“I don’t know. But, she’s definitely wrong about Juanita.”
“She’s making it up,” Peggy said. “I didn’t even believe in ghosts and I was able to see you before I died. Now, we’re standing less than ten feet away from this woman and she is completely unaware.”
“The reporter is eating it up though,” Frank added and we turned our attention back to Heather who had moved closer to Lucinda, like a cat eager to pounce on its prey.
“Does Juanita, or her spirit, know what happened yesterday?”
“Yes, she saved the deputy.”
“And the EMTs?”
“The…who?” Lucinda stammered and tilted her head sideways.
“Some EMT’s were helped yesterday too, but they don’t know how. This happened before any cameras were on the scene. I’m curious if Juanita knows about that?”
“Oh, um, I’ll try to find out.” Lucinda closed her eyes again and started to hum. This happened for some time until suddenly the humming stopped and her eyes popped open. “No, she only helped the policewoman. She doesn’t know about them.”
Frank and Peggy laughed at this statement. “She’s good at bullshitting,” Peggy said.
“Why don’t we do something? Like throw a rock at her,” Bob suggested. “Let her know there is more than one of us.”
“The old girl would probably crap her pants if she knew we actually existed,” Frank said with a grin.
“Hold on, hold on!” Lawrence interjected. “We’ll just create more attention, more chaos and for what end result? We can’t be saved.”
“Maybe we can,” I said. “What if we write in the dirt that we want a priest to come? Maybe a priest will know of some rite to help us.”
Lawrence grew brighter and his eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of that!”
The moment he said those words, Bob thought it was permission and he let a stone fly. It sailed through the air and landed at Heather’s feet.
None of them noticed. They were too distracted by the cameraman’s battery suddenly dying and he had to stop filming. That’s when we discovered a new energy source.
Chapter Fifty-One
ELENA
Two reporters, one I recognized from the local news and each with a cameraman in tow, approached us. We tried to make a run for the car, but they stepped in between us.
“I don’t have a comment!” I blurted out.
“Come on Elena, don’t even talk to them,” Eric said and grabbed my hand.
“Ms. Hernandez, people want to hear it from you. What happened?” A microphone was shoved into my face and I took a step back.
‘Hey, she said no comment.” Eric moved in front of me and pushed the microphone aside. He still held my hand and guided us to a waiting SUV with the brown and gold Yavapai County Sheriff’s logo on its sides while O’Reilly escorted my parents to another vehicle.
“I can take care of myself, Eric,” I said when we were secure inside the vehicle. The tinted windows gave me privacy from the journalists and I let out a slow exhale. Before Eric could respond, I cut him off. “I appreciate your help though. It’s nice to know you still have my back.”
“Yeah, well, I was just following orders.”
The abrasiveness of his tone caught me off guard and I examined him out of the corner of my eye. He stared straight ahead past Thompson and out the windshield. He didn’t even glance in my direction.
“Are you pissed at me or something?” I asked.
“No, not exactly.” He finally turned his head and looked at me. “We need to talk later. Not in front of these guys.” He indicated to our colleagues in the front seats.
“Shit Eric, you and Hernandez don’t hold back when you argue at the station...or at crime scenes,” O’Reilly said.
“I don’t want to argue with her.”
“Oh, I gotcha man,” Charlie said with a wink.
I kicked the back of his seat, but succeeded in only hitting the metal mesh barricade that separated the front seats from the back and he chuckled. “Knock it off O’Reilly. I may have just gotten out of the hospital, but I can still kick your ass.” This comment set him off even more.
Truth is Charlie was such a big guy so his ass was an easy target, but kicking it was another story. I’ve dropped men who weighed two hundred pounds and O’Reilly made them look tiny. He was used to our banter so I could talk smack towards him and not suffer any repercussions. I’ve seen suspects try to resist arrest and wind up on the opposite end of O’Reilly’s fist. The outcome wasn’t pretty and very unsettling. He had more than one assault charge against him, but none of them stuck.
O’Reilly calmed down after a few minutes. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I was asleep before we were on I-17 and heading north.
The slowing of the car woke me up and I stretched. “Are we in Prescott?” I asked.
“No, we’re approaching where the fire was and traffic is backed up.”
I leaned forward and peered out the tinted window. Cars were parked along the side of the interstate, creating a bottleneck. People were milling about like they were in a parking lot, not on a major highway.
We inched past a news van and a white shuttle bus with a navy blue and orange logo that read ‘Christian Church of the Southwest’.
“I saw the news this morning and everyone who had been called in to help hold people back,” I said to Eric.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nuts. The captain called everybody in.” Captain Sanders was Lieutenant Adams’ superior and head of the entire Law Enforcement Services Division for the Sheriff’s Office.
“Wow, but not you guys? I asked.
“Nope. You’re our responsibility today.” He turned to look out the tinted window.
“I had a very interesting visitor at the hospital last night - someone else who has had an unusual experience up here.”
“Really?” He turned to face me. “Who?”
