Chapter 30
Jodie landed in her room at the Halfway House with barely enough energy left to crawl into bed. But her spirits sank even lower when she didn’t spot any sign of Luc. No testosterone vibrations hummed through her, no whispered voice in her subconscious chiding her for her softness. Nothing but emptiness echoed in the air. Strange how quickly she’d become accustomed to Luc’s presence beside her. So much so that his absence left a void akin to hunger inside her core. No, not hunger. More like starvation.
Stop, she told herself.
You’re no longer some needy female who clings to a man because she’s afraid of winding up alone.
D
ammit, where had he gone?
S
he’d hoped to catch up with him at Reception when she dropped off Mr. Lange. But he hadn’t shown up outside of Sherman’s office, and Samantha hadn’t seen him since their last visit together. No one had seen him. Now she was plain dog-tired and quickly losing the stamina to move. Overpowering her waned energy, the emptiness gnawed her insides, forcing her to stay awake—at least until Luc returned.
Come to think of it, she really could have used Luc’s as
sistance finagling poor Mr. Lange into moving on. The bitter man was so wrapped up in his desire for vengeance, or justice, or whatever he craved to satisfy his death, she’d needed all her powers of persuasion to convince him to let his murderer/widow receive her punishment at the hands of the Elder Council.
The thought struck like summer lightning
, a flash illuminating possibility. Could that be where Luc had gone? To see his Elder Counselor? He’d seemed so taken aback by her description of Karmic Justice and Human Life Empathy—as if he’d never heard the terms before she uttered them. But that was too silly to contemplate. Wasn’t it?
Luc had been bounty hunting long before she arrived. Surely he knew all the ins and outs of Karmic Justice. But if that were the case, why had he reacted so
violently to her explanation when she’d tried to convince Mr. Lange? Almost as if the idea tore him to shreds? She stared at the sterile white clipboard. Of course, no glowing reply came her way. Giving in to a childish urge, she stuck out her tongue before turning her back on the powers-that-be.
Okay, fine.
Be that way. I’ll figure out this puzzle on my own. Without any help from the Board.
Her head pounded, and her slowing synapses pulled her toward her rock-hard bed. She needed sleep desperately. But her worry over Luc’s disappearing act prevented her from simply diving into rebooting oblivion.
The sudden rap of knuckles across her door surged hope inside her. Thank God. Luc was back.
She flew to the door, swung it wide. “Oh, my God, I was nearly frantic,” she said in a flood of emotionally charged words. “Where did you go?”
“Well,” Sean Martino drawled, “First I had to wrangle a particularly dim-witted specimen into leaving the zoo where he’d been killed when he climbed into the polar bear exhibit and was used as a plaything by a pair of two-year-old cubs.”
“Oh, Sean.”
Jodie’s hope deflated, along with her happiness. “I thought you were Luc.”
“You mean he’s not here?” Sean stepped inside, scanning the room as if to ascertain Luc’s absence with his own eyes. “When I got no answer on his door, I just assumed he’d be with you.”
She shook her head and turned away from Sean’s scrutiny. “He took off and left me on our last hunt. I haven’t seen him since.”
“And I’m guessing you’re not happy about that.”
Her head jerked up, and she studied Sean with a jaundiced eye. “Have you seen him lately? He looks awful. Hair a mess, dark rings under his eyes, drawn complexion, shaky hands. He screams in his sleep. Something’s wrong. But he won’t tell me. Did he say anything to you?”
Sean’s face remained blank. “Not a word. You say he left you at your last hunt.
What kind of hunt were you two on?”
Indecision impeded Jodie’s tongue. Was it disloyal to discuss this information with Sean? Where should she draw the line between confidentiality and concern for Luc’s welfare?
“It’s my job, Jodie
.” Sean offered her a quirky grin. “Or at least, it was. I was damn good at detective work. One of the best, if I do say so myself. So put your mind at ease. Whatever you tell me is purely for Luc’s safety and not for titillation, okay?”
To hell with confidentiality. Mind made up, Jodie sketched a quick description of their last bounty and Luc’s reaction to her explanation regarding Karmic Justice.
Sean held up a hand, stopping her in mid-tale. “You think Luc didn’t know about Karmic Justice until you described it for Mr. Lange?”
She shrugged. “He really got angry about it. I felt the heat around him. It was hotter than the flames from…” Her explanation trailed off, but she gestured to he
r burn scars to complete the thought.
Apparently
Sean hadn’t lied about being a damn good detective. He showed no reaction to her puckered striations or her sudden attack of nerves. Instead, he remained in investigative mode, the ultimate NYPD official. All he needed was the requisite trench coat and memo pad. “Any idea where he was headed when he took off?”
“Not really. I was wondering if he’
d gone to seek out his Elder Counselor. Maybe to confirm what I’d told him?” Tilting her head, she studied Sean’s banal expression. “Did you know? About Karmic Justice, I mean?”
“Sure
.” He folded his arms over his chest and leaned a hip against her counter. “But one thing I’ve learned about this place is that we don’t all receive identical information from our counselors.”
“We don’t? Why not?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure. But if I had to guess, I think it has to do with why we’re here and what we have to come to terms with before we can move on. You know, of course that Luc’s not a suicide.”
