Ghost Seer

by Robin D. Owens

  Enzo grumbled but didn’t vanish as she was hoping he would when she stepped out of the car into the searing August heat. He kept a running commentary as she took the shuttle to her former place of business.

  She’d given her notice as soon as she realized she didn’t need the money from a job anymore, and someone else would. She’d spent time handing off her accounts, and today was just to pick up the last of her belongings.

  Fear hopped along her nerves; her neck muscles had tightened into a rigid column, since she didn’t turn her head, trying not to see Enzo and the other specters strolling along the sidewalk. Not ghosts. No. Ghosts simply weren’t real.

  Lately she’d spent too much time in Sandra’s house, handling her great-aunt’s New Age objects, glancing through her “business” papers. Yes, Sandra had made “seeing” ghosts pay very well . . . and embraced the whole psychic lifestyle along with burnt-velvet flowing caftans. With fringe.

  Clare had packed those off to her sister-in-law, who might wear them for fun, or at a country club costume party.

  As Clare left her old office with a medium-sized box of personal items, she fought back tears. She’d loved her job and liked the people she’d worked with.

  The words that echoed in her head as she walked back to her car were from one of the partners. “We’ll miss you. You made a real contribution to this firm.”

  That’s what she always had wanted to do, always needed to do: to contribute to the community and to society. Not live off a trust fund like her parents, flitting around the world at whim, involved with no one but themselves.

  She’d been happy being an accountant, really. So, maybe she’d gotten into a rut, but she’d liked that rut, even though now it seemed as if it had risen around her and blocked out all other possibilities in life.

  But it had been secure. And growing up in a flaky family like hers, she’d needed secure.

  Walking back to the car in her suit had her strained and dripping.

  I like this city very much, Enzo said, sniffing lustily and wagging the whole lower half of his body as a ghostly businessman petted him. Clare cut her gaze away.

  That ghost appeared vaguely familiar and wore expensive clothes. Her mind no doubt summoned the image of a mover and shaker in early Denver, since she was near the Capitol.

  She hesitated, eyeing his clothing—later in style, she thought, than the vision she’d seen the night before. The ghost man she didn’t want to think about.

  This one does not need your help, Enzo said, leaning against her a little. He brought cool relief.

  The man smiled, shook his head, and said, The timing is wrong for me.

  Clare jerked at the deep masculine voice resounding in her mind that ramped up her anxiety at the visions. She started walking again.

  He raised a dark brow and fell into step with her. You don’t know much about us, do you?

  Juggling the box and her purse, Clare grabbed her cell from the outside pocket of her bag, checked a text. Yes! Her new psychologist had a free hour and was only a couple of blocks away.

  It is not polite to ignore us, young lady, the imaginary guy said, then repeated, You don’t know much about us.

  Addressing the phone, ignoring the prickles on her skin that announced strange-stuff-happening, she muttered, “No. And I don’t want to learn.”

  She could have sworn she saw amusement on the pale face.

  I hope to see you later.

  Not if she could help it. She disregarded the gray illusions, stuck her box in the car, and hurried away—not nearly as hot now. This had been a real mistake. She should have damn well hired a car and driver.

  Enzo passed through her as he barked and greeted a transparent woman. Clare flinched. The ghost dog ran off to chase real squirrels in Civic Center Park. They squealed and skittered away from him, and Enzo’s barks echoed eerily and triumphantly through the hot yellow summer sunshine.

  She also ignored the huge and beautiful Denver Public Library, which had a special section on Western history. She was sure she’d find the guy who’d visited her in there, if she bothered.

  And as she walked, nearly ran, filmy people gathered around her as if she were a magnet.

  Terrible.

  Panting, she entered the building where the psychologist’s office was, and a few minutes later, the office itself, a pale, sterile place.

  After her appointment, she stomped away. She didn’t like the office. She didn’t like Dr. Barclay. She really didn’t like his questions and had crossed her arms and couldn’t open up to him, even as he donned a soothing manner.

  She’d paid an outrageous amount for nothing.

  And despairingly made another appointment for a couple of days later.

  When she and Enzo returned to her hot little starter house, she took one look at the pile of paper on the dining room table pertaining to Aunt Sandra’s estate and walked right past it.

  For the first time since she’d been an adult, she didn’t buckle down and do her duty. Instead she collapsed on the bed with a headache. She hadn’t gotten all the results in from her physical yet. Maybe she had a brain tumor. That would be easier to deal with.

  Maybe the ghosts would leave her alone.

  Enzo hopped onto her bed, settled at the end, and said, We have to help the man who comes at night before those we met today. It’s his time.

  Clare was afraid to ask what that meant. She pulled a pillow over her face and curled up, hoping everything would go away.

  BOULDER, COLORADO

  Zach rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension after visiting his mother in the way-too-serene mental health facility.

  He couldn’t get out of the place soon enough. The smells reminded him all too closely of the hospital he’d just been released from. Hell, all of his muscles were tense.

  Before . . . before, he’d have hit the gym a few blocks away and worked out the anger and pity and guilt. But though the shooting had made news in Montana, he didn’t think it would have traveled down here two states away. He wasn’t in any sort of emotional shape to explain his disability to others who’d only pity him.

