by Ursula Bauer
“Both couples insist Jen was alive and in the den the last time she was seen.”
There were few notes on her page and even less in the way of psychic connection. Her impressions had been plenty, but they were scattered. Nothing linked substantially. It rarely did at first. She shouldn’t be disappointed. In comparison to most cases, she was running hot. Emma decided to pursue another nagging line of thought. “Holloway Lodge was a family compound since the founding brothers first holed up here several generations back. Why’d you end up with it?”
Sam didn’t look uncomfortable with the sudden turn. In fact he looked defiant. “A while back, without me knowing, Keith put me in the will to get first crack at the place if he died. He knew I loved it since I was a kid. If he died, I was to be offered the place at fair market value. He even had an agreed upon appraiser named in the will. If I didn’t want it, the Lodge would go to his brother Wesley.”
“But he made you buy it, he didn’t will it to you free and clear. Why?”
“I’d never go for the free ride on the lodge. I’m worth almost as much as Keith. Half his first game company belonged to me. I don’t need a hand out.”
Emma resisted the urge to scribble down pride. Pride made a man hard sometimes. And vulnerable. Keith knew exactly what to do to lure Sam into his world so that even after his death, the mission to find Jen’s killer was carried on. She was impressed. He was a skillful manipulator, doing it now even from the grave. She wondered if Sam realized his best friend had used Sam’s pride and superhero complex to gain his own ends.
“The prominent Doctor Vaughn was cut out of the picture,” she said, moving on. Doctor Wesley Vaughn, the younger brother, was a psychiatrist to the rich and famous. According to her quick research he was as moneyed as his brother Keith, and more discrete than an international spy.
What motive would a filthy rich and very well respected physician have to kill his brother’s wife? Jealousy? Money? Emma had learned early on that for some people no matter how much money they had, it was never enough. He could have killed her and stolen the necklace, then found a way to move the stones. Keith may have searched, but there were a lot of rocks to overturn and he couldn’t have hit them all. “Who got what you paid for the Lodge?”
“It went to the estate, and ultimately Wesley. Compensation for not getting the Lodge I suppose.”
Emma scribbled a few dollar signs next to Wesley Vaughn. The money angle might still play out, but it didn’t sit right. Thinking about the necklace stirred up something but it was too intangible. The other information didn’t trigger any great psychic revelations. When they went through with the personal interviews more information would surface. If not, she’d turn to her tarot cards and other means.
A sad look came over Sam’s handsome face as he moved on to Audrey Vaughn’s picture. “Audrey was always fragile. She’d lost a baby a month earlier. Jen’s death broke her. She crawled into a medicated haze and never came out again.”
The shrink’s wife was over medicated and miscarried? She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain of losing a child. Did it play into what happened that night? Bad relationships often led to bad outcomes for those involved and those closest to ground zero.
Emma made a few notes and drew a line across the page. “Jen and Keith had reciprocal wills, I take it? All her assets go to her husband if she pre-deceases him, right?”
“Exactly.” Sam folded his arms and frowned. “I know where you’re going with this, Emma. Keith was richer than King Midas. Jen wasn’t born with a silver spoon. Grew up in foster care, and married into his money. She had nothing of her own to leave to him, and no relatives to worry about.”
“I’m not picking up anything on that line, Sam. Don’t worry. What about suicide?”
He scowled. “Not likely.”
“If she was using drugs, possible.”
“Possible,” he conceded. But it was obvious he didn’t like the idea too much. She didn’t either, but wasn’t ready to take it off the list.
“How about the security? Were there tapes, footage, anything like that?”
“The storms had caused a few power surges that blew the camera system during the week. They were waiting for a repair guy to come Monday. Everything was off line.”
“And if it was robbery? Pure and simple? Who then becomes a suspect?”
“Everyone in the world.”
“But you don’t believe it was an outside job.”
“I don’t know what to believe.” He looked to the board like an enemy he needed to beat. “I can’t accept five rational adults saw nothing, heard nothing, and did nothing, on the night she died.”
“Someone, and probably more than one someone, is lying. I don’t need a ghost to point that fact out. Neither do you.”
“If people are lying, and the case is cold and without evidence, the only way to break it wide open in an ‘admissible in court’ fashion is to get the liars to compromise or confess. That won’t be easy.”
A dark thought hit her: maybe he’d brought her here for her ability to find truth, and was using the ghosts and psychic thing as a cover. Takes a con to break a con, her father always said. And Dad was never wrong about things concerning lies. She knew she shouldn’t jump to conclusions, she should give the guy the benefit of the doubt. But old habits die hard. Rather than fall into a funk, she decided to back burner her suspicion and give Sam a chance.
“All it takes is one really good psychic lead.” She took a second and scanned her scribbles. “I don’t have anything definitive, but I plan on doing Tarot readings later on the key players as a start, and branch out from there. I have some other techniques I can try if we strike out there.”
Emma stayed perched on the edge of the overstuffed cushion. She wanted to get closer, maybe touch the pictures, but she didn’t want to risk more contact with Sam. He’d sent her into overdrive, and she needed to be calm if she was going to pick up lingering energy surrounding this chaotic mess of facts and, most likely, pack of lies. Sam was right about one thing: this wouldn’t be easy. “I see why everyone thinks the case is nothing but dead ends.”
