Ghost Seer (9 page)

“Clare,” he said, his voice thicker with desire. He made himself concentrate on the road, on driving, though his peripheral vision showed her breasts rising faster.

“Yes?” she asked, quiet, more vulnerable. That vulnerability called out to him now more than ever before . . . because he knew he was flawed so badly.

“I like you.” Hell, that sounded dumb.

B
UT SHE CHUCKLED;
more, she smiled so her cheeks turned full, and he wanted to kiss them, though not as much as he wanted to taste the nape of her neck, discover her flavor there. His dick thickened and he welcomed the sweet torment.

“I like you, too,” she said.

“You’re special,” he said, and her expression closed down again.

“I don’t want to be special. I want to be normal.” Her voice turned crisp.

“Okay,” he said mildly. “But you’re rich.”

Her body relaxed into the seat, and the curve to her lips returned, her arms uncrossed. “Yes, that I am.”

“Feels good?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But?” He took the last turn down her street, a dimly lit residential neighborhood. Now he was glad Mrs. Flinton had insisted he see Clare to her door. It looked safe, but a little shabby.

Nearby a dog growled.

“I want to be useful.” Her jawline showed strong as he pulled up to a small rectangular house with white siding. The porch light lit a tiny concrete stoop.

“I’m not the type to like just sitting on my rear,” she said. “I want to
do
something.”

He turned off the ignition, unbuckled the seat belt, and angled himself toward her. “I know what you mean.” His own mouth flattened. “I’ve got enough disability and money to live on okay for the rest of my life.” That came out bitter. He didn’t care. If she hadn’t researched him earlier, she’d do that soon, and better she see the whole shitty story online than his having to tell her. “I want to do something with my life, too.”

She nodded, eyes serious. “But you’ve already found a job.”

“I guess.” More anger spilled out.

“Why aren’t you satisfied with it?” She tilted her head.

“It’s private work, being paid for, not serving the public, not helping folks who don’t have the money to pay.” That sounded too damn high-minded, but it was the way he felt. Emotions swirled around them. “If I’d been a police officer, I wouldn’t have listened to Mrs. Flinton; I could have gone after Whistler and arrested him. Not as if he isn’t going to try to con others. Better if he’s off the street.”

She blinked, then nodded slowly again. “I understand that.” She glanced between the seats toward his cane. “But you can’t work in the public sector anymore?”

“Not in the field.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

They gazed at each other. He leaned down, closer, closer; she clicked off her seat belt and moved toward him, saying nothing. Barking started outside the car, and a cold stream of air from the mountains moved through his window. Clare frowned and Zach began to lean back, and then her eyes fired and she put her hands on his shoulders, tilted her head for his kiss, met him halfway.

He’d meant just a brush to test her and the kick they might have between them, learn the texture of her lips, but her tongue swept over his mouth and he opened it and welcomed her in. Here was the fire that he’d sensed below her buttoned-up accountant persona. Her tongue probed his mouth and he found himself groaning into her mouth with his breath.

She shuddered and pressed closer to him, her breasts against his chest. Pleasure roared through him, then stopped and built and spiked, wisping all thought from his mind.

Until he moved wrong and his leg shot pain through his nerves, killing all desire. Setting his hands on cold fingers, he lifted them from his shoulders, and when her eyelashes opened he saw loss and grief and abandonment in her eyes. What? What the hell was he thinking? He couldn’t see that stuff in a person’s eyes, not even a woman he was kissing. Could
not
sense that from her, emotions that resonated with his own.

Then her pupils focused and the shadows in her eyes became shades of emotions he couldn’t fathom. She settled back into her seat, smiled, and it was an okay smile, not too bright, not sad.

“I think I told you that I like you, too,” she said.

Released tension. This didn’t have to be awkward.

“Yeah.” He matched his stare with hers. “Completely mutual, Clare Cermak.”

She nodded and opened the car door, slipped out with the smooth moves of a fit, healthy woman.

Zach snagged his cane, opened the door, and readied himself to get out. Clare awaited him on the sidewalk in front of the small path leading to the front stoop. Her fingers remained tight around the bag from the auction house. Zach definitely wanted to see what was in the box.

Slowly he exited, his bad leg stiff and aching from so much running around today. Real life, not like exercise at all. He’d have to change his program.

