The Ghoul Next Door (14 page)

“What’s that?”

“Luke Decker is left-handed.” I knew that for certain because I’d watched him pick up the magnetic spike at the diner and toy with it using his left hand.

Souter’s brow furrowed again. “That doesn’t prove anything,” she snapped.

Heath’s voice mail began playing in my ear.

“Oh, I believe it proves reasonable doubt,” I said softly, turning away from her to walk down the block toward my car. “Hey, sweetie,” I said quickly. “It’s me. Sorry I’m taking a while. The line here is crazy long. I’ll be home in the next twenty minutes or so.”

After leaving the message, I got into my car and reached to start the engine . . . which was when I saw our van roll up alongside me. The window rolled down and Heath’s angry eyes pinned me to the seat.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Had to be done,” I told him, turning the ignition key. “I’ll meet you at home and explain there.”

And then I pulled out as fast as I could get away with.

Heath took a shortcut and beat me home. He met me at the door of my condo with arms crossed and eyes narrowed. I flashed him a winning smile. It worked about as well as you’d expect. “Why?” he demanded again.

I dropped the smile and sighed. “I couldn’t risk you opening yourself back up to whatever had you on the sidewalk this morning.”

His brow furrowed a little more. “And having you open yourself up to the same thing seemed like a better idea?”

“At the time, yes.”

It was Heath’s turn to sigh.

“She’s been like that since she was little,” Gilley said from somewhere inside my kitchen. “M.J. used to drive her daddy crazy. He could tell you stories for days about her stubborn streak.”

It was my turn to scowl. “Leave me and Daddy out of this, Gil.”

“And it’s not just her daddy,” Gil continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “I think M.J. has a problem with men in general. Ask any of her ex-boyfriends. Ask Steven. He’ll tell you.”

“Gilley!”

“You’re only mad ’cause it’s true,” Gil said as I tried to push past Heath into the kitchen to take a swipe at Gil. Fortunately (for Gil), Heath had a pretty firm grip on my middle. “Easy there, woman,” Heath said while I glared hard at Gil. “Why don’t we all have a seat and talk it out?”

I continued to look meanly at Gilley. “Fine,” I said levelly when he simply stared back like he wasn’t sorry at all for what he’d said.

Heath let me go and I moved toward the barstools on the opposite side of the kitchen counter. Gil made sure to give me a wide berth as I passed him.

Wise.

“I was able to feel the imprint of the murder from last night,” I said after we’d all taken our seats.

Heath’s brow shot up. “Did you connect with Brook?”

“No. I felt the imprint of her emotions and the attack and her murder, but not a direct connection with her spirit.”

Heath’s brow lowered and he frowned. “Damn. I was hoping we could link up with her to see if she could tell us if it was Luke who murdered her.”

“It wasn’t,” I said.

“What?” Gil said. “How do you know?”

I explained what I’d felt on the sidewalk, and also what I’d relayed to Detective Souter. Neither Gil nor Heath looked happy to hear that I’d given my impressions to the detective. “I think we should call Mack and tell him what you said to Souter,” Gilley said.

I stiffened. I knew that was the right move, but I still couldn’t help asking, “Why?”

“Because you just gave details to a detective about a murder you claim you didn’t witness and had nothing to do with. Don’t you think you might’ve put yourself a little more firmly under the suspicion spotlight?”

I bit my lip. “I guess I didn’t think it through before I talked to her. Souter just appeared next to me when I was fishing through the ether.”

“That’s what happens when you try to go it alone,” Heath said. “I’m not there to have your back.”

I let my gaze fall to my lap. I saw his point, but I still wouldn’t have done it differently. I didn’t want to argue about it either. I wanted to talk to Steven and Courtney and let them know that I believed Luke didn’t have anything to do with the murder. Gil, however, had other plans. He started whining about lunch—which I’d failed to pick up—and as Heath didn’t want to leave me alone again, we decided to all go out to eat and discuss our next move.

I called Mack on the way, and he was not happy with me. At. All. By the end of the conversation he had me feeling like I might be lucky to avoid an arrest. “Do not talk to
anyone
about your impressions of that murder scene!” he yelled at me.

“But I have to tell Steven and Courtney!” I protested.

“No. Hell no, M.J.!”

“Mack,” I tried, “they’ve gotta be going crazy right now, not knowing if Luke might be a killer.”

