Ghost Killer

by Robin D. Owens

  “You’ve said something like that before.”

  “Yeah, a lot of options.” And what he’d say next was way out there. “Or if it isn’t just you, maybe the world is used to a . . . coating of human spirits and it’s missing.”

  “Huh,” she said, looking more thoughtful than tense. An improvement. “That’s an interesting notion, in a whole different direction, a more philosophical or spiritual or theological direction.”

  “I’m not just a pretty face,” Zach joked.

  “No, you’re an interesting, compelling, virile man,” she said, almost in an absent tone.

  Zach’s mouth fell open and he turned to look at her . . . again, no traffic this weekday afternoon of uncertain weather, but he should still have kept his eyes on the road. Never knew when a rock splinter might be coming your way.

  He wrenched his gaze away from her, and back to the road. “Thanks, I think. That’s a lot for a man to live up to.”

  She sent him a sweet smile. “You make it easy.”

  Okay, he was tripping right off the path over the cliff into the fall of love. No. Yes. Maybe. Close the door on that until it could be addressed later!

  A hawk screamed and they both flinched—him at the sound of a bird, Clare at the sound of a shriek, he supposed.

  “Is it near?” he snapped. “I’m ready to turn around and take you right out of here. Not sure what this truck can do on these roads, but we can find out.”

  “No . . . I think maybe we hurt it last night and it’s still sulking, or brooding. It can’t be accustomed to being hurt—or being seen or being fought, even.”

  “Good,” he said with satisfaction. “The more we can scare it, the more hesitant it will become and the easier to defeat.”

  “I suppose so. And we’ll continue to focus its attention on us and not on Caden, which is all to the good,” she said. She looked out at the cliff face next to her window, at the winding road ahead of them, past him to the green and gold hill outside his window. “We’re all alone. Time to tell me what you deduced.”

  “Like I said, Pais the elder and I saw Linda at the county building. He acted cool and disapproving and warned me off asking her questions or asking him about her.”

  “He did?”

  “Basic guy body language, Clare. But he wasn’t interested in her as a woman. He saw her as a problem.”

  “You’d know guy and peace officer body language.” Clare nodded, accepting that point.

  “And he’d told us that he’d spoken with the LuCettes, and that might mean he heard from Caden all about the nasty, scary spot at the confluence of the Willow creeks where the murder-suicide happened and how that nasty, scary spot isn’t there anymore but a big, evil ghost is traveling up and down the canyons and into the town, scaring the bejesus out of Caden.”

  Zach picked up a sports bottle and squeezed a stream of water into his mouth. The road was dirt, and though he drove slowly, dust rose around them.

  “Since I’m a suspicious kind of guy myself, my mind immediately went to the motive any cop would assign to a murder-suicide. Had already traveled that pathway and back a few times.”

  “Hmm,” Clare said.

  “Think about it, Clare. I know you’re the kind to like to believe in the best of people, but—”

  “A love triangle,” Clare said.

  “Yeah. Jerk sleeping with his wife’s sister.”

  Clare sighed. “I don’t understand why people take wedding vows and break them. Either don’t take them, or do your absolute best to stick with them, or if you can’t, get out of the marriage.”

  “I can tell you that I’ve seen the results of plenty of ‘love’ triangles and a lot of it is simple power politics, relationship game playing.”

  “Ick,” Clare said.

  Yeah, he could love this girl. Not a girl, a woman. He could love this woman. Talk about scary.

  “This time it was sister vis-à-vis sister and wife vis-à-vis husband, I think. And, man, when I saw her, guessed who she might be, it was like that—” He snapped his fingers. “Love triangle, and Linda survived. Jealousy, resentment, betrayal. Those are the emotions stirred up by a sex trio that ends in killing. And one of those is the motive of our ghost. Why it kills who it kills, why it is allowed to kill who it can kill, maybe, if we go back to some sort of universal balance of good and evil and our philosophical bent.”

  “Betrayal.” Clare whispered the word. Flinched. Said in a higher, less steady voice, “I think we should turn around now and head back to town.”

  Zach whipped the truck around and pressed on the accelerator. The ride got a whole lot bumpier. Clare held on to the door brace. “That word.” She raised her voice. “That caught its attention.”

  “Ah. Wondered about that. We can hash this out when we get back.”

  They reached the hotel without the specter following them. Clare checked before they got out of the truck, though she’d kept her mind’s eye on the wraith, ready to tell Zach to keep going if it felt like the monster followed them. They could at least keep it busy and lead it away from town.

  Wonderful that Zach had figured out this new lead, but the more she considered the entire situation, the more she realized that she had to blood the knife soon to be able to defend Caden and Creede and the whole valley.

  Do the job quick enough that the ghost wouldn’t come upon her while she bled, and mess up the process . . . or worse.

  As soon as they walked in, she went to her bag, zipped it open, zipped the lining open, and took out the tube containing the knife. She held it, the feel of silk and bone against her palm and fingers, the zing of rightness. Her fingers went to the knot.

  Zach frowned as he watched. “What are you doing?”

