Eve’s picture had attracted him, and he had felt an attraction to her. But maybe that was because she was safe.
She was dead.
And he had no idea where the voice was coming from he was hearing. That had never happened before. He was going to have to ask Reanna about that next time he talked with her. He wasn’t certain if hearing voices was a superpower or a sign he was going crazy.
He didn’t feel crazy. And the woman’s voice in his head sure sounded sane as well.
Anything was possible, he was starting to learn. As a regular Marine and then four years of college, he had had no idea about any of this superpower and superhero stuff. No regular person did.
And now that he was starting to learn about it, he sure didn’t talk about it to anyone. They would lock him away and toss the key into the brush.
That was another reason he hadn’t found anyone to really care about. Supposedly he was going to live a long time. How could he tell a partner that he was a superhero and got his instructions from the gods of law enforcement? Not the best grounds for any kind of relationship.
He pulled into an area off the back of the hospital behind the ambulance. Damn he hated this. But it needed to be done.
As the two ambulance attendants got out and went to unload Eve’s body, Cascade sighed.
He picked up her purse and his clipboard and ignoring the woman’s voice in his head talking about regret, he got out to follow the body into the hospital.
He wanted to rescue people. Stop bad guys.
Not follow dead people around.
Parts of this job most certainly sucked.
FIVE
EVE HAD NO idea why the ambulance took her body to a hospital. She was clearly dead and they weren’t even bothering to run with lights.
So as they pulled into a hospital loading area, she touched Deputy Cascade again.
The answer she was looking for came easily. Because she died alone and under suspicious circumstances, they had to do an autopsy. And it seemed in this county, the hospital morgue was where that was done.
“You won’t find anything in my bloodstream except anger and a lot of regret.”
She could see in his mind that he heard her. He wasn’t certain what he was hearing, but he clearly heard what she had said.
He picked up her purse and she grabbed her dress. They were parked under a canopy so she wouldn’t get wet. She closed her eyes and pretended to open the door and step out of the back seat of the car.
The evening air had a chill to it and she was in front of a hospital, naked except for sandals on her feet and a towel wrapped on her head. Not this was the stuff of nightmares.
She quickly slipped her still-damp dress over her head. That sent shivers down her spine. But it was better than walking around a hospital completely naked.
Slightly better.
If there were other ghosts, she was going to make a great first impression. A dress you could see through and a towel on her head.
Cascade was striding toward the big double doors, following the gurney with her body on it.
She ran and caught up to him, going through the wide sliding-glass door beside him. Inside, the dim hallway smelled of antiseptic and roses, of all things.
The gurney with her body on it sort of clicked going down the smooth tile floor and she walked beside Cascade.
She just felt right walking beside him. Weird, but true.
In this part of the hospital, there sure weren’t a lot of people.
But as her body turned to the right toward a service elevator, Cascade turned left and went through two swinging doors and out into a much more active and brighter area of the hospital.
Nurses and doctors were moving around, along with patients and guests. Cascade seemed to know where he was going with her purse and the paperwork on his clipboard, so she just tagged along, trying to stay out of everyone’s way, since none of them could see her.
And she almost succeeded in that task except for one man who came around a corner carrying a dozen roses. He had a dark look to his eyes and wore jeans, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes.
She went right through him before she really saw him.
And as she did, she saw why he was here.
His name was Jack Nevada and he was headed for a room she and Cascade had passed down the hall. Hidden in the roses he had a syringe that he was going to inject in a woman by the name of Stephanie to kill her. It would look like a natural death.
He was a paid killer, hired by Stephanie’s husband.
“Holy shit!”
Eve froze in the hallway, watching Jack Nevada stroll toward his murder victim.
“What the hell! What the hell! What the hell!”
No one heard her.
What could she do? She was a ghost. She couldn’t shout or even try to stop the guy.
She glanced back in the other direction.
Deputy Cascade, gun and all, had stopped at the nurse’s station and was smiling at a young nurse in front of him.
Eve had to tell him, somehow.
She ran toward Cascade, her sandals slapping on the tile. She tried to stop before she got to him, but instead slid and went right inside him.
He stood up straight as she did.
She liked it inside the big tall hunk of a man.
“Hi, handsome,” she said. “Eve Bryson here inside you in ghost form. We got a problem that you need to solve real quick!”
He nodded to the nurse and stepped back, which made Eve smile. Even under stress of hearing voices, he could stay cool. This guy really was a superhero.
“I am, actually,” he said out loud.
Some guy in a white smock looked at him and frowned.
“No need to talk in your out loud voice,” she said. “I can hear everything you are thinking.”
She felt him panic and she laughed.
“Yes, even the fact that you thought I was hot. Thank you, by the way.”
He took a deep breath.
“So what do you need?” he thought at her.
She described the guy she had touched and what room he was headed toward and what he was about to do.”
