Ghost Seer

PRAISE FOR ROBIN D. OWENS

Winner of the RITA Award for Best Paranormal Romance by the Romance Writers of America

“[Robin D. Owens] provides a wonderful, gripping mix of passion, exotic futuristic settings, and edgy suspense.”

—Jayne Castle, author of
Deception Cove

“Will have readers on the edge of their seats . . . Another terrific tale from the brilliant mind of Robin D. Owens. Don’t miss it.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“[A] wonderful piece of fantasy, science fiction, romance, and a dash of mystery . . . A delight to read.”

—
Night Owl Reviews

“[This] emotionally rich tale blends paranormal abilities, family dynamics, and politics; adds a serious dash of violence; and dusts it all with humor and whimsy.”

—
Library Journal

“Maintaining the world building for science fiction and character-driven plot for romance is near impossible. Owens does it brilliantly.”

—
The
Romance Readers Connection

“Dazzling . . . Robin D. Owens paints a world filled with characters who sweep readers into an unforgettable adventure with every delicious word, every breath, every beat of their hearts. Brava!”

—Deb Stover, award-winning author of
The Gift

“A taut mixture of suspense and action . . . that leaves you stunned.”

—
Smexy Books

“A delight to my . . . heart . . . hits all my joy buttons.”

—
Fresh Fiction

“The author’s creativity shines.”

—
Darque Reviews

“I keep telling myself that [Robin D. Owens] just can’t get much better, but with every book she amazes and surprises me!”

—The Best Reviews

Titles by Robin D. Owens

HEARTMATE

HEART THIEF

HEART DUEL

HEART CHOICE

HEART QUEST

HEART DANCE

HEART FATE

HEART CHANGE

HEART JOURNEY

HEART SEARCH

HEART SECRET

HEART FORTUNE

GHOST SEER

Anthologies

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

(with Sherrilyn Kenyon and Rebecca York)

HEARTS AND SWORD

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

GHOST SEER

A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2014 by Robin D. Owens.

Excerpt from
Ghost Layer
by Robin D. Owens copyright © 2014 by Robin D. Owens.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
BERKLEY SENSATION
®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-0-425-26890-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63113-3

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / April 2014

Cover art by Tony Mauro.

Cover design by George Long.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To all my readers who follow me into my different worlds; To those who love the Old West; And to those who love stories about ghosts; this one is for YOU!

C
OUNTING
C
ROWS
R
HYME:

One for sorrow,

Two for luck;

Three for a wedding,

Four for death;

Five for silver,

Six for gold;

Seven for a secret,

Not to be told;

Eight for heaven,

Nine for [hell]

And ten for the devil’s own sell!

P
LAINSVIEW
C
ITY,
C
OTTONWOOD
C
OUNTY,
S
OUTH
C
ENTRAL
M
ONTANA,
A
UGUST
23
RD, MORNING

T
HE MINUTE HE
walked through that door, Zach Slade’s career, the one he loved, was over.

Who was he kidding? His time as a cop—a deputy sheriff here in Cottonwood County, Montana—was already over. Due to a mistake on his part and a crippled foot and ankle. His leg hurt less than the emotional ripping inside him. He thought he could feel the weight of his badge in his jeans pocket, but he couldn’t. Only the weight of this last duty.

His gaze slid around the wide marble-floored corridor of the old County Hall, which housed the Sheriff’s Department. No one around to see his hesitation, how his hand trembled as he put it on the door handle. All the frosted glass and wooden doors were closed.

He shifted his shoulders to release the tension. He was
not
going to take a desk job, no matter what his boss thought. With a tighter grip on the handle of his cane in his left hand—the same side as his injured leg because he wanted to keep his right hand free for his weapon—he pushed down the cool metal lever and moved from impressive marble to institutional carpet.

“Hey, Zach,” the young, brunette, four-months-pregnant dispatcher said.

“Hey, Margo.”

“Off the crutches!” she enthused.

“Just today. The boss in?”

She grimaced. “He’s been waiting for you. You really leaving?”

Zach had already packed up the stuff he couldn’t live without—precious little—and donated the rest to a thrift store. He’d sold his ’Vette as soon as the news came that he wouldn’t be able to drive her since his ankle and foot wouldn’t work the clutch. When he’d been stuck in a wheelchair. Another pang twisted his insides, and he kept it from showing on his face.

