by H. P. Bayne
“I’m trying to get her to communicate.”
“She won’t? Why not?”
“I can’t exactly answer that now, can I?” Sully said through a smile, one he forced for Dez’s benefit.
“I remember you saying something once about how some ghosts aren’t aware of anything outside their own world or dimension or whatever. Maybe that’s what the problem is.”
“No, she’s aware of me. She’s focused on me. But I’m not getting anywhere.”
“It’s been thirty years. If she’s spent all that time with one goal in mind, it might be kind of jarring, having you turn up, asking her to change course.”
Sully’s eyebrows lifted. Sometimes, despite Dez’s dislike of ghosts, he came up with a nugget that revealed he understood them better than he realized. It was a great point. If Nora had spent three decades with her sole aim to take revenge upon any vulnerable male she happened upon, it was a lot to ask her to alter her thinking now.
They could get partway to an answer, though—and could make tremendous strides toward concluding Dez and Lachlan’s current paid job—if they could find the body of the missing banker.
“Do you have a photo of Lonnie?” Sully asked.
He listened as Dez rifled through his clothing and accepted the photo his brother pressed into his hand. Sully lifted it, holding it where he hoped Nora could see through the hair.
“This man. His name’s Lonnie Debenham. I think you might have seen him a couple of months after you were killed. You led me to Emory a couple of nights ago. Maybe you can take us to Lonnie now. Can you do that? It’s important we find him, not just for him or his family, but for you too. I think it might help us to help you.”
It was crap. He knew it. He couldn’t think of a single way their locating the banker’s remains would help Nora find peace, but he’d use any ploy he could at this point.
For some reason, this one seemed to be working.
As unexpectedly as she’d appeared in front of him, Nora vanished from his space. Sully visually searched the area, finally spotting her a short distance to the northeast.
“I think she’s going to show me,” Sully said for Dez’s benefit. “Don’t lose me, all right?”
“You’re moving pretty stiffly this morning. Keeping up to you shouldn’t be a problem.”
“If she draws me in the same way she did that night, I won’t even remember my shoulder.”
“I won’t lose you. Let’s get this over with.”
As the last time, Sully started off with a light walk, but found he had to increase his pace to a jog as she began to move more quickly through the woods. Finally, a couple of minutes into this, she led him into a run.
He’d only managed a few paces at that speed before a hand seizing his good arm pulled him up short.
“Sully, stop.”
“I need to keep up to her.”
“You need to focus. Not on her, but on yourself. I think she’s doing to you what she did last time—you know, when she almost killed you. This is why I’m here, to hold you back when you need it. And you need it, man. Chill out. If she really wants to lead us somewhere, she’ll come back and make sure we’re following. Don’t let her set the pace here. You’re giving her too much control.”
“I can’t help it.”
“No, but I can. Follow her, but if you start moving too fast, I’m reeling you back in.”
Sully nodded, pouring his gratitude into the smile he offered Dez. Then he returned his attention to Nora.
As Dez had suggested, she hadn’t gone far, paused next to a tree ahead. Dez was right; she wasn’t going to allow him to lose sight of her. He felt it, a desperate pull deep inside him urging him to sprint blindly wherever she intended to lead. But there was comfort to be found in the presence at his side, Dez prepared to override the psychic with the physical.
Sully walked toward Nora, Dez’s heavy footfalls sounding immediately behind him. Nora allowed the lighter pace for a minute or two but, as expected, soon darted ahead. Sully’s attempt to run after her ended with his arm once again caught in Dez’s grip.
“Sully.”
“I know, I know. I can’t help it. She’s—” He broke off as she once again appeared before him, face pressed so close to his he would have felt her breath on him, had she been able to breathe.
