With a sigh, she stood, straightened slowly, and put a hand to her ribs. Since she never mentioned any pain, Zach kept forgetting she’d cracked them last week. He had to do better at taking care of her.
Walking over to the shelf, Clare picked up the little manicure scissors, slid one side under the gauze, and snipped away. The bone handle appeared less blue-gray-white and more ivory, and, like the blade, glossier.
When the gauze had all curled into the sink, she took a tissue and swept it up, folded everything in another wad of tissue, and stuck it into the hanging cosmetic case on a hook on the back of the door.
“Huh.” Zach scratched his jaw. “Probably a good idea to keep the wrappings.”
Clare nodded. “I don’t want to throw them away here.” She frowned. “You think they should be considered medical waste?”
“I think we should burn them,” Zach said flatly.
That would be good. Enzo nodded.
“All right. When I get home.” She swiveled to the knife and plucked it from the sheath, dropped her head, and cut a small piece of hair near the nape of her neck. The knife hummed again. Sounded satisfied to Zach.
The rest of her wildly curling hair hid the shorn place as she tossed her head, then she tucked the lock of her hair into the ivory tube and paused. “The ghost is coming.” She gasped. “It stopped. I don’t know . . . I can’t feel . . . I think it’s a whirlwind of emotions, fury, bitterness . . .”
Zach snatched the knife from her, wrenched the metal sheath from the clamp and shot the knife home into it, grabbed the silk tube, and stuck the weapon in the cover. His fingers fumbled a little as he knotted the tassels. His ears popped as the atmosphere changed and the whole thing slipped from his hands into the sink. It hit with a muffled tinny sound.
Enzo barked.
Voices in the hallway stopped. Clare winced.
All right, it might have been odd to others that two people were in a small bathroom together.
Clare snatched the knife up, held it upside down, then swept a gesture to the sink, the floor.
Zach raised his brows.
She waited until creaking doors—five of them—closed. The inn was full, then.
“No blood,” she whispered.
He scrutinized the room, then nodded, too.
Opening the door a crack, Zach examined the hallway. Nope, no one had faked going in and now waited avidly to see who came out of the bathroom. Good. He opened the door wide. When Clare passed him and went through it, he saw that she’d tidied up the shelf, removed the cobbled-together vise, and the bathroom showed nothing unusual, appeared innocuous . . . except for a lingering Enzo.
No telling who’d heard the clinking and who’d heard the dog.
Turning off the light, he locked the door and tested it, then watched Clare carefully walk the few paces to their door at the head of the stairs. She minded her steps more than he did.
As soon as they were in their own room, he said, “What’s wrong?”
She sank down on the edge of the bed and said, “I’m hungry.”
“Okay, let’s head out for an early dinner, then, at Pico’s Patio.”
You should take the knife with you, so it can bond with you even more, Enzo said, walking through the door. His tone held a hint of a metallic hollowness that clued in Zach that the Other spirit seeped into the ghost Lab.
“Oh, all right,” Clare replied with annoyance.
Zach eyed her. “You need protein.”
“I think I’ll have the steak tacos tonight.”
Zach’s mouth watered. “Sounds good. You coming, Enzo?”
The phantom wagged his tail, lifted his head. I come. I know my duty, too.
“I don’t want you to think of me only as your duty,” Clare said. “I thought we were friends.”
Enzo leapt onto Clare’s lap, part of him vanished into her torso. We ARE, Clare. He licked her face. We ARE. I love you, Clare.
“I love you, too, Enzo.”
Letting his head drop, Enzo whispered mentally, I am just scared.
“We’re all scared,” Zach said.
Big doggy eyes stared at him. You, too, Zach? You are scared, too?
“Only smart to be scared of something that can hurt you.”
That is RIGHT. Then Enzo repeated, Only smart to be scared of something that can hurt you.
“I’m sorry that this case and being with me is scaring you, Enzo,” Clare said. Her shoulders slumped a little. “I know that you weren’t scared with Great-Aunt Sandra.”
