PsyCop 4: Secrets

by Jordan Castillo Price

  He realized what he’d been doing and let go. “Something was going on in here.” Right. I told him about the Tuxedo Ghost. Even though it sounded like a villain from an after-school series aimed at teenaged girls, Jacob didn’t crack a smile. I didn’t go into the balloon-pulling. I didn’t understand what’d happened well enough myself to be able to explain it to anyone else.

  Jacob brushed my hair off my forehead and stared down at me like he was about to scoop me up in his arms and ride off into the sunset with me. “Hey,” I said. “I’m pretty tough, I swear. A strong cup of coffee and I’ll be good as new.”

  “We should call The Clinic.”

  “Uh-uh, no way. I was using my talent off the clock; I don’t want them to make a big deal of it. I overextended, that’s all.”

  Jacob looked doubtful.

  “Have you ever known me to refuse medical attention if I might get some drugs out of it? No? Then I must be all right.” I got my good elbow under me and pushed up from the floor.

  “I’ll have them get you a wheelchair.”

  “Hell, no. I’d rather drag myself along by my teeth.” My palm pressed into something gritty. I wiped it on my pant leg, then realized what I’d done and checked for damage. I’d expected a smear of grime to show up gray on my navy slacks, but instead a few translucent, pale crystals rolled off my leg and bounced back down to the floor. The High John bath salts.

  The last time I’d blacked out while tapping into my talent, I’d been on the psyactives that Roger Burke had slipped into my Starbucks. This time, I had High John all over me. Maybe the salt acted as a sort of psyactive without me having to swallow it. That was good, given the taste of the box. Plus, theoretically, I could rinse it off once I was through being a ghost super-seeker.

  Jacob helped me stand, but I walked out of the stairwell on my own two feet. I noticed a pair of patrolmen by the nurses’ station, and two more by 304. They all looked like they meant business. The goofballs with the coffee cups from the day before were nowhere to be seen.

  Lisa and Carolyn jumped up and mobbed me when I came into the room. “It’s fine,” I said, “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Carolyn.

  Damn. I was woozy enough to slip up and lie to her face. Those little ones sneak up on you. “Fine, I’m queasy. Are you happy?”

  “Thrilled. So what happened out there?”

  “I was trying to trap this guy, make him stop and talk to me, but he blew right past my ba…uh, my barrier.”

  Everyone’s eyebrows drew down a few notches. It would’ve been funny if they weren’t all scowling at me. It was Carolyn who finally spoke. “You’re trying to command spirits?”

  “Well, I…. It’s a hell of a lot easier than chasing them, given that they can fly and walk through walls.”

  “That’s Marie Saint Savon territory,” said Jacob. Marie was the most powerful medium who’d ever lived, at least the only one who’d ever actually known she was seeing spirits.

  I think there are probably some winos on Canal Street whose talents are equally as strong; they just never figured out that weird shit they were seeing was real.

  I shrugged off their concern. “It’s not like that. I was only trying to get them to stay put for a second. And you can see how well that went. Anyway, I was chasing the homeless guy and he was basically flipping me off, when this other guy pokes his nose in to see what all the commotion’s about. Sounds stupid, I know, but he was wearing a tuxedo.”

  “That’s him,” Lisa blurted out.

  We all froze and stared at her. She pressed her lips together and her eyes went huge. But she could hardly take it back. “That’s the guy,” she said quietly, as if any of us had the slightest doubt about what she’d meant.

  “We’ll search the floor,” I said, “starting with Irene’s room.”

  “No,” said Jacob. “You’ll go get some rest.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s not as if anyone else can do the sweep.”

  “And it’s not as if it gets any easier for you if you’re tapped out. Go home, recharge your batteries, and we’ll tackle it in the morning.”

  “He’s right,” said Lisa. “Let’s go.”

  Lisa hustled me into the hall. I leaned over and whispered, “If it wasn’t so serious, I’d say you just want to stop for more fries.”

  “It’s not that.” She paused as we passed some patrolmen and started up again once they were out of earshot. “Your ghost isn’t gonna come back tonight. I asked. So why not use the time to get your strength back?”

