Ghost Layer (The Ghost Seer Series Book 2)

by Robin D. Owens

  Clare’s expression turned to horror. “No. There must be rules!”

  “Yeah, right.”

  She unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face him. “Tell me, Zach.”

  So he grated out the story of the day Jim died. Zach had told it to her before, but he hadn’t put in the connection-thing between them because he’d forgotten about it. Or blocked it out. Or it had scarred him inside forever when it had failed and Jim’s life had been forfeit.

  He’d sweated, so he wiped his head against the shoulder of his shirt until Clare gave him a tissue.

  “I can see why you’d deny your gift,” she said thoughtfully. Her lips lifted in not-really-a-smile. “I’ll still hold you to telling me about the crows when you see them.”

  “Occasionally.”

  She sent him a rueful smile. “I did say ‘occasionally,’ though I’d prefer ‘always.’”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  “I’ll point out that you’ll probably be seeing, hearing, and interacting with my sidekick ghost dog, and will know of every phantom I need to help move on.”

  “Balance, equality, and partnership,” Zach said. More than he’d given any woman.

  “That’s right.”

  Not looking at her, he said, “You seem to have forgiven me.”

  “You listened to me.” She took his hand and put it between her breasts, as she had done with her own hand when explaining how he hurt her.

  He paid more attention to the softness of her flesh, her warmth, than her words. “And asked me to help.”

  Something he hadn’t recalled actually saying out loud to anyone for a long time.

  “You’re special.”

  “Thank you.” She sighed and her breasts moved beneath his hand.

  “Time to leave,” he said.

  She smiled, put his hand on his own knee, turned, and buckled up.

  They were even quieter on the trip back to Denver, until he said, “Turn here.”

  “That’s not the way to my place.”

  “No, but it’s the way to mine.” Clare had never been in his rooms. “I’d like you to spend the night in my bed.”

  Her tongue came out and swept over her lips, and the low heat of desire flickered into heavy flames.

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  Soon they were pulling into the quiet circle drive in front of Mrs. Flinton’s mansion, where he rented an apartment.

  As he got out, two crows cawed and strutted on the wall separating the front yard from the back. He smiled and pointed in their direction, visible from the security light over the side door of the house that led to his apartment.

  “See them?” he asked.

  “What?” She craned, then said, “No.”

  All right, he accepted that. Just simply accepted. He saw crows that no one else did. “Crows,” he said.

  “Oh? How many?”

  “Two.” He curved his right arm around her waist.

  “Two for . . . what?”

  “Luck, two for luck. I’m gonna get lucky tonight.”

  “I think I am,” she said.

  He opened the doors to his apartment to her and turned on the light, disarmed the security. The space wasn’t as impressive as her home, but it was comfortable. Like hers.

  “Nice,” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice, “A man cave.”

  When he stepped to the bar to drop his keys in the bowl under the night-light, he paused. There, in the bowl, were two shiny keys attached to a rectangular metallic tag enameled in cream with flowers around the name Clare.

  Then she was right by him, staring down at the same thing. He swept them up and turned to her, offered them. “Here.”

  Her gaze met his, held. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. We’re together.”

  Together said a voice in his head, and he and Clare turned to see Enzo, the ghost dog, grinning at them from the couch.

  Zach looked back at Clare and jingled the keys. She took them and he reached out and closed her fingers over them.

  “Together,” she agreed.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The town of Curly Wolf was based on the original town of Buckskin Joe, which was a mining town near Alma, Colorado, from 1859 to 1866. The town pumped about $16 million from mining into the Colorado (and national) economy.

  Unlike my Curly Wolf, most of Buckskin Joe fell apart and a few buildings were disassembled and moved from its first location in South Park (a geological high-altitude basin of 1,000 square miles) to an area near Cañon City, Colorado.

  Buildings were added and the new Buckskin Joe became a movie set where twenty-one films including Cat Ballou, True Grit, and Conagher were made. After that, the town became an amusement park and recreation area, then was sold to a real billionaire, who moved it to his ranch.

