In the Air Tonight (12 page)

He tasted of coffee and strawberries, sugar, heat, the night. Something howled—the wind, a wolf, me?

My hair stirred in an impossible breeze. No, wait. Those were his fingers tangling in the strands, tilting my head so he could delve with his tongue. My hands on his biceps flexed, my thumbs stroked; I licked his teeth. I wanted to lick a whole lot more.

I lifted my arms, wrapped them around his neck, pressed my entire body to his. He wanted to lick a whole lot more too.

The door of my room slammed. We leaped apart like two teenagers caught in the back seat of a car. I half expected to find my father, outraged, holding the shotgun. Instead Genevieve stood halfway between us and the door.

“Holy hell,” Bobby muttered.

I had to agree. What was she doing here?

I let my gaze wander the room, searching for Stafford. He’d never left the school grounds; I hadn’t thought he could. I hoped he hadn’t decided to start. All I needed was a freely roving Stafford.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Bobby said. “But…” He rubbed the back of his head as if it ached. “Wow.”

Genevieve scowled. I scowled back. I wanted to order her out, but I didn’t dare.

Bobby took a step toward me; I took a step back. “I can’t.”

Genevieve shimmered. Maybe I could. If she’d get out. But how to make her stay out? I had no idea.

“Your dad. Right.” He turned toward the window. “Sorry.”

“Crap.” I’d forgotten my father, which showed how far gone I was.

I could see Bobby reflected in the endless night beyond the glass. I could see Genevieve too. They wore identical frowns.

“The window’s shut,” Bobby said.

“It’s forty degrees.” More like thirty, but I didn’t want to scare him. “It better not be open.”

He spun. “I mean…” He shifted his shoulders. “Why did the door slam?”

A book fell from my nightstand and clapped against the floor like thunder.

“Old house.” I shot Genevieve a glare. “Drafty.”

He grunted, unconvinced. I didn’t blame him. That had to be some draft if it could both slam a door and drop a book.

None of my ghosts had ever done anything like this before. Stafford usually instigated trouble in the living, rather than perpetrating the trouble himself. Although there had been the incident with the fire alarm today. I’d thought Stafford had done it.

I considered Genevieve. But maybe not.

“I’d better go.” Bobby started for the door.

Genevieve reached out as if to hug him, and he walked right through her. The expression on the child’s face made my heart kick up even faster than it had from his kiss.

“Daddy,” she whispered, and I understood.

She wasn’t my ghost. She was his.

Chapter 9

Bobby hurried across the hall. Honestly? He nearly ran. He told himself it was because he wanted to kiss Raye again. Kiss her and a whole lot more.

And he did want to. Badly. But that wasn’t what had him shutting his own door, locking it too. No, that was the strange cold spot and the whiff of …

Sunshine in the depths of the night, cinnamon on toast, and the rain that came at dawn. All mingled together into a scent he hadn’t smelled since—

He never should have gone to the school today. That was the only reason he was reacting the way he was now. The kids had devastated him. But he’d forgotten about it in the heat of pursuing the maniac.

He should go to bed, start fresh tomorrow. But even if it hadn’t been nine-thirty, he wasn’t going to be able to sleep now. He dug out his cell phone and called his partner.

“You on your way back?” Sullivan demanded.

Ah, the magic—and rudeness—of caller ID.

“Hello, to you too.” Bobby moved to his window, which gave him a bird’s-eye view of the forest. Except clouds had drifted over the moon, and he couldn’t see a single tree past the dark pane; he could only see himself. He didn’t look too good.

“Hello,” Sullivan said. “You on your way back?”

“Miss me?”

“I’m getting slammed here.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“What are you doing up there?”

Bobby had an image of Raye Larsen, lips still wet from his. He’d almost been doing her.

The erection he’d lost when he’d walked away came right back. He ground his teeth.

“Sounds like you’re chewing gravel.”

Bobby relaxed his jaw, wiggled it about so he could talk, then told his partner everything. Almost. He left out the taste of Raye Larsen’s lips. He also left out the scent that had made him run from them.

“Huh,” Sullivan said. “Seems too easy.”

