Ghost Killer (15 page)

“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.”

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.”

“All right, coming up on the left,” Zach said aloud to Clare, then said mentally to
Enzo,
We are driving by. It will be easy to see me, harder to see Clare. But tell Caden
we’re on his side. Always.

I WILL! Oooooh, here you come. I SEE you.
Zach got the image of Enzo panting, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.

“The playground for the younger kids is before the larger building.”

“I see it.” She leaned forward. Caden pressed against the chain link fence, small
fingers curling around the diamonds. She put her hand on Zach’s thigh and the ghost
Labrador coalesced from shades of gray to a doglike critter to Zach’s eyes. Caden
waved.

Zach waved, then muttered, “Dammit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t look now but that beat-up old truck just beyond the walkway belongs to Pais
the elder.”

She sniffed. “We’re tourists, just seeing the town. And there aren’t that many streets
to drive up and down.” She lifted a hand.

“Don’t wave at Caden or Enzo.”

“Oh, all right,” she grumbled, smoothing her hair. A futile gesture, but Zach loved
her curls.

They crept by at the slowest pace Zach could do, which was pretty damn slow because
there wasn’t any other traffic.

Thank you, Clare! Thank you, Zach. Caden FEELS better! He is happier,
Enzo projected.

That’s good,
Clare said.

Zach looked at her; she was smiling. A tiny, gut-deep feeling grew. He was good for
her. Better than some ghost dog that she couldn’t fully relate to. He was better for
her than Enzo.

Surprise trailed along with the realization. He hadn’t known that he really had to
be needed by someone. Or someone had to be better because he was in their life. Not
a codependency thing, but a simple happiness that he was there. He could
feel
that from Clare and wouldn’t like it if anything happened to that feeling.

At the next through street he turned right and just a block away was Pico’s Patio.
The silver BMW hadn’t moved.

“Good, she’s still here.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s her car.”

Clare gasped. “Good grief. It must have cost a fortune. And so inappropriate for a
mountain town.”

“Definite status symbol,” Zach agreed, taking the first parking place he could. Pico’s
Patio appeared busy today, too.

Hand in hand they ambled down the street.

“It really is a pretty little town,” Clare said.

“No ghosts to bother you.”

“No, and I should not be glad about that,”—her fingers flexed in his—“because the
evil one probably ate them all and it’s a part of him—”

Zach halted, turned, and put a hand over her lips. “Stop. Breathe.”

Her full breasts lifted with a big breath, her shoulders shifted to relieve stress,
and she smiled at him and said, “Live in the moment. Enjoy the moment.”

“That’s right.”

She squeezed his fingers tightly with her own. “And in this moment the ghost is not
near.” Her gaze shifted, went distant, the gold flecks in her eyes brightening. “No,
it’s far up the canyons, a little scared maybe.” An edge came to her smile as it broadened.
“Scared of me.”

“That’s right.” He returned the pressure of her hand in his.

“In this moment, we investigate.”

More like she watched and learned as he investigated, but he wasn’t gonna quibble,
stop her when she was on a roll.

With a decisive nod, she strode toward Pico’s Patio. A few diners sat outside at a
couple of tables. Clare hesitated. “Is she—”

“No.” He let go of Clare’s hand to touch her back, guide her through the door.

One glance at the bar showed him that Linda sat there, a little hunched over her food.
The server behind the bar, an older guy and not one of the college students Pico hired
for the summer season, had his gaze glued to a golf game.

Other people sat at the short bar, but none of them next to Linda. They were dressed
like town residents in faded, well-worn everyday clothes.

The L-shaped bar took up most of the front room, with space for tables in front of
the window that faced the street, and a small aisle lined with two-tops on the way
to the back room. Zach drew Clare to the far corner table near the end of the short
side of the L and watched.

Linda sniffed wetly. She appeared worse than when Zach had seen her no more than an
hour past. Close to a breaking point, though knowing despair from the inside out,
he figured she’d broken a few times already and glued herself back together.

He recalled Pais the elder’s disapproval of her. Looked like others disapproved, too.
Maybe she’d been hungry. Tired of her own company. Maybe she’d planned on testing
the waters to see the emotional reaction of people to her. Bad idea, and Zach bet
she regretted that now . . . and a suspicion he knew who, or rather
what
, she might be settled into his brain from the cues Pais and the others around her
gave him.

In 1892, in a wild mining camp that had experienced flood and fire,
the
event that stood out for the town was the murder of Robert Ford.

This year, another event must have dominated the gossip of the locals, been
the
most important happening of the year, and he knew what that was.

