Still, he needed a couple of minutes before he went in for lunch. One last good-bye to his favorite cook and waitress, one last meal in the county, and he’d get out of Montana and on with his life.
He opened the car door to the heat, positioned his cane in his left hand, and pushed up. His bad leg was stiff, and despite an orthopedic shoe, his foot still drooped a little. He set his jaw and got out. Turned and saw the sheriff’s vehicle, a Chevy Impala, that he used to drive. Inside were his ex-partner and another deputy. Both stared at him.
TWO
GREAT. A SOUR taste coated Zach’s tongue as he glanced at his ex-partner and the other deputy. Leaning as little as he could on his cane, he pushed his vehicle door shut, then locked it with the fob.
His ex-partner, Lauren, stepped out of the passenger side of the vehicle, followed by another deputy, bigger and beefier and older—Larry—whom Zach had never gotten along with since Zach had taken the job three years ago: personality clash.
Zach straightened and stared unemotionally at the young woman who’d been his partner, who’d made a mistake that he hadn’t corrected. An error that had gotten him wounded and nearly gotten him killed. Lauren was pretty, with blond hair and blue eyes and a round face.
She’d visited him in the hospital, when he was in a wheelchair, during physical therapy—where she didn’t look at his leg. Always came with someone else and always apologized but never saying much of anything else, wanting him to give her benediction or something. The best he’d been able to do was, “We both made a mistake.”
Apparently, she still needed more.
Guess word had gotten around that he was leaving.
Her breathing quickened as she walked up to him. Must have needed to bring along Larry to help her out. Might always need someone else to help her out. A really bad quality in a cop. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m sure you are,” Zach said.
She looked aside. Larry had angled their vehicle near, like they’d be ready to chase if Zach gave them any reason. Acid burned in his gut. Nope, he’d never truly been considered one of them, only an outsider.
Not that he minded being an outsider, but the Montana job, his third as a deputy sheriff, had seemed like a good fit.
Only seemed. None of his previous departments would have treated him like this. He had been a valued colleague, friend, then.
Too bad, so sad, get over it.
“You’re leaving?” Lauren asked.
“So?” he said.
She swallowed, and Larry took over the questioning. Cops were always nosy.
“Where are you going?” Larry asked.
“Look, ass—” Zach stopped himself. Larry was baiting him, would expect cursing, maybe even a swing. Better to mess with his head, to give him little reaction at all. Just that easily, Zach regained his calm. He rolled a shoulder in a contemptuous shrug. “You’re not worth even talking to.” He focused on his previous partner. “And I’m sorry it took you so long to get the guts to talk to me.”
Lauren flushed red.
“You asshole,” Larry said.
“Truthful guy, that’s me,” Zach said. He curled his lip.
Larry crowded him. “Where are you going?”
Zach smiled, with teeth. Because he knew it would make Lauren feel uncomfortable, he said, “None of your damn business, but since you don’t have the fortitude to ignore an itch to know, I’m going to visit my mother in Boulder, Colorado.” Even before he’d joined the department, the deputies he worked with knew his background. Everyone knew his mother was fragile.
Every cop Zach had ever worked with had seen how unsolved murders shattered families.
That had been true of Zach’s. His older brother, Jim, had died in an unexplained drive-by shooting when Zach was twelve and Jim was sixteen.
Now his mother lived in an expensive mental health complex that Zach helped his father pay for, though Zach figured his father, the General, used the funds his mother had inherited.
His mother couldn’t come to see him when he’d been in the hospital, and his father hadn’t. Zach had heard that the General had inquired if the wound was life-threatening, and, later, in the one terse conversation Zach had had with his father, the General had laid out that Zach had done a damn stupid thing, as usual.
“Oh, going to see your mother,” Lauren repeated, shifting her balance. Maybe the reporters were right, maybe she did need better training. Well, he didn’t have to do it, and for that he was grateful.
