Give Up the Ghost

by Jenn Burke

  “Jesus.” I was glad I hadn’t witnessed this in real time. “His buddy insisted the victim didn’t jump out in front of the van. It wasn’t suicide.”

  “That’s what it’s going down as, though.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “But if he didn’t, that’s bullshit.”

  “I don’t think he did.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because telling anyone who doesn’t know you—” She shook her head. “Just watch it again.”

  She did something to the screen that focused in on the two pedestrians and slowed down the video speed. I watched as the truck inched closer to the intersection, and the two men waited patiently. One—the victim’s friend—had edged away from the other to look down the cross street, so he was at least a couple of arm’s lengths away. Then, in slow motion, he jerked sideways, as if in reaction to someone pushing him, and started to turn to his companion. At the same time, the victim jerked forward as though something had slammed into his back. He stumbled, trying to catch himself, and—

  I winced at the shaking of the camera. “That’s awful.”

  “Can you tell anything from the video?”

  “Uh...”

  “Like...is it a—a ghost?”

  “You don’t have to whisper.”

  She grunted. “I hate that I know about this shit now.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I sucked in a breath. “I can’t say for sure. But why would a ghost shove a random person into traffic?”

  “Why would a ghost steal a random brooch?”

  I inclined my head. “Point. Think they’re related?”

  “I don’t know, Wes. I think it all makes zero sense.”

  “Fair enough. Details on the victim?”

  Kat dug out her notebook and flipped through the pages. “Male, white, sixty-one. Name is Vincent Salzwedel.”

  My back stiffened. “Salzwedel? You’re sure?”

  “You know him?”

  “No—I know the name, though.” I quickly explained how Evan and I had infiltrated the Ghost Squad meeting in search of someone who might know who’d hurt Lexi. “We found who did it, but I’ve got no evidence that would stand up in court. I’m confident in my ID, but I don’t think a judge would be.”

  “And this professor, Salzwedel—you didn’t like him?”

  “He came across as a self-important jackass.”

  “That’s not a crime.”

  “Unfortunately. But that’s weird, right? I mean, it’s not a common name.”

  “No, definitely not. And a Salzwedel who seems to be involved with ghost shit—sorry—and one who seems to have been killed by a ghost—” She made a face.

  “It’s got to tie together somehow,” I said. She looked at me hopefully, and I sighed. “Yes. I’ll look into it. You may walk away with your conscience intact. Just email me the details and a copy of the video, okay?”

  “Consider it done.”

  The pile of puzzle pieces was getting larger—the question was, how did they all fit together?

  * * *

  “What the—”

  I turned at Hudson’s startled gasp and smiled. “Hey. Morning. How’d you sleep?”

  Hudson walked into the conference room where I was working and said distractedly, “Fine. Would’ve been better if I’d woken up with you. What is all this?”

  “It’s my puzzle wall.” I turned to proudly examine my handiwork. “What do you think?”

  “We might make an investigator out of you yet.” He chuckled. “Okay, walk me through it.”

  “Wait—are Evan and Isk around?”

  “Sure. Let me get them, so you only have to explain it once.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek and went off to carry out his task.

  Within moments, all the members of our investigation firm gathered in the conference room, sitting on the opposite side of the table while I stood next to the wall filled with sticky notes, images, and pieces of paper with descriptions on them. I kind of wished we’d made this entire wall a whiteboard—something to talk with Iskander and Hudson about later.

  “Okay. So.” I moved to the left side, where I’d posted a printed picture of Aurora House. “Reports of ghosts at the youth home. Some scary incidents and increased activity that hadn’t been there before. On my visit, I saw three ghosts from separate time frames.” I pointed to the sketches and descriptions I’d pinned up. “It’s super weird to find three intelligent ghosts in one location, let alone ghosts from various time frames who don’t know each other. So, I talked to one, and she said that ghosts were appearing and disappearing from Aurora House. She has since disappeared, according to another ghost.”

  “And that’s not normal,” Evan said.

  “Very not normal. It’s also worth noting that I used magic here over the summer when Lexi and I were helping with renovations. Not a lot, but possibly enough to make some holes from the beyond.”

  “But no imps,” Iskander said.

  “None. Just extra ghosts.” I pointed to a line from Aurora House to Arwin Salzwedel, broken up by a sketch of the device we’d found in the youth home and Ben Clarkson’s name. The device itself was upstairs in Iskander’s residence, waiting for Lexi to be healed up so she could examine it in more detail. Though now that it was nonfunctional, I wasn’t sure what she’d get out of it...and in any case, it was only one piece in the puzzle now, instead of the only piece. “So here we’ve got a professor who knows shit about ghosts but is passing himself off like an expert, and one of his protégés who attacked Lexi in the youth home to try to protect the device—which one of the ghosts in Aurora House called a beacon. So the prof is connected somehow—”

  Hudson shook his head. “It’s speculation. You have nothing to tie Salzwedel to Aurora House other than his connection to Ben, and there’s no proof Ben wasn’t working alone.”