  My multimillionaire, Mr. Laurentine, is a completely fictional character with fictional characteristics and backstory, as are my characters in the Park County Sheriff’s Department, including the sheriffs, past and present, though from what I know of the real sheriff of J. Dawson’s time period, my hero, Zach, would approve of him.

  I spent some time researching J. Dawson Hidgepath (a ghost associated with Buckskin Joe) and found no contemporary sources that he was a real person though the legend of his bones is all over the Net . . . so I felt able to take liberties with the standard story.

  According to that legend, his death was ruled accidental due to a fall near Mount Bross in 1865.

  Soon after his death and burial, his body was supposed to have been found by a couple of women in their beds and reinterred each time. Legend also has it that the bones continued to appear during the 1870s and throughout Colorado until someone was disgusted enough to throw them into an outhouse cesspool.

  So, with the town being moved and the bones appearing and disappearing, I couldn’t really resist merging the two ideas and weaving a story.

  Thanks, as always, to the librarians at History Colorado Center and the Denver Public Library, particularly the Western History and Genealogical Division. Also many thanks to Christie Wright of the Park County Archives, who helped me with the facts of Buckskin Joe and the truth that I bent and broke (like a sheriff’s journal surviving in the archives) for my imaginary Curly Wolf. If you want to donate to the Park County Archives, you can do so here: P.O. Box 99, Fairplay, CO 80440.

  Ms. Wright has written a book on the cemetery of Buckskin Joe and other works you can see here: southparkperils.com.

  I also visited South Park City, an open-air museum Western town in Fairplay in Park County. South Park City has only a few buildings that are original to the site. As usual, I have pictures on my Pinterest page here: http://www.pinterest.com/robindowens/ghost-layer-settings/, and I have no doubt that I will be using it, and the buildings, again and again, as long as this series is going. Currently the original brewery needs help in being restored. To donate to this cause, please see this website: fairy-lamp.com/SPCMuseum/South_Park_City_Brewery_Donate.html.

  Also thanks to the Law Enforcement Training Network for the paper “Tire Tread and Tire Track Evidence.”

  Next up, Clare and Zach are going to confront a very evil ghost born of a great deal of murderous and otherwise negative energy in Creede, Colorado.

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT BOOK IN ROBIN D. OWENS’S GHOST SEER SERIES

  GHOST KILLER

  COMING IN FEBRUARY 2015 FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!

  DANGER COMES, ENZO howled, running through the bedroom door. Not the doorway, the door. Even a ghost Labrador should not have all the hair of his body standing out.

  Clare Cermak’s heartbeat kicked fast and she shuddered in the bed of her lover. She pulled the sheet high, even though the room was—had been—warm.

  Enzo leapt for the bed and landed on her, in her, sending the coldness of his being into her legs. His dark doggy eyes showed fear. Before she could say anything, those “eyes” began to morph into bottomless bl
ack mist with jagged white streaks . . . signifying that the Other spirit who took over her happy companion would be speaking to her.

  She didn’t like that. When the Other came, she felt like an expendable pawn in an unknown chess game.

  You are not, quite, expendable, the Other “said.” The words reverberated in her head, but more, seemed to knock molecules of heavy soundless explosions through the room. Her lover, facedown beside her, began to stir and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to hear what the Other said or not.

  Judgmental eyes fixed upon her. Not, quite, expendable, the Other repeated. Your work has been . . . acceptable . . . for your first two projects. Your successor is young to inherit the gift.

  Clare had heard her psychic ability to help ghosts pass on called a gift, but she’d always considered it a curse.

  We have paid you well for your gift, the Other, still standing face-to-face with her, said.

  Yes, she’d inherited millions, and for each major revenant she’d aided, had gotten income. But she’d also lost her previous life as an accountant, which she’d loved.

  The Other pulled the skin of his muzzle back and showed the teeth she knew were bigger than what she saw.

  Beside her, Zach groaned and rolled over, opened his eyes. The Other stepped to put a paw square in his chest and Zach grunted.

