Ghost Hunter

by Serena Akeroyd

  He shakes his head. “It doesn’t always work like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because some things don’t have an answer.”

  “Why don’t you wait for the questions before you make that decision?”

  His grumble has me rolling my eyes with irritation. “You’re such a pain in the ass,” I tell him. “Why can’t you just let me say my piece and tell me what you do know? Rather than stonewalling me… it’s not fair, Casper.”

  He glowers at me, his saturnine features turning darker under his Confederate cap…but he waves a hand, allowing me to continue.

  Pursing my lips at his benevolence, I ask, “When did you meet Red Bull?”

  His nostrils flare and he closes his eyes. “Back when he was alive.”

  Holy shit. I hadn’t expected that answer. “Were you alive, too, or dead?”

  “We were both alive. He fought for the Confederacy, too. He’s Choctaw. They had slaves, so they liked the Confederates. Plus, the Union didn’t appreciate the Indian nations’ sovereignty.”

  “But you didn’t greet each other like you were on the same side.”

  “We were, but I didn’t trust him. He was a piece of shit.”

  And Drake says I’m politically incorrect. Jesus.

  I wrinkle my nose. “You were on the losing side too, buddy.”

  Casper snorted. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Can’t say.”

  I huff out my exasperation, but I guess it makes sense that he can’t go into that. I’ve always found Casper to be a bit like Janus. I don’t mean duplicitous. Simply that he can be like the God with two faces. One presenting a particular aspect to the world, the other presenting a completely different side of himself.

  “So, dead or alive, you’re not friends?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  He scoffs. “Like that Injun could get near me.”

  “Stop calling him that!”

  “The man could rain a whole heap of shit on your head, Jayce, and you’re worried about my calling him the right term and being politically correct?”

  “Yeah. I am. People call me all kinds of shit, too. They can at least get it right.”

  He rolls his eyes. “You’re nuttier than nutloaf.”

  “Like you’ve ever had to suffer through nutloaf.”

  He snorts. “I watched you choke it down during those years where your ma had turned vegetarian.”

  He said that like he’d say Satanist.

  Hell, the way my mother had cooked that nutloaf surely had the devil’s influence, because it had tasted like cow shit.

  “I suffered through that horrendous fate,” I argue. “You just watched me suffer. ”

  “Thought you were going to puke on your plate a few times,” he tells me, the glee in his tone evidently wishful thinking for my childhood self.

  Knowing my batshit mother, she’d have probably made me eat the nutloaf regardless. I say as much to Casper who immediately grunts. “Your mother’s as evil as that cunt Red Bull.”

  It’s not like Casper to swear, especially not in front of a lady, and that particular swear word?

  Hell’s bells. He’s knocked me for a loop.

  Gawking at him, I ask, “Do you know what I did today?”

  “What you and Drake get down to in your bedroom is your own business.” His primness has me rolling my eyes.

  “No. Not that. I meant with the detective at the crime scene I visited today.”

  He sighs. “You went against everything I told you. I didn’t have to be a party to that disaster to know what would happen.”

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t say a damn word.”

  “You didn’t have to… you still managed to infer that Francis O’Hara didn’t murder Paula Dietrich. You’ve managed to mess with that bastard’s plans without saying a damn word.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” I say with a groan. “It goes against all my instincts. I help the cops. It’s what I do.”

  He sighs. “I know. Still, I can’t guarantee it will keep him from coming back at you with a pile of horseshit.”

  My nose wrinkles with disgust. “What do you think I should do?”

  He shrugs. “You been to the bookstore recently?”

  “No. Not since David popped up there. Things have been crazy.”

  “Maybe Dietrick’s wife is there? She could know something?”

  “Know something about what? Her murderer? Because if so, duh.”

  He rolled his eyes. “No, dingbat. I don’t mean who her murderer is, I meant you could ask exactly what kind of business her husband was involved in.”

  “What good would that do?”

  “No good from Red Bull’s perspective. But it’s up to you. You ignore me anyway.”

