Zach shook his head again. “If you say so.” He appeared far beyond mystified. “So then, tell me, where is Hannah Reid buried?”
Finally, we were moving on. The good thing about Zach, and one I surely appreciated, was he caught on quick. He asked the right questions to either prove or disprove and whatever way he decided, he went with it. I liked that about him a lot. “Meeman–Shelby Forest.”
Zach sighed deep, annoyance flashing across his face, which caused it to darken considerably. “Of course she’s somewhere like a forest. Why should I have expected anything different?” He dropped his face into his hands.
What did I miss? Shouldn’t this all be good news? We had the location of Hannah’s body, which was a good thing, and her family would have answers, also a good thing. So what had him all huffy? “What’s with the grumpy face?”
He slowly raised his head and his gaze connected with mine. “Do you have any idea of how large the forest is?”
Of course I did. It’d been great hiking destination here in Memphis—a wonderful way to get far from the busy city. Anyone and everyone from around these parts had camped, hiked or canoed there. “Er…yeah, it’s pretty big. Isn’t that what makes it so great?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t that answer your question?”
I glanced at Kipp, looking for a bit of clarity. “He doesn’t know Hannah has pinpointed the area her body is in. I think you confused him when you said she didn’t know exactly where he placed her body. He assumes we’ll have to search the entire forest.”
“Oh!” I finally got a clue. “You don’t need to worry about it, Hannah said she can point us in the right direction. She doesn’t know…” I raised my hands and quoted with my fingers, “the exact place, but she knows the area she’s located in. She’s pretty sure she can show us how to get there on a map.”
“You’re fucking kidding me?” Zach exclaimed.
His outburst startled me. “No, I’m not kidding—what’s so funny?”
Kipp laughed. He apparently understood what had Zach’s face lighting up as if it was Christmas morning.
“You’re honestly telling me Hannah has agreed to take us to the location of her corpse?”
He didn’t have to spell it out more than he had. I got the humor in this all too quick. “Um…yes.” Now thinking about it, it sure sounded right up there in crazy town. I got the reaction I expected, Zach burst out laughing.
Kipp followed and I quickly joined them.
The whole scenario showed itself, and for all the strain we’d been through these past days, it came out in a fit of laughter. To think that we actually found Hannah, informed the cops of my ability and the bar incident—now the implication we were about to go hunting for bones was so absurd, none of us could control our emotions.
My eyes filled with tears as my stomach tightened from the force of my laughter. We’d been so wrapped up in it all, been through so much together, the reality just hadn’t set in. Now it had.
Zach keeled over, busting a gut. “You talk to ghosts—they tell you about their deaths.” His voice sounded strangled through loud, deep gasps of breath. “That’s fucking insane.”
“I know,” I managed. “They never shut up, always wanting something—I’m dead, where do I go, who am I?” My breath released in loud pants, my tummy ached from my muscles contracting with each laugh and tears streamed down my face.
Zach gripped his stomach as his face turned the shade of a tomato. “Oh, hey—by the way—I know where my corpse is.”
I barely caught my breath. “But don’t worry, I’ll take you there.”
Kipp dropped down onto his knees, laughing too hard to speak a word. For a few moments, no sound came from his mouth. His laughter crippled him.
“My body is in a forest, buried under the ground.” Zach hardly got the words out. “Would you mind digging me up?” He fell onto his side on the couch, trying to gather air into his body.
“But I can’t go—can’t be there to see my bones—’cause that’s just too weird.”
Drool dribbled down the side of my mouth. I sucked it back in, wiped my lips and cried out in laughter. I tried to get a grasp on reality again.
It didn’t happen. Not for at least five more minutes until we all gathered a sense of ourselves again. And decided the craziness of it all didn’t mean it wasn’t going to happen.
Zach returned to a sitting position, wiping the tears from his face, and sighed. “Fuck, if anyone just heard our conversation, we’d be committed.”
