Ghost Layer (The Ghost Seer Series Book 2)

by Robin D. Owens

  With a sigh, he propped his cane against the couch arm, drew her close. She stiffened and that little alarm tick in the back of his mind got louder. He ignored it.

  They swayed, he rubbed his face against her hair, and she became more flexible. Then the song ended and some soprano’s voice rose in wordless purity that just made his heart ache, it was so close to what he felt for Clare . . . special. Not that other word that had come to mind, necessary.

  “We fit well together,” he murmured, and that did it—something. She stepped away from him, more than a pace.

  She stared at him with dark eyes, and the cloudy evening sunlight in the room vanished and her face was lost in shadows. He heard a quiet sigh, a quick intake of breath, and she said, “You know, Zach, the reason that we fit so well together is because you have a psychic gift, too.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “That’s the third time you’ve said that to me. I’m pushing, I know. So I want you to listen.” Her mouth set and she ran her fingers through her hair and it fluffed out even more. She inhaled deeply, never a good sign.

  “Zach, you confronted me about my problem at the ranch, about my commitment to Rickman and Laurentine. And you helped me through that.” She paused. “You have a gift, like me.” She moved and a last wavery shaft of sunlight painted her face luminously. Her tongue flicked over her lips, and even though his mind denied her words, his emotions seemed to close down, and a low ache began to spread throughout his body. And maybe his heart, since he was looking at some sort of doom barreling his way.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “I don’t exactly know what it is, or what you do, but you have some . . . insight.”

  His mouth dried. Flashes of crows across a gray sky haunted his mind’s eye.

  “That we have gifts and complement each other is part of our attraction. I think you should accept your psychic gift. You believe in it . . . on a deeper level.”

  “I’ve . . . been getting there.” Letting the sucky knowledge seep through him, but not really looking at it, because it was a puzzle and he’d have to investigate it and that meant looking at his whole damn life. Looking at what happened to him and Jim.

  “But you haven’t wanted to talk about it.”

  “No.”

  “It’s affecting you, Zach, and affecting us. I don’t know when your gift is kicking in and I wonder when that might be happening. What I can do to help.” The ends of her mouth flicked up in a bitter smile. “I believe I know what you’re going through, Zach. Let me help.”

  “Why are you pushing me on this right now?”

  “Because it seems to me that you will help me, in every way—”

  “Sure.”

  “Then let me help you.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “So. You can help me, but I’m not allowed to help you. What kind of relationship do we have if you help me, but won’t let me help you?”

  “I . . . can’t.” His mind, his emotions, flashed back to the day Jim died. It hurt and he couldn’t bear to touch the hurt even with thought, let alone shape it in words and expose it to another.

  “And if I can’t help you, I’ll feel like the weak one in this . . . I can’t become dependent on you.” She paused. “We have to be equal, Zach. You’ve seen my vulnerabilities and problems, and helped me. Let me help you.”

  He hadn’t really . . . leaned . . . on anyone since he’d become an adult. Of course he’d let doctors help him, accepted help professionally. Sat through torture sessions with psychologists after the two shootings that had changed his life.

  Rustily, he said, “You have helped me. Helped me get my head straight about my disability. Last month.”

  She put a hand between her full breasts, tightening the loose fabric over them, said softly, “Yet it feels unequal.”

  He watched her, but his throat had just closed and he couldn’t—something in him wouldn’t let him speak. So he waited for her to throw him out.

  Staring back at him with big eyes, she ran her hands through the mass of her hair. They stood for eternal minutes. Finally she said, “All right.” Her lips thinned, then she asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “Only for you.”

  Her lashes lowered, hiding her gaze; when they came up, her eyes looked liquid. She offered her hand. “Let’s go to bed.”

  He took her hand.

  • • •

  Zach’s hand clasped hers firmly, and as they walked slowly up the stairs, she let the hurt drain at his refusal to discuss his psychic power. She wanted to share and help. He didn’t or couldn’t.

