Midnight Investigation

by Sheryl Lynn

  She disappeared.

  Beside him, Desi explained, “I was so stressed out. I applied to about six colleges and I was totally convinced all of them would reject me. Chocolate chips shouldn’t have set me off, but maybe it was just too much. It’s embarrassing just to think about it.”

  “She’s gone, honey.”

  She twisted and grasped the headrest, searching. “Gone? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She slumped, her chin nearly to her chest. “You would have hated me in high school. I was such a snot. I never did tell her I was sorry. Too self-righteous. Can she hear me? I’m sorry, Grandma. I really am. I love you.” She looked in the mirror and groaned. “Don’t look at me, Buck. I’m a mess.” She brought out a comb and began swiping at her hair with the jerky motions of an agitated cat.

  A stirring in his groin surprised him. Who knew feminine vanity turned him on? It took some mental tugging to bring his thoughts back to the problem at hand. Forgiveness was the key to stopping the Dark Presence. It had to be.

  He watched her grooming, amazed by the number of products she hauled around in that lethal purse. Lotions, potions and powder to smooth, daub and brush over her face with deft, practiced fingers and a prodigious number of different-sized and textured applicators.

  He rubbed a hand over his jaw. Shaving was nothing compared to this.

  “Gwen is part of this,” he said.

  “Why?” Her face was smooth and pale again but her eyes were still swollen. “She’s got nothing to do with Skillihorn.”

  He turned his gaze to the snowfields, looking for Veronica’s grave. The trees seemed to steam as they dropped loads of snow. The answer danced just outside his reach.

  Inside himself, he felt consumed by the need to talk, to unburden his own soul the way Desi had. “I saw a Dark Presence when I was ten,” he said in a low voice. “The first I’d ever seen. It scared me, but it was fascinating, too. The way climbing tall trees or hornet nests are fascinating. You know they’re dangerous, but you can’t stay away.” He shrugged. “At least, it’s that way for ten-year-old boys. I made it notice me.”

  “What happened?”

  “It tried to make me burn down a house.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I still don’t know. It was a meth lab. The meth-heads had a bunch of kids. They were always dirty, hungry. I figure some really nasty things happened in that house.”

  “Did you? Burn down the house?”

  He shook his head. “It forced me through the cornfields, up to the house. I had matches. Then I stepped in a hole and busted my face. It disappeared and I ran. After that when I felt it I’d slap my hands over my ears and sing, really loud. I’d pinch and punch myself.” He chuckled. “No wonder people thought I was weird.”

  “So you beat it,” Desi said.

  The momentary amusement faded. “The meth lab blew up and the house burned down. Four people died, including one of the kids.”

  He could see her processing the story. She was smart. She’d figure out on her own that Dark Presences got what they wanted, one way or another.

  “I stopped contacting spirits after that. Refused to acknowledge them. Refused to give them any indication I could see them. After a while they were like background noise. I almost made myself believe they weren’t real.”

  “What happened? What made you start communicating again?” She rubbed his arm.

  He cursed the compact car. He wanted to hold her, though whether to give comfort or take it he wasn’t certain. “A girl in my freshman English class at Nebraska State. Her brother’s spirit needed to stop her from committing suicide. He’d committed suicide and needed to stop hers. After that, as long as I was really careful, I could help people.”

  Forgive, he mused, turning it over in his mind. He snapped his head about and stared at the graves. “Veronica. We have to summon Veronica.”

  Desi’s mouth dropped open. “No! You saw what he did to her. He cut off her head, Buck! We can’t force her to face him again. You said yourself that spirits are afraid of Dark Presences. What if he sucks her into whatever hell he’s created for himself?”

  Guilt crept through his chest and up his throat. He couldn’t meet Desi’s eyes. “She’s the only one who can forgive him.”

  “She’s had over a hundred years to forgive him. Was she at the Moore house? Did you sense her presence there at all?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then she’s at peace. She’s over on the other side doing whatever it is that spirits do. We can’t drag her back. It’s cruel.”

