Ghost Layer (The Ghost Seer Series Book 2)

by Robin D. Owens

  “But you’re doing nothing.”

  “Be quiet, Dennis.” That actually came from Missy Legrand. “She’s shaking and sweating. Or that’s condensation or something. This is very interesting. I’m sure I can use this in my acting later.”

  Then Clare took the tiniest step, pretty much leaned through J. Dawson, and the world around her faded.

  For the first time she saw him in color. His black suit looked new, as did his linen shirt, his string tie, and his bowler hat. He wore the clothes he’d bought at Hawburton’s Emporium with a gold nugget, the evening before he died. The incident that had led to his death. But he looked very good in them. Unlike her first major case, J. Dawson didn’t carry a gun.

  The rich chestnut of his hair surprised her, as did the continuing iciness of his spirit-body-self that slowed her blood. She’d forgotten how hard this was. How close she came to death herself. Surely this couldn’t be good for her heart or her body. But Great-Aunt Sandra had lived a long time.

  Clare shook with cold and knew she swayed. Locking her jaw, she suffered through this, watching J. Dawson walk into a huge shaft of light along a straight cobblestoned path of gold, with vibrant flowers on each side. Butterflies and birds added to the color and sound. As her otherworldly sense became sharper, she saw that he faced a gleaming gate with more fancy curlicues than she’d ever seen.

  He paused at the gate, his hand on the equally elaborate latch, and looked back at her. When he touched it, the gate and J. Dawson’s hand became translucent as if the gate itself wasn’t there, but simply a construct of the ghost’s imagination.

  “What’s going on?” Dennis Laurentine’s voice echoed sharply in the otherwhere, snatching her back, apparently since she was being more of an observer. Wasn’t feeling what J. Dawson did.

  “I don’t see anything! Nothing’s happening!” the multimillionaire whined.

  And J. Dawson smiled at her, a sincere, boyish smile, and she looked into his amber eyes and felt the awe, the pleasure, the joy that he was finally leaving a cold, sterile world where he didn’t often remember being, and passing into the next.

  The place he headed for had a road of gold for him to walk and a golden gate that he knew would open for him. Beyond that gate were lithe forms of women beckoning to him, smiling, though he couldn’t see them clearly. But he smelled the dizzying scent of flowers.

  Clare became aware of a rapid thump-thump-thump in her ears. J. Dawson’s heartbeat—or her own. Pure, exciting anticipation flooded her.

  Still grinning, he tipped his bowler hat at her and said, I release all my cares. The man floated off the path and laughed. He was straight and young and had become heartbreakingly beautiful with an aura around him that even Clare could see, a pulsing rainbow.

  Then he stopped laughing, his face molded into a more sober expression, though his eyes brimmed with delight. His lips didn’t move, but Clare heard him anyway. I release all things of my former life.

  White light flashed, blinding her sight to nothing . . . though the edges of her vision showed sepia. The cold dissipated but left her trembling.

  There was a clatter and a quick scream that Clare thought came from Patrice Schangler and a choked cry from Dennis Laurentine.

  A blanket was wrapped around her tightly, bundling her arms to her side so she couldn’t move . . . and she always needed to move when helping a ghost transition. She squeezed her eyes shut to rid herself of whatever residue held her lashes down. Then she smelled Zach, sage with a trace of mint, and man.

  “Hold still.” He brushed at her eyes with a handkerchief. One with the odor of the perfume Great-Aunt Sandra used and Clare favored. A few seconds later she could open her lashes and see. Her eyelids fluttered as the afterimage of the light faded, then the short bout of tones of brown, then her vision settled into reality . . . a reality not as intense as what she’d seen with J. Dawson, though she was a whole lot warmer.

  Zach stepped away and began to laugh. Naturally, her gaze followed him, and what he had focused on . . . a skull grinning up at Mr. Laurentine, sat on a neat pile of other bones, all of them covering Mr. Laurentine’s feet. It looked as if Missy Legrand had jumped up and leapt away from the multimillionaire.

  “Okay,” the actress addressed the room. “The performance was great, I can use it. But I am so over having bones appear out of thin air. That’s it. I’m leaving.” She glided toward the door.

