by Linda Howard
One swipe and this job would be done, but Tabby didn’t want it to be over too soon. Her gift was one of empathy, but rather than experiencing others’ emotions, she craved their fear. Hate and horror tasted sweet when Tabby allowed her gift free rein. The dark sensations she drank in made her stronger. At this moment she fed off Echo Raintree’s terror, and it felt good. It made her strong, physically and mentally. That terror fed the giddiness.
“I don’t have much money,” Echo said, pathetic and whining, and growing more and more afraid with every second that passed. “Whatever you want…”
“Whatever I want,” Tabby repeated as she forced Echo away until her back was against the wall. Literally. What she really wanted was this girl’s power. Prophecy. There was power in prophecy, properly used, though judging by this crappy apartment, Echo had not made the best of her talents. What a shame that something so extraordinary had to be wasted on this trembling doormat.
Tabby sometimes dreamed that when she killed, she absorbed the powers of her victim. It should be possible, should be an extension of her gift, but so far she hadn’t been able to make it happen. One day, when her power was properly nourished as it should be, she would find the dark magic to take the next step in her own evolution.
Wishing the gift of prophecy could somehow fly from this Raintree’s soul into her own, Tabby touched the girl’s slender, pale throat with the tip of her knife. She made a small cut, and the girl gasped, and oh, the rush of fear that filled the air was tasty, and very, very strong.
She could play with Echo Raintree all night, but Cael wanted the job done quickly and efficiently. He’d stressed that to Tabby more than once, when she’d received her assignment. This was not the time to play but to be a soldier. A warrior. Much as she would love to stay here a while and amuse herself with the Raintree, Tabby definitely didn’t want to end up on Cael’s bad side.
She smiled and drew the knife very slightly away from the drop of blood on the girl’s pale throat. Echo looked slightly relieved, and Tabby let the frightened woman believe, for that moment, that this was a simple robbery that would soon be over.
Nothing was over. It had just begun.
ONE
Monday—3:37 a.m.
When Gideon’s phone rang in the middle of the night, it meant someone was dead. “Raintree,” he answered, his voice rumbling with the edges of sleep.
“Sorry to wake you.”
Surprised to hear his brother Dante’s voice, Gideon came instantly awake. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a fire at the casino. Could be worse,” Dante added before Gideon could ask, “but it’s bad enough. I didn’t want you to see it on the morning news without some warning. Call Mercy in a couple of hours and tell her I’m all right. I’d call her myself, but I’m going to have my hands full for the next few days.”
Gideon sat up, wide awake. “If you need me, I’m there.”
“No, thanks. You’ve got no business getting on an airplane this week, and everything here is fine. I just wanted to call you before I got so tied up in red tape I couldn’t get to a phone.”
Gideon ran his fingers through his hair. Outside his window, the waves of the Atlantic crashed and rolled. He offered again to go to Reno and help. He could drive, if necessary. But once again Dante told him everything was fine, and they ended the call. Gideon reset his alarm for five-thirty. He would call Mercy before she started her day. The fire must have been a bad one for Dante to be so certain it would make the national news.
Alarm reset, Gideon fell back onto the bed. Maybe he’d sleep, maybe not. He listened to the ocean waves and let his mind wander. With the solstice coming in less than a week, his normal electric abnormalities were really out of whack. The surges usually spiraled out of control only when a ghost was nearby, but for the past few days, and for the week to come, it didn’t take the addition of an electrically charged spirit to make appliances and electronics in his path go haywire. There was nothing he could do but be cautious. Maybe he should take a few days off, stay away from the station altogether and lie low. He closed his eyes and fell back asleep.
She appeared without warning, floating over the end of the bed and smiling down at him, as she always did. Tonight she wore a plain white dress that touched her bare ankles, and her long dark hair was unbound. Emma, as she said she would one day be called, always came to him in the form of a child. She was very much unlike the ghosts who haunted him. This child came only in dreams and was untainted by the pain of life’s hardships. She carried with her no need for justice, no heartbreak, no gnawing deed left undone. Instead, she brought with her light and love, and a sense of peace. And she insisted on calling him Daddy.