He didn’t feel desperation or the determination to follow anymore. Now all he felt was anger and frustration. He tried to remind himself these emotions weren’t his own, but her strength, built over decades, pushed them forward. Her energy blending with his, he began to fade beneath her until he could no longer see himself for her. He closed his eyes, hoping by first visually blocking her, he could see his way to doing the same with her spirit. But his own calm, steady energy fled in the face of her enraged torment, until he all but disappeared completely.
“Sully, breathe.” The voice came as if from the top of a well, the same way it had sounded when he was a prisoner at Lockwood. “Come on, man. You’re freaking me out here.”
He opened his eyes. She was no longer in front of him. The reason, he realized with some interest—with excitement that wasn’t his own—was that she was now inside him.
“Sully—”
She spun, took in the image of Dez’s tall figure. In that moment, he was nothing more than a stranger in her way, a man preventing her from moving forward.
The words left her like a punch. “Get the hell away from me!”
Dez’s eyes were saucers, mouth popping open as his jaw visibly dropped. Now was the time, if one was to be found. She turned, ran. Sprinted through the woods, trees flashing past as the dog—Pax, that was his name, right?—ran beside her. It was up ahead, her goal. So close. Just a few more feet.
An impact from behind drove her forward and down, put her on the cold, hard ground beneath a weight she couldn’t budge. She tried to squirm free but the man holding her wasn’t letting go. Her mind flashed to a pocketknife, one she sensed Sully kept in his jacket pocket. If she could pull it out, drive it into her attacker, she could escape.
This wouldn’t happen again. She wouldn’t allow it.
If she lost, they would kill her son next.
A blow to the head, then another, clouded her thoughts, her resolve. A blinding pain seized her shoulder as her arms were wrenched back behind her, easing only a little when a cry was wrenched from her throat.
Someone was talking, but the words didn’t fully register. She tried again to break free, but she might as well have been trapped in a vice.
Fear, rage, desperation—they burned like a fire.
Then they were gone. Leaving Sully lying there, face down on the forest floor with Dez sitting on him, pinning his arms.
“Sully, come back. Please. Sully—”
“I’m okay. Can you let me go? My shoulder.”
“Uh-uh. Say something ‘you’ first.”
“Let me go or I’ll tell Mom on you.”
Dez paused, stilled. Then he barked out a surprised-sounding laugh. “I wasn’t thinking about going back that far, but okay. You sure you’re you again?”
“Yeah. I’m sure. She’s gone. You scared her off.”
“I scared her?”
“You might be the only guy in thirty years to scare Faceless Flo, Dez. Can you get off me now, please?”
Dez released him, then helped him to his feet. Sully rubbed his pained shoulder as he scanned the woods for any sign of the ghost.
Nothing.
“Is she gone?” Dez asked.
“For now. If materializing takes energy, possession soaks all of it up.”
“It was like what happened with Harry. It was like I wasn’t even looking at you. It was your face, your body. But it was her too.”
“That pretty much sums up how it feels too,” Sully said.
“I didn’t screw your shoulder up too bad, did I?”
“It’s fine. I’m glad you did it. Thanks.” Sully took another glance around. “It was like she was t
aking me to something. It’s not far from here, whatever it is.”
“You sure it’s safe?”
“No, but at least we can go slow now without her getting in the way.” Sully led them farther through the woods, searching the ground for whatever it was she’d been pulling him to. He saw it before he happened upon it, which was more than likely what would have happened had she been in control of him.
“That’s it,” he said aloud for Dez’s benefit. “Watch your step. The hole doesn’t seem that big from here, but the ground might be unstable around it.”
But the ground held as he neared, getting close enough he could kneel and peer down inside. It was deep and black, only the first few feet visible in the daylight. Dez, kneeling at his side, pulled out his cellphone and shone the flashlight beam down into the hole.
“Looks like an old well,” he said. “See anything?”
“Just a lot of leaves and crap that’s fallen in there,” Sully said. “Can you lower me down?”
“It’s too deep. We’re going to need a rope.”