  “You grandmother—”

  “Maybe she’s wrong! She wasn’t perfect when she was alive. She’s not perfect now.” Desi looked around. “I’m sorry, Grandma, but the truth is the truth.”

  He slumped on the seat, waiting for the knowing. It didn’t come. “We’ll talk to Alec.” He looked at her, studied her beautiful face, unable to bear the idea of never being able to hold her again, to show her how much he loved her. “Maybe she’s talking about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mary showed me Gwen. Maybe you need to forgive Gwen.”

  “For what? I love her.”

  “She needs to forgive you?”

  Desi opened her mouth as if to protest, but the fight drained from her and her gaze turned distant and sad.

  “How old were you when your parents died?”

  Her eyes began looking watery again and he braced for a second flood. “I was six, Gwen was four, almost five.”

  “A car accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident. They were murdered by a drunk driver.” She ripped a tissue from the pack and dabbed at her carefully made-up eyes. “Grandma died three years ago. It was so sudden. We never got to say goodbye.”

  “I think you’re doing what Gwen does but in a different way. Gwen finds haunted objects and you stay pissed off. You’re trying to convince yourself that dead is dead and that’s all there is so maybe the losses won’t hurt so much. Have you two ever talked about your losses? Really talked?”

  “Well, sure! I mean…” She caught her lower lip in her teeth. She turned big, sad, red-rimmed eyes on him. “I guess we haven’t. So what do we do? How will talking to Gwen make Skillihorn go away?”

  He cupped her chin in his hand. She sighed and leaned into his touch. “There’s a lot of power in forgiveness. Gwen must be the fourth for our circle. We combine our power, stand together and we can force Skillihorn to go away.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Here, Desi realized, was the real problem of a lifetime of skeptical thinking. Now that she was face-to-face with Gwen, and she needed desperately to enlist her sister’s help, and her very life depended on trusting the wisdom of her dead grandmother, a huge part of her was going, Huh? Are you nuts?

  Gwen sat behind the service counter sorting through a box of estate jewelry. The obvious junk and broken pieces went in one pile. Those she would sell online for arts and crafts. Designer pieces and antiques went in another. She pressed each and every piece, including broken plastic flowers, against her cheek and closed her eyes, seeking the vibes of residual ghosts.

  Desi looked out the front door of the shop. The streetlights were on. Restaurants and bars lining Tejon street were lit up. In the shadow of Pikes Peak night came early to Colorado Springs. All day solar power had melted the snow, and the gutters now ran like rivers. The temperature was dropping, and any standing water would soon turn to ice. Cars cruised with the creep-and-freeze motion of cats on the prowl, seeking a wily parking spot.

  “Do you have a date?” Gwen asked.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been staring out the door ever since I closed.”

  Alec was coming in tomorrow. Tomorrow they would send Skillihorn to hell.

  Dallas agreed with Buck. Gwen had to be the fourth member of their circle. Desi wanted to throw up.

  “Is he good in bed?”

  “Gwen!”r />
  “Oh come on. If he’s clumsy or stupid, that’s okay. You can train him. It’s the selfish ones you need to dump. No hope for them.” Gwen tapped her chin with a finger. “Nope, can’t see Buck being selfish. He strikes me as the attentive type. Does he look as good naked as I imagine?”

  “Gwendolyn!”

  She flung back her head and her laughter filled the store. “I wish you could see your face! It’s so red I bet it glows in the dark.”

  “My sex life is none of your business. And I don’t appreciate you drooling over Buck like that.” Desi drew her head aside. “Just how many men have you slept with anyway?”

  “You’d be shocked by the number,” Gwen said with a too-innocent smile.

  “You can’t count that high?”

  “Ooh, claws.” Gwen held up a huge, diamond-bright rhinestone brooch and peered through a loupe at the back of it. “I thought so. Eisenberg Sterling. This piece will pay for the entire lot. Very nice.” She turned the brooch back and forth, catching the light and making it sparkle as if it were on fire. “One.”

  Desi scowled at the door, wishing time would hurry. She’d put off Skillihorn forever, if possible, but she ached to see Buck again. All the sex talk centered the ache in her pelvis and increased her anxiety. “One what?”