“Good morning, Daddy.”
Gideon sighed and sat up. He’d first seen this particular spirit three months ago, but lately her visits had become more and more frequent. More and more real. Who knew? Maybe he had been her father in another life, but he wasn’t going to be anyone’s daddy in this one.
“Good morning, Emma.”
The spirit of the little girl drifted down to stand on the foot of the bed. “I’m so excited.” She laughed, and the sound was oddly familiar. Gideon liked that laugh. It made his heart do strange things. He convinced himself that the sense of warm familiarity meant nothing. Nothing at all.
“Why are you excited?”
“I’m coming to you soon, Daddy.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Emma, honey, I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m not going to have kids in this lifetime, so you can stop calling me Daddy.”
She just laughed again. “Don’t be silly, Daddy. You always have me.”
The spirit who had told him that her name would be Emma in this lifetime did have the Raintree eyes, his own dark brown hair and a touch of honey in her skin. But he knew better than to trust what he saw. After all, she only showed up in dreams. He was going to have to stop eating nachos before going to bed.
“I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but in order to make a baby there has to be a mommy as well as a daddy. I’m not getting married and I’m not having kids, so you’ll just have to choose someone else to be your daddy this time around.”
Emma was not at all perturbed. “You’re always so stubborn. I am coming to you, Daddy, I am. I’m coming to you in a moonbeam.”
Gideon had tried romantic relationships before, and they never worked. He had to hide so much of himself from the women in his life; it would never do to have someone that close. And a wife and kid? Forget it. He already had to answer to the new chief, his family and a never-ending stream of ghosts. He wasn’t about to put himself in a position where he would be obligated to answer to anyone else. Women came and went, but he made sure none ever got too close or stayed too long.
It was Dante’s job to reproduce, not his. Gideon glanced toward the dresser, where the latest fertility charm sat ready to be packaged up and mailed. Once Dante had kids of his own, Gideon would no longer be next in line for the position of Dranir, head of the Raintree family. He couldn’t think of anything worse than being Dranir, except maybe getting married and having kids of his own.
Big brother had his hands full at the moment, though, so maybe he would hold off a few days before mailing that charm. Maybe.
“Be careful,” Emma said as she floated a bit closer. “She’s very bad, Daddy. Very bad. You have to be careful.”
“Don’t call me Daddy,” Gideon said. As an afterthought he added, “Who’s very bad?”
“You’ll know soon. Take care of my moonbeam, Daddy.”
“In a moonbeam,” he said softly. “What a load of…”
“It’s just begun,” Emma said, her voice and her body fading away.
The alarm went off, and Gideon woke with a start. He hated that freakin’ dream. He glanced toward the dresser where Dante’s fertility charm sat, and then he looked up, almost as if he expected to see Emma floating there. The dreams that were touched with reality were always hardest to shake.
He needed to call Mercy and tell her what had happened at Dante’s casino, and he would get that taken care of as soon as he had the coffee percolating. He dreaded telling her what had happened. Even though Dante was fine, she would worry.
After he made the call he would head for the office. He knew without a doubt that Frank Stiles had murdered Johnny Ray Black, but he didn’t have the evidence just yet. He would, though, in time. He thought again about taking a few days off, just until the summer solstice passed. If everything was quiet at the station, he could bring the case files home and work from here.
Then Emma’s final words rang in his ears, as if she were whispering to him still. “It’s just begun.”
TWO
Monday—10:46 a.m.
The small apartment had been trashed. Broken glass sparkled on anonymous beige carpet; books and carefully chosen knickknacks had been raked from the shelf to the floor; an empty pizza box lay discarded on the floor; and someone had taken a sharp blade to the old red leather sofa that sat in the middle of the room. Had the sofa been mutilated with the same knife that had killed Sherry Bishop? He didn’t know. Not yet.