  It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Woe is me.”

  “Woe is you if that sonuvabitch comes after us.”

  “You going to leave me in the lurch if he comes?”

  That has him snorting. “As if.”

  His reassurance perks me up. I don’t know why, but it does. Though the cartoon Casper is friendly, my version is anything but. He’s grim, grumpy, and dour, but I’m used to him. He’s been around for a hell of a long time.

  Longer than I even knew if what he told me was right—about him seeing me at the local graveyard when I was a kid.

  He’d stayed out of sight then, not appearing until many years later.

  “You know when Francis came here, he told us the seer who’d seen Red Bull said he was a guardian.”

  Casper nods. “He is. For his people. For Francis, he might as well be the Angel of Death.”

  “What kind of power does he have?” I ask, a little exasperated by the overinflation of the ghost’s talents, when I still don’t really understand what it is he can do.

  “The devil is the lord of temptation. He offers you something with one hand, not telling you the price until it’s too late, and you realize it’s impossible to pay.

  “Red Bull is like the devil, except he gives you everything you want if you help him. You sell your soul to him, figuratively. Not literally. He doesn’t want that. He wants your help on your plane of existence.”

  “So what? He can talk to people?”

  “Yes. All the dead in his tribe channeled their spirits into him upon their death. It gives him a strength like no other.”

  I frown. “What do you think’s going on here, Casper?”

  “Kenna said Dietrick knew Red Bull, and the Chief had his hand on the man’s shoulder?” At my nod, he murmurs, “Then they’re in cahoots. He’s offered the man something in return for his help with Francis.”

  “What kind of something?”

  He shrugs. “That’s why you need to talk to Paula Dietrick if she returned as a ghost. She’ll know some of the details that are outside our awareness.”

  Seeing the sense in that, I tell him, “It’s a bad neighborhood so we’ll go tomorrow.”

  “Send Kenna first. No point in going there if she’s not there.”

  “True.” Kenna had decided not to take part in this conversation, mostly because she and Casper get on like two wild cats locked in a box together. “You think she has something to do with this?”

  “Her death does, certainly.”

  “Should I be freaked?”

  He snorts. “Absolutely.”

  A shiver of fear has the starch in my knees disappearing a little. Casper’s certainty is more disturbing than anything else.

  “Is there any way I can protect myself?”

  He cocks his brow. “Know any Voodoo priestesses?”

  Unsure if he’s joking or not, but from the glimmer in his eye figuring he is, I shoot him the bird and stalk out of the bathroom.

  I don’t have many answers to my questions, but at least I’m a little less in the dark now. Red Bull can do anything so long as he can use people’s hidden and secret desires as leverage
.

  And let’s face it. What human doesn’t have those kinds of things wrapped under their veneer of respectability?

  Look at Arroyo’s boyfriend. Dating a fucking cop and watching porn that involves rape and murder, and storing it on his laptop… a laptop she could access without too much difficulty.

  People never fail to surprise me; their stupidity knows no bounds, it seems.

  Heading back into the kitchen where I left Drake twenty minutes ago, I spot Kenna in the living room first. She’s looking out at the skyline, a pensive cast to her pretty features… that look is something we’re all sporting at the moment.

  The upcoming days are filled with uncertainty, and for people who’d led relatively predictable lives, that’s hard to come to terms with.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her softly.

  Not for the first time, I wish I could touch her. Hold her and hug her, then have her hold me and hug me. She’s like my mom. A constant thorn in my side, a reminder that I’m anything but classy, like a well-bred lady from nineteen twenties London, but my best friend and companion regardless of my uncouth ways. She’s the most loyal person I know.

  If she could, she’d kill for me.

  I know that like I know my face in the mirror.

  “Did Casper tell you anything useful?” she asks, avoiding my question.

  “Some stuff. What’s wrong?” I repeat, refusing to give up, especially now that she’s evading me.

