by A J Sherwood
“But what if a ghost pops out? Someone needs to protect you!”
“Just for that, I’m telling Sho embarrassing stories about you.”
Garrett whined, finally yanking free. “Now wait, bruh, let’s be reasonable about this.”
“How about no? I feel good with a no. I can work with a no.”
They’d be messing with each other the rest of the day if I didn’t intervene, so I did. Of course, I did it my way. I stepped closer to Donovan, hugging him to me with an arm around his waist, while giving Garrett a pointed look. “Now, boys. Let’s play nice. I’m sure we all understand there’s things we’d rather not share, hmm? Just think of what would happen if someone who knew All Sorts of Secrets decided to blurt things out?”
Both of them froze and looked at me. Garrett actually edged back six inches. “Uh, Jon? We’re good, right?”
I held his eye, biting back an evil chuckle. “Are we?”
“Shit, you’re one scary motherfucker,” he grumbled, backing down completely. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop teasing.”
I did enjoy my position as holder of secrets some days. “Good. Back to work now.”
As I hauled Donovan to the first bedroom on the other side of the floor, he muttered, “I save lives each day because there are people out there who need to be stabbed. And I don’t stab them.”
“I take it that was his way of assuring you that if it got scary, he’d have your back?”
“It’s amazing how quickly you picked up on Garrett-lingo. Yeah, that’s exactly what he was saying.”
Donovan still sounded disgruntled by it. I paused with us in the middle of the bedroom. A guest bedroom by the looks of it. There was no furniture inside and only a rug on the floor. Donovan had trouble meeting my eyes, which didn’t make sense to me at first. Was he embarrassed? His lines said so, but I didn’t understand the reason for it. We all had weaknesses, things we didn’t handle well. Ghosts and horror wasn’t an uncommon fear.
Facing him, I put both arms lightly around his waist, leaning against him. “Hey. What are you embarrassed about? So you don’t like horror. No biggie.”
A blush threatened to set his cheeks on fire as he mumbled, “I’m supposed to protect you.”
If he got any cuter, I’d go down on him right here and now. “Donovan, love of my life, there’re no ghosts here. Okay? As a psychic I can see ghosts just fine, and this place doesn’t have a single one.”
He froze, eyes creaking back to my face in degrees. “Really? You can see them?”
“Yeah. Not often. Fiction and movies make you think ghosts are everywhere, but most of the time they’re not. This place is amazingly clear, especially considering its history.”
Every trace of tension in him relaxed and he hugged me back, arms tight around me. “Thank god. You’re a very handy man to have around sometimes, you know?”
I smiled against his shoulder. “Happy to serve. Now.” I leaned up on tiptoes and kissed him quick. “Let’s get to work.”
He was far more relaxed as we started measuring the room.
We were barely at it when a scream wailed out, loud enough to shake the rafters, coming from downstairs. I jumped instinctively, but what worried me was Sho shouting, “Shit!”
Donovan was out the door in a flash, and still he didn’t beat Garrett. I saw a glint of his blond head as he flew down the stairs.
“What happened?” That was definitely Master Sergeant Wilson asking that question.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Sho answered quickly, sounding out of breath. “That scream sounded like it was coming from underneath my feet. Scared the shit out of me.”
I leaned over the balustrade with Donovan and Carol on either side of me, but of course we couldn’t see much from this angle. Donovan practically vibrated with unease at my side. I soothed him with a hand on his arm. “Still not a ghost.”
He eyed me sideways, forehead scrunched up and doubt in his lines. “You sure?”
“At least, I don’t see anything,” I added honestly. Although I couldn’t see the room properly from here. I decided not to mention that point.
I heard the front door open and Garret popped outside, looking in all directions before coming back in. He stood at the base of the stairs and looked up at us. “I don’t see anyone out there. And I checked earlier, there’s not enough of a crawl space for someone to get underneath. I can’t figure out where the sound came from. Michael, you sure about the scream coming up?”
