The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  Dez shifted in his chair. “Doc, you’re kind of freaking me out here.”

  “I apologize. This often isn’t easy for people to hear about, let alone discuss. While I would never presume to make a diagnosis without first spending a great deal of time interviewing a patient and observing him or her, I can speak of symptoms, and those I’ve just mentioned to you can be indicative of some form of schizophrenia. I would be concerned the sufferer is experiencing psychotic episodes, ones that are being acted upon in a violent way. Or ….” Gerhardt paused while he sat forward, extending his wiry arms along the desk’s surface and placing his fingertips together in prayer formation. His eyes fixed on Dez’s in such a way that breaking the gaze was not an option. The man took a quick breath. “Or maybe Sullivan really is seeing the things he says he is.”

  Dez was stuck for a response, not wanting to confirm or deny. The doctor filled the gap.

  “I’ve been told I’m unconventional. Some doctors within my profession think I should join my patients on the couch. Honestly, I started out believing we could experience the world only as it appeared to us through our five senses. I discounted those who reported having visions, prophesying the future, or seeing or hearing entities that were not there. I believed they were simply suffering from a form of illness I needed to treat.

  “One day, a young woman came into my care who changed my mind. What she shared with me shook me to my core and shattered the foundations upon which I’d built my practice. She made me rethink many of my past diagnoses in a way that has caused a regret so intense I fear I will take it to my grave.”

  Gerhardt sat back, breaking eye contact to stare at his hands as he pulled them from the desktop. “I don’t share this story unless I believe it needs told in order to help someone, but I lost my son many years ago. He was very young, only six. He was playing in the backyard of the house I shared with my late wife, and someone took him. We searched, the police searched and, thanks to many news reports at the time, the public searched, but we never found him. To this day, he remains missing.

  “Fifteen years later, that young woman came under my care and told me my son was with me. She described him in great detail, which I initially put down to her having accessed news reports. I ignored the fact it made little sense a young lady who hadn’t planned to come to Lockwood would have dug up dated articles about my tragedy. I believed she intended it as a means to get to me. But she continued, told me my son wouldn’t leave her alone until she’d helped him. And as I began to hear her out, she told me things only known to my late wife and myself. And my wife, you must understand, was already dead by this point, so there was nowhere the patient could have accessed this information—save by the means she claimed to have come by it. From my son himself.

  “She tried to help me find him. But she didn’t want to be here, and she ran before she could tell me where to find the place he’d been buried or help me find the man responsible. To this day, I don’t know what became of her. All I know is she convinced me there is more to this world of ours than we currently have the power to grasp, more than science has been able to explain.”

  Dez shifted in his seat. He knew there had to be more people like Sully out there, but hearing details of a specific case set him on edge. He grasped at the more solid information, the part he could easily process.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” The psychiatrist peered at Dez another few seconds before ending his study with a smile. “I can see you’re uncomfortable. Forgive me. I tell you these things only so you can see I no longer go into any assessment with the immediate expectation of diagnosing a mental illness. Sometimes the things people claim to experience are simply the creation of a mind in need of the proper medication and treatment. But sometimes, Desmond, they’re real. So, you see, I do not and will not enter into any assessment of your brother with the automatic assumption he is ill.”

  Dez rubbed his hands together. That chill had set back in, was threatening to work its way up his arms and into his chest. “Uh, sorry, but I’m not really sure what to say to all that.”

  “You don’t need to say anything. It’s just food for thought. Let me give you some more. Some people with this gift of sight find acceptance and peace within it. Others are tortured by it. It consumes them, causes mental illness where once there was none. I have seen once-stable individuals suddenly attempt suicide or even homicide upon reaching a point where they can no longer bear the things they experience, or even because something from beyond has taken control of them.

  “I have been working on treatments for people like that. I believe the minds of these individuals are more open than most, and I have a keen interest in discovering where within the mind these gifts are accessed. In working toward that goal, I believe I have found a way to help them, to quiet their minds—at least until I can guide them to a stronger place. The ghosts probably still visit, but these patients are no longer aware of them. And, for some, that equates to the first sense of peace they have ever known.”

  “Do you have people like that here now?” Dez asked.

  “For privacy reasons, I can’t speak to specific cases,” the doctor said. “But, yes, I do. And if you and your brother agree, I believe I can help him too.”

  The whole point in visiting Lockwood, at least as far as Sully was concerned, had been to try to find some clue as to the identity of the man he was seeing. But Larson Hackman was proving a very solid roadblock as he kept Sully firmly beside him during the tour.

  Hackman was accommodating enough on the surface, guiding Sully through the parts of the building accessible to the public during visitor hours. But Sully had been a student of human behaviour most of his life—as a young child in foster care, it was a skill he’d been forced to learn early—and he honoured the unease he felt despite Hackman’s attempts at niceties.

