampire was always rushing off in an effort to change Dr. Delph’s grim visions. Very occasionally, he even succeeded. Dr. Delph needed that kind of luck tonight, and he had an inkling of where he might find some.
* * *
It was almost nine o’clock when Saunders finally arrived at Orpheus House. Dr. Delph spied him through the glass front doors as he stepped out of the community closet. He was in uniform, one hand resting on the butt of his gun, shoulders pushed back and chin lifted arrogantly. His name tag was crooked and looked suspiciously plastic against the dark blue of his shirt, Dr. Delph noted at he tucked Lia’s file under his arm so he could unlock the doors.
Wrath burned in the pit of his stomach, but he forged enough sincerity to give the bastard a terse smile. “Officer Smith?” he asked, glancing out at the parking lot to where a black sedan waited. The windshield was dotted with rain, and a rumble of thunder echoed overhead.
“Evenin’,” Saunders said, his expression stern and unmoving. He meant to intimidate. Dr. Delph could see through the dark pink aura encasing his thoughts as he searched the man’s head. It was a frightening place, full of self-entitlement and ruthless ambitions.
Saunders nodded his head back over his shoulder. “Squad car is in the shop,” he offered by way of explanation.
Dr. Delph searched deeper, quickly discerning that he didn’t want the company vehicle tracking his GPS to Spero Heights. That would look too suspicious. If the squad car actually had been in the shop, his precinct would have issued him a more suitable replacement. Dr. Delph knew that well enough without having to read his mind, but instead of pressing the issue further, he held out Lia’s file.
“A copy of the exam you requested,” he said.
“I appreciate your cooperation.” Saunders left one hand on his gun and reached his other out to take the file. A bandage wrapped around his thumb and wrist before stretching halfway up his forearm. When he caught Dr. Delph staring he snorted. “My damn dog bit me. Nothing a little peroxide can’t fix.” The parking lot light grazed his forehead, illuminating his flushed complexion and the sweaty sheen of his skin.
“It’s rather late, so if that’s all…” Dr. Delph took a step back, ready to say goodnight and close the door, but Saunders slipped his booted foot past the threshold.
“It’s not,” he said, crinkling the thin file in his hand. “The trucker who called in the tip mentioned a black woman at the scene when Miss James was admitted this morning. Can you tell me where I might find her?”
Dr. Delph blew out a surprised breath. The image in the man’s mind was gruesome. The trucker who had dropped off Lia hadn’t called Saunders. Saunders had pulled his plate information from a gas station surveillance camera and tracked the man down. Then he’d beaten him senseless for information before shooting him.
“Sorry,” Dr. Delph said automatically, waiting for his brain to concoct a suitable lie. He couldn’t give up Zelda. She was his friend, and Spero Heights was going to need her more than ever if Saunders fulfilled Lia’s vision. “I’d never seen her before. She must have been a tourist, just passing through.”
“A tourist?” Saunders scoffed. “Here?” He was suspicious. Not a good sign.
Dr. Delph swallowed back his pride for the small town and tried to smile again. “We’re well-known for our annual Cheese Festival,” he said.
Saunders pursed his lips, and his fingers drummed against the butt of the gun on his hip. “Well then, that just leaves you. Is there somewhere more… private, where we can talk? Your office, perhaps.”
Dr. Delph swallowed, seeing Saunders plans for him too vividly to summon a phony smile this time. Saunders sensed his unease, and a wide, fake grin spread across his smug face.
“This will only take a moment,” he said.
Chapter Nineteen
The clock in Dr. Delph’s bedroom reminded Lia of the one her father had kept on the wall of his study when she was a child. Its glowing, round face bubbled out of a distressed brass frame, shadowboxing the numbers inside and making it look like an oversized pocket watch.
Lia lay awake in bed, watching it count down the time, knowing that each tick and every tock was one second less that Dr. Delph had. She wanted to trust him, for his own sake, and more selfishly, for her own. She just didn’t know how. Not when the few men she’d had in her life had all failed her.
It was too late to leave now. Saunders was on his way. He could be here now, she thought grimly. And if he saw her come out of the clinic, he would know that Dr. Delph had lied. He’d be worse off than he already was.
Still, the waiting was torture. But it was all Lia felt like she was good at. She’d spent a lifetime perfecting the art. First she’d waited for the visions to go away, and then for the doctors to cure her. She’d waited for her father to get well. For her mother to understand her the way he had. For Aldini’s to finally kill her when her mother gave up and left her to rot in the hellhole asylum. And for the last ten years, she’d waited every morning for Saunders to bring her drugs. Now she waited for Dr. Delph to come back.
She was sick of waiting. She threw the covers back and slid off the bed, kneeling down to blindly search the floor for her tank top and panties. Then she quietly shuffled through Dr. Delph’s dresser until she found a pair of drawstring shorts. They would have to do.
She sat on the edge of the bed to pull them on. When she stood, a glowing flash of light in the mirror above Dr. Delph’s dresser caught her eye. She jumped and stumbled backward before landing on the bed again with a small gasp.