Gideon kept his eyes on Bishop’s body while the woman behind him talked, her voice quick and high. “I thought maybe Echo was on her way home early and had ordered a pizza on her cell, you know? She does like to eat late at night, so I didn’t even think…” She snorted. “Stupid. My mother will kill me when she finds out I let a wacko into the apartment.”
Gideon glanced up and back. Was that an expression Sherry Bishop had used a hundred times before and automatically called upon now? Or did she not yet realize that she was dead? My mother will kill me…
She looked almost solid, perched on the chair behind him. As usual, she wore a faded pair of hip-hugger jeans and a T-shirt with the hem ripped to display her belly button and the piercing there. The hairdo was new.
Echo had found the body earlier this morning, after returning from a weekend trip to Charlotte. She’d immediately called him instead of dialing 911. So much for taking the week off. Gideon had made the necessary calls by cell phone, while on his way to the scene. After he’d arrived, he’d talked to Echo in the hallway. He’d calmed her down as best he could, and he’d been here to stop the first patrolmen who arrived from entering and possibly contaminating the crime scene. The uniforms stood in the hallway still, peering into the apartment like kids who weren’t allowed into the candy store. Had he ever been that young?
They were all watching, but he couldn’t worry about that. He already had a reputation as being odd; that was the least of his worries.
“Did you know him?” he asked softly.
“Her,” Sherry said.
A woman? Gideon glanced at the body again, then at the mess the attacker had made of the apartment. She’s very bad, Daddy. Very bad. When Emma had appeared to him in the dream, Sherry Bishop had been dead for hours. Not only dead, but mutilated. The index finger of her right hand was missing, cut off after death, judging by the small amount of blood that had been shed. A neat square of her scalp, as well as a portion of blond and pink hair, had also been taken. He had a hard time comprehending that a woman had done this, but by now he should know that anything and everything was possible.
“Did you know her?”
The specter shook her head. She looked almost real, except that she wasn’t entirely solid. It was as if she were manufactured entirely of a thick mist. Her pink-and-blond spiked hair, the jeans and T-shirt she wore, her pale skin. It was all slightly less than substantial. “I opened the door, she rushed in and said she wouldn’t hurt me if I didn’t scream, and then she hit me on my neck and…” She laid a hand over her throat and looked past Gideon to the body. Her body. “That bitch killed me, didn’t she?”
“I’m afraid so. Anything you can tell me about her would be helpful.”
Sherry looked at the body and gasped. “She cut off my finger? How am I supposed to play the drums with…” The ghost fell back against the couch. “Yeah, I know,” she sighed. “Dead.”
“Detective Raintree?” One of the patrolmen stuck his head in the room. “Are you, uh, okay?”
Gideon lifted a hand without looking at the officer. “I’m fine.”
“I heard you, uh, talking.”
This time Gideon did look at the kid. Hard. “I’m talking to myself. Let me know when the crime scene techs arrive.”
He heard Echo start to cry again, and the officers turned to comfort her. His cousin was distracting them so he could work in peace, he knew. There wasn’t a man alive who would mind comforting Echo Raintree.
The ghost of Sherry Bishop sighed again, and her form vibrated. “They can’t see me, can they?”
“No,” Gideon whispered.
“But you can.”
He nodded.
“Why is that?”
Blood. Genetics. A curse. A gift. Electrons. “We don’t have time to talk about me.” He didn’t know how long Sherry Bishop would remain earthbound. Maybe a few minutes more, maybe an hour, maybe a couple of days. Perhaps she would demand justice and hang around until his job was done, but he couldn’t be sure. He could never be sure. Ghosts were damned unreliable. “Tell me everything you remember about the woman who attacked you.”
Detective Hope Malory rushed up the stairs of the old apartment building, slowing her step as she approached the third floor. Half a dozen cops and a handful of neighbors were milling around in the hallway outside the victim’s apartment, all of them trying to peer inside as if there were a show going on. All but one petite young woman with short blond hair shot with liberal hot pink streaks. She hung back, almost as if she were afraid to see what was happening inside.