I smoothed the hair away from my face. “Why do you think I try to avoid ghosts in general? I like my freedom, thank you very much.”
Kipp had recovered enough to gather himself up to sit back on the chair. “No matter how insane it all is, it’s ours to deal with.”
Yes, there was that little fact. Before I could say anything, Zach interrupted. “So, what am I to do, get a map or something?” His chin shook, but to his credit, he held back his laughter.
“Sounds good to me,” I said, looking up at Kipp.
He nodded and his smile was still prevalent in his eyes. “A topographical map would be best. It’ll show us little details that Hannah might remember, such as hills and the lake she mentioned.”
I relayed the information to Zach.
He nodded and stood. “I’ve got one in the truck.” He glanced around and suddenly his eyes went cold with shame. He leaned down closer to me and whispered, “Hannah’s not here with us, is she?”
My smile came quick, but I restrained my laughter, as he had done. “No, she said she’d meet us at the main gates of the park.”
“Fair enough.” Zach’s expression shifted to relief. Obviously, his kind heart crumbled at the thought of hurting Hannah’s feelings. Yup, a good match for Caley in every way. Maybe he’d teach her some manners. Without another word, he spun on his heel and headed off toward the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” I called after him.
He glanced over his shoulder and no hint of amusement existed in him now. “I’m calling Max.”
Huh? I figured we’d just go to the park and Hannah would show us her location on the map. Then, in the morning, Zach and some other police officers would head out to take a look. “Why does he need to call Max now?” I asked Kipp. “Won’t he be pissy for waking him?”
“Just gathering the troops, is all. It’s protocol to let him know what’s going on,” he replied, running his frosty touch down my cheek with a sweet smile.
I enjoyed the chilly breeze that danced across my skin and I closed my eyes. Guess the whole not heading out tonight flopped. At least hearing there’d be others gave me positive thoughts. “Oh good, so there’ll be lots of you, which means I can stay in the truck.”
“That’s doubtful.”
I opened my eyes and moved away from his touch. “What’s doubtful?”
Again, Kipp smiled, which showed he enjoyed when anger burned in my blood. “I imagine you’ll need to come with us.”
Oh hell no, I would not! Go in the middle of the night, walk through a scary, dark forest on the hunt for a dead girl’s grave? Not likely. “And just why will I need to do that?”
Kipp shrugged. “Simple, how will the others converse with me if you’re not there?”
“But, but, but I don’t want to go out in a dark forest in the middle of the night.” Sure, I pouted, but I didn’t care, I didn’t want to have any part of this.
Kipp arched an eyebrow. “Not sure you have a choice here.”
He just stepped over the line from being a ghost to a bossy ghost. “I always have choices and this is one where I’m saying no.”
“If Hannah knows the location, we’ll just have a look around the area. I’m sure the forest is thick and anything disrupted will be an obvious sight.”
“But she’s been dead for five years,” I retorted. “It’ll be overgrown by now. How are you even going to see anything?”
“It’ll be less overgrown than the r
est of it.” After I opened my mouth to continue my rambling, he raised his hand. “Listen, I know the idea of going out there to her grave frightens you, but you’ll be kept safe. Don’t you trust me enough to know that I wouldn’t put you in danger?”
“Of course I trust you.” He smiled. “But what the hell is trusting a ghost going to do?” He frowned, but that didn’t stop me. “What are you going to do, spook someone to death?”
“Yes.” He paused. “Well, I’ll do something. Besides, Zach will be there and he has a gun. Does that ease your worries?”
It’d ease me more if I didn’t have to go at all. But I’d learned enough so far to know fighting him was a losing battle, so why bother. “We’ll just look around and we’re out of there, right?”
He nodded. “Right.”
Zach reentered the room with a grin worth a million dollars on his face. “Well, Tess, hope you don’t mind a little dirt under your fingernails, because we’re about to go grave digging.”
Dark night, scary forest, crazed murderer, hidden grave—help!
