Yes. She’d kept track. Three and a half days to destroy a ghost-seer-eating ghost. The process of which, the whys and wherefores, the hows she knew nothing about.
“Clare, how soon can you leave?” Tony Rickman repeated.
She jerked from dread-filled thoughts. Blinking, she shrugged, looked at Zach. “An hour?”
He gave a quick negative shake of his head, a motion she thought Mr. Rickman and Mrs. Flinton missed. Since Zach didn’t want to speak up, she trusted him and amended her answer. “Sorry, more like two hours.”
“Right. We’ll send a car to pick you up at your place in, say, two-and-a-half hours.”
“All right.”
Mr. Rickman’s hand went to his inside suit jacket pocket and he pulled out a wallet and a platinum credit card, and offered it to Zach, who put both of his hands on the curved handle of his old-fashioned wooden cane. “Sorry, can’t take that.”
“It’s a business card for you and your expenses,” Rickman bit off.
“So it has ‘Rickman Security and Investigations’ on it,” Zach pointed out. “Which the family—what’s their names?—would recognize. All the locals might.”
“All right.” The card went back into wallet and pocket. “The family is—”
“Jessica and Michael LuCette,” Mrs. Flinton said as she rose and moved toward them with her walker. Now she appeared calmer, close to her old sprightliness. She angled her head at Tony for a kiss on the cheek. He bent and complied, put an arm around her thin shoulders and squeezed. “We’ll handle this,” he said in a grim tone, meeting Zach’s gaze.
It occurred to Clare that that shared male look might mean Rickman would send out his security force. Zach had told her most of Rickman’s employees were ex-military special operations kind of men. She wondered what they thought they could do about a spirit-eating ghost. She had no illusions whatsoever that she would be on the front line of this battle. A battle she didn’t know how to fight, let alone win.
She drank down the rest of her tepid coffee.
Mrs. Flinton said, “Thank you, Clare. I have full faith that you can . . . destroy this evil revenant.”
Great. Clare put her empty cup on the coffee table, stood, and kissed the woman’s cheek. “I will do my best.” She said it quietly, but it was a vow. Zach moved around her and kissed Mrs. Flinton, too. “We’ll do our best and we’ll save Caden.”
“And Creede,” Tony Rickman said, putting on his sunglasses. “My take on evil is that it doesn’t like to limit itself to one person or one town or one valley, even.”
Zach smiled and put his arm around Clare’s shoulders. “Clare saves the world.” He sounded completely confident she could do it.
Clare saves the world! Enzo echoed, wagging his tale and grinning, like he thought she could do that, too.
She thought her spirit would be torn from her, shredded, and eaten by a ghost.
THREE
WHEN MRS. FLINTON and Mr. Rickman left, the atmosphere of the apartment continued to buzz with tension. Though Zach appeared casual, and that might have fooled Mrs. Flinton, the second the door closed behind the others he strode to his bedroom and hauled out a suitcase. Clare followed him, but Enzo vanished.
Zach packed clothes for autumn and the fast-arriving mountain winter quickly and efficiently.
Since Clare didn’t want to deal with all the dreadful questions in her head, she asked one of the least important. “Why do you need more time?” It appeared like he’d be done packing and ready to go in under a half hour.
“I need to see my mother.” His mouth twisted. “Say good-bye to her if this is going to be such a dangerous mission.”
Clare swallowed hard. “Of course. Do you want me to come with you?” They’d just visited Geneva in the mental health facility the night before—to discover more information about Zach’s psychic abilities that had passed down through his mother.
Now Zach slanted Clare a sardonic look. “Yeah. Of course I’d like you to come with me, but it’s more efficient if you go pack. I think this is something I’ve got to do myself.”
She shifted from foot to foot, swallowed, and took his hand. “I consider us a couple, Zach, an exclusive couple.”
His brows lifted. “Yeah, we’re a couple. A couple of what, I don’t know, but an exclusive couple. We’re in this together.” He glanced away, rubbed the back of his neck.