  “Okay. The connection is not strong but—”

  “Still there.” Iskander cast a look at Hudson. “We don’t have a burden of law.”

  Hudson tilted his head in acknowledgment.

  “Aurora House to Ben, Ben to Salzwedel,” I said, tracing the connection. “Salzwedel to Salzwedel. Professor Arwin Salzwedel is the nephew of Vincent Salzwedel, who was killed last night when an invisible something shoved him in front of a cube van.”

  Hudson’s brows rose. “Okay, wait. Was that the accident you and Evan saw last night?”

  “One and the same.” I told them about Kat’s visit and the video she’d showed me, and my subsequent research that dug up the connection from Vincent to Arwin. Hudson’s expression remained skeptical throughout my recital of the facts, so I pulled up the video that Kat had sent me. He asked me to play it a few times and, after the fourth time, shook his head.

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “Isn’t that what I said?” I put the phone on the table and turned back to my wall. “So, like I said, Salzwedel to Salzwedel. Nephew to dead uncle. With maybe a ghost involved. And then, over here—” I waved to the side of the board, with one name that sat all alone, without any connections. “Silvia Samuels. Whose pawned brooch was stolen by a ghost.” I stood to the side and crossed my arms. “Well?”

  “You seeing the common denominator?” Iskander asked Hudson.

  “Yeah. Ghosts.” Hudson scowled. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Devil’s advocate?” Evan said, raising a hand. “Are the ghosts truly a common denominator or is it coincidence?”

  I squinted at him. “This is not—”

  “Hear me out. Do you know how many ghostly incidents happen in this city regularly?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. “No. Not really. I mean, it can’t be many, right?”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “It’s not something that generally gets recorded anywhere, no.”

&nb
sp; “So this looks suspicious, with all the ghost activity, but what if it’s just a weird coincidence? What if this is all, like, normal activity that only seems to be converging because we know about it and know the signs to look for?”

  I grimaced. I didn’t like that theory, but I couldn’t discount it—except maybe I could. “No, see—it comes back to the ghosts at Aurora House.”

  “How do you figure?” Iskander walked over to the whiteboard, kitty-corner to my puzzle wall, and picked up a marker to take notes.

  “At least three intelligent ghosts in the house, all of whom barely know each other, and two of them don’t have ties to the property.”

  Iskander finished writing and tapped the end of the marker against the board. “So an unlikely haunting situation coupled with ghosts appearing and disappearing—” He coughed. “How does that tie into a ghost thief and a ghost murderer?”

  I grabbed the red marker and underlined Arwin Salzwedel’s name on the paper I’d put up with his picture, taken from the faculty website. “I know there’s no connection from him to Silvia’s brooch, but there is a connection from Aurora House to him to his uncle. It’s somewhere to start.”

  “Nope. You confront Salzwedel on this and he’s going to clam up—or claim you’re harassing him.” Hudson plucked the marker from my fingers and drew an arrow to Ben’s name on his piece of paper. “This is where you want to start. The weak link. You said he was shaken up when you talked about what happened with Lexi, right? So talk to him. Lean on him. I guarantee he’ll give something up.”

  “Okay, let’s dig up what we can on Ben. I want to pay him a visit—and you’re coming with me,” I said to Hudson.

  “Me?”

  “Uh, yeah, Mr. Intimidating-As-Fuck Silver Fox.”

  He grinned. “I should add that to my business cards.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It took Evan about five minutes to track down a way to contact Ben and arrange a meeting.

  “And this is why you need to lock down your Facebook profile, kids,” he said, spinning his laptop around so we could see Ben’s details. His profile was completely accessible, with personal information right there and silly photos potential employers would definitely balk at. The first post was a link to an ad he’d placed on a classifieds site looking to sell a desktop gaming computer.

  “Good job,” Hudson said. “Should I call him? He heard you two at the meeting.”

  Evan shook his head. “I got this.” He picked up his phone, dialed the number on the ad—and when Ben answered, put on the most camp I’d ever seen from him. “Oh, hi. Is this the guy who’s selling the gaming rig with the GTX 1080?... Yay! How are you?... Good, I’m good. Look, hon, I’m super interested. My rig died and I’ve got a raid tonight... Yeah, in WoW. I know, totally old-school, but my boyfriend’s in Vancouver and this is how we stay connected. Can I meet you tonight? I know it’s late but... Eleven? Yes, perfect... I know exactly where that is. You are a lifesaver, thank you so much. Bye!” He tossed down his phone. “Eleven tonight in front of the Soldiers’ Tower.”

  I blinked at Evan. “I’m impressed.”

  He blushed. “Yeah?”

  “Seriously impressed. But one question—what the hell is WoW?”

  * * *

  After learning way more than I ever wanted to know about MMORPGs—and still not knowing what that acronym stood for—I went with Hudson to the meeting site.

  I could tell the moment Ben recognized me, despite the dim lighting and the toque pulled down over my hair. He lurched to a stop, his smile fell away, and his arms jerked like he was seriously considering throwing his desktop tower at me so he could get away.