The waiter who served them last night, a college kid from back east who worked summers
here with his girlfriend, moved toward Clare and Zach. “Hey, welcome back!” he said
heartily. Too loudly. Or the quiet was unusual and he’d pitched his voice to talk
over the usual buzz of the lunch crowd.

His smile strained as he handed them the menus.

“Thank you,” Clare said and smiled in return. Without looking at the menu, she asked,
“I know you have some salads, what do you recommend?”

“The one with steak strips. Or the taco salad. But my girlfriend likes the Pico’s
Fiesta Salad, with a lot of fresh veggies.”

“Sounds good.” She handed him back the menu.

“I’ll have the chicken tacos with the special picante salsa,” Zach said.

“Drinks?”

“Water and iced tea,” Clare said.

“Just water,” Zach said.

“Gotcha!” With a lope, the young man was gone.

Clare stared at Zach across the table.

“What?”

She held out her hand and he took it.

“This just reminds me of the time we met.”

Didn’t remind Zach of that, except it was lunch. He glanced outside. Okay, it was
sunny. Well she looked better and smiled and he wouldn’t contradict her.

“Such an interesting man you were, and are. You attracted me, and you still do.”

He grinned. “Oh, yeah. Interesting, intriguing, that’s what I first thought. Now you’re
just plain fascinating.”

She appeared surprised, and he thought she blushed for the first time since they’d
met.

Leaning forward and keeping her voice to a murmur, she said, “You’re looking at the
lady at the bar in designer jeans and shirt?”

He nodded.

Clare’s shoulders loosened in a sigh. “If there’s a human component in this case,
it could be so much easier.” She turned her head and stared at Linda sideways. Clare’s
mouth pursed. “I can’t see her being the kind of person who’s interested in history,
in Poker Alice or Robert Ford or Soapy Smith or Bat Masterson. In the Old West ghosts,
my specialty.”

Linda stood up, threw paper napkins on her mostly untouched burger, and announced
into the quiet, “It wasn’t my fault! None of it was
my fault
!” She stormed from the restaurant.

Those townspeople who remained seemed to sigh in unison. Ten seconds of full silence
ticked by, then voices rose in a buzz of gossip. Zach could tell the tourists because
they frowned like Clare. Everyone else knew what Linda referred to.

“What was that all about?” Clare asked.

“I think I know.” His lips curved in a smile. “I think I know and I think I’ve got
the motive for our ghost.”

Her mouth dropped open a little and her eyes widened, then sparkled, and she looked
at him with such admiration that he thought he could beat that damned ghost single-handed.

“One of the puzzle-parts,” she breathed.

“Yes.”

Looking uncomfortable, their waiter came up with their food. A screech of tires on
asphalt sounded and the fishtailing BMW zoomed past the window.

“Good grief,” Clare said. “I can’t imagine being in a hurry here.”

Slipping the plates in front of them, the waiter didn’t answer.

Zach shook his head. “Grief takes all forms, you know that, Clare.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, focusing on her salad now.

Glancing up at the young man, Zach said, “She’s the sister of Mrs. Treedy, the woman
who killed her husband and committed suicide, isn’t she?”

Their waiter nodded. “Yes, that’s Linda Boucher. The murder-suicide was in June. My
girlfriend and I had just arrived a couple of days before.”

Zach frowned. “June sounds a little late for you to get here.”

“We’re both in the drama department, and Creede has a well-known repertory theater.
We got to work with some people there for the season. They do community outreach.
There’s this one little kid who’s awesome, though he tends to talk to himself.”

Zach and Clare shared a look. Clare picked up her fork and fiddled with it. “I have
a young friend in town. Caden LuCette?”

“Yes. That’s him. Good little actor.”

“Hasn’t your school started by now?”

The waiter shrugged. “Not quite, and our mentors at college know what we’re doing.
We’re cutting it close, but we love it here.” He looked around, took a deep breath
of the air that held smells of cooking, and the fresh scent of the mountains when
anyone went in or out. “We’re leaving on Sunday, only a few days more.”

“I see,” Clare said. She’d tightened up.

“You staying for the Cruisin’ the Canyon?”

“Probably,” Zach said.

“Then you’ll also probably be eating here, so I’ll see you later. Chrissy will, too.”
He winked at them. “I told her of the tip you left me last night and she’s looking
forward to serving you.” He strolled off.

Now Clare glared at Zach. She had accountant rules about tipping, and, yeah, he’d
left more cash on the table after she’d turned to leave. Busted.

Brows down, Clare glanced away from him to the waiter and back. “I’m feeling played.”