  By the time they reached what the head orderly described as the lounge area, Sully had become so wary of the large man at his side that he was all but oblivious to everything else around him. That changed the instant Sully made the effort to focus on the room around him.

  There, sitting by the window in a wheelchair, empty, staring eyes locked onto the grounds outside, was the man from the bathroom mirror.

  Sully had been seeing ghosts his entire life. If there was one thing he’d learned, it was that there was no predicting how or when they would reveal themselves. They had been living people at one time and, as such, they were as different as the personalities and the personal histories which had shaped them.

  But there was something different about this man, something that made him far different from any of the ghosts Sully had seen in the past.

  This one was very much alive.

  13

  Sully studied his brother’s profile as they drove back into the city.

  Dez’s face was like stone, the look he wore when he was trying hard not to reveal some thought or emotion of which he wasn’t overly proud. Usually Dez didn’t stay quiet for long, but he was putting his usual short limits to shame on this particular ride.

  After a solid five minutes with nothing to listen to but an annoying radio DJ spouting opinions about the city’s sports teams, Sully decided he couldn’t wait Dez out any longer. “You okay?”

  “Huh?”

  “I asked if you’re okay.”

  Dez spared him a quick glance before returning eyes to the road. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. You haven’t said anything since I told you about the man in the wheelchair.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Dez, ‘That’s weird’ doesn’t count.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Anything.”

  Dez drove another couple of blocks, reverting to silence again. Sully had decided he was going to try to allow Dez whatever time he needed to process, when his brother suddenly veered into the parking lot of a flooring store. Sully was wondering
whether his overnight bleed-out required the replacement of permanently stained tiles, when Dez pulled into a spot facing the street, far enough from the store’s entrance for Sully to realize the stop was for his benefit, not his brother’s.

  Dez turned partway in his seat, draping a solid arm over the steering wheel. “I know you think talking helps me, Sully, but sometimes it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

  “It’s just sometimes talking about it makes this shit feel more real to me. I mean, this latest crap. It’s not enough you’ve got to deal with ghosts of dead people. Now you’ve got to contend with living ones too? I mean, how the hell does that work, anyway? How does some guy just randomly leave his body and get into yours so he can try to kill you? I hate this stuff, man. I mean, I really, really hate this stuff.”

  Sully fought the smile, forced it back before Dez could see. If everything else stopped making sense in his world—and there were plenty of days when it seemed likely to happen—he’d always have Dez.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Sully said. “I wasn’t laughing.”

  “You’re doing that thing where you’re trying really hard not to. Makes you look like you’re constipated. So what’s so funny? ’Cuz I could use the laugh right now.”

  “I’m sorry. Nothing’s funny. I was just thinking how you’re the most stable thing in my life. You don’t change. And it’s weird, but that keeps me solid.”

  Dez’s scowl, while not disappearing altogether, faded by a good half. “So did you actually find out anything about this guy? You get a name or anything?”

  “I made like I recognized him—which was actually true, I guess—and I asked Hackman about him. But he said their privacy rules mean they can’t speak to any specifics about clients, including names. He did tell me the man I was asking about has been a resident there probably almost as long as I’ve been alive, so there was no way I could have known him outside Lockwood.”

  “Have you ever heard of anything like this? People leaving their bodies and possessing someone else’s?”

  “I’ve heard of out-of-body experiences, but this is going beyond anything I’ve ever known. Remember how Raiya suggested maybe the guy was psychic? Could be this is part of it.”

  “Okay, but there’s the other thing. You only see the ghosts of people who’ve been killed by someone, right? This guy hasn’t been.”

  “So maybe it’s different than I thought,” Sully said. “Maybe it’s not just murdered people I see. Maybe it’s people who are the victims of some sort of injustice. I mean, I know for a fact they’ve all had that in common. Or maybe ….”

  “What?”

  “It sounds stupid, but what if I’m seeing this guy because he’s going to be murdered?”

  “How the hell would that work? You don’t see the future.”

  “No, but what if he does? Marc thought maybe the reason the ghost came to me at that first break-in was to act as a warning about what was going to happen to Betty. What if that’s true? Maybe he foresaw it and tried to warn me.”

  “But it didn’t work, so he’s pissed now and trying to kill you? That sounds made up.”

  “Hey, I’m a little short on theories here. But the psychic thing, if it’s true, it could change the playing field. That’s all I’m saying. He might have the ability to do things others can’t.”

  Dez nodded, but didn’t say anything else, and Sully guessed that was as far as he was going to get with his brother on that topic. Even so, the way Dez was chewing at the inside of his lower lip was a clear indication he had something else on his mind.

  “What?” Sully asked.

  This time, Dez didn’t delay. “Do you ever wish you could make it all stop? I mean, if someone had a solution for you, a way to end all this, make the ghosts go away, would you take it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Gerhardt said he had some sort of treatment for people who see things the way you do. He told me he believes that stuff’s real, and he gave me this example of some psychic chick who once tried to help him find his missing son. He buys that this sort of thing happens, and it sounds like he’s dedicated a chunk of his career to studying it and looking for ways to help.”

