“Selene?” Micah’s sharp voice and the fact that he’d thrust his face into mine finally snapped me out of my thoughts and made me focus on him. He looked pissed. “What the hell have you been standing here thinking about?”
I stared at Micah for a moment, chewing my lip and wondering if I should share with him everything I knew. It would mean I’d have to tell him that Ethan’s ghost was hanging around me, and I was trying to help him find his body. I didn’t know what Micah would think about that or what he would do, but this was his investigation and we wouldn’t get anywhere if I kept things from him.
“I kind of have a story to tell you,” I said, voice low. “Let’s talk somewhere more private.”
Micah frowned but nodded and followed me as I headed to one of the empty rooms that lined the walls. There were several soundproof rooms set up whenever we needed privacy to talk to our ghost clients or talk about the intricacies of a case we were working. We headed into one, and I told him everything, starting with the night I had tracked down ghost Ethan only to hear his tale and decide to help him. Micah’s frown faded, and his expression took on one of disbelief instead. He ran his hand across his face, then sat back and folded his arms across his chest.
“And you’re sure about this?” he asked, giving me a probing look as though trying to gauge whether or not I had gone off the deep end.
“I wouldn’t make up a story like this about a murder case, Micah,” I said. “Do give me some credit. I know how crazy it sounds, but I’m not lying. I can introduce you to Ethan later if it’ll help you believe me.”
He stared at me for a few moments more, then shook his head and sighed. “Well, that puts quite a twist on this case,” he finally said. “Now we have to figure out who’s walking around in this Ethan guy’s body and why they would target Leslie.”
“We need to talk to people who knew her,” I said. “Maybe we could figure out if anyone she knew would have it out for her, especially if that person was dead and had a ghost that stuck around.”
“The best place to start would be Larry,” Micah said. “But I heard he’s out with another necromancer.”
“Then we start with living people who knew her until Larry comes back,” I said. We got up to leave the room.
“Let’s look up family and acquaintances of hers, then we can see if there’s anyone we can go talk to today,” Micah said.
We headed back to our desks, and dare I say it really felt like we were a team working on this together? If I wasn’t mistaken, Micah seemed a lot less frosty now than he had when he’d first been stuck with me. Had to love progress.
Our computers were equipped with software that essentially allowed us to stalk anyone’s life, so it didn’t take long for Micah and me to get a list of Leslie’s friends and family. We then had to cross-check those people to see who lived in the area, because they would be easier to access, and we had to make sure the people we were planning to visit were alive. After a couple of hours, Micah and I regrouped at his cubicle.
“I think we should start with her sister,” Micah said. “She lives in Queens and hopefully knew her sister well enough to give us some insight on whose ghost would want to kill her.”
“Some of her family and friends I looked up are dead,” I said. “So maybe it’s one of them who jumped into Ethan’s body.”
“Let’s see what we can find,” Micah said.
We headed to his car, and an hour later, we pulled up in front of Annette Brown’s two-story house.
“Wonder why we didn’t try to call first to see if she was home,” I said as we got out and headed to the front door.
“It’s the sidekick’s job to remember things like that, so you’re to blame,” Micah said.
I stuck my tongue out at him, then Micah rang the doorbell, and I hoped we hadn’t made the trip out here for nothing. Micah rang again after a minute or so. Finally, we heard movement behind the door before it opened a crack and someone looked out.
“What you want?” a man’s abrasive voice barked at us. Micah and I showed him our badges.
“My name is Micah Stone, and this is Selene Vanream. We’re necromancers with Affairs of the Dead, and we’re looking for Annette Brown.”
“Why you need my woman?” the man asked.
So this was her husband or boyfriend. What a catch.
“Are you aware that Ms. Brown’s sister Leslie was found murdered last week?” Micah asked. The man said nothing, and moments later, I heard someone come up behind him.
“Open the door Carl, it’s okay,” a tired-sounding woman’s voice said. Carl regarded us a moment longer before moving away from the door and letting Annette take over. She unchained the door and opened it wider.