“Y-you must be Daisy,” she whispered.
The ghost hovered in front of the doorway that Dr. Delph had disappeared through a moment before. Her long nightgown was tattered and dingy at her ankles and wrists. Long, pale hair floated around her translucent face, making the black pools of her eyes all the more startling. She cocked her head to one side as she observed Lia with a blank expression.
“You don’t look with child to me,” she said, startling Lia further.
“Who said I was with child?” Lia thought her eyes might fall out of her head, and then she wondered if the girl had witnessed her intimate exchange with Dr. Delph. “You can’t tell something like that after one night.”
Daisy shrugged. “How should I know? Mother never spoke of such things. It was improper. Much like an unwed lady spreading her skirts for a strange man.”
Lia blushed and cleared her throat. “I don’t wear skirts.”
“Clearly,” Daisy said snidely, as if that explained everything.
Lia ignored her and reached for the door handle.
“You shouldn’t go out there,” Daisy said.
“And why not?”
“There’s a man with a gun in Dr. Delph’s office.” Daisy pressed her phantom cheek against the door as if she could hear through it, so Lia did the same.
“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered.
“Your fleshly ears are inferior to mine.” The faintest of smiles pulled up one corner of Daisy’s mouth, causing her pale lips to crack, and Lia wondered if ghosts could suffer from something as benign as chapped lips.
“Well? What do you hear?” s
he asked.
“The man suspects the doctor of lying.” Daisy pulled away from the door suddenly. “He told me that he foresaw his death drawing near, but I didn’t realize that it would be your fault.”
Her words struck Lia through the heart like a sword. Dr. Delph had warned her about the poltergeist, but she hadn’t been prepared for such honest cruelty. And she couldn’t say that she disagreed.
It was her fault. And she felt helpless to prevent it. Walking through that door would only hasten the doctor’s death. Staying put wouldn’t improve his odds by much, but it was the lesser of two evils at this point. Still, Lia’s hand twitched over the doorknob, aching to open it so she could throw herself between Dr. Delph and Saunders, as if that would do any good.
“Coward,” Daisy hissed in her face, her voice soft and full of spite. Lia could see her petrified expression reflected in the girl’s dark eyes. “Trollop. I will haunt you to your last day for this injustice.” She inched closer, malice screwing up her face.
Lia took a step back as she advanced, but just shy of colliding, Daisy disappeared, leaving her alone in the room again. Lia held her breath as a shudder rocked through her body. And then a muffled shot rang out from the next room.
The door flew opened and she tumbled through the bookshelf and into Dr. Delph’s office before she realized what she was doing. He was face-down on the floor behind his desk.
“No!” She took a step toward him, but a hand wrapped around her wrist and yanked her off her feet.
“What do we have here?” Saunders said, stuffing his gun back into his holster so he could use both hands to hold her in place. “Guess it’s my lucky day.”
Lia shook in his grasp, and her breath rasped out painfully. “Why?” she shouted in his face. “You didn’t have to kill him!”
“You think this is my fault?” Saunders laughed as he dragged her out of the office and down the hallway toward the front doors. “None of this would have happened if you’d stayed put like you were told.”
Lia pressed her bare feet into the tiled floor, straining to pull her arms free. Saunders’ laughter stopped abruptly as he turned and backed her against a wall. Her head and shoulders slammed against the plaster as he pushed his arm across her chest. The holster at his belt dug up under her ribs, and she winced as he crushed the breath from her lungs.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, girl, but you damn well better straighten up before I put a bullet to you too.” He waited a second longer, until Lia thought she might pass out, and then he dragged her out the front doors and toward a black car. Rain splattered against the sidewalk and pelted Lia’s face.
The carefree note in Saunders’ voice returned as he shoved her into the passenger seat. “Try to run again, and I’ll put you in the trunk. You don’t want that. Trust me. It was a bumpy ride out here.” He leaned down and clicked her seatbelt in place, pausing to lightly slap her cheek. “There’s a good girl. If you don’t make a fuss, I’ll stop and get us a coke on the way home.”
Lia waited for him to close her door before letting out a heaving sob. She covered her mouth and closed her eyes. The image of Dr. Delph laid out on the office floor was still burned into her mind. She wiped her fingers under her eyes and turned her head to face the window as Saunders climbed in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t look at him. It made her stomach curdle just being this close. When he reached over and squeezed her knee with his bandaged hand, she almost lost it.
Keep it together. Keep it together. She repeated the mantra in her head. It wasn’t even that her own life mattered so much anymore. But it would be hard to take Saunders out from the trunk of his car. And that’s exactly what she intended to do. Even if it killed her.
Chapter Twenty
If this was death, Dr. Delph preferred the pain of living. It felt like someone had tried to punch a hole through the center of his back—and nearly succeeded. He wheezed in an unsteady breath, struggling not to pass out a second time.
It was at that moment the Fates decided to return his neutered gift, as if refraining until he’d proved himself worthy by surviving… or maybe simply because they were the cruel sort of divine beings who enjoyed kicking an oracle while he was down.