  “Things have gotten serious fast.” She jerks a dainty shoulder. “It’s unnerving. That’s all.”

  “We’ll be okay. We always get through these things.”

  “Yes, but this is different.”

  I can’t lie to her—not when she’s right. “We just have to ride it out, Kenna. Nothing more we can do.” I sigh. “He came to us, remember? We can’t vet the ghosts who appear with clients, not when we don’t meet them until they pop up at the door.”

  “I never realized we were putting ourselves in so much danger, though.” She grits her teeth. “I could kill that Casper. What a fool for not telling us sooner. We’d never have gone down this line.”

  “Wouldn’t we?” I ask her softly. I know what she’s saying, but as with mere moments before, see little point in lying to her or myself. “What else can I do but talk to spirits, Kenna? I can’t hold a regular job. You know that. This is me, us. It’s what we do.”

  She closes her eyes, then tilts her head and goes back to staring at Central Park. Manhattan’s lungs don’t seem to do much for her, however. She looks as depressed as she did moments ago.

  “Casper says that Dietrick’s wife might be useful, if she hasn’t crossed over.”

  “You want me to see if she’s at the bookshop?”

  I nod. “We can go tomorrow if she is.”

  Kenna just sighs, and after shooting me a look with another sigh, disappears, checking out a shop I bought over in the Bronx. In one of the worst neighborhoods in that area, it’s in the crosshairs of two rival gangs.

  It’s the shittiest, most horrible place imaginable. Closed down after a public shooting, it’s gone to ruin—but for that reason, it’s attractive to ghosts.

  Don’t ask me why, but they like it.

  Old subway shafts, abandoned houses. You name it. If it’s grim and gloomy, ghosts gather there.

  I bought the lease to the bookstore a while back so I could access it at any time. Though ghosts do crop up in the usual hiding spots, the bookstore is usually their end destination when they don’t make it to the light and have to stay in this shitty realm.

  Deciding to wait her out rather than return to Drake who’s making dinner, I study the view that any New Yorker would kill for.

  I know I’m fortunate. I know that I lead, in my ways, a blessed life. But as with everything, every luxury comes at a price.

  Sometimes, it’s hard to decide if that price is too high for anyone. Or if it’s just me being ungrateful.

  With a huff, I watch the specks of humanity roaming around the greenery of the park, and wish I was the kind of weirdo who liked being around trees and shit.

  Fresh air—well, as fresh as it gets in New York—would probably do me good.

  Still, I’d prefer to exercise than go down to the park. Way too many people, and what does that mean? Hundreds—or thousands—of fucking ghosts.

  The last thing I want or need.

  Cupping my elbows, I watch a plane descending the sky, JFK its destination. Then, before I can watch it sink lower, deeper into the city’s bowels, Kenna reappears.

  She nods at me. “Paula’s there.”

  “Did she say who killed her?”

  “She can’t remember. Says it’s fuzzy still, but it’s getting clearer every day. What she does know is it wasn’t Francis.”

  My eyes widen at having it confirmed. Rubbing my hands together, I whisper to Kenna mentally, Let her know I’ll be there tomorrow.

  Kenna eyes me. “You’re not telling Drake?”

  Not this time.

  “He’ll be upset.”

  I know. But I don’t want him in danger.

  She shakes her head at me. “You really haven’t learned your lesson, have you?”

  He can’t afford to miss any more appointments for me.

  “True.” She purses her lips. “I still think it’s stupid not to tell him though. If it annoys him so badly, then he can reschedule again. But if you don’t ask, you’ll hurt him.”

  It should probably embarrass the hell out of me that Kenna is even aware of what went down with Drake and I. But hell, she knows everything anyway. There’s zero point in trying to avoid it, so I learned years ago to get over the shame.

  And crap, at least Kenna was there for me when I sobbed my heart out over my shitty first time with Jamie Knapp at senior prom.

  All without me having to say a damn word about how painful it freakin’ was.

  Communicating without meaning to communicate can be useful sometimes.

