Текст книги "Ghost Seer"

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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.

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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.

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ONTENTS

Praise for Robin D. Owens

Titles by Robin D. Owens

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Counting Crows Rhyme

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

Excerpt from GHOST LAYER

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!

COUNTING CROWS RHYME:

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!

ONE

PLAINSVIEW CITY, COTTONWOOD COUNTY, SOUTH CENTRAL MONTANA, AUGUST 23RD, MORNING

THE 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.

TWO

GREAT. A SOUR taste coated Zach’s tongue as he glanced at his ex-partner and the other deputy. Leaning as little as he could on his cane, he pushed his vehicle door shut, then locked it with the fob.

His ex-partner, Lauren, stepped out of the passenger side of the vehicle, followed by another deputy, bigger and beefier and older—Larry—whom Zach had never gotten along with since Zach had taken the job three years ago: personality clash.

Zach straightened and stared unemotionally at the young woman who’d been his partner, who’d made a mistake that he hadn’t corrected. An error that had gotten him wounded and nearly gotten him killed. Lauren was pretty, with blond hair and blue eyes and a round face.

She’d visited him in the hospital, when he was in a wheelchair, during physical therapy—where she didn’t look at his leg. Always came with someone else and always apologized but never saying much of anything else, wanting him to give her benediction or something. The best he’d been able to do was, “We both made a mistake.”

Apparently, she still needed more.

Guess word had gotten around that he was leaving.

Her breathing quickened as she walked up to him. Must have needed to bring along Larry to help her out. Might always need someone else to help her out. A really bad quality in a cop. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m sure you are,” Zach said.

She looked aside. Larry had angled their vehicle near, like they’d be ready to chase if Zach gave them any reason. Acid burned in his gut. Nope, he’d never truly been considered one of them, only an outsider.

Not that he minded being an outsider, but the Montana job, his third as a deputy sheriff, had seemed like a good fit.

Only seemed. None of his previous departments would have treated him like this. He had been a valued colleague, friend, then.

Too bad, so sad, get over it.

“You’re leaving?” Lauren asked.

“So?” he said.

She swallowed, and Larry took over the questioning. Cops were always nosy.

“Where are you going?” Larry asked.

“Look, ass—” Zach stopped himself. Larry was baiting him, would expect cursing, maybe even a swing. Better to mess with his head, to give him little reaction at all. Just that easily, Zach regained his calm. He rolled a shoulder in a contemptuous shrug. “You’re not worth even talking to.” He focused on his previous partner. “And I’m sorry it took you so long to get the guts to talk to me.”

Lauren flushed red.

“You asshole,” Larry said.

“Truthful guy, that’s me,” Zach said. He curled his lip.

Larry crowded him. “Where are you going?”

Zach smiled, with teeth. Because he knew it would make Lauren feel uncomfortable, he said, “None of your damn business, but since you don’t have the fortitude to ignore an itch to know, I’m going to visit my mother in Boulder, Colorado.” Even before he’d joined the department, the deputies he worked with knew his background. Everyone knew his mother was fragile.

Every cop Zach had ever worked with had seen how unsolved murders shattered families.

That had been true of Zach’s. His older brother, Jim, had died in an unexplained drive-by shooting when Zach was twelve and Jim was sixteen.

Now his mother lived in an expensive mental health complex that Zach helped his father pay for, though Zach figured his father, the General, used the funds his mother had inherited.

His mother couldn’t come to see him when he’d been in the hospital, and his father hadn’t. Zach had heard that the General had inquired if the wound was life-threatening, and, later, in the one terse conversation Zach had had with his father, the General had laid out that Zach had done a damn stupid thing, as usual.

“Oh, going to see your mother,” Lauren repeated, shifting her balance. Maybe the reporters were right, maybe she did need better training. Well, he didn’t have to do it, and for that he was grateful.

Larry reached into his pocket and pulled out a toothpick, all the while meeting Zach’s eyes. “Jackson Zachary Slade,” he said, using Zach’s full name before sticking the grungy bit of wood in his mouth where the toothpick attached to his lower lip.

Not again.

Ever since someone had told Larry about the Old West gunman called Jack Slade, Larry-the-asshole had poked Zach about that man, making “witty” comments at Zach’s expense.

“Good that you’re going. Montana isn’t good for Jack Slades, Jackson Zachary Slade.” Larry smirked.

Zach had never wanted to hit him more, but kept his temper reined in, his voice cool. He disliked those who compared him to the gunman. “I guess I learned that; a lot of jerks in Montana.”

He stared at the couple. “At least I won’t be lynched by vigilantes here like that Jack Slade.” He paused a little. “I’m not a drunk, and I believe in justice.”

Lauren paled. Larry’s hands fisted. The whole nasty business that had led to Zach’s wound had been because of a drunk ex-policeman who didn’t want to be charged with a DUI.

But the two before him didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was justice. He’d done his duty and what he thought was right. And a drunk driver who could have killed others, broken other families, was off the streets and sitting in a prison cell.

The August heat seemed to wrap around the three of them until Zach could almost believe he felt heat waves radiating from their bodies, see those waves as pale colors.

A crow cawed and he tensed, seeing four of them on the back fence.

Dread hit him. He didn’t like crows. He’d never forgotten the crow-counting rhyme taught to him by his mother’s mother, a wealthy and superstitious woman. Four for death.

He thought he caught a whiff of rotting. Damn crows.

Time to get Lauren and Larry gone so Zach could move on with his life. He nodded to his ex-partner. “You take care, now.” His voice held an edge of bitterness that slipped out despite him.

“I am sorry,” she said.

