by H. P. Bayne
“Huh. So back to square one then.”
“I guess so. But then, I haven’t really moved past square one to start with.”
“You think the ghost might have made Lonnie disappear.”
“I think it’s a possibility we need to explore, particularly since there’s now another missing man.” He realized Dez would soon start asking about his night’s plans, and he sought to derail that by changing the subject. “How’s your visit with the girls?”
“Awesome. It’s been a really great night. And it’s going to get even better soon, if you know what I mean.”
“Almost Kayleigh’s bedtime, I take it?”
“Another hour yet. I’m going to read to her, though. She likes when I do the voices.”
Sully smirked. “So do I. You never read to me anymore.”
“Piss off. Listen, Eva and I talked to Kayleigh about you. She’s really excited to see you.”
This time, Sully found himself thrilled by the subject change. “Really? She’s not mad?”
“We explained things to her as well as we could. She seems to get it. Obviously, we couldn’t tell her everything. But she gets why you left the way you did, without telling us. Honestly, she handled it a lot better than I did.”
“So she’s not going to punch me in the face?” Sully said through a smile.
“Not likely. But I wouldn’t try pulling any more stupid moves with her. She’s a tough kid, and she packs a mean punch.”
Sully laughed. “Kind of more like her mom then. You’re a soft touch.”
“Only with you. And you’re damn lucky about that too. Are you heading home?”
Uh-oh. “In a bit. I want to stay out for a while yet. It’s a nice night, and I miss being able to just go for a drive.”
“Where are you driving?” The suspicion was there, an edge to Dez’s voice suggesting he wasn’t about to buy what Sully hoped to sell.
No point in lying. “I want to swing by the road, see if I can find her.”
“Sully, no. Not by yourself.”
“I’m not by myself. I’ve got Pax with me.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of human help. Human help—i.e. me—by daylight.”
“Daylight’s not really an option right now. With that Emory guy missing, the police are going to be crawling all over the place during the day.”
“I hate to break it to you, but they can run searches by night. If they’re worried enough, they could get a chopper or a plane in the air to look for heat signatures on the ground. If they do that, they’ll have ground units in place to move in if they spot anything from the air. And you, my idiot brother, will make for one big, juicy heat signature. You’re talking a surefire way to get yourself caught—and that’s if Faceless Flo doesn’t get to you first.”
It was sound logic, no denying that. But Sully had logic of his own.
“One way or another, we’re going to have to deal with her. It’s better me than someone else. At least I can see her coming.”
“And do what? Get the hell out of the way?”
“Sure. Why not? Look, most ghosts are not really all that powerful. They’re just leftover energy from what was once a living person. If the person wasn’t overly powerful in life, they won’t be after death.”
“What about poltergeists?”
“She isn’t a poltergeist.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s never been any talk about that.”
“Well, there’s never been any talk about her name being Sadie, either. Talk was always about a Flo, and we proved that one wrong, didn’t we?” Dez sighed. “Damn it, Sull, can’t you just give me one nice night without throwing a monkey wrench in there somewhere? I was enjoying myself until you called.”
“I’m sorry, D. But there really isn’t any way around this. I can’t go look for her by daylight now, and if she’s done something to Emory, I need to try to find him before it’s too late. I can see things the police and search parties can’t. It might be she’ll lead me right to him.”
“Yeah,” Dez said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Sully knew Dez wasn’t happy about it, but by the time they got off the phone, he’d more or less convinced his older brother of the necessity of his plan.
Dez had offered to meet him, but Sully put a stopper in that one. Sully didn’t often remind him, but Dez’s fear of ghosts could prove a source of energy for spirits, giving them something to feed on. Strong human emotion could act like a battery. Sully was battery enough. For a ghost like Sadie, the two of them together might just supercharge her. And if she was really as bad as people said, feeding her energy was the last thing they wanted.
Detecting no sign of police presence at the start of Hollow Road, Sully made the turn and started down the roadway. He drove slowly, eyes and senses alert to the possible presence of a ghost in the woods which lined the road either side.
He stopped the car long enough to get out and listen, straining to pick up on the sound of an airplane or a helicopter, something that might suggest the area was being monitored. He heard nothing but the wind blowing gently through the trees, rattling branches left mostly bare by the changing fall weather. Old poplars creaked nearby. Somewhere, an owl hooted.
Dez would be crapping himself right about now.
Sully took a long look around, scanning the dark woods for a sign of a dim glow. Ghosts usually appeared that way to him, a dull light in the dark, a beacon to him just as Marc had once said Sully was a beacon to them. His own light, he’d been told, was intense. If Sadie was around, she would see him.
He got back in the car, took a moment to steel his own nerves as he reached back to scratch Pax’s chin.
“Tell me if you see anything, okay?” Sully said.
Pax’s mouth dropped open, his panting resembling laughter. Sully wished he could share in the joke. He’d chosen to come, but it wasn’t without reservation. He knew as well as Dez men had disappeared here—one of them someone he suspected was his own ancestor, a man who apparently possessed the same ability he had. If the real Oliver Chadwell could vanish at the behest of a spirit, so could Sully.