But he was facing real life, and that mattered.

He eyed the upper curves of her breasts, rising slightly over her sundress. He ached to get his hands on those.

Her breath remained fast. Her lips looked good, too. His favorite muscle hardened again. He grinned. Hell, having a sex life again, an interesting, pretty woman in his life was enough to think life was getting better. Even the job with Rickman, the apartment with Mrs. Flinton, both things that could be missteps, were first steps. His life progressed, and that soothed the anger within him.

He locked the car and held up the keys, pulling back to toss them at Clare.

Alarm crossed her face. “No, Zach! I’m bad at catch.”

Zach kept his chuckle to himself. A woman who could admit to a weakness, a woman who couldn’t match him in at least one physical thing, stroked his ego.

The dog barked and he heard it more clearly outside the vehicle, a bigger dog, a Lab, maybe. Moving around the car, his limp and the swing of his foot more pronounced than he cared for, he kept a smile on his face. She didn’t even look at his awkward steps, seemed not to even notice.

More burden of feeling like a lesser man fizzled away from his heart into the hot air.

The concrete path to her door wasn’t wide enough for two, so she walked in front of him. Light from the porch showed deep auburn highlights in her hair, her dress was thin enough to silhouette her shape, and he liked the sway of her hips and ass. Very nice.

His body agreed as his blood thickened in his groin, but his mind knew there was no chance of getting a woman like Clare into the sack on the day they met. She had great fire in her, sure, but she didn’t let her emotions call the shots, Zach was convinced of that.

She opened the screen door, unlocked the too-flimsy main door and shoved it wide, then went into the living room. Zach followed her. Old furniture, some of it antique, was placed here and there, the pine floor polished and very clean. He approved of the long and wide man-sized couch that dominated the living room, angled toward the television, though her video system was pitiful.

The house was stifling; must be in the nineties, and it didn’t look like she had so much as a window air-conditioner. The living room ceiling showed a light and fan. She turned on the light. Zach stared. She didn’t seem to feel the heat at all. Sweat dampened his back.

And she didn’t seem to think that she was in any danger from him. “You should be more careful who you invite into your house,” he said.

She turned and still looked pale to him in the low light, maybe even worse. Raising her brows at his cane, she said, “I don’t think you’re a vampire.”

That response took him off guard. “Vampire.”

She shrugged her lovely shoulders. “Joke.” Meeting his eyes, she said, “I can tell you were a cop. You’ve said you weren’t happy only serving people who can’t pay. To me, that means you’re honorable. Mrs. Flinton, whom I know of, vouched for you and knows you’re with me.” She glanced out the wide open front door. “And someone will be delivering your car here any minute.”

She dampened her lips. “I . . . I have defenses you don’t know of, and”—she gestured to the half wall revealing the kitchen beyond—“I have pepper spray in the kitchen.”

“Pepper spray in the kitchen,” he said tonelessly.

“All right, all right!” She dropped the bag with the box on a coffee table that held a few large picture books on the Old West and hurried into the kitchen, coming back with the pepper spray, which she stuck on a bookcase shelf next to the door. He took it down and checked the expiration date. “You should have tossed this two years ago.”

Crossing her arms, she lifted her chin. “All right. When . . . if . . . we, uh, spend some time together, I’ll be more security conscious.”

“Deal,” he said.

“And, anyway, I’m sure the new-to-me house that I’m buying will have a security system.”

He opened his mouth and she smiled, holding up a hand. “And I’ll let your firm check it out.”

“Did you find a house today?” he asked, remembering that she’d been meeting with a real estate agent.

“No.” Her mouth turned down, and she looked around, sighing and shoulders slumping. “This house is a good starter house and it was the right price. But it’s too small, and comparing it with Aunt Sandra’s charming place in Chicago, where I’ve been staying . . .” She shook her head. “That house is gorgeous, by a noted architect.”

“You’re looking for something like that here?” he asked, hitching his hip on the round arm of the couch. He figured she’d find his family’s Victorian home in Boulder full of charm.

Plastic crackled; Zach looked and saw the bag holding the box sagging. Clare had flinched and wrapped her arms around herself again.