I was getting ready to tell him when something caught my eye. A gap in the crowd revealed a group about fifty feet away from the highway, by a burnt skeleton of a tree. I recognized the news reporter and the man standing near her. It was the guy in the blue and white bowling shirt. I couldn’t believe my luck.
“Stop the car!” I ordered and reached for the door handle before Thompson had a chance to step on the brakes. We were going so slow I didn’t care. The door wouldn’t open. Frustrated I pulled on the handle and pushed with my shoulder against the window. It still didn’t budge.
“Elena, you’re in a squad car, remember?” Eric said.
“Oh, right. Shit,” I laughed at my stupidity. “O’Reilly can you let me out, please?”
“Nope, we have orders that we’re not to stop.”
“Please?”
He didn’t say anything and stared straight ahead out the windshield.
“What if I get Jenn, that cute dispatcher you like, to go on a date with you?” O’Reilly’s big block head turned a little bit in my direction and I knew I had his attention. “She owes me a favor.”
“Done!” O’Reilly was out of the car, moving faster than seemed possible for his size, and my door opened.
“Elena, where are you going?” Eric called after me as I disappeared into the crowd. It didn’t take long for him to catch up and I was winded from my brief sprint.
“The guy who rescued me is here. I saw him,” I explained as we walked.
“Where, who?”
I pointed at the group by the tree. “The camera guy?” Eric asked.
“No, that guy wearing the bowling shirt. He’s standing behind the reporter…Heather whatever her name is.”
Eric slowed to stop and grabbed onto my arm. “Elena, there isn’t anyone there who matches that description.”
“You might not be able to see him, but I can. He’s a ghost.”
Poor Eric’s face went slack and his grip loosened on my arm, so I started walking again. Mariella gave me the insight and explanation I needed. Eric was going to need some more convincing.
/>
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but you yourself said that what you witnessed yesterday couldn’t be explained. Ghosts, Eric, are the only logical answer.”
“Ghosts and logic don’t belong in the same sentence,” he said, catching up to me again.
“Trust me on this, okay?”
He didn’t say anything, which was his standard non-committal response. I was surprised he didn’t try harder to keep me from talking to the ghosts, especially with the media right there. Maybe he was genuinely curious. I know I sure as hell was.
Chapter Fifty-Two
FRANK
I couldn’t believe it. The woman I had found unconscious on the ground, flames licking at the bottoms of her boots, was walking towards us and staring at me. Not through me, but at me. When I scooped her off the ground yesterday, she briefly regained consciousness and her dark eyes fixed on mine just as they were now.
She broke contact and focused on our group circling the reporter. The supposed psychic woman was unable to see us, but this female police officer certainly could.
“Peggy, do you remember her?”
“Of course, Frank. It happened only yesterday.”
Peggy had used the last of her energy to lift the police woman’s shoulder off the ground, enabling me to position my arms underneath her. When I was alive, any strenuous physical effort like that would have resulted in a back injury. Fortunately, I was able to get the woman out of the fire’s way before my energy fizzled out.
When I rejoined Peggy, there wasn’t anyone else to rescue, so we met up with the others at the clearing. They were all faded, the outline of their forms barely detectable in the daylight.
In total, we rescued seven people who had succumbed to smoke or flames. We jumped in out of instinct carried over from when we were alive and we didn’t think about the attention our actions could bring.
***
ELENA
“Excuse me, but who are you?” Heather, the reporter asked me.
“I’m not here to talk to you,” I answered, unable to take my eyes off of the man who rescued me. He couldn’t stop staring at me either.
Heather looked at her cameraman and then the woman standing next to her. “We’re the only one’s here.”
“No you’re not.”
“She must be talking about Juanita,” the other woman interjected. Hearing this name caused me to break eye contact.
“What do you know about Juanita?” I asked, turning to face her.
“I know she rescued you.”
The laugh was out before I could stop it, but then I realized this woman knew who I was.
“And who are you?”
“Lucinda Moonstone. I’m a psychic and you’re the police officer from the news video. I never forget a face,” she said smugly. She held her hand out to me and I shook the clammy, limp offering once before letting go.
“Lucinda, I saw who saved me and it wasn’t Juanita. In fact, a man saved me.”
She seemed surprised and then embarrassed, her ruddy cheeks flushing a deeper red. “He’s standing right there.” I pointed. Lucinda spun around to her right.
“Where?” she asked and looked back at me, her round face twisted up in confusion.
Heather shoved her microphone in between us and the cameraman closed in. The scrutiny of the camera lens, a giant unblinking eye, zeroed in on me and I began to regret my impulsiveness.
At that moment Eric interfered. He must have seen my deer in the headlights expression and I certainly wasn’t able to form a coherent answer with the camera inches from my face.
“Please excuse her, she was just released from the hospital and still isn’t one hundred percent.” Eric grabbed my hand and started to extricate me from the situation.
“Wait, I haven’t thanked him yet,” I whispered forcefully to Eric and tried to pull away.
“You can thank him later, come on,” Eric wouldn’t release me and I couldn’t break free. The cameraman moved around us, capturing our tug of war on tape.
