by Paige Tyler
She reached up, intending to gouge out Martin’s eyes, but he must have anticipated the move because he jerked out of her reach. Frustrated, she grabbed at the only thing she could get to—the necklaces he wore. Wrapping her fingers tightly in the leather cords, she yanked as hard as she could, sending charms everywhere.
Martin’s eyes went wide as they rolled across the floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Those are more valuable than you’ll ever be in your whole life.”
For a moment, she thought he might forget about her and go after them instead, but to her horror, he turned his cold, hard gaze back to her. “As Carson would say, time for you to die, bitch.”
Martin drew back the knife to slit her throat and all Presley could do was helplessly watch as it came toward her.
The next thing she knew, a shotgun blast echoed in the room and Martin was stumbling backward, shock in his eyes. Tiny drops of blood bloomed on his face, neck and upper chest, but he didn’t go down. He slowly wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Is that the best you got, ghost hunter?” he asked as he lifted his head. “I’ve been hit harder by those damn nuns at the orphanage. If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”
Presley looked over at Logan, expecting to see him fighting off the zombies in an attempt to reload. The salt and hematite wouldn’t hurt Martin very much, but if Logan was able to keep shooting the necromancer, she could untie herself. She was already reaching for her other wrist when she realized the zombies weren’t on top of Logan anymore. In fact, they weren’t even paying any attention to him. The ones Logan had managed to injure were still on the floor, but the others stood there looking around the room in what could only be called confusion.
Instead of reloading, Logan jumped to his feet and charged across the room, throwing himself at Martin. Lowering his shoulder, he slammed into the slightly built necromancer, knocking him to the floor. Presley desperately tried to untie her other wrist while at the same time craning her neck to see what was happening behind her.
Although Logan was clearly stronger, Martin was fast as a wet snake. The necromancer was back on his feet before Logan even slid to a halt. Presley was afraid to breathe, terrified Martin was going to knife Logan. She opened her mouth to warn Logan, but the words died on her lips as a zombie suddenly wrapped his arms around Martin from behind and slammed him to the floor. Before she could understand what was happening, another zombie threw itself on top of the necromancer and sunk its teeth into his leg. The shout of pain Martin let out would have been horrifying if it wasn’t so damn gratifying. It was no more than the bastard deserved.
Presley didn’t know why the zombies were going after their creator, but as one creature after another ripped into Martin, she decided she didn’t care. She feared they would go after Logan, too, but for some unexplainable reason, the zombies ignored him, even after he got to his feet and edged around them to get to her.
Without a word, Logan swung his shotgun over his shoulder, then grabbed a scalpel off the counter and sliced through the strip of cloth around her wrist. As he moved down to do the same to the bindings round her ankles, he saw the red goo Martin had smeared on her chest and stomach, and stopped, his eyes going wide.
“The asshole cut you,” he said.
Presley shook her head. “No, he didn’t. It’s not my blood.” Behind her, Martin was alternately demanding the zombies obey him and begging for their mercy, and she threw a worried glance over her shoulder, then looked back at Logan. “I’ll explain later. Untie me so we can get out of here.”
Logan shook his head as if to clear it, then quickly cut through the ties around each ankle. Once she was free, Presley immediately swung her legs over the side of the table, but he scooped her up in his arms before she could get to her feet and headed for the door. She clung to him, a part of her still unable to believe he was as safe and sound as he looked. They might actually make it out of this after all.
As he carried her from the room, Presley caught sight of Martin’s charms lying on the floor and suddenly remembered what he’d said about one of them allowing him to control a whole host of reanimated corpses. When she’d ripped it off his neck, it must have severed the hold he had over them.
Out in the hallway, she and Logan ran into more zombies. Presley automatically tensed, afraid the creatures would attack them, but they simply stared straight ahead as they stumbled toward the room where Martin was being savaged by their fellow walking dead. There were so many of the things Logan had to stop and back up against the wall to give them room to pass. While they waited, he held her tightly against his chest, as if she was the most precious thing in the world to him. Presley squeezed him just as fiercely. She’d only met him a week ago and yet he had become the most precious thing in the world to her, too.
Down the hall, Martin’s screams for mercy finally stopped. As one, the zombies heading in that direction immediately halted. A moment later, they collapsed to the floor, unmoving.
“Are they…?” She was going to say dead, but then realized they already were and looked like they had been for a long time.
“Yeah,” Logan said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
She nodded in agreement, thinking he meant outside, but instead he stopped in the next room. Leaning back against the wall, Logan slowly slid down to the floor, cradling her to his chest. She looked around to see where they were and realized they were back in the cremation room. It smelled of burnt flesh, but thankfully, there was no sign of Del Vecchio or his ghost.
Logan cupped her face in his hand. “Are you okay? Martin didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
Presley shook her head. “No. You got there just in time.” She gently touched her fingers to the bruise on his jaw. “I was so worried Del Vecchio was going to kill you.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Logan rested his forehead against hers. “But nothing could keep me away from you.”
