Lost Souls (A Caitlyn O’Connell Novel) (5 page)

Behind her, Sam cussed under his breath.

Leland’s face screwed up into a scowl. “Knew soon as Sam mentioned you’d been there, you were somehow wrapped up in this. Uniforms found her car parked outside the hotel this morning, even before we could find her husband to have a chat about his missin’ wife.”

“She hasn’t been gone long enough for him to report,” Jason murmured as he ran a hand over his jaw. “He probably doesn’t know.”

Her glance slid away. “Unless he’s the one who set her up,” she said, suddenly uncomfortable when all three men’s gazes rested on her. She shrugged. “We’re assuming something completely unnatural happened, when this could be a hubby who made a deal with a devil. He didn’t have to hire us to get rock-solid evidence his wife was stepping out on him. He had her Facebook hookup documented. Just sayin’…”

Leland waved his hand, silencing her. “Guess we’re in need of your specialized services, Cait.” He leaned over his desk, his steel-gray eyes pinning her. “Try not to get anyone killed or anything blown up this time.”

When he spun his chair to stare out the window, a clear indication the conversation was over, Cait pushed up from her seat. She gave Sam a searching glance. “We working this together?”

“Why would you have any doubts? Didn’t you hear?” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “I’m the new full-moon guy.”

His voice was gravel-coarse. Anger bristled in the stiff set of his shoulders, but she held her comments until they were back in the corridor, away from homicide’s gossipy cops.

“I was going to tell you,” she mumbled. “But I got a little distracted last night.”

He cussed again and turned on his heel, heading to the elevator.

Not until all three of them were striding outside toward Sam’s unmarked sedan did she open her mouth. “I wasn’t keeping secrets. I would have told you everything—once I was sure Sylvia was dead and that what I saw was her ghost, not just… I don’t know… her taking a walk outside her body. The other ghosts I’ve seen aren’t holographs. They look just like you and me.”

“That even possible?” Jason asked. “Someone walking outside their body?”

Cait shrugged. “My mom claimed she could do astral projection. I never have. How the fuck would I know?”

Sam turned and leaned his butt against his car. “Cait, we are not going down the same path we did last time. I’ll share everything I learn. I expect the same professional courtesy from you.”

“Of course.” Only maybe she’d answered too quickly because both Sam and Jason gave her a look that said they seriously doubted she would. “What? I want to figure this out as badly as you guys do.”

Sam folded his arms over his chest and glared harder.

Jason reached out to touch her shoulder. “Problem is, Cait, when things get hinky you hold on to stuff. Sometimes
a bit too long. I know you have issues with that other world you walk in, but you’ve left us swinging in the wind before. We need a little reassurance you won’t this time around.”

Cait huffed. “Fine. I’ll tell you every time I take a potty break too.” She chopped a hand through the air. “You guys ever think that maybe some of this stuff might not be pertinent?”

“Why should you be the one to decide what is and what isn’t
pertinent
, Cait?” Sam asked, his jaw tightening.

Her glance slid away as she remembered too many times she’d failed to read them in fully because she’d been afraid of sharing her past—and what she really was. “I’m not sure where to start,” she admitted.

Dropping his arms, Sam shook his head, exasperation darkening his expression. “How about with the frigging crime scene?”

Cop 101. He was right. She’d been quick to leap ahead to the woo-woo when they needed to put feet on the ground first. Relieved, too, that doing so meant she could delay facing Morin, she nodded. “Let’s have a look around. Maybe we’ll find something the crime scene techs overlooked.”

Twenty minutes later, they trailed into the hotel, past a tow truck uploading Sylvia’s car to transport it to the impound lot where techs would comb it for clues. While Jason stopped at the front desk to get a list of all the guests who’d had third-floor rooms the night before, Sam and Cait headed straight to room 323.

Cait did her best not to let him see her unease as they entered the short hallway. But this morning, the light switch was behaving. No sparks or smells of anything burning. No see-through spirit haunting the hallway.

Sam used the edge of the hotel room key to slice through the tape sealing the door and then unlocked it, pushing it open and standing to the side for her to enter.

The first sight that greeted her stopped her in her tracks. Sylvia’s oversized purse sat atop the dresser.

“That wasn’t here before,” Sam said quietly.

“It wouldn’t have been. It’s Sylvia’s. She didn’t become a victim until last night.”

Sam set his curled hands on his hips and gave her an even stare. “Do you see her now? Hear any whispers?”

She cocked her head. “No. And all’s quiet.” Freakishly so, but she wasn’t going to mention her unease.

Instead, she inspected the room. The bed was made up. Never slept in. A large section of drywall was missing next to the bathroom door, leaving a gaping hole where the workers had opened it, and then the techs had removed more panels to gather evidence.

Cait walked toward it and stuck her head into the opening. An eight-inch space was framed with wood slats, bits of insulation sticking to the seams. The area appeared empty. An odor teased her nose. Something other than the faint telltale scent of decaying corpse, something she recognized from her apprentice days. Frankincense? Made sense. She popped out her head. “Anything odd about the body when it was found?”

Sam frowned. “Her internal organs appeared to be gouged out. Her body was a dried husk. The ME will have more for us about cause of death.”

“No one ever reported smelling anything odd?”

“You’ll have to ask the manager. He said he’d be standing by for us to interview him.”

