The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  “Sullivan, I’m sorry. But you need to understand it wasn’t your fault.”

  “If he was there to warn me, I didn’t see it. I didn’t listen. And Betty’s dead because of it.”

  “No. She’s dead because of the man who shot her. Anyway, neither of us know anything for sure. You don’t even know for certain whether the intruder from last night was the same man you saw this morning. Like I said, I was only thinking aloud. It’s one theory, that’s all.”

  “But a good one. It makes sense. Maybe he wanted me to stop the intruder. If I had, the police would have been able to arrest him last night. If it is the same man, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt Betty this morning.”

  Marc held up a palm, a call to pause. “Let’s not lose sight of one important detail. Most experienced psychic mediums would say that unless a person was able to do so in life, his or her ghost can’t predict the future. It’s possible those who cross over into the light can tap into some sort of grand life plan that might give them a few glimpses into others’ futures. But earthbound ghosts are still very much tied into existence here, and don’t have those abilities. He couldn’t have foreseen the threat to Betty’s life.”

  “Unless he’d been around the man who ended up killing her and realized his intentions,” Sully corrected.

  Marc shrugged but didn’t respond, an indication he conceded the point but didn’t want to say it out loud.

  Sully sighed heavily, propping an elbow on the arm of the chair and dropping his face into his hand, squeezing the bridge of his nose to ward off the anticipated headache. Already, he could feel the tension building behind his eyes, around his temples, in the back of his neck. The day had been one long bout of it; the fact it had taken this long for his body to catch up was nothing short of a miracle. “All the stuff we know about, the weird abilities we have, and no one’s sorted out how to go back in time. I wish I could.”

  “To do what, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Anything. Anything is better than nothing, which is exactly what I ended up doing last night.”

  “You didn’t do nothing. You called the police and you tried to stop the man. You said he countered your swing and took you down, hard. Sounds like a professional job to me.”

  “If I’d called the police sooner, asked them to come there quietly rather than lights and siren ….”

  “I’m pretty sure the police set their own protocol about lights and siren. And the outcome’s the same, either way. Face it, son. You don’t have a way around this. You couldn’t have done anything differently here, no matter which way you try to dissect what went down.”

  There was no point arguing the subject any longer, Marc no more inclined to listen to Sully’s self-blame than Dez. Instead, Sully pulled back to the other subject, the one he’d really come here to talk about.

  “This ghost, the man I’ve been seeing. He scares the crap out of me.”

  “Which, to most people, is rather a normal response.”

  “And it was to me, too, when I was younger. But I don’t react that way anymore. They shake me up sometimes, but they never terrify me. Not anymore, anyway. So why is this guy doing it? Is it just that I’m sucking in what he feels?”

  “Yeah, I’d imagine that’s exactly what it is. But I thought you had figured out how to block stuff like that.”

  “I thought I had too. I mean, it’s not blocking, exactly. It’s figuring out how to differentiate my own feelings from theirs so I can release the stuff that isn’t mine. But this guy’s not letting me do that. If I didn’t know better, I’d think ….”

  “What?”

  “It’s stupid maybe, but it kind of feels like he’s trying to possess me. It’s not just the feelings he’s imposing on me. It’s how close he gets and how intense it feels. I’ve had others come right up to me and touch me, but that was to pass along a thought, a vision, a memory or whatever. But not with this guy. It’s like he’s trying to figure out how to do something. I mean, if he was trying to get a message through to help me stop something, he could have done that like the others had, right? But he didn’t.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know how to do that, either. But here’s the thing. I teach the occult, so I’ve done a whole lot of research in this area. Between you and me, when it comes to ghosts, you’re the expert. If you think he’s trying to pull a step-in here, I’d say you’d better go with your gut. What worries me is you’re not at your best at the moment. Your aura’s weak and that means your defences are down. Do you ever meditate?”

  “No. What would that do?”

  “It grounds you, draws your energy together, calms and stills you. Given what you do, you should be building up to at least half an hour of meditation every morning. It will help to reinforce you so you’re stronger and better protected going into these encounters.”

  “You’re supposed to not think about anything when you do that, right?”

  “Ideally, yes.”

  “I can’t do that. My brain doesn’t turn off.”

  “It takes practice, but you can get there. It’s simply a matter of drawing yourself gently back every time you feel yourself straying. Give yourself something to focus on, whether it’s your breathing or a mantra. That’s what I do, anyway, and believe me, my brain is a pretty active little beehive of activity most of the time. It works.”

  “Okay,” Sully said. “I’ll try.”

  “Good. In the meantime, I want you to focus on something positive whenever you see this man. He can’t overtake you if you’re stronger than he is.”

  “No offence, but this isn’t the best day to be trying to think up anything positive.”

  “Most people have something good in their lives. What about your family? That’s a pretty big positive, right? Think about them when you need a boost or, better yet, stay physically close to them for a while. They’ll get you through this, even if they don’t realize they’re doing it.”