Chapter Eight
As Zach drove through Meeman–Shelby Forest, shadows and gloom settled across the land. I wasn’t normally jumpy—spirits were real, what else could scare me? Still, my nerves were rattled. We weren’t searching for a spirit—we were looking for a body buried five years ago. My stomach flipped and flopped at the images swimming through my mind.
“I wish I could kiss your worry away,” Kipp said, sitting next to me in the backseat of Zach’s truck.
“Me too,” I whispered to keep the conversation private. The kissing part would have been nice, but it wasn’t only the journey ahead that left me on edge. Indecision had crept up.
Once we discovered Hannah’s body, clues would probably be there too and then the case would have a conclusion. Kipp’s need to stay would leave, his soul would settle and he’d find contentment to move on. As much as we had decided we needed to help Hannah, I couldn’t stop from wanting to ignore her all together and pretend Kipp didn’t have to leave.
“What did you say?” Eddie asked, apparently eavesdropping.
I glanced toward him in the passenger seat. After we picked Eddie up, he came out half-awake with three shovels in hand. It pleased me to note the coffee he drank worked, as he now looked perkier. The faster they dug, the sooner this would end, which was where my conflict came in.
I wanted to help Hannah, but I didn’t want to be out in the dark and I certainly didn’t want Kipp to cross over.
What a big stinkin’ mess!
“I was talking to Kipp,” I told Eddie.
He nodded and looked back out the front window.
“We’re doing the right thing.”
Kipp’s expression looked soft and questioning. He apparently experienced the same hesitation as I did. I needed him to be the strong one here, to tell me we did the right thing, because now I held too many doubts.
He sighed. “Why did we have to meet now?” He said it as more of a statement than something I needed to answer, so I kept quiet. “When you look at me like you are right now, I’d believe I was already in heaven.”
My chin quivered, my eyes welled up with tears and one spilled down my cheek. He reached out to wipe it away, but instead of touching me, the frosty air dried the wetness along my skin. “But when I cannot touch you, I’m reminded this must be hell.”
“Kipp,” I whispered.
“You’ve made death easier for me. If the only way to have met you was to have died, then I’ll never regret it. Not for a single moment.” His gaze bore intently into mine. “You know that, right?”
I managed to find my voice. “I do.”
“When the time comes, remember it made me happy to have experienced this small amount of time with you. That you gave me something I’d never known. You made me feel something I thought I couldn’t ever possess. Know that I treasured each and every minute we had and I was happier these last days than I’d ever been.”
I sat silent and absorbed his words, and determined only one thing needed to be said. “I love you.” I’d known it the moment I met him and I could no longer deny it to him or to myself. It was all of him, every little piece that made Kipp who he was, that filled my heart with enough love it could burst.
He smiled. “As I do you.”
Someone cleared their throat. I jerked my head up to find Eddie had already gotten out of the truck and Zach leaned halfway out.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’re here.” Zach looked at the seat of the truck as if he tried hard not to listen to what I said.
I slid my gaze over to Kipp, who smiled. Beneath it, though, I saw he battled against himself to refuse this, but we both understood the importance of finding Hannah. “Guess we should go?”
Kipp nodded, full of conviction despite what his gaze said. “Go and get your feet dirty.”
“Please, don’t remind me.” I opened the door and stepped out, and approached Eddie and Zach, who had a topographic map laid out on the hood of the truck.
“It’s about time y’all got here,” Hannah said. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
I laughed, but held back stating the fact she had nothing else to do. “The downfall of not being able to teleport wherever you want to is you have to drive, which takes time.”
Hannah smiled. “Right.”
I looked away from her to find both Eddie and Zach appearing flabbergasted by my admission ghosts could do that. I waved it away, not wanting to get into it. “Never mind, it’s another thing to tell you on another day.”
Zach shook his head and glanced around as if searching for where Hannah stood. “We need to call in the location to Max so he knows our whereabouts.”
