Ghost Killer

by Robin D. Owens

  Her head popped around the side, showing a shoulder with no bra strap. His dick hardened. This not-quite-naked, not-quite-dressed tease show really worked. Her eyes sparkled. “I have three.”

  “We’ll, uh, have to check them out.” His mind spun a bit with consideration and input from his body. “Maybe a thin one, like one of those Japanese screens.” Where he could see her outline as she undressed and dressed. He swallowed.

  “I don’t have a shoji screen.” She walked out dressed in jeans and a tank under another very soft sweater, probably another cashmere one, in deep blue that showed off the auburn glints in her hair. “But I have one of those old-fashioned screens with gathered material.” She tilted her head. “Muslin or linen, perhaps.”

  “Uh-huh.” Clearing his throat, he said, “You really want to go down to breakfast?” Though it would be better for her than sex. Really. She still looked pale to him. He told his dick to subside. It didn’t listen. Good thing his jeans were old and a little loose.

  “I’m hungry, and the Jimtown Inn Restaurant is supposed to have great food. We paid for breakfast, I’m sure, and there are probably specific hours we can eat.” She pulled the robe off the screen and hung it on a hanger from the short wooden pole with a shelf above that stood in for a closet. She turned and blinked at the door next to the window as if she hadn’t seen it before. “What’s that?”

  “Door to the balcony.”

  Her face lit. “We have a balcony?”

  “Yeah. We share it with the other two rooms that face the front, the Commodore and the Jackpot. We can look out on the busy nightlife of Creede.”

  “Nice.” But she didn’t check it out. Instead she came and kissed him on the lips. He smelled her ginger-orange travel shampoo and mint toothpaste. Perked his dick up more. Hell with it. He pulled out his dark blue flannel shirt and let it hang outside his jeans; the bottom was square cut, no tails.

  Clare raised her brows and gave him a cheeky grin. “Let’s eat.”

  He nodded and picked up his cane, opened the door for her, and let her precede him into the hall that barely held two people side by side. She went down the stairs first, then through the door to the restaurant that had been locked when they’d come in the night before. When he caught up with her, he put a hand on her arm to slow her down before she was much into the big, empty outer dining room so he could check it.

  The chamber appeared to be the original hotel lobby, converted to a more profitable room as part of the restaurant. He kept their pace slow as they moved toward the chatter coming from the wide doorway to a second room, dipped his head to murmur in her ear, “I want to sit near where the locals congregate.”

  Her eyes showed surprise, then she nodded. They walked into the second large room, this one with tablecloths, silverware, cloth napkins, and juice goblets at the ready. The Texan couple sat next to one of the windows. Closer to the back of the room and the huge carved wooden bar was a large round table that held several people who seemed less touristy in dress and attitude.

  The hostess came up to them. “You must be the Slades in the Holy Moses Room.”

  “That’s us,” Zach said. Clare frowned but didn’t contradict him. Zach indicated a table next to the one that held residents and the waitress led them there.

  They’d no sooner ordered the morning’s special omelettes before a man walked through the front door of the restaurant. The locals focused on the newcomer who wore dark jeans, a plaid red flannel shirt, and an insulated vest. His expression raw, the man took the seat that his friends had saved for him.

  He folded into the chair, ran his hand through his thinning silver hair. “Christ, what a morning. Day’s already shot to hell and gone.”

  “What’s up, Bill?”

  Bill’s mouth turned down. “Pais wanted to see me.”

  “The sheriff?”

  “Yeah, about my group hunting license for bobcat.”

  Another man in a gray plaid shirt grunted. “Envied you that when you got it in the draw.”

  “Yeah, thought I was lucky. They jerked the license,” Bill said with bitterness.

  “Jerked it because of those jerks Ross and Burk,” added a third man, thin with a wrinkled face and an edgy smile.

  “Yeah. Christ. Now I can’t even use it when hunting season starts.” Bill rubbed his face. “I can’t believe Ross and Burk went out.”

