Ghost Layer (The Ghost Seer Series Book 2) Page 10

  Breathe, Clare, BREATHE! It was Enzo again, licking at her with a cold, cold tongue. She sucked in cool air, then the harsh dry stuff of the great room, tinged with wood and fire . . . and the scent of furniture polish. She shuddered, began to straighten her legs inch by inch. When she had enough breath, she screamed.

  In less than a minute the lights of the great room brightened, making her blink. Then a crowd gathered around her, most talking, questioning her. She saved her breath to inhale and exhale, steady herself, put aside the Other’s revelations until later.

  “What’s going on!” demanded Mr. Laurentine.

  The crowd of people—six? ten?—moved aside for him and Rossi, who followed, scanning the area. Clare choked. Mr. Laurentine wore an old-fashioned nightshirt. It looked like the finest ivory linen, and draped over his knees. His hair had a case of the frizz. She coughed and this time her tears were amusement.

  Then she realized he probably hadn’t contacted her to discuss something.

  “Not an accident,” she gasped. “I was set up.”

  “That so?” asked Rossi. Now he held a gun in one hand and he gestured to someone else to investigate.

  “Oily spot, top of the stairs,” Clare said.

  “This is Dr. Burns. Move aside.”

  Again people parted. She noted most were in nightwear, pajamas or nightgowns. Missy Legrand wore a slinky red sliplike “gown.”

  “A doctor?” Clare squeaked.

  “Of course I have a doctor on hand; the closest hospital is in Leadville or Frisco. Not bad if it’s summer, but tough when it’s winter,” Mr. Laurentine snapped.

  “Move your toes for me, please,” Dr. Burns insisted.

  She flexed her feet, both feet, thinking of Zach, who couldn’t do that with his left foot, and swallowed tears. She needed him, someone she could trust absolutely.

  “Good,” Dr. Burns said. “Where does it hurt?”

  “All over.” She put her hand to her ribs. She’d had a cracked one before and knew the pain.

  “How’s your neck?”

  “Okay, I think.”

  “All right, we’re moving you.”

  “Uh-huh.” She concentrated on Mr. Laurentine’s cool blue eyes as a focal point when hands clasped her ankles, went to hip and shoulder. and rolled her to her back. “I guess you didn’t call me to discuss my consulting contract with you?”

  His groomed brows winged up. “At this time of night?” Missy moved close to Laurentine and snugged her arm through his.

  “I don’t know your schedule,” Clare bit out with a hiss of air and put both hands to her right side. “Oh, man.” She winced. “Cracked ribs for sure.”

  “Found the oily spot up here,” someone said from above her.

  “An accident . . . or not?” Mr. Laurentine said thoughtfully, still staring down at her. “Interesting.”

  “It appears as if someone doesn’t want her here,” Rossi said.

  “And someone doesn’t care if anyone else might take a bad fall,” Dr. Burns snapped. He was feeling her limbs, didn’t poke at her rib cage, for which she was deeply grateful. “We can move her on a stretcher. I can examine you in my office, but if you’d like to be taken to the Leadville hospital, about forty minutes away, or Frisco, over an hour—”

  She stared at the doctor and did her own internal survey. She didn’t seem to have any broken bones, except the bruised or cracked ribs. Her head hadn’t hit anything hard . . . and Leadville and Frisco, both mining towns, would swarm with ghosts. She thought Leadville was especially haunted. “I’ll stay.”

  As soon as she was placed on the stretcher, Mr. Laurentine said, “So has this scared you away, Cermak?”

  “I’ll have to think on it,” she managed.

  J. Dawson Hidgepath materialized near her head, overlapping into a burly guy Clare didn’t know and who didn’t seem to notice the apparition. The shade’s expression was mournful and he held stems of drooping, ghostly daisies. Now you know what it feels like, he murmured in her mind, shaking his head. But you were lucky. Please don’t go, Clare. I need you to help me. The spirit looked around, the flowers in his hands disappearing as he took his bowler off and held it against his chest. And it seems to me that my death casts a long shadow, might somehow be affecting your present events.

  Do you think so? she asked.