  Clare frowned. “I’m going to have to blood it sooner or later. Sooner would be better.” She met his eyes. “You had an idea how to do that when we first heard, didn’t you?”

  “Not sure what you’re talking ab—”

  “Zach.” Yes, she was clenching her teeth again. “I thought I told you how I felt about lying. Say you don’t want to answer. Just be up front.”

  “Damn.” He hung up his windbreaker. Walking up to her, he hugged her, rubbed his head against her. “Sorry, Clare. Not used to explaining myself.”

  “Or opening up and being vulnerable.” She huffed. “Well, I’ve figured out how I want to do it. So you don’t need to tell me how you would handle it.”

  “Got it.” But he kept her close and swayed with her until she relaxed in his arms. “Clare, this case sucks.”

  “I agree,” she said against his chest. “I don’t see any other options than getting through it.”

  He kissed her temple, then let her go, and as he did, he drew the knife from her fingers.

  “I do have to blood that knife, and I think I should do it as soon as possible.”

  “Now?” he asked. “Won’t we need some stuff, like a tube to fill up with blood for the handle?”

  Clare sat abruptly on the chair next to the table. “Well, there’s an image I could have done without, especially since it will be my blood.”

  “Uh-huh,” Zach agreed. He eyed her, brows raised in question.

  “Yes, I’m really going to blood it.” She swallowed. “No matter that I’m squeamish.” Straightening her spine and lifting her chin, she said, “It’s the only way I can kill the ghost.” One deep breath in and out, meeting Zach’s darkening gaze. “I, Zach. The one way I can kill the ghost.”

  “I get that.” His stare dropped from hers. He turned the covered weapon in his hands. “I have an idea.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “I’M OPEN TO ideas.”

  “What say we get a bunch of gauze or bandage wrap, draw some blood from you, and soak it, then wrap it around the hilt. For the blad
e, we can just put blood in the sheath.”

  The whole idea made her stomach quiver, but she said, steadily enough, “Yes, I’d figured that out.”

  “You’re a sharp lady.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Probably be better if we did this in the bathroom.”

  “We?”

  “I’m not letting you do this alone.”

  “The bathroom will barely hold the two of us.”

  “It’ll be fine.” He glanced at the window. “I’m thinking it would be better to do this during the day.”

  “Better in the sun,” Clare added. “And since it seems sunlight might be in short supply the next few days, and it’s a little wavery now, I—we—should get started.”

  “In a few minutes,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to nail down our ideas about motive.”

  “Oh, okay.” She tucked the knife back into her suitcase. “The motive is betrayal.”

  “Betrayal. Most particularly sexual betrayal.” His whole torso rippled in a more-than-shrug-not-quite-stretch. “The murder-suicide came about due to a love triangle.” He scowled. “Better called a sex triangle.”

  “Oh-kay.” For an instant she thought of her and Zach. No, she wouldn’t put up with another woman in his life. The very idea sliced sharper than the bone knife, than the ghost. “So you think sexual betrayal is the motive.”

  “The motive for the ghost, yeah. We’ll base our deductions on the supposition that it was that particular kind of betrayal, that event, which triggered the murder-suicide. I think we have to look at regular betrayal, too.” He sat down next to her and the mattress sagged a little, tilting her toward him. She put her arm around his waist and he did the same.

  “Regular betrayal?”

  “Look at the hunters who got killed yesterday. Punished for their betrayal of their friend who had the hunting license, and for betrayal of the laws in hunting out of season, and in betrayal of nature, even, maybe, in killing a Canada lynx instead of a bobcat.”

  “Oh my God.” She rubbed her arms. She shouldn’t be cold. She was letting fear affect her. She’d have to learn how to get over it, move on, somehow. She wished fervently that she knew how to meditate better. That would work, wouldn’t it? Eek! Letting fear distract her, too! “That . . . that just doesn’t sound decent.”

  Zach brushed her hair away from her face, and she turned to see his eyes more bluish than green, and holding sadness. “It’s a warped kind of justice. And the old lady? She wandered away from her companion and went out the door and shouldn’t have.”

  Clare just stared. “That doesn’t sound too much like betrayal to me.”

  “It depends on your point of view,” Zach said.

  The cold spread through Clare . . . maybe from that little cold wound the ghost had inflicted within her. The spot that had been diminished but not quite vanquished by time and sex. She began to shiver.

  Zach lifted her and put her on his lap, curving over her.

  “That is wrong.” She swallowed, then whispered, “And I think the ghost might be able to influence people.” She swallowed.

  “Some people,” Zach said, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “Not sure about the hunters, but that murder-suicide outside near where there was a ‘scary spot’ according to Caden.”

  “You think the ghost might have haunted that spot.”

  “You’re the expert. But we met a couple of ghosts who didn’t move around.”

  “It’s moving around now.”

  “Maybe it got transportation skills when it grew bigger and badder.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think that blaming the murder-suicide on the ghost is right.”

  “That woman and that man were responsible for their actions, for sure.” His voice went harder. “One didn’t have to cheat, and the other didn’t have to kill him for it. Nor did the sister have to cheat on her sister by screwing her husband. Three bad decisions.”