She nodded, then stuck her head into the hollowed-out wall again. Something glinted from between the slats farther down. Might have been nothing, but she stepped into the space and stretched out her arm.

A wisp of a breeze blew over her, a second before a whiff of something that smelled like rotten eggs nearly made her gag. She reached blindly for the thing stuck between the tight seam, felt a crisp edge, and squeezed her thumb and forefinger around it. Her grip tightened, ready to jerk it out quickly and get away from the bad feeling causing a ripple of fear to shiver down her spine.

A rustling, crackling sound came from deeper in the walls. Then she heard the thing that had been missing since she’d reentered the hotel.

Voices. Whispers of the dead. Some rasping and dry, some agitated and high-pitched. Still, she took heart, because she didn’t hear a single screech from a malevolent wraith. She gave the thin object a tug.

A blinding flash exploded. She felt a jolt like a Taser’s blast and knew what was happening but was unable to move. The shock blasted through her body, making her muscles grow rigid and her mind clear of everything except the pain.

Although he didn’t have an ounce of psychic ability, Sam knew something was wrong the moment he smelled sulfur and a second before lightning exploded from the opening and Cait began to convulse.

Not understanding anything but the need to pull her free, Sam leapt forward, grabbed a wad of her shirt, and jerked her out of the hole. They both fell backward, bouncing against the mattress, then dropping to the floor. Above them, a thin bolt of white-hot electricity shot toward the ceiling, the tail flickering out to touch the overhead lamp, then bending to snap and pop against the wooden dresser.

Not daring to take his gaze from her, Sam low-crawled to Cait, whose face was screwed up in an agonized grimace, and wrapped a hand around her upper arm. He dragged her toward the door, reached for the handle, flung it open, then pulled her through. When they were both clear, he glanced inside the room to see another strange arc flicker from the opening in the wall, popping, cracking, and darting as it seemed to search the room. He slammed the door shut.

In the hallway, he scooted to the far wall and pulled her against his chest. “Cait.”

Her arms crossed her chest. One closed fist slowly uncurled. Inside was a tattered driver’s license.

Her eyes eased open, and she stared at what she held. “We’ll need cadaver dogs, sonar, something…” she rasped, then slumped in his arms.

Every few seconds, it seemed, Cait opened her eyes to take stock of where she was. Held against Sam’s chest in the dingy hallway. In his arms still, as he carried her into the elevator. On a low-slung couch with lumpy springs in the foyer, staring up at the grimy ceiling.

When she roused, feeling more herself, she found an EMT shoving fluids in her veins.

“Don’t try to get up,” he said, offering her a small smile. “You’ve suffered a shock.”

She almost blurted
duh,
but withheld the urge. He was cute and seemed genuinely concerned as he taped the needle to her arm.

Jason peered over the attendant’s shoulder. “Like the new ’do.”

Alarmed, she reached up with her free hand to touch her hair, only to discover it was standing on end and felt kinky as hell. “What happened?” she asked, surprised when her voice sounded like a dry, crackling whisper.

Jason waggled his eyebrows. “Bad wiring?”

She grunted, squinting upward because the effort to keep her eyes open made her head hurt. “The license?”

“Sam’s running it through the system now. Had to pry him from you with a crowbar, but he’s over there,” he said, lifting his chin to point to someplace over the back of the sofa where she reclined.

Cait pushed up even as the EMT tried to push her back down. One glance at Sam’s tight, gray features and she slumped back, satisfied they’d both made it out of the room relatively unharmed.

“He’s getting word to Leland we may have more vics,” Jason continued, his voice dropping. “He’s mustering dogs and sonar equipment to search the place. The manager’s not happy about the thought of us tearing up more walls.”

Right that moment, Cait was grateful her team was taking over. Every muscle in her body ached. She worked her jaw side to side and winced. Good Lord, whatever was in the walls packed a wallop.

A hand touched her cheek, and she blinked open her eyes, not realizing she’d drifted off again.

Sam was leaning a hip on the back of the couch, his gaze studying her face. “We got a hit on that license. A stewardess who disappeared in the late eighties.”

Cait swallowed to wet her dry mouth. “So, this may have been going on a while. More reason to get those dogs in here.”

“You’ve got great instincts, Cait.” He gave her a lopsided smile, but then his face grew tight again. Emotion burned in his bitter gaze. “Jason says you had similar trouble here last night. Might have helped to know beforehand.”

Back to square one. Cait closed her eyes. Better to play sick girl than face another round of condemnation.

“Things have been moving pretty fast,” Jason said softly, a hint of warning in his voice.

“Two words,” Sam snapped. “‘Lightning bolts.’ Doesn’t take more than a second to get across the point there might be danger entering that room.”

“Sorry,” she croaked.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, cupping his ear as an eyebrow arched. “Not sure I heard you right. The Cait I know doesn’t like apologizing.”

Anger burned away the teary feelings, and she glared upward into his face.

His lips twitched.

Irritation ran along her spine. So he was playing her.

“You look better. Got a little color back in those pasty cheeks, O’Connell.”

An older man with thin, graying hair and thick black-rimmed glasses approached, wringing his hands. “Detectives, how long are you going to be here? The guests are getting nervous.”

“They should be, Mr. Lewis,” Sam bit out. “Might want to refund their money and send them elsewhere.”

“Sam.” Cait reached out her hand. She tugged his arm to bring him closer to hear her whisper. “We need folks to stay right where they are. We need to canvass. One of them might know something.”