“I’ll wait.”
Going with instinct, Clare opened the blinds behind the windows, pushed back the white curtains, and let in the sun. Then she stilled and listened . . . or sensed . . . the whistle of the breeze, the frost-white color of the light snow on the hills, the feeling of mad evil. The thing was up in the canyon, beyond Bachelor Loop, far up West Willow Creek.
From what she’d observed, ghosts could move in various fashions—glide, float, appear from one place to another instantaneously. But in the back of her mind, Clare sensed that this ghost liked to come with the wind.
She could do this fast. So she moved the tube containing the knife onto the bed and in the bright autumn sunlight. “Working on this now,” she said, propping her phone close so Desiree could see.
“Oooh, pretty,” the other woman said. “Nice silk sheath. The blade is sheathed, too?”
“Yes.” Clare untied the first knot in the red tassels. Her fingers were becoming accustomed to the pattern Zach had made. “Ah, something you should know about the knife, um.”
“What?”
“Um, it’s bone.”
Of course Desiree asked the question Clare had hoped to dodge.
“What kind of bone?”
Heat from embarrassment flushed Clare’s skin and she blinked because it felt good. Despite the heat of the room, she’d been cold without realizing it, and, under the circumstances, that sounded dangerous.
“The bone is from one of my ancestress’s femurs.”
Even in the small app, Clare could see Desiree’s eyes widen. “That is so cool.”
Clare undid the last knot, hesitated. “Look closely and quickly because this is a supernatural knife. It will draw evil.”
Desiree’s brows climbed. “Wow.” Her gaze sharpened.
Quickly pulling on the silk and the hilt of the knife, Clare separated the two, then yanked the blade from the metal sheath and held it in the sun. Now she saw the blade, too, carried a slight gloss that shone along it—from hands that had caressed the blade itself? From blood? From killing evil ghosts?
“Wow. Excellent,” Desiree stated in a more professional tone. “Looks sharp, like it would do the job.”
Clare jerked her head in a nod. “Yes, it should kill the ghost.”
“Clare, it could kill almost anything else. Especially if it’s supernatural.”
After swallowing, Clare said, “Oh. I understand.”
“And you need to soak it in blood?” Desiree confirmed.
Clare nodded. There’d been no hint of a breeze, but now she saw tree leaves dipping. “I must put it back.” She grabbed the metal sheath with the mesmerizing blue and gold pattern, the silk tube, and slipped the knife in it, her fingers working to tie a knot. Not a very intricate knot. She’d have to study up.
The hair on the back of her neck, on her arms, ruffled. Yes, the ghost was headed this way but, perhaps . . . the sunshine . . . the lingering hurt from last night . . . a touch of fear slowed it. And it stopped in a comfortable place, the spar near the information boards at the confluence of the East and West Willow creeks.
Interesting that the entity considered that spot comfortable. Clare didn’t think it was coincidence that a murder-suicide had occurred there.
“Clare, honey, are you there?” Desiree said.
Clare jolted away from the sensation of being north of there. “Oh, Desiree. Sorry.”
“With regard to the soaking in blood thing. Whose blood?”
“Mine.”
Desiree nodded. “I thought so. If you want my opinion—”
“Sure.”
“I saw that you removed the blade from a sheath. Have you considered how liquid-proof the inside of the sheath is?”
Clare gasped. “That’s brilliant.” She tilted her head. “I’d have to find a way to brace the sheath and get a good flow into it . . . and enough light to see into the sheath so I don’t let it overflow too much . . . then I’ll work on soaking the hilt. Thanks, Desiree!”
“Wait, Clare—”
But Clare tapped her finger against the app and Desiree disappeared. Clare had a deep suspicion that if she even flickered an eyelash that Desiree construed as Clare needing help, the woman would be on the next private plane here. Clare didn’t need to watch out for her, too. Regardless of all Desiree’s martial arts or street fighting training and experience, Clare was pretty darn sure that Desiree would be helpless in the face of this threat and more a hindrance than an asset.
Desiree saw auras of those who were alive. She didn’t even sense or feel the cold of ghosts. Her gift was for life. Clare had no idea if the ghost would be more dangerous to Desiree or not, but Clare sure didn’t want to chance it. Not only was Desiree becoming a friend, but Clare thought she herself might have a fatal accident at Tony Rickman’s hands if something happened to Desiree because of Clare.
Just as well both Rickmans were out of town, out of the situation. She sank onto the bed in the sunlight that was fading from a bright square back to a barely there shade of gray. Glancing out the window, she saw clouds rolling over the hills again, and she couldn’t tell if that was natural or due to the ghost. Probably natural. Probably. Autumn could tip into winter and back and edge into Indian summer.
She let her eyes unfocus, calmed enough to try and clear her mind so she could perceive the ghost, hoping that the wraith itself was too busy-minded and emotionally wrecked to pick up Clare in return. Because she was still too close if it moved quickly.
Clare would have to weigh her options—how fast she might bleed into the sheath, something she had no clue about, though if it were a math problem with volume, she might be able to figure it out.