“You come on up here and shoot a moving maniac, then tell me how easy it is.”

“I just meant we’ve been searching for this creep for a while, then you go to Podunk, and a few hours later he’s dead. That never happens.”

He was right. But—

“Shouldn’t something work out once in blue moon?”

“Don’t talk to me about the moon,” Sullivan said. “Makes me twitchy.”

Full moons always caused cops to twitch—as well as nurses, waitresses, and psych ward workers. That big round orb made the crazies crazier. Maybe it had something to do with the tides and their magnetic pull. Who knew? But if one full moon caused people to go bat shit, what would two in one month—known as a blue moon—do? Bobby didn’t even want to think about that.

“If the blood on the guy’s ring matches your victim,” Sullivan continued, “the case is closed, and you can get back here before I lose my ever-lovin’ mind. Again.”

“Not so fast. Who’s to say he didn’t find the ring on the ground.”

“Really?”

“I’m just talking like a defense attorney.”

“Guy’s dead,” Sullivan said. “Does he get a defense attorney?”

“True. But we can’t stamp closed on something until we’re sure.”

“What would make you sure?”

“If the meat cleaver is the murder weapon, I’d say we’re in business.”

“Not so fast.” Sullivan repeated Bobby’s words. “No meat-cleaver killings here.”

Man had a point. He often did, which was why they worked so well together.

“Although, since we seem to have hit an uncommon streak of luck, maybe he was stupid enough not to wash the branding ring between victims and there’ll be DNA from all of them all over the place.”

“What are the chances of that?” Bobby wondered.

“Slim to none.”

The usual odds.

“Remember that case in the Hotel St. Germain?” he asked.

Silence came over the line. Bobby could almost see his partner’s face crease in thought. The hotel was in a seedy section of town; therefore they’d had more than one case there. Bobby gave him a hint. “Locked-room mystery.”

“Hated that thing.”

“Did we ever check the floor in the locker?”

“Not following.”

“Seemed like the guy could have been shot through the door of the room, but no hole in the door, and it was still locked, bolted, chained.”

“Hence my hatred. What about the closet?” Despite years spent in New Orleans, to a man from Maine—or was it Massachusetts?—a closet was always and forever a closet.

“Not sure. But the door to the locker and the door to the outside were right next to each other. One was open; one wasn’t. I had a…” Bobby shifted his shoulders. “Hunch. Check the floor in the locker of that room and let me know what you find.”

“’Cause I got nothin’ better to do? There were four murders last night. One of them was another one of those damn wild-animal killings that just makes my head pound.”

Sullivan’s leave of absence had followed a spate of wild-animal attacks in New Orleans. Some by wolves, a creature that had not been seen in Louisiana for at least a century. Others by a big cat larger than any bobcat found in the swamps. Folks had whispered of a loup-garou, a werewolf legend of the Crescent City, whereby the beast attacked beneath a sickle-shaped moon and not the full.

Sullivan—born and bred Yankee that he was—hadn’t believed any of it. He’d figured serial killer, even called the FBI. They had not agreed. The killings had continued. He’d snapped. Then, the killings had stopped. But, apparently, not forever.

Bobby had been briefed about his partner’s issues.
Brief
being the operative word. He didn’t really know what had happened or why, and he hadn’t asked. Sullivan was the best partner he’d ever had, and he wasn’t going to fuck it up by sticking his nose into things that were over. Except …

What if they weren’t over?

“You okay?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah.” Sullivan let out a long sigh. “I’m not going to jibber in the corner.”

“You say that like you’ve done it before.”

“Haven’t we all?”

Bobby certainly had.

*   *   *

“What’s wrong, Genevieve?”

Tears shimmered in the ghost child’s eyes. “He never sees me.”

“I know, baby.” She had Bobby’s eyes. I saw that now.

“Where’s your mom?” I asked.

“She couldn’t see me either.” Her face scrunched into an expression I first thought was confusion and then, when she stomped her foot, realized was anger. “She should have been able to!”

I was confused. Should her mom have been able to see her because she was also dead? Or just because the child thought a mother should always have that connection? I could relate. I still looked for my mother everywhere.

