Shattered Souls

by Delilah Devlin

  Sam’s head jerked.

  Oh, yeah. She hadn’t mentioned it, had she? But it was too late now.

  “Sam, give him the photocopy Thurgood gave you.”

  He pulled the folded-up, grimy photocopy of Donnelly’s driver’s license from a pocket.

  “You need to put out an APB on him,” Cait said as she tapped the paper. “He might be involved with the Farmington girl’s kidnapping, too.”

  Sam stood so still and silent Cait didn’t dare look his way.

  Leland glanced from one to the other, beady eyes narrowing. He pointed a finger at them both. “Don’t go anywhere.” He strode away, shouting to a uniform.

  “Feel like old times, O’Connell?” Sam asked, a chill as cold as ice in his voice.

  O’Connell? He was pissed all right. Cait gave him a searing glare. “Wasn’t my damn fault. A lot was happening.”

  “Never is your fault,” he bit out.

  At the cut, she lifted her chin. Back to the same routine. “You and Leland are so in sync, should I be jealous?”

  “No, but he’s got a point.” Sam raked a hand through his hair. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You kept silent over the fact you saw the guy. You’re holding back something else.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Dammit, why would you do that? We’re in this together.”

  “Everything happened so fast. Donnelly wasn’t my priority.”

  “All that time I spent digging, you sitting on your ass, you couldn’t have given me a damn clue?”

  “Sam,” she said, pitching her voice low. “Let’s talk about this when we don’t have so many ears around us.”

  “Fine.” His jaw clenched. “But they’re gonna split us up and question us. Shouldn’t I know what’s going on? It’ll look damn strange if I don’t.”

  “All you need to know is it was Donnelly who lit the dynamite. That’s all I saw.” She bit her lip, then stopped, because he’d told her long ago the action was one of her “tells.”

  For a long moment, his gaze bored into hers. “Right.” He shook his head and turned away.

  In an instant they were swarmed.

  Cait knew Sam was disappointed. She knew she should have told him the whole truth the moment after they were reasonably safe, but changing was damn hard. She’d spent most of her adult life hiding the strange things she knew. Sam was in her life only for the duration of this case. When it was over, she didn’t know where they stood. Something in her wanted to blunt the full truth because any sane man would run screaming from her crazy life. And she didn’t know if she could handle losing him again.

  “Ms. O’Connell, if you’ll come with me…”

  A detective she knew by sight but not by name waved her toward a sedan. With a final glance at Sam, who was purposely not looking her way, she gave a nod to the man. The sooner she told them everything she knew, with a little editing regarding Donnelly, the sooner she could hit O’Malley’s.

  Because she’d had to first hit her place for yet another shower, it wasn’t until nearly closing time that Cait slid into her regular booth. The familiar smells and muffled conversations interspersed with bursts of laughter calmed her. Only a handful of patrons sat at the bar and a couple of tables, and no one she knew. Strange, since she was a regular and everyone usually knew her.

  The bartender strode up to the table. “Still on the wagon?” Pauly asked, sliding a coaster onto the scarred wooden table.

  Her mouth began to salivate for her favorite drink, but she made a face. “Just water. I’m a little dry.”

  “Hope he’s worth it,” Pauly said, giving her a wink, then lifting his head toward the entrance.

  Sam pushed through the doors, his face as dark as a thundercloud.

  Her girlie parts tingled, but she turned away and folded her arms over her chest. “Not so sure about that right now.”

  Pauly laughed and walked toward Sam.

  She heard them talking but didn’t make out the words. Knowing Sam, he was probably grilling the bartender about her choice of drink.

  Finally Sam slid onto the opposite bench. “The APB’s out. Every uniform in the city is looking for Donnelly. He tried to kill a cop.”

  “A lowly PI is just incidental, right?”

  “Right.” He hunched forward. “There are no ears around now. Spill.”

  “What, not gonna sweet-talk a girl first?”

  He lifted a brow, blue-as-glacier-ice eyes studying her expression.