Once more he nodded, then watched as she tugged on the deputy’s arm to make him break the stare with Zach. Larry shrugged and turned, adjusting his hat.

They got into their car and drove away.

Zach was glad to see them go, and he forced the black rancor aside once more as he limped into the diner. He ate and managed to be more than polite, sincere, as he said good-bye to the cook and waitress.

A half hour later, under stormy skies and sleeting rain, he’d left the county behind. He’d press on through bad weather and be out of Montana before nightfall.

No, Montana wasn’t good for Jack—or Jackson Zachary—Slades, and he never intended to come back.

DENVER, COLORADO, THE SAME MORNING

I like the way you smell. I’m staying, the figment of her imagination, a “ghost” dog, said. It—he?—sat on the end of her bed.

“No,” Clare Cermak whispered as she slapped a palm down on her buzzing alarm clock. She stared at him in shock. Well, through him. He didn’t have a touch of color.

“This can’t be happening,” she muttered. She was on her third day of denial of ghosts, but that still worked for her. A year might work for her. Forever.

She closed her eyes and scooted under the sheet.

Coldness touched her shoulder, and her eyelids sprang open.

The Labrador looked at her with big, dark gray eyes that had been chocolate brown when he was alive. He was too close up and far too personal.

She gulped. “You aren’t—weren’t—even my dog, Enzo.” He’d been her weird great-aunt Sandra’s. Sandra, who said she saw ghosts and helped them “transition.” Who’d recently made her own transition, and had bypassed Clare’s parents and brother and made Clare the sole heir of her estate, leaving Clare a fortune.

Yes, there was family money and trusts, but Sandra had added to it. Who knew pretending to talk to ghosts was so lucrative?

I’m your dog now. Enzo’s tongue lolled as he gave her a too-perky doggie grin. We should play, too.

“I don’t believe this.” She sat up, hardening her heart against his large, dark eyes and wagging tail. Hardening her expression. “I don’t believe in you. In any . . . ghosts.” Though something was wrong with her vision, because she’d begun to “see” gray and white and shadowy and transparent images of people. She’d made a doctor’s appointment for extensive testing.

Now a shadow was “talking” to her in her head.

That’s all right. I believe in you! Enzo’s imaginary tongue shot out and swiped at her face . . . and she felt a clammy touch on her cheek. Enough that she reared back and banged her head on the curved wood of her sleigh bed.

This invasion of the visions right here in her home and her own bedroom was new and unwelcome. Chicago, where her aunt had lived, was one thing. Right here . . . not at all good.

But you hear me, right? Huh, huh? I looove you, Clare. Always liked when you came. You brought treats. Do you have treats here? Enzo bounded off her bed, leaving no sign he’d been there, and whisked straight through her closed and solid bedroom door.

“I’m seeing things,” she said weakly.

The spectral dog loped back into the room, drool dripping. Again Clare stared. The shiny droplets vanished before they hit her rug. Which was weird.

The whole thing was weird.

She’d turned weird.

You have no treats, Enzo said, giving her the big puppy eyes.

“I have no clue what you eat,” she said, talking to an imaginary being—to herself. Despite living alone, she’d never done that. She grabbed a feather pillow and clutched it tight, as if it could be a shield to visions in her own mind.

Breathing fast, she glanced at the tablet computer propped on her bedside table. She was due in the doctor’s office in two hours. Good. She’d try to determine if something was wrong physically, first.

Enzo must be a figment of her recently shattered, uneasy, and all-too-real-feeling dreams.

The imaginary dog hopped back up onto her bed, tilted his head, and wrinkled his forehead in mute begging.

Clare swallowed. She was an accountant, darn it. She loved a logical life . . . but she wasn’t heartless. Even if the thing was only a memory, a figment of her imagination, she couldn’t ignore the big doggie eyes any longer. And touching it would be more proof it didn’t exist. Tentatively she reached out . . .

But as she slid her hands along the dog and into cold mistiness and shifted under the sheet to keep her legs warm, she recalled the other things she’d seen as the cab had driven her home from the airport the day before, and her heart thumped fast.

Outlaws and miners and cowboys had sauntered translucently down the streets. One had actually stopped and tipped his hat at her! She’d seen the arrogant strides of the rich founding businessmen, the swaying rolled-hip stroll of past madams. Not to mention horses.

Now this filmy dog whimpered in bliss, and Clare’s hands got colder and colder, as if she’d plunged them into an ice bath.

Stroke, stroke, stroke, along Enzo’s side . . . He leaned into her. She should stop, but more than her hands were frozen. The thoughts in her head seemed nothing but icy crystals, she was so cold. He rolled over on his back so she could reach his belly. She felt no solid dog, of course, and energy seemed to drain right out of her.

Cold hands, cold crawling up her arms so that her teeth might soon chatter.

Enzo opened his eyes, and for an instant she thought she saw a glint of something more than dog, something older, wiser.

Again she pulled back and tucked her freezing hands into her armpits. “No. You’re not here. You’re definitely not real.”

It is time for the gift to pass to you, and with the riches comes the gift. You must accept and learn. The echoey words weren’t doglike, again held an edge of something else.

Clare shuddered.

Then Enzo blinked and rolled to sit and looked like a goofy pooch again. I will help. It will be fun! I love you and you love me! Thank you for the petting!

Cold, cold, cold, she scrunched down into the bed and pulled the sheet up, staring at the vaporous dog.

I’ll be your sidekick! Enzo grinned and licked her cheek. She noted that his touch didn’t seem as cold as when she’d initiated the contact. Rules. There might be rules in this madness. In seeing ghosts . . .

“No,” she said, denying him. Denying that the thing was even there. Not logical. No and no and no.