End of the Road (Ghost Stories Trilogy #1) (27 page)

At first, the green
monster of jealousy reared up inside me and I wanted to smack her face - with
the butt of my gun. Then I debated about warning her off of dating a co-worker.
In the end I kept my mouth shut. I was only half listening to her chatter. I
was too distracted by the image of Eric laughing with her, holding her hand,
kissing her…

Not my Eric.

This thought brought me
up short and I came to a stop. Christine stopped too. “Is everything okay?” she
asked.

“No. I mean yes. Sorry, I
just was thinking.” I continued walking and heard Christine fall into step
beside me. He wasn’t “my Eric” anymore and I thought I had accepted it, hell,
it was what I wanted; yet he still held a claim on my heart. Perhaps he always
will. Knowing I didn’t have the time or mental and emotional capacity to
explore my
feelings
for Eric, I mollified myself with this idea.

Christine left me alone
after that. Maybe she attributed my strange behavior to my new reputation. I
honestly didn’t care. We weren’t in the same department so I didn’t have to see
her every day. But Eric did. I shook my head, hoping to shed the jealousy like
a wet dog shaking water from its fur. Christine picked up her speed and made it
back to the vehicles before me.

The three other officers
who were on the same detail emerged from the shadows shortly after us; we all
were visibly more relaxed since the bust went so smoothly. A crime scene van
and a hazmat vehicle roared past heading towards the meth lab and a few minutes
later, Eric and his team arrived. The paddy wagon continued on down the road
after the other cars pulled over.

Eric got out and walked
around to talk to the officers. One by one they got in their vehicles and drove
off. Christine was the last person he spoke to. He had his back to me, but I
could see them clearly in the headlights. Christine glanced in my direction once
wearing the same satisfied smile I had seen earlier. I yanked open the
passenger door to Eric’s SUV and climbed in.

I didn’t have to wait
very long for Eric to join me. He started the engine and peeled out onto the
dirt road.

“Elena, thanks for your help
tonight.”

“I didn’t really do
anything. I’m glad it went well?”

“It did. The suspects
were smart enough not to do anything stupid. We have three in custody and the
lab will get broken down safely. This was quite the operation and capable of
cooking a lot of meth. Oh, and you did the research, followed up on the tips so
you can’t say you didn’t do anything.” He reached over and squeezed my knee; a move
that used to be so natural until he realized what he’d done and jerked his hand
away like he had touched a hot stove burner.

I swung my head around
and looked at him. “What the hell was that?”

“Sorry, habit I guess.”

“Yeah, you guess. What’s
with you anyway? You didn’t really need me here tonight.”

Eric stared ahead,
focusing on the road. “It was a test to see if you’re ready to get back out in
the field.”

“Jesus, I was practically
shot once and didn’t have to jump through any hoops.”

“That wasn’t spread all
over the internet and you weren’t allegedly carrying on a conversation with
ghosts afterwards.”

He did have a point, but
it didn’t stop me from feeling disappointed that Eric didn’t want me involved
out of his own volition. Once again he was ordered to babysit me to make sure I
didn’t screw up.

“So, did I pass?”

“Yes…except Christine
said you acted a little strange?”

Of course she did. “I can
see why she’d think that.” I told him that it was a little overwhelming and I
was working out the adrenaline. I left out the whole jealousy part. There was
no way I would reveal that to him. “Plus, she’s a talker and I didn’t feel like
responding.”

“I know what you mean.
She does talk too much.”

I laughed at his
agreement, relieved that his interest in Christine remained professional.

“Now that I’ve passed my
test, what’s next?”

“You’ll most likely get
taken off desk duty and will be back in your cruiser, maintaining peace and
order in Yavapai County once again.”

This news should have
excited me, but I thought of the research I had to do in order to keep my
promise to Frank and the others. I tried not to refer to them as ghosts because
they seemed real to me…three dimensional and not some characters from a Scooby
Doo mystery. Going back out in the field meant less computer time and longer
shifts.

“That’s not exactly the
reaction I was expecting from a woman who loves her job,” Eric said.

“I haven’t been cleared
yet so there’s no use in getting my hopes up.”

“Fair enough.”

I was quiet and stuck in
my head for the rest of the ride back to Prescott. On one side, being cleared
for active duty was exciting because I did love my job, but apprehension was
mixed in there too. It was kind of ironic that Eric brought out those same
feelings whenever I was around him; excitement and apprehension.

Chapter Sixty-One

Sure enough, two days
later I was called into Lieutenant Adams’ office and restored to my full
position, with a fair warning that he was going to keep his eye on me. Once a
stigma has been attached to a person, it’s hard to remove it. The way he kept a
certain distance between us I could tell he thought I was strange. He’d never
understand that what happened during my rescue was just as unexpected for me,
but the blame would always be placed on my shoulders.