  It is well you are together, the Other said dispassionately. One of you might survive, should you walk into this danger. The faux dog’s head swung toward Zach and another wave of chill and heavy air moved through the room. You should be able to see me now, Jackson Zachary Slade.

  “I see you,” Zach rasped, eyes wide open, fingers twitching as if he wanted his gun on the table next to him. That was Zach, while Clare’s mind whirled in fear and dread, he acted, or at least confronted the thing.

  I consign the girl child, Dora Cermak, to your care to protect should Clare fail and fall to this evil ghost, Jackson Zachary Slade, the Other said.

  A rapping came on the door between Zach’s apartment and the rest of the mansion. The Other vanished and Zach sat up, put his warm, muscular and solid arm around Clare. He looked down at her. “That’s not going to happen.”

  Clare realized she trembled. Mostly with cold, she assured herself.

  “What did the bastard say?”

  She shook her head in denial of the fear spearing through her, swallowed so she found more spit in her dry mouth to speak. “Danger comes.”

  Zach grunted, rolled off the bed and pulled on some sweatpants, yelled to the person still pounding on the door, “Just a damn— Just a minute!”

  “Probably Mrs. Flinton,” Clare said, speaking of his landlady, the very wealthy owner of the mansion, of which this had been the housekeeper’s suite. She dragged on her bra, turned yesterday’s panties inside out for now and put them on, slipped into her sundress.

  Zach had already snagged his cane and left the bedroom. He’d gone to the door, and Clare heard him open it a little. “Mrs. Flinton?”

  “I’m so sorry to disturb you. So, sorry,” her voice quavered. Usually the woman exuded vim and vigor.

  “Well, that’s a first,” Zach teased. “Come on in. Clare will be right here. You need Clare?” he said in a casual tone that amazed Clare. She was still having trouble breathing steadily. But he’d been a deputy sheriff and used to adrenaline dumps, she supposed. That didn’t happen often when you were a certified public accountant at a nice, safe, job for a prestigious, maybe stodgy, firm.

  “Yes. There’s trouble.” A drawn in breath. “An evil ghost.”

  Just the last three words had Clare stopping in her tracks to take a breath. Her ghost dog had dropped hints about evil ghosts during the seventeen days of her Ghost Seer career.

  Good grief, it hadn’t even been a month since she’d started seeing the wretched shades. No wonder the Other warned her of danger.

  But Mrs. Flinton continued to talk in a whispery, uncertain voice. “I have tea and pastries in the breakfast room.”

  If Clare had to talk of big, evil ghosts over tea in a pretty room, she’d scream. She stomped her fear into the carpet as she joined them.

  Zach slanted a look at her, then opened the door wide for Mrs. Flinton, who, for the first time Clare had met her, actually looked and acted her age, face sagging with worry, mouth quivering.

  “The tea–,” Mrs. Flinton.

  “I have food. I’m a P.I. and I take cases in my apartment. We can talk here in the living room.”

  A manly room for speaking of danger as opposed to a room decorated in cheerful yellow chintz.

  The woman pushed a roller walker into the room, leaning on it. She crossed to one of the big brown leather chairs, leaving the sofa or the other chair on this side of the room for Zach and Clare.

  Clare felt too nervy to sit. “I’ll put coffee on, why don’t I?”

  Mrs. Flinton, who’d unaccustomedly slumped, perked up, her pink lipsticked mouth smiling. “Coffee!”

  From that, Clare figured out that she wasn’t supposed to have any. Too bad. Clare needed some and thought Zach did, too. She sent Mrs. Flinton a stern look. “You’ll be having herbal tea.”

  Mrs. Flinton pouted, then sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Though what I really need is a martini.”

  Zach chuckled. “Not going to have that, either.”

  “Bloody Mary?” Mrs. Flinton raised penciled on brows.

  “Nope. No alcohol here.”

  Sniffing, Mrs. Flinton said, “You are wrong. We stocked your liquor cabinet, and don’t think I don’t know that my housekeeper has given you wine from my cellar.” Another sniff. “Wine that I can’t have.”