“I felt the vibrations of it in the floor.” He hovered in the dining room doorway, shifting from foot to foot, visibly uneasy. “It was so loud, though, I might have been mistaken. It felt like it was coming from everywhere.”
Chills ran up and down my spine. And not in a good way. I was fine with horror, but I liked my suspense on a screen. Safely away from me. Donovan looked ready to leap out of his skin, his eyes jumping uneasily around us.
Garrett shrugged. “Maybe we accidentally tripped something in the house, some recorder or something. Who knows, place could be rigged.”
That was an entirely sensible suggestion, and it relieved us somewhat. The house had enough of a reputation that I wouldn’t think it needed the sound effects, but maybe we were wrong. Just because we hadn’t found it didn’t mean we hadn’t set something off. The scream seemed to come from all directions, after all.
As I turned to go back into the room, I saw Donovan’s eyes go wide. He was staring at the next room over, through the open doorway. Where our victim had breathed his last. Uh-oh. His imagination wasn’t playing tricks on him, was it?
In a thin voice, Donovan asked plaintively, “Babe? Tell me again there’s no ghosts?”
“No ghosts that I see,” I reiterated firmly. Then I faltered, because he’d clearly seen something that spooked him. “Why?”
“I saw it too, Donovan.” Carol stared apprehensively at the exact same spot. “The silhouette of a man just passed along the wall.”
“Big man,” Donovan added. He looked a little too pale and his hand was reaching for mine, fingers fumbling. “Maybe six foot or more.”
“Heavyset,” she confirmed, anxiety ramping up. “You think it was our victim?”
“Lots of people died in this house,” Garrett pointed out as he climbed up the stairs towards us. “Could be a prior resident. Maybe the ghosts are anxious to help us?”
I could have kicked him for saying that. I shot a look telling him in no uncertain terms that he was Not Being Helpful. Donovan’s grip on my hand tightened to the point of pain.
Garrett grinned back at me, the epitome of a kid in a candy store. “This is seriously the best case ever.”
Lord preserve us. He was one of those horror-holics who loved anything supernatural, wasn’t he?
“No ghosts here,” I said again, with more conviction than I actually felt. “Back to work, all of you.”
Donovan was jittery as he took up the tape measure again, but he worked faster this time, as if just wanting to get it all over with. I understood and cooperated, getting through the rooms as quickly as humanly possible. I think Carol felt the same. She kicked it up a notch as well. With five adults working, it didn’t take long, especially since the others had a head start before we even arrived.
We measured three rooms and the hallway before coming back downstairs and reporting our numbers to Sho. He drew things out with a pencil and ruler, marking out dimensions as he went. The outside dimensions to the house were already on paper; it was just the interior walls he filled in.
A laptop lay open on the table, and I carefully stayed on the far end of the table to avoid bumping into it. I frowned as I studied the rough blueprint of the house. Was I reading that right? There was a very thick break between the master bedroom and the hallway bathroom. Almost like there should have been a closet there, but it wasn’t marked as anything more than a wall. “Why is there a thick wall, right here?”
Neil appeared at my elbow, frowning down at it. “Where?”
“Here.”
I tapped it with a finger.
“Ah, that.” Sho kept drawing the line, focused on keeping it straight. “I also find that a little strange. I read up on the history of the house while you guys were upstairs. Turns out the original plantation house burned in 1823 and was rebuilt. It’s since undergone two documented renovations. One in 1940, the other in 1976. The buildings and renovations aren’t the right era to be part of the Underground Railroad, so it’s not a bolt room. I don’t think. It could possibly be an old water tank closet. In the old days, they had huge tanks up in the attic that came down into the house, and that’s where the water storage was for the indoor plumbing.”
It never ceased to amaze me what all Sho knew. Of course, he picked up a lot of weird facts from our investigations. His Google-fu was legendary and had solved more than a few mysteries.
“Hence why it’s next to the bathroom?” Neil asked thoughtfully. “Is there no way to access it?”
“That’s the other thing. No one’s reported either a door or access panel to me. I think during renovations it was just closed up.”