  Why else would someone hurt you?

  But why?

  I don’t know.

  Mr. Laurentine snorted. “You’re going to let someone drive you away from fulfilling your job?”

  Clare’s lips thinned. “I don’t consider this a job for you.”

  He laughed with disgust, a man accustomed to buying anything or anyone he wanted. “What do you consider it?”

  The words a higher calling sat on her tongue, especially since Enzo whined near her and J. Dawson walked along as she was carried to the doctor’s suite. She closed her eyes, tried to relax all her tension-tight, fall-stiff muscles, surely making every ache worse. Her lips curved. “Your bodyguard might get hazard pay, but I don’t. And furthermore, I don’t need your job or your money or this house or even the town of Curly Wolf for access to J. Dawson Hidgepath.” She opened her eyelids to see Mr. Laurentine’s eyes blazing with anger. Whoops.

  She shrugged and hissed in a breath at the pain in her ribs. “I’ll think on this situation in the morning.”

  Probably a real mistake to dismiss the multimillionaire, but truly, what could he do? Smear her name in his social circles? She didn’t travel in those. Denigrate her as a psychic? She didn’t want that business either. As far as she was concerned, he needed her more than she needed him.

  She wondered how many times the man had been told no.

  • • •

  Zach sat in the back garden of Mrs. Flinton’s house, tired but unable to sleep. He’d had dinner with the elderly ladies and had told them of his progress on the old murder of J. Dawson Hidgepath. Mrs. Flinton considered herself so close to her godson, Tony Rickman, that she was an honorary member of the business.

  She wasn’t . . . though she’d sure blabbed about Clare to the guy.

  Now it was midnight and he couldn’t sleep. He’d tried. But he’d seen the damn crow behind his eyelids, even had one of those stupid flashbacks to the shooting that had crippled him.

  And another flashback. Gone way back to the worst day of his life, when he was twelve. His parents had promised him that he could leave the base alone next time they moved. That was before his father got an early promotion. When they’d hit the new base, he’d wanted to explore the city outside and was shut down. He’d taken off anyway.

  Though pissed, Zach had stayed inside the gates. Unfortunately his brother Jim hadn’t known that and had left the base, searching for Zach.

  And gotten killed in a drive-by shooting.

  Horrible. Zach pressed his hands to his head. Yeah, that was when he’d stopped believing in that little gift he thought he and Jim had shared.

  Because Jim shouldn’t have been looking for Zach off base. Jim should have known where Zach was. But he hadn’t, so whatever extra sense Zach had thought he and his brother shared had been wrong.

  So he didn’t have a special gift, and Jim hadn’t either. Because Jim had died.

  But Zach had been seeing crows. Since Clare.

  No, since he’d been shot.

  Couldn’t trust anything like that.

  Around and around his thoughts went, and the image of the crow loomed large.

  So he pulled on pajama bottoms, made a few cups of the despised decaf coffee, and wandered, then sank into the lounge chair. The evening cool was turning into a cold night that he welcomed after the hot day.

  His phone rang and his gut twitched. Late-night calls never brought good news. Whatever happened had happened, but fear twisted his nerves and sweat popped out on his face, his neck, his chest.

  Clare. He stared at the phone as it pinged a standard tone. No number. Shrugging, he answered and said, “Say it fast.
”

  “Clare had a fall. She has two cracked ribs. The Park County sheriff is on the way,” came the measured words of Rossi.

  “She’s okay?”

  “Laurentine’s doctor has checked her out. Only bruises otherwise.”

  “What kind of fall?”

  “Slip and fall down the main staircase.”

  Not outside on a mountain trail like J. Dawson Hidgepath.

  “Looks like some furniture oil had pooled on the wooden stairs,” Rossi continued.

  Why anyone would want a wooden staircase without carpet, Zach didn’t get. Furniture oil. Clare had said the housekeeper didn’t like her. “Why’s the sheriff coming?” Zach asked.

  “A little suspicious. Laurentine is bandying around the words attempted murder.”

  Zach snorted. “Damn stupid way to kill someone.”

