In the Air Tonight

by Lori Handeland

  We still hadn’t gotten to that. And, really, we should have. There’d just been so many other things to get to.

  “I assume it has something to do with the murder.”

  We reached the main road, and Jenn turned toward her place. “Where are you going?”

  She kept her gaze on the road. Despite her need for speed, she was a good driver. “You said you were staying with me.”

  “That was only so I could get out of there without a gun.”

  “It’ll be fun.”

  “Take me home.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t have any clothes for tomorrow.”

  “You can get some in the light of day. Right now it’s too damn dark.”

  “You’re afraid of the dark?”

  “Only when I’m with you.”

  I cast her a quick glance. She never asked me how I knew things, why she sometimes caught me talking to the air. She pretended not to notice. But despite her party girl ’tude and her lighter-than-could-possibly-be-natural hair, she wasn’t a fool.

  “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  Ghosts couldn’t hurt you. They might startle you—make that me. And what they told me could be terrifying. But they were ghosts. Blasts of cold air and sound, no more corporeal than a wisp of smoke.

  I glanced at the bruise on my forearm. Or at least they hadn’t been until today.

  “I know that too,” Jenn said. “You’re still staying with me.” I opened my mouth to protest and she continued, “Unless you want to leap out of a moving car, don’t even bother.”

  My mouth shut. To be honest, I had no interest in staying in my apartment. Even if the meat-cleaver-wielding maniac had been a ghost, and at this point I was pretty sure he was, who wanted to see that coming at them in the dark?

  The guy would be back. He might even turn up at Jenn’s. Ghosts came to me for a reason, and they didn’t leave until I’d helped them make the reason go away. Despite the meat cleaver he wouldn’t, couldn’t, hurt me. Permanently. However, I’d rather discover the purpose of his visit when it wasn’t pitch-black dark and I was alone. If that makes me a coward, too bad.

  Jenn lived at the opposite end of First Street from my apartment, in an adorable cottage set back from the road. The building would make a fantastic bookstore, café, or antiques shop, if New Bergin were the go-to vacation spot of west-central Wisconsin. Except the only tourists we saw were those on their way to La Crosse, Eau Claire, or Minneapolis who had a sudden need for gas and a restroom. Which meant we had no need for a quaint bookstore, café, or antiques store. Still, Jenn’s place was much nicer than mine, even without factoring in the meat-cleaver maniac.

  Jenn turned on all the lights. Like that would help.

  I’d been trying to get the old woman in the corner rocking chair to cross over since Jenn had moved into the house. But she was attached to the cottage, and she wasn’t going to leave until the building either burned to the ground or was razed—maybe not even then.

  Instead I responded to her nod with one of my own—when Jenn’s back was turned—and went on with my business. Directly to the kitchen and the nearest bottle of red. I’d only had a swallow—large though it had been—of my nightly allotment. I was due.

  Jenn held up two wineglasses. I snatched the one that was more of a brandy snifter and filled it with enough wine to be unfashionable then did the same for her. Whenever I went to a restaurant I had to fight not to laugh—or sometimes cry—at the splash of liquid considered a serving.

  “TV?” Jenn asked.

  I shook my head, sipped my wine.

  “You wanna tell me about it?”

  I wasn’t certain which it she was talking about. The intruder? My father? The murder? Bobby Doucet? Didn’t matter.

  “Nope.” I took a seat in the living room and continued to sip.

  “You should take the plunge.”

  I frowned.

  “With the detective.”

  I was still confused. It was October. Not a good time for swimming.

  “Raye, sometimes I worry about you.”

  “Sometimes I worry about me too.” I drank. The wine was nearly half gone. Damn.

  “You’re twenty-seven and still a virgin.”

  Suddenly I understood her reference to “the plunge,” and I nearly complimented her clever euphemism. But that would only encourage her.

  “I am not!”

  “Once doesn’t count,” Jenn said.

  “Technically, it does.”