Neil turned in place, looking around the house in a general sense, resignation clear in his lines. “I hate to say this, but I think we’re going to have to knock some holes in the walls to figure this out.”
7
Neil got permission from Maggie Witherspoon to tear into the house if necessary. But we’d spent a good portion of the day already looking through the house, and we all needed a break. We stopped for the day, everyone going their own directions.
I knew my father was working on the body as we focused on the house. It helped the investigation along, which we needed at this point. We were sort of in waiting mode for both the autopsy and the rest of the requested evidence. Caleb had completed the death certificate but was waiting on multiple test results. Neil put in a request for copies of all the formal complaints written about the renovation, as well as the financials, now that he had the death certificate. Both of those might take days to get in.
It left us with a little downtime, and after the weekend we’d just had? I needed that desperately. It also, unfortunately, meant I had the time to speak to the man who’d sired me. Also unfortunately, I knew where to find him.
I told my intention to Donovan and he drove me to the police station without a word of protest. The tense, taut ride grated on my nerves, but I couldn’t keep putting this off. My fingernails bit into my palms as the station came into view.
We entered through the front, Donovan signing us both in and getting directions to the morgue. It was a straightforward walk down two hallways, toward the back of the building. I could smell the formaldehyde before we had the door fully open. It was a scent I knew well, because of my mother’s career, and the overlap between them sat uneasily on my chest.
“Want me to wait outside?” Donovan asked softly.
I wanted him with me but I felt like Caleb wouldn’t be as forthcoming as he should in front of an audience. It was better that Donovan wait in the car. I gave him a nod. He pressed a kiss against my forehead before he retreated.
Sucking in a breath, I tried to still my shaking nerves as I followed my lover’s and Natalie’s advice. I pushed open the door.
He was next to his desk, a file in his hand, and thankfully not dressed in scrubs, which meant I hadn’t caught him mid-autopsy. The place was as clean as any surgical suite, in fact, everything neatly put away and gleaming dully. Then again, it didn’t surprise me. He’d always been an organized man.
Caleb’s head came up, and grief, guilt, surprise, hope, and nervousness roiled through his lines when he saw me. It rather matched the emotions crashing through me now like a wrecking ball.
Swallowing hard, I forced the words out. “We need to talk.”
He conversely seemed relieved by this invitation. “We do. Here?”
I didn’t care as much about location. I did want a bit more of a buffer between me and the equipment in this morgue, though. It surely had a lot of electronics I didn’t want to replace. “No. Outside?”
“There’s a bench and a shade tree out back. Will that do?”
“Sure.” I followed him out of the room and through the heavy, dinged metal door and back into the cool, fall air. That was ostensibly safer and far away from anything electronic. The shade tree was brilliant with orange and red leaves, the fall colors in full bloom, and some of the leaves graced the top of a metal bench sitting underneath it. It was picturesque in the extreme, but I couldn’t take any pleasure from the sight. We stopped just under the tree and I faced him once more, unable to fully process what I was seeing.
Regret weighed heavily in his lines, a beating tangle of inky navy, so thick and heavy it nearly choked out everything else. Grief and guilt beat out a tandem pulse along with it, so thick it drowned out the rest of his lines. I found it hard to look at and I jerked my eyes away. This was already much harder than I’d thought it be, and at no point had I thought it would be easy.
At moments like this, I wished to hell I was a telepath. I did not understand what I saw. Part of it was my own anger, I could admit that. It clouded my judgement. But I tried to put that aside, because if I only saw this man once again in my lifetime, by god I’d get some answers.
“Look at you,” he said softly, wistfully. “You look just like me at that age. Happier, though. Thankfully.”
Since he’d left my mother shortly after he turned thirty-eight, I was puzzled by this remark. I didn’t remember my parents’ marriage as being difficult, not until the last few years of it. Had it been falling apart before that point?
“Jonathan,” he said, voice husky and choked. “I’m so sorry.”