  Didn’t the man deserve time? And secrets? Was she asking too much? Pushing too much? Or was she making excuses for him and being dependent? She didn’t know, was so confused.

  And she wasn’t sure that making love would help or harm . . . but they did connect then. She wanted his skin against hers, him inside her, an affirmation.

  The sun hadn’t quite set, and pink and gold light shifted through the leaves of the tree beyond her balcony to pattern her carpet.

  Zach stopped her beside the bed. “Clare,” he whispered.

  She didn’t want to hear any words at all, so she lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed her fingers, and his own hands went to the shoulders of her low-draped white blouse and pushed it down, released her bra, and caressed her breasts.

  So good, his gentle touch, the stroking of his thumbs on her nipples, beading them. Yearning spiraled high. Soon, soon, her mind would click off and there would be joining, and peace.

  Then he took her silencing hand, kissed the palm, and set it aside . . . so he could undress her.

  He didn’t speak, and the dim light didn’t reveal any emotions in his gaze, but his hands, his touch, were tender. He drew her blouse and bra from her, dropped them to the ground, and held and kissed her breasts, laving her nipples until her mind fuzzed and she shifted from foot to foot with desire. His hands feathered over her torso. He stroked lightly, not pressing on her bruises, but acknowledging them, traced her ribs, then he slipped her skirt and petticoat down, returned to discard her panties.

  Holding her hands, he stepped back to look at her, then moved in to kiss her lips, and she let his tongue probe her mouth. She savored his taste, and pulled his T-shirt up and off. His right hand reached to his back and he leaned and set his gun on the bedside table, and took a packet from the little drawer, dropped his own pants and boxers to reveal a thrusting erection, and sheathed himself with a condom.

  Only the sound of their ragged breathing broke the quiet as they stood naked and facing each other.

  They moved onto the bed at the same time, in tune like they’d been during the dance, her on the bottom and him between her open and welcoming thighs.

  “I need,” he whispered. He locked hands with her, and entered her slowly, and she savored the feel of his body sliding into hers, fulfilling her . . . body.

  And they glided together, skin caressing skin, slow to fast to perfect release as they cried out together.

  He rolled and took her with him and they lay in the fading light together and she fell asleep.

  • • •

  His mind had turned off when he’d made love to her, but came right back on line when she went limp with sleep.

  He’d let Clare down. Let himself down, dammit. And maybe he couldn’t talk about how his burgeoning psychic powers scared him. Maybe he couldn’t ask her to help. Not here, not now. But maybe he had a shot of figuring it out himself, if he worked at it . . . or followed his instincts.

  Right now his gut said to go, because if he stayed, he’d hurt them both more, because she would press again and he’d remain tongue-tied. So beautiful, Clare. With luck, she should sleep through the night.

  If he left, he might be able to clear this up fast, tonight. That wasn’t letting Clare help him, which would also hurt her. But he wanted this faced and done. He moved silently away from her and out of the house.


  A bird cried and he flinched. But this time he stopped and deliberately looked around. And saw nothing. Not a bird, and no crows.

  He opened the gate and went through, descended the three steps, and walked to his truck, ready for a lonely journey, because something twisted inside him couldn’t share.

  He’d had no idea he was crippled inside, too. That he might be able to straighten.

  Zach went to the place he’d be most comfortable, where strong people would surround him—a cop bar where a friend of his on the DPD hung out. Nobody would care if he talked or not, and would expect him to keep mum about hurt, his past, his lost brother, and especially, his strange psychic powers.

  He was welcomed . . . with reservations. Some conversations stopped and some young police officers didn’t look at him because his disability stirred fears of the same in them. His friend was there, but preoccupied with a case he couldn’t talk about.

  Though the atmosphere untangled a thread in Zach since he was among his tribe, it also emphasized his differences. He was more like an honorary member of the tribe, shoved to the side. Maybe consulted now and then about a piece of knowledge he might have that the warriors of the tribe didn’t, but he was no longer a warrior.