  “I agree,” Clare said. “We do agree on basics.” That helped diminish her fear, too. She could count on Zach.

  She went back to cementing the whole kernel of the situation in her mind. “And the murder-suicide, whether influenced by the monster or not, stirred up the energy of the phantom, triggering the transformation of the ghost from a . . . regular wraith to something that can harm the living and . . . and . . . eat ghost seers.”

  He tipped her head so she met his eyes and he gazed at her from under lowered brows. “I’m—we’re—not going to let that happen. It’s one piece of the puzzle.”

  “A pretty big piece.”

  “It tells us why, but not who.”

  “It can lead us to who, can’t it, who the ghost is? Someone . . . angry at sexual betrayal?”

  “It’s been a long time, Clare.”

  “We’ll work hard on finding out, follow every lead.”

  “Yeah.”

  She found that Zach gently rocked her. How lovely. She loosened her muscles, listened to his heartbeat.

  He grunted. She let him and the silence wrap around her. “And you figured it all out from that chance meeting.”

  “Yeah. It was all there in her body language, the older Pais’s body language, the little dialogue I heard. Then I confirmed it with you at the restaurant.”

  “You’re an excellent investigator,” Clare said with admiration.

  “Thanks, ma’am.” He squeezed her, looked at the clock on the wall. “And shall we check on Caden and Enzo as they head home from school? It’s about that time.”

  “Isn’t that stalking?”

  “Just keeping an eye out.”

  “Yes.” She set her teeth, then said, “We can stop by the grocery and pick up some bandages and gauze.”

  His chest and thigh muscles stiffened under her.

  “Let’s get this done, quick and right,” she said. She angled her head and closed her eyes, searching for the ghost with her mind. The thing had retreated, once again, to the upper canyon. Clare sensed the weather whipped the wind wild there, where the shadows lay deep across the crevices of the earth. “We might get done before the knife attracts it.”

  “Are you doing what I think you’re doing? Sensing the ghost?” Zach frowned.

  She hesitated, then patted his chest and said, “I still feel achy inside from fighting it last night, and that seems to have made a bond—”

  “A bond!”

  “A tiny bond between us,” she said, patting again. “Anyway, the ghost is far away enough that flying here will take time. Like I said earlier, I think this particular apparition likes to come with wind, and perhaps bring weather. We can work with that limitation and move fast,” she said, infusing cheer in her voice.

  Zach stopped her hand and stilled her fingers. “You’ve asked me to do—or refrain from doing—a couple of things that make you craz—that is, that irritate you. I want you to stop pretending to feel okay when you’re not.”

  Sighing, she slumped. “We’re very serious people, Zach. You brood and I’m just of a more sober character.”

  “It’s this project. It’s nasty and scary and sucks. You’re a fiery gypsy.”

  “The last thing I feel like right now is a fiery gypsy.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Her head shot up as she looked him in the eyes and she barely missed hitting his jaw, which would have hurt both of them.

  “I want real emotions from you, the real you. You don’t need to hide from me.”

  “You want me to be grim?”

  “I want you to be absolutely real with me. No games.”

  She sighed and nodded. “All right.” She thought about arguing that thinking positively would affect the world in a positive fashion, but that new age philosophy spouted
at her beginning yoga glass she’d attended a couple of times hadn’t really sunk in.

  She thought back to an old, old song. “Accentuate the positive?” This time her tone was naturally light just because she felt good. Sitting on Zach, having him care for her, remembering a silly, upbeat song.

  “Eliminate the negative,” Zach said. He set her on her feet and his expression could only be called wolfish, sharpening his features. “We damn well will eliminate that ghost. With extreme prejudice.”

  “Extinguish it,” she said. “Great-Aunt Sandra used that word.”

  Zach’s lips tightened and he inclined his head. “A good word. Extinguish.” It rolled off his tongue. He took her hand. “Let’s head for the school and remind ourselves of the basic reason—the bottom line—why we’re doing this.”

  “To keep Caden safe,” Clare said.

  “Yes, to keep children and old ladies and even moronic hunters safe.”

  * * *

  They sat around the corner from the school and saw the building disgorge children, and Caden run to his bike. Enzo loped with the boy, fast, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth, ears flopping, acting like a real, live dog. He turned a half-circle, barked at her and Zach, then kept the boy company. Caden’s face looked stormy.

  “Someone gave him grief during school,” Zach murmured.

  She supposed he’d know boys’ expressions more than she did.

  Yes, Zach! Enzo’s high bark trailed back to them. Since Zach tensed, she knew he’d heard it, too. But I got THEM! Enzo continued. They are just boys and not men and not too tall. I moved INTO them and froze all their little balls! He sounded positively gleeful.

  Clare’s mouth dropped open.

  Zach folded over the steering wheel, roaring with laughter.

  A last, fading question came from Enzo as he kept up with Caden who rode out of sight. You will keep him safe tonight?

  Clare wanted to tell her ghostly companion that she’d like it if he helped her through the soaking blood thing she was about to do, but set her teeth against that.

  Zach sent mentally, We will keep you safe.