He crossed to the sofa and sat down heavily beside her, brooding, as he considered her pronouncement. “I’d say it’s the perfect crime, except I don’t believe in perfect. Every killer makes a mistake, it’s up to us to find it. How about you? Picking anything else up?”
She was swamped with every nuance, his heat, his spicy male scent, the way he owned the space around him. Her focus went to hell in an instant. She needed distance if she was going to get anything. She all but scurried to the board, glad to escape his nearness.
“I’m primarily an energy reader. I sense currents mainly from objects, or ambient energy that remains in a geographic area. Sort of like finding a psychic fingerprint. I also use tarot cards to stimulate intuitive leaps.” She faced the information arrayed on the surface of the white board, the ‘facts’ as Sam probably called them. What truths sat buried beneath lies? What truths served to misdirect? “Some psychics can get information from touching photographs of people or places. I’m normally not so good with that form of psychometry, but I’ll give it a shot.”
Emma touched the caretaker’s photo with her left hand, grazing her fingertips across the glossy surface. Cold laced through her skin, into her blood. Startled, she pulled back, and a firm impression lodged in her mind.
“I think he’s dead. A long time dead, too. If I can touch something more substantial of his, maybe something made of metal, I might get a better read.”
“That would explain his disappearance. There’s nothing left of his personally, but he stayed in the caretaker cottage. We can check that out. Would it work?”
“It might.” Sam surprised her, buying into her announcement without argument. When she’d reported this kind of thing to cops on some of the cold cases, it was met with an expected heavy dose of skepticism, and often, outright insults, despite the fact that when proof emerged, she was always vindi
cated. Those experiences always made her doubt herself, made her feel wanting in some way. Her desire to be accepted surged strong, bringing with it all her old insecurities. It was infuriating. She’d thought she was over that silliness. She didn’t need someone else’s approval to be who she was but at the same time she couldn’t stop the desire to be taken on her word without question or insult. “I could be wrong, Sam.”
“We all could. When I’m into a case, I try not to censure myself or anyone else. Killers don’t normally operate in a box. Hunters shouldn’t either.”
“Hunters?” The curious phrase had her turning to face him. “Is that what we are?”
“You disagree?”
“No. I never thought about it quite that way.” So the white knight had a predator inside. Sam Tyler had layers. Dangerous layers. She touched the other pictures, but picked up nothing until she reached for Jen.
Heat seared through her fingers, arcing up into her arm. Acrid scents of charred wood and smoke choked her. With the smoke came an oily and pungent stench like rotten gasoline. Frightened by the force of the connection, she pulled away. The moment contact broke, she started coughing and gasping for air. Her throat constricted and panic set in. Sam was beside her in an instant.
“Breathe, Emma, that’s right. Slow it down. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.” His strong arms wrapped her in a warm embrace and held her fast as her legs gave way. “Come on, honey, breathe with me. That’s it. Real slow.”
She followed his lead, struggling for each breath. Finally, she found a balance and the panic eased. Next thing she knew, she was back on the sofa with a very concerned Sam holding her fast with equal measures of protection and possession.
“What happened?” More demand than question.
She blinked a few times to clear her vision. “Fire. So hot. I couldn’t breathe. The smoke.” A terrifying understanding lodged itself in her conscious mind. “Sam, she was alive when the guest lodge burned. She was alive, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t escape. I don’t know why, don’t know what happened to incapacitate her, but I know that her killer covered her with fuel along with the rest of the room and burned her alive.”
She swallowed hard, her throat still raw. This contact was unlike any other she’d experienced. The power was unreal. If a spirit had sent these impressions to her with such visceral force, what else might they be capable of doing to the living? She’d heard tales from ghost hunters about spirits responsible for causing heart attacks in the living, or using energy like electricity to trigger fatal fires. She recalled the earlier issues with the kitchen lights, and shivered.
The gruesome crime made her skin crawl and the implications of what had happened terrified her. Only the safety of Sam’s strength held her fear at bay. Emma relaxed into him, taking advantage of what he offered. It was a more dangerous connection than her earlier desire. She knew she shouldn’t let up her guard. But she needed him, and he was there. Right now that was the only thing that mattered.
“The intensity of the connection, Sam. It’s dangerous. I think it means Jen’s still with us. If the spirit had moved on from the site, I’d get the connection, but not as potent.”
Sam’s mouth tightened into a thin line as he digested the information. “What are you telling me?”
“Finding a murderer may not be our only problem. The ghost of Jennifer Vaughn is here, and she’s just as dangerous.”
Chapter Three
Dangerous ghosts? How the hell was he supposed to keep her safe from dangerous ghosts? Up until a few weeks ago he didn’t even believe in ghosts. Silently he cursed. Everything had seemed so straight forward, and then she’d arrived. Thrown it all into a tail spin.
Emma was small, and fit perfectly in his arms. Holding her close brought out fierce protective urges that made him want to rip the house apart beam by beam until he found the thing that had tried to harm her, and beat it into submission. Except he wasn’t sure how you did that to a ghost. And he didn’t want to let her go. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Do we need to fight this thing?”