I sought the man out and he was still watching me. “What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Frank. Frank Murphy,” he said, and he grew more visible. I blinked with surprise at the change. He had short, dark brown hair, which was combed back. A bulge from a pack of cigarettes filled out the pocket on his shirt.
“Thanks for saving me Frank, I’ll be back.”
The psychic and reporter huddled together, whispering, occasionally glancing in my direction while the cameraman struggled with replacing the battery pack on his camera, muttering curses under his breath.
“Let’s go Elena,” Eric said through clenched teeth and tugged on my hand again. This time I let him lead me. I had confirmed Frank existed and the news captured the whole crazy scene. It was time to leave before the reporter started asking any more questions. I had already, unintentionally, given her enough footage to feed off of for a while.
We started to walk away and Heather ran after us, as quickly as her high heels in the sand allowed. Her voice bounced with her movement when she called out for us to stop. Eric pressed on, but I did glance over my shoulder. Heather was a few steps behind and her cameraman followed, keeping the camera focused on our retreat.
“Let us through,” Eric ordered the deputy who was guarding the barricade. The deputy quickly grabbed and lifted the end of the orange and white construction barricade. The moment a gap was wide enough for us to pass through, Eric led us to the other side.
“Wait!” Heather yelled again. The crowd began to close in around us, incited by the reporter’s presence. I squeezed Eric’s hand in a Kung-Fu death grip for the closeness of the crowd made it hard to breathe, triggering memories of yesterday’s smoke and flames. He bulldozed his way through the throngs of people and I kept my head down allowing him to lead. Finally the crowd thinned out and I let go of Eric’s hand and walked beside him. O’Reilly was leaning against the SUV, his bulging arms crossed over his broad chest when we approached.
“What the fuck was that all about?” he asked and opened the door for me.
“Oh, just me stirring up shit again,” I winked at him as I slid into the back seat.
“Shit is right. That’s exactly what Adams is going to do when he sees the news later,” Eric said when he got in the car on the other side. He slammed his door for emphasis. “Elena, do you have any idea how crazy you looked?”
“What? There are ghosts out there. Ghosts. One of them saved me and I’m not going to ignore the fact. I know it’s hard to comprehend, but is it really? I mean, people claim to see spirits. It’s not like I’m the first.”
“Wait, what?” O’Reilly turned around in his seat to face us. Thompson shook his head and made a clucking noise with his tongue before turning the key in the ignition. “Hernandez, were you talking to ghosts?” O’Reilly asked.
“Yes I was. I thanked the man who rescued me.”
“Oh man, you’re right Wilcox, Adams is going to shit.”
Thompson started to pull out onto the highway when I glanced out the window and jumped. Frank was standing right on the other side. He was transparent and the movement of the crowd behind him created a weird flickering effect.
“Stop!” I ordered and for the second time that day, Thompson slammed on the brakes.
“What the fuck is it now?” he snapped.
I tried to roll my window down, but, like the door earlier, it didn’t open. “Thompson, can you please roll my window down?”
Once he did, I leaned out, but hissed and pulled my arm back in after it came in contact with the metal window frame, which had been soaking up the scorching sun. Frank moved closer and bent over so he was eye level with me.
“Hello Frank,” I said.
“Hello Officer. I didn’t catch your name?”
“Elena Hernandez.”
“That other woman, the psychic, she can’t see us, but you can.”
“I know. There are a lot of frauds out there. You know you’re ghosts, right?”
/>
Frank nodded. “Can you help us?”
“Help you, how?”
“Who is she talking to?” I heard O’Reilly ask Eric.
“Thompson, step on it!” was his answer. The car jerked forward as tires skidded on sand before finding traction on the asphalt. Hot dust blew in through the open window, obscuring my view of Frank. I coughed and waved the cloud away, but we were already close to a half mile up the highway and Frank was nowhere to be seen.
“What is your problem?” I glared at Eric. “Frank helped me and he was asking me to help him. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Who’s Frank?”
“The ghost who rescued me.”
“You do realize you were talking to nothing and looked absolutely crazy.”
“None of you could see Frank? He was right outside the car.”
“Nope, nada, nothing,” O’Reilly said. “Are you sure you should have been discharged from the hospital?” I smacked the mesh behind his head rest.
The rest of the drive was silent. Eric had a bad habit of calling me, or my actions, crazy. He was all adoring and concerned in the hospital. How quick he was to revert back to his usual self. I gazed out the window at the passing landscape of scorched earth and charred plant life, which faded into a patchwork of dust brown and green cow pastures the closer we got to Prescott. Maybe my decision to march in front of a news camera wasn’t the best move, but as a police officer, my instinct to solve the unknown was strong and I had been close to getting some answers.
Chapter Fifty-Three
We pulled into my apartment complex parking lot and I busied myself with getting my few belongings together. We stopped in front of the two story stucco building where I lived. O’Reilly opened the door for me and I stepped out. The sun warmed my skin, which was chilled from the car’s air conditioning. Eric slid across the seat and got out behind me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making sure you’re not going to hop in your car and go back.”
End of the Road (Ghost Stories Trilogy #1) Page 21