Zach made a point of glancing at his watch. He’d like to stay here with Clare, but the damn house was so hot! “Let’s check out the box.”

Clare went to the table, opened the sack, and took out the box. Frowning, she stood directly under the light and studied it, tilted her head, then pushed down near the end of one side. Nothing happened. “I think it’s supposed to be like a teeter-totter,” she said. “But it’s stuck. Maybe I should get some wood oil or something.”

“Maybe I could try?” Zach held out his hand.

She walked over and gave it to him. “That’s the top, and the panel that should move. I had a puzzle box when I was a kid, and you slid a couple of pieces of wood to open it, so that’s how I thought this one opened.”

Something was a little off here that Zach couldn’t put his finger on. “But now you think it needs to be pushed.”

“Yes,” she said in a stifled voice, rubbing goose bumps on her arms.

He reached out and put his arm around her waist, tugged her to stand beside him. With her came a nice trickle of cool air that seemed to swirl around his foot. Holding one end of the box, he pressed down with his thumb, felt a little give. He pushed harder, keeping the pressure steady. With an odd creak the box opened.

His breath whooshed out. Clare gave a strangled cry.

Inside was a mummified human ear.

“
I SHOULD HAVE
expected this,” Clare said, her voice high to her own ears. Enzo sat next to Zach, tongue hanging out in a doggie grin. The shadow near her bedroom doorway was her imaginary friend, Jack Slade. Both Enzo and the apparition had told her how to open the box.

She shivered with cold and fear, glad she hadn’t eaten anything for dinner since it might have spewed up.

Zach looked up from the box, face inscrutable, his pupils wide in the gloom, with only a faint rim of blue-green iris. “That ear looks damn old.”

“The box is from about 1863, I think,” she said.

“This has to do with Jack Slade, the gunman.”

Clare twitched her lips up in a little smile at Zach’s deduction and avoided looking at the secret cache in the box. “You know the story.”

“Jack Slade cut off the ears of Jules Beni and wore one as a watch fob.”

“Jules Beni was the man who ambushed Jack Slade and emptied a revolverful of bullets into him as well as a shotgun!” She didn’t know why she defended the ghost.

Zach grunted. “They say Slade killed Beni.”

Not true
, said the slender ghost in shadows of black and white and gray, drifting closer.

“I . . . I like to think his men did it. Beni had stolen horses that were for the stagecoach and Pony Express. He’d returned to the area Slade had warned him out of. Slade put a reward out for Beni and told the military in Fort Laramie that he’d be hunting the man
before
his men found Beni,” Clare said.

That is absolutely correct.
The image of Jack Slade smiled at her.

“Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Beni,” Zach said. He actually touched the ear, lifted it out of the box,
sniffed
at it.

“Is it real?” Clare asked, though she had no doubt.

“Seems like.” The grisly thing lay on his palm. Zach studied her again. “Where did all this happen again?”

Clare bent down and flipped open an atlas that she’d marked on the coffee table. She’d put small sticky notes on the places that kept showing up in her dream conversations: Julesburg, where Slade had been shot; the general area of Cold Springs Station where Beni had been killed—that was taking some time for Clare to pinpoint; and Virginia Dale, the station Slade had founded for his headquarters and lived in until his drinking and shooting up Sutler’s store that had cost him his job. She pointed at the map. “In far northern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming.”

Zach rubbed the ear with his thumb. Ewwww. “And when was Beni killed?”

Clare frowned, searching her memory. “Late August 1861.”

“Seems to me an ear cut off in the August heat in southeastern Wyoming might mummify and still be around after more than a hundred and fifty years.”

Gulping, Clare nodded.

A short honk came from the street. “I guess my car’s here.” Zach put the ear back in the box, then tilted the lid closed. Clare let out a little breath.

“I seem to recollect,” Zach started in that Colorado ranch drawl Clare had noticed before, “that Jack Slade cut off both of Beni’s ears.”

“That’s the legend,” Clare whispered.

That is the truth
, Jack Slade the specter said mournfully.
That’s my great sin I need you to help me to rectify so I might pass on.

Her inner shivers were getting stronger, and she might not be able to hide them from Zach. She wanted him gone before he noticed the tremors, and she wanted him to stay, just because he was Zach.