  “Do you think I need help, Dez?”

  Dez had been scanning the fingers of his right hand, but Sully’s question had his eyes snapping onto his brother’s. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you’re thinking it.”

  “No, Sull. What I’m thinking is that the ghosts around you need help and, in trying to get it, they don’t honour your space, boundaries or safety. You’ve handled a lot over the years. I’ve seen it, and I think it’s awesome, the stuff you’ve been able to do. But it feels like the last few years, you’ve been getting in over your head more and more often. I don’t like it. As much as all the ghost stuff freaks me out, the idea of something happening to you because of it, that scares me more. I just thought if there was a way to stop it, or at least to take a break from it sometimes, maybe that would be good for you.”

  Sully took a moment, searching for the right words before using them. He knew his brother might not like what he had to say. But it needed to be put out there, and Sully wondered whether he needed to say it to himself as much as to Dez. Because Dez’s observation was true. There were times when not seeing the dead would be far, far easier.

  “I know it’s not ideal and, believe me, there are times when I feel overwhelmed and wish everything would stop. But I’ve been given this gift for a reason—even if sometimes it feels more like a curse. It’s scary as hell sometimes. You know that. But there’s no better feeling than knowing something you did helped save someone. You help people as a police officer all the time, and you risk your own safety to do it. I guess, in my own way, I do the same thing. And it’s not just what I do. It’s who I am. I’ve thought about it, believe me. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. And I keep coming back to the same thing. If I lost the ghosts, I think I’d lose myself.”

  Dez didn’t offer a verbal reply, eyes sliding slowly back to his fingers. This time, there was more to his silence than anxiety or fear. There was honour in it, evidence Dez hadn’t just let Sully’s words glance off his armour like an ineffective arrow. He was thinking about it and, as far as Sully was concerned, that was all he could ask of the brother who’d spent his life trying to protect Sully from the one bully he couldn’t fight for him.

  When at last Dez answered in words, it was through tones far quieter than he often used. “I’m never going to get used to your life ending up on the line because of you helping people whose lives are already over. But you need to know I respect what you do and, more than that, I respect you. If you need to keep doing this, I’ll back you up. But I’m never going to like it, Sull. I can’t change that any more than you can change.”

  Sully smiled, pleased when Dez returned it. “Thanks, bro.”

  “Let’s head back home and eat and try to chill out a bit tonight, all right? If you can’t give me a whole life’s worth, I at least need a night without any ghost chasing.”

  It had taken some persuasion on Sully’s part, but they made a stop at the Black Fox to allow Sully to get some of his things together.

  The forensic examination done, police had finally released the scene, leaving the Fox an empty shell. Sully was used to being here alone, but this was different.

  It was like the place had lost its soul.

  The fire door between the employees-only area and the bar had been left propped open, and Sully’s eyes immediately drifted to the spot where Betty had fallen. He didn’t have long to dwell there, as Dez’s insistent hands pushed him along from behind.

  “Let’s just go up and get your stuff so we can get the hell out of here. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Sully gathered his toiletries in the bathroom while Dez bustled through the bedroom across the hall, stuf
fing random clothes into a duffel bag. Sully was just tossing in his shaver when he had the feeling of a presence behind him. The memory of last night compelled him to keep his head down, resisting a glance in the medicine cabinet mirror.

  It was silly. He knew that. Spirit possession didn’t rely on a person seeing it coming. And yet, Sully found himself hoping if he didn’t see the man, if he could just keep his fear from spiking, he might be able to stay strong enough to prevent another possession.

  But, as the seconds ticked by and the presence remained, Sully feared there would be no easy way around this—at least none that wouldn’t involve wimping out and calling to Dez for help. If the man was behind him, then he was between Sully and the doorway, and his only means of escaping this room.

  “Sully? You okay?”

  The realization Dez had appeared in the door allowed Sully to turn and, as expected, he didn’t just see his brother. But it wasn’t the man from Lockwood standing there, staring at him. It was Betty.

  Dez scanned the room, eyes wider than usual as if that might help him see what he couldn’t. “There’s someone here, isn’t there? It’s friggin’ cold.”

  “It’s okay, Dez. It’s Betty.”

  “Jesus. You need a minute?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “I’ll be in your living room. Don’t take long, okay? I’m hungry.”

  He slipped away, leaving the door open. Sully suspected Dez’s rush was more about getting away from the ghost and less about the fact he was looking forward to barbecuing, but Sully didn’t waste time ribbing his brother. He had something more important to do.

  Sully turned full attention to Betty. On some level, he’d known to expect the rush of emotion that came with the contact. But there was something that surprised him nonetheless about the tears that clouded his vision as he searched for the words he’d wanted to say since the shooting.