  “One guy. I’ve slept with just one guy.”

  “Get outta here!”

  “You think you know me so well, Desdemona.” Gwen chuckled, rather evilly. “I love that look on your face.”

  “Who was it? Is it somebody you’re seeing now?”

  Gwen fussed with the box of jewelry, rattling pieces around as if the Hope diamond might be jumbled up in the tangle of old pearls and chains. She said, “Jesse.”

  A wave of sorrow washed through Desi. Major Jesse Van-dell, Gwen’s handsome soldier, the love of her life. They’d been engaged and Grandma had the wedding planned and Gwen had a wedding gown that rivaled Princess Di’s and Desi had been fitted for a silk maid of honor’s dress. Then two weeks before Jesse was supposed to come home from Iraq, his helicopter went down and he died.

  Desi looked beyond her sister to the glass case filled with jewelry and artifacts from the Middle East. A case she never opened for customers. Gwen was searching for her lost Jesse’s soul.

  “Well, shoot,” Gwen said. She spoke lightly, but sorrow’s darkness lurked in her eyes. “A bad reputation is a lot more fun than a goody-goody one.”

  Desi leaned her forearms on the service counter. “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “For thinking I knew you so well. Can you forgive me?”

  “Sure. As long as you give me all the juicy details about Buck.”

  Desi blushed again and ducked her head. “I think I’m in love with him.”

  Gwen flipped a hand. “That’s old news. How is he in the sack?”

  “Gwen!”

  “Oh come on. Five minutes with the two of you and anyone can tell you’re star-crossed lovers. Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guineviere. Well, except for the tragedy part with everybody dying. But you know what I mean. You’re meant for each other. As long he’s not selfish in bed. That would be very disappointing.”

  “If you don’t sleep around, how do you know this stuff?”

  “I read Cosmo.”

  When it came to Buck Walker, selfish wasn’t in the vocabulary. Desi sighed. Grandma said she and Gwen had to forgive each other, and this conversation gave Desi a pretty good idea what needed forgiving. “There’s something I have to show you.”

  “Ooh, this sounds ominous. Want to go grab some dinner?”

  “Later.” She suspected anything she ate right now would come right back up. She went to the back room and sat down at the computer. She pulled up Rampart’s Web site and logged on. Gwen watched over her shoulder.

  Desi pulled up the pages of Tara’s research about the Moore house. She scrolled down to the crime-scene photographs.

  “Eww,” Gwen said. Never taking her eyes off the screen, she pulled up a chair and sat next to Desi. “Is that a body?”

  “Her name was Veronica Skillihorn. This is from 1898. Her husband killed her, then framed the gardener. People called the gardener the Italian monster. They hanged him. Charles Skillihorn got away with two murders.” She scrolled down to the gruesome photograph of Veronica’s head. “He cut off her head.” She hesitated, then blurted, “He’s my stalker.”

  Gwen frowned at her.

  “When we investigated the Moore house I did something really, really stupid. I invited the ghost to come home with me. Now he’s trying to kill me.”

  “A ghost? You?” She looked between Desi and the computer screen.

  Desi told her sister everything about the young ghost and the Dark Presence, the supernatural activity in her house, and being choked first by the ghost and then by Buck, and how it didn’t matter if she stayed out of her house because Skillihorn showed up whenever Buck was around.

  Desi kind of wished Gwen would scoff or laugh or even ask a question. Something about her credulity, though it didn’t surprise her, did unnerve her.

  “There’s more,” Desi said. “Buck is psychic. He can communicate with ghosts.”

  Now Gwen laughed.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “You said psychics are all fakes. Now the love of your life is psychic. That’s kind of funny.”

  Desi crossed her arms, saying nothing.

  “I’m sorry!” Gwen hurried to apologize. “How in the world did he convince you, of all people, that he’s psychic?”

  To Desi’s horror her throat was tightening up and her eyes felt gritty. She didn’t want to cry anymore. She turned her attention back to the screen and the photograph of Veronica Skillihorn. “He’s been talking to Grandma.”

  “Grandma as in our grandma?”