  And this evening, some of these men and women were here in the bar because the alternative was an echoing empty apartment.

  A cop’s life wasn’t easy, and often dangerous, and Zach hadn’t been ready to settle . . . before. Especially for a woman who didn’t understand the difficulty and danger. A woman who wasn’t strong enough to manage the wait while he was on duty and the dread of a knock at the door giving her terrible news.

  He’d been in that situation of waiting for terrible news with his brother, Jim. He’d never forget that knock on the door.

  He was no longer a warrior of this tribe.

  Yet as he drove through the city bright and dark, he felt that despite their different pasts, Rickman and his men were accepting him into a different tribe. As a warrior, an integral part, not a man on the fringe.

  He and Clare had taken turns in growing in fits and starts; occasionally he was ahead of her in the acceptance of their new lives category.

  He’d dealt with the lack of respect others would give him in his new job first. He’d had no good opinion of private investigators in all of his career. And his cop friends pitied him because he had to step down into private investigations since he couldn’t cut it as a deputy sheriff anymore.

  But in the depths of his heart, being disabled had always been a possibility in his career, and he’d known that.

  Yeah, he and Clare had talked the “respect” thing out and he’d helped her there.

  This evening, he wasn’t, quite, ready to let her help him.

  Because if he did have some sort of gift in the past, it had failed him in his deepest need.

  He didn’t want another one if it would fail him when he needed it . . . to protect Clare.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  A DOOR CLOSING woke her. The front door. Zach had left. She caught her breath on a sob, moved her legs up so she could rest her head on her knees, and let the tears wet the sheet as she heard his truck start up and drive away.

  Would he come back?

  Had she backed off of her core belief, that they should be equal partners, and compromised for nothing?

  She let out a low moan, so different from the sounds they’d made a few minutes before. Finally she got up and put on a robe, stripped the bed, bundled up the sheets, took them down to the laundry room, and started a wash.

  Then she braced herself for the bathroom—and the shower. She and Zach had made a practice of amazing shower sex.

  She stepped into the glass enclosure with crossing sprays, readjusted them. She couldn’t avoid this just because it reminded her so much of Zach . . . but she’d never liked the bathroom in gray tints—who did that? Perhaps she’d consider replacing it sooner rather than later, done in cheerful yellow and colorful hand-painted tiles.

  Enzo stuck half of his torso through the door.

  “Eek!” she squealed, slipped, and nearly fell. He’d been hard to see because he, too, was gray-verging-on-invisible.

  Hi, Clare! He gave a little sniff. I like this water. I like the shower.

  “Enzo! You scared me!” She stopped herself from demanding where he’d been.

  His tail went from wag to droop. I’m sorry, Clare. His head swiveled. Where’s Zach?

  “Not here.” This time she said the words aloud, and they bounced harshly against all the walls in the room.

  His forehead wrinkled. You are fighting AGAIN?

  “Yes. No. I don’t know,” she muttered, turning the spigots off.

  Leaving the shower, with her legs passing through Enzo and chilling them so that the droplets froze and clinked in tiny tones on the floor as she moved, Clare toweled herself dry, then used the squeegee on the glass doors.

  “I’m done talking about my relationship with Zach. You’ve been prodding me about learning.” She wrapped her plush robe around herself tightly and pulled the belt. “You once indicated that you could tell me which volumes of Great-Aunt Sandra’s journals would be the best to learn from.” She lifted her chin. “So let’s go do that now.”

  Did she see a darkening of the mist in his eyes?

  The Other answered her. Look for the blue journals. The spirit who was Dillinger influenced her to put most of the information you—and Dora after you—need in blue journals.

  Clare gulped, thought of the rainbow-colored bindings of all the journals she’d inherited from her formerly “weird great-aunt Sandra.” Only three or four were blue, weren’t they?

  “Maybe you’d like to point me to a page . . .”

  But Enzo was drooling on her foot. I’m sorry Zach isn’t here with you, Clare.