Adams had me working the
twelve hour night patrol shift and every morning I came home exhausted with heavy,
scratchy eyes. Falling asleep on the sofa with the TV on became the norm. I
kept the file on my dinette table as a reminder, but didn’t make a lot of
progress and the guilt of not keeping my promise began to eat away at me.

After three weeks back
and with the file collecting dust, something had to give. Not only was my
conscience bothering me, but I was genuinely curious about what happened after
Frank and the others passed on. I had found Lawrence’s great nieces and nephew’s
names. Now I needed to find them.

First, I had to help
throw a 60
^th
birthday party for my father. Family events lost their
appeal after my divorce because there were always too many questions, shaking
of heads and clucking of tongues. Things had changed – I had changed – and I actually
looked forward to the company. The mild judgment wouldn’t bother me anymore
because I didn’t know when my time was going to be up. Having a brush with
death made me appreciate life and my family; even my weird cousin Jesus who
liked to stare at my breasts.

My mom convinced me to stay
over at their house the night before and the night of the party. So after my
shift ended, I drove straight over to my parents’. It was a Friday and they
were both at work, which gave me the house to myself for a nap. I knew my sleep
cycle was going to be out of whack since I’d have to be conscious all the next
day and night.

I entered the quiet house
from the attached garage and stepped into the kitchen. The hum of the
refrigerator and whisper of air conditioning were the only sounds that greeted
me. My stomach growled when I caught a whiff of bacon lingering in the air. A
pink sticky note on the microwave caught my eye and I crossed the kitchen, the
rubber soles of my boots squeaking against the tile floor.

    
Elena, there’s a
plate for you inside – 2 minutes on high. See you later.

     Love, Mom.

This gesture brought me
back to my childhood when my parents both had to be at work early. Out of guilt
for not being there in the morning to see us off to school, she made an
elaborate breakfast for me and my brother when a bowl of cereal would have been
fine. We’d wake to find pancakes, huevos rancheros or fresh baked empanadas
waiting for us, usually marked with a note. Our lunches were made and sitting
on the counters in lunch boxes which evolved into paper bags when we got older,
with yet another note inside. What I thought were actions of a smothering,
slightly crazy person, I realized (when I was older, living on my own and
making my own lunches) were acts of love.  

I heated up the breakfast
plate and sat down at the counter. Even nuked, my mom’s eggs were still the
best and I inhaled every bite. After mindlessly flipping through television
channels for an hour, I went up to my old bedroom, set the alarm on my phone
for 1:00 in the afternoon and fell asleep.

The creak of my bedroom
door opening woke me up. I rolled over to see who had come in. My room was
almost dark. Weak sunlight filtered through the blinds covering my windows. 
More light spilled in from the doorway where my mom stood.

“What time is it?” I
asked. My voice was groggy with sleep. I vaguely remembered the alarm on my
phone going off, but I must have hit snooze or slept right through it.

“6:30. Dinner is ready.
Are you hungry?”

Despite doing nothing but
sleep all day, my stomach growled. “Yes, I’m starving and sorry…I didn’t mean
to sleep so late.”

“What are you apologizing
for? You need the rest. You work too hard.”

I smiled and stretched.
The homemade breakfast, sleeping in my old bedroom and my mom waking me up for
dinner left me more relaxed than I had been in months. I was home.

“Come, dinner’s getting
cold,” she said and hurried back down the hallway, leaving my door wide open. I
had to laugh at this tactic, one she employed many times when I was a teenager.
If I wanted to retreat back into a dark room and be left undisturbed, I’d have
to get out of bed and shut the door myself. Fortunately I had outgrown
adolescence and wouldn’t be stomping to the door to slam it shut. I’d had my
sleep and the scent of grilled meat was drifting down the hall, slowly filling
up my room, making my mouth water.

Yawning, I pulled my hair
back in a ponytail as I walked into the brightly lit dining room.

“There’s my girl!” My dad
beamed at me from the head of the table.

“Hi Dad,” I said and bent
over to kiss his forehead. His hair had thinned out on top, revealing a
significant amount of forehead, and I wondered when that had happened. Surely that’s
something I should have noticed? I thought to myself and sat down next to him.

“Where’s Cruz?” I
expected my brother to be home.

“He’ll be here
tomorrow…said he had some party to go to tonight,” my dad answered.

Cruz was in his last year
at ASU and he always had something going on.

“Tomorrow is the only party
that matters,” I said and winked at him. He smiled and patted my knee under the
table. “Mom, what can I help with? I’ll probably be up all night now, so put me
to work.”

My mom pounced on the
opportunity and pulled out a three ring binder which contained a detailed itinerary
for the next 24 hours, the guest list and full menu. The good news was that
nobody was going to starve. The bad news was that I needed to help cook. For
me, taking down a man twice my size was easier than sautéing onions.