  “But Missy!” Mr. Laurentine protested.

  “I’m leaving. And you’ll never get me back to this place again. This Colorado mountain life sucks.” She opened and shut the door without another word or glance.

  Clare stared at the heap of bones trapping Mr. Laurentine’s feet. She breathed deeply of the early autumn air, fragrant with the scent of roses coming in from the pots on the terrace, the scent of pine and spruce and the earthier notes of grasses. The fragrance of the Colorado mountains.

  Her lips hadn’t quite thawed, but she said, “He . . . he . . .”

  “Spit it out, Clare.” Desiree lounged on a love seat and winked at her, appearing highly entertained. “What about J. Dawson?”

  Patrice Schangler made a noise and Clare swung her gaze to the housekeeper, whose gaze was fixed on the bones. The woman’s face was pale.

  Clare laughed-coughed. “He . . . he . . . J. Dawson said he released all things from his former life.”

  “Guess that meant his bones,” Zach said.

  “He’d held on to his bones too long,” she said, and knew it was right. He’d needed something to anchor him in the ghostly dimension so he stayed together enough to pass on, and had chosen his bones.

  Zach gestured at the former J. Dawson Hidgepath. “You want me to take care of these for you, Mr. Laurentine . . . sir?”

  Clare sent him a sharp glance. He was up to something. She flexed her stiff fingers, wiggled around, and the blanket fell from her. “I can gather and take care of the bones,” she said. “I have the rest of them in a chest upstairs.” She gave Mr. Laurentine a half smile. “Can we inter them fairly quickly?”

  He nearly snarled, “As soon as fucking possible.”

  “J. Dawson wanted a grave in the Fairplay Cemetery,” she reminded.

  Mr. Laurentine made an irritated gesture. “You told me. I arranged for that.” He stared at the skeletal remains on his feet with a curl of his lip. “It only needed this to make the whole situation beyond acceptable.”

  Zach went over, crouched, and carefully moved J. Dawson’s skull, palming something. She wasn’t sure what, but felt a spurt of pride that she’d actually seen him do it.

  He began to move the larger bones, most of them broken, and that made Clare ache. He set each aside on a corner of the blanket crumpled on the floor. When he glanced at Clare, he smiled with gentleness. “The bones smell of flowers.”

  Clare joined him and bent over, carefully lifting J. Dawson’s skull. It smelled of columbines.

  Holding it in both hands, she looked at Mr. Laurentine. “I’ll put these in the box for you.”

  “Get it done now. We’ll meet at the cemetery in forty minutes.” His expression was sour. “You can transfer the bones to the expensive coffin there.”

  Her teeth clenched until her jaw ached before she inclined her head. “Do you have a minister?”

  “I’ll . . . I’ll . . . find someone to say some words,” Ms. Schangler said.

  “I’ll have Dr. Burns at the gravesite to arrange the bones. I’m sure he’s still interested in them,” Zach stated. Clare thought about that and decided he was right.

  Before she could say anything else, Dennis Laurentine stalked to the door and opened it. “Please join me, Patrice.” Then he stared stonily at Rossi. “I want to speak with you, too.”

  Rossi strode to stand right behind him. Flushing, Ms. Schangler rose from her chair and went after him, closing the door behind her.

  “Can I get the box with the other bones for you, Clare? Might be best just to bundle them all in that blanket and ta
ke them to the graveyard,” offered Desiree. She patted Clare’s shoulder. “Well done.”

  “Thanks. And it would be great if you retrieved the box.” She sighed. “It’s black papier mâché with dancing colored skeletons, rectangular with a domed top, and is sitting on the shelf in the closet above the clothes.”

  “Right,” Desiree said.

  Clare fumbled in her jacket pocket. “Let me give you my key—”

  “Don’t need it,” Desiree said breezily as she exited the room.

  Clare sighed. “I’m probably the only one who doesn’t know how to pick a lock.”

  “I can teach you,” Zach said. He placed a broken bone, which looked like the top of the big leg bone, the femur, on the blanket then straightened from his crouch and drew her into his arms. As usual, she welcomed his warmth.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She tilted her head and kissed his jaw. Just that simple kiss had his arms going tight around her, his mouth seeking hers, his tongue probing against her lips, exploring inside, and heat rising through her so she thought she was melting.