  The elevator doors opened. The nurse with the tight perm was pushing the paralyzed guy with the bony wrists, and we had to wait while she rocked the wheelchair over the thresh-old. Again. “How come this guy’s always in the elevator?” I asked her.

  “Mister Barnhardt? He’s got physical therapy twice a day. The doctors are trying to see if he can regain any mobility after his stroke.” She rocked the chair free and wheeled Barnhardt into the lobby.

  “His room used to be on the second floor,” I said.

  “That’s right. But the rooms on Three are better equipped for the chairs.” The elevator door whispered shut before we had a chance to climb in. Lisa clucked her tongue and hit the down button again, but the door stayed closed.

  I gestured at Barnhardt with my head. “Is he…you know…aware of anything going on?” The nurse shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Possibly.”

  I refrained from shuddering until she’d marched away on her creepy white shoes. “Lisa, seriously, if that ever happens to me, either shoot me or pay someone else to do it. Or tip me into the river.”

  Q

  We grabbed a couple of pizzas on the way home and stuck the menus on the fridge. The cannery was starting to look like an actual home, albeit one with 20-foot ceilings. Jacob was home by six. There was no doubt in my mind he would’ve stayed at Rosewood for several more hours if there weren’t two Psychs for him to come home to.

  “Do you think the tuxedo is important?” asked Lisa.

  “Well, Vic?” said Jacob. “Do ghosts normally have different outfits, or do they wear whatever they were buried in?”

  I was about to say they were stuck with whatever they’d been wearing when they kicked the bucket. After all, I see ghosts in all kinds of costumes, uniforms and fashion disasters.

  Jackie, the dead hooker who lived in the bushes at my last apartment, spent her afterlife in a bloody tube top. Jackie would whip up a different outfit if she possessed the ability, wouldn’t she?

  And yet, there was Roberta in her gigantic lavender hat. She’d appeared about thirty or forty years younger as a ghost, and she’d probably been wearing her all-time favorite outfit.

  “It varies,” I said. “I can’t even begin to figure out the reasoning.”

  “So this man could’ve been a butler,” Jacob said, “or an actor, or just someone who had a reason to wear a tux at a formal occasion. How old was he?”

  “How old was he when he died, or how old of a ghost?” Jacob shrugged. “Anything you can remember.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to really analyze.” I did my best to conjure up the look of him.

  He felt prissy to me, slim across the shoulders, though that might’ve just been the cut of the suit. And his hair-that’s what was weird. His hair had been pomaded. “He looked old-fashioned, like maybe he traipsed out of an early Bond film. But Roberta looked really retro, and she just died. So that’s no help.”

  “How old did he look?” asked Lisa.

  “I dunno. Forty. Ish.”

  “So let’s say he was born around 1920. He’d be in his eighties today.” I nodded. “And he would’ve died at Rosewood. We can pull all the records and start trying to find him, but how would a positive I.D. help us? I think we need an exorcism. Or a GhosTV.”

  “Or….” Jacob stroked his goatee, looking like a Bond villain himself. “What if we got some Auracel for Irene so this guy can’t bother her?”

  “That
would never fly,” I said. “She’s too old. Too weak. She’d feel sick all the time. It’d ruin whatever quality of life she’s got left.”

  “Can you tell us anything else about this guy?” said Lisa. “Height, weight, hair and eye color?”

  “Maybe five ten. Slim.” I couldn’t remember his hair color. How strange. Just the way it was plastered to his head. He wasn’t as solid as the homeless guy, so maybe that was why I had trouble pinpointing his coloration. I’d gotten a look at his eyes, hadn’t I? I had, because I remember how shocked he’d looked when he realized I could see him.

  “Blue eyes,” I said, and immediately thought of pathetic Mister Barnhardt with his slack, withered face, one ice-blue eye at three o’clock and one at twelve. “Holy crap. Barnhardt.”

  Jacob leaned toward me. Lisa chafed away gooseflesh on her arms.

  “What if the attacker isn’t even dead?” I said. “What if the stroke tossed his spirit out of his body and he’s hanging around Irene because he knows she can sense him?”

  “Yes and no,” said Lisa.

