Ghost Maker

by Robin D. Owens

  * * *

  Clare didn’t wake up as usual in the morning. Not when her phone alarm pinged, Zach’s buzzed, or the mantel clock with Westminster chimes struck nine o’clock. He’d awakened at a quarter past eight, as usual, but decided to sleep in. Now he was late to work—if he’d wanted to arrive at the start of regular business hours—but Rickman Security and Investigations didn’t really follow such a day. Operatives could be working around the clock if they wanted—or needed—to. Zach had to show up for client appointments only, or meetings with his boss and the rest of the staff. The rest of the time he could work out of his home, or his truck, as long as he itemized his time on the accounting program on the new computer they’d given him.

  Right now he had no cases.

  He stood, watching his woman, chest tight. Something was wrong. He didn’t think their gentle lovemaking last night had tired her out, and they’d only had sex the once. No more during the night, or this morning.

  “Clare?” he crooned. With a few limping steps, he moved to her side of the bed and sat. “Clare?” he asked a little louder, putting his hand against her cheek. Warm, thank God.

  He stood, staring at her for a full three minutes, and she didn’t move. Rickman probably knew a nursing service or doctor that actually made house calls, but Zach deeply suspected that no regular medical doctor would discover anything wrong with Clare.

  She’d had a full physical workup last month when she’d begun to see ghosts, and the medical personnel found nothing of concern. She’d been dying of cold during the hottest August on record in Denver. Cold from the inheritance of the Cermak gift—her new ghost-seeing ability.

  “Clare?”

  No response.

  Her breath caught and he froze, listening to it. Sighing out, deep inhalation. But she hunched in on herself a little as if cold.

  Sitting next to her, he put his hand on her cheek.

  “Zach,” she murmured, her head turning into his fingers.

  Okay, a good sign, but he still didn’t like her lethargy. “Clare, wake up now!” He put all the command tone he’d learned into the order.

  Her brow lined. “Zach.” Another sigh out. “Lemme sleep. Jus’ a lil longer . . .” Then she dropped back into sleep with a suddenness that concerned him. Again he called her name. This time she didn’t stir.

  Maybe he’d better take her to the hospital, the emergency room.

  The memory of sirens and bright lights flashing in the night strobed in his head, the hideous pain in his leg after the shooting, the race to the hospital. The long weeks there. He straightened his shoulders. This wasn’t about his old hatreds and fears; he had to take care of Clare now.

  He yanked the covers off of her, but before he put his arms under her to lift, he swore. He couldn’t just lift and carry her down the stairs and to her Jeep in the garage. He had to put on his braces and special shoes first. Dammit all!

  “Wha—”

  “Clare, look at me right now or we are going to the hospital.”

  Her lashes opened, too damn slowly, but they raised. Her hazel eyes cleared and focused. “You don’t like hospitals.” She spoke more crisply. “I don’t want you taking me there.” Her forehead wrinkled. “And the expense! Not only in money, but in time. They aren’t efficient. Not sure of my new insurance . . . ,” she muttered, rolling over to her side, one arm flailing as if searching for the covers.

  “Clare!”

  “I hear you. Gimme the darn covers and let me sleep.”

  “The hospital.”

  “No.” She turned her head and looked at him with one wide eye. “I’ve got another wretched appointment with my physician this afternoon, don’t you recall?”

  The tightness inside him eased a little. “Forgot.”

  She made a disgusted noise.

  Drawing up the covers, he watched her turn onto her back. When he kissed her on the mouth, her lips twitched up.

  But she slept too deeply for him.

  Right now Zach would bet his whole large disability settlement that the nasty spectral injury made her sleep so much and lie so still. Nope, not allowing that.

  Sucking in a breath to fill his lungs, he yelled with mind and voice, “ENZO!” The name seemed to echo in the house that held only two living bodies. Zach couldn’t have yelled that loud anywhere he’d lived in the last . . . ever. Even at Mrs. Flinton’s, the nosy women would probably have heard.

  Clare didn’t stir, and, yeah, Zach got an adrenaline dump at danger threatening his lover.

