by H. P. Bayne
“I’m probably going to end up as tall as Dad,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He laughed. “I doubt it. No one’s as tall as your dad.”
“You’re staying for supper, right?”
“Yeah. I’m staying for supper.”
“And after that? Are you staying?”
“Overnight? Yeah, that’s the plan.”
“And you won’t leave?”
He shook his head, solemnly. He saw where this was going. He’d been a kid once, frightened of abandonment once he’d finally met the Braddocks—the family he’d always dreamed of. The one he’d been terrified of losing.
“I won’t leave,” he said.
“You left before.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think I had a choice. I know I hurt you, and I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Mom and Dad explained. I wish you hadn’t gone, but I’m happy you’re back now. Do you like meatloaf?”
“Your mom’s? Yeah, it’s the best.”
“I help her, you know.”
He laughed and stood up, the inside of his chest warming as she took his hand in hers. “Then you’re a really good cook.”
She looked up at him, big green eyes and an impish smile.
“Not really,” she said. “Grandma wishes I was, but I’m better at sports.”
She released his hand in the kitchen, running to her dad so he could scoop her up in his arms. Soon enough, she would consider Dez’s big hugs the stuff of little girls, and would rail against them. But, for now, this was the way things were supposed to be, and Sully was glad to see she was fine with it.
Sully stood a moment, taking the few seconds to watch his family before Eva or his mom noticed him. He watched the scene playing out, the one he’d dreamed, not so long ago, of being a part of. He’d stood outside the house that Christmas, watching the people he loved getting on with life without him. It had been comforting, knowing they were okay—at least in that moment—but it had hurt too. He hadn’t come back since, not until Aiden had led him to Dez in the cemetery.
Being here now, it was almost as if nothing had changed. And that was a far bigger comfort than anything he’d witnessed that lonely Christmas.
He took a quick drive that night, after Kayleigh had been tucked into bed.
Lachlan had provided the address, and Sully told himself he was going over only to check, to make sure Nora wasn’t still out there, looking to get back at the people who’d hurt her and her son.
Emory Davis had played no role in the offence, other than being born to one of the two men responsible. But Nora hadn’t seen it that way. She’d targeted him, whether because of his resemblance to his father, or out of a twisted desire to take a child from Hackman as he had taken hers.
But really, the reason Sully was now standing outside the tiny rented house was altogether different. It wasn’t about Emory at all.
It was about her.
The living room curtains were open, allowing Sully to see Ara sitting next to Emory on the sofa. She was tucked up next to him, head on his shoulder, long, black hair spilling over his chest. She looked beautiful.
She looked… happy.
He tried to think back, through their time together as an on-again, off-again couple. He tried to remember a time when she looked as happy with him.
He couldn’t.
She’d loved him. He knew that. But she’d cared for him in a way a person cares for an abused animal. She’d tolerated his standoffishness, his frequent need to withdraw, his moodiness. She’d loved him in spite of it. And he’d come to realize too late he loved her for that.
But she’d never worn that expression on her face, that look of utter peace and contentment, like her world was in order, and she was the one in control of it.
Emory had helped her find that. As much as Sully wanted to hate him, he couldn’t. If Sully truly cared for Ara, he couldn’t begrudge her this happiness.
What he could do was what he chose to do.
He walked away.
St. Matthew’s Cemetery was one of the oldest in town.
Surrounded by a lush border of pine and spruce, planted long ago by the church’s earlier parishioners, it provided everything Sully looked for these days when out in public: privacy and shadow. With his hood pulled over his head, he was able to watch the burial service for little Ben Silversmith in safety.
Only one person knew he was here. Dez stood at his shoulder, arms crossed over his barrel of a chest as he watched the scene. Five days had passed since the discovery, four days since Hackman had broken down and confessed to what he’d done. He’d insisted, Lachlan had informed them, on Lonnie’s having been the one driving that night, when they’d struck and killed the young mother. Whether Forbes had bought the story, or just wanted the case wrapped up was anyone’s guess. It didn’t really matter. Hackman had been charged with criminal negligence causing Ben’s death and causing an indignity to a dead body in the cases of both mother and son. He’d fast become one of the most despised men in the city, the newly solved cold case—the discovery of both Ben and Lonnie Debenham in the midst of the haunted woods—the talk of the town, and the headline on every paper, TV newscast and radio broadcast.
Already, Lachlan had learned Hackman lost his job at Lockwood. He’d been invaluable all these years to Dr. Roman Gerhardt, but even he, it seemed, had his limits. He had a reputation to maintain, after all—even if just the one he presented to the outside world.
“Do you think this is going to help?” Dez asked. “Burying Ben, I mean.”
“If you’re asking whether I think it will give Nora the peace she needs to move forward, I don’t know. Hopefully. When I went out there yesterday to help Lonnie cross over, I didn’t see her anywhere.”
“I don’t get it. If she knew where her son was buried, why not just lead you there? If that’s what she wanted, it would have been easy to get it. Unless, of course, she didn’t know where they’d put Ben.”