  Jacob lined her up in his laser-vision. I started to protest, but he held up a hand. “She’s so close, Vic. Let’s do it and get this thing over with.” Lisa nodded. “He’s right. I do this, and then no more si-no for the rest of the trip.” She chewed on her lower lip and thought. “The stroke isn’t what caused all of this.” Her mouth moved as she si-no’d herself. “He could do it before the stroke. But it’s him, all right. He’s raping her with his astral body.”

  “You’re sure it’s him,” said Jacob, standing up. Lisa nodded. “That’s all I need.”

  “Wait, wait, wait….” He was already rounding the corner to the vestibule. I jumped up and followed. “Hold on. What are you doing?”

  “Old people.” He slid into his coat. “They’re pretty fragile. And accidents happen so easily.”

  “Are you crazy? You work with the human lie detector. You can’t finish off Barnhardt. Not without getting caught in a heartbeat.”

  Jacob cupped my face in both his hands, stared hard into my eyes. “I’ve got it all figured out. I take care of his body, then you can send his soul packing. Problem solved.”

  “I’ve never gotten a ghost to leave if it wasn’t damn well ready. Not once. And what if his physical body dying makes his astral body stronger?”

  “He won’t try anything else tonight,” said Lisa. “Why don’t you sleep on it? We’ll come up with something else.”

  I looked back at Jacob, and wondered if I could plead with him not to go all vigilante just by using my eyes. “I think she’s right,” I said. “Come to bed.” And I didn’t mean to turn in early; it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. I hoped he’d get my meaning.

  His eyes narrowed. He did.

  -SIXTEEN-

  I hardly had a chance to loosen my tie before Jacob was on me. He pulled me against him roughly, slipped his hands into my sport coat, and squeezed his right hand under my holster to dig into my ribs. And here I’d been worried that I might not be able to distract him.

  His mouth crushed against mine, but I turned my head in an effort to get a couple of words in edgewise. “Easy,” I said. “Lisa’s downstairs.”

  “She’s got headphones on,” said Jacob. His right hand raked my back, groped my ass through my slacks. “Besides, she’s a big girl. If she hears the bed squeak, she’ll handle it.”

  My neighbors at the old apartment had heard that and more. But I saw them so seldom, and only in passing, that I never really thought about whether or not they’d been treated to a ringside seat.

  Jacob nipped my jaw. Hard.

  “Don’t you dare bite me again,” I told him.

  I felt him smile against the side of my neck. “You were into it at the time.”

  “And then I looked like a dope all week with a bandage on my neck. I’m serious, don’t bite me where it shows.”

  “All right, I promise I’ll be good.” He traced the skin above my collar with his hot, wet tongue. “I know, I shouldn’t have.” He nipped gently and a shock raced straight down to my balls. “I just got off on making you come really hard.” Cripes. Who can say things like that?

  His hand ranged around to the front of my pants, fondled my stiffening cock. He mouthed the meaty part between my neck and shoulder right through my shirt. The material blunted the sharpness of his teeth, but it still felt hot. Another spark sizzled downward, and I was totally stiff, with my boxers bunched into a wad and my side starting to sweat beneath my holster. I snuck my arms between us enough to get rid of my tie and start working on my buttons.

  Jacob slid down my body and knelt in front of me. The two of us were wedged into the narrow lane between the bed and the dresser. He took the front of my shirt into his mouth.

  I heard a snap. He spat, and a button pinged to the floor.

  He was nuts. He’d scammed the quarterly mental health exam and was certifiably insane.

  Not that that’s ever stopped me from sleeping with anyone.

  He bit the next button off my shirt, then rose on his haunches and nipped off a third.

  When the lower half of my shirt was hanging open, he pressed his face against my bare stomach and sucked in a mouthful of skin, hard enough that it prickled.

  “Holy shit.” I grabbed Jacob by the head and held his face against me. My cock throbbed.

  I ground it against his chest and shoulder. He slid a hand between my legs and cupped his hand around my balls, and worked them with his thumb while he found a fresh spot on my stomach and started sucking on that. “Suck my cock,” I forced out between clenched teeth.