  Another swallow. “I am, too.”

  Enzo licked her from ankle to shin in one long swipe. He stood and trotted toward the bathroom door, looked over his shoulder, and his eyes glittered with excitement. But I have something for you, Clare! Yes, I do! It will cheer you up! Come look, on your dresser! You will LOVE it. He jogged out of sight and Clare followed.

  When she stepped on the thick carpeting instead of the cool, gray tile, her toes curled into it and she stood to savor the feeling that reminded her to live in the moment, not plan the future.

  Enzo danced back to her, and around her. Come ON, Clare. J. Dawson wanted something special from the in-between, and he made me promise to look and look and look and finally, I FOUND!

  “Oh,” she said quietly, and now that Enzo was a dog once more and she could be vulnerable, she let tears trickle out. She hurried to her dresser more for the box of tissues than whatever gift J. Dawson had left her . . . and it was the ghosts who gave her gifts, not the universe rewarding her? Or maybe both . . . she’d received a coin as well as the watch the last time.

  If the ghost has something he wants to leave you, he will. Enzo sat by her dresser, panting. J. Dawson’s things were all gone except for the nugget and Zach has that. But J. Dawson wanted me to give you something special.

  “So it’s you who ‘rewards’ me?”

  Enzo’s eyes shifted. Maybe.

  Another noncommittal answer. This time she wouldn’t press. She caught the gleam of gold and jewels in the low light and gasped. Turning on the small lamp, she stared at the brooch. The nearly three-dimensional, full-blown rose was layered in diamonds. Down the stem, the two buds set in gold had to be cabochon rubies, and the third was another diamond. The leaves of the small floral spray were enameled green with gold edges around them, framing the rose and buds, just gorgeous. Three long stems were also gold and tied with a diamond bow. Clare touched it with her fingertips. “It’s fabulous.”

  Yay, yay, yay, we pleased you! Enzo hopped around in circles. J. Dawson saw a pretty flower like this on a rich lady’s dress and he wanted you to have it!

  “It is very, very beautiful,” she replied solemnly, looking the phantom dog i
n his eyes. “Thank you.”

  You’re welcome, Clare. Enzo came and rubbed against her legs, and she decided she’d need a floor-length robe.

  We appreciate you, Clare. And that you use your gift to help.

  “Thank you, and thank J. Dawson for me, too.”

  But Enzo shook his head. I can’t. He’s gone to where I can’t go.

  “All right.” Clare patted Enzo’s head and rubbed his ears. “It’s pretty early, but from the way I feel, definitely time for bed.” She hesitated, wanted to ask if she’d be presented with another case very soon or not, then decided she wasn’t in the mood to find out.

  • • •

  Maybe he could sweat the fear out of him, yank another strand or two of the twisted mess inside him straight enough that he could talk to Clare.

  The gym for Rickman’s agents was downtown, always a pain to drive in, but the best option. He found his designated parking spot near the door was a handicapped one. His stomach tightened, but that would help with his aching foot and leg.

  Fifteen minutes later he’d changed into workout clothes and limped into the gym, cane in hand. He had to leave the leg brace on, but guys wore braces, soft and hard, when they worked out. No big deal.

  Yeah, it was, but he’d get over it.

  And the man grunting on the weight bench wouldn’t care, not Tony Rickman. He must have caught the shadow of movement in the door because he looked at Zach and didn’t settle the weight in the rests, which seemed to have been his first instinct.

  “Zach,” he said.

  “Tony,” Zach replied, moving to a strength trainer, but feeling better about the brace. Rickman wore a tank that showed a couple of tats and more bullet and knife scars than Zach had.

  Man had gone through some serious pain and hospital time. No wonder he got Zach. And as Zach grunted through the last training program his physical therapist had set up, he figured that many, if not most, of Rickman’s agents would be as battered as the two of them. Zach had been unlucky enough to draw the disability card, is all. Yeah, he liked Rickman. He liked Rossi. Zach could accept them as his tribe.