“No!” Mack snapped. “Listen to me, okay? Luke’s attorney, Caldwell Fischer, isn’t somebody to mess with. That man’s not just a shark; he’s the shark that ate all the other sharks for breakfast. He hates to lose, and with a case like this where there’s plenty of incriminating evidence against his client, he’ll try to use any means possible to discredit the video on Gilley’s computer. And that means he’ll work to discredit
you
. If you start talking about how the murder went down, he’ll find a way to point the finger at you three. You
cannot
talk to Dr. Sable or his fiancée about this! Do you understand?”

I ground my teeth together. I hated all this legal crap.

“M.J.?” Mack said. “Tell me you understand.”

“I get it, Mack,” I grumbled. “But it sucks.”

I heard Mack let out a long, relieved breath. “I’ve never had a case that didn’t suck. It comes with the territory.”

Heath parked the car at that point and looked at me expectantly. I got off the line with Mack and waited until we were inside and seated to talk about what Mack had asked us to do. Or, rather, asked us not to do.

“But, M.J., it’s
Steven
,” Gil said to me after I told him we couldn’t say a word to anybody about my impressions at the murder scene.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, Gil,” I said. “But we’re too vulnerable here. We just can’t talk to him right now.”

As if on cue my phone went off, and looking at the caller ID, I saw that it was Steven. “Speak of the devil,” I heard Heath mutter as he leaned over my shoulder. “You gonna answer?”

I nearly did, but I didn’t trust myself to talk directly to Steven, even to tell him that I couldn’t talk to him. My ex was wily. He’d pick up on my evasiveness in a heartbeat and demand answers. I’d be hard-pressed to put him off. I pushed the call to voice mail, but I knew I couldn’t avoid Dr. Steven Sable forever. So I looked at Heath and Gilley and said, “We have to solve this.”

Gilley cocked his head. “We have to solve what?”

“This case. It’s not just enough to prove that Luke didn’t do it. We’ve got to find the murderer.”

“Isn’t that a job for the police?” he said, his expression a bit alarmed.

“Normally, yes. But as we’re looking pretty suspicious to them right now, and as I’d like to avoid having an innocent man go to jail, or having the three of us roped in as accomplices, I think we need to put some serious effort into helping the police with the investigation.”

Heath and Gilley exchanged a look. The look said that they thought I done just lost my mind. “Em . . . ,” Heath began.

“I’m going to work on it,” I told him flatly. “You’re either with me in this or you’re not.”

“But how would we even
do
that, M.J.?” Gilley protested. “I mean, we’re not law enforcement. We’re not even private eyes. We have no skills where that’s concerned!”

I crossed my arms stubbornly. “We got plenty of skills, Gil. We investigate ghosts for a living, remember?”

“Yeah, but there’s a difference between investigating dead people and looking for a live, murderous person! A live, murderous person who might like to murder someone like . . . oh, let’s say
me
next!”

“Gil,” I said, “no one’s going to murder you.”

“You always say that and then it’s ‘Oh, Gilley! Look out! Run for your life! You’re about to be
murdered
!’”

I sighed wearily. “Honey, if you want out of this investigation, then fine. I understand. But I’m going to pursue it. My ass is on the line and I’m not gonna sit around and wait to be arrested simply because the detective assigned to the case is a skeptic. And if we don’t do something, then this spook will move on to another target and another girl will get killed. I can’t have that on my conscience.”

Heath shifted in his seat as if I’d struck a chord with that argument. “I’m in,” he said after a minute.

Gilley gave him the most disgusted look, and he turned those eyes on me and seemed really mad about something. “You always do this,” he spat.

“I always do what?” I asked.

“Not just you.” Gil wagged his finger at Heath and me. “The two of you. You gang up and go all, ‘Gil, you can stay out of this if you want—it’s totally fine—but we two fools are proceeding with this idiotic plan,’ and then I cave because I worry, and then in no time I’m running for my life, about to be
murdered
!”

I shook my head and felt a little mirth tug at my lips. “Yes, it’s part of our master diabolical plan, Gil. We’ve been trying to do away with you forever, but somehow you always manage to escape being
murdered
.”

“Har, har,” he said with a glare. “I’m serious, M.J.”

I feigned surprise. “And I’m not?”

Gilley glared at me and I was willing to wait him out, but Heath had less patience. “You in or you out, buddy?”

“Oh, I’m in,” he groused. “Because I’m
always
in, aren’t I?”

I gave him a winning smile. “Good. Now let’s talk about how to proceed.”

Heath nodded but covered my hand with his. “Before we talk plan of action, I want to make it clear that whatever we decide to do, we do it together. No one goes off alone and does something stupid without backup.”

I bristled at being told I’d done something stupid, but then I had to admit to myself that Heath had a pretty good point. “Fine. We stick together.”