  Even without the oversharing on the part of that eternal ass, Jordan Rosholt—whoops, guess I’d named him—the incident hadn’t been intriguing enough to repeat. It had been awkward, uncomfortable, and other words I didn’t want to think about let alone do. But, as Jenn had told me the single time I’d discussed it, we must not have been doing it right. I didn’t know there was a wrong way, but then I didn’t know much.

  “The detective is into you,” she continued. “Or…” She waggled her eyebrows. “He wants to be.”

  Apparently she needed no encouragement.

  “Who says I’m into him?”

  “You’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumbass not to be.” She drained her glass. “And if you don’t tap that, I will.”

  The idea of Jenn sleeping with Bobby Doucet bothered me more than it should. I had no claim on the man, even if I had seen him first.

  Still, he had run straight toward danger at my request. Not that there’d been any danger, but he hadn’t known that at the time.

  Jenn set her glass on the coffee table. “You haven’t had a date in nine months.”

  “Ten,” I corrected.

  “But who’s counting?”

  “It’s not like one of the guys I’ve known all my life is suddenly going to become more appealing.” Or learn how to keep his big mouth shut.

  “But, Raye,” Jenn said in a far too reasonable voice that set my teeth on edge, “the detective isn’t from here.”

  She made an excellent point. One I considered further while I finished my wine.

  It seemed a bit cold-blooded to sleep with a man just because he was from out of town.

  Then again … I didn’t think he’d mind.

  *

  The spirit of Henry Taggart hovered in the darkness outside Raye’s childhood home.

  He and Prudence had crumbled to ashes in Roland’s witch pyre, then no doubt been scattered to the breeze. Who knew? Who cared?

  Their spell had fanned the flames; the sacrifice of their lives had fueled their magic. Their daughters had been saved.

  Centuries had passed in an instant. Henry had opened his eyes and seen the eldest of his three daughters, a baby in a crib, babbling to the corner. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that she’d been babbling to him.

  At first he’d wanted to speak to her, to tell her who he was, who she was. But she’d been too young to comprehend, and as time went on and he’d observed the world she was in, he’d decided that remaining silent was for the best. Perhaps, if they were very, very lucky, he’d never have need to speak to her at all.

  For her sake, he probably should have remained invisible too, but there were times he just had to see her, and when he did she always saw him.

  Seeing ghosts in this world wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as it had been in his. She wouldn’t burn for it. But it still marked her as strange in a place and time where no one wanted to be. Really, had there ever been a time when anyone wanted to be strange?

  Leaves rustled, the foliage stirred, and a great, black wolf emerged from the forest to stand at his side.

  “Darling,” Henry murmured.

  Sweetheart.

  Pru, through virtue of her affinity with animals, had been reborn in this world as a wolf. Henry assumed his affinity with ghosts was the reason he was one.

  His wife now communicated with him through some form of telepathy. He heard her thoughts, and despite her being a wolf, she understood everything he said.

&nb
sp; When he’d first become aware that he’d traveled through time, he’d been afraid he had done so alone. But within days—maybe weeks or months, time was odd when one was a specter—Pru had joined him in her present form. They both bore the brand that Roland McHugh had left on them. Henry’s was hidden by the high neck of his coat, Pru’s by the thickness of hers.

  She was still beautiful; he still loved her, he wouldn’t, couldn’t stop. However, Henry couldn’t say he wasn’t disappointed that they weren’t the same, be they both ghosts or wolves. But when dealing with powerful witchcraft, time travel, life after death, one took what one was dealt and was thankful for it.

  Pru had opened her eyes and seen their middle daughter—a child with an affinity for animals just like Pru. Henry, the ghost, had come to Raye. Neither one of them had any idea where their third daughter had landed, and it bothered them. Now that Raye was in danger it bothered them a lot.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  The same. Safe for now. And here?

  “The same,” he answered. “Safe no longer.”

  How did they find us?

  “They didn’t find us,” Henry said.