Margo looked at him with pity, as if his lapsing into silence were okay instead of answering her question. And Margo would gossip about everything except official police business, and soon he wouldn’t be a cop, so he said, “Maybe I’m leaving.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “I hope you stay. I like you, Zach.”

He raised his brows. “Kind of you to say; plenty don’t.”

“They’re just plain jealous and resentful ’cuz you did so well with the Billings city cops in Yellowstone County. You’re one of us, no matter what else anyone says.” She sniffed.

Zach would have liked to believe her, but he didn’t. He pulled folded papers from his pocket and put them on her desk. “My recertification to carry a weapon.”

“I’ll process that for you right away.”

“Thanks.”

Her intercom buzzed, and Sheriff Walder said, “Send Zach in, Margo.”

“Of course!” She beamed at Zach and he moved—slower than he’d wanted, but balancing with a cane was different than using crutches—to the thick oak door of the sheriff’s office and entered.

His boss stood, came around the big, scarred desk, and offered his hand, scrutinizing Zach from under heavy, thrusting gray brows. “I was hoping I wouldn’t be seeing you yet, that you’d give matters more thought.”

Zach had already spent too many stretching-infinite months thinking. He shook his boss’s hand.

“How’s the ankle and foot?”

“As good as they’ll ever be,” Zach said, suppressing bitterness, lowering himself to the client chair as smoothly as possible. The bullet had struck his tibia just below the knee, shattering the bone and severing the peroneal nerve. Now he had foot drop and couldn’t control the flexing of his left ankle. Couldn’t control his own foot! His jaw clenched.

Sheriff Walder went back and sat in a chair that creaked under his big body as soft classical music played in the background. Walder liked that stuff. Atop his polished desk he had a line of manila files—four. “You do good work, Zach, and I want you to stay.”

“Sorry, can’t do that.”

Walder tapped his forefinger on his desk, his thinking mode. The next gaze he leveled at Zach was intense. “I would have made the same mistake as Lauren and you, Zach.”

Anger speared, sharp and brutal, setting off a trail of other little explosive feelings inside, messing with his head, screwing up his breathing. But he met the sheriff’s eyes.

The sheriff continued in a measured manner, his gaze fixed to Zach. “If I’d been sitting shotgun with Lauren that night, not only would she have recognized the truck or the driver, I would have, too. And I’d have let her go up and talk to the drunk driver first, just like you did.”

Images flashed through Zach’s mind like the bar lights on top of their vehicle that night . . . the drunk driver weaving, Lauren telling him the name of the guy and that he was an ex-policeman on the town force, from a family of cops.

“Lauren didn’t check him for guns, wanted to talk to him, maybe take him home,” the sheriff said.

“I know,” Zach said.

“And I’d have agreed with her.” The sheriff sighed. “She didn’t check him for weapons, and I wouldn’t have corrected that mistake of hers. Just like you didn’t.”

Zach recalled walking up to the truck, the drunk turning belligerent, reaching for a gun. Zach lunging, the gun going off, the god-awful pain of a shot to his leg. He blinked the vision away, but sweat dampened his back.

Hoarsely he said, “The jerk might not have pulled on you.”

The sheriff shrugged. “No one knows. Thing is, Lauren made a mistake, you made a mistake, and it was one most of the people in this department would have made. Not one any of us will make again, but you paid the price for that reminder, and I’m sorry for it.”

Zach nodded. The whole damn state knew of his situation because there’d been a television crew in from Billings, investigative reporters. They’d heard the shot and were nearly the first on the scene, and they hadn’t let it rest.

And, of course, the investigative news folks had followed up. The ex-cop had often been pulled over by others, but not cited. Why not? Why had he been let go previously? Why hadn’t his license been jerked? Why hadn’t the former policeman been given help? Why hadn’t Zach’s rookie partner handled herself better? She must have needed more training, or the training the county was doing wasn’t sufficient. All the myriad ways the situation could be spun bad, it was.

Bad enough for Zach.

The county commissioners had come through with a fat pension and disability for Zach due to public outcry, but the whole damn thing left a nasty taste in his mouth. Some of his colleagues saw
him
as the one who’d betrayed them, the outsider. Not the drunk ex-cop.

And in those circumstances, Zach’s own feeling of betrayal cut all the more.

“Zach?” Sheriff Walder asked, but his eyes showed he knew the trail Zach had gone down.