“I’ll be in the van,” Gil said, just to make it clear that the sticking-together part belonged to Heath and me. “Or in the condo doing research.”

I nodded. “Fine, Gil. Can the three of us talk about strategy now?”

Heath waved a hand for me to proceed. “Where do you want to start?”

“With the house Luke was staying in when our spook arrived on scene.”

“You think that’s where the portal is?” Gil asked.

I shrugged. “Don’t know. Which brings me to my next point—I don’t even know the address. Gil. Is there any way you could get that for us without us having to ask Steven or Courtney? I want to try and keep a low profile with them if I can.”

“Child’s play,” Gil said, making a note in his phone.

“Awesome. And we also need a way into the house. If it’s a rental, then we might be able to contact the landlord and tell him we’re interested in renting it—assuming it’s available for rent.”

“I’ll look that up too,” Gil promised.

“Cool. And while you’re at it, maybe you can get something on the landlord. I mean, he has to know what’s happening there, right? He might even have lived there once. Let’s see who he is and what kind of a guy he is.”

“This sounds like a lot of work for me and not a lot of work for you two,” Gil said, wagging that finger at Heath and me again.

“We’ll be plenty busy,” I assured him. “Just get us started by getting us into that rental house. Meanwhile I want to take Heath to Brook’s murder scene again, only this time, I want him to approach it from the opposite direction.”

“Why?” Heath and Gilley said together.

“Because I know what I felt in the ether, but I’m not sure what Heath encountered. I want him to go to the crime scene from last night and see if he senses the same thing he did from further up the street. I have a weak but nagging theory that there could be a connection between Brook Astor’s murder and Amy Montgomery’s, and if I’m right, then this spook may have been responsible for more than just one dead girl.”

Gilley and Heath both paled. “But those two murders were decades apart,” Gil said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Heath told him, a slight shudder traveling through his shoulders. “You know that, Gil. Spooks aren’t aware of time. And evil spooks don’t care about anything but opportunity.”

I played with my straw nervously. The thing Heath hadn’t mentioned was how risky my plan of taking him to Brook’s murder scene was. “I’ll be standing nearby with a vest just in case things get sticky,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said. “If you’re right, I may need it.”

“We should have a code word or something,” I told him, suddenly thinking of the idea.

“A code word? For what?”

“If you start to sense that this thing is trying to take over your mind, you should say something like . . .” I paused, trying to think up a word.

“How about, ‘Run for your life. You’re about to be murdered!’” Gil suggested.

I leveled my gaze at him. “Not helping.”

“How about something simple like . . .” Heath paused, trying to come up with one himself.

“Not as easy as it sounds, huh?”

“Oh, you two!” Gil said. “If you need a safe word, use mine: banana.”

Heath and I both turned wide eyes on Gil.

“What?” he said. “Michel and I use it all the time.”

I made a face. “TMI, buddy. TMI.”

Gil rolled his eyes dramatically. “Yes, and you two are pure as the driven snow.”

I felt a blush touch my cheeks. “We’ll come up with something,” I said quietly to Heath, who was grinning at me. “Anyway, let’s get a move on. I want to find this spook and shut it down before it has a chance to use someone to kill again.”

With that, we paid the bill and were on our way.

After dropping Gilley off at the condo, Heath and I headed back to Commonwealth Avenue. I was really nervous the closer we got to Courtney’s place. I had a feeling it’d be a pretty bad idea to get caught sniffing around the crime scene for the second time that day. What if Souter thought we were trying to retrieve a key piece of evidence or something? I mean, I’ve watched enough crime shows to know that snooping around a crime scene is highly suspicious behavior.

Just as I’d suspected, as we turned onto Comm Ave and started looking for a parking spot, Heath pointed ahead and said, “Guess we’re not going back there today.”

A patrol car with a cop inside was parked right in front of Brook Astor’s murder scene. “Dammit!” I swore. Fishing out my cell, I called Gil. “We won’t be getting close to Brook’s murder scene today,” I told him.

“Is the place swarming with cops?” he asked, probably guessing we’d encountered an official roadblock.

“Not so much swarming as one guy in a patrol car, but, yeah, it’s a deterrent.”

“Well, I have another lead you can scope out. I found Luke’s old address. Got a pen?”

I rummaged around in my messenger bag and retrieved a small notepad and pen before I scribbled down the address. “Did you talk to the landlord?”

“I have a call in to him,” Gil told me. “I’m hoping he calls me back in a bit. You guys head over there and sit tight until I hear back from him, okay?”