No, Enzo said, but she was old and didn’t have any adventures. He hopped off the bed and ran through the outside wall. Their truck was parked on the street near the front of the hotel, one story below.
“We are having an adventure,” Zach said. He bent down and kissed Clare on the temple.
She stood up, held the knife by her side. “If I’m going to be carrying this thing around, I should check out some cargo pants. Her nose wrinkled. “They usually look scruffy.” Lifting the ivory silk up, she poked a finger through a loop Zach hadn’t noticed. “This would fit on a belt, if I had one.”
“I have one,” Zach offered. He’d wanted to take that thing away from her, protect her from the ghost and the knife and whatever else might threaten her.
She gave him a sharp glance, then went to her purse and reorganized the pockets, moving whatever she’d had in the outside one into the main compartment of her bag, stuck the knife in the outer pocket, then drew the strap over her shoulder. “How does it look?”
“Like a sheathed knife.”
“What would it look like to a regular civilian type?” she asked.
Zach shrugged. “I don’t know. Like a covered dog bone.”
“Good enough.”
They walked out into the fading day and the minute they hit the cool outside air and Zach saw gray clouds, he stepped aside from Clare.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ve got a bad feeling.”
She grimaced. “I’ve had a bad feeling for two days.”
NINETEEN
ENZO LOOKED OVER the side of the truck bed. The Lab lifted his nose, sniffed. His ears raised, too. The air smells bad. He gazed north toward the canyon, then his whole body pivoted until he faced northwest. The scary crazy ghost is that way. Enzo shook. Too close.
Zach didn’t know what lay on the far side of the ridge, but the solid hill between them and the ghost reassured him. Still, he checked his weapon tucked in his SOB—small of back—holster. Easy access, good. Then he opened the truck door for Clare, went around to the driver’s side.
Once they got into the restaurant, Zach saw the table he liked was taken. No good place to sit where his back wouldn’t be vulnerable, so he went to one of the two-top tables in the narrow part of the room across from the bar, turned the chair so the back was against the wall, and sat perpendicular to the table. Not a great way to eat anything on a plate with utensils, so he’d decided to order a simple burger.
Clare had relaxed and was munching her first taco when the front door slammed open and a high-pitched voice shrieked, “Clare Cermak, ghossst sssseer.” The last two words were hissed and slurred.
Startled, Clare dropped her taco. Zach rose from his seat.
It was Linda Boucher, and she looked strange, pale, her skin damp. That might be because she moved with awkward lurches inside a whirling snowstorm. Now and then teeth seemed to rip at her clothes, or razor slashes cut her. She didn’t bleed.
She’d continued screeching curse words at Clare, came straight for his lady.
Zach passed Clare. Then she shot around him, arm stretched out, knife in hand—still in the silk sheath. She lunged for Linda.
Enzo howled and the hair on Zach’s neck and arms raised. The dog le
apt through Zach, through Clare, sending her angling toward the bar. Teeth bared, Enzo jumped into the heart of the storm. His jaw closed on Linda’s neck. Her head snapped back, hard enough that there should have been a crack. Nothing.
Clare’s momentum had her striking the woman in the side and Linda spun. More from the circling storm, Zach thought, than Clare’s blow. Clare rushed by her and tendrils from the snowstorm whipped out at Clare.
Linda Boucher crumpled. Lay on the floor, dead.
But Zach sort of figured she’d already been dead when she walked in. Just great.
There was a smell of death, the voiding of a body, yeah, but it looked to Zach that the fluids had already dried on her jeans, not as if they’d just been expelled.
Clare turned, readying the knife again, stopped and swayed, staring at the limp woman. Clare’s mouth opened but no sound emerged.
Enzo yowled again, long and despairing. The ghost shattered . . . but took Enzo with it, wrenching a cry from Clare. Zach moved fast, caught her, propped her up, ignored the turmoil of people around the fallen woman.