  Not wanting to meet that cold glare, she lifted a hand to examine her cuticles. “Not much to tell. When I rounded the stack of crates, I saw him, lighting the fuse. He looked right at me and smiled.”

  “And? I know there’s more. That much wouldn’t make you this cagey.”

  Cait dropped her hand and raised her gaze. “When he looked at me, something was strange about his eyes, Sam. Nothing I’ve seen before. They glowed, and then his pupils expanded until all of the white was black.”

  Sam grunted and looked away. “That’s…different.”

  She shuddered and made a face. “It was damn creepy. Tell me something. If I’d told you that back in the cave, you would’ve snorted and said it was too dark to see—that I didn’t see it right—wouldn’t you?”

  Sam slowly shook his head. “You don’t trust me at all, do you?”

  “I do,” she said, then wrinkled her nose. “With some things.”

  He blew out a breath. “Maybe the lieutenant’s right.”

  “About what?”

  “That this…” his hand pointed between their bodies, “is never going to work…you and me working a case together.”

  She didn’t like his tone. He sounded as though he was tired of trying. “Because strange things keep happening?”

  “No, because you don’t give an inch.”

  “And you do?” she scoffed.

  His hard gaze swung back, studied her for a moment, and then his lips twitched. “Honey, I can give you about seven.”

  Her jaw dropped. Heat flushed her face. “Do you even know how to argue?”

  “Is that what we’re doing? I thought it was flirting.”

  The edgy growl in his voice licked along her nerve endings. Damn. She pursed her lips and blew out a slow stream of air. “I thought we needed to keep our heads in the game.”

  “There’s nothing we can do tonight. We both need a bed. And I don’t want to leave you alone. It’s not safe.”

  “I can take care of myself,” she said grudgingly.

  “But why settle for that when you can have someone watching your back?”

  By his heavy-lidded gaze, he was talking about doing a whole lot more than offering her personal protection. She squirmed on her seat and realized that while they’d traded heated words her body had become aroused. “I’m trouble,” she said gruffly. “You’ve said it yourself.”

  “Sometimes a man needs trouble to feel alive, Cait.”

  They both knew she was going to cave, but she wouldn’t be Cait O’Connell if she didn’t give him a bit of a fight. “Shouldn’t you check in with your team?”

  “Already did.”

  “I should circle back with Jason.”

  “He’d have called if he had a hot lead.” One dark brow arched. “Any more concerns?”

  Because arousal was reducing her resolve to a limp, quivering mess, she shook her head.

  Just when she was about to tell him she was ready to leave, a voice intruded on her lust-filled daze, confusing her. A familiar baritone, the voice was one she hadn’t heard since she was a little girl. Her body felt cold, then hot. A buzzing sounded inside her head. Good Lord, was she going to faint?

  Cait gripped the edge of the table and slowly leaned to the side to look behind Sam.

  Her heart stopped, then redoubled with thick, throbbing beats. She recognized the short, close-cropped red hair, thickly built torso, and crisp dark uniform in an instant. “Daddy?” she whispered.

/>   “Baby, what’s wrong?” Sam asked, cutting a quick glance behind him.

  She couldn’t answer him now, couldn’t think. She stood clumsily, edging to the side while she kept staring. Chest tight, she didn’t want to blink and have Paddy O’Connell evaporate before her eyes.

  Her father sat with another uniformed officer, both of them with pints of Guinness in their large, shovel-like hands. His face was flushed, the index finger of his free hand wagging as he spoke like he was telling one of his long, funny stories. Then he glanced her way and winked.

  Someone shoved past her. “Wait,” she cried huskily. But a body took her father’s seat, and Paddy O’Connell’s sturdy frame wisped away.

  She blinked, then glanced around the area, straining her ears for the sound of his voice, but he was gone.

  Hands closed around her arms from behind. “Cait? You look as though you just saw a—”

  “Ghost?” She shivered. “I did.”

  “Let’s get out of here. You can tell me about it when we get you home.”

  She pulled against his hold, but he didn’t release her.

  “Let’s go.” He leaned closer. “Now.”