Of course she wasn’t really my mother. But not being blood relations didn’t keep every other specter in the township from appearing to me.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

Genevieve hadn’t moved on for a reason, one I needed to discover so that she could. She didn’t belong in this world. I glanced at the closed door across the hall.

No matter how much the living might long for her.

“My daddy is sad.”

He was, and now I understood why.

“Tell him…”

I leaned forward, but she trailed off, her gaze flicking to his closed door.

“What should I tell him?” I pressed, even though the idea of talking to Bobby Doucet about his dead daughter made me cringe. But who else was going to?

“Tell him it wasn’t his fault,” she said. Then she disappeared.

I stared at the empty space where she’d been, then glanced at the closed door across the hall and back at the empty space.

I couldn’t just knock on his door and tell him I had a message from his dead daughter. I’d learned the hard way that I needed to impart info from beyond with a little more tact. Therefore, I had to get him to tell me about Genevieve and what had happened to her before I could ever tell him “it” wasn’t his fault.

Whatever “it” was.

Curious, I dug my laptop from my overnight bag and Googled.
Genevieve Doucet
brought many returns, none of them a child, which made me even more reluctant to mention her to Bobby.

Still, I’d never known a ghost to lie. She had to be his daughter.

Was he unaware of her? I didn’t think the child would attach herself so strongly to someone she hadn’t spent time with during her life, but one never knew. There was information missing, and though I had no idea where to hunt for it, I kept trying.

I searched on
Bobby Doucet,
got a ton of hits, the
Times Picayune
mostly. His cases exclusively. No marriage announcement, no birth announcement either, but that didn’t mean much. Perhaps he’d gotten married elsewhere. Perhaps they were just private people. Newspapers only printed the announcements they were given, and, in some cases, were paid for.

At a loss, I moved to the window. My Puritan and his wolf stood in the yard.

I was out of my room and down the stairs before I considered that they’d only be gone by the time I got there. Nevertheless, I opened the door and went outside. The two remained, though they’d moved closer to the trees.

I glanced over my shoulder, at what I have no idea. My father was in bed, or at least in his room. Bobby too. No one here but me and my shadows.

The Puritan beckoned. I sprinted across the distance between us. I didn’t need to be asked twice.

Up close, the wolf was huge, the top of its head level with my waist. The man laid his hand on the beast’s back. The two nearly blended into the night—he all in black, the wolf too. Only their eyes shone like jewels—onyx and emerald.

I wished, not for the first time, that I could paint. Their image, here in the dark, with the trees at their backs and the moon just coming out, would be exquisite. However, my artistic skills ran toward stick folks and primary-colored collages. Not a surprise considering my occupation.

“Is there something you need?” I asked.

The wolf snorted. The man’s lips and his fingers curved—a smile for me, a calming stroke for the wolf. “I’m here to help you, child.”

“Usually ghosts come to me for help.”

“Most do, aye.”

His accent beguiled. I’d never realized what a sucker I was for accents. How could I? In New Bergin, there weren’t any.

“Where are you from?”

“Is that what you want to ask after so very long?”

He had a point, but his not going poof the instant I approached after so many years of doing just that seemed to have frazzled my brain.

“It’s as good a place to start as any.”

“I suspect it is. Well, then…” His fingers continued to stroke the wolf as he lifted his gaze to the night. “I was born in Scotland.”

“When?”

“A forgotten time.”

“I doubt that.”

He lowered his gaze to mine. “Perhaps I only wish it was forgotten, as it appears to have returned. You must beware of the hunters.”

Living in the woods, I’d been taught young to have a care during the hunting time of the year. But it was bow season not gun—the latter being far more dangerous by virtue of bullets instead of arrows, and more morons per square mile. While killing with a bow required some skill, blasting a rifle did not. Either way …

“There’s no deer hunting after dark.” Of course morons were often unclear about what constituted darkness—as well as hunters’ blaze orange. Hence the accidental shootings of the many.

“That is not the kind of hunter of which I speak.” The wolf gave a very feminine yip, and he nodded as if he understood. “You must beware the
Venatores Mali
.”