  Sully thought about the incident in the alley earlier today. The ghost, directly in front of him, and was shifting uncomfortably closer when his image had suddenly morphed into Dez. Sully and the ghost seemed to become aware of Dez’s intrusion into that uncomfortable connection at roughly the same time, the ghost disappearing and Sully’s terror dissipating into relief. Since they’d met when Sully was a kid, Dez had been his rock, as had Flynn and Mara Braddock and, most recently, Dez’s wife and daughter, Eva and Kayleigh. Sully had never known what family meant until he’d met the Braddocks; now it was the most important thing in his life.

  “Thanks, Marc,” he said. “I think that helps, actually.”

  “Good. So what’s the plan? Obviously, you’re going to want to do something about this guy.”

  “Yeah, and that involves figuring out what he wants.”

  “Should you be doing that, right now?” Marc asked. “I mean, if he’s connected to the shooting somehow, won’t you get in some serious trouble if you involve yourself more than you already are?”

  “The ghosts usually don’t give me much of a choice, and this guy’s far from the exception,” Sully said. “Besides, I’m already in serious trouble.”

  8

  Dez found Forbes Raynor in the Major Crimes unit, sitting in what Dez could only imagine was his go-to position: feet up on the desk, leaning back in a chair while involved in a phone conversation that sounded far too relaxed to be wholly work-related.

  Equally unsurprising was the fact Forbes was less than pleased to see him or to hear his opinion on the Betty Schuster murder.

  “You know damn well I can’t discuss that case with you.”

  “I’m not asking you to discuss it with me,” Dez said. “I’m just here to inform you of some info that came to light today.”

  “Let me guess. This is info that will have your brother coming off all pure as the driven snow.”

  “Sully had nothing to do with Betty’s death.”

  “That’s for the investigation to determine,” Forbes said. “As
you very well know. But I’m up for hearing alternative theories, if there’s a better one.”

  “What, you mean like the one where a guy came in and shot her? That theory?”

  “Contrary to what you seem to think, Braddock, I’m not out to get Sullivan. Like I said earlier, we’ve simply got no physical evidence to back what he says.”

  “What about that clothing we found?”

  “It’s still with Ident, being tested. But, honestly, the only one who can put that clothing on the shooter is Sullivan. We need to do a little better than that, don’t you think?”

  The use of the word “we” had Dez bristling, the condescension clear in the older man’s tone. Dez took a breath. It wasn’t going to help Sully for his big brother to come in here and knock the block off the lead investigator on the file.

  “Do you want to hear what I came here to tell you, or not?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  All ass is more like it, Dez thought. But he bit back the comment in favour of launching into a narrative of the visit to the army surplus store and the poster he’d found there.

  “Thackeray’s home address is listed on the poster—his mother’s home address,” Dez said. “She took Thackeray back in after he was released from jail and he’s been there since. We all know how kooky some vigilantes can get. A lot of people blame parenting for the reason people go sideways in life, and there could be some bad feeling against Betty.”

  “I realize that. Your father called me earlier after he looked Thackeray up, told me it was likely a good idea to warn the guy he might be a target.”

  “Did you?”

  “I’ll get to it.”

  “Don’t you think it might be kind of important? I mean, if his mother’s death was related, he’ll no doubt be next.”

  “What sense does any of that make, really?” Forbes asked. “If the home address is the one listed, wouldn’t anyone wanting at Thackeray go there to play vigilante? Why would anyone go to the Black Fox and target the mother?”

  “I don’t know, maybe no one was home? Come on, Forbes, everyone knows Betty runs the Fox. She’s been a fixture there for at least two decades, probably closer to three. When people think of the Black Fox, she’s an automatic second.”

  “Look, I’ll talk to the son, all right? But I’m in the middle of something now. I’m waiting on that info from Ident you’re so keen on, plus I’ve got patrol talking to neighbouring businesses, and one for sure is bringing in a surveillance tape as we speak. So, contrary to what you seem to think, I am looking into Sullivan’s claims. All right?”

  Dez took another breath, searching for that elusive feeling of calm. “Okay. Thanks. One other thing, though.”

  “There’s always one other thing with you, isn’t there?”

  “The guy who runs the army surplus, Terrence Waters. He’s an army vet. He’d know his way around firearms, plus he’d be good in a fight. Sully’s no slouch when it comes to handling himself, and he said the shooter was pretty strong. Add that to the fact there might be some connection to the break-in and the possibility it’s the same suspect, and it’s got me thinking we’re looking for a professional of some type.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Forbes said. “Do you really think a professional is going to burst in the back door of a bar in broad daylight and fire off a round at a woman in full view of an employee?”

  “Maybe, if he wants to pass it off as just some sloppy business robbery gone bad.”

  “No, Braddock. I’m thinking it’s far more likely we’re either looking at two separate suspects here, or it’s the alternative you don’t want to acknowledge.”

  “Sully didn’t do it. How many times do I have to say it? He’s not capable of killing.”

  Forbes curled his lips into the condescending grin again, the one Dez wanted to punch off his face. Unfortunately, Forbes followed it up with a piece of logic that Dez would never be able to wipe away as easily. “Braddock, you and I both know that given the right circumstances, everyone is capable of killing.”