  He’d spent an agonizing two hours with his mother, sitting with her, taking a small walk around the grounds. She’d retreated to a time before his brother Jim had died and didn’t seem to know Zach.

  A lovely, sparkling woman who broke his heart. At least he’d aged enough that she didn’t call him “James” and ask him to take her away from the place. No, she didn’t think he was his brother anymore. Thankfully, his features were a combination of hers and the General’s, so she didn’t believe he was his father. She’d come to accept he was her younger son.

  The visit had been as wrenching as ever. None of them would get over Jim’s senseless death.

  Time to tuck that away again, get back on the road. His father’s family home was here, but neither the General nor Zach could handle the New Age ambiance of Boulder, so the place was rented out to a prof who taught at the university. The Slades did better in the more conservative Colorado Springs.

  And he wasn’t going all the way into Denver, even though his mind played with the idea of giving that private investigator his former boss had mentioned a call. What kind of justice or closure could be found from someone you paid?

  Zach’s lip curled. And the thought chomped hard that he might not even be adequate for a PI job.

  He left rubber on the street as he got out of Boulder.

  DENVER, THAT AFTERNOON

  Clare’s teleconferencing program on her laptop rang with an insistent, asymmetrical buzzing beat that got her groggily out of bed. She staggered to the little back bedroom and opened the top of her computer, saw the icon of her brother, Tucker. He was taking care of closing up Aunt Sandra’s house, dividing up the furniture and shipping it off to three places.

  No way was she letting he
r handsome big brother see her all pale and sleep-wrinkly. She zoomed to the bathroom sink and scrubbed her face with tepid water, letting it run over her hair well enough for him to think she’d just gotten out of the shower instead of having a midday nap.

  Hurrying back to her small office, she hit the icon. “Hi, Tuck—”

  “Hey, Auntie Clare!” Dora, nine years old, grinned out at Clare.

  “Hi, Dora.”

  “Dad wants to talk to you. He’s here somewhere.” Dora glanced around.

  “How’s it going?” Clare asked.

  “Good.” Dora’s expression turned serious. “It’s an a-mazing house. We’re sad and missing weird G.G. Aunt Sandra, but it’s good to see the house one last time.” For an instant Clare strained to look beyond Dora to the house itself.

  The house was the one thing Tucker had asked to help out with the estate, and Clare had taken him up on the offer.

  Dora hefted a sigh. “I’ll miss it.”

  “Hey, pumpkin.” Tucker swept his daughter up in his arms, hooked his ankle around a chair and slid it over, and sat. “Hey, Clare.”

  “Hi, Tucker.”

  Stroking Dora’s head, Tucker said, “I know that the estate and house are yours since you didn’t take any payout from G.G. Uncle Amos’s trust, but is there any way we can keep it?”

  Clare tried to keep her clenched jaw from showing. She’d sold the house, had a contract and a closing, and would take a substantial penalty for withdrawing. “Sure, we can keep it. I can deed it over to you.”

  Tucker’s mouth turned down. “Not the folks?”

  “Sure, if I knew they’d take care of it.” They wouldn’t. Tucker was ten times the father her own was, and Beth, Tucker’s wife, was a great mother. Dora was growing up knowing she was the center of their lives, and very loved.

  Smiling with a hint of teeth, Clare said, “You get Mom and Dad to give me a call today or tomorrow and I’ll cancel the contract. Where are they now? I haven’t heard from them in a year.” They sure hadn’t come to Great-Aunt Sandra’s memorial, months ago. Too busy playing on the coast of Italy, or maybe France, or perhaps in the Greek islands.

  Tucker’s square face took on color. “I haven’t heard from them, either.”

  “Where are you sending their portion of the furniture?”

  A sigh from her brother, and then he said, “I’ve been dealing with Terrence, G.G. Uncle Amos’s trust’s attorney. He’s found a storage unit in White Plains, New York, for the parents’ share of the furniture, and his office will handle the transfer on their end.”

  “Has he heard from our parents?” Clare asked softly.

  “No.”

  Dora looked at Clare with owlish eyes. “Jal and Viva are in the wind again. They sent me a present for my birthday, though.”

  She saw the lie of that in Tucker’s eyes. He covered for the parents when Clare wouldn’t.

  “Tucker, if you want the house, it’s yours,” Clare said.

  “I like the house,” Dora said. “But I like our home in Williamsburg better!”

  Tucker eased. “That’s good, baby.”

  Clare said, “We sold it to a nice family, Tuck.”

  His smile curved. “Kids?”

  “Four.”

  “They’ll love this place,” Dora enthused.

  Enzo barked. Yes, they will! Children always loved Sandra’s and my home!

  Clare turned her head sharply to look at the ghost dog.

  “Clare?” asked Tucker.

  She blinked and rubbed her right ear. “I’m here.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

  “Maybe overdoing it a little working on the estate,” she mumbled.

  “Well, that’s mostly done, and I’ll handle the work here.” He squeezed his daughter. “I feel better knowing there’s a family moving in, don’t you, kiddo?”

  Dora nodded. “For sure.”