“I’m sorry, too.” Zach managed a sour lift of his mouth. “So is Lauren; she can’t seem to apologize enough.” But whatever respect he’d had for his partner had vanished.

“We’re a sorry bunch. Me, the department, the county. The drunk driver’s family, and him, rotting in a cell where he belongs,” Walder said with more bitterness than Zach thought the man had felt.

“A bad man cost me a good one, and I’ve never liked that.” His nostrils flared, then he tapped the first folder. “I can transfer you back up to the departmental station in the northern part of the county, this time put you in charge. You’re closer to Billings there, and you have a good rep with that force since you helped break that multicounty meth ring.”

“I can’t stay.”

Another sigh, out of Walder’s nose this time. He set aside the first folder, moved to the second. “In fact, I reached out to the Billings police and they would be happy to welcome you to their force.”

“Another desk job.”

The sheriff’s silence indicated that Zach had hit that nail on the head.

So, finally, the time had come. Zach ached inside and his fingers shook as he touched the star in his pocket. His hand closed between the points for an instant, and then he placed it carefully on the desk, not looking at it. He’d carried a badge as a police officer or deputy sheriff in one department or another for thirteen years, the star here for three. He’d wanted to live in the West. “I’m not staying in Montana.” His voice was thick.

“Where are you going?”

“Out of Montana.”

“The quickest way out of Montana is south, Wyoming and then Colorado. Your mother is in Colorado, right?”

In a gracious mental facility there. “Boulder,” Zach said. He’d been born in Boulder, but the college town wasn’t a good fit for a conservative military family.

Walder slid over another file and opened it, took out a card and a sheet of lined notebook paper with writing in his small blocky penmanship.

“Since you’re out of the public sector,” the man stated abruptly.

No, Zach would never qualify to be any kind of a cop again.

“I know a guy in Denver, a private investigator,” the sheriff said.

Zach’s lip lifted and his nostrils widened, a reflex as if he’d smelled a dead skunk. He was a public servant, damn it. One who didn’t take money to look at a particular case with a particular slant. “I don’t think—

“I gave him your name and number, vouched for you. He’s a good guy, one who thinks like us. Tony Rickman of Rickman Security and Investigations.” The sheriff bulldozed right over Zach, glaring until Zach took the card and the paper and put them in his wallet.

Chin stubborn, Sheriff Walder said, “I’ll text you the info and e-mail your private account, so you have the data in both places, can’t ignore it as easily. Could be good for you, Zach; don’t blow it off.” A long pause, and then the sheriff shook his head, stood, and came around the desk again, once more offering his hand. “Damn shame you’re not with us anymore. Good luck to you.”

“Thanks.” Zach levered himself up and left, walking as slowly and precisely as he’d come, pausing a little after he opened the door. “Good working with you, sir.”

“Same goes,” Walder said.

And then Margo was right there, holding his recertification form, looking sad despite her brightly colored maternity clothes. He stuck the form in his wallet, pulled out a gift card envelope, and handed it to her. “For you and the baby.”

She looked surprised and her eyes went all too wet. “Oh, Zach . . .” She hugged him awkwardly, hurried to her desk and tissues, and Zach picked up his pace and escaped.

Once outside the County Hall he had to watch every step on the stairs down to the street, cursing under his breath all the way, to the car he’d bought that morning. He should have bought a truck, but the price on this car was right, the owner was home so he could do the transaction immediately, and he could stand the newish sedan long enough to get him to Colorado. It was wheels.

An hour and a half later, Zach drove into the gray block of shade at the side of his favorite diner, close to the southern county line. Heat rose from the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, surrounded by scruffy yellow prairie grass. Low, bare brown hills looked equally hot.

He’d overestimated his stamina, this first day he’d graduated to a cane. No damn institutional-type metal cane, either, but a good one to fit his six-foot-four-inch height with a nice wooden Derby handle. With a rubber tip, dammit, to keep him walking silently and from slipping.

Still, he needed a couple of minutes before he went in for lunch. One last good-bye to his favorite cook and waitress, one last meal in the county, and he’d get out of Montana and on with his life.

He opened the car door to the heat, positioned his cane in his left hand, and pushed up. His bad leg was stiff, and despite an orthopedic shoe, his foot still drooped a little. He set his jaw and got out. Turned and saw the sheriff’s vehicle, a Chevy Impala, that he used to drive. Inside were his ex-partner and another deputy. Both stared at him.