Clare’s breath caught on a choking scream-sob and she panted as if she needed air. He looked where her gaze had fixed and saw huge two-feet-wide staring, disembodied purple-irised eyes. He shuddered along with Clare as they became the focus of that alien, dispassionate gaze.
You did not do well, stated the Other in precise tones of contempt. Enzo has been swept up in the ghost’s energy.
Clare moaned, her fingers clutching at Zach’s arm. She began to duck away from the thing, then turned and faced it.
I would have done better with more training. More information, she stated.
The eyes stared unblinking. The ghost is not tightly compacted. I have managed to place a shell around the consciousness that is Enzo. The shell will erode within twenty-four hours. You must speed up your learning curve. The eyes sparked. I continue to tell you this, yet you do not comply. Pale silver lids veiled the eyes, then they vanished.
More screams erupted around them as people surged from the back room, then realized the woman was dead and backpedaled. Zach squeezed Clare and said, “You might want to get out of this place and go to the truck for the time being. Otherwise I’ll need you to stay with the rest of the patrons.”
She nodded. “Thank you for giving me some time and space.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds, but tears leaked from under her lashes. “And thank God Enzo hasn’t . . . perished.”
“We’ll get him back.”
“Yes.” She hugged Zach quickly, went back to the table to get her purse and stashed the knife, and pushed through the crowd to the door. No one stopped her. Zach separated witnesses from others, and moved them all into the back room in opposite groups. He confiscated any electronics that might have been recording audio or video over deep protests, but with the owner’s, Pico’s, backing.
Zach stayed with the fallen body in the narrow aisle between the bar and the table where he and Clare had been eating. Soon the sheriff, and likely the elder Pais, would show up.
Now, he looked at a mini-tablet that he’d taken from their waitress who had been coming toward them from the back room on his left. She was the girlfriend of their waiter at lunch, would be leaving Creede soon, and had had her mini-tablet recording. To remember the ambience, she’d said, and probably had the most complete video of the event.
Everything had happened so quickly, he wanted to see what he might have missed . . . and what he might have to explain. The quality of the video was terrible, because of the ghosts involved, he reckoned.
Linda Boucher strode through the door, static around her. She didn’t move in the whirlwind snowstorm that Zach had seen, thought Clare had seen, too.
Door slamming behind her, Linda began to spew filthy words—“ghost seer” was unintelligible unless you knew what she might be saying. She fixated on Clare. Hands in claws, reeling and jumping more than striding, the woman went for Clare.
Zach saw himself stand. Clare turned, reached down and came up with . . . nothing. Her hand looked whiter and longer but apparently the ivory silk sheath didn’t film well. She stood and rushed beyond him.
Linda screamed and reared back for no good reason—that was when Enzo had launched himself at her—then Clare’s hand struck her side, Linda pivoted, Clare zoomed past.
The woman fell and Clare stood a couple of yards away, looking like she might topple, too. Her hands dropped and she stared like everyone else at the dead woman. Zach moved to hold her, they both looked toward the ceiling, eyes glazed.
Now sirens screamed for a minute, then cut off. Sure enough, both Paises came through the door, the sheriff first, cowboy hat low on his forehead, expression grim. “Slade,” he said to Zach. “Pico told me you were here. Want to give me a rundown?” he growled. He gestured for the two deputies to go through to the back room.
While Zach reported, Pais the elder ambled over to the bar and picked up the mini-tablet next to Zach, and ran through the loaded video.
“Do you know why Ms. Boucher would have attacked Ms. Cermak?” Sheriff Pais asked.
“They’d never met,” Zach said. “I held the door for the woman this morning as she left the courthouse . . .” He nodded toward Pais the elder. “Mason Pais, Jr., was there. That’s the only interaction I had with her, myself. She happened to be here when Clare and I ate lunch, and we saw her sitting at the bar.”
“I heard about the scene at lunch,” the sheriff said. He hunkered down over the body, felt the wrist, looked up at Zach. “You touch her at all?”