  Hello, Zach, Enzo said in a small voice, sitting about a foot away from Zach, from what he could see, which was the ghost dog’s general outline and a tail wagging back and forth on the rug.

  “Clare won’t stay awake,” Zach said. “Check on the tear in her etheric body for me.” He could barely believe he’d said that. He and Clare had stepped over into woo-woo land this last month, and he wasn’t going to put up with anyone or anything hurting her.

  The Lab hopped onto the bed—at least a shadow did—and sniffed, then backed up a step and sat. I’m sorry, Zach. That was a hardly-there whisper in Zach’s mind.

  “It’s the wound, isn’t it?”

  Yes, it saps her strength because it is trying to heal, but is healing only a tiny, tiny bit.

  “Not enough to really help Clare.”

  I don’t think so. I am SO sorry.

  “Not your fault.”

  Yes, it is. A mental whine from the dog accompanied the words. Clare got bit by the nasty ghost while fighting for me.

  Zach grunted, made a sharp gesture. “That’s past. We’re a team; she wouldn’t have abandoned you.” Clare would never walk away from an animal companion, friend, or a lover. And Zach hadn’t shown too well during that whole situation, either. Nearly gotten them all killed. Clare had saved him, with Desiree Rickman’s help.

  Desiree Rickman, the woman who could read auras of the living. Who had been the first person concerned with Clare’s invisible injury. Who, a week and a half ago, had promised to look into solutions for this situation.

  He limped to his dresser and reached for his phone to call his boss—but asking the man to have his wife get her ass over here pronto wasn’t exactly diplomatic. Zach didn’t think he had Desiree’s number. He checked. Nope.

  What are you doing, Zach? asked a subdued Enzo.

  “Calling Desiree Rickman.”

  Oh, I like her, even if she can’t see me. She could help Clare!

  “That’s what we’ve been counting on.” And he should have . . . done something himself earlier. Crap. Crossing to Clare’s bedside table, he picked up her phone, turned it on. Password locked. Huh. Well, his was locked, too. Because he worked on highly confidential cases for Rickman Security and Investigations. Zach put in the code she used for the home security system, some mathematical sequence she’d told him about. The explanation hadn’t stuck in his head. And, yes, the locked screen cleared. Well, if she hadn’t wanted Zach snooping, she should have coded something different. And he’d have to talk to her about using the same password for everything.

  He looked up Desiree’s contact information, texted the whole thing to his own phone, then called her and got voice mail.

  “Hello, this is DR. It’s September twenty-ninth. Skydiving training this morning. I’ll call you back if you leave your number. ’Bye!”

  Zach grumbled his number into her phone. “Get over to Clare’s ASAP. She’s hurting from that spectral wound.” He cut the call and stuck his phone into his jacket pocket, not that he intended to go anywhere. Loose cannon that she was, he could count on Desiree to show up. Sometime.

  They had an appointment in the early afternoon, but he wanted Desiree here now.

  Sitting next to Clare, he wondered if she’d wake if he kissed her, but he was no Prince Charming. Couldn’t hurt, though. So he did. He brush
ed a gentle kiss on her mouth. Nothing. Barely her breath against his lips. Pulling back, he studied her. Yeah, she made a gorgeous sleeping beauty, but he didn’t like seeing her like that. Again he put his hand against her cheek to feel her body warmth. Good. But no more kissing or anything else. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, go further. Not with an unresponsive woman.

  Especially since what he loved most about Clare was her energy—the suppressed passion he felt seething within her that he’d free someday. Meanwhile, he enjoyed peeling layer after layer of the former accountant away to encourage the wild gypsy.

  She lay too damn still. Every one of his muscles clenched before he stood up and began pacing, which wasn’t the good thinking action it was before he’d been crippled. He didn’t have all his braces and special shoes on, so he limped.

  And thought. And, hellwithit. He wasn’t going to wait on Desiree Rickman. They’d spoken to her a week and a half ago; if she’d had a good and certain cure, she’d have been in touch by now. The woman had no qualms about practicing her psychic talent.