“Shit!” he said, again out loud. “Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent,” she said to him. “And if you want to save that woman’s life you had better get this handsome hunk of a body moving.”
Damn, this ghost thing was getting better and better by the moment if she could be inside other people.
He touched the counter in front of the nurse. “Security to room 1003. Stat!”
He turned and started at a run toward the room, using his mike attached to his collar to call for backup of real police.
When he reached the room, he drew his gun.
She sent him calming thoughts.
“Thanks,” he said.
Then he went inside, gun drawn, leaving the door standing open for backup to come in behind him.
The killer had put the roses down near the window and had a syringe in his right hand. He was working with the woman’s IV and in another fifteen seconds would have injected her.
Eve had given Cascade a clear image of who the man was and what he was planning.
The woman under the blanket was a very large woman. And the room smelled like she had had an accident in the sheets.
“Step back and drop the syringe and put your hands in the air!” Cascade said.
Cascade’s power and authority in his voice gave Eve little goose bumps. He could order her around like that any time he wanted.
“Trying to work here,” he said in his silent voice.
“Sorry,” she said, laughing. “Forgot where I was.”
The man with the syringe looked shocked at the deputy and gun facing him.
The man took a step back.
“No worry,” she said to Cascade. “He’s not armed with anything but the needle.”
“I said drop the needle and put your hands on your head.”
The guy finally
realized he had no options, so he dropped the syringe with a light click on the tile, then raised his hands.
At that moment two hospital security men came through the door.
“Needle on the floor,” Cascade said to the security. “He was about to inject this woman with it. Hired kill I’m betting.”
Cascade handed one of the security men his handcuffs. “Secure his hands behind his back.”
The security man did and Cascade had the would-be killer sit on the floor with his back against a wall.
Then one of the security men used a tissue to pick up the syringe.
At that point, two police officers came through the door and the shit-smelling room got real crowded real quick.
“You’re going to be busy,” Eve said to Cascade. “I’m going to leave you for a bit.”
“You coming back?” he asked in his inside voice.
“I think so,” she said. “But I’m still new at this ghost stuff.”
“So where are you going?”
“You don’t know?” she asked.
“Not a clue.”
“I’ve really got to pee.”
“Ghosts pee?” he asked.
“I’m going to find out for the first time very, very shortly,” she said.
And with that she stepped out of his body.
She felt almost empty not being with him.
She worked her way out of the room to find a woman’s rest room. She doubted the hospital had ghost rest rooms.
But who knew.
SIX
CASCADE FELT MORE alone than he had ever felt in his life without Eve’s spirit or ghost or whatever inside him. She had filled parts of him he hadn’t known were missing.
And now he had to suck it up and take on the business of being a sheriff.
First, he had to be in the poor woman’s smelly room while everything was photographed and he walked through what had happened.
He had said he had caught a glimpse of the syringe in the roses when he passed the man walking in, decided it could be nothing but bad.
Eve had suggested that story before she left him to find a bathroom, since he pretty much couldn’t tell anyone he had a ghost inside him helping him.
And since he had drawn his gun, there was paperwork for that as well. He had to explain why he had drawn his gun and what he was thinking and everything.
Then he still had the task of checking in Eve’s body, which took even more time.
He kept hoping Eve was still around, but she never touched him to let him know if she was or wasn’t and he didn’t hear her voice.
When she had been inside him, he had realized that when he started hearing her voice, she was actually naked in the back seat of his patrol car. That thought just made him smile.
Finally, he managed to get out of the hospital and down to headquarters where he had to spend even more time filling out paperwork there.
He didn’t mind the paperwork when it meant he had saved a life. And thanks to Eve, this evening he had.
Now, somehow, he just hoped Eve was still around.
And then, as he was heading for his car to go home, she touched him.
And he could feel her and her presence was with him and that just made him smile once again.
SEVEN
IT TOOK DEPUTY Cascade two hours to fill out the paperwork on Eve’s body and on the arrest at the hospital.
She had raided a candy machine for a few snacks by just sticking her hand through the glass and pulling out the ghost equivalent of a candy bar. The two bars helped a little to hold back the hunger, but she was going to need a real meal pretty soon.
Amazing how two candy bars could taste so damned good. Sort of like that first lick from an ice cream cone combined with the first bite into a perfect steak.
Heavenly.
Cascade then had to spend another thirty minutes at his desk at the police station filling out more paperwork before he could get off work. Wow did cops have a lot of paperwork or what? She had no idea.
She just sat off to one side and watched, admiring his wonderful body and handsome face.
She was a ghost, yet she had needed to pee and clearly now needed to eat. What rule said she couldn’t lust after a live cop?
So as Cascade finally stood and started for his patrol car, she got back inside him.
“How you doing?”
“I was wondering if you were still here.”
