Unbound Spirits

by Christine Pope

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Also by Christine Pope

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  UNBOUND SPIRITS

  Copyright © 2019 by Christine Pope

  Published by Dark Valentine Press

  Cover art by Christian Bentulan

  Ebook formatting by Indie Author Services

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press.

  Don’t miss out on any of Christine’s new releases — sign up for her newsletter today!

  Chapter 1

  Michael Covenant stood in the tiny parking lot of the Thunderbird bed-and-breakfast in Tucson, frowning as he watched his sound technician, Susan Loomis, get out of her Subaru Outback.

  Alone.

  Without waiting for her to approach him, he walked over to her car, then demanded, “Where’s Audrey?”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  Alarm lanced through him, although Michael tried to tell himself there were probably a hundred different reasons why Audrey Barrett hadn’t been at Tucson’s small international airport. Chief among those reasons was her current feud with him, but he pushed that concern aside for the moment so he could focus on the problem at hand.

  “Was she on her flight?” he asked.

  Susan shut the driver-side door of the Subaru and nodded. She was tall, bordering on thin, with sandy-blonde hair she always kept pulled back in a simple ponytail. “Yes, she was on the flight, and she also made it through baggage claim without any problems. But after that…?” Her words trailed off, and she shook her head. Although Susan was the sort of person who never seemed to get ruffled by much of anything, had kept recording his and Audrey’s fight with the demons in the Whitcomb mansion’s basement and hadn’t batted an eye, she now looked troubled. “I talked to one of the attendants, just to make sure. He said he remembered Audrey getting off the flight, although she was one of the last to deplane. But since he didn’t follow her into the terminal, he doesn’t know what happened after that.”

  Damn it. Michael knew he should have been the one to pick up Audrey at the airport, despite the frosty relations they currently enjoyed. It had been Colin, their producer on Project Demon Hunters, who’d suggested that Susan run the errand instead, his reasoning being that the show might as well keep the “bickering lovebirds” apart for as long as possible. But Susan, while an eminently sensible person, was not the type to pick up on any strange vibes, or to be able to detect whether Audrey had somehow met with foul play. Michael’s instincts weren’t perfect, either, but they were far more tuned than Susan’s.

  “There’s probably something on the airport’s security cameras, although I don’t know how we’d be able to access the footage,” he said.

  “Not without some kind of warrant,” she agreed. “And I doubt we’d be able to convince anyone at the local police department to issue one.”

  No, probably not. Michael ran a hand through his shaggy hair, then turned and glanced back at the bed-and-breakfast. Its white adobe walls looked serene and spectacularly unhaunted under Tucson’s impossibly blue skies, flowers blooming, the fountain in the courtyard splashing cheerfully away. Although he couldn’t see them, he knew that Colin and Daniela, the show’s hairstylist/makeup artist, were probably settling into their rooms.

  “Can you drive me to the airport?” he asked. “I want to take a look around for myself.”

  Susan sent him a dubious glance. “She wasn’t there, Michael. I double-checked.”

  “I know. I just want to see if I can pick up on anything.”

  Although she still looked skeptical, she nodded. “All right. I suppose it’s possible that she got lost, although Colin told her I was going to pick her up at the Southwest terminal. I had her paged, but that didn’t seem to work, so I wandered around a bit, just to make sure we hadn’t gotten our signals crossed.”

  “Let’s hope that’s all it is.”

  Michael went to the passenger side of Susan’s Subaru, and she got back in the driver’s seat. He didn’t know Tucson at all, and so he refrained from commenting on the length of time it took to get from the bed-and-breakfast to the airport, although the drive felt interminable.

  Once they finally got there, Susan parked in the short-term lot, and they both got out of the car and headed for the terminal that Southwest shared with several other airlines. For a smaller airport, there was plenty of hustle and bustle, although he didn’t see how Audrey could have possibly gotten lost in a place this size. This wasn’t LAX, or even the hub in Phoenix.

  There was certainly no sign of her now, and in a place this busy, it was very difficult for him to pick out any traces of Audrey’s energy among so many others. He thought he caught a single flash of her, wearing a fitted leather jacket and worn jeans, trundling along with a metallic teal rolling suitcase, but maybe he’d just imagined the image, conjuring it out of nowhere because he so desperately wanted to see her.

  Maybe she’d simply turned around and gone home. Michael didn’t want to think she would do something so cowardly as run away, although he was forced to admit that it could be a possibility. She might have gotten off the plane, claimed her suitcase…and decided she couldn’t face another five weeks of filming opposite him. Maybe she’d realized she’d rather fight off a lawsuit than spend any more time with the man whose older brother had murdered her parents.