  A caw caught his ear and he walked to the French doors, opened them to a cool morning. Stepping out onto the balcony, he scanned the area to see any crows—an indication of his psychic talent, one of foresight. Yep, there the big black bird was, just one, sitting on top of the streetlight on the corner. According to the Counting Crows Rhyme his Scots grandmother had taught him, One for sorrow. Sorrow! No. No sorrow with regard to Clare. No continuing sorrow.

  Since his gift had manifested so strongly, he’d done a little research on the rhyme and all the superstitions surrounding it. He inclined his head to the crow. “Good morning to you, mister or miz crow. I wish you good day.” Greeting the crow courteously was supposed to redirect the sorrow stuff. Another caw and it flew away, and Zach couldn’t tell whether it had been real or not. He’d been known to see crows not really there.

  I saw him, too, Enzo said to Zach’s mind. He looked down to the cold draft against his leg but couldn’t make out the shape of the Lab in the morning light.

  “Was he real?” Zach asked.

  Real enough, said Enzo.

  No damn answer.

  Zach retreated from the balcony and closed the doors, not caring whether Enzo had to go through them or not. Zach had used the minuscule stash of courtesy he had this morning on the crow. Clare hadn’t moved at all.

  That did it. Irritation based in fear spiked, and he said to Enzo, “Call the Other for me, please.”

  In the dimness of the bedroom, Zach saw Enzo cringe. You really want to talk to him, Zach?

  “No, I don’t, but I think I’d better. He knows about spiritual things, and knows about Clare’s wound. It’s time he tells us.”

  Chapter 4

  Zach limped to the sitting room part of the suite and over to the card table set up with an old coffeemaker, pondering the outline of a plan and what image he wanted to project to the Other. A mug of coffee would work as a prop. He poured himself another cup, then went and sat in a big club chair, the one angled so he could see Clare in the bedroom.

  Enzo had followed him and sat in the middle of the room in a patch of wavery sunlight, looking like a gray outline of a ghostly Labrador, though Zach thought he saw worry wrinkles on the dog’s forehead. Zach held out his hand and the dog dragged tail over to him, let Zach push around the cool air near his head and spine that was all Zach could feel.

  I don’t like when the Other comes into my body, Enzo said.

  “Pretty sure no one would like that,” Zach stated.

  You think?

  “I do. Maybe, with a few more cases under our belt, we can see if the Other could, uh, manifest in some other way.”

  Enzo flopped onto Zach’s feet, a weightless hint of cold air. That won’t happen.

  “Why not?”

  Are you ready to talk to the Other? Enzo asked, ignoring Zach’s question. Obviously he’d trespassed into an area the minor spirit couldn’t, or wouldn’t, speak of. He made a note of that—for himself and Clare. He’d have to tell Clare of this conversation and wasn’t looking forward to that, either. Glancing at her, he saw she hadn’t moved. Dammit, they needed help, and he wouldn’t wait when he could act.

  “I’m ready.”

  Nothing happened for a few seconds, then his feet began to feel as if the air had become more substantial, and then the air moved. If he squinted he could probably see the phantom dog better, but he wouldn’t make that effort. Not in his game plan.

  “Hey, Other,” Zach said. The dog’s profile seemed to grow—well, puff out. Zach knew the spirit liked being called “the Other,” but not why. And that sure didn’t matter in this particular discussion.

  I don’t answer to you, man. I am here to observe Clare.

  “So you’ve said before.” Zach stretched out his legs in a casual gesture, took his time before proceeding further, but wasn’t surprised when the greater-status-spirit-than-Enzo remained, didn’t do a fade. So the jerk knew they’d better damn well talk.

  “And, Other, my name’s Zach; you know it and I know you know,” he said mildly. He also planned to direct this whole discussion, thought he had the smarts over the Other to do so. If he read the Other right, now would come a snide remark.

  Your name is Jackson Zachary Slade, but you do not know your whole heritage, the Other said.

  Now that was interesting, a snide remark and some boasting, giving Zach info he didn’t have because the Other was prideful. Zach could work with this.