Hope took a deep breath and smoothed her navy-blue jacket as she approached. This morning she’d dressed professionally, as always, in trousers and a jacket like any other detective. Her pistol was housed in a holster at her waist, and her badge hung around her neck, so everyone could see it plainly.
The only concessions she made to her femininity were a touch of makeup and the two-inch heels. She wanted to make a good impression, since this was her first day on the job. From everything she’d heard, no matter what she said or did, her new partner was not going to be happy to see her.
She made her way past a couple of the officers to the doorway. One of them whispered to her, “You can’t go in there.” She stopped for a moment and watched Detective Gideon Raintree at work.
She’d studied his file extensively in preparation for this assignment. The man was not only a good cop, he had a solution rate that boggled the mind. Right now he was down on his haunches, studying the body and talking to himself in a low voice. Behind him, a lamp on an end table directed light on to his tightly-wound body in an odd way, as if he were caught in the spotlight. All the blinds were closed, so the room was almost dark. Everything was as he’d found it, she knew.
The photograph in Gideon Raintree’s file didn’t do him justice, Hope could tell that from where she stood, even though she didn’t have a clear view of his face. He was a very good-looking man with a great body—the perfectly cut suit couldn’t hide that—and the fact that he needed a haircut didn’t make him any less attractive. She’d always been a sucker for longish hair on a man, and very dark brown hair with just a touch of a wave hung a tad too long on Raintree’s neck. No matter how conservatively he dressed, he would never completely pull off a conventional look.
The suit he wore was expensive; he hadn’t bought that on a cop’s salary, not unless he’d been living on macaroni and cheese for the past year. It was
dark gray, perfectly fitted, and would never dare to wrinkle. The shoes were expensive, too, made of good quality leather. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, very hip, very roguish. If not for the gun and badge, Raintree wouldn’t look at all like a cop.
She stepped into the room, against the whispered advice of the officer behind her. Raintree’s head snapped up. “I told you…” he began, but he didn’t finish his sentence. He stared at her with intense green eyes that were surprised and intelligent, and Hope got her first really good look at Gideon Raintree’s face. Cheekbones and eyelashes like that on a man really should be illegal, and the way he stared at her with those narrowed eyes…
The lightbulb in the lamp behind him exploded.
“Sorry,” he said, as if he had somehow made the lightbulb explode. “I’m not ready for the crime scene techs. Give me a few more minutes and I’ll be out of your way.” His tone was dismissive, and that rankled.
“I’m not with the Crime Scene Division,” Hope said as she took a careful step forward.
His head snapped up, and he glared at her again, not so politely this time. “Then get out.”
Hope shook her head. Normally she would offer her hand for a professional greeting when she got close enough, but Raintree was wearing white gloves, so she would be keeping her hands to herself. The firm businesslike handshake she usually offered the men she worked with would have to wait. “I’m Detective Hope Malory,” she said. “Your new partner.”
He didn’t hesitate before answering with confidence, “My partner retired five months ago, and I don’t need another one. Don’t touch anything on your way out.”
She was dismissed, and Raintree returned his attention to the body on the floor, even though he now had less light to study it by. The overhead light was dim, but she supposed it cast enough illumination over the scene. Hope had tried not to actually look at the body, but as she continued to stand her ground, she made herself take in the scene before her. It was the hair that caught her attention first. Like the woman in the hall, this victim’s hair was a mixture of pale blond and bright pink. She was dressed in well-worn blue jeans and a once-white T-shirt that advertised a local music festival. She had four gold earrings in one ear and one in the other, and wore a total of five rings—a mixture of gold and silver—on her slender fingers. All nine of them. Hope’s stomach flipped. One finger had been removed, and there was a horrible bloody wound on the top of the victim’s head, as if someone had tried to scalp her.