“And Jack Slade wore one of Beni’s ears as a watch fob?” Zach said. “That’s a story that sticks in the head.”

Also true
, the collection of shadows said. Involuntarily she looked at the vision. Yes, he wore a watch chain. No ghostly ear attached.

“So they say,” Clare croaked, holding herself so she wouldn’t shudder.

“No hole in this ear,” Zach tapped the box as he leaned forward and put it on the coffee table. He stood, and when he smiled at Clare with masculine appreciation in his eyes, she forgot about her hallucinations. He stepped closer to her, lifted his hand as if to touch the vicinity of her chin, and she ran backward a step or two. “Don’t you touch me with that hand!”

Zach blinked, then his head tilted back as he roared a laugh. When he was done he just shook his head and strode to the kitchen and washed his hands, Clare stood at the threshold and made sure he did so thoroughly.

When he came back she let him tilt up her chin and kiss her, more than just a press of lips; his tongue sought her own and she opened her mouth, gave in again to sweet desire. To blessed warmth.

Again he was the one to draw away and she was left aching, spinning in time and space and
needing
more, more heat and sizzle and release to this desire he stoked.

He walked to the doorway. “I like you, Clare Cermak. See you at tea at Mrs. Flinton’s tomorrow.”

The very idea cleared her mind a bit. “You? Tea?”

His smile flashed, easier than she’d seen before. The depressing fog of emotions that he’d seemed wrapped in earlier that day appeared diminished. If she’d had anything to do with that—well, probably just the notion of sex for him, she supposed—anyway, she was glad.

He said, “Mrs. Flinton offered me an apartment. I think I’ll take her up on it. See you later.”

The screen door slammed behind him when he left. She went to the front door and saw him wave to two men in a car that looked a lot like the one Mrs. Flinton had been driven away in. Clare wondered about the car service. Probably top of the line, and the one she was using was good enough and no doubt less expensive. Sounded like Zach had also signed on with a premier firm. Envy stabbed her; she’d been with the best accounting business in Denver. Zach got into a shiny newer-model car and drove off, giving her a wave, too.

She smiled reflexively at him, then shut the door to keep any cooler night air from getting into the house, which felt chilly enough. She touched the arm of the couch and thought she felt Zach’s warmth, so she took the wool blanket she’d gotten out of the closet and folded over the couch, wrapped the throw around herself, and perched on the arm, not looking at the box. Enzo hopped onto the couch and stood staring at her with sad eyes.

You ignored me ALL NIGHT LONG!

“I didn’t want to be taken for insane,” she snapped.

Enzo slid her a sly glance.
Mrs. Flinton believes in me. We will have a fine tea tomorrow.

Clare didn’t have the energy to contradict him. Tomorrow morning she’d go to the library by hired car for more research, but she wanted to drive herself to Mrs. Flinton’s, just to prove to herself that she could do it . . . even though she might have to map a way around town to avoid shades.

One particular shade bowed to her.
Thank you, Clare Cermak, for retrieving the box and the ear for me. The worst thing I did in my life was to cut the ears off Jules Beni, and now I must make amends before I am allowed to leave this place.

No one really knew if Jack had cut off one or two of Beni’s ears—until Clare had learned it straight from the ghost’s mouth. Nor had anyone known for sure what had happened to the ears. The last report of one of them had been in a glass case in the Virginia Dale Station, but that information was hearsay, too.

Halfheartedly, she said, “You’re welcome.”

Enzo leapt from the couch and rubbed against the man, who petted him.
Clare is a very good woman
, the dog said.

Yes, she is.

I must return the ears to the place Jules Beni died and give them to him, as if I never cut them off
, Jack Slade said.

Clare didn’t know what that entailed and didn’t want to ask. She sighed, then slipped from the chair arm to the corner of the couch, huddled in her blanket. “Where’s the other ear?”

Lost near my headquarters, Virginia Dale stage station.

At least that building was still standing; Clare had a sneaking suspicion that the station at Cold Springs, where Slade had cut off Beni’s ears, wasn’t around since she hadn’t been able to locate it on her computer. Which reminded her that she’d wanted to look up Zach’s story on her tablet, but her bag in the tiny room she used as a home office was too far away to get right now, and she was too tired. She closed her eyes to sleep, though she suspected she’d already fallen into a nightmare.