  Pru growled, the sound rumbling against Henry’s palm as he smoothed it over her sleek head.

  “Hush, Mama Bear.”

  She growled louder.

  “My apologies. Mama Wolf.”

  Do you think it’s Roland?

  His hand stilled. “Roland’s dead.”

  So are you.

  “But not in quite the same way.”

  Are you sure? Maybe Roland found a means to come back too.

  “The man hated witches. He burned them. He burned us.”

  With all that blood on his hands, he could probably do just about anything.

  Henry got a chill, which was an interesting trick considering he wasn’t really … real. But he was a witch. Roland wasn’t.

  One doesn’t have to be a witch to benefit from magic.

  Sometimes Henry didn’t even have to speak for Pru to hear him. He never had.

  “Roland believed magic was evil, that witches were the tools of Satan.”

  Pru’s lip lifted into a snarl. He was tool.

  For an instant, Henry didn’t know what she meant, then his seventeenth-century brain translated the word into twenty-first-century-speak and his lips curved. Tool, modern slang for arsehole, fool, and the like, was a perfect description for Roland McHugh.

  He was obsessed. He would have done anything to have his vengeance.

  “You don’t think he had his vengeance? We burned, Pru.”

  And the girls disappeared. That had to have made him insane.

  “He already was.”

  Precisely.

  “The latest murder wasn’t committed by Roland.”

  He always had minions.

  “They should be as dead as he is by now.”

  Pru shook herself, and her sleek black fur shimmered brilliant blue in the silvery light of the moon, its only relief a ring of pure white fur that surrounded her own brand.

  Someone has resurrected the Venatores Mali.

  “It doesn’t mean they’ve resurrected him.”

  The wolf that was his wife turned her all too human green eyes in Henry’s direction.

  It doesn’t mean they haven’t.

  Chapter 5

  Bobby dreamed of the dead.

  Though he tried to put his cold cases behind him, only taking out those files and looking over them when he had no fresh murders to ponder—and how often did that happen in New Orleans?—nevertheless they were his failures and he would never rest easy until they were solved.

  Two men and a woman—he remembered their faces, their names. He knew pretty much everything about them, except who had killed them. No wonder they haunted his nights.

  He woke to the scent of coffee and the muffled clatter of a pan, the tink of silverware. The sun wasn’t up, though the sky had lightened. The red numbers on the bedside clock read 6:15.

  He was into and out of the shower in ten minutes flat. Bobby Doucet had never been one to waste time.

  Coming downstairs, he considered heading straight out the door. There’d be coffee at the police station. There always was. However, the scents and sounds trailing from the kitchen revealed that John Larsen had taken the breakfast portion of bed-and-breakfast seriously, and as Bobby’s stomach growled loudly—he hadn’t eaten since leaving New Orleans—he decided he should too.

  “Coffee’s on the counter,” the older man said, never lifting his gaze from the stove.

  “Thank you.” Bobby served himself. The brew wasn’t as strong as he was used to, but considering the coffee in New Orleans, what was?

  “Sit. It’s almost done.”

  Whatever it was, it smelled too good to miss.

  “I was going to make pannukakku,” Larsen said. “But I took you for more of a hoppel poppel man.”

  “Sir?” Bobby asked. What language was he speaking?

  “Call me John.” Larsen turned with a cast-iron skillet in one hand and what appeared to be a hamburger turner for a very large hamburger in the other.

  He crossed to the table and divided the heavenly smelling mass onto two plates. Bobby recognized potatoes, eggs, onions, salami. He took a bite and also tasted cheese, spices.

  “Salt and pepper?”

  “Shh,” Bobby said, and let the mixture of flavors mix and melt on his tongue. He took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and did it again.

  “I was right about the hoppel poppel.”

  “If that’s what this is, then definitely.”

  “You’ve never had one?”

  Bobby shook his head and kept eating. In every bite he found a different taste, each one better than the last.

