Cold Touch

by Leslie Parrish

  She didn’t like to think how close that bar was to the cemetery. God, imagine if she’d come stumbling out onto the street rather than hiding all night? The first person she’d run to for help might very well have been the one she’d been trying to escape.

  The thought made her sick even now, all these years later.

  “But it is a long shot,” the detective said. “I mean, if he knew you’d gotten away, why would he go through with the money drop?”

  She shrugged helplessly. That was one of the many questions. “But he had to have found out I was gone before he went to get the money. As I mentioned, he moved the camper. It was there when I ran, and the next day it wasn’t.”

  “Did they ever find it?”

  “No. The police theorized that he ditched it somewhere in the Okefenokee and it just disappeared into the swamp.”

  They’d also theorized that Jack had been in it at the time. Now, though, she had begun to doubt that very much.

  “Which makes the time line that much tighter,” he said. A muscle in his jaw worked, like he was clenching his teeth. She had to wonder if he was reevaluating what he’d thought about her possibly being “on to something.” Because it sure didn’t seem very likely, on the surface.

  Yet, deep down, something still told her she was right. She couldn’t explain the timing—yet. But she knew that face. Everything else fit, right down to the strange, otherworldly compulsion she’d felt to go to that scene Monday morning, as if fate itself were telling her she was finally coming to the end of her twelve-yearlong search.

  There was one more thing, one other possible explanation for all these questions about the time line. That other possible explanation made it imperative that she find out the truth, one way or another. Because for years she’d assumed the kidnapping monster had worked alone, aside from his poor, brainwashed sidekick.

  But what if he hadn’t? What if somebody else had taken care of disposing of Jack’s body and the camper? What if there was an accomplice out there, somebody else who might yet face justice for what had happened to Jack—and to her?

  She had to know. Had to.

  “Maybe he wasn’t working alone,” she whispered. “Maybe somebody else helped him, then covered all this up after he’d been killed. That person could still be out there.”

  He didn’t try to talk her out of the idea or tell her it was a crazy one. Because he had to know it wasn’t crazy; in fact, it made a lot of sense. Terrifying sense.

  “I can help,” she told him again, hoping he’d hear only the sincerity in her voice, not the hint of desperation she suspected was there as well. “I’ll know if it was Jack you found in that wall. If it wasn’t, I might be able to give you some new leads to figure out who he was. If I’m right, and it is Jack, well, at least I’ll know for sure and won’t have to spend the rest of my life wondering about him.” And can perhaps find out if someone else was there, bearing witness to his murder.

  The detective was no longer frowning and frustrated; now he looked curious and a little skeptical. “You can do all that, huh?”

  She nodded.

  “How?”

  Swallowing and hoping her voice didn’t shake, she answered him with the truth. “I can’t really tell you that. I just need you to trust me.”

  “Trust you to do what?” he asked, looking suspicious.

  “To give me a few minutes alone with the remains.”

  “You’re such a shithead. I can’t believe I cried at your funeral.”

  Julia Harrington didn’t look up as she mumbled the words. She was too busy trying to focus on her job, not on her silent business partner, who, annoyingly, had been anything but silent since he’d arrived. He’d been trying to talk her into leaving work and going to the beach.

  As if she wanted to be breaded in sand to go along with living in the frying pan that was Savannah, Georgia, on any August day. Yeah. Right.

  He was completely unfazed. “You need to get a life.”

  “No. What I need to do is finish this report,” she retorted, focusing on the screen of her computer, not on the man leaning indolently against the closed door of her office. He’d popped in a few minutes ago, unannounced as usual, offering no explanation about where he’d been for the past six days. Not that she’d ask for one. Sure, she was curious. But, no, she didn’t have time to get sidetracked by one of his adventure tales.

  “Why don’t you get a dog? That would give you something to do.”

  “I have plenty to do,” she said, absently pointing at the piles of paperwork on her desk.

  “I mean other than work. Imagine a cute little puppy to come home to at night.”

  Knowing he wouldn’t leave her be until she gave him her full attention, she tore her gaze off the screen, preparing for the jolt that seeing him always gave her.

  Jolt.

  God, he was so gorgeous, so utterly, incredibly beautiful to look at: thick brown hair, laughing dark eyes shot with gold, a face that should have ended up on a movie screen rather than a police identification badge. Morgan Raines had been the most glorious male specimen she or just about any other woman would ever see in her lifetime.

  He was still that man, that same perfect sexy man, his looks frozen in time, all forward momentum stopped by a madman’s bullets: four to the chest.

  If he’d been on-duty and wearing his vest, he would have survived with bruises and a few broken ribs. Being ambushed outside a restaurant late one night, however, he’d had nothing but a thin shirt for protection. Well, and Julia. But she hadn’t been enough, either.

  Thank God real life wasn’t like the movies, nothing like that creepy kid who’d declared I see dead people. If she had to see Morgan now the way she’d seen him in the last seconds of his life, with those gaping wounds, the blood pumping out of him with every beat of his heart, she would have broken apart with grief long ago. Well, she had broken apart with grief, at least for a while. Then he’d returned, sort of, and put her back together again.