“No. I helped my lady get composed, then moved folks away. Not sure who, if anyone, might have touched her. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Mason Pais the fourth scowled. “You’re a cop.”
Zach shrugged. “Not anymore, and I was more concerned with Clare.” He wondered how cold the body was . . . colder than death? Colder than a woman who’d been out in the chill evening, then died, should be? Ice cold as if the temp was below freezing?
Both Paises squatted near the body and Zach moved away to give them room.
“Odd,” said the older man. He laid the back of his hand against her face, then touched the urine and defecation stains on the woman’s jeans. Looking up at Pico, he said, “You said Ms. Cermak hit her and she fell.”
The hefty chef and bar owner shrugged. “Something like that. Everything happened so fast.” He cleared his throat. “She died so fast. I dunno.”
“She is dead now,” Pais the elder said.
“Goddamn strange,” the sheriff said with near violence.
“Check out her neck,” the other Pais said.
Grunting, the sheriff put his hand behind the sprawled woman’s head, then stilled.
“What is it?” Zach asked.
“Got a head wound in the back. Blunt force trauma.” He stared at Pico. “Did you see Ms. Cermak hit her from behind?”
Pico shook his head, then his whole body seemed to follow, jiggling fat. “No, the other lady hit her in the side.” He pressed his hand to where his waist might once have been. “Then Linda whirled and the lady who was eating my food ran past her and then Linda fell.” He gave a decisive nod. “I’m sure of that. Ms. . . . Cermak? . . . just stood and looked at Linda like we all did.”
“Cermak didn’t touch Linda after she was down?” the sheriff demanded sharply.
“No, Francie”—Pico gestured to the mini-tablet—“ran to Linda first, yelling her head off for me.” Pico jerked his chin at Zach. “Him and his lady were closer to the door.”
“Uh-huh,” Pais the elder said. Putting his hands on his knees, he straightened slowly like his joints gave him problems. “A deputy and I will talk to Ms. Cermak, sheriff.”
The sheriff’s mouth thinned, then he nodded agreement. Zach stepped forward. The elder Pais pointed at
him. “You can come along, but I’d appreciate it if you stayed out of our conversation.”
“I’ll do that as long as I feel it’s in our best interests that I do,” Zach said. He went to the door and opened it for the elder Pais.
Clare was very careful with her replies to Pais, Jr.’s, questions, with her breathing. She appeared shaken. The man didn’t ask her about the knife, whether she had anything in her hand, and she kept quiet under Zach’s frowning attention. They’d opened the truck door and soon the sheriff and one of the deputies had crowded around.
This wasn’t the first time Clare had been questioned by the police about events, but she seemed too fragile, and Zach put a stop to it after he saw a body bag hauled out of the bar and restaurant, put in an ambulance, and driven away.
In a shaky voice, Clare agreed to go to the sheriff’s department in the morning and Zach closed the door, keeping her away from the others. As they split up, he raised his voice. “You should have more answers in the morning so you can ask better questions.” The sheriff took off his hat and hit it against his leg, a gesture that seemed habitual for him—one that would remove dust in the summer and snow in the winter—then turned his back and returned to the entrance of Pico’s Patio.
Pico filled it, arms crossed and sulky. Zach couldn’t tell whether the man would let them back in his establishment or not. Good thing the hotel restaurant and other seasonal places were open since he and Clare already had run through two local eateries—the LuCettes’ and here.
“Back to the hotel?” he asked her as he fired up the engine.
She leaned back, her cloudlike hair framing her face, shook her head. Her eyes had closed. “Can we just drive? South? Out of Mineral County and back down to South Fork or whatever. Maybe find a spot to look at the Rio Grande?”
Night was falling as well as the temperature, but Zach said, “Sure.”
A few minutes later he heard a choked sound. Clare was crying. He stopped in the wider valley, pulled over. Only a few lights from ranch homes dotted the area.
“Clare, honey . . .”
She turned to him and he held her as she wept. “I know you’re scared for Enzo, but—”
Ghost Killer Page 18