 • • • 

When Zach stopped at Mrs. Flinton’s house, he fished his old laptop out from under the driver’s seat and limped to the side entrance to his apartment. Tomorrow he’d have to go back up to the motel in Northglenn and get the rest of his stuff. Man, his whole body ached. He set his jaw and hobbled to the side door. The guy who’d brought him his car had given him a set of keys for the apartment. Zach already had the alarm code.

He opened the fancy and heavy iron security door with a grunt, then the thick door of solid oak, which swung silently inward. As he closed the door behind him, his nose twitched. He smelled pie. So he set his laptop on the bar counter and took a tall stool. Yep, under a ceramic cover was a piece of pecan pie. His mouth watered. A note written in nice cursive said,
Milk is in the refrigerator—Bekka
.

Zach was so damn achy he didn’t want to move off the round-cushioned stool; instead he fumbled at the silverware drawer just within reach, yanked it open enough to get a fork, and plunged it into the pie.

Homemade, oh
yeah
! Really rich on his tongue, a lot of calories, fattening. Eh, he could afford to put on some weight. Still, he took each bite slowly, turning on his computer and checking his e-mail account in between bites. The first one he saw was an announcement of the date and time of a funeral for two deputy sheriffs. Tongue sour, he sent that message to archives, didn’t quite delete it.

What would be his welcome if he showed up? Looks from the rest of his department as black as a crow’s wing, and low voices muttering about him. Nah, he sure didn’t need that. He was
done
with that; this very full day had proven so.

The next message was from Rickman, brief and to the point.
Aunt Barbara praised your actions tonight. Good job. Show up at 11:00
A.M
. for consultation with T.R. in re: tracing Flinton antiques.
Zach made a mental note of that, figured now he was in a big city he’d have to break down and buy a smart phone. He was ready to click the e-mail closed when he saw an attachment labeled
Clare Cermak
.

He stared. Mrs. Flinton must have given Clare’s name to Rickman. No doubt at all that the old lady had already burbled about the whole evening to the man . . . even regarding the invisible dog? Zach winced. But he hovered his cursor over the attachment . . . and opened it.

He skimmed the information. He already knew her address; he memorized her landline phone and cell numbers. Background of Gypsy extraction. He grinned at that. She
did
have fire under those prim clothes. Her parents were still living but world travelers, “employment unknown.” Sounded like flakes. Might be why she’d been so focused on business. Zach could only agree with her need to contribute.

She had an older brother who was a golf pro in Williamsburg, Virginia; the guy was married with a nine-year-old daughter.

Seemed to be family money.

And Clare’s Aunt Sandra Cermak had died a few months previously; Clare had been named the executor and sole heiress.
That
would bring problems, Zach figured. She’d inherited . . . millions, eight figures’ worth of millions. Seriously wealthy.

Didn’t stop his dick from rising as he looked at a gallery of photos. Beautiful woman.

A big paragraph in bolded type. Sandra Cermak had inherited the base of her fortune from her uncle, invested it well, but had made a lot more through her consulting services as a psychic.

A medium, a woman who saw and spoke with ghosts.

Bullshit, and no wonder Clare might be conflicted about her aunt and the woman’s money. Clare didn’t strike Zach as a woman who tolerated woo-woo. Just like him.

The memory of what Mrs. Flinton had said earlier at the auction house plucked at Zach’s mind:
The ghost dog accompanying Clare.
Ghost. Dog.

But Clare hadn’t said anything about a ghost dog.

Zach snorted, stood up from the stool, put the pie plate in the sink, and ran water in it to soak.

Just before he punched the button to turn off his machine, he saw the last paragraph, a comment by Rickman:
Aunt Barbara approves of Clare Cermak and says she can see and interact with ghosts.

Zach winced.

Aunt Barbara also thinks that you have “the sight.”

No, he damn well didn’t.

But Aunt Barbara has informed me several times that she prefers to associate with people who have a touch of psi power.

Zach rolled his eyes and turned off his computer. His stomach squeezed and rumbled as if his juices didn’t like what he’d read. As he limped to bed, he wondered what “Aunt Barbara” saw in Tony Rickman.

Didn’t matter. None of them—Rickman, Zach, or Clare—believed in psychic gifts.