Larry reached into his pocket and pulled out a toothpick, all the while meeting Zach’s eyes. “Jackson Zachary Slade,” he said, using Zach’s full name before sticking the grungy bit of wood in his mouth where the toothpick attached to his lower lip.
Not again.
Ever since someone had told Larry about the Old West gunman called Jack Slade, Larry-the-asshole had poked Zach about that man, making “witty” comments at Zach’s expense.
“Good that you’re going. Montana isn’t good for Jack Slades, Jackson Zachary Slade.” Larry smirked.
Zach had never wanted to hit him more, but kept his temper reined in, his voice cool. He disliked those who compared him to the gunman. “I guess I learned that; a lot of jerks in Montana.”
He stared at the couple. “At least I won’t be lynched by vigilantes here like that Jack Slade.” He paused a little. “I’m not a drunk, and I believe in justice.”
Lauren paled. Larry’s hands fisted. The whole nasty business that had led to Zach’s wound had been because of a drunk ex-policeman who didn’t want to be charged with a DUI.
But the two before him didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was justice. He’d done his duty and what he thought was right. And a drunk driver who could have killed others, broken other families, was off the streets and sitting in a prison cell.
The August heat seemed to wrap around the three of them until Zach could almost believe he felt heat waves radiating from their bodies, see those waves as pale colors.
A crow cawed and he tensed, seeing four of them on the back fence.
Dread hit him. He didn’t like crows. He’d never forgotten the crow-counting rhyme taught to him by his mother’s mother, a wealthy and superstitious woman. Four for death.
He thought he caught a whiff of rotting. Damn crows.
Time to get Lauren and Larry gone so Zach could move on with his life. He nodded to his ex-partner. “You take care, now.” His voice held an edge of bitterness that slipped out despite him.
“I am sorry,” she said.
Once more he nodded, then watched as she tugged on the deputy’s arm to make him break the stare with Zach. Larry shrugged and turned, adjusting his hat.
They got into their car and drove away.
Zach was glad to see them go, and he forced the black rancor aside once more as he limped into the diner. He ate and managed to be more than polite, sincere, as he said good-bye to the cook and waitress.
A half hour later, under stormy skies and sleeting rain, he’d left the county behind. He’d press on through bad weather and be out of Montana before nightfall.
No, Montana wasn’t good for Jack—or Jackson Zachary—Slades, and he never intended to come back.
DENVER, COLORADO, THE SAME MORNING
I like the way you smell. I’m staying, the figment of her imagination, a “ghost” dog, said. It—he?—sat on the end of her bed.
“No,” Clare Cermak whispered as she slapped a palm down on her buzzing alarm clock. She stared at him in shock. Well, through him. He didn’t have a touch of color.
“This can’t be happening,” she muttered. She was on her third day of denial of ghosts, but that still worked for her. A year might work for her. Forever.
She closed her eyes and scooted under the sheet.
Coldness touched her shoulder, and her eyelids sprang op
en.
The Labrador looked at her with big, dark gray eyes that had been chocolate brown when he was alive. He was too close up and far too personal.
She gulped. “You aren’t—weren’t—even my dog, Enzo.” He’d been her weird great-aunt Sandra’s. Sandra, who said she saw ghosts and helped them “transition.” Who’d recently made her own transition, and had bypassed Clare’s parents and brother and made Clare the sole heir of her estate, leaving Clare a fortune.
Yes, there was family money and trusts, but Sandra had added to it. Who knew pretending to talk to ghosts was so lucrative?
I’m your dog now. Enzo’s tongue lolled as he gave her a too-perky doggie grin. We should play, too.
“I don’t believe this.” She sat up, hardening her heart against his large, dark eyes and wagging tail. Hardening her expression. “I don’t believe in you. In any . . . ghosts.” Though something was wrong with her vision, because she’d begun to “see” gray and white and shadowy and transparent images of people. She’d made a doctor’s appointment for extensive testing.