“For leaving?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“No, I had to leave. But I should have done it a different way. I should have been more honest, to start with. I should have been able to face you kids. I went about it all wrong and it…we all paid the price for that. I can’t tell you how much I regret that.”
The part of me that was an abandoned child wanted to scoff. Rage. Throw a tantrum. Perhaps all three. I couldn’t reconcile this man in front of me with the one who’d gotten partial custody, who’d said ‘see you later’ at the courthouse, only to never be seen again. I’d had eighteen years to both miss and hate him, and that was very hard to let go of.
The other part of me, the trained psychic detective, couldn’t ignore what was right in front of my eyes. I wanted answers. I didn’t know what I would do with them once I had them, but I needed them. I could only pray it was an answer I could live with. Sometimes, not knowing was far, far easier.
The child raged with the adult and I had to struggle to push that child down, let my professional training kick in and take over. Losing my cool now wouldn’t get me anywhere, but it was hard to choke down the anger. I sucked in a breath as if I could inhale patience like oxygen. “Fortunately for you, I can see just how much you regret it.” I expected him to wince, to shy away from my eyes.
He didn’t. He just smiled sadly. “I’m glad for that.” Then he visibly stalled, not sure of what to say.
Fear roiled through him like a mother storm, sweeping away his sense and apparently his vocal cords. I had no idea what he was so afraid of.
I didn’t want to ask. God, I didn’t want to ask. I had to ask. My own grief propelled the words out of me. “Why did you leave?”
“I…” He stalled again, mouth open. He couldn’t meet my eyes, his arms wrapped tight around his torso defensively.
People did that often around me. They falsely believed that doing so would prevent me from reading their lines. Icy tendrils sank into my heart and I took a step back, eyes locked on him. I felt nauseated, seeing that defensive posture from him. It made me want to quit the conversation entirely. “Because of me?”
His head jerked up, and he blurted out in genuine startlement, “No! God, no, me leaving had nothing to do with you kids. It was…um…I wasn’t…I…”
I gave him points for tryi
ng to talk about feelings. I also took some away for doing it really badly. And why was his fear cresting in that crippling manner again? I snapped, frustrated beyond all reckoning. “You were, what…? An axe murderer? Serial gambler? What?”
He looked pained at my guesses. “Surely you can read I wasn’t any of that.”
“I will make up perfectly ridiculous theories until you talk to me.”
His chest rose and fell sharply, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was on the verge of hyperventilating. Still, he forced his eyes up to mine, meeting them as he spoke. “Jonathan, if nothing else, I owe you an explanation of what went wrong.”
I nodded, relieved he wasn’t going to make me pry that out of him. “Please.”
“Son, I’m gay,” he said hesitantly.
I blinked. Then blinked again, focusing on his meridian lines, and holy hell, he really was. Under his tangle of emotions, that fact had gotten somewhat buried, and I’d honestly missed it. Then again, I hadn’t been looking for it, either. This information slotted into my head, shaking up the picture I thought I knew, and giving me an entirely different perspective on the situation. I felt like the world had just slipped sideways. Or maybe it was spinning. Hard to tell.
“Is that why?”
“Mostly.” He seemed relieved I didn’t jump up in arms at this information. Oh, if he only knew. “It was the catalyst, I think. I honestly didn’t want to be gay. I was doing my best to deny everything, and your mother and I were good together in many ways. Good friends, companionable. She was broken up over how badly things had gone with Rodger when I met her, and I was determined to be normal like any other man and have a family. It just seemed the perfect match, both of us licking our wounds, neither of us looking too deeply into why we chose each other. Of course, that shortly blew up in our faces. Natalie came to us quickly, and for a while I could make things work. But I wasn’t the man she needed, and…” He trailed off, running a hand through his hair, remembered frustration coursing through him. “I couldn’t be honest with her, either. She felt isolated from me. I pulled myself together for a while, and we had you, but it shortly fell apart again. She started spending more time with Rodger, and I don’t blame her for that. She wasn’t getting what she needed from me.”