  “I don’t know much of my father’s people, that’s right,” Zach said carelessly as if it meant nothing. Didn’t mean much, not even where the Native American tint to his skin came from. Except he had a cop’s curiosity and he’d get to the genealogical thing in a few years, especially if he stayed hooked up with Clare. The sharp pang at her lost vitality bit at him and he looked her way. Still sleeping. Crap. He used the emotional pain as an edge to keep him smart.

  He heard the Other make a snort-like sound. Zach scrutinized the phantom like he had a bad guy to interrogate. He leaned on all his decade-plus experience as a cop, ready to listen to his gut, and, all right, extended all his senses to get a handle on the spirit. As he did so, the Labrador frame that the Other and Enzo used came abruptly into focus, more than Zach had seen or, uh, sensed. There were the fog-like eyes Clare had spoken of, but with the Other in charge, they had hard glints floating through them. The dog also sat arrogantly.

  Big flaw.

  And maybe revealing his own concern might get even more juice from the guy. Zach gestured to Clare. “Clare’s hurt.”

  Obviously. She has been hurt for some time and none of you have managed to help her.

  Zach suppressed a flash of anger at the Other’s gloating. He stared at his feet, the left ankle that didn’t flex since his peroneal nerve had been severed due to his last major mistake. He wouldn’t fail in this. He took a gulp of his coffee and followed the plan. “Seems to me all the help you’ve given in this matter of the spectral wound was to tell Clare to look in her great-aunt Sandra’s diaries. The ones you know are not organized at all. Of course, Clare being Clare, she did find the entry, but it wasn’t productive. Clare’s great-aunt didn’t seem to have as deep a wound as Clare does and it healed naturally. Nope, not a great help, and that is as usual for you, Other.”

  I am not required to give her any more than occasional direction.

  The sentence came into Zach’s mind trailing echoes, and, he realized, sounded like a damn lie.

  The last time he and the Other had clashed, with Clare looking on, Zach had made certain deductions, and a threat. The Other, supposedly Clare’s main spirit guide, treated her like crap. Zach had pointed out that if she, and he, and Enzo died while on the Other’s watch, after less than a month of being “helped” by him, the Powers That Be might conclude the Other had done a piss-poor job of helping her. In short, the Other�
��s performance review might be smudged, and he could lose status. Zach couldn’t imagine the status of spirits, but he knew that Enzo ranked lower than the Other, so there must be some sort of grading system.

  He’d pointed that out to the being, and the thing had helped. Zach had also implied that he’d ensure the PTB would know of the Other’s deficiency. A threat he hadn’t been able to carry out then, but now . . . he’d met, or Clare had “met” a certain entity with blue crystalline eyes . . . that she believed was superior to the Other. An entity who had told Clare she’d done well, even as the Other continued to put her down.

  He could use that card, that threat, but he’d prefer to keep it as a hammer for the absolute worst negotiations with the Other. And right now, the thing continued to stay and listen to Zach. If it twitched, vanished, before he got what he wanted, he’d convince Enzo to get Blue Eyes.

  “Maybe,” Zach began smoothly, “when a person is assigned to a spirit guide, like Clare was assigned to you, the first month might be considered a trial run. And maybe if a being such as yourself happens to lose a person under your guidance, well, that’s regarded as tough luck.” His throat tightened with fear or anger and he cleared it. His glance went to Clare, no movement there. “But, you know . . .” Zach kept his emotions from leaching into his tone, screwing with his rhythm. “Clare has been with you over a month now. She’s cleared four major cases successfully. The universe or the Powers That Be have rewarded her well. Once in the tune of a multimillion-dollar item.”

  The Other lifted his upper muzzle lip in a sneer at that.

  “And Clare fought an evil ghost that took out a whole town full of phantoms. Ate every ghost and began to come after the living. She prevailed.”

  With my help, the Other added.

  “With your reluctant, dilatory, and downright sketchy help.”

  What is your point, man?

  Zach wouldn’t correct the entity on his name again. It had occurred to him that he might not want the Other calling his name. If he could yank the spirit into talking to him, could the reciprocal be true?