  “Slade, it’s pretty evident Clare was targeted by a phone call.” Rossi ran through the whole thing for him, in detail, then ended with, “The deputies took her cell.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Figured.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “She’s being seen by the in-house doctor.”

  “Gimme Clare.”

  “Hang on a minute, I’ll take the phone to her.”

  Zach paced, heard Rossi shout orders to a couple of guys to watch Laurentine until he relieved them. Noises came of opening and closing doors, a pedantic tone that might be from a doctor.

  “Zach?” Clare sounded a little breathless, was all.

  “You okay?”

  “Pretty much. I have a couple of cracked ribs.”

  “Why aren’t you at a hospital?”

  “I’d rather not be transported . . . and the choice was Leadville or Frisco.”

  “I’m coming up. Now.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “I’m coming.”

  A sigh. “All right. I’ll wait up for you.”

  “Stay with people, Clare.”

  “I’d rather go to bed.”

  “Stay with people.”

  “All right.” A pause. “Thank you, Zach.”

  “No problem.” He cut the call, hustled into his apartment, dressed fast, and threw clothes and extra ammo in his duffel, trying to keep his mind from running on a hamster wheel.

  Clare was hurting. He needed to ease her pain.

  Clare was a target. He needed to protect her.

  Clare was too damn far away. He needed to be with her.

  Glancing around the room, he saw the tiny sample perfume bottle he’d taken from her closet sitting on his dresser. Two strides and he closed his hand around it, felt the glass, the edges of the bottle hard against his palm. He lifted his hand and caught a whiff of the scent, Clare’s fragrance. The fear lessened and anger was burning under that, but he couldn’t afford to let that out now.

  He tucked the perfume bottle into an inside pocket of his bag, swept his gaze around his bedroom. Nothing more he needed. His other weapons were in the gun safe.

  After he switched off the lights, he strode into the living room, stepped near the small passage to the open kitchen, and flicked on the night-light stuck in a wall socket. For some reason the ladies liked it on when he was gone. Even after so short a time living with them, he had begun using it as a signal that he’d be away during the night or, like now, several days. Hell, he supposed he should leave them a note.

  At the dinner they’d insisted he share, he’d told them he’d be going up to Park County to do some research and might stay with Clare. He’d just say he would stay with Clare. If Laurentine wouldn’t accept him as a guest at the DL Ranch, Zach would take Clare the hell out of there . . . maybe he should anyway, though he usually liked keeping an enemy close . . . and he didn’t know what Clare wanted. Yet.

  Given the nature of her gift, Zach suspected this wouldn’t be the last time people might threaten her. Should he help her become accustomed to that? Instinctively, he wanted to protect her, take her away from any danger, make her problems go away.

  Clare was a strong woman, a woman redefining herself as Zach had been forced to realign his own life, which was part of the reason they clicked. His mouth flattened as he realized he’d have to let her decide how much danger to have in her life.

  So he concentrated on the puzzle of her “accident.” Through his work he knew the past could hold secrets that affected the present.

  Clicking through scenarios, he liked the one of a prospector being murdered near his mine. A mine he hadn’t heard being worked by anyone else. An unregistered mine that might now be on federal land. The mountains of Colorado were honeycombed with mines, some old with poisonous gas and most unstable. Hard to find just one without knowing exactly where it was.

  With the economy being what it is, a secret cache of gold might come in handy.

  Looking at his watch, Zach headed out. How long would the sheriff question Clare? If it had been him, and he had a wounded victim, maybe only forty-five minutes or so for a simple fall, but that couldn’t be it because Rossi said Clare had been targeted and Laurentine seemed to think the fall wasn’t accidental. Even pressing the speed limit, it would take Zach two and a half hours to get there.

  THIRTEEN

  WHEN HE GOT into South Park, zoomed past Fairplay, and left it behind, he could see a big house on a ridge with lights blazing. His gut clutched. Everyone was up because of the incident with Clare. She’d better damn well be all right or he’d . . . speak to her strongly about leaving this job. And his mind had done the hamster wheel thing after all.

