Ghost Seer (25 page)

H
E RECALLED THAT
her car was parked on the street as if she’d wanted people to know the house wasn’t empty anymore. “Wait just a damn minute,” he said.

“Don’t cuss at me!” He winced. His mother had been hard on him and Jim about bad language. One of the last things he’d promised his brother was to keep the cursing mild. He’d kept that promise.

Now he heard the sound of Clare’s sucked-in breath. “Get your stuff and let yourself out.” Her words were rushed. “I have to go. I have to beat traffic.” She opened the big front door and zoomed out.

Following her, he stopped on the front porch, wincing as he noted a neighbor couple across the street staring at them. “Clare,” he called.

She flung a look at him after she opened the car door and set the cooler in the back. Her voice quivered. “I’ll finish examining the ledgers, and messenger them to . . . your company . . . with my notes as to where . . . your client’s . . . property might have been dispersed to . . . for another point of your investigation . . . I’ll send them on to . . . your address . . . when I’m done.” She obviously watched her phrasing because of the listening ears.

Her expression grimaced into a fake smile and she didn’t meet his eyes.

He lingered in the deep archway of the door, though his white boxers and orthopedic shoes must be readily visible, and searched for something to say. Couldn’t find it.

“Good-bye, Jackson Zachary Slade.” One last hard and disappointed glance from her grazed across his eyes. Then her breasts rose with another deep breath; she glanced across the street at the neighbors and walked back to the foot of the porch, this time with a direct stare. “But, Zach, this argument isn’t about psychic gifts, this is about change happening when you don’t want it to, and accepting it and managing change.” She turned on her heel, circled to the driver’s side of her car, and opened the door.

“Are you going to let this ‘gift’ define you? Rule your life?” Zach managed. Screw any show he was giving the couple on the sidewalk across the street; he moved to look at her above the roof of her car.

She gazed at him. “My gift
is
my life now, Zach. Unlike you, I’ve accepted that I can’t go back to what or who I was.

“You ran away from your previous life in Montana instead of dealing with your change of circumstances there. You never reference in the slightest your weakened leg. Well, you can run away from me, too. Good-bye.” She got into the car, didn’t even slam the door. It closed with a final thunk. A few seconds later she drove away.

Barking came from beyond Zach, passed him, caught up with the car, and then Zach heard a long doggie whine. Enzo was probably saying something to Zach; thankfully he couldn’t understand it.

And they left and the bright day seemed harsher, the sun metallic in its color and radiation. Blue sky brassy. The sidewalks glaring white.

The moment stretched hot and still and breathless.

Instinctively, Zach tensed, waiting for the whir of wings, the caw of crows.

Nothing.

Because he
had
been on that steep and scary mountain shelf trail, an emotional spot. Now solid ground had crumbled under him and he was free-falling and all he could hear was the wind whistling by.

Ignoring the disapproving neighbor couple, he went back into the house and closed the door. He’d shower and change, then gather all of his stuff that might be here. Ready, once more, to leave another segment of his life behind.

 • • • 

Clare stopped a few blocks away and let the sobs of hurt and anger wring her dry. She knew there was no chance of Zach coming after her, which was a darn shame. After wiping away her tears and blowing her nose, she shook her head. It was exceedingly odd to think that she had adapted to the change in her life better than Zach, a man who was used to acting quickly in situations in flux.

She flushed again when she remembered seeing her new neighbors come out their door across the street like they were ready to take a morning walk. They’d gotten an eyeful and heard an earful. Not the kind of first impression she’d wanted to make in the block.

Well,
they
shouldn’t judge whether she was weird. After all, they had a ghost in their attic.

Ghosts. Yes, dealing with ghosts was her life now. Anyway, she had a job to do for the apparition of Jack Slade. She straightened her shoulders.

Enzo whined beside her.
You wanted him to help you.
Big doggie eyes.
I’m sorry he won’t.

“Is that allowed, human help?”

Of course. We could take Mrs. Flinton!

“No.”

She blew her nose one last time and started driving. “I can do this myself. I’m just a little unsure.” She was more cowardly than she’d expected but wouldn’t admit that aloud. Even if Enzo could hear her mentally, or peek into her heart, or whatever, she wouldn’t admit her anxiety in words.

Here’s Jack!
Enzo enthused.

The specter stood, drifted, just beyond the front of the car.

Swallowing the last of her tears, Clare put her hands on the wheel; the ghost came up to the driver’s window that she’d rolled down. The morning hadn’t been cool until he appeared.

Clare swallowed. “I need to be going. The sooner this is done, the better. So, uh, sit with Enzo—”

I am getting in the backseat for now!
Enzo leapt through the passenger seat to sit behind her. Clare’s slight hitting of the brakes and the little jolt didn’t budge him. Jack Slade passed through the door, through
her
, which nearly had her screaming at the freezing cold, and folded himself in the seat, appearing uncomfortable. The man had managed five hundred miles of stage line, checked on every one of his stations, must have spent hours in a coach, but looked wary about the car. She just wished he’d disappear.

Proceed.
He waved his hand.

“I’m not one of your drivers.”

A small smile curved his mouth.
You are now. But I can be a gentleman.

“I know that.” Despite all his problems, she still believed he was more sinned against than sinner. He’d
been
the law, ensuring that the passengers of his division of the stage line, the drivers, his station people, and the mail were safe, and did that mostly by reputation. His death in Montana—vigilante law—had not been just.

He touched her hand with icy fingers and she shuddered.
You have a generous nature. I was a good manager but bad when drunk or bored.

“All right,” she said, then cleared her throat. “Traffic isn’t too bad at this time of the morning, but we’re going straight through the city, so please don’t be distracting.” She turned onto a main thoroughfare toward northern Colorado and Virginia Dale.

