by S. E. Harmon
“Do you mind if I ask—”
“Yes,” he said shortly. “I mind. But I don’t want you digging into my life, either, so I’ll just tell you. I was in a car accident with my parents when I was young. A passing motorist pulled me out of the car, but it was too late for my parents.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago, but thank you.”
“Is that when you moved next-door to Mason’s family?”
“Yes. I went to live with my grandmother. I wasn’t there for five minutes before I met Mason. He was playing in his front yard when we pulled up. He couldn’t have crossed the lawn faster.” His mouth quirked. “My own personal welcome wagon.”
“Were you friends from the beginning?”
“Hardly. I was pretty reserved and shy before the scars. After, well… let’s just say he had to be pretty persistent. He kept ‘losing’ his baseball in our yard, and my grandma kept sending me outside to help him look for it.” He laughed softly. “He was kind of stubborn like that. The rest is history.”
Judging from the fond, half smile on his face, I’d say the word history covered a whole hell of a lot. You were in love with him. I knew any such statement would succeed in shutting Casey down.
“It sounds like you liked him very much,” I said carefully.
He looked at me sharply. “He was my best friend.”
“And nothing more?”
“No,” he said shortly.
“Oh, sorry to assume.” I kept my tone mild. “So you’re not—”
“Gay? Yes, I am.” His voice was testy. “We were still just friends. That’s allowed, isn’t it?”
“Of course.” I purposefully didn’t look his way, so he wouldn’t feel so exposed. “It’s also allowed if you wanted more.”
He let out a breath and sent me an apologetic glance. “Sorry. A lifetime of denying it is a hard habit to break, I guess. Maybe… maybe I did, but Mason didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“Watching him date other people must’ve been difficult. That kind of thing has a way of creating—”
“Resentment? Jealousy?” He swallowed. “Longing?”
I was thinking more along the lines of hatred. “Those are strong emotions to deal with.”
“Not strong enough to kill,” he said, “and Mason was right all along. I’m glad we didn’t cross the friendship line. I would never have done anything to jeopardize our relationship.”
We separated to skirt around a sandcastle that was half washed away. From the looks of the remnants, it had been quite the structure, with a moat and turrets. By the time we came back together, I had another question ready. “What did you talk about the day Mason went missing?”
“I can’t possibly be asked to remember something like that,” he said, face wreathed in irritation. “It was such a long time ago. Ten years.”
“And yet it’s also been no time at all.” I held his gaze steadily. “You remember the important things. It would probably be easier if you didn’t. We may not remember what we were wearing, or what we had for lunch, but we remember the last day we talked to a loved one.”
When he spoke, his voice was a hair above a whisper. “Cobb salad, dressing on the side, with an iced tea.”
“What?”
“That’s what he ordered for lunch.” He sent me a sideways look. “He told me Luke’s bookie was harassing him. He even came to the bakery.”
My gaze sharpened. “Is that so? Do you know the bookie’s name? Or how much Luke owed him?”
“No, but what does it really matter? Luke always owed someone.” He frowned. “I kept telling Mason that he should cut his losses and let Luke handle his own business, but he always said you don’t turn your back on family.”
“You don’t agree?”
“Mason was my family. I just wanted what was best for him.” His expression was a little bleak. “I was right, you know.”
“About what?”
“About Luke. He always depended on Mason to fix things. Now that Mason’s gone, Luke figured out how to do things on his own. I was right,” he repeated, more to himself than anything else.
“And what about you?” I asked casually. “Did you go right home after your lunch with Mason?”
“Me?” He snorted. “So I’m a suspect now?”
“It’s just a question.”
“I’m sure.” Judging from his expression, there was nothing wrong with the calibrations of his bullshit meter. “I work from home, you know. I was in the middle of a time sensitive project.”
“But you took the time to have lunch with Mason.”
“Yes. I tried to cancel, but he badgered me until I changed my mind.” His smile was half mocking, half fond. “Anything for Mason.”
“Can anyone vouch for you?”
“Eddy here.” He gestured at the dog. “I don’t get much company, Detective. You’re looking at the only best friend I have left.”
A couple of surfers headed past us toward the water, talking to one another exuberantly, colorful boards tucked under their arms. In the few seconds that they were near us, I heard enough “dudes” and “bros” to make any frat house proud. They splashed into the water, letting out laughs and whoops.
Even though they weren’t looking in our direction at all, Casey seemed to shrink into himself. “I need to get home,” he said quietly. “I need to start my next project. I’ve had it on the back burner for a while.”
I waved him off. “Go ahead. I may have more questions at a later date.”
“You know where to find me.” As I turned to go back in the direction we’d come, he added, “I hope you find out what happened to Mason.”
My voice was firm. “I will.”
It wasn’t a hope. It was a promise.
I felt his eyes on my back as I headed up the beach.
I was just putting on my shoes at my car, cursing all forms of sand and beach fun, when my phone rang. I answered without looking, mostly because I was occupied hopping on one foot. “What?” I asked gruffly.
“What a horrible way to answer the phone,” my mother said.