  “Wanted to see how their new rifles worked, most likely,” said a solid woman who’d just nodded to Bill when he’d come in and continued knitting some pink thing. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Heard them talking about that at Pico’s Patio night before last. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Ross and Burk cut corners, all five years they’ve been coming up here, Bill, and you shoulda known that.”

  “City people,” gray plaid sneered.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Bill flipped over a coffee mug and someone slid a carafe to him. He poured the drink and chugged it. With a sideways glance at the knitter, Bill said, “Not to speak ill of the dead, but, Jesus, they really screwed me over.” More glugging of coffee. “Didn’t wait until my license was good and got one of those damn Canada lynx that were just reintroduced instead of a bobcat. What a cluster—” He stopped abruptly when the middle-aged waitress appeared with a pad. “I’ll take the huevos rancheros, Pearl. Sorry for the language, ladies.”

  “Everybody’s on edge,” the knitter said. Her needles stopped a moment and she rolled her neck. Zach heard the pop of vertebrae from where he sat. His gaze cut to Clare and her wide eyes showed she listened, too.

  “Did you hear the wind last night?” The woman shivered. “I don’t recall the wind being that rough at this time of year ever before. Really cold, especially after such a warm summer.”

  Gray plaid grunted. “No wind in Wagon Wheel Gap.”

  “Fierce and nasty in town,” the thin guy said. “Didn’t like it at all.”

  “Me neither,” said the waitress. “Anyone want anything else?”

  A chorus of negatives.

  “I’ll get those eggs. Sorry about your trouble, Bill.” The waitress paused. “I heard Ross’s and Burk’s deaths were strange? Rockfall splinters.” She shuddered.

  “Fu—, shoot, yeah,” Bill said. He rubbed his face. “One in the head, the other in the throat. I’ll remember that for a long time. Glad I don’t have to deal with their wives. Don’t think I’ve ever had a decent conversation with the women. The sheriff is handling that, thank Christ.”

  “Strange,” repeated the waitress.

  The knitter stopped, swept a glance around the table. “Lotta strange stuff going on lately.” Her shoulders hunched. “I don’t like it. Maybe I’ll go see my folk in Grand Junction.” She glanced at the thin guy. “What do you think? Shall we go see my sister in Grand Junction?” He shifted in his seat, scowled, then finally said, “After Cruisin’ in the Canyon.” Mumbling, he added, “If stuff gets worse.”

  “Speaking of strange,” gray plaid said, “I heard that the LuCette kid had screaming nightmares bad enough to make a couple of people check out in the middle of the night.”

  “Poor little guy,” the knitter commented, her needles clicking away steadily again.

  “That family has always had a bit of oddness in them,” Bill said.

  “Not the LuCettes,” the knitter said. “The Flintons are the folks who have the touch of fey, and I won’t hear a word against them . . . neither of them, the LuCettes or the Flintons. And I tell you that if little Caden is having nightmares, it’s just another sign that something is off around here.”

  “Huh,” gray plaid guy said, but Bill and the thin man shared a concerned glance.

  Then the waitress came with great-smelling omelettes and placed them before Zach and Clare.

  “Thank you.” Clare’s voice sounded strained though she smiled up at
the server.

  The local folks at the table next to them got up and left before Clare had finished her coffee. As they went out, a tall older man of about seventy walked in, scanned the room, saw them, came over to their table, and took a seat.

  Clare appeared alarmed. Zach touched her hand. “Checking us out.”

  “That’s right. Mason Pais, Jr.”

  TWELVE

  “I RECOGNIZE YOUR surname as the same as the sheriff who worked the rockfall accident yesterday,” Zach said.

  “He’s the fourth, Mason Pais the fourth, and following in my footsteps. I’m Junior . . . the second.”

  “You sound proud of him,” Clare said calmly, though Zach noted she folded and refolded the linen napkin in her lap.