She bore a striking resemblance to Leslie. They had the same brown hair and brown eyes, but Annette had a fuller figure and didn’t have the look of a Leech Baby junkie that her sister had. She did look like a total wreck though. Her clothes and hair were unkempt, and her face was tear streaked. Clearly she’d heard about her sister’s death.
“Annette, would it be okay for us to talk to you for a few minutes about Leslie?” Micah asked.
“I don’t know who killed her,” Annette said, shaking her head.
“We never said you did,” I said. “But that’s something we’re trying to figure out, and we’d like your help with that if possible.”
Annette sniffled, wiped at her cheeks, then stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. She indicated a few chairs in a corner of the porch, and the three of us sat down, Micah and I on a porch swing and Annette on a rickety wicker chair. I was tempted to start swinging the chair, and Micah must have sensed that because he gave me a warning look before focusing on Annette again.
“So, what do you want to talk to me about?” Annette asked.
“Our preliminary investigation has been giving us some gray areas in regard to who could have murdered your sister,” Micah said. “But we have reason to believe it may have been someone she knew.”
We left off the angle that the person who knew Leslie had killed her in someone else’s body. Annette’s eyes widened, and her lip trembled. I got the feeling she knew something that could help us.
“Did your sister have any enemies?” I asked her. “Anyone who held a grudge against her that could be strong enough to want to kill her?”
Annette’s eyes filled with tears, and she looked away from Micah and me. “I don’t—I don’t know…”
Micah and I exchanged looks.
“If you know anything that could help, please tell us,” Micah said.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him sound so gentle. That certainly wasn’t the tone he used with me. Annette took a shuddering breath.
“It’s just that I don’t know if this really means anything,” Annette said. “It could be nothing at all.”
“Leave that to us to figure out,” Micah said. “We’re just gathering information, so tell us whatever you can, regardless of if you think it’s relevant.”
Annette nodded, knotting her fingers in her lap and staring down at them. “There was a…a man that she was involved with,” she began.
“Ex-boyfriend?” I asked.
Annette shook her head. “No, this man was from long ago,” she said. “When she was still married.”
“When Larry was still alive?” I asked, eyebrows raised. “Are you saying that Leslie had an affair while she was married?”
Annette nodded. “She and Larry had been going through a rough patch, and she and Victor sort of just found each other. She only told me about it and begged me to help her keep it a secret from Larry. Eventually, it all came to light though, because Victor tried to persuade Leslie to leave Larry, but she didn’t want to end her marriage because of her kids. One night, she showed up here with a black eye and said Victor had hit her when she told him she wouldn’t leave Larry and was ending the affair. She went back to Larry, but their relationship wasn’t the same after. He couldn’t forgive her for what she did, but he stayed with her for the kids. A few months after that was when Larry died.”
“Wow,” I said, sitting back and folding my arms over my chest. I hadn’t expected to uncover this kind of drama.
“What happened to Victor after that?” Micah asked.
“I don’t know,” Annette said with a shrug. “Leslie was afraid he’d come after her, especially after Larry died, but she never saw him again and figured he must have left town.”
“Do you know Victor’s last name?” I asked.
“Raston,” Annette said. “Victor Raston.”
“We’ll look into him,” Micah said. “Thanks for the information.” He’d been making notes as Annette was speaking, so he finished up and put away his notepad, then we both stood up.
“You’ll let me know…if you figure out who did this, won’t you?” Annette asked, getting up as well.
“We will,” Micah said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry too,” I said.
Annette nodded and watched us go from the porch, wiping at her cheeks.
“So we have an angle to explore,” I said once Micah was driving off.
“But it would only work out if this Victor Raston is dead, his ghost rose, and we can conclude that it was his ghost in Ethan’s body.”
“Yeah, kind of a lot of ifs there,” I said. “But it’s a place to start.”
“I’m worried about the bigger picture though,” Micah said. “The fact that someone took over this guy’s body…what the hell are they after?”
“Murder, for one,” I said. “And we should also be concerned about the reanimator behind this. The dead witches working to sniff out reanimators clearly missed someone.”
“Could be someone from the Underground,” Micah said.
“True.”