“She knew,” Sully said. “You told me the area around the grave was completely dead. Spirits as angry and dark as she is, they’re like poison. They stay in the same area long enough, you’ll see signs of it. I think she was rooted there. She probably drew strength from that place, from the feelings it brought out in her. She watched those men bury her son, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop them. Not then, anyway. She found a way to get back at them later, though.”
“Or Lonnie, at least.”
“And Hackman, through his son. He’s a crap father, but I do believe he loves Emory, even if it isn’t a healthy father-son relationship. Then again, it’s possible Nora targeted Emory only because she mistook him for his father. Time’s probably a weird thing on the other side. It might be they don’t even realize how many years have passed.”
“You described seeing the baby once, the first time you met Lachlan. You didn’t mention his ghost again, though. Do you think he’s out there somewhere?”
“I don’t think so. I think I was being shown an image of him. Everything she does is about him. My guess is someone came and got him, took him over soon after he died. I’m hoping whoever it was came and got her too.”
“Hackman probably wants a little more than ‘you hope’ right now.”
“Hackman can go to hell. I don’t care what he wants.”
“Yeah,” Dez said. “Me neither.”
Sully went back to focusing on the service. Nathaniel Porter stood graveside, his family around him as they at last lowered the tiny casket into the earth. There was a nip to the air today, a sign of winter on the horizon, but no one gathered at the grave seemed to notice. Burying a baby felt unnatural and wrong. Thirty years had passed, but no amount of time was long enough, not for a parent forced to say goodbye.
“How’s Nathaniel handling it?” Sully asked. “Did you check in with him after you told him about finding his son?”
“I called him yesterday. I don’t think Hackman needs to fear for his life anymore. Nathaniel’s mo
re sad now than angry. But grief’s a hard thing. It changes from day to day. There will be days he’ll want nothing more than to see Hackman’s face at the end of a gun barrel.”
“I can understand that. I still can’t believe they released him from custody.”
“He has no criminal record, and he’s not considered a flight risk. Plus, the case is thirty years old and, as far as the world’s concerned, he’s been a model citizen. You and I know better, but not many people know the things we do.”
Sully shrugged. Fair point, but it felt better, thinking of Hackman behind bars where he belonged.
“At least he lost his job,” Dez continued. “That’s something, right? He won’t be in a position to hurt anyone else in Lockwood. Without him, Gerhardt’s got to get another orderly onside.”
“He will,” Sully said. “He’ll convince them it’s for the patients’ own good, or he’ll make it worth their while financially. I don’t put a whole lot past people. Not anymore.”
“Not everyone’s bad, Sull.”
“I know that. But there are plenty of people prepared to look the other way instead of doing something to help.”
Dez’s elbow dug into Sully’s arm. “Good thing the world’s got you and me then, huh?”
Sully looked away from the gravesite, met Dez’s eye with a smile. “Yeah. Good thing.”
He lingered there a moment, drawing some peace from his brother before returning his gaze to the cemetery through the trees.
What he saw turned his blood cold.
“Damn it.”
“What?” Dez asked.
She stood removed from the crowd, but near enough to observe what was happening. Hair limp and straggly over her face, long dress covered in dirt and stains.
But it was her hands that drew Sully’s attention. They were clenched into fists.
“Sully, what?”
“She’s still here,” he said. “And she’s pissed.”
“Shit. Now what?”
“It’s not over for her, Dez. I think there’s only one thing left for her. And if we don’t stop her, she’s going to finish it.”
26
Sully would have rather been anywhere else as he and Dez pulled into a spot on the street in front of Hackman’s apartment building.
Dez was already on the move, sliding out of the driver’s seat. “Wait here. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”
But Sully wasn’t about to sit out here, doing nothing. Ghosts, those were his patch. Dez couldn’t do anything to help, not this time. Sully was out the passenger-side door and headed for the building’s entrance and its callbox when a hand around his bicep stopped him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dez demanded. “You can’t let him see you.”
Sully looked up, scanned the windows. The feeling he’d had, the one that had drawn him here, was proven correct as he spotted Nora peering down at him through her curtain of hair from the window of a fifth-floor apartment.
“She’s going to kill him, Dez.”
“I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but so what? After everything he did, everything he put you through—”
“I’m not like him. I can’t be like him. Don’t you get it? If I turn into the kind of person who’s okay with other people suffering and dying, I’m on a slippery slope to becoming something I don’t want to be. I have to do this. I have to stop her.”
Whether it was the desperation in his voice or whatever was visible in his eyes, Dez bought it. He led the way to the callbox, pressing the button for Hackman’s suite. The sound of static suggested the man had pressed the button, but his voice sounded fuzzy when it came.
Fuzzy and panicked.
“Who is this?”
“Dez Braddock. I—” Dez hadn’t had the chance to finish when a loud buzz from the front door indicated they’d been granted entry.
“That can’t be good,” Sully said, following Dez through the entrance and to a stairway on the left side of the lobby.
They took the stairs two at a time, both puffing for air by the time they reached the fifth floor. Sully sprinted after Dez to an apartment midway down the hall.
“Your hood,” Dez warned, just before he pounded on the door.