  “It’s a German breakfast casserole. A lot of Germans in Wisconsin. More Scandinavians round here. Which is why I nearly made pannukakku.” At Bobby’s quizzical expression John continued. “Finnish oven pancake. They’re good, but not as filling, and they take forty-five minutes to bake. I got up too late.”

  Bobby glanced at the window, through which shone a watery gray dawn. There’d been far too many days when he’d come home in light like that.

  John refilled both their coffee cups. Bobby let him. He was still filling his face.

  “Your daughter said I’d be impressed with your cooking.” Bobby set his fork on an empty plate. “She was right.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it. My wife was a fantastic cook. When she got sick, I tried to entice her to eat with all of her favorites.”

  “I was sorry to hear of your loss.”

  John cast Bobby a quick, somewhat surprised glance. “Raye isn’t usually so chatty.”

  “I wouldn’t say she was chatty.”

  “She hasn’t known you twelve hours and she’s already told you her mother passed. Round here, that’s considered at least third-date conversation.”

  “Around here there wouldn’t be any need for the conversation, everyone would know about her mother’s passing almost as soon as it happened.”

  John’s brows lifted. “Pretty smart, aren’t you?”

  Bobby wasn’t sure if he should agree or disagree. Depended what kind of smart John was talking about—book smart, street smart, or smart-ass. Bobby would admit to being at least two out of three, but maybe not right here, or right now, or to John Larsen.

  Instead, he took his dishes to the sink. “I might be in town another night. Is that all right?”

  John brought his own dishes over. “I don’t have anyone waiting on your room.”

  Did that mean he could stay or not? Bobby decided to assume that he could. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere else to go.

  “You never answered my question last night.” John began to fill the sink with warm water, squirting in a healthy stream of dish soap. “Are you here because of the dead woman?”

  Bobby nearly grabbed a dishtowel, then remembered he had an appointment.

  “I am,” he a
greed, and moved toward the door.

  “You came a long way. Why?”

  “I really can’t say.”

  Bobby had no idea what folks in the town had seen, what information the chief had released. Bizarrely, people confessed to all sorts of things they hadn’t done for reasons beyond his understanding. Retaining a pertinent fact could prevent the wrong person from being convicted, no matter how much they might want to be.

  “Did I get your back up last night with my question?”

  “Which one?”

  “About your people. Where you’re from. We ask that around here. Didn’t mean any insult by it.”

  “If I had a dau—” Bobby’s voice cracked, and he discovered he couldn’t finish that sentence. At least not the way he’d planned to. “I can understand your concern.”

  “I don’t think you do. I don’t care if you’re…” He waved his hand in the general direction of Bobby’s head.

  “Black?” Bobby asked.

  “You don’t look black to me. More … tan.”

  “My people are French and Spanish.”

  “Doucet.” John nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Also Haitian, with a little who knows thrown in.”

  “Like Raye,” John said.

  Bobby doubted Raye was Haitian, but then again—who knew?

  “Well,” John went on as if they were talking about nothing more important than the weather, and maybe to him, they weren’t. “Good luck.”

  Bobby paused with the door partway open. “Do I need a key?”

  “I’ll be here. If I’m not, the door’s always open.”

  Which made Bobby wonder if he should stow his duffel in the rental car. On the other hand, if someone wanted to steal his toothbrush and dirty socks, let them. However …

  “Maybe you should start locking the place.”

  “I’m not sure I have a key.”

  “Does anyone lock their doors in town?”

  “Not many.”

  If Raye hadn’t, maybe someone had been in her apartment. Though it still didn’t explain where the man had gone, and so damn fast, leaving no trace behind.

  *

  I slept better than I expected. Probably because I’d stayed awake well past midnight hoping for a visit from my Puritan. But the only creature that stirred was the old lady in her chair—rocking, rocking, rocking. The creak of that chair eventually lulled me to sleep, and I did so without dreams—or at least any that I remembered.