“We can’t. Jen’s made her presence known. We’ll want to follow her lead. See what she has to show us. Try not to tweak her. Spirits don’t have the normal social and psychological boundaries, or capacity for rational thought. That much I know, which is why one with power and rage can be dangerous to the living.”
“We don’t do this if following her lead means more of the same for you. It’s too big a risk. I’ll call this whole thing off and level the property before I put you in harm’s way.” The raw emotion behind his words surprised him.
“You gave your oath to Keith. If he’s here too, and you decide to back out, you’re going to have serious trouble on your hands. Maybe even blood.”
Great. This couldn’t be easy, could it? No one else had made these kinds of warnings and predictions. Then again, no one but Emma had managed to pierce the barrier and brush up against the dead. He hated not knowing what to do. Hated feeling powerless. He closed his eyes, counted to ten. Took a deep breath. “What’s our next step?”
“Whatever we planned next. Now that we know she’s here, we know what to watch for. I know to be more careful.”
Cool air rushed between them as Emma eased back. He adjusted, following her lead. He did not, however, remove his arm from her shoulders. Touching her kept them connected. He reasoned that if he stayed connected, he’d keep her safe. “Eric didn’t warn me things would go down this way.”
“You never know how the game will play out. Mostly contact is light and ephemeral. Sometimes you get a lingering headache. Off and on, you connect with the victim and get a shadow experience, a second hand walk through of what happened to them. That’s bad. Real bad.”
She sighed, rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It’s not the worst part of working a cold murder case, though. The worst part is handling the disappointment and anger of the families when you don’t connect. On average you don’t connect way more times than you do. To see the last shreds of hope torn away, there’s nothing like it on earth. Those faces stay with you and haunt your dreams.”
“It was like that when we told the victim’s families for the first time, and then, twice as bad when they’d go to the morgue. Make the final identification. I know where you’re coming from.” Never, in a million years, had he thought someone like her, a psychic, went through the same hell as a cop. The revelation was humbling. “Eric said you hate these cases. Mostly he blamed the police.”
“The one-two punch. You go in wanting to help. Maybe family called you in. Maybe a lone cop, desperate enough to grasp at straws. You’re treated like a two bit hustler. And when you can’t produce, the smug superiority of the cops, and the desolation of the family make you want to dig a deep hole, crawl in and pull it shut around you.”
He’d faced down the derision of fellow officers. He knew how tight that thin blue line held together, and how brutal they were to outcasts. “When word first hit my precinct I’d outed fellow officers, even though these guys were a black stain on the badge and had killed more than a few good cops along the way, they turned a unified back. I was nothing. Worse than nothing. A rat.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I know. But I gave up everything that mattered to do it, and I didn’t realize what kind of price I’d pay afterwards. Most places, you bring in the bad guys you’re a hero. But your buddies, they wonder, why didn’t you keep this in the family? Give us a chance to fix it ourselves? You broke ranks so you’re damaged goods. Internal Affairs tries their hand at recruiting you, but even a rat doesn’t like to work with one.”
Where had those words come from? Deep, he guessed. He’d thought them a million times, but never spoken them to a soul. He remembered how often these thoughts plagued him afterwards, when he went through his ‘I hate people’ phase and buried himself into working out his issues through his computer and programming. It had made him a rich man a second time in his life, like the g
ame company he’d formed with Keith back in college. It had liberated and healed him as well. But he never managed to completely erase the stain of personal failure he’d felt, even though he knew what he did was right.
“Would you do it again?”
“In a heartbeat,” he said without hesitation. “You pegged me earlier. Once a cop, always a cop. I couldn’t join a police force anywhere, since reputation travels, so I made my own. This way I can still keep outing the bad guys.”
“You have an over developed hero complex, Sam,” she said, a little mischief in her eyes.
“What’d you call me—white knight? Maybe I am some days.” If she knew the whole truth, including what he’d done to Angela, she might think otherwise. For once, he decided to forget the details, forget the plan for the future, and live in the moment. “Does it matter to you?”
“What girl doesn’t like a hero?”
As answers went, it was evasive. She did that, shift and slide like sand, easing out of corners. He didn’t want to push his luck. The horror and fear were gone. He had her beside him, thought he could keep her safe. It was enough for now. “I’ll remember that. Might come in handy.”
“You’d use my words against me?” she teased. “Not very heroic.”
“I promise you’d enjoy it.”
Emma’s breath caught. Proof she was thinking of the possibilities, same as him. “I believe you.”
“I’m not into lying.”
When she turned, the curve of her breast feathered against him and he all but lost it right there. “It’s been a long night.”
The longest in his recollection. Judging by the tight hitch in his pants, it was only going to get longer. Probably involve a cold shower. Maybe two.
“It’s almost midnight. We should call it here, pick back up in the morning.” He wanted anything but, however, her eyes were tired, it really had been a long day, and they’d both benefit from a strategic retreat. “You think you’ll be safe? I’m next door. All you need to do is yell. I’ll be there in a second. If you want, I can crash on the couch in the suite.”