  “I’ll tell him,” I inform her, processing what she has to say and realizing she’s right.

  I’m not exactly secretive by nature. I’m too much of a big-mouth for that, but the truth is, I’m not used to sharing. Anything. With anyone other than my ghosts…so that is kind of secretive, isn’t it? No one else can see my retinue, so I might as well consider my mouth more sewn-up than Raggedy Ann’s.

  “He can deal with it, Jayce,” she tells me, a kind of warm sadness in her eyes. It’s like she knows I’ve found a keeper, and is happy about that, but is also sad our time alone has come to an end.

  I can sense where she’s coming from, and like always at these moments, just wish like hell I could hug her and tell her nothing will change our relationship.

  There’s no way I can do either, though. Words mean little, I know. I’ll just have to prove it to her by deed rather than thought. Then she’ll know.

  Kenna’s my mom.

  Just because a chick leaves the nest, doesn’t mean that’s the end of life itself.

  And shit, this is my nest. Kenna can’t leave it even if she wanted to.

  Thanks for looking at the bookstore.

  “No problem.”

  See you later, okay?

  “Jayce, it’s fine.” She sends me a warm, teasing smile. “I’ll be in to have dinner with you when he dishes up.”

  Nodding, I wait to turn away from her before I roll my eyes at her last comment.

  Heading for the kitchen to tell Drake he’ll have an uninvited and invisible guest, I hover in the doorway a second and watch him maneuver around the shitty space.

  I never spent much time or money in here because I’m not a cook, but maybe now that he’s here, and he gets such a kick out of cooking, it’s time to invest in cupboards that wouldn’t match well with a chef who wore bell-bottom flares and crocheted ponchos.

  His ass is divine from my viewpoint. If anyone can call his butt gluteus maximus, it’s Drake. Because every single muscle is defined, making his pert cheeks
so damn biteable, my mouth waters. His strength comes from yoga and self-defense classes.

  That’s it.

  He doesn’t lift weights. Doesn’t do the whole gym-rat thing, and he even eats carbs with me. Shock and horror. Yet he’s harder than a freaking block of marble, and I get to let all my softness sink into that luscious piece of ass.

  “I’m feeling sexually victimized,” he calls out from the stove. “This is harassment.”

  I grin at him when he looks back at me, and stride toward him. Cupping his butt, I murmur, “How about now?”

  “Now it’s assault.”

  I scoff, “You do realize women get their asses felt up all the time, and we just have to deal with it and shut up, right?”

  “But we’re all for equality in this household.” He snickers. “I’ll forgive you if you eat dinner without a shirt.”

  My eyes widen at his dare. This is a new side I’ve yet to see. Liking it, I shrug. “Sure.”

  His mouth drops open as he spins around to face me. “What?”

  My grin widens. “Think I was too chicken shit?” I ask, starting to unfasten my shirt. He eyes the buttons, then swallows as I reach the last one. Shrugging out of it, I throw the blouse on the counter and watch his Adam’s apple bob a few times.

  I’m not wearing a bra so he gets to see the beauties in their full glory.

  More Adam’s apple bobbing comes as the smell of smoke from the stove behind him starts to permeate the air around us.

  “The pan, babe,” I inform him, feeling rather cocky at his reaction.

  “Shit,” he hisses under his breath, then quickly turns off the heat, moves the saucepan off the stove, while tossing whatever’s in there. When he turns around, his gaze immediately drops to my nipples, and he murmurs, “Dinner didn’t burn. The fat started to.”

  He sighs, then like he’s conceding defeat, raises his hands. I let him hold my tits for a few seconds before, deadpan, telling him, “I’m feeling sexually victimized.”

  He growls, drops his head, and curls his tongue about my nipple. Dragging my hands through his hair and holding him close, he mumbles against my breast, “That make it better?”

  “A little,” I gasp as he bites at the tip of my nipple, making pain sizzle through me.

  He switches to the other, treats it to the same nip, then straightens up.