  As much as he wanted to push that thought aside, Michael knew he couldn’t completely ignore it. He’d really screwed up there, although, to be honest, of all the scenarios he’d tried to imagine where he finally faced Audrey and told her the truth about the connection between his brother Philip and her late parents, none of those scenarios had involved the two of them getting shit-faced drunk and sleeping together after the raucous wrap party that followed the successful conclusion of the first episode of Project Demon Hunters. The morning after, he’d been mostly concerned about how the shift in their relationship would affect their work. Well, that and having to confront the very real fact that he knew he felt something for her that he’d never felt for any other woman.

  So he’d been completely blindsided when she showed him the book she’d found on one of his shelves, a volume with an old bookplate in the front displaying his given name. She’d demanded to know the truth, and he’d had no choice but to give it to her, even as he realized that his honesty would probably destroy any chance of a future together for them.

  “Maybe she took an Uber or something,” he told Susan, even as he realized he was grasping at straws.

  Susan gave him a mystified look. “Why in the world would she do that? It’s not as though I was running late — if anything, I was a little early.”

  Of course she was. Michael had worked with Susan off and on for the past four years, and he couldn’t remember her ever being late for an
ything. Considering how shitty L.A. traffic tended to be, that was a minor miracle in and of itself.

  “Let’s go talk to someone in the Southwest office,” he said. “I know you talked to one of the flight attendants, but it’s possible one of the people actually working the counter saw something.”

  Judging by the way Susan’s lips thinned, she didn’t think that was going to help with anything. But they were here; they might as well try.

  With her following dutifully a few feet behind him, Michael maneuvered through the crowds to the ticket counter, where a man and a woman worked in tandem on the computer kiosks there. There was only one person ahead of him, so at least he wouldn’t have to wait very long to try to get some information.

  When it was their turn, he and Susan stepped up to the counter. The woman they approached — she looked to be around Susan’s age, in her early forties — gave them an expectant look.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Hi,” Michael said, doing his best to put on a winning smile. Whether it worked or not, he wasn’t sure. Smiles didn’t come as naturally to him as frowns. “We were wondering if you might have noticed a friend of ours come through the terminal here. She was supposed to have arrived on Flight 223 from Phoenix, but we can’t seem to find her.”

  “You should check with one of the attendants — ” the woman began, but Michael shook his head.

  “We’ve already done that. He says she was on the flight. We’re trying to find out if anyone here in the terminal saw her after she got off the plane.”

  The woman gave a helpless little shrug. “It’s been busy on and off today, so I don’t know if I would have noticed her or not.”

  “That’s all right,” Michael replied. “She’s twenty-nine, tall, with long brown hair. She might have been wearing a dark blue leather jacket.”

  At that description, the man who’d been typing something into his computer looked up. He was a little younger than his coworker, with sandy hair and close-set eyes. Something about him immediately put Michael on edge, although he couldn’t say precisely what it was.

  “Oh, I noticed her,” the man said.

  Michael could guess why. Audrey would be striking in any setting, but here, among these travelers in their shabby sweats and jeans and general air of exhaustion, she would have stood out like a peacock in a flock of sparrows. “Did you see where she went?”

  “Sure. She came from the baggage claim area” — the man sort of shrugged one shoulder in the direction of the baggage carousel — “and then went out through the doors at the front of the terminal. It looked like she was headed for the short-term parking lot there, but I can’t say for sure.”

  “Thanks,” Michael said. That was exactly where Susan had parked her car, and there hadn’t been any sign of Audrey.

  Still, at least now they had visual confirmation that she’d been here in the terminal, and that she’d gone outside. She hadn’t stopped to rethink her life choices and then turned right back around.

  “Yes, thank you,” Susan said, although it was fairly obvious from her tone that she thought they were back to square one.

  Which, in a way, they were. They went back out to the parking lot, both of them blinking at the bright sun and automatically putting their sunglasses on.

  “Maybe she did take an Uber after all,” Susan remarked.

  Michael couldn’t see why Audrey would have done such a thing, except as a way to tell Colin that she would come and go as she pleased, and not because he’d set something up for her. But no, that didn’t sound like Audrey. If she hadn’t wanted to drive with Susan, she would have told Colin straight out, and she certainly wouldn’t have made her come all the way to the airport and waste her time.

  Susan didn’t exactly shrug, but Michael could tell she was nonplussed. Not quite worried yet, more puzzled than anything else.

  While he, on the other hand, could only feel his own annoyance quickly fading into concern. Yes, it was good to know that Audrey had landed here in Tucson without incident, and that she’d been moving under her own power when she left the terminal, but where the hell could she possibly have gone?

  Voice gentle, Susan said, “Michael, it’s pretty obvious she’s not here. Maybe it’s more that we got our wires crossed — Colin says he told her that I was coming to get her, but it’s possible he wasn’t clear enough, and so Audrey decided to get her own transportation…a cab, an Uber…whatever. For all we know, she’s back at the bed-and-breakfast, waiting for us.”