So much blood. The vision was a familiar one that had haunted him for months, up until he’d been cut off the previous week. Get on with it, he thought, straining to see beyond the grisly replay. Then he saw Lia.
There was still blood in the image, but it was of the life-giving variety. In more ways than one. She had a future waiting for her in Spero Heights, and so did he. If he knew how to claim it.
The vision was the most rewarding one the Fates had ever granted him, and it forced him to forgive all their past transgressions. He returned to the present with tears clouding his eyes.
The pain shooting through his torso was more bearable, and he muscled past it as he rolled onto his side and used the leg of his desk to pull into a sitting position. He waited for his breath to steady before delicately stripping out of his ruined suit jacket and vest.
Selena’s paranoia had finally come to his aid. The Kevlar vest had kept him alive, even if he did feel like someone had taken a hammer to his spine. He could already tell that the swelling was going to be murder—though not the literal kind that Saunders had intended for him to suffer.
Dr. Delph grabbed the edge of his desk and grunted as he stood, hissing when his shoulders protested. He needed to check on Lia and let her know that he’d thwarted her vision. That everything was okay now. That Saunders would be apprehended soon enough and far away from Spero Heights.
He hobbled for the bookcase entrance, and then froze. The doorway was cracked open, his empty bed visible beyond the shadowed volumes.
“Lia? Lia!” He pushed the door open further and reached for the bed, running his hands over the sheets as if she might somehow be lost in them.
“Poor doctor,” Daisy cooed. She appeared on the other side of the room, and then momentarily disappeared as she passed through the spilling moonlight of the window on her way to the bed. “The harlot has fled with her former lover. Shall I disrobe to comfort you?”
“What?” He grasped his head with both hands. “How could you let this happen?” he shrieked at her.
“Me?” Daisy pressed a hand to her chest. Her dark eyes blinked at him innocently, but then they filled with a toxic mixture of guilt and rage. “Your pain is her doing. Not mine. I would never bring such agony upon you.”
“You could have stopped him! Scared him off. Convinced Lia to stay hidden. What’s wrong with you?” he shouted, not caring that he’d completely abandoned his cautionary rules for handling the spirit.
The floor rumbled and the walls began to creak as Daisy’s temper escalated. “I am not beholden to do your bidding,” she whispered, her voice echoing off the walls until it multiplied into a wail that ached in Dr. Delph’s ears.
He reached for the drawer of his nightstand where he kept his banishing crystals, but it ripped free of its own volition before he could touch the handle. It crashed against the opposite wall, scattering its contents as it splintered into pieces. He turned back to scowl at Daisy, but she was already gone.
The phone on the nightstand was unharmed, so he grabbed it and speed-dialed Selena’s number. She answered on the first ring.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice ragged but alert. Crickets sang in the background, and he could picture her standing out on her back deck, longing for another run under the last night of the full moon. She’d resigned herself to one night a month for the twins’ benefit.
“Lia’s been taken.” The words rushed from him in a panicked blubber.
“The new girl?” Selena sighed. “You said she wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“The bastard who took her shot me.”
“Fuck.” Selena growled into the phone. “Did you call the witch in to patch you up?”
“I’m fine,” he shouted, struggling to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
“I was wearing your riot vest—”
“I told you that would come in handy.” Selena sounded smug, but that quickly changed when her common sense caught up. “You knew this was going to happen. Didn’t you? You lying rat bastard!”
Dr. Delph ignored the accusation. “I’m going after her—”
“The hell you are!”
He dragged his free hand down the side of his face and clenched his teeth. “I love her.”
“Fuuuck,” Selena groaned. “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll have to drop the twins off at Ben’s.”
“There’s no time.” Dr. Delph glanced at the clock on his wall, trying to determine how much he’d already wasted. “If they reach the interstate, I’ll never find her.”
He hung up before Selena could protest further and picked his car keys out of the demolished remains of his nightstand drawer before heading out the side exit of the clinic and into the rain. The moon peeked out from behind a storm cloud, illuminating the sidewalk.
He ran toward the back parking lot where he kept the yellow Datsun. He hoped the little beater car would survive the trip down through the mountains. Not that he had any idea what he would do if he actually did catch up to Saunders. Would a trained cop notice if he followed him across the state?
One problem at a time. He unlocked the Datsun and crawled in, turning the keys in the ignition and slamming the shifter into reverse before his door had even closed.
The little yellow car’s tires squealed as he tore out of the parking lot. He sped up Monroe Street and almost rolled the car as he turned off onto Fanfare Road. His headlights flickered across the interstate sign.
Seven miles. He hoped he wasn’t too late.
Chapter Twenty-one
Lia could barely breathe around the lump in her throat. The musty smoke from Saunders’ cigarette only made it worse. He flicked his ashes through the gap above his rain-streaked window and grinned at the rearview mirror. No one was following them.
Death at First Sight (Spero Heights Book 2) Page 10