  Suddenly, all the day’s events weighed her down, and she swayed.

  Sam slipped an arm around her waist and steered her toward the door. “No more arguments.”

  “Thought it was flirting.”

  “No more of that either. You need rest.”

  “I’m all right,” she muttered.

  “Sure you are. You’re so pale you look ready to smack the floor.”

  “I don’t want rest.”

  “Let’s get you to bed, and we’ll see what else you’re ready for.”

  Sam waited outside her bathroom. Cait had locked herself inside. The sound of water running and a toothbrush scrubbing reassured him he didn’t need to break down the door. She’d said she’d seen a ghost, and he believed her. In the space of seconds, her face had gone from flushed with excitement from the barbs they’d traded to gray.

  Life with Cait was complicated like that. Hot and cold. Fast, then slamming against a brick wall. At least she hadn’t lied about the cause of this latest switch-up.

  She’d seen a ghost. He’d known just by her expression the moment it happened that something was up, even before he’d heard her whispered Daddy.

  Although this wasn’t his area of expertise, wasn’t something he’d ever dreamed was real, he wanted to be there. To listen, to hold her. Cait had kept so many secrets, bottled up so much inside. From what he’d gleaned these past couple of days, she’d been doing it most of her adult life. There’d been no one for her to confide in because she’d closed out the friends she’d had who lived in that other world. How lonely must she have felt? He’d failed her, never looking beyond the things she’d done that drove him crazy to understand the reasons.

  Not that he was ready to join her on the crazy wagon forever. And where did he get off, telling her he loved her? Where the hell had that come from? Had the declaration only been the heat of the moment? Something he’d said because he had to, just in case he didn’t make it out of that hole? Saying it had felt like unstopping a corked bottle. But the sentiment wasn’t real. Couldn’t be lasting.

  The water stopped. He moved away from the door so she wouldn’t know he’d been hovering. The door creaked open, and she stepped out, dressed in an oversize T-shirt with a University of Tennessee school crest on the chest. An old one of his. He didn’t want to think about why she’d kept it. A painful lump settled in the back of his throat.

  “Do you want me to leave?” he asked, his voice as rough as gravel.

  She shrugged but didn’t quite meet his gaze.

  “We don’t have to do anything. Or we could talk.”

  “Talk?” She snorted softly. “You really want to hear what I have to say?”

  “I do.” Sam kept his face free of criticism, wanting her to know this time he really would listen to whatever crazy thing she had to say. “I think it’s time.”

  Her chin jutted. “You’ll wish you hadn’t poured out all the scotch.”

  “Never was my drink.” Sam sat on the edge of the bed and patted the mattress. “Why don’t you get under the covers; it’ll be less distracting.”

  Her lips curved. “Afraid I’ll tempt you in my sexy pajamas?” she asked, placing a hand on her hip and striking a model’s pose.

  Sam gave her a rueful smile. “It turns me on, seeing you in my shirt.” He patted the mattress more insistently. “Sit, and for fuck’s sake, cover up.”

  Cait slipped under the coverlet, sitting with her knees drawn up and her arms encircling them. She eyed him, biting her bottom lip. “It’s been a strange day,” she said softly. “Almost too much to handle.”

  And although he wanted to comfort her, he knew where that would lead. He eased one knee onto the mattress to turn toward her, kept his expression neutral, and said, “Start with the first thing that scared you.”

  She winced. “That’d be the graveyard.” Her eyes darkened, and her glance slid away toward the wall. “You can’t imagine the things we saw. Like in a horror movie—statues blinking their eyes, moving on their pedestals. When a cold wind whipped up out of nowhere, all I could think was I’d freeze like a popsicle, just like Henry. That’s how you’d find me.”

  Sam reached out, cupped a hand over one of hers, and squeezed. “But you made it.”

  She met his gaze, her eyes round. “We ran to a crypt and huddled inside. That red bag I had this morning? The one I thought you’d dug out of a box? Well, I guess I found it for a reason. I’m not sure, but I think my mom must have moved it.”