  “Back, guys!” said Desiree.

  Reluctantly, Clare stepped away as Zach did. She stooped and smoothed out the blanket, and all three of them transferred the bones to the blanket, and the other bones Clare had collected in the box to the blanket, too.

  “There, all together.” Desiree dusted off her hands, looked at the clock. “We’re on schedule and Dennis has a car waiting to take us to Fairplay Cemetery.”

  “That’s good,” Zach said, carefully rolling the blanket up. Clare didn’t flinch at the clatter of rolling bones anymore.

  “By the way, Zach, what did you palm?” Desiree asked.

  He lifted his brows and slid a glance to Clare.

  Clare said, “You called Mr. Laurentine ‘sir.’ Of course I knew something was up and watched closely. What did you take from J. Dawson’s bones?”

  “You should be able to guess.” Zach smiled slowly.

  Clare blinked and grinned back at him. “The nugget!”

  “That’s right.” He held it out. She just shook her head. “I don’t want it.”

  “Cool,” Desiree said. “A real gold nugget from a real mine.”

  “It’s Clare’s.” Zach frowned.

  Reaching out, she curved his fingers over the piece. “You keep it.”

  “I meant for you to have it.”

  “And a good decision both of you made,” Desiree said. “Keep the nugget, Zach, as a token of Clare’s affection and let’s get out of here. I’m sure Patrice Schangler will have both your bags packed and in your truck by the time you get back.”

  “What!” Clare was appalled.

  Zach laughed. “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?”

  “What . . . what about my car? I haven’t even reported it . . .”

  “Later, Clare,” Desiree said, taking her by the elbow and moving her toward the door.

  “Just a minute.” Clare still didn’t like the box, but her niece did, so she picked it up to take with her. “What about my purse, and my phone, and my tablet—”

  “I brought them down, too.” Desiree pointed to Clare’s purse on a table, jammed with the phone and the tablet in their wrong pockets. Clare organized it, then put her purse in the box. When she looked up at Zach, his lips were curved and his eyes tender.

  “What?”

  He came over and brushed a kiss on her lips. “You’re amazing,” he said louder.

  “Thank you, I like you, too.”

  • • •

  The funeral was short and sweet, just the way Zach liked. He’d offered to help Dr. Burns with the bones, but the man refused and efficiently arranged J. Dawson’s skeleton, then stood back as the coffin was lowered into the ground. A minister stood and recited the Twenty-Third Psalm.

  Laurentine, Rossi, Dr. Burns, and Desiree were there, and Zach kept an arm around Clare. As the pastor finished the last prayer, the others faded back, but Clare stayed beside the graveside. The wind had picked up and rain began to spatter.

  “He’s gone, Clare. You sent him on yourself,” Zach murmured.

  A quiet bark came from beside him. He looked down and saw Enzo, who had a sad face on. She is praying. Prayers are ALWAYS helpful.

  “Oh.” Zach felt like a jerk.

  Clare pulled her hand from her jacket pocket and threw a handful of silver coins on the coffin, then turned. Zach stared.

  “Old Romani custom,” she said huskily, “to help buy J. Dawson’s way into heaven, though I know he went to a happier place.”

  “You do?”

  She hunched a little. “Yes, if what he saw when he transitioned was true.”

  It was true for him, Clare. It was pretty, Zach. And pretty ladies were waiting for him, too!

  “Nice to know, I guess,” Zach said.

  A short honk came from a low-slung, glossy red sports car. The window rolled down and Rossi waved to Zach. He tugged on Clare, but she resisted, gave his hand a squeeze. “Go ahead. I want to walk around the cemetery.”

  He raised his brows.

  Clare needs to see a couple of graves, Enzo said.

  “Why?” Zach asked.

  Because she may need to come back someday to deal with the ghosts and she should learn about them, Enzo replied. He yipped. Nothing bad, Zach! And they are close. You can keep your eyes on us.

  “All right.”

  Clare followed the ghost dog and Zach went over to Rossi.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “I’M DONE,” THE bodyguard said cheerfully.