There didn’t seem much point. Sully had spent enough time with Hackman to allow the former orderly to identify him by voice alone, but Sully obliged anyway, getting the hood up just as Hackman yanked the door open.
He looked wild, eyes wide and covered over by a sheen of tears.
“She’s here!” he exclaimed. “Jesus Christ, she’s here!”
“Where?” Dez asked.
Sully didn’t need the help. He could see her, standing at the end of the short entrance hall.
He pushed past Dez and Hackman, approaching the spirit.
“You need to let this go,” he said. “You need to stop. This isn’t going to fix things.”
Behind him, he could hear Hackman questioning Dez, a whole new level of shock in his voice. “Is that Sullivan Gray? It sounds like—It can’t be.”
Dez said nothing, and Sully knew he wouldn’t. It was Sully’s secret to reveal, after all, one he’d have no choice now but to share. He’d revealed himself, hood or no hood.
It couldn’t be avoided. Not if he wanted to keep from ending up like the hangman.
His focus shifted fully back to Nora. She’d command all of it, no way he could afford to spare any on anything else. She was furious. He could feel it. Furious and intent on seeking this last revenge on the man who’d helped to end her son’s life.
“Nora, this has to end. You’re not going to get what you want this way. Your son’s gone into the light. You need to go to him. You can find peace there. But the more you give into anger and hate, the more you trap yourself here. Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this.”
Her focus had shifted, face turned from Hackman to Sully. She was listening, and that was a start.
“You weren’t always like this,” he said. “And you deserve better than being stuck here, trapped by all this rage. Your son is waiting for you. Leave this alone and go find him. Hackman will be punished for what he did. He’ll face justice. You don’t have to do this. Please.”
The fury had abated, and he had the sense of curiosity having taken its place. He suspected she’d never been faced by someone like him before, someone who could see her, who didn’t fear her.
She watched him from behind the hair for a long moment, as if thinking, considering what he’d said, questioning whether his request was worth granting. She was quiet for so long, he found himself beginning to hope maybe he’d gotten through.
He should have known nothing was that easy. Not with someone like her.
He felt it as she tried to meld her emotion with his, felt the rage beginning to root itself within him. But he was prepared this time. She’d done this in the woods. Once he’d nearly run himself to his own death; the second time, he tried to attack his own brother. Not again.
He took a breath, falling back on Raiya’s old lessons, seeking strength from the protective wooden cross gifted to him by Marc. He drew his thought inward, identifying the anger and separating it from his own feelings. It wasn’t him. She wasn’t him.
Another breath and he was free of her.
“I won’t let you overpower me, Nora. Not again. Now, please, listen to me.”
But she wasn’t falling to his power either. Her mouth, just visible to him behind the veil of hair, opened wide as if to scream. Fiery orange light poured from the opening, the colour of her rage.
She rushed through Sully, delivering a psychic body blow that put him on his knees. He turned his head at the sound of Hackman’s strangled cry, watched as she leapt onto him, her hand disappearing inside his chest where his heart must be.
Sully drew himself to his feet, watched as Hackman fell to the ground, clutching at his chest. Dez, in the hallway on Hackman’s other side, met Sully’s eye, the dread clear on his face.
“S
ully?”
Sully’s eyes shot back to Nora. “No.”
He closed his eyes, drawing his energy together, focusing all of it on her. He wouldn’t allow her to kill anyone else. He couldn’t. Not while he stood here and did nothing.
He’d been possessed by Harry Schuster in the past, and he remembered the feeling of temporarily occupying his own body with the spirit. He’d been able to hold onto himself that last time, the time Hackman had joined Lowell in that near-fatal attack. He knew, rather than hoped, he could do it again.
He focused on the feeling of her, the essence of her spirit. Her rage made it easy to find her, even through closed eyes.
He envisioned pulling her energy into himself, drawing it back, off of Hackman, toward him at the opposite end of the hall. He knew he was getting somewhere when he heard a pained sigh come from Hackman, followed by a series of gasping breaths.
It was all Sully and Nora now. He refused to release her, drawing her spirit back, back, closer to him. He could feel her panic now, her fear at being controlled. He felt it, then let it slip away. Her emotion couldn’t touch him now.
A cold chill bit into him as her energy met his, then joined it fully. The ghost was no longer in front of him, but inside him, much as Harry had once been. But this wasn’t an invasion, or an attack. This was all him. He was in control. She was in his control.
He could hold her. If he wanted to, he could hold her here forever.
Grant himself the power to do anything. Already, he could feel it, the doubling of his energy much as he’d felt that day with Harry. He had the strength of two now.
If he could corral more, his power would be infinite.
A voice came to his ears, Hackman’s strained voice. “What the hell? He’s glowing. How the hell is he glowing?”
Sully’s eyes shot open. Fear, now his own, enabled her escape. She fled from him, rushing back down the hall, toward the still-fallen Hackman. She paused over him, reaching down one last time into his chest as if to defy Sully. Hackman cried out, clutched his chest, then was still.
Nora cast one look back at Sully, then disappeared from sight.