  “W-what do you want?”

  Hudson moved in behind him, looming but not crowding him enough to make any passersby suspicious. The commons were surprisingly busy despite the hour and the subzero temperatures. The snow had stopped, but the cold had intensified with the setting of the sun.

  “Information,” I said.

  Ben’s teeth chattered. Yeah, it was bloody cold, but I thought that reaction was more due to fear than anything else. I wasn’t going to hurt the kid, but letting him think I would might be to my advantage.

  “I d-don’t—”

  “Sure you do. Easy questions first. Was Arwin Salzwedel involved in your operation at Aurora House?”

  “O-operation?”

  “Whatever the hell you were doing there. Was Salzwedel involved?”

  “The professor—I m-mean—” Ben snapped his teeth shut and shook his head.

  “You sure? You seemed cozy the other night.”

  “You don’t have any—You don’t know I was involved or—I don’t have to say anything to you.”

  “You’re right, you don’t.” Hudson kept his voice low and rumbly, and Ben’s face grew even paler. “But I’m gonna bet you never intended to hurt our friend, did you?”

  Ben pressed his lips together and blinked hard. He shook his head, and for the first time, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. They weren’t there the last time I saw him, so maybe my words at the Ghost Squad meeting had had an impact.

  “Is she okay? Really?”

  “Getting there,” I said gruffly. Him feeling bad didn’t erase what he did, and I wasn’t ready to forgive it.

  “But someone got killed last night.”

  Ben jerked his gaze back to Hudson’s face. “What? W-what do you—”

  “Professor Salzwedel’s uncle was pushed in front of a delivery truck.”

  “Oh my god,” Ben breathed.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” I said, pulling his attention back to me. “Whoever did it was invisible.” I caught and held his gaze. “A ghost.”

  “A—what? No. No, that’s...not possible. Ghosts wouldn’t—they wouldn’t. You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.”

  I cued up the video on my phone and let it play for Ben. It took only one viewing to turn him as white as the snow beneath our feet.

  Tucking my phone away, I leaned in close and let the intensity of my emotions color my voice—because if Salzwedel was at all involved, somehow, someway, what the hell kind of person was he? “That was the professor’s uncle. A professor who has an interest in ghosts. A professor who’s already linked to weird shit that’s happening at Aurora House—”

  “No. He would never do that. He wanted to use the ghosts, sure but—” Ben’s eyes widened and he bit his lip.

  “What do you mean, use the ghosts?”

  Ben shifted the giant computer tower in his hands, but didn’t say anything.

  “Salzwedel was pretty clear that he believed ghosts were unintelligent and incapable of breaking free from their ingrained actions. So how can he use them?” When Ben remained quiet, I lost my temper. “Someone is dead, Ben! Tell us what you know!”

  Ben looked up and bounced on his feet, clearly fighting with himself. Then he whispered, “He reprograms them.”

  “He what?”

  “He breaks them out of their...their ruts and gives them a new action.”

  I shared a glance with Hudson. Of all the things I’d expected—well, I didn’t honestly know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

  “How the hell does he reprogram a ghost?”

  “He’s got a bunch of different devices he’s created. You should see his workshop. It’s amazing.”

  “Like the device we found in the barn?”

  Some of the starch seemed to go out of Ben’s shoulders. “Yeah. That was a beacon. I volunteered at the home at the beginning of the school year and I thought I saw a—a ghost. I had convinced myself it was my imagination when I met Joelle at Halloween—”

  “Who’s Joelle?”

  “My girlfriend. She was with me at the Ghost Squad meeting.”

  “But you volunteered at Aurora House?”
>
  “Uh, hello? Bisexuality is a thing.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, she introduced me to the Ghost Squad. Then I talked to the professor about what I saw and he asked me to put the beacon in the barn—since it was easier to get in and out of there without Kee knowing. He wanted to pull spirits into the living world and direct them to his—to his workshop. We had beacons set up at intervals all the way.”

  “Jesus Christ.” That fit with the report I’d gotten from Charlie, the biker ghost at Aurora House, and Mac, the farmhouse’s original owner—that ghosts were appearing randomly and leaving for parts unknown. They were being called, beckoned...and trapped.

  “And what was he doing with them in his workshop?” Hudson asked.

  “Learning how to reprogram them.” Ben’s gaze flipped from Hudson to me. “He reconfigures the energy he captures to make it useful. He’s been talking about turning ghosts into an energy source, to power like cars and houses and stuff. Can you imagine? It’s the ultimate renewable resource.”

  I stared at him for a second, horror bubbling inside me. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

  “Professor Salzwedel is brilliant and he—”

  “They’re people! You’re talking about taking pieces of people’s souls—”

  “They’re not. They’re bits of energy, that’s all.”

  “No. They’re not bits of energy.” I could feel my magic uncoiling. “I am telling you right now, there is an afterlife. Your professor is calling souls from that afterlife, enticing them back to earth, and then—then—”

  Oh god, I was going to be sick.

  “Cannibalizing them,” Hudson finished.