  The warning was still sitting there, the earworm Dez had no doubt intended to plant when he’d told Sully to stay away from Thackeray Schuster.

  But the more Sully thought about it, the more the reasons stacked up in favour of visiting the Schuster house until they’d finally cast a shadow long enough to eclipse the reasons not to.

  And so, late that afternoon, Sully walked up the cracked sidewalk leading to Betty’s small 1920s two-storey in the Riverview neighbourhood.

  Judging from the state of the exterior of the house, Betty wasn’t much for home renos. But she was a neat freak and an avid gardener; visitors could ignore the cracks in the sidewalk and the fact the house needed repainting as their vision drifted to the abundant flowerbeds that lined the house and coloured the small front yard. A veranda surrounding the front entrance boasted several healthy-looking potted plants and a porch swing, while window boxes held even more bright flowers.

  Sully could imagine Betty out here every other morning watering her various plantings, enveloped for at least that short space of time within a world in which everything else could fall away. Mara Braddock loved gardening, too, and he remembered her saying she could tell when her flowers were smiling at her. If flowers could smile, Betty’s were grinning a mile wide.

  Sully’s heart broke all over again.

  Approaching the door proved easier than the idea of lifting his hand to knock. He wasn’t here simply to try to piece together who had killed Betty and why. He’d been there when it had happened, had his hands on the gun when it was discharged. There was an apology he needed to make, words he wasn’t sure he could find.

  All he knew was that he had to try.

  He stepped up to the solid glass pane, which made up much of the top half of the door and peered through, preparing to knock.

  Betty stared back at him.

  Sully took an involuntary step backward but caught himself before the surprise-induced move could send him tumbling down the steps onto the pavement. He knew he shouldn’t have been shocked by the fact she was here. He’d seen her, after all, in the moments immediately after her death.

  She’d been there for a time at the Black Fox, staring down at her body, the disbelief written all over her face. From his experience, the people he saw sometimes found their way home if it was a place they found comfort. Sometimes they haunted the people who’d killed them but, more often than not, it was their loved ones to whom they gravitated, as if looking for some light in what had become a very dark reality.

  Somehow, in his rush through this day, in dealing with the shooting and being pegged as a suspect and trying to cope with the terrifying vision of the man he kept seeing, Sully had lost sight of Betty, of the fact she was still here and needed help too.

  It was one more thing to apologize for.

  Her mouth was moving now, and he knew she was speaking but, as always, he didn’t have the ability to hear what she said. Flynn had asked him once whether studying lipreading might help, but this situation proved once again it wouldn’t. As usual, when Sully tried to focus on the ghost’s lips, he found them moving in a blur, no way for him to make anything out. Whether it was because ghosts spoke at a speed too fast for living humans, or simply because this was another of the universe’s annoying ways of telling him he was not to communicate with them in speech, he didn’t know. None of this had ever made sense to him, and it likely never would.

  “I can’t hear you,” Sully told Betty now. “I can see you, but that’s it.”

  It occurred to Sully that apologizing to Thackeray was secondary, this opportunity perhaps his best chance of laying out what was tearing him up inside. “Betty, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I—”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  Sully spun to see a man coming around the side of the veranda, a cigarette in his mouth. While the resemblance wasn’t obvious at first glance, the way he held the cigarette between his lips so it bobbed as he spoke,
was all Betty. Were this any other day, any other situation, Sully might have laughed at the thought of the two of them, mother and son, sitting on the veranda together, smokes bobbing simultaneously as they chatted about their day.

  This was not that day, not that situation.

  “No one,” Sully said. “Sorry. I talk to myself sometimes.”

  The man pulled the smoke from his lips, held it between thumb and forefinger as if to throw it or use it as a weapon should need be. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “My name’s Sullivan Gray. I worked with your mom at the Black Fox. You are Thackeray, right?”

  Sully had expected the introduction to bring about an un-narrowing of suspicious eyes, perhaps a handshake. He got neither. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah …. Um, can we talk a minute?”

  Thackeray studied him silently, gaze travelling up and down his body before settling back on his eyes. He was sizing Sully up, possibly looking for weapons, and it occurred to Sully this man had recently left prison. Considered a child sex offender, he would have been at the bottom of the pecking order, had possibly found himself being victimized more than once. While Sully’s sympathies were minimal, the understanding was there.

  He guessed he’d passed the test when Thackeray turned, showing his back as he disappeared around the corner of the veranda, making his way to what Sully guessed was a side door. While the invitation hadn’t been spoken, he followed to where Thackeray dropped into one of two old kitchen chairs that had been placed—likely permanently, judging by the extent of the wear on their vinyl coverings—outside. The backyard was partly visible from here, enough to reveal further evidence of Betty’s green thumb. Trees and shrubs formed a border this side, where the rickety fence was no longer up to the task, and an ivy-covered gated archway stood at the back of the property, leading to the alley. Like the front of the property, it was beautiful and peaceful.