  “You got fired? Sorry. I distracted you too much, having you help me protect Clare, didn’t I?”

  Rossi just shrugged. “I’m heading back to Denver. My girl will be glad to see me.”

  “You have a girl?” Zach had never seen the man call or text her. Had never heard him speak of one.

  “I always have a girl. But you, Zach, surprise me.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. I’ve known a guy or two like you. Cops. Loners.” Rossi slid sunglasses on, said, “See you later, Slade,” rolled up the window, and zoomed away, heading back to the big city of Denver.

  The man’s comment arrowed straight through Zach. He had been a loner, pretty much as long as he could remember. He’d had a couple of live-in lovers, but he’d always wanted to move on in a few months. Their choice as much as his.

  Clare was different. A long-term woman, and serious. Not just her, but their relationship, too. Serious and intense enough to scare him. It chilled him as if he could feel one of her ghosts. All right, he could admit that. He could feel the cold of Enzo when the ghost dog was around. He could see Enzo. And there was the crow thing. Lately every time he’d counted crows, whatever their number indicated according to the rhyme had come true. He’d reluctantly decided that wasn’t just his imagination.

  But he’d even rather think about his relationship with Clare than the crow business. Yeah, his loner status seemed “former” now. He’d missed Clare outrageously when he’d been in Montana, thinking of her in quiet moments during the days and suffering during the nights.

  She touched his arm and he didn’t jolt; some part of him had known she’d come up on him from behind. The hint of that perfume maybe.

  Enzo wasn’t with her. Zach blinked and found the dog sitting on top of the Mercedes-Benz that had brought them. Why the phantom dog would do that, Zach didn’t know, but the Lab sat with his tongue hanging out.

  The deputy sheriff, Julie Wilson, walked to them, looking tired but determined. “We’ve already collected a lot of evidence against Baxter Hawburton. The search of his home picked up a couple of gold nuggets along with his accounting books.” Clare quivered beside Zach like a tracking dog on the scent. “His ranch manager and a couple of his hands noticed him coming and going Thursday night. Zach, your information about the gold sales is coming in.” She sighed. “And I called Brody, his son. After I laid it all out for Brody, he a
dmitted that he knew where the mine was, said he’d moved to California to get away from his dad, and never took a dime from him.” She shook her head. “Baxter’s a broken man, doesn’t look like the case will go to trial. Which is good, because the deputy district attorney is not happy at contemplating talking about psychic abilities in a public trial. He’ll get in touch with you, Ms. Cermak.”

  “Sure. I’m not especially thrilled at the thought of testifying at a trial myself,” Clare said. Not as a psychic investigator, someone who talked to the dead. She’d be mobbed by people wanting to reach their loved ones and that was just heartbreaking.

  Julie looked relieved. “Baxter will be put away. He won’t bother you again.”

  Zach put his arm around her. “Better him broken than Clare. He deserves it.”

  “Yes, well . . .” Julie took a card from her pocket and handed it to Clare. “Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the case.”

  “Thank you, Deputy, I will.” Clare tucked the card in her purse. She watched as the woman walked away, got in her car, and left . . . following the limousine that carried Laurentine and Desiree.

  • • •

  As Desiree had predicted, their bags were stowed in Zach’s truck and it was gassed up and ready to roll them right home to Denver.

  Jaw set, Clare insisted on going up to their room and checking it out anyway, and when they did, it was pristine and looked as if no one had been there for a week. Clare examined everywhere, even the small safe, which Zach didn’t think she had used. With a last nod and a quiet “Thank you,” she walked past a disapproving Patrice Schangler, who’d accompanied them up and watched the whole deal. Clare patted her purse, but her fingers didn’t dip into it to offer the housekeeper any gratuity. Which was good, because Zach thought there might have been bloodshed if she had.

  He hadn’t known the front doors could slam, but Schangler did a good job of it after they’d taken a step past the threshold.

  “The only thing worse I could have done to her is sleep with Laurentine,” Clare said. “I hope Rickman is prompt and determined in receiving payment for my work . . . and Laurentine probably stopped the clock the minute those bones landed on his feet,” she grumbled.