Presley wanted to ask Logan how he’d managed to fight both Del Vecchio and the serial killer’s ghost at the same time but decided that could wait. Right then, the only thing that mattered was telling Logan how she felt about him. She opened her mouth to do just that, but he silenced her with a kiss that left her breathless. When he finally lifted his head, all she could do was cling to him.
He tenderly brushed her hair back from her face. “When I saw you were missing, I almost lost my mind. I know we’ve barely known each other a week and that I probably shouldn’t be saying this yet, but I love you, Presley.”
She blinked, stunned by the admission, her heart singing at the words. She wanted to tell him that she was in love with him, too, but she couldn’t seem to make her mouth move.
Logan must have taken her silence the wrong way because he shook his head. “It was too soon, wasn’t it? I shouldn’t have…”
Presley touched her fingers to his mouth, silencing him. “It isn’t too soon. I love you, too. I just didn’t know you felt the same.”
“Well, I do love you. More than anything.” The corner of his mouth curved. “It took almost getting killed by a psychotic serial killer and his ghost to get me to admit it to myself.”
Despite the horrific reminder of how close they’d both come to death a few minutes ago, she laughed and kissed him, intending to take his breath away as he had done to her a moment ago. Unfortunately, she got interrupted by Muncie and Simpson. The two men had obviously figured out the zombies were no longer a threat and were shouting for her and Logan.
“We’re in here,” Logan yelled.
Abruptly remembering her torn T-shirt, Presley pulled her leather coat closer around her as Muncie and Simpson walked in the room. The cops looked like they’d gone twelve rounds with a baseball bat. Besides getting scratched, bitten and gouged, they were both beat to hell. The two shotguns they carried looked even worse, and she wondered if they used the weapons as clubs after they’d run out of shells.
Munci
e and Simpson looked warily around the cremation room like they expected another horde of zombies to come running through the door at the far end at any second.
“Don’t worry,” Logan said. “It’s over.”
Simpson’s hand tightened on the shotgun. “You’re sure? They’re all…?”
“Dead?” Logan supplied. “As dead as they ever were. The majority of them are lying on the floor on the other side of that door. The rest are in a room at far end of the hallway, along with the necromancer. He’s dead, too.”
“You mean Martin?” Muncie asked. “You killed him?”
The corner of Logan’s mouth edged up. “I’d like to take the credit, but in the end, his own creations did him in.”
Muncie lifted a brow. “Those zombie things killed him? Why the hell would they turn on him?”
“I think I might know,” Presley said. She explained what Martin had told her about the charm giving him the power to control the zombies he raised. “It must have broken his hold over them when I yanked the charms off. Considering the way the zombies went after him, I guess they didn’t take kindly to what he’d done to them.”
Muncie frowned. “That still doesn’t explain why those things are dead now.”
“Actually, it does,” Logan said. “If the necromancer who calls up the zombies is killed, they go back to being as dead as they were before.”
Simpson nodded, but didn’t look as if he understood. “What about the thing that showed up in the outer room? The thing that looked like Del Vecchio.”
“That was Del Vecchio’s ghost,” Logan said. “Even though Martin was finally able to raise the serial killer’s earthly body, for some reason the ghost hung around, too. It disappeared when I shoved the body into one of the cremation ovens.”
Both Muncie and Simpson paled a little more at that, but she noticed neither of them even tried to tell Logan he was full of it, not after what they’d seen that night.
Logan looked at Presley. “Ready to go home, hon?”
When she nodded, he stood up and gently pulled her to her feet. As he did, she saw him wince and put his free hand to his side.
She frowned in concern. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “A few cracked ribs. I’ll be fine.”
Presley stared at him with her mouth open. Logan had picked her up and carried her all the way in here from the other room with cracked ribs? The man was unbelievable, not to mention heroic and sexy as hell.
“Wait a minute,” Muncie said. “You’re not going to leave, are you? We’ll need you here to help explain all of this.”
Beside him, Simpson let out a snort. “Yeah, right. Like there’s any possible explanation for what we saw tonight.”
Logan gave Muncie an apologetic look. “I have to go with Simpson on this one. You try telling the truth and they’re going to take away your badges and lock you up in a padded room for a long time. You can take my word on that.”
Muncie opened his mouth like he wanted to argue but closed it again. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, I see your point. But what are we going to do? We have to report this.”
“You want my suggestion?” Logan asked. “Wipe down every doorknob and surface in here we might have touched, drag Martin out from under that pile of zombie carcasses in there and throw him up on the embalming table, then make those shotguns disappear. After that, go home, get cleaned up and change your clothes, then make a call to the brass. Tell them that after some good, old-fashioned detective work, you’ve tracked down a paramedic who not only happens to have been a close associate of Del Vecchio, but also responded to each and every murder scene. Finish up with a tip from an anonymous source who claims Martin is a sicko and that he’s been trying to sell Del Vecchio’s body on the black market. Say you tracked him to a funeral home outside of Fairfield, then leave the rest to them. They’ll spend the next two weeks trying to make sense of all this, and when they can’t, they’ll quietly close the file on the case and claim Martin was behind the copycat murders.”