But then, no ghost of Sully’s acquaintance had the power to send a person to another dimension. All they could do was lead a person into danger.
Sully would just have to remain aware of his surroundings, that was all.
In the dark, that was quite possibly too much to expect.
He drove on, tires crunching against gravel as he crawled down the road. He drove until he glimpsed the opening ahead marking the start of the old town of Loons Hollow. He saw no evidence of any police vehicles, which was a good thing for someone hoping to remain undetected. It might have been a really good thing if it also meant they’d accomplished their task and located Emory. It occurred to Sully they hadn’t thought to text Ara and ask.
Whatever the case, Sully suspected he was alone out here.
Very alone.
Just him and his dog in a deep, dark wood haunted by the potentially homicidal spirit of a murdered woman.
All in a night’s work.
With no sign of Sadie, Sully decided the best move might be to pull over and wait. He steered to the side of the road and shut off the engine, not bothering to put the window down to listen. He couldn’t hear the ghosts anyway, and the last thing he wanted was to set off his nerves by forcing himself to listen to eerie nighttime noises in the woods. He’d do far better if he stayed calm, and that would be pretty damn hard if he gave in to imagination.
He had one other trick for staying calm, and he knew he could find it at the end of the phone line. Keeping his eyes on his surroundings, he pulled out his cellphone and dialled Dez’s number.
Three rings and Dez answered, sounding out of breath. “What?”
Sully grimaced. He’d forgotten to check the time. He now noticed it was well over an hour since his last call to Dez—past Kayleigh’s bedtime. It didn’t take a genius to realize what Dez ha
d been in the middle of just now.
“Oh, crap, sorry.”
“This damn well better be important.”
“Um… kind of?”
“Spit it out.”
“I was wondering if you could text Ara, see if they happened to find Emory today. I don’t see any sign of police vehicles, and it occurred to me we hadn’t checked.”
“Can I do that in a few minutes, do you think?” The sarcasm was heavy. Sully didn’t blame him.
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Sorry. Hi to Eva.”
Dez hung up without another word. Sully mouthed the word “Oops” as he returned his phone to the pocket of his hoodie.
Pax’s sudden barking had Sully’s head snapping up, his neck cracking as it whipped around to check his surroundings.
Nothing.
He looked at Pax, still barking, in the back seat. “You’re killing my ears, buddy. What’s up?”
Pax was focused on something to the side of the car, something in the woods. Following the gaze, Sully sat forward a bit to better see through the window.
And jumped.
She was there.
A pale, lightly glowing figure standing in the woods, head low, hair hanging across her face.
A feeling of dread crawled over him, sent prickles down his neck. Part of him wanted to start the car and get out of here.
But this was why he’d come. This woman, this ghost, might hold answers he needed. If he ran, he might never find them.
Taking a long, deep breath, he pocketed the car keys, then gripped the handle of the door and pushed it open. Stepping onto the gravel outside, he took in his surroundings before he closed his own door and moved to open Pax’s. The dog, hair standing on end, joined him on the road and stayed at his side as Sully circled the car and started into the woods.
She was there, unmoving, unaffected by the breeze that played with a few wayward strands of Sully’s hair.
“My name’s Sullivan Gray,” he said. “I want to help you.”
Sully’s phone pinged its notification of a text from Dez. Without taking his eyes from the ghost, he drew his phone out, then looked down only long enough to check the short message displayed on his screen. Emory still missing. Searchers back first thing.
So much for the hope that much had been put to rights.
He returned his full attention to the ghost. “A man went missing early this morning. Do you know anything about it?”
He hadn’t really expected a response, so he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t receive one. He dared to take another few steps toward her, allowing him a better view. Her dress was white but stained in places by mud and dirt, and her feet were bare. There was no immediate sign of blood or injury, which was unusual in his experience; most homicide victims showed him their fatal wounds. Whether the face was shadowed by the hair and the night or whether it wasn’t there at all, he couldn’t say for sure. He wasn’t keen on getting close enough to find out.
Usually, he got a feeling from the spirits he saw, a sense of their emotions. Often it was terror, rage or pain. This one, if she felt anything, guarded her feelings, held them in a place he couldn’t reach. She was closed to him.
It made for a bad start.
He tried anyway. “People say you don’t like men. If a man hurt you, I can’t blame you for that. But I’m not that man. Emory Davis, the guy who disappeared this morning, he’s not that man.”
He stopped, took a breath, thought through what he was about to ask. It seemed like a bad idea. He went ahead anyway.
“I need you to help me find him.”
It might have been his imagination—the risk of it working overtime out here was great—but he thought he saw her head twitch.
They stood a moment, facing each other, a fraught silence stretching between them. He waited, knowing she would do one of three things. She might disappear altogether. She might turn and lead him into the woods. Or, worst case, she might come at him.
When she suddenly vanished, Sully wasn’t sure whether he should be grieved or grateful. Until, a moment later, she reappeared deeper in the woods, her form standing next to one of the many bare trees.