Sully scanned the forest, eyes settling on a fallen poplar nearby. “I don’t want to waste time going back to the vehicle. Can we break the branches off that tree? It’s thin enough to lower most of the way down, I think. Maybe we can use it to shift some of the debris down there.”
Seemingly happy with that plan, Dez joined Sully in snapping off branches. The trunk that remained wasn’t the sturdiest-looking thing, but it would likely be both long enough to reach bottom and firm enough to move leaves and other matter aside to see if anything was beneath.
Careful not to brush the edges of the well, the two of them lowered the trunk inside until, at last, it reached what felt like bottom. Dez held the tree while Sully took his phone to illuminate the inside of the hole.
“It’s hard to see anything around the trunk,” Sully said. “Let’s try to move it around a bit and get some of that stuff out of the way.”
It was awkward, and they didn’t get a whole lot of movement out of the tree, the old well not nearly wide enough to allow it. But they gave it a few minutes anyway, shifting the debris at the bottom as much as they could before finally withdrawing it and laying it along the ground next to the hole.
Then the two of them knelt back down while Sully again cast the light inside.
A set of empty eye sockets inside a dirt-encased skull stared up at him.
Next to it, seated on the shifted soil, knees hugged to his chest as he rocked back and forth, was the ghost of Lonnie Debenham.
22
Sully tried to talk to him, but if he heard, he didn’t acknowledge it.
He was terrified, that much was obvious. It was hard to get through to living people, let alone the dead, when they were trapped in that frame of mind. If Lonnie’s fear was Nora, he had a lot to be worried about.
Sully tried again anyway, calling down to him until, at last, he faded away.
“It’s definitely Lonnie?” Dez asked.
“Without question.”
“Okay. But I can pretty much guarantee Lachlan will want more to take to the police than a ghost sighting and a skull if he’s going to persuade anyone this could be Lonnie.”
Searching for additional confirmation, they put the tree back down the hole, scraping aside more leaves, dirt, twigs and small rocks until they caught a glimpse of material.
Dez put in a call to Lachlan, asking him to check what Lonnie Debenham was said to have been wearing when he disappeared. He clicked the phone onto speaker in time for Sully to hear Lachlan answer the question.
“Jeans and a light blue button-down. Why?”
Sully took one more look to satisfy himself, then answered the question. “Because we just found a skull at the bottom of an old well near Hollow Road. And we uncovered what looks like some sort of blue material.”
“Jesus Christ, are you serious? How?”
“Long story,” Sully said.
“And not a good one,” Dez added.
“Hang tight there and don’t do any more digging,” Lachlan said. “I’m on my way. Meantime, you’d better call Raynor. The clown will salivate over this, and Major Crimes is going to become involved now that there’s a body. I want to be there when they get there.”
“And I can’t be here,” Sully said.
“I can follow coordinates just fine,” Lachlan said.
“Don’t come into the woods on your own. She’s still around, and she’ll be extra pissed when she’s got a little of her energy back.”
“Back from where?”
“I’ll tell you later. Just promise me you won’t come in on your own.”
“I’ll wait for the cops. Anyway, unlikely Raynor’s smart enough to know how to deal with coordinates. If I don’t wait and walk in with him, they’ll never find the spot.” He paused. “Good work, you two. Once I get confirmation, I’ll advise the family.”
“Think we’re safe to leave?” Dez asked once Sully disconnected with Lachlan and handed the phone back.
“She isn’t likely to reappear yet.”
“That’s good, too, obviously, but I was referring to the skeleton down the well. You don’t think she’ll up and move it, do you? Lachlan will have my ass if he gets here with the police to find there’s nothing down there after all.”
“There’s no way to say for sure,” Sully said. “But it’s pretty rare for ghosts to be able to physically move objects. It happens; we’ve seen it happen. But it isn’t common. Anyway, I don’t have a choice. I can’t stand guard here and wait.”
“I know. Probably best you don’t stay anyway. They seem to feed off you. If she didn’t have the power to start with, she might end up with some if you’re nearby—especially if she pulls more of that Exorcist-type crap.”