  Everything’s good! Sandra would like them.

  Clare hadn’t thought that Enzo had even met them, and didn’t want to ask.

  “I love you, Auntie Clare.” Dora puckered and made a loud smooching sound. At least it wasn’t “weird Aunt Clare” . . . yet.

  “I love you, too, Dora, and Tuck.”

  “Love ya, sis.” Tucker winked. “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  BYE! Enzo shouted. Dora frowned a little before Tuck closed the program.

  Clare sagged in her seat.

  • • •

  Enzo barked in the middle of the night; a wave of chill air yanked Clare from sleep. She blinked, and her hand went out toward the dog, fingers turned frigid.

  You must help me!

  The apparition was back.

  FOUR

  ONCE AGAIN THE gray and black and white and transparent man stood at the end of her bed. You’ve got to get it. YOU’VE GOT TO GET IT!

  Panting with cold and fear, Clare huddled against the headboard and drew up the comforter. She should add a blanket . . . in the hottest August on record. Yes, something was wrong. She should be grateful that this illusion didn’t move close to her and try to interact with her the way the dog did.

  He looked a little different, a little rougher. Was he fraying around the edges? What did that mean?

  You must get it. The one I put in a box. Get it first. His lips twisted as he looked down at himself. Then we will work to find the one I misplaced.

  Again his stubborn chin lifted and she felt the cold pressure of an intense gaze—or thought she did.

  This is the right time. You are the right person. Things are falling into place. It’s HERE, and finally the time is right and I may be able to go on, if you help me. She didn’t like the desperate plea in the glittering rounds that might be eyes. Maybe this was a dream.

  She stared hard, trying to catalog every detail of this vision, and she found darker spots in him. Without thought, she said, “What are those?”

  He glanced down again. Buckshot, a couple of bullets.

  “You died of gunshot wounds?”

  His lips compressed into a line. No. They were just still in me. The words continued to come to her mind and she shuddered. Please. He stretched out a pale hand. I did wrong, I admit it. I was a bad and mean drunk, I admit that, too. But I’ve been here more than a century and a half and don’t deserve to stay so long! His expression changed to despairing. Away from my beautiful wife. She isn’t with me. I can’t find her. Help me, please.

  Enzo yipped and whined, turning large, pleading eyes on Clare.

  She cracked . . . mind, heart, something. Sloughed off a piece of her that might deal with this insanity . . . just for now. The psychologist could help her put herself together, eventually, when she trusted him more . . . but for now . . . Wetting dry and cold lips, she whispered, “What do you need?”

  I have found the box, a box my wife had that I used. Get it for me, please, I beg of you. That is the first step in freeing my tormented soul.

  He should have sounded melodramatic, but the emotions she thought she felt rushing from him were so sad, too sad. She swallowed.

  We can go now, the manlike vision . . . illusion . . . ghost? . . . said.

  “Now? Right now?” Clare glanced frantically around the bedroom. It was tiny, hardly enough room for the bed, the transparent dog-thing, and the man-shadow. And if the city during the day spun out pale visions, what would night bring? “I don’t think so.”

  The man-shape floated to the footboard of her bed and hitched a hip on it, balancing somehow, though she could see the curved wood through him. He crossed his arms.

  “You’re going to stay?” she asked, appalled.

  He nodded, not speaking. Was that better or worse?

  Maybe if she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, he would go away. Enzo hadn’t. It looked like she had
another imaginary friend she didn’t want.

  She sniffed in disdain and slid back into bed. She hadn’t turned on the fans tonight. Though the heat wouldn’t fall to the midsixties until four A.M., she was barely warm.

  Three times that hour, she awoke, opened her eyes, and saw the ghost man staring at her.

  Finally she sat up. “Where is this box?”

  I can show it to you. Come.

  Driving at night, when, if you were someone who believed in ghosts, undead spirits gathered. “No.”

  He sat on the far corner of the bed, staring at her with a black gaze that yet seemed to burn with determined fire. Enzo crept closer to her and thumped his cold tail on her thigh.

  “Oh, all right. Let’s get this over with.”

  She’d been right about the night. She drove slowly, creeping, really, through a fog of phantoms, ignoring shapes and wide mouths and pleading hands, shivering all the way. She turned on the heater.

  Finally the specter who’d been leading her stopped, miles from her home. Mercifully there were fewer people here, probably because it had been outside city limits during the era that she was sensitive to.

  The human mind can only comprehend ghosts from one slice of history, said the man, uncannily reading her thoughts.

  Enzo barked. Right, right, right! He bolted through the car door and in front of a building.

  Reluctantly, Clare got out of the car. The thunk of the door closing was muffled.

  I am very lucky you are here to help me, the vision continued. He waved a hand that showed calluses in places that didn’t look normal and modern to Clare. The box is in there; you must get it.

  “Oh, no, I won’t.” But now she was close, she saw it was an auction house. She scanned the hours posted on the window and the flyer for the next auction.

  It is in THERE!

  Clare headed back to the car. “The next sale is tomorrow night. The place lists a website. We can look for your box there.”

  The ghost appeared confused.

  “I’m heading back home. You can stay or go.”