  “I am. Very. He’s the youngest sheriff in Colorado. Studied and trained for it since he was a kid and he’s a good sheriff. Said he met you yesterday, that you’re an ex-deputy,”—Pais glanced at Zach’s cane— “and now a P.I. Don’t know as there’s anything here that needs a P.I.”

  Zach lifted and dropped a shoulder. “Who asked you to look us up?”

  “Michael LuCette. His family has been here as long as mine has.”

  “Oh,” Clare said in a small voice.

  “Wondered if that was who was behind this little visit,” Zach said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet, handed Pais his card.

  The man glanced at it, stuck it in his back jeans pocket. “Zach Slade, Rickman Security and Investigations,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Clare’s backbone had stiffened to ramrod straight.

  Pais frowned at her. “You work for them, too?”

  She sniffed. “Not as an . . . operative. An expert consultant. Occasionally.”

  “Huh,” Pais said.

  “I don’t have a card.” Her tone indicated she didn’t want a card.

  “I’ve met Rickman and his wife,” Pais remarked, keeping his voice slow and drawling, his attitude casual to tempt them to say more.

  Clare took the bait. Her eyes warmed and she smiled. “Desiree Rickman is a friend.”

  Tilting back on two legs of his chair, Pais said, “She’s a pistol, all right.”

  “We are who we say we are.” Zach relaxed his body.

  “And the Rickmans are associated with the Flintons who are kin to the LuCettes,” Pais said.

  “That’s right,” Zach replied.

  Clare’s lips thinned and she glanced at Zach. He shrugged.

  After clearing her throat, she said, “Yes, Mrs. Flinton sent us.”

  During the small pause in conversation, the waitress came up with a carafe. “Coffee, Mason?”

  He looked at both of them, but Zach said nothing and Clare kept her mouth shut, too, as she studied the man.

  “Don’t mind if I do, Pearl,” Pais said to the server.

  The woman gave him a mug and poured the excellent coffee. As soon as she left, Pais sipped, then shook his head, commenting on Clare’s info. “Barbara Flinton. Now there’s an original woman. Another pistol.”

  This time Clare said nothing. Zach knew she wouldn’t ever admit to a stranger that she was a ghost seer. Not this soon in her . . . vocation.

  “What do you want from us?” Clare said, her voice wobbling a little. Zach reached out and covered her hands with one of his own, stilling them.

  “How about the truth?”

  Clare shot Zach another glance. He kept his face expressionless so as not to influence her decision.

  “Or I could call Tony Rickman or Barbara Flinton.”

  “Mr. Rickman wouldn’t say anything,” Clare snapped back. Her lips thinned, tightened, and she looked at Zach again, then let out a slow breath, met the man’s eyes and said in a very quiet voice, “Caden LuCette sees ghosts. I do, too. There’s an evil one around and I’m here to stop it.”

  Well, that surprised Zach.

  Pais’s face went inscrutable. “I hear that you believe that.”

  Zach finished up his coffee. “And I’ve heard there have been too many deaths in Creede lately.”

  The man flinched infinitesimally, but Zach saw it. “Something else has happened.” He kept his voice soft, too.

  Clare gasped. “What?”

  After sliding his gaze around the room, Pais clicked the front legs of his chair back on the floor, picked up his mug, swigged, then muttered, “One of our elderly ladies . . . who should not have been out on her own last night, fell outside. Cracked her head on the coping at the top of the flume, rolled into the creek. It’s not deep at this time of year . . .”

  “But it’s freezing cold,” Clare whispered. She’d gone pallid as if cold herself.

  “Gone?” asked Zach.

  “Yeah.”

  Well that was one “four crows for death prediction” done, and it hadn’t been Caden or Clare, thank God.

  Unfortunately, one more death prediction remained.

  Clare raised her hand and Pearl bustled over. “More coffee, please, mine has gone cold.”

  “For sure, honey.” Pearl hurried back and poured steaming, aromatic brew into Clare’s cup. Both Zach and Pais gestured for a refill.

  When she was gone, Pais said, “I just heard the news before I came in.”