“Yes, he told me that much.
” She picked up the clipboard, traced its blank face in the hope it might suddenly burst to life with answers. No such luck. “But not much more.”
Sean snorted.
“Yeah, well, in case you haven’t noticed, Luc’s not big on spilling his guts. So I figure his Elder Counselor hid the idea of Karmic Justice from him because it has something to do with his being here.”
“Wait a minute.
” Jodie’s fists shot to her hips. “You’re not saying Luc is here because of someone he wronged in life, are you? Because if you are—”
“
What?” He smirked. “You don’t think it’s possible?”
“No.” She shook her head, reconsidered the idea, and restated her denial with more emphasis. “No way. Not in a million years.”
“What makes you say that? Because you and he meld so well?”
Heat broke out in her core, but she quickly cooled her embarrassment and flashed him a look of fury. “I’m not even going to ask how you know about that. Because it’s none of your business.
Either way, I’ll be damned if I stand around and listen to you malign the character of a man who may not always be the easiest to get along with, but has always been honest and decent and firmly on the side of right.”
Sean shot up his hands in surrender.
“Easy, Jodie. I happen to agree with your assessment of Luc’s character, okay?” With a gentle elbow jab, he nudged her off-balance. “I’ll try to keep the devil’s advocate part of me in check from now on.”
“Fine.” S
teadying herself, she folded her arms over her chest in a confrontational stance. “But ace detective or not, piss me off again, and your assistance will no longer be required.”
“You got spirit, lady.” To her surprise, he chuckled. “No wonder Luc’s hooked on you.”
“Hooked on me?” She blew air out her nostrils. “Hardly.” No need for him to know a thrill sizzled through her synapses at the idea.
“Oh, he’s hooked on you.
” Casually leaning against the wall, Sean pointed an index finger toward her nose. “And you’re hooked on him, too.”
She slapped the finger away with a quick sideways dash.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”
His smile only widened, and she pulled her hands taut against her hips to keep from slapping his cheeks next.
“Suit yourself. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume Luc’s been forced to spend time here because of something unresolved from his life. That’s safe enough, don’t you think? It’s why we’re all here. Right?”
“Right.” She kept up her guard, prepared for another insult, but allowing for the possibility his interrogation might lead to a solution.
“So in all the time you and Luc spent together, what’d he tell you about his life and death on Earth?”
“Honestly, not much. Only that he was murdered.”
“Did he say how? Or by whom?”
“No.” She paused, thought back on their various conversations. “
Although…I think he said marriage was what killed him.”
Sean stroked his chin. “Interesting. He really said that?”
“Sort of. I once mentioned men kill themselves over vices: addiction, gambling debts, that kinda stuff. And when I asked him what was his vice, he said, ‘marriage.’ I think his wife killed him.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“Don’t you see? It makes sense.” Her cadence sped up with her excitement. She was onto something here. She knew it. Now to get Sean to understand. “This last bounty? Mr. Lange? His wife had poisoned him. That would explain why Luc wanted to know if the authorities had punished her yet. And why he got so upset with the idea of Karmic Justice.”
“
Slow down, Jodie. Tell me all the details about Mr. Lange. How did he die? And what kind of argument did he put up to convince you to let him stay?”
She considered her words carefully, chose to keep to facts rather than supposition.
“He was murdered by his wife, a real black widow, and he wanted to stay until the police caught up with her. It’s why I tried to explain the idea of Karmic Justice to him. And that’s when Luc went ballistic.”
Expression blank and fathomless, Sean nodded.
“Slow down. Don’t jump ahead of me. You got the call, you went to the coordinates the Board provided. What was the first thing you noticed when you landed?”
She mentally hurled herself back and told Sean every detail she could recall: the widow and her iced tea bottles, the other murders Jenny might have committed, Luc’s agitation that she hadn’t been caught, her own interjection into the conversation with the details of Karmic Justice and Human Life Empathy, Luc’s violent reaction and his subsequent departure.
“Good,” Sean said. “That’s good. Now think… We’re going backwards, sweetheart. Think about the bounty before Mr. Lange. Think about the details. How do they relate to Luc and Mr. Lange? How did Luc react on that hunt? Did he do or say anything unusual?”
The bounty before Mr. Lange…
Tito Alexander. “No. I mean, he looked like hell, but I did most of the work on that case. Luc was fine—normal, I guess.”
“Okay, let’s try something else. Think back to all the bounties you two have gone after since your arrival.
Do you see any common threads in all these lost-and-found spirits? Anything. No matter how silly it sounds. I don’t care if they all liked vanilla ice cream. No quirk every bounty might have shared is too ridiculous to consider.”
Common threads? Like links in a chain? Could all the souls they chased have something to do with why Luc was here? Why they were both here?
Tito Alexander, Amanda Kroger, Taylor Finch, Kristin Esterby, poor little Michael Samuels, Tim Regan, Jacob Eihler…
While she ran the litany of victims through her brain, she sank onto the nearest stool. Listlessly, her finger drew curlicues on the countertop.
What, if anything, did these spirits have in common? Besides the fact they were dead and called up by the Board?
Victims…
Murder? Maybe.