Dez visibly shuddered, and Sully didn’t have the heart to rib him about his fear. In all honesty, what had just happened with Nora had freaked him out too. He’d only been possessed one other time, with Harry Schuster, and it had almost killed him—and, at one point, Dez. Nora had contemplated using Sully’s knife, and it was only because Dez had overpowered him that he came away injury-free.
The fact this had now happened to him twice after a lifetime of believing it couldn’t terrified Sully. It could happen again, and there was no way to know what motivation a ghost might hold or how far they’d be willing to go to meet their ends. If someone Sully loved got in the way….
He closed the thought down before he strayed too far down that path. It wouldn’t get him anywhere but more stressed, and that would mean a bad starting point should Nora suddenly reappear.
They reached the SUV without further incident, and Dez wasted no time in starting the engine and getting them out of there, dust kicking up on the road behind them as they, mile by mile, left the woods in the rearview mirror.
They’d been back at the apartment less than an hour when Dez’s phone rang.
Sully, holding a heating pad against his shoulder, listened while Dez put the call onto speaker.
“Hey, Lachlan. Anything?”
Lachlan spoke through hushed tones, and Sully could hear what sounded like movement and chatter deep in the background. “You boys cracked it. They sent an Ident member down the well, and he did a little more digging, just until they could get to a pocket on a pair of blue jeans the skeleton is wearing. Had a wallet on him with a driver’s licence inside—Lonnie Debenham’s driver’s licence. There’s nothing much left of the body, but the teeth are in decent enough shape for the most part. I put in a call to Carlene to tell her about the find and asked her for the name of Lonnie’s dentist.”
“It’s been a while. His dentist is still around?”
“He’s about a hundred and ten years old, but he’s still practicing. Anyway, all we need is for his office to provide the X-rays. Coroner has a go-to guy for dental comparisons, so that’s who will be handling that part of it.”
“How excited was Raynor?” Dez asked.
“Hopping around li
ke a kid on Christmas morning. I think he figures this will be the case that will make him a shoo-in for a spot in administration, maybe even eventually that coveted chief’s job. Listen, the Debenhams are wanting answers fast. Thomas is going downhill at a pretty bad rate, and they want to give him the answers he needs first. The coroner’s got the expert lined up for later this aft, so everyone’s hoping for a positive ID sooner rather than later. I’ll keep you in the loop. I’m going to be busy with the family for a bit once we get the confirmation, so I’m hoping you’ll start talking to Eleanor Kirkpatrick and Larson Hackman.”
“Won’t that be a problem if police are investigating?”
“There’s nothing at this point to indicate foul play, but even if there were, those two were never considered suspects. Far as I’m concerned, we’d be doing the police a favour by figuring out if they need to look at either of them for possible involvement.”
Sully would be thrilled if it turned out Hackman was involved, and if they could uncover evidence pinning him with a murder charge. But he suspected the truth was something else. Lonnie was basically murdered, but not by anyone living. The person responsible wasn’t in any state to be arrested, and worse, she was likely to strike again if Sully couldn’t do something to stop her.
“Do you really think Eleanor has something to do with this?” Sully asked once Dez disconnected the call.
“No. I hate to say it, but Hackman probably didn’t either. It’s probably all on your ghost.”
“I think so too.”
“No matter, I guess. I’m thinking they’ll go through their usual procedures, get the confirmation on the identity and do what they can with an autopsy. If they don’t find blood or other evidence on the clothes, and no obvious signs of assault-related injuries on the remains, it will likely be ruled either undetermined or an accident. I mean, they’ll re-interview everyone they can, but it won’t lead to anything new. Not if he died the way we think.”
“Yeah, we’ve gotten to know her MO pretty well,” Sully said. “Are you going to go talk to Eleanor and Hackman anyway?”
“Don’t seem to have a choice. What about you? Hanging out here?”