She could tell that he had missed her. As much as she had missed him.
This was getting interesting.
“Been watching the entire time,” she said. “I figured if I was inside your body, I would just be a distraction to all the stuff you needed to get done.”
“More than likely yes,” he said.
And she could tell he appreciated that, even though he had missed her.
“Dinner at Shari’s,” she said.
“Ghosts eat and pee?”
“It seems we do,” Eve said, laughing. “I need to eat because I’m ravished and the two wonderful candy bars won’t hold me much longer. I died on my way to meet friends for dinner.”
“I am so sorry to hear that,” he said, suddenly feeling very sad.
“For some reason I’m not,” she said.
So fifteen minutes later they were in Shari’s restaurant.
This Shari’s was like any other Shari’s restaurant. Maroon cloth and wood tones and lots of booths with tall wood walls between them. The place was known for great pies and they always had them in cases as you walked in.
Eve had just wanted to stick her hand inside one of the cases and grab pie and shove it in her mouth. That was how hungry she was. Somehow she managed to not do that, acting as if she was alive and following Cascade to a booth in the back next to a window.
She sat across the booth from him so she could see him, but she put her feet up so that they were in his lap, so she could be inside his head and he could hear her.
She told him how she was sitting.
“Kind of forward, don’t you think?” he said, smiling.
Damn from across the table, she loved that smile.
“Thank you,” he said, hearing her thought about his smile.
Then as the waitress came up, he ordered his regular French Dip and fries and a glass of iced tea.
“I’m going to go get something,” she said. “Back in a moment.”
She wandered into the kitchen and there, sitting under the light ready to take out, was a wonderful chicken fried steak meal. It smelled heavenly.
She picked up the plate, feeling the heat on her fingers.
The real plate just stayed there under the light. It seemed food had a ghost component as well, just as the candy bars did in the machine.
She took the plate back out to the table, put her foot against his leg and said, “I have chicken fried steak. So pardon me if you get moaning sensations as I eat. I’m that hungry.”
She took a couple of bites, then realized while she was gone, he had called for his boss on the superhero side.
Just as Eve realized that, a striking black-haired woman in a police uniform came up to the table. She had to stand a good six feet tall and her uniform looked like it had actually been starched.
The woman nodded in Eve’s direction and then had Cascade scoot over.
Eve moved so she could keep her foot in contact with Cascade.
“This is Reanna,” Cascade thought at her.
“Figured as much,” Eve said between bites.
This had to be the absolute best-tasting chicken fried steak she had ever had. Ever.
“I understand you just died this afternoon,” Reanna said out loud to Eve. “Sorry for your loss, but glad you could help Deputy Cascade.”
“Tell her it was my pleasure,” Eve said out loud. “Ask her if she wants me to touch her so she can hear me.”
“I can see and hear you just fine,” Reanna said.
Then Reanna waved a hand in the direction of Cascade.
&nbs
p; He blinked and then said to Eve, “Wow you are more beautiful alive than dead.”
“Thanks,” Eve said, “I think.”
At that moment, she realized her dress was still damp, more than likely her nipples were still showing, and she still had her hair wrapped up on top of her head in his car towel. “I got a little wet out there at the crash site.”
Then she ignored the feelings of attraction she was getting from Cascade through their touch and looked at Reanna. “If I’m a ghost, how can you see me? And how can Cascade now see me?”
“You are a ghost agent,” Reanna said, her voice firm and compact, just as she looked. “You will be recruited to join the Ghost of a Chance Agency and trained by them.”
“You lost me with ghost agent thingie,” Eve said.
“When a person dies,” Reanna said, “almost everyone just goes on into the next life, whatever that is. But for a few thousand around the world, they are asked to stay on as ghost agents and try to help people, as you two did by saving that woman’s life this evening.”
Eve nodded. “That did feel good.”
“I have contacted the head of the Ghost of a Chance agency,” Reanna said, “and they will be sending some other agents to help you train and explain everything to you.”
Eve nodded, but her disappointment matched what she was feeling from Cascade.
“However,” Reanna said, “after your collaboration this afternoon with Officer Cascade, I have also asked if you could be assigned to my department and you and Officer Cascade work together to solve cases.”
Reanna turned to Cascade. “Would that would be all right with you?”
“I would be honored,” he said.
Eve could feel his excitement at the idea. And she had to admit that hanging around with Mister Handsome Superhero sounded like a great time to her.
“Would you be interested in such an assignment?” Reanna asked Eve. “You both would be a very special team, the only ghost agent and live superhero working together. It has never been tried. You might work with Poker Boy and his team at times as well as reporting to me. He was very interested in meeting you both once you are up to speed.”
She instantly felt Cascade’s excitement. It seemed this superhero named Poker Boy and his team often were called on to save the entire world.
Heaven Painted as a Cop Car Page 2