“We’ll start with researching Victor Raston and go from there,” Micah said. “In life, he seemed to have enough motive to want to harm Leslie. If he’s dead, let’s see if his ghost sought out some Underground reanimator to help him with his murderous unfinished business.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a ghost went to someone in the Underground to try and have someone murdered,” I said.
Affairs of the Dead didn’t help ghosts commit murder. Any ghost we figured out was sticking around because they wanted to hurt someone got a necromancer circle. Luckily, those cases were rare.
The plan was to start researching Victor Raston as soon as we got back to the office, but Amy called out to us as soon as we walked into the suite.
“The morgue called up and left a message for you,” she said. She was giving Micah a look I’d seen her and many of the other women give him numerous times, while pretending I wasn’t even standing there. She was shamelessly obvious. “They said another body has been brought in, and they think it’s related to the victim from the case you’re currently investigating.”
Micah and I were immediately on alert. Another body possibly murdered by Ethan’s body-jacker? Not good.
“Let’s go down and have a look,” Micah said. We started walking back out, but just then Andrew caught up to us.
“Selene, can I have a word with you in my office?” he asked. I recognized the tone in his voice. It was mid afternoon and the office was mostly empty; he wanted a quickie.
I was more interested in the case but couldn’t exactly stand there and say no to Andrew with Micah and Amy watching. I gave Andrew a tight smile and nodded.
“I’ll go on ahead. Catch up,” Micah said before exiting the suite.
I followed Andrew back to his office. As soon as the door closed, he started loosening his tie and advanced on me. I really wasn’t in the mood right now though.
“Look, Andrew…” I sidestepped him before he could put his arms around me and start shoving his tongue down my throat. “A lot of things are developing with the case you’ve put me on with Micah, so I’m kind of busy right now.”
“Mm-hmm.” He captured me, slid his hands under my shirt, and started kissing my neck. “You’ll have plenty of time for the case. I just want ten minutes.”
That actually pissed me off. Ten minutes of my time before I was out the door. I was nothing but a reprieve to him. I struggled, but he wouldn’t let me go, and backed me up until I was pressed against the wall, his hands moving to undo my blouse.
“Come now, it’s not like we haven’t done this before.”
“Yeah…but…” I had my hands pressed against his very firm chest, but even though I still wanted to get away, he was effectively turning me on and weakening my resolve. “I really want to get back to work,” I said breathlessly.
Andrew’s hand on one of my breasts was further undoing me. He drew my bottom lip into his mouth and sucked it, which made my body tighten and almost made me say to hell with it and let him have his ten minutes. But for some reason, I just didn’t want to play this role right now. The sex was fantastic, but my focus wasn’t on Andrew at the moment. I wanted to get back to working with Micah. With a lot of effort, I made enough of a struggle for Andrew to pull back and look at me with a frown on his face.
“What the fuck, Selene?” he said. “Why are you resisting me so much?”
I quickly straightened my bra, then buttoned my blouse and tucked it back into my slacks. I then moved toward the door, but Andrew wasn’t going to let me get away from him that easily. He blocked the door and hovered over me.
“I want to fuck,” he said. “Now.”
I frowned at the commanding tone of his voice, and he seemed to catch himself because he blinked and stepped aside, his intense expression relaxing a little. Here was where being a dominating man went a little too far in my book.
“Sorry,” I said. “I really should get back to the case. Solving murders should come first, right?”
I quickly walked to the door, and he didn’t stop me from opening it. I glanced over my shoulder at him before I stepped out. He had a strange look on his face, but he didn’t say anything more. I closed the door and walked away, releasing a huge breath. Andrew wasn’t the type of man who was used to hearing no, and that had been the first time I had ever turned him down. I didn’t want to think about how he would take that. Hopefully, I wouldn’t soon find myself on the unemployment line. The downside of having an affair with your boss sure was a drag.
I had to put Andrew and our tangled relationship aside though, because I wanted to have a look at this new body. Amy said Micah hadn’t come back up yet, so I headed down to the morgue and was directed to the room where the body was. I entered to find Micah frowning over a body lying on a sheet-covered metal table.