“Speaking of that, where is he?” I asked.
Eddie laughed. “Where’s Max?”
“Yeah, exactly, why’s he not helping us?”
His look said I should know better. “The sergeant doesn’t get knee-deep in mud, dear.”
I glanced over at the forest in front of us and pouted. Eddie hadn’t been exaggerating. Even in the darkness, I saw the trip would prove difficult. “Seriously, I have to go in there?”
“Kipp might need to tell us something and we can’t hear him if you’re not there,” Zach replied.
“But my poor boots will be ruined.” I nearly cried, realizing I’d worn my new boots that I had bought only a few weeks ago. “These cost three weeks of pay.”
Eddie furrowed his brow. “You can wash them when we’re done here.”
Oh, wasn’t he Mr. Smarty Pants. “What if they don’t come clean?”
Zach laughed. “It’s mud, it’ll come clean.”
“But, but, but they could get scratches!”
Kipp sighed. “You need to let Hannah tell us where she is located, Tess.”
With that interruption, it became apparent I was stalling. I forced myself to get a grip. As much as I wanted to stay here and keep Kipp with me forever, if they didn’t discover who had done this, Hannah would never cross over. The pain, loneliness and misery in her eyes that I witnessed earlier, and could even see a little of now, were all I thought of. No one deserved such a terrible fate. Going against what swelled in my heart, I stepped forward and came up beside Eddie.
Eddie pointed to the parking lot where we stood. “We’re here now.”
“You ready to do this?” I asked Hannah.
She nodded. “Damn right I am.”
I closed my eyes to focus and let Hannah’s words become my own as I repeated what she said, not wanting to fumble it up. “All right, use your finger to follow what I say.”
“Go ahead,” Eddie replied.
I gave Hannah a moment to start before I relayed her words. “Go straight until you hit a creek. Once there, turn left and you’ll hit an incline.”
“I see that, yes,” Eddie said.
“When you’re over the hill, turn to the right and walk for a while. The lake runs along your right there. You can hear it the entire
time.”
“A short distance away,” Zach said. “Yes, we can see that.”
“You’ll come to a cliff that you have to climb down. Once at the bottom, you have to go to the left and you’ll come into thick brush.” I paused, waiting for Hannah to finish, and I opened my eyes. She gave me a smile, said a few words, then up and vanished.
“Well?” Zach asked impatiently.
I glanced away from where Hannah disappeared and looked at him. “You only need to walk a few minutes longer and you’ll find it there.”
“Thank you for your help,” Zach said, obviously intending for Hannah to hear it, since he looked in the same direction that she’d been.
“She’s not here anymore.” I laughed.
Zach shook his head in a harsh manner, clearly annoyed. He reached onto the hood of the truck where his phone rested. He picked it up and typed away on the buttons for a while. Then he held out his other hand to Eddie. “Phone.”
Eddie handed him his, folded up the map and stuck it in his back pocket.
Zach held the phone to his ear, and after a few seconds he said, “Max, the coordinates are thirty-five degrees north and ninety degrees west.” He paused. “Yeah. Got it. Right.” He lowered the phone from his ear, pressed end and glanced at us. “We’re to call him if we find anything. He’s at the station now digging through old reports to see if any unknown bodies have been pulled from the area.”
Right then, headlights caught my attention. I covered my eyes against the beaming lights, and as they drew closer, I noticed a police car approaching. “Who’s that?”
“K9—must be Brody,” Kipp replied.
“K9 Division. What’s Brody doing here?” Zach asked no one in particular.
The police car pulled up next to Zach’s truck, the engine cut and the door opened. “Howdy, y’all,” Brody’s friendly voice called out.
Zach looked at him, completely befuddled as he approached the truck. “Max called you in?”
Brody nodded and ran a hand through his neat, ashy hair. “He thought you might need a little extra help.”
Supernaturally Kissed (Frostbite, Book One) Page 14