  Jacob snapped off my belt—without breaking it, I hoped—and yanked my slacks down around my knees without bothering to undo them. My boxers went right along with my pants, and hobbled my knees. If I wasn’t holding onto his head, I would have fallen over.

  Instead, I pulled his head against me harder. I registered a mouth closing over my cock—lips, tongue, teeth, palate, throat. And, oh fuck, he was sucking me. Hard.

  My knees started to tremble, and Jacob took my ass in both hands, half holding me up, half cracking me wide open. The chilly air tickled at my exposed hole and I clenched Jacob’s head hard enough to make him grunt. He pulled off my cock with a loud slurp and looked up at me. “Fuck my face,” he demanded.

  “Oh man, that’s so fucking hot,” I said. I kicked off my slacks, shoes and socks, which left me with a shirt held on by a single button and my holster and gun. I left him kneeling on the floor and shoved his head back against the mattress. I planted my good hand on the bed next to his face, rested my other hand on his head, and jammed my cock in.

  It felt different than riding someone’s ass. I couldn’t shake the awareness that those were Jacob’s sexy lips wrapped around me, that was his nose bumping my pubic bone when I thrust in. It was a high, a total high, to stand over him and nail him in the mouth. He kept one hand on my bare ass so he could feel it flex as I pushed my cock into the back of his throat. His other hand fisted his cock.

  The bed squeaked, slightly. The sound probably didn’t carry downstairs. I could hear Jacob’s breath hiss in through his nose, and the wet noises my cock made as it sank in deep, over and over. If I focused, I could even hear the noise his hand made gliding over his cock as he jerked off. We weren’t usually this quiet.

  I realized I should probably say something, if I could think of anything to say, that is. Take that cock? Cliché. Suck it? Yawn. It seemed like such a shame to let the opportunity slip away, though. It’s not often I get to talk to Jacob when he can’t take my words and turn them around to mean whatever he wants them to.

  “I swear to God, if you do anything stupid at Rosewood, I’ll kick your ass.” Whoa. I didn’t know where that came from.

  Neither did Jacob. He groaned deep in his throat and clutched my ass cheek. I heard the hand he was whacking off with moving faster.

  “We will figure out what to do without risking our necks,” I said, and my voice br
oke a little because Jacob had started doing these flutters with the very back of his tongue while he sucked, extra friction just under my cockhead, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.

  “We’ll…oh, fuck, God damn…what the fuck’re you doing…God, that’s so sweet….” Jacob pressed his face all the way up and breathed hard through his nose. I felt his body stiffen between my legs. The thought of him getting off with my cock jammed down his throat made me fuck his mouth even harder. Pretty soon he took my ass in both hands, one of them wet with jiz, and forced me to lose myself deep inside his gorgeous mouth.

  He tickled my asshole with one come-wet finger and that seemed to spark it. Everything inside me clenched up and wouldn’t release. I hammered my cock in deep, and somehow he managed to suck harder still, like he’d suck my spine out right through my piss slit, and God damn, maybe I shouldn’t be getting off so soon after blacking out but I didn’t fucking care. And oh, fuck, Jacob was so hot and sweet and perfect.

  It’s a good thing Jacob’s both solid and limber. I shot my load, and then I let myself collapse on his head.

  He wrenched himself from under my legs, crawled out and leaned up against the bed beside me. I wasn’t particularly comfortable, half-on, half-off the bed. I’m sure he wasn’t, either. He looked so loopy and sated that I doubt he cared.

  “Your lip is bleeding,” I said. It looked like he’d cut it on an eyetooth.

  Jacob touched his thumb to the dot of blood, looked down at it, then rubbed it away between his thumb and forefinger. Then he grinned. “You should talk nasty like that while you fuck my ass.”

  My balls squirmed at the sound of that, but my cock was numb from having been sucked to within an inch of its life. “Okay, sure. When you least expect it, I’ll pounce on you and read you the riot act.”

  He slung his arm over my shoulder and spread his fingers over the back of my head. He pulled my face toward him and kissed me gently on the mouth. His lips felt hot and swollen, which made my balls squirm a little more, but my legs barely felt strong enough to lever me onto the bed. He pulled back a little and sighed. “I think you’re right,” he said.