  “So. Whaddya say?” he asked with a wide grin. “Lab or golden retriever?”

  “You’d scare it to death.”

  “I would not,” he said, stiffening, indignation lacing his voice. “I like dogs.”

  “I don’t think dogs like your kind.”

  “That’s very bigoted. You’re a ghostist.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “A dog would be good company for you.”

  Groaning, she considered sticking earplugs in her ears, but knew then he’d just do that freaky thing where he talked inside her head. “Better than you? Yeah, I’d say so.”

  “I’m wounded, Julia,” he said, flashing that ultrasexy grin that still had the ability to stop her heart after all these years. Ten. I’ve known him for ten years. Two when he was alive, eight since he was murdered. “You know how sensitive I am.”

  That note of mischief in his voice and the aggrieved tone almost brought a smile to her lips, as she knew he wanted. “You’re as sensitive as a pit bull,” she said.

  If it were possible, Morgan Raines was more of a cocky, sexy smart-ass in the afterlife than he’d been in his real one. And that was really saying something.

  Huh. Did this count as his afterlife, since it was still her real one? One of the many things she hadn’t figured out about this exceedingly strange relationship.

  “See? You do have dogs on your mind.”

  Gritting her teeth, she glanced at the clock, saw it was well after three and groaned. “I mean it; I need to get this done. Just give me twenty minutes to finish, and then I’ll let you analyze my life and tell me how poorly I’m living it.”

  “Those who are alive usually do,” he said, managing to sound pious, which didn’t suit him. Throwing himself back on the love seat that stood in the corner, he added, “I’m so bored!”

  “So go find a Christmas tree and perch on top of it.”

  “Ha-ha. I’m not an angel.”

  “No, you’re a devil,” she said, not believing
she’d let him suck her into this conversation.

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “How do you know?”

  He suddenly frowned, his brown eyes darkening to near black as he became very serious, indeed. “Because nothing in creation could be as bad as an evil man.”

  Their stares met, his good humor melting away along with her irritation. Yes, they knew a lot about evil men. More than most ever would. Among those men, the one who had killed him and the ones who had hired him. Someday, I’ll find them. I swear it. Someday.

  Instead of making that promise again, she merely whispered, “Touché.”

  His frown still in place, he nodded once, then crossed his arms and stared out the window, letting her get back to work. She hated to leave things on that note, far preferring a mischievous ghost to a melancholy one. But his moods were always mercurial; he was an eternal twenty-six years old, energetic, hard to keep down.

  Funny, when they’d met, he’d been the older one, the experienced one who’d taken her, the fresh-out-of-college rookie, under his wing. Now she’d moved past him, right into her thirties, growing, maturing, aging. She had a business and a mortgage and a lot of responsibilities to go with them, while he would be forever young. Free.

  Dead.

  Throwing off the thought, she turned back to her computer, needing to finish this report she’d been typing. It was for a client who was looking for her missing sister-in-law, who had disappeared weeks ago. Bad enough to tell the woman she was correct in her suspicions that the sister-in-law had met with foul play. Worse to tell her that the woman’s husband—the client’s own brother—had been the one who’d made her disappear. Then again, if the client hadn’t suspected her brother, she would have gone directly to the police with some evidence she’d discovered, rather than to a group of private detectives, especially a group of private detectives as specialized as eXtreme Investigations.

  “Specialized? I think you mean ostracized.”

  “Stop it, Morgan,” Julia snapped, knowing he’d already gotten over his brief bout with the dead-guy blues. “Get out of my head.” He couldn’t do it often, especially because she was very careful to guard her thoughts, but obviously her stress was speaking loud and clear.

  “Shh, pipe down,” he said, laughter evident in his voice. “Do you want our new receptionist to think you’re crazy and quit the first week on the job?”

  “I am crazy,” she muttered.

  “Nah, if you were really crazy, you’d think you were perfectly sane.”

  Maybe. Or maybe she’d just gotten really good at convincing herself Morgan was here because she so wanted him to be. But, if the issue had merely been about not being able to let him go, wouldn’t his “ghost” have been around since right after his death?

  It hadn’t been. In fact, he’d been gone for months after he’d been shot down in the street. She’d almost begun to think she really could go on living without him, if only so she could catch the men who’d killed him. Then she’d come face-to-face with a punk aiming a gun at her, and who should show up to save her life but her old partner. Her old love, Morgan Raines.

  “If I weren’t really here, could I do this?” he asked.

  She sucked in a breath, watching as he lifted a vase filled with fresh flowers. “If you drop that, you’re going to clean it up.” Julia glanced at the closed door, wishing she’d locked it, since she was the only one who could see the solid-looking man holding the vase. If her new receptionist walked in now, she’d see a vase of pretty roses floating a few feet off the floor and would either faint or quit on the spot.

  The woman wouldn’t be the first to run out screaming at the stuff that went on around here. Hell, sometimes Julia herself was tempted to. After all, she didn’t have any powers; she couldn’t do anything like what Aidan, Mick, Derek or, God help her, Olivia, could. She just had a relationship with a dead guy. One guy. There were no other ghosts in her world. Sometimes, like now, even one was way too many, and she wondered what it might be like to have a normal life.