  “It will get around quickly enough,” Zach said.

  “That’s right.” Pais sipped from his mug, eyed them, then leaned over the table and said, “Appreciate it if you didn’t speak to the LuCettes.”

  Putting down her cup, Clare looked up at the former sheriff. “Perhaps you can tell the LuCettes—when you talk to them about us—that they should consider taking Caden away, or sending him to his great-grandmother’s.”

  “I’ll relay that warning,” Pais said.

  “Concern.” Clare tilted her chin. “We can be concerned about a young boy.” She paused. “If you have any influence with those who serve and protect, you should protect the LuCettes and Caden.”

  “I hear you.” The ex-sheriff’s observation of Clare intensified.

  Zach heard the refusal in the man’s voice and even more suspicion of Clare. Time to divert attention to himself. “And we can be concerned about an old woman who lost her life in odd circumstances,” Zach added.

  “I didn’t say anything about the circumstances being odd . . . but the door to her house shoulda been locked, and her companion had fallen asleep, and old Mrs. Tewksbury shouldn’t have been anywhere near the stream.”

  “Uh-huh,” Zach said. He drank his coffee, still good. “A lot of people to be concerned about here, the whole town.”

  Clare frowned. “You will really watch Caden?” She sounded doubtful, glanced in the direction of the motel. Her eyes flickered as if she made plans.

  Pais leaned forward, face hard and set, and said in a low voice that shouldn’t carry past their table, “You two listen, and listen good. If you attempt to see Caden LuCette, I will personally get a restraining order against you.” Pais’s smile twitched tight. “It won’t be hard to convince one of our local judges. And then we’ll just run you right out of town,” the ex-sheriff ended with satisfaction.

  Clare’s shoulders straightened and she glared at the older man. “Then you will watch Caden. You and whomever would run us out of town. Believe me when I say he’s in danger.” She didn’t back down, and that pleased Zach.

  “I’m outta here.” Pais rose. With a last jerk of his head in a not-so-courteous-good-bye-nod, he stalked from the restaurant.

  “You okay?” Zach asked.

  Another sigh. “As well as can be expected. I hope they’ll—the Paises, LuCettes, and whomever—will listen.” She swallowed. “Too many deaths should concern them.” She shook her head. “Another one, last night.” Her brows lowered in concentration. “I think
the flume with the stream runs behind this building.”

  “Yeah? You want to check it out?” Zach asked. He did.

  “I suppose we should, and look around the rest of the town more, too, not just drive through it, and at least find the archives.”

  “Right.” He stood and put his napkin on his plate, reached in, and pulled out his wallet.

  Now her brows went up.

  “Tip, Clare. What do you think this would have cost us in Denver?”

  “Oh, all right. Leave her seven dollars as a little over twenty percent.”

  Clare checked the weather on her phone and they went up to get their outer gear. The highs should be in the upper fifties. Weather predictions were for a cold front the next couple of days and mixed weather—snow early and late mixed with rain mixed with sleet mixed with occasional sunshine.

  Once outside and rounding the hotel, Zach noticed heavy clouds flattened the sky to a steady gray. They walked between buildings to the rear to observe the stream, nicely flowing in the bottom of a man-made, widely angled V, the flume. A foot-high rim of rectangular stone blocks set in concrete edged the top. Clare followed his gaze and winced.

  “Yeah, trip, hit your head, fall and roll down into the stream, drown or freeze to death. Easy.” He paused. “A real good wind could push a tottery person off balance.”

  Clare looked upstream to the small metal bridges with open railings. Those wouldn’t keep anyone from falling either.

  “We don’t know if Mrs. Tewksbury was tottery,” Clare said halfheartedly.

  “No. We don’t know a lot of things.” Zach took her hand. He’d decided the threat this case brought was primarily supernatural and his gun wouldn’t dent the thing. If he’d had one of his weapons last night, he couldn’t have drawn it under the circumstances anyway. Though he did note that the silk-sheathed bone knife had affected the monster.