I smiled as I tucked the phone between my neck and my shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep all that well. Good morning, Mother.”
“Morning, darling.”
I finally worked my feet into both loafers. I could feel the grit of beach sand as I wiggled my toes. I hated to be all Princess and the Pea about it, but I had to take them off and shake them out again before I put them back on. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I wanted to know if you’re free to join my class for yoga.”
A brief vision floated across my mind of the last time I was guilted into joining her yoga class. It was mostly a bunch of older people in tight, shiny spandex doing poses I could only manage in my dreams. You haven’t lived until you’ve been out-stretched by a seventy-year-old. We then followed up all the wonderful stretching with carrot juice and turmeric shots. I shuddered.
“I’m busy,” I said a little too quickly.
She paused suspiciously. “I didn’t tell you when.”
“Oh.” I got in the car and started it, waiting a beat while the phone transferred over to Bluetooth. “Well, tell me when.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Wonder of wonders,” I said excitedly. “I actually am busy.”
“Lying to your mother? And so early in the morning?” She tsked. “Really, Rain.”
“No, seriously. You can ask Danny.” My parents trusted Danny implicitly and his word about my packed schedule carried much more weight than that of a yoga-shirking son. “It’s a work thing.”
“You’re not talking to a criminal, are you?” I could sense her frown. “I don’t like it when you talk to criminals, dear.”
“That’s my job.”
“I don’t like your job, either. You know that.”
I sent my gaze skyward. “Yes, I do know that.”
“Okay, I’m going to let you go. I know you’re
busy.”
I hesitated before hanging up. I wanted to talk to her about the newest development in my spooktacular life, but I didn’t want her to worry. That didn’t stop me from blurting out, “What do you think about ghosts in your dreams?”
“Ghost creams? Is that some sort of product you’re trying to market?” A blender came on in the background. “Leo, can you shut that off, please? I can barely hear myself think.”
The horrid noise stopped and she came back on the line. “Now what’s this about ghost cream? Do you put it in your coffee? Or on your hands?”
“Ghost dreams, Mother. Dreams.”
The blender went on again and she made an annoyed noise. “Leo!”
I sighed even as the blender shut off. My timing could be better. Clearly, I was interrupting my parents’ sacred morning routine of smoothies and yoga. And I couldn’t help but think I was making much ado about nothing anyway.
“Forget about it,” I finally said. “It can keep.”
“Well, now I’m curious. What are these ghosts doing in your dreams?”
“It’s one ghost in particular, actually. He keeps visiting me. Speaking to my sleeping conscious, I suppose. It’s like he’s trapped in a cycle, and he’s waiting for me to figure it out.” I paused. “You don’t think he could alter anything in my mind, do you?”
“I don’t know.” She was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t know it had gotten this bad.”
I could hear the worry in her voice, and I cursed under my breath. “Don’t worry about it. I was just curious on your take on the situation.”
“I don’t want you hiding something from us because you think we’ll worry. Again,” she stressed. “Is this what you meant when you said you didn’t sleep well?”
“It’s… difficult.” I ran a hand through my hair. The ends were shaggy as I rolled them between my fingertips, and I realized I was overdue for a cut. “I think I just need to get some real sleep.”
“Maybe you need to learn some techniques to block your channels.”
“My… channels?” I didn’t need a mirror to know my eyebrows were just about in my hairline.
“Yes, your channels. There are certain things you can do to become less accessible to a different planes. Right now, you’re just like an all-you-can-eat buffet to the spirit world.”
“Wonderful imagery, Mother.” Although that kind of was what that Mason indicated earlier in the bathroom.
“But no less true. It’s probably part of why you feel so comfortable at Danny’s cabin.”
I worried my lip with my teeth, careful not to break through the skin. Despite my desire to separate myself from all that was inexplicable and magical, I couldn’t deny I felt a connection with the earth. After years of living in DC with buildings erected almost on top of one another, I had an appreciation for wide-open space. Danny’s place certainly applied. Nothing towered out there but mature trees and the occasional power line. It had been a pretty peaceful place… until the ghosts started following me, I suppose.
My mother clucked her tongue. “You know who you should see? There’s this spiritual adviser that sometimes comes to my store for candles. They call him the Great Magellan.” When I didn’t say anything, she prodded. “Are you still there?”
“I was hoping the call had faded.” I glared at the tall palm trees on the boardwalk. “This is usually a pretty reliable dead zone.”
“He’s good,” she insisted. “It’ll be just what you need.”
I pictured some man calling himself the Great Magellan making me adopt backbreaking poses during an impromptu chi blocking session. “Tempting, but no.”
“Think about it.”
“Mother—”
“Just think about it,” she said exasperatedly. “I’ll text Danny the info.”
I sighed. There were certainly downsides to your parents loving your boyfriend like a second son. “Please don’t.”
“Honey, you aren’t going to make any headway by just hoping they don’t get stronger. Look how it turned out when you tried to ignore them. They aren’t going away, so you need to let them know it has to be on your terms. If you don’t, who knows what else they can do? How much power they have?”
“I hear you.”