Now a shadow was “talking” to her in her head.
That’s all right. I believe in you! Enzo’s imaginary tongue shot out and swiped at her face . . . and she felt a clammy touch on her cheek. Enough that she reared back and banged her head on the curved wood of her sleigh bed.
This invasion of the visions right here in her home and her own bedroom was new and unwelcome. Chicago, where her aunt had lived, was one thing. Right here . . . not at all good.
But you hear me, right? Huh, huh? I looove you, Clare. Always liked when you came. You brought treats. Do you have treats here? Enzo bounded off her bed, leaving no sign he’d been there, and whisked straight through her closed and solid bedroom door.
“I’m seeing things,” she said weakly.
The spectral dog loped back into the room, drool dripping. Again Clare stared. The shiny droplets vanished before they hit her rug. Which was weird.
The whole thing was weird.
She’d turned weird.
You have no treats, Enzo said, giving her the big puppy eyes.
“I have no clue what you eat,” she said, talking to an imaginary being—to herself. Despite living alone, she’d never done that. She grabbed a feather pillow and clutched it tight, as if it could be a shield to visions in her own mind.
Breathing fast, she glanced at the tablet computer propped on her bedside table. She was due in the doctor’s office in two hours. Good. She’d try to determine if something was wrong physically, first.
Enzo must be a figment of her recently shattered, uneasy, and all-too-real-feeling dreams.
The imaginary dog hopped back up onto her bed, tilted his head, and wrinkled his forehead in mute begging.
Clare swallowed. She was an accountant, darn it. She loved a logical life . . . but she wasn’t heartless. Even if the thing was only a memory, a figment of her imagination, she couldn’t ignore the big doggie eyes any longer. And touching it would be more proof it didn’t exist. Tentatively she reached out . . .
But as she slid her hands along the dog and into cold mistiness and shifted under the sheet to keep her legs warm, she recalled the other things she’d seen as the cab had driven her home from the airport the day before, and her heart thumped fast.
Outlaws and miners and cowboys had sauntered translucently down the streets. One had actually stopped and tipped his hat at her! She’d seen the arrogant strides of the rich founding businessmen, the swaying rolled-hip stroll of past madams. Not to mention horses.
Now this filmy dog whimpered in bliss, and Clare’s hands got colder and colder, as if she’d plunged them into an ice bath.
Stroke, stroke, stroke, along Enzo’s side . . . He leaned into her. She should stop, but more than her hands were frozen. The thoughts in her head seemed nothing but icy crystals, she was so cold. He rolled over on his back so she could reach his belly. She felt no solid dog, of course, and energy seemed to drain right out of her.
Cold hands, cold crawling up her arms so that her teeth might soon chatter.
Enzo opened his eyes, and for an instant she thought she saw a glint of something more than dog, something older, wiser.
Again she pulled back and tucked her freezing hands into her armpits. “No. You’re not here. You’re definitely not real.”
It is time for the gift to pass to you, and with the riches comes the gift. You must accept and learn. The echoey words weren’t doglike, again held an edge of something else.
Clare shuddered.
Then Enzo blinked and rolled to sit and looked like a goofy pooch again. I will help. It will be fun! I love you and you love me! Thank you for the petting!
Cold, cold, cold, she scrunched down into the bed and pulled the sheet up, staring at the vaporous dog.
I’ll be your sidekick! Enzo grinned and licked her cheek. She noted that his touch didn’t seem as cold as when she’d initiated the contact. Rules. There might be rules in this madness. In seeing ghosts . . .
“No,” she said, denying him. Denying that the thing was even there. Not logical. No and no and no.
THREE
DENVER, COLORADO, THAT NIGHT
A MOANING WOKE Clare and she sat up straight against the curving wood of her headboard.
The figure of a man stood at the end of her bed. In her bedroom! A shadow of shifting grays. From the size of her footboard beside him, she understood he was shorter than average even for the mid-1800s garb that her mind had clothed him in.