“But we’ll know he wasn’t,” Muncie protested. “It was Del Vecchio’s ghost.”
“They’ll never know what we had to go through to stop him,” Simpson added.
Logan looked at him. “No, they won’t know any of that. But we’ll know. What matters is that we stopped Del Vecchio and made the town of Stamford a safer place.”
Simpson shook his head. “Is it always like this with the shit you deal with?”
“Pretty much.” Logan put his arm around Presley and led her toward the set of double doors. He glanced at her as he pushed them open. “I could go for a pizza right now. How about you?”
Presley smiled. She had a feeling she was going to be eating a lot of pizza from now on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EVEN THOUGH IT had been almost a week since that night at the funeral home, sometimes Presley still found herself looking over her shoulder for Del Vecchio’s ghost. But then Logan would smile at her or give her hand a squeeze and she’d know that thanks to him, neither the serial killer nor his ghost was ever going to hurt her again.
Of course, that didn't mean she stopped seeing ghosts completely She simply didn’t see Del Vecchio’s. As far as other ghosts, she still saw them—a lot. Logan, Bell, and Robert rarely saw them, but she could. They didn’t bother her, though. Some completely ignored her, while the rest simply stopped and stared at her like she was a strange animal they’d never seen before. She didn’t have Mr. Borella's charm anymore, so she imagined it was her glow that attracted their attention. Logan had told her there might come a time when she could communicate with them, though she could never imagine why she’d want to do that. They didn’t seem interested in bothering her, so she wasn’t going to bother them.
She glanced up from her laptop to look at Logan. He was on the other end of the couch researching something on his own computer, completely unaware she was watching him. Her lips curved into a smile as his brow knit in concentration. He looked so damn sexy when he did that. Then again, he looked sexy all the time. It was one of the reasons she had said yes when he’d asked her to marry him. Of course, the other was that she was crazy in love with the man and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
They’d been lying in bed the morning after their confrontation with Del Vecchio and the necromancer when Logan proposed. She’d teasingly asked him if he wanted her to write a check for the ghost hunting work he had done or whether he’d prefer her to owe him a favor like his other clients. She figured he’d chuckle and tell her she didn’t owe him anything, but she was surprised when he said she owed him a huge favor for saving her life and he fully expected her to repay it. Then he added he intended to cash in it right then. Thinking he meant a sexual favor, she was more than ready to pay up. But once again, Logan had stunned her.
“You can repay me by marrying me,” he said softly.
“Marry you? Are you serious?”
“More serious than I’ve ever been about anything,” he said. “I know we just met, and if you want to wait to give me your answer, that’s okay. My life can be crazy and dangerous, and because of it, I’ve always pushed people away, but I don’t want to do that to you, Presley. I love you and I want you to be my wife. I can’t promise you a fancy house or even a steady income, but I can promise I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?”
The words were so heartfelt, they’d brought tears to her eyes and she knew she’d not only found the man she wanted to spend forever with, but that she’d be willing to face any monster the deepest pits of hell could throw at them in order to be with him.
Two days later, he’d bowled her over with the most beautiful engagement ring she’d ever seen.
“It’s absolutely gorgeous,” she’d said when he slipped it on her finger. “But how did you…?”
He’d shrugged. “I did a job for a jeweler a while back. He owed me a favor.”
She could only smile at that. Of course.
Later that day, she�
��d called her parents and sister to share the good news. She’d given them a brief story—completely fabricated, of course—about how she’d been staying with a “friend” while the police had been investigating the copycat killings, adding that one thing had led to another and she and Logan had decided to get married. Her parents had been concerned it was a strange reaction to her near-death experience weeks earlier, but after meeting Logan, they realized they were serious about getting married.
Presley and Logan told Brielle and Robert next. While Brielle wasn’t surprised, Robert had been stunned to hear they were getting married. That didn’t shock Presley. The man was clueless about anything that didn’t involve numbers. The only person they hadn’t shared their news with yet was Mav, and that was only because Logan hadn’t been able to get his friend on the phone.
Over the next few days, she and Logan had moved the rest of her things into the warehouse. The throw pillows, candles and other knickknacks had already gone a long way to making the place feel homier. It still needed some work, though. But she’d gotten Logan to agree to a little paint, which was why there were swatches of color all over the place at the moment. She’d also been trying to get him to add a few windows in the place. He was more resistant to that idea, mainly because of security concerns, but she’d wear him down eventually.
Muncie and Simpson had also stopped by several times to keep them up on the investigation. So far it was going exactly as Logan said it would. Even though the people in charge had no way to explain what had gone on at the funeral home, there was enough evidence to link Martin to Del Vecchio, so the brass was more than ready to admit Martin had been the serial killer’s partner in crime and anoint him as the copycat. Apparently, the fact that they couldn’t explain how he’d gotten into any of the places to commit the murders wasn’t important to them. The killings had stopped and that was all that mattered.