  He kept silent. If it helped for her to think her mom was around her, why not?

  Cait tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked up from beneath her eyelashes, a hint of shyness in those green eyes. “She was clairvoyant, could see bits of the future. Nothing ever clear enough to be helpful, but this time…” She gave a soft laugh. “The bag wasn’t particularly helpful getting us out of that crypt. I burned it because I wanted to destroy the spell she’d cast for me when I was a child that made the wraiths’ screams go away. But burning it didn’t help one bit because I still couldn’t hear them. I thought that if I could, then I’d know when they left so we could escape.”

  “So how’d you get out?”

  Her face scrunched in a grimace. “I cast my own spell.”

  His blood chilled, and Sam held still, then drew a deep breath. Her mother had been a witch, now Cait too? He felt like cussing but kept the harsh thoughts from showing on his face. Hadn’t he asked for the whole unvarnished truth? “All right…is casting spells something you do often?” he asked, careful to keep his anger at her secrecy from entering his voice. Did he know her at all?

  “Not since my mother’s death. I turned my back on magic because it killed her.”

  “But you used it today. And the magic worked?”

  Her eyes widened, a sudden gleam of excitement appearing as she sat forward. “Better than any spell I ever used. We snuck out of the cemetery without any of the creatures seeing us. Or at least not until we were almost to the gate.” She wrinkled her nose. “The caretaker fainted, and then everything was coming at us…” She took a deep breath. “It was surreal. But the strange thing was, I wasn’t terrified.”

  “Good girl.” Sam breathed deeply, seeing in his mind’s eye everything she’d experienced. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have been as wobbly as that caretaker. “You kept your head. What next?”

  The light in her eyes faded, and she looked away. “When you and I left the apartment to head to the university, there was a woman walking past us on the sidewalk.”

  His thoughts went back to the scene, and he shook his head slowly. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Did you see me flinch?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “I was ready to crash into her, held up my hands, but she slipped right through me.”

  “A gh
ost? You saw another ghost and didn’t mention it?”

  Her lower lip pouted. “I’m telling you now. But right then, I didn’t know what to think. I was shocked. And we had work to do, so it was just easier to push it to the back of my mind. Even now, I don’t know what it means. Burning the spell bag may have opened doors inside me. I may have had that skill all along, something I would have gradually grown into, but I think Mama’s magic somehow muffled the ability.”

  Spell bags, magic, ghosts? Sam didn’t comment, because he didn’t know what to say, so he let it go. “How’d you feel about seeing your dad?”

  Her eyes filled, but she blinked away the tears and gave him a blazing smile. “Shocked to my toes. I couldn’t believe it. He winked at me, Sam. He knew I was there.”

  “You were walking toward him?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you think you could talk to him?”

  “I don’t know.” A frown bisected her brow. “But then, he wasn’t exactly gesturing me over.”

  “Maybe you’re not meant to talk to him. Maybe he just wanted you to know he was there.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said faintly, her gaze unfocused. She rested her chin on her drawn-up knees.

  “Is there more?”

  She shook her head. “You already know about Donnelly.”

  Sam smoothed a thumb over the back of her soft hand. “I won’t pretend to get it. Not all of it, anyway.”

  “It’s not your world. I get how it crazy it sounds.”

  “Just the same, don’t hold back just because you think I can’t handle it. Partners have to trust each other.”

  “Partners?” Her voice was thicker, a little higher.

  He’d hurt her. Maybe she wanted more. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he wouldn’t tell her a lie. “For the duration, that’s what we are.”

  Her chin shot up. The sparkle of challenge was back in her glistening green eyes. “Partners with benefits?”

  Who was he kidding? “Hands off Cait” had never been a rule he could keep. Still, he didn’t want to seem too eager. She might read more into this than he could promise. He’d been straight when he’d said they were only together until they found Henry’s killer and now, Lisa Farmington. And despite his declaration in the cave, he knew he’d better keep it light. For now. “Depends on how good the benefits are,” he growled. “We talking pension plans or something a little sexier?”