  Then Morgan put the vase down. Winking, he flashed her that unbelievable smile, the one that had claimed her heart long ago when they’d met on the job with the Charleston PD. And Julia mentally acknowledged what she’d known since the day she’d first seen his ghost, backing her up the way he always had when he was alive: Normal was way overrated.

  “Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you something.”

  Julia went back to her typing. “Uh-huh?”

  “Your friend, Olivia? Something’s up with her.”

  That caught her interest, mainly because Olivia had done something she’d never done in the more than two years she’d worked here. She’d called in sick. “What?”

  “I’m not sure. But somebody’s been looking for her, trying to get at her.”

  “Somebody . . . like who?” she asked, wishing he would just get to the point.

  “Well,” he replied, “somebody . . . like me.”

  Chapter 4

  “Just wait until you get a load of this.”

  Startled, Ty looked up, realizing his partner was back again from his latest interaction with their new witness. This time, though, Gabe didn’t look hopeful about having a break in their case. Instead, he looked both angry and a little disgusted. Ty couldn’t remember ever seeing that expression on his face before. While his partner could be a total hard-ass who was absolutely fearless on the job, for the most part, Gabe Cooper seemed most natural when doing his you-can-trust-me-I’m-just-a-good-ol’-boy thing.

  “What’s up? You get anywhere with the Wainwright woman?”

  “You’re not going to believe what she wanted me to let her do,” his partner said, throwing himself down into an empty chair. He quickly explained the woman’s bizarre request, adding, “Is that whacked or what? I almost fell outta my chair.”

  “What’d you do instead?”

  “What do you think? I ended the interview and escorted her to the exit.”

  Too bad. Ty was very curious about the woman. “She say why she wanted to see the remains for herself?”

  “No,” Gabe snapped, “but I assume it has something to do with the fact that she works with that paranormal detective agency, eXtreme Investigations.”

  Ty had heard of the outfit, though only in the most general how-stupid-is-this-shit terms most cops used when talking about psychics. As for Ty? Well, he wasn’t gonna call himself a believer, but he wasn’t a skeptic, either. Some mysteries couldn’t be explained by normal means. As far as he was concerned, the idea of somebody having the brains to read another person’s mind was no crazier than thinking man might soon figure out a way to travel outside the solar system. Yet one concept was laughed at, the other considered a likely possibility in the future.

  “I think I’d like to get a look at this woman,” he admitted.

  Gabe had grabbed his laptop off his own desk and began punching on the keys. Then he turned the thing around so Ty could see the screen. It was a Web site for the paranormal detective agency and included pictures of the staff.

  Ty couldn’t help whistling. Olivia Wainwright was a beauty—a little skinny, maybe, but pretty in a fragile way. Part of him wondered if that’s what had Gabe so riled up: worrying that such an attractive, delicate-looking female might be as nutty as a Snickers bar. But he didn’t think that was it. Gabe had never been one to let any kind of personal life interfere with his work.

  If, that is, he had a personal life. So far, in the year they’d worked together, Ty hadn’t seen much evidence of one.

  “There’s more.” His partner was tugging a cell phone out of his pants, staring at it, then at a small white business card he held in his other hand.

  “What’s that?”

  Gabe tossed the card onto the desk. “I guess you’d call it a character reference.”

  Glancing at the name and title, Special Agent Steven Ames, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Atlanta office, Ty could only shake his head in confusion. “Who’s this
guy?”

  “The FBI agent who handled her kidnapping case. Apparently they still keep in touch, and she’s sure he’ll ‘vouch’ for her. Before she left, she asked me to give him a call.”

  Gabe muttered something else under his breath.

  “Huh?”

  “I said I guess he works with Mulder and Scully.”

  Ty snickered. “At least she came prepared, knowing you’d need convincing.”

  “I thought she was gonna call Daddy and ask him to lean on the chief.”

  “Wainwright . . . she connected to that Wainwright?”

  “I think so.” Gabe plunked some keys on his laptop and made a sound of disgust. “Yep. Her grandfather was a former senator, and the current Senator Wainwright is her cousin.”

  Ty whistled. “Do you really think she’d call in that big a favor, all so she can feel up some old bones? That’s pretty fuckin’ morbid, man.”

  “I don’t know how far this one’s willing to go. She seems like a very determined woman. And it’s not just that she wants to examine them, she wants to be alone when she does it.”

  That sounded sick, twisted, and if it were anybody else, Ty would probably be advising his partner to ignore the crazy psychic. But he couldn’t deny that he felt curious about what this woman could do. After all, he’d read the whole file; he knew what she’d been through, what she’d seen, felt, experienced. Did he really think spending a scary night in a graveyard had opened up a gateway between the woman and the afterlife? No. Not really. But, if her statement was to be believed, she had been dead herself that very same night. Two minutes dead, at least.

  He didn’t think his partner knew that, however. Ty wondered if it would make any difference if he did. No, he didn’t suppose the story would suddenly turn Gabe Cooper into a Casper believer, rushing out to load up on rock salt for his shotgun. It might make him look at the woman who seemed to be driving him a little crazy in a slightly different way, though.