  The return of her character and the dripping of the coffee as it filled the pot soothed Clare enough for her to slide into the living room with a pleasant expression on her face and sit next to Zach.

  But Mrs. Flinton’s face crumpled when she saw Clare and tears began to roll down her cheeks. There was nothing for it, Clare rose and moved over to the arm of the woman’s chair, patted her on the shoulder.

  “Maybe you’d better tell us what’s wrong, Mrs. Flinton,” Clare said.

  “Please. Please call me Barbara, especially since I’ll be imposing on you so much.” She whisked out a lace-edged hanky and dabbed her eyes and her cheeks.

  Zach snorted. “Just spit it out, Mrs. Flinton.”

  Straightening to ramrod stiff, not looking at Clare, Mrs. Flinton said, “Yes, I suppose I must. It’s about another Ghost Seer.”

  Clare drew in a small breath. Maybe she’d have help. Any help would be great. “Another Ghost Seer?”

  Mrs. Flinton continued, “Yes, I have a little bit of several psychic gifts, but Caden has just one, like you, and we’re thinking that it must be Ghost Seeing.” Her fingers crushed the handkerchief until the delicate linen disappeared into her fist.

  Clare’s gaze met Zach’s. He nodded, as if confirming he was in this with her. As he always had been. She was lucky.

  “Caden?” she asked, her voice a little higher than usual. “And who is ‘we’?”

  “We are me, his great grandmother, and my daughter, Caden’s grandmother, who believe in psychic gifts, but not his parents.”

  “Parents,” said Zach neutrally.

  “Caden is seven.” A quivery sigh followed by a rush of words. “It seems his gift is coming too fast and too soon.”

  “Oh my God,” Clare said. No, she could not refuse to help.

  “Yes, dear.” Mrs. Flinton cleared her throat. She sniffed wetly, raised big, blue eyes to Clare. “There’s a big, bad ghost ready to eat him.”

  Clare flinched. The tea kettle shrieked. Avoiding Zach’s gaze, she crossed to the teapot and fussed with the loose leaf tea of twigs and blossoms in a little basket.

  “Pour your coffees first, dear,” Mrs. Flinton instructed. “Otherwise the water will be too hot for the herbs and ruin their efficacy.”

  Waiting until her hands were steady, Clare poured mugs of coffee for Zach a
nd herself. He always took black. She was discreetly leaning against his refrigerator so she didn’t check it for milk or cream or whatever. Just the smell of rich, dark caffeine strengthened her so she could lift her chin and take a mug to Zach.

  He looked at her straight, all acceptance of dangerous trouble. Seeing if she faced that up-front? She didn’t know. But she firmed her lips and dipped her head. As much as she’d bobbed and ducked in the past, tried to evade her gift, now was not the time to drag her feet.

  The bottom line of an endangered child wouldn’t let her ignore her power to move ghosts on. Hopefully she had enough mojo-whatever to kick an evil one out of this world.

  Giving them all time to think about what should be said next, what plans had to be made, Clare put her own mug on a magazine on the coffee table, went back for Mrs. Flinton’s tea.

  “Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Flinton said, and cradled the delicate china cup in both hands.

  Clare sat down next to Zach and even leaned against him a little. He was much nicer than the fridge, and knew about trouble and danger. Leaning against him, accepting his expertise, didn’t mean she was dependent on him.

  Putting down his mug, he took the lead, as she’d expected.

  “Trouble,” Zach prompted.

  Mrs. Flinton’s hand holding the teacup shook and she put it down. “Yes. I know Caden’s in trouble and my granddaughter and her husband don’t believe that. They are good, solid–”

  “Unimaginative—” Zach said.

  “Rational—” Clare began herself.

  “Yes. Both of those.” Mrs. Flinton blinked rapidly as if to keep more tears from falling. Her eyes appeared even bluer and she whispered. “I think . . . though I don’t know personally or for sure, I think I’ve heard . . . that an evil ghost can eat someone.” She stared, turning so pale that her carefully blended makeup stood out on her face.

  Clare shivered. Zach slid his arm from the sofa behind her to wrap it around her shoulders.