Not to mention what kind of tube or other container she might need for the hilt.
She recalled that the bone blade had liked blood, maybe it would speed up things, since it was supernatural and all. She found her teeth hurt because she’d clenched them.
But she wouldn’t allow fear to overcome her. Breathing deeply and running through famous quotes about not letting fear stop her . . . she dredged up all the determination she could, headed for the table with the books she’d purchased, and began another, deeper, online search about Robert Ford, Creede, and the history of the year of 1892 in the booming silver mining camp.
* * *
Zach had just reached the door to the sheriff’s office inside the county building when a deputy sheriff and the elder Mason Pais walked out.
Pais inclined his head. “Slade.” The older man stood solidly at the threshold, the door open a crack behind them.
“Pais.”
The deputy hesitated then left about his business.
“Something I can do for you?” the ex-sheriff questioned.
“Thought I’d ask if I could see the place where Mrs. Tewksbury fell.”
“Not much to see,” Pais said.
Shrugging, Zach responded, “Helps me if I examine the scene.”
Pais’s expression soured and he grunted but didn’t move. Obviously he didn’t want Zach bothering his grandson, the sheriff.
Zach didn’t move either. Standoff.
The door opened wide behind them, and the younger Pais, the sheriff, stood as tall but not quite as broad behind his grandfather, then shifted so he could see Zach. “You working for Tony? Rickman?”
Leaning on his cane, Zach met the men’s stares in turn, first the older, then the younger who held the authority here, even if the elder didn’t seem as if he completely ceded it. “That’s right.”
The cop and ex-cop studied him with similar expressions, probably figuring Zach might be more controllable if he worked for Rickman instead of a loose cannon. One or both of them might know Tony; one or both of them might have spoken with Rickman. Zach wondered what Rickman might have said abo
ut Clare. No one was going to treat Clare with disrespect when Zach was around. But he wasn’t going to open that ghost-seer can of worms.
“There’s not much to see,” Sheriff Pais said finally. “But I wouldn’t put it past you to follow the creek until you found our tape, so let me give you directions.”
“I can run him out to the scene of the accidental death,” Pais the elder said.
“All right,” the sheriff snapped, then stepped back and shut the door.
Neither Pais nor Zach commented on the sheriff’s attitude when they went to the parking lot outside the side entrance of the building.
As they walked out of the county building, Pais matched Zach’s stride and they both eyed each other with the same cop stares. The guy reached the door to the parking lot first and held it for Zach.
Nothing to do but accept the courtesy and go out. “Thanks.”
Pais paused with Zach, glanced down at his cane and his bum left leg. “I recollected what happened to you last year. Made news here, too.”
“Especially in certain circles,” Zach said, and he could talk of the incident without heat now, a plus.
“Cop circles. Yeah.” The ex-sheriff adjusted his cowboy hat. “Reminded us all to keep on our toes.”
“Got that.”
Loud sobbing came from behind them. Zach turned and pulled open the glass door.
A small blond woman whispered, “Thanks.”
“Hello, Linda,” Pais said, and a note of . . . hesitation? . . . disapproval? . . . both? in his voice alerted Zach.
“Please accept my condolences on the loss of your sister and brother-in-law.”
The woman made a futile gesture, gulped, and pulled out a pad of tissues from her pocket. “I’m just here to take care of some of Lucy’s bequests.” She wiped her eyes and stumbled over the threshold. Zach reached out and steadied her. “Easy, ma’am.”
“Yes. Thank you,” she replied in a suffocated voice and nearly fled from them to a new silver BMW convertible.
Zach stared at Pais, who kept a stone face. Obviously the guy didn’t want to talk about the woman, not even an off-hand remark, and that particular attitude from this particular man sent prickles of interest down Zach’s spine. Something to pay attention to here, note, and find out more about Linda later.
Pais indicated a big and battered gray truck several years old, a vehicle that might have belonged once to the sheriff’s office. As Mason Pais, Jr., had.
Zach glanced toward the hotel balcony; empty, no Clare.
In less than ten minutes they were downstream standing within the police tape.
The sheriff was right. Not much to see at the site of Mrs. Tewksbury’s fall. Zach scrutinized the area, shook his head, rose from his crouch, leaned on his cane. “No sign of anyone else except the old lady until you all arrived on the scene?”
“You’re right. We got the call–”
“We?” Zach raised his brows.
Pais Jr. flushed. “The sheriff’s office.”
Zach smiled. “I bet you have a police scanner at home.”
The man pulled his cowboy hat lower. “You would win that bet.” He cleared his throat. “I happened to live closer than any of the men in this instance.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You examine the scene enough?” Pais asked.
“Yeah.” Zach eyeballed up and down the creek in the flume, looked at backs of the houses that lined it.
Pais jerked his chin at a white house. “That’s where Mrs. Tewksbury lived. No, I ain’t gonna take you to talk to her companion, her daughter-in-law, who’s all broken up about the accident and tendin’ to blame herself.”