And now he had his own choice to make: return to the car and leave, or follow.
In the end, it didn’t make for much of a choice. He’d come here for a reason, and that reason still existed. Emory was missing, and Ara cared about him. As much as part of Sully would be thrilled to see the back of the man, he knew he couldn’t begrudge Ara her happiness. Sully had brought her nothing but pain in the end, and she deserved better. What was more, she was a good person, and she wasn’t likely to choose someone who was anything but good himself. If she cared about Emory Davis, he didn’t deserve to be out here, the victim of a vengeful spirit.
Even if it was the last thing he did, if he could find Emory, that would be something at least to help fulfill his debt to her.
His course decided, he started toward the ghost.
12
In Sully’s experience, ghosts didn’t always move the way living people did.
Some moved as they always did, nursing injuries they’d felt in life. But others, no longer hindered by the bulk of flesh, muscle and bone, figured out their new place in the world of physics. These spirits—the ones like Sadie—simply vanished only to reappear at another location. They were the ones desperate to tell him something, and they didn’t waste time or energy on travel.
Yet there was nothing about Sadie suggesting urgency, no sense of fear, anger or pain acting as obvious motivator. Many spirits were no more than a non-physical representation of the living being they’d once been; they retained their personalities, emotions, thoughts and appearances.
In Sadie’s case, it was like following a corpse.
Sully tried, failed to restrain the shiver that ran down his spine.
Pax, at his side, growled low in his throat whenever the two of them paused. The dog wasn’t fond of this arrangement, that much was clear. It was possible, between the two of them, Pax was the wiser one right now.
Sully continued on anyway.
He lost track of how long they’d been out here, what could’ve been ten minutes taking on the feel of an hour. His cellphone would tell him the time, but he didn’t want to risk looking away for even a moment. Too much could happen in a moment. Too much had already happened.
He’d grown so used to Pax’s growling it was as if a bomb went off when the barking started. Sully’s eyes snapped down to the dog’s head, finding Pax’s own sightline trained not on the ghost, but on something to the south, something not yet visible to Sully’s human sight.
He’d been walking without the use of his flashlight app, relying on the abnormally bright moon to light the way. He preferred to save the battery, just in case. Anyway, too much light focused in one spot would blind him to the rest of his surroundings, and he hadn’t wanted to chance it.
Now he could hear movement, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the crackle of branches as they were pushed aside. It was too loud for a small animal, and Sully’s first thought was of a bear or a wolf. There weren’t a large number of either animal in these woods, but there had been a few sightings over the years—enough he knew it was a possibility he was about to have a confrontation he might not survive.
He’d forgotten Rule One of outdoor survival: Always carry a canister of bear spray. Without the appropriate weapon on hand, Sully cast his gaze around for anything else that might work. A fallen tree lay nearby, and he ran over to it. Stepping down hard on one of the larger branches and wrenching it upward, he managed to sever it from the trunk. Holding it in front of him like a baseball bat and angling off for the delivery of a blow, Sully watched and waited.
“Put that down before you hurt yourself, kid,” came a female voice from the direction of the supposed wild animal.
Sully released the breath he’d been holding, then laid a hand on top of Pax’s head to calm him. “Pax, stop. It’s okay.” Once the barking stopped, Sully squinted b
ack into the darkness. “Who’s there?”
A woman came into view, stepping out fully from behind a large tree. She was large, tall and broad, almost an older female version of Dez. Something was familiar about the voice, one Sully thought he’d last heard several years ago.
She was closer now, close enough he could make out a few of her facial features. “Give me your name first,” she said, tone demanding rather than requesting.
He no longer needed her answer. He lowered the large branch as memory clicked into place. “Rosie?”
She pulled up short in her advance toward him. “Who are you? I know your voice.”
It was no use hiding the truth. It might take her a moment, but she’d figure it out pretty quick. Pulling his hood down, he smiled at her. “I used to work at the Black Fox.”
It took her a few seconds, but she ended by grinning her recognition. “Sullivan Gray. My God. I haven’t seen you in something like five years. How you doin’?”
“I’m okay.” He remembered Sadie and turned his head to the left. She was still there, standing nearby.
Waiting.
Hopefully, she’d wait a little longer. You didn’t easily abandon a conversation with Rasslin’ Rosie Dalton.
“What are you doing out here this late?” she asked. She peered at him through narrowed eyes. “You’re not one of those nut bar ghost hunters been trespassing at Loons Hollow, are you?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I guess you could say I’m a ghost hunter, but I’m not doing it for the entertainment value. A guy went missing out here by the name of Emory Davis. Have you heard about it?”
“I saw a search party going through earlier today. It was all I could do to avoid them.”
“Do you live out here or something?”
“Yep,” she said. “Over five years now. I had enough of the city. People there were going bad, like rotting apples. Riverview wasn’t what it once was. Used to be you could walk around the place and find a friend. Lately, all you’re doing is dodging enemies. You and your brother were tight with Bulldog Bird. He’s a good guy. You ever see him?”