  At a set of iron gates, the guard came out of his hutch bundled in a coat. From the way he walked, Zach knew he’d been on the job as a policeman . . . probably a deputy sheriff as Zach had been. At least he appeared alert and on the ball.

  Zach rolled down the window and passed over his ID: driver’s license and the card that said, RICKMAN SECURITY AND INVESTIGATIONS. The man scrutinized him. “PI,” he sneered.

  “Ex-cop, just like you,” Zach shot back. He jerked his head toward the house. “Sheriff still up there?”

  “Nope.” Dark eyes scrutinized and craggy face set. “What county did you work?”

  Shrugging a shoulder, Zach said, “Cottonwood in Montana was the latest.”

  The guard grunted.

  “How many guards does Laurentine employ?” Zach asked.

  After eyeing him another few seconds, the guy answered, “Round the clock here at the gate, so three. He has that big bruiser as a body guard.” The man’s mouth turned sour. “From now on, he’ll probably have some of his hands patrolling that old ghost town of his to keep it safe.” The guard finally handed Zach back his license and card. “What are you up here for?”

  “I don’t take kindly to having my lady hurt.”

  Thick, dark brows rose. “You’re screwi—you’re interested in the ghost chic—woman?”

  “Ghost seer,” Zach corrected smoothly. He leaned out the window companionably, though the cold was more than nippy. “Anyone come up here tonight before the incident that shouldn’t have?”

  Another shrug. “Laurentine likes having guests, will even accept some of the wealthy locals if they want to brownnose with him. Charlie, the guy on before me, said he saw some lights moving through Curly Wolf after dinner, but Laurentine has businessmen over tonight and usually shows them around.”

  “Dinner’s when?” Zach asked.

  “Seven p.m.”

  “Near dark.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you talked to the guy on before you and know what he and the sheriff discussed?” Zach asked.

  “That’s right. We’re friends and the assault is the most stir we’ve had in a while. At least of a threatening sort. Charlie was called up to the house, and when they were done with him, he passed a coupla minutes with me.”

  “No one came through the gates on his shift?” Zach asked.

  “Two people came and went for dinner, nobody after tha
t. And nobody on my shift except for the sheriff. I came on at eleven p.m.”

  “You didn’t see anything—any lights—up by the house near the time of the incident?”

  “I can’t see anything near the house.” The guard stepped back. “The estate’s big. If someone wanted to sneak in, there wouldn’t be a problem. More likely the person who hurt your woman was inside the house, though.”

  “Uh-huh,” Zach said.

  As soon as he entered the house, a woman came toward him, waiting for him. She radiated disapproval. She was tall, a good five-nine, slender build, and had her pale blond-gray hair done in a braid around her head. “Mr. Slade?” she asked in cool tones.

  “That’s right.”

  “Mr. Laurentine is expecting you. Ms. Cermak is with him and Ms. Legrand in Mr. Laurentine’s office.” Now that he was closer, he saw the lines framing the downward curve of her mouth. She turned, expecting him to follow her, and he did, through a luxuriously furnished great room. His cane made soft taps on the wood, the sound disappearing when he reached rugs. All the lights were on, here and in the upper corridor. She walked quickly and he only had time to glance at the stairs—wider than he’d imagined and glossy with polish—before she led him through a wide hall and down to a door that Rossi stood outside of.

  “Hey, Rossi.”

  “Slade.” He jerked a head at the large, also polished, walnut door. “The man wanted me out here.” Skin tightened around his eyes, and Zach figured there was plenty of access to the room through windows or other doors. He gave Rossi a nod that he’d be alert to any danger, and the fine tension in the guard’s body eased. Zach wasn’t lying. He’d be sharp to field threats to Clare, to himself. Then he’d take care of Laurentine. That guy might be Rossi’s priority, but he wasn’t Zach’s.

  The housekeeper—Clare had told him her name was Patrice Schangler—opened the door, gestured for him to precede her, then followed and closed the door behind her.

  Zach’s gaze went straight to Clare, who huddled in the corner of a love seat, her skin pale beneath the tan of her skin, smudges under her eyes. He strode over to her, took her hands. They seemed too cool between his.