“Nothing I like more than interrogating grieving people,” Zach said. He went to the truck, opened the door, and hauled himself inside. The short trip to the county building passed silently, though Zach noticed a new silver BMW parked on the street near Pico’s Patio. Lunch . . . and a little investigation . . . sounded good.
He thanked Pais and headed back to the hotel and Clare. When he walked back into the room, she sat on the bed looking at the big book of old time photographs of Creede.
“I take it no one from the historical society has called,” he said.
“Not yet.”
“So we don’t have an appointment to view whatever offerings the archives and historical society has.”
“No.” Her eyes looked red, as if she’d been crying. He didn’t recall her crying around him. Earlier in the week because of him and a tangle in their relationship, maybe, yeah, but not about anything else when he was with her.
She opened her mouth, closed it, looked away, her expression miserable.
He moved over to the bed and sat down, took her hand. “Talk to me.”
Her gaze met his, then slid away. She bit her lip. “I’m a coward.”
“No. You aren’t.”
“I’m not a fighter.”
“Yes, you are. And a survivor. What brought this on? Must be the whole Robert Ford thing. ‘The dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard.’”
Clare grimaced. “Perhaps.” She gestured to a book bound in sky-blue with a very fancy and colorful winged woman flying on it. Zach had seen enough of Clare’s great-aunt Sandra’s journals to spot one.
He sat next to her. “Tell me the problem.”
She gestured to the journal. “Great-Aunt Sandra had one little story in there about an evil ghost. She dealt with it easily and in half a page.”
“Not much for you to go on.”
“No.”
“As I understand it, her entries aren’t necessarily chronological.”
“She had a lot of journals, one in every room, and would pick them up and write in them as she pleased.”
“But she dated the entries.”
“Yes.”
“So how old was she when she encountered that evil ghost?”
Clare picked up the book, flipped to where the red ribbon attached to the spine sat between pages, and looked. “Forty-seven.”
“And she inherited her gift at the age of—”
“Seventeen.”
Zach grunted. “So she had thirty years’ worth of experience when she encountered that particular evil ghost.”
“Yes.” Clare’s mouth still turned down. She fiddled a little with the ribbon bookmark, a sure sign of nerves.
“And was that evil ghost haunting a full town?” Zach asked.
“It was in Chicago.”
“A neighborhood then.”
“All right, no.”
“A block.”
She hefted a sigh. “A house.”
He smiled at that. “A real haunted house.”
“Yes.”
“A family home, maybe. Not even a hotel like this or a theater where other ghosts might happen and congregate. So evil ghosts are composite things with core identities. Was your great-aunt able to discern the core identity easily?”
“Yes.”
“Not at all like our circumstances,” he said firmly, plucking the journal from her hands. “Let’s go eat.”
“Downstairs?”
“Pico’s Patio.” He smiled. “We may have a lead.”
FIFTEEN
HER EYES WIDENED and she scrambled off the bed. “A lead? What kind of lead?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “If you recall, Pais the elder spoke to Michael LuCette. We don’t know what LuCette would have said about Caden, or if Caden was there, too. If Caden was there, he’d have told Pais everything he told Mrs. Flinton. And Pais acted a little suspicious when we met this woman at the county building. Made my cop instincts twitchy. I think she’s at Pico’s.”
Clare glanced out the window. “Sun’s out.” She went to her bag
and put on a thermal vest. “Crazy weather.”
“Which may or may not be natural.” Zach held the door open, locked it behind them, and descended the stairs after Clare.
She glanced back over her shoulder and lowered her voice, though her words floated back easily to him. “Are you going to ask her some questions?”
He strained his ears to check whether anyone might be in the building, heard nothing. But that didn’t mean much, so he waited until he joined her and they both exited the hotel and strolled to their truck. He took her arm, just because he liked touching her.
Bending his head so his mouth was close to her ear, he said, “I think we’ll just look around, see what’s what, how she interacts with people, whether they gossip about her.”
“To her face?”
“Some do.”
Hey, Clare! Hey, Zach! Enzo sounded like his regular optimistic self when he spoke to Zach mentally. Clare flinched a little under Zach’s hand.
Hey, Enzo! she sent back telepathically.
We are at LUNCH RECESS! I LIKE recess! I told Caden that you might come and see us! He would like to see you.
Clare shared a glance with Zach as he opened the truck door for her. Then she said, I’m not sure—
Seeing you would make him feel even safer than just having me.
Zach got into the truck and hit the ignition, spoke to Enzo himself. All right, we’ll drive by. You can tell him that we’ll be doing that, but we can’t come and talk to him. His parents and teachers wouldn’t like that.
Okay, Zach. Okay, Clare.
“Do you know where the elementary school is?” Clare asked.
“Yeah. I know where the Creede School campus is.”
“Oh. Yes. Small town,” Clare said.
“Very. And, like everything else, it’s not far. We’ll go slowly. So they can see us. Then we’ll swing over to Pico’s.”
“Poor little boy.”
“Yeah.”
Ghost Killer Page 14