His suit and shirt and vest looked to be made of quality materials—good and expensive—and she saw the chain of a pocket watch across his front.
He had no beard or mustache, but his hair seemed darkish and reached his chin. He didn’t appear like a gunslinger or a cowboy, but a businessman. His lowered brows and set mouth showed determination as the illusion stared at her.
I need your help. Each word dripped like cold, small droplets of icy water into her mind. The August night had finally turned tolerable, but she kept her window and ceiling fans rotating at top speed. Tomorrow would be another day in the high nineties.
And the ghost man brought a chill with him, much as Enzo had. Her gaze slid to the bottom of the bed, where the illusionary dog had been “sleeping.” She saw nothing, but a tickle in her mind said Enzo was there.
Again the hallucination spoke, and this time she saw the slight darkness of his lips against his pale, pale skin as his mouth formed the words. I. Need. Your. Help.
“No.” Whispery words spurted from her mouth. She made pushing motions with her hands. “No. Go away.”
Events cycle. It must be soon that you help me. I am trapped. His mouth twisted. Not where I died, but where I lost my sanity and sinned the most. Help me.
Fear dried Clare’s throat so she couldn’t swallow, and she had to raise her voice past the rawness. “No!”
Enzo coalesced into whiteness even as the other faded. The dog lumbered up the bed and snuffled in her ear, whining.
She gave him two pats with trembling hands before she realized she was trying to pet a nonexistent mutt.
He licked her cheek again, and she felt the clamminess and she slid back down and pulled the sheet over her—all the way over her head—then turned on her side and curled up, hoping her quivering would soon still. Enzo poked his muzzle through the sheet and stared at her with wide, dark eyes.
Clare made a strangling sound.
I will protect you! he said mentally, and barked.
He couldn’t protect her from her own mind . . . and, and, another whispering part of the back of her brain that accepted the illogic of night visitations told her that the ghost man wouldn’t consider a dog much of a threat, neither in his current condition nor when he’d been alive.
As the steel bonds of fear loosened around her, she considered the apparition agai
n, realizing that she’d seen a picture, or maybe a drawing, of him before. Her brain had picked an image to hang the illusion on. So he must be featured in one of her books on the history of the American West. She’d loved that time period. Once.
She wasn’t going to look him up. In any way, shape, or form.
But since her physical exam had proved her vision and hearing okay, she’d have to set up an appointment with the top shrink in Denver.
• • •
By the time Clare left to pick up the last box of her things at her old job in downtown Denver the next morning, she’d begun muttering to Enzo as if he might really be there. Talking to herself. Another really bad symptom of the strangeness going on in her life . . . in her mind.
But the figment of Enzo was so damn cheerful, insistent in talking to her, interacting with her—getting those bone-chilling pats when she reached out and touched him—that she could hardly say no.
As she drove downtown, she began seeing shades and shadows of people again. Approaching LoDo, lower downtown, the visions of gray folk around her—in the street ahead of her, crowding around the car, striding on the sidewalks—distracted her so much she wasn’t driving safely.
Especially since Enzo sat in the passenger seat. He commented about the city and talked to the shadows . . . thankfully only she “heard” Enzo. She circled around to the Capitol end of the Sixteenth Street Mall to approach the high-rise that held the accounting firm she’d worked for. Even there, filmy people crowded the area.
With sweat beading along her hairline and down her spine, she pulled into the first parking lot she saw—expensive!—near Civic Center and parked.
Enzo barked excitedly. We are going out! We are walking with other ghosts! Hooray! Sandra stayed at home a lot and the ghosts came to her. She was a professional.
Clare gritted her teeth. Sandra had been a professional crazy person. Then Clare found herself actually answering the dog before she knew it. “Enzo, I am not talking to you when we are out of this car.” Even in the vehicle was iffy since people must have seen her mouth move—but maybe they’d thought she was singing along to music or on a hands-free phone call.
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