The little road trip would be interesting. Everyone said Slade had found a gem of a small valley for his headquarters. Again she wished she’d arranged for a guide, but that would entail waiting until the person left before digging around in the earth for an ear.

All right, she was a weenie about that, too. She’d hoped that Zach would handle the ear.

The ear is in a bottle
, said Jack Slade. She suppressed a lurch and tightened her fingers on the wheel.

His mouth turned down.

“What?” Then her mind raced, pulling pieces together. “Oh, the station was once a store and later a community center that had dances.” She could see it. Boys joking around, sneaking the ear out of the glass case during a crowded event, seeing if it could fit into the bottle . . . then, perhaps, wondering how to get the thing out and, if they broke the glass, whether it would be damaged.

She’d have to retrieve it. A ratty ear. Maybe nibbled at by shrews or mice or chipmunks or insects . . .

The ear is mostly intact. It remained dry.

“Oh.”
Mostly
was a very inexact word.

A while back there was another ghost layer who did not help me.

“I’m helping!”

Yes, you are, and I thank you.
His head swiveled as cars moved along both sides of them.
I will meet you there, at my former home. I know the way there and back better now, in this time.

He vanished and she felt a warm flood of relief, until she wondered how he’d be when she was actually in an area he’d lived for a while.

 • • • 

Zach allowed himself some muttering. Damn it, he
had
been rebuilding his life. He’d gotten a job, hadn’t he? Gotten an apartment.

He’d fallen into the job and apartment.

He’d been working on a case.

That he hadn’t taken very seriously.

He hit his apartment at Mrs. Flinton’s in a foul mood, only to have her knock politely on his door and smile sweetly at him even when he glared at her, guilt that he’d been taking her case easy chomping at him.

“Good morning, Zach!” she chirped, and set her walker too close to him, in his personal space. He knew the ploy but fell back anyway, especially when he smelled bacon and eggs and something wonderful from Mrs. Magee, who stood behind Mrs. Flinton.

“I think he’s had an argument with Ms. Cermak,” Bekka said in her Minnesota accent. “He’s back earlier from her place.”

“And grouchy,” Mrs. Flinton added as she followed him to the breakfast counter separating the Pullman kitchen from the living room. Zach took a barroom stool, nice and plush under his ass. Clare’s breakfast bar had had those high, fancy wooden swivel chairs.

This was so much better. Really.

Mrs. Magee set down the covered dish. “Eat, then rinse off the dish and silverware, leave them in the sink, and I will collect them later.” To his surprise, she kissed his cheek. “I like having you here,” she ended gruffly, then left his apartment.

He looked at Mrs. Flinton. She smiled a too-innocent smile and waved wrinkled-papery-tissue hands. Aged hands. Unlike the callused, strong ones the ghost of Jack Slade had had. A man who’d died at thirty-three. Given his druthers, Zach would like to see his own hands old and wrinkled.

“Go ahead and eat, I know you want to,” she said.

“Impolite when you aren’t eating,” Zach said, raising the cover and setting it aside, trying to discreetly sniff the thick-looking farm bacon and not drool.

“We’ve had breakfast and I’m full; do go ahead and eat, Zachary. But I will put on some tea, thank you.” She went to the electric stove and turned the burner on under the kettle.

He didn’t wait another second and dug into the cheesy scrambled eggs.

A couple of minutes later, he helped Mrs. Flinton onto a stool next to his. She sat with a straight back as she drank some tea she’d taken from his cupboard that smelled floral.

He sipped at the last of the coffee in his go-cup that he’d poured in Clare’s kitchen and frowned.

“It will be all right, dear boy.”

He grunted, then made himself answer in words. “Thank you, Mrs. Flinton.”

“Even though you’ve been spending time with Clare—and I
do
want to see her new home, it sounds wonderful!—are you happy living here, Zach?”

Forcing himself to focus and ignore a little, niggling worry about Clare in the back of his mind, he met Mrs. Flinton’s blue eyes and said. “Sure.”

She smiled and patted him on the cheek. “Well, we didn’t take much time to become accustomed to each other at all, did we? Just almost a week of little adjustments.” Her pink-lipsticked mouth curved and her blue eyes twinkled at him. “I would very much like you to stay here with me and Bekka.” Mrs. Flinton glanced over her shoulder at the open door leading to the hallway. “She likes you, too, as she showed. You should be honored; she isn’t a demonstrative woman.” Mrs. Flinton laughed. “You can always determine whether you’re in her good graces by the food she gives you.”

Zach had already noticed that. He was getting full and balanced meals, cupcakes for dessert, and good bottles of wine that he wouldn’t mention to Mrs. Flinton. But that wasn’t what had his gut tightening. “Nearly a week?” How could time go that fast? Over the past months, especially when he’d been in the hospital, in a wheelchair, on crutches, the seconds had crawled with near-eternal slowness.

“Yes, dear.” Another pat on the cheek.

Almost a week. That meant at least a week since he’d visited his mother. His belly clenched harder. Acceptable that he didn’t visit often when he didn’t live close, but he was in Denver now and she was in Boulder.

He had to go see her soon. Dread seeped into him. He didn’t tell himself it would be easy, get easier, as he had when younger.

“So, Zachary?” Mrs. Flinton asked. Her gaze had turned quizzical as if she understood he’d zoned out.

He took a stab at an answer. “I’d like to stay.” To his surprise, that was the truth.

Her face cleared. He’d answered correctly. She mentioned a price that would get him a sleazy flop for eight hours.

“Daily?” he asked.

She slipped down into the cage of her walker and looked shocked. “Of course not, Zach! Monthly.”

He shook his head. “Can’t do that.” Thinking of the ads he’d seen, he countered with a standard Denver rent, managing not to wince, though his salary if he stayed on with Rickman would cover it.