“Good. I love you Rainstorm Moonbeam.”
“Will you stop spreading that around?” My tone was equal parts exasperated and amused. “People are starting to believe that’s really my middle name.”
“Well, it could’ve been if your father hadn’t intervened,” she said grumpily. “That man wanted to name you Bradley. Can you believe?”
“I would’ve made a spectacular Bradley.”
“You make a spectacular anything,” she said loyally. “But how utterly… normal.”
I smiled. “It goes without saying, but I love you too.”
“Enough to see the Great Magellan?”
The smile fell off my face. “No,” I growled.
“Enough to come to yoga?”
I thought about the old people spandex-palooza again. “Put me down for a hell no.”
“Maybe I should describe your birthing process again. We haven’t talked about that in a while. Since your last birthday, I think.”
“Something I drop to my knees and give thanks for on a daily basis.”
“Your sister came out nice and easy, but I had to go to hospital after you. I needed stitches!” She went on, clearly pleased she got another chance to trot out my birth story again. “The doula said you tore—”
“I’ll be there,” I said loudly. “As long as you don’t finish that sentence. Ever again.”
“Then I’ll let you go,” she said with a righteous sniff. “And Rainstorm?”
“Yeah?” I paused, my finger hovering above the end button on the screen.
“You will be careful, won’t you?”
“I’ll certainly try,” I said simply.
“Do, or do not do. There is no—”
“Don’t Yoda me, mother,” I warned. “Or the deal is off.”
Long after I hung up, her words rang in my head. I watched the surfers for a while, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel absently. Despite my mother’s kookiness, she was generally right about, well, everything. I didn’t know what the ghosts could do, or how far they would go. And to be perfectly honest, I was a little afraid to find out.
Chapter 16
I made it a few short feet off the elevator before I ran smack dab into a wall of muscle. I reached out to brace myself and looked up into Danny’s scowling face. “Where've you been?” he asked impatiently.
“Well, hello to you too.”
“Hello,” he said exaggeratedly, taking me by the elbow. He hustled me toward the interrogation rooms. I smacked at his hand until he stopped powering me along. “Now where’ve you been?”
“I was at the beach—”
“At the beach?”
“Interviewing a suspect,” I finished indignantly. “Things ran over a bit. What’s the bloody emergency?”
“Carter James is in interview room one. I thought you might want to be here, so I held off.”
“Oh.” My ears warmed and I did my damnedest not to look guilty as he eyeballed my Starbucks cup. Not slow on the uptake, my Danny. I smiled brightly. “Like I said, things ran over.”
“I see.”
I decided not to confess to the baked goods in my messenger bag. Or that when the Starbucks barista said they’d be an extra seven minutes to come out of the oven, I pumped my fist and said, “Hell to the yes, I’ll wait.”
His nose twitched. “Do you smell pumpkin too?”
“No,” I said quickly. I didn’t have to tell him a thing—I was an American citizen, and I was entitled to some damn due process. I cleared my throat. “Lead the way.”
Our interview rooms were standard fare—unfriendly gray boxes that locked from the outside and were equipped with double-sided glass. Furnished with little more than three metal chairs and a metal table with a u-shaped
hook in the middle for handcuffing suspects, it made for a dreary, basic setup. The coffee we served was bad and the snacks were even worse. Discomfort tended to create confessions.
“His wife passed on the message that BBPD was looking for him,” Danny said as we walked. He noticed me huffing along and shortened his stride. Tall bastard. “He decided to end his vacation early and talk to us.”
“Is that a sign of someone who’s scared and has something to hide?”
“Maybe. Or a sign of someone who has nothing to hide and wants us off his back.”
We stopped in front of the first room where Carter waited inside, sitting at the table with his arms folded. In the harsh light of the interrogation room, his complexion was wan. He didn’t look like a man who’d had a relaxing vacation. In fact, he looked like he’d come straight from work, clad in a white shirt, pinstripe navy slacks, and a slate gray tie. A pinstripe jacket was draped over the back of his chair. He glanced at his smartwatch impatiently.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and rocked back on my heels. Danny made no move to enter the room, so I sent him a meaningful look. He stared right back, eyebrow arch in full effect.
“You should probably get in there,” we said simultaneously.
“What?” we exclaimed together.
I glared and hit his shoulder. “Stop that.”
“I’m going in room two,” he said. “I can’t do both interviews.”
“Wait, who’s in room two? Maybe I want room two.”
“Sue Harris,” he informed me. “She remembered more things about Mason she wants to share.”
I went across the narrow hallway and looked in the room. As I watched, Sue dug in her purse and pulled a stack of photos. I caught a glimpse of the top picture, which was of a dark-haired little boy being pulled in a wagon. She started to spread the pictures out on the table in neat rows. I’d wager money every single one of them was from Mason’s childhood.
This had the potential to turn into a hostage situation.
I turned to Danny and said quickly, “I’ll talk to Carter.”
“I thought you might say that.” He handed me the folder he’d been carrying. At my raised brow, he gestured. “The emails between Mason and Carter James. They might come in handy.”