I was assured that most
of the prep was done and all I had to do was follow the directions. This made
my dad laugh. He had tasted enough experimental breakfasts on Father’s Day to
know I was a lost cause. My mother, on the other hand, had not given up hope
and was determined to make me a domestic goddess.

Mom chattered on through
dinner about the neighbors and who was getting married, not so subtly glancing
at me every time she mentioned the word wedding.

“Carmen, enough, leave
her alone.”

“Thanks Dad,” I said and
picked up the planning binder, hoping to get my mom back on topic. I glanced
over the guest list to make sure there weren’t any surprises; I wouldn’t put it
past my mother to invite an eligible man or two.  Nothing unusual jumped out at
me. I breathed a sigh of relief and snapped the binder shut.

“I’m glad you’re here, we
haven’t seen you in a while,” my dad said.

“I know - sorry. I’ve
been busy,” I responded then ate a forkful of steak.

“Work?”

Still chewing, I nodded.
“Too busy,” I said after swallowing.

“Yep, that happens and
before you know it you’re turning sixty.” He smiled and I noticed his mustache
was more gray than black.
When did that happen?
I asked myself again,
internally promising to pay more attention to my parents.

After dinner I helped clean
up. My dad relocated to the living room and I heard the television in the
background. He was watching some sort of detective show re-run. I grew up
around his love of cop shows and being exposed to them at a young age
definitely influenced my career choice. After cleaning the kitchen, I grabbed a
beer out of the refrigerator and went to sit with him.

He was half dozing on the
sofa with his legs stretched out in front of him, the remote control
precariously balanced on one thigh. I sat down Indian-style on the other end of
the sofa and he woke up with a startled snore. His thick black eyebrows lifted
in surprise then he yawned.

“I didn’t realize I
nodded off.”

“Yep, you were snoring
too.”

“Was I? Oh.”

I laughed at his dreamy
cluelessness, but also at the familiarity of it. Guaranteed after a long week
and a good meal, dad would be here and we had almost the identical conversation
countless times growing up. When Cruz and I were younger we’d make a game of
seeing how many things we could place on dad while he slept. Usually our
giggles and snorting woke him up before we even set anything on him. Just the
attempt was sheer entertainment.

I hung out in the living
room watching TV with my parents. It was nice having the company and I was
disappointed when they went to bed. The night stretched out ahead of me and I
knew with my nocturnal schedule, sleep was several hours away. Instead of
flicking through the channels with the sound practically muted as to not
disturb my parents, I tiptoed to my room and pulled my laptop, plus the file
containing all of my research out of the duffel bag.

Propped up in bed, I
sorted through a stack of papers to find the notes on Frank. He wanted to know
what happened to his wife, Faye, and their child.

I searched for a Faye
Murphy in Phoenix and received a couple of results, but none of them were a
match. Frank said he thought she might have remarried since he made her a young
widow. I deleted the Murphy and typed in her maiden name. After filtering
through the search results, I found a match: Faye Hutchings nee Sproul, with
the right date of birth followed by a date of death. She died in 1998 from
cancer and was survived by a son, Francis Murphy Jr. of Las Vegas, Nevada and a
daughter, Monica Hutchings-Durgin of Atlanta, Georgia, plus Monica’s husband
and her two children.

“No shit,” I said out
loud and sat back against the headboard. “Frank had a son.”

Since I didn’t have
access to my parent’s printer, I bookmarked the page and wrote a comment in my
notes before beginning a search for Frank’s son. It didn’t take long to find
him.

Frank Jr. was a chip off
the old block. Apparently Junior didn’t learn from his father’s death because he
had a tendency to drink and drive, a habit well known by Las Vegas Police
Department. In fact he was recently busted for a fifth time. This made the
second page of the local news section. He was intoxicated, driving on a
suspended license and was only wearing his underwear. “Oh boy,” I chuckled and
bookmarked the page, remembering the time I had to arrest a man who was running
down a residential street in his birthday suit.

I clicked on another
result and learned he was like his father in another way too. Junior was a car
salesman at Desert Auto in Henderson, Nevada or at least he had been a year
earlier when he won salesman of the month. I wasn’t sure how dated the
information was, but at least it was a lead. I wrote down the contact
information for the dealership even though I wasn’t sure if I’d actually use
it.

The beer had left a
stale, bitter residue in my mouth so I took a break to brush my teeth, get some
water and change into pajamas. Settled back in bed, I continued researching
Frank Junior, but the information became scarce and he didn’t seem to have any
social media accounts.

I tried searching for
more details on Faye and even if I hadn’t fallen asleep, I wouldn’t have found
anything.

The next morning I woke to
the sounds of papers shuffling. I jerked my head and flinched at the pain from
a kink in my neck and blinked against the sun pouring in through the windows. My
laptop was still open on my lap and I grabbed it before it slid onto the floor.
That’s when I noticed my mom. She sat at the foot of the bed with the file.