  That explanation sounded halfway plausible, although you’d think she would have called to let them know where she was. Or called Susan, anyway. Michael guessed it would be a cold day in hell before Audrey called him voluntarily.

  “Well, we’re not doing any good here, that’s for sure,” he said. “We might as well head back. If Audrey’s not there….” He let the words trail off. Because if she didn’t show up, they’d probably have to contact the police. The shoot would be postponed, and Colin would be climbing the walls, especially after having driven seven-plus hours to get here.

  “She’ll be there,” Susan told him, her tone reassuring. Whether she believed what she was saying was an entirely different story.

  They headed toward the space where Susan had left her Subaru. However, they’d only gone a few yards when Michael stopped, his entire body going cold, as if he’d just been pushed into an unheated swimming pool.

  “What is it?” Susan asked, pausing as she looked at him with some concern.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. His teeth wanted to chatter, and he clenched his jaw. “Something dark. Something evil.”

  “Here?” She looked around in bewilderment at the parking lot, at the rows of cars shimmering under the bright sun.

  He could see that sun, but he couldn’t feel its warmth. Even though he felt as if his legs couldn’t move, they were so numb, he somehow managed to force himself to take a step forward, then another one. Slowly, the icy feeling dissipated until it was gone entirely.

  Just to be sure, Michael began to retrace his steps. At once the cold surrounded him again, so tangible, it was like walking into a wall of ice. It seemed to emanate from a single parking space they’d passed. He went to it, and experienced a sharp shock of horror and surprise, gone quickly but still somehow thrumming in his bones.

  Those weren’t his emotions, however. Somehow he knew he was experiencing what Audrey had experienced in this very spot less than an hour earlier.

  “Michael?”

  He turned and looked back at Susan, who stood at the edge of the parking space, her expression a study in confusion. Clearly, she couldn’t feel anything, was only responding to his own reactions.

  “I don’t know where Audrey is,” he said slowly. “But I’m fairly certain she’s in very grave danger.”

  Chapter 2

  Even though Audrey didn’t know what the hell was going on — how a dead man could have gotten into the back seat with her — she knew enough to understand that she needed to get out of the car. Her fingers scrabbled for the door handle; they were still in the parking lot and therefore not moving very quickly, so she figured it would be safe to tuck and roll if she had to, but the door remained stubbornly unresponsive under her reaching fingertips.

  “Oh, the driver made sure those were locked,” Jeffrey Whitcomb said. “You had better put on your seatbelt, Ms. Barrett — it won’t do for you to get injured if we come to a sudden stop.”

  Like she was going to meekly fasten her seatbelt. Instead, she grabbed her purse, thinking she maybe could use her heavy key ring as a tool to smash the back window in, but her companion tore it from her fingers and shoved it away somewhere beneath his feet.

  “Now, now,” he told her. “None of that.”

  Defeated, she slumped against the back of the seat and stared at him. Yes, that was the man she’d seen standing in Michael’s backyard, but he looked subtly different, the shadows gone from under his eyes, his face not quite so gaunt. Younger,
too, as if at least ten years had been erased from his appearance. But then, if he was a ghost, Audrey supposed he could alter his face…couldn’t he?

  “You’re…you’re dead,” she said flatly.

  “Some people think so,” he responded. “Really, Ms. Barrett — I must insist that you fasten your seatbelt.”

  She wrestled the shoulder harness over herself and clicked the buckle. While doing so, she realized that being thus secured made her escape from the vehicle even less likely, but then, with the child locks on the back-seat doors engaged, she probably wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

  “There,” she said. “Now, do you want to tell me how you can be here, sitting in the back of a Lincoln Town Car, when you died almost a hundred years ago?”

  “No, I don’t think I need to tell you that right now,” he replied, demeanor calm and unruffled. “It has no real bearing on why you’re here.”

  She blinked at him. “It doesn’t?”

  “No.” His expression darkened. “I suppose you think yourself very clever to have closed the portal in my basement last week.”

  Arrogant of him to call it “his” basement, when he hadn’t actually owned the house since the early 1920s. But Audrey realized she had better let the comment slide. “It needed to be closed,” she said. “Terrible things were coming through it.”

  “Terrible in your opinion, you mean,” he corrected her. However, he didn’t seem particularly angry, despite the way his black eyes glinted. “They were useful, and now I will have to utilize a different portal, one not as well proven, when that one was very stable and had served me well.”

  Audrey’s head was swimming. Part of her really didn’t want to recognize the fact that she was sitting here in the back seat of a Town Car, talking to a dead man. Of course, he didn’t look very dead. She could see the way his chest rose and fell as he breathed, could detect a faint flush of color along his cheekbones, even though overall he was fairly pale, much paler than most men one might see in Southern California.