  Desi nodded.

  “I knew it! I knew it was her hanging around. How is she?”

  “Fine, I suppose.” A new kind of jealousy rose. Gwen didn’t bother with cynicism or skepticism. Gwen had the capacity to believe. She could take on faith that which she didn’t understand and never felt compelled to go to war with the universe in order to find the answers. “Buck is the real thing.”

  “I thought there was something kind of otherworldly about him.”

  “Grandma is helping us get rid of Skillihorn.”

  “That’s Grandma, the warrior queen. Remember that guy in the parking lot? The one who left the cart in the handicapped space?”

  Desi did remember. That man had looked seven feet tall and he’d had tattoos and an ugly expression, but Grandma had reamed him for his inconsideration. The man had not only taken his cart to the corral, he’d gathered a few others left by thoughtless shoppers. Desi giggled.

  “Remember,” Gwen said, “when that awful waiter spilled water on me and Grandma made him apologize?” She dissolved into giggles. “Remember how she corrected the grammar and spelling when the school sent letters home begging for votes to raise taxes?” She made a stern, disapproving face. “‘My goodness, how can I expect you to properly educate our children when you insist on putting an apostrophe after its?’” Her imitation of Grandma was spot-on.

  Desi and Gwen both laughed, and within minutes they were hanging onto each other, laughing like loons, until both were breathless.

  When Desi finally got herself under control, she said, “Grandma says I’m supposed to forgive you. Or you’re supposed to forgive me.”

  “Why?”

  “She wasn’t all that clear. Buck says it’s about emotional power. Spirits can draw energy from negative emotions. Anything you want to get off your chest? Anything you need forgiveness for?”

  Gwen waggled a hand toward the computer, indicating she wanted the gory picture gone. Desi minimized the screen. She turned her chair so she and Gwen sat knee to knee.

  Finally Gwen said, “Can you forgive me for telling Ricky Morales you stuffed your bra?”

  Puzzled, dra
wing a blank, Desi cocked her head. “I’ve been wearing a C cup since sixth grade. Why would I stuff my bra? And who’s Ricky Morales?”

  “Oh. Never mind.” Gwen’s cheeks turned pink.

  “No! This is about everything between us. Who’s Ricky?”

  “Junior high. He thought you were cute. He wanted to be your boyfriend. You don’t remember him? Really black hair. Kind of buck-toothed, but adorable?”

  The blank refused to fill. “You told him I stuffed my bra?”

  “If you don’t even remember, what’s the point of asking you to forgive me?”

  Desi shook an admonishing finger. “You aren’t getting off that easy. Why in the world would you say such a mean thing? I was really self-conscious about my boobs.”

  “Ricky liked you.” Gwen toyed with the line of bracelets encircling her wrist. “He didn’t like me. I guess I was jealous. I did a lot of mean things back in junior high and high school. You were always better than me.”

  “You were jealous of me?”

  “You were perfect! Straight As, advanced classes. The teachers loved you. And you were so confident! It was like you didn’t need anybody. You never took crap from anybody. I agonized over people liking me, but you didn’t care.”

  That wasn’t the way Desi remembered high school at all. She’d felt like a freak, a misfit, a total nerd. “I thought you were the perfect one. Beautiful. A zillion friends. You were homecoming and prom queen. And you got good grades, too.”

  “Only because you did my math homework.”

  Desi remembered that. It had made her feel superior. No matter what happened in her life, she could always console herself that at least she wasn’t stupid like Gwen. If she’d made Gwen do her own damned homework maybe Gwen would be able to balance her own damned checkbook.

  “I’m sorry, Gwen. Really, really, really sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For treating you like you’re an idiot. For thinking it. For trying to be strong after Grandma died. Except I wasn’t strong. It was just easier if I treated you like you were pathetic so I didn’t feel so lousy. I’m sorry for being a bully and making fun of you about all the supernatural stuff. I’m sorry about getting in your face about your inheritance. If you wanted to burn every dollar in the middle of Acacia Park, that was your business, not mine. I’m sorry for thinking that if you weren’t just like me that made you wrong.”