Tilting her head, Clare spoke a thought that just surfaced. “Have you gone to her before when you’ve taken on dangerous cases?”
He winced. “Yeah.” He withdrew his hand from Clare’s and she reluctantly let him. Stretching his arms high, he worked his shoulders. Clare heard a couple of pops. “I don’t like doing it because she always seems to know—” He stopped.
“A touch of precognition, like yours?” Clare asked.
“I guess.” His brows remained lowered. “It’s never good. If I brought you, and she thought you were in danger, too . . . I don’t know what she’d do. She likes you and she remembered previously meeting you. That’s a big deal. I’ve got a feeling it’s not going to be one of her good days.”
Straightening her spine, Clare said, “Since my cases haven’t been . . . easy, I’ve made my will. It’s the responsible thing to do. What about you?”
“God.” Zach turned, stripped, and headed for the shower.
All thought drained from Clare’s brain as she watched him. “God,” she murmured herself.
Zach turned with irritation on his face, but she wasn’t much looking at his expression. Yes, he remained lean from his wounding months ago, but the sheer sight of him had her tingling. She admired his frame, his sleek muscles slowly filling out.
Essentially male. Especially since his body reacted to her gaze, becoming erect. She wavered unsteadily on her feet, her breath catching, her breasts plumping, her own body responding to his. Hot, she was so hot! She whipped off her dress, flung off her bra and panties. Wetting her lips, she curled a finger. “Come on over here, Zach.”
His eyes lit and he grinned, sauntered toward her. His limp did nothing but squeeze her heart, remind her that she was his first lover after his injury, and something special spun between them.
Something sizzling, needy . . . and more than passion.
As he drew close her head tilted back so she could see him better, wait for him . . . this once . . . soon she’d pounce on him and be wild . . . follow her gypsy blood and show him how she wanted him. How she wanted him to take her.
His right arm came around her waist, jerked her to him and, my God, they were skin to skin. Sensation ruled, the roughness of his lightly haired body rubbing against hers as she lifted her arms to clasp them around his neck. Her breasts rose, her nipples rasped from his chest, the feel of his arousal hot and hard, long and thick against her stomach, that part of him as smooth as she. Her blood pounded through her, so she thought nothing, only experienced. Only craved.
Her vision went blurry. She smelled his breath as his mouth touched hers, tasted him as he thrust his tongue through her lips, probed her mouth. She moaned with desire.
He bent her back and back, arching her, his body over hers, then he released her and she lay on the bed. She widened her eyes, staring. Now his flushed face showed wild triumph and he gazed at the apex of her thighs, her sex revealed to him, damp, needy.
Yanking a drawer open, he sheathed himself with protection, and she blinked, trying to draw in the sight of all of him, struggled through the flood of sensations to even speak, and could only find one word: his name. “Zach.”
She raised her arms, formed the sound again. “Zach.” This time a plea.
A chuckle ripped from him, a grin, then he grabbed her, positioned her, plunged into her, and the sunshine around her dimmed with the veil of red lust.
God, he felt good! Better than last
night, than early this morning. The looming threat in the back of her mind making this joining incredible.
Now his expression became strained as he surged and withdrew, focused on her . . . himself . . . them. Sexual need clawed at her, demanding the spiraling, gasping climb, the arching of her own body for more, more, more. She whimpered each breath, clutched him, set her fingernails into his back, needing the thrust of his body, the withdrawal, the pounding back into her.
Yet her climax caught her by surprise, between one breath and the next, exploding through her, scattering her to the stars and the universe beyond, flashing brilliant colors behind her closed eyelids.
He shouted, lunged into her and stayed, then collapsed on her and they held each other.
She lay there, her mind spinning, her breath rasping. As her arms encircling him went limp, she trailed them down his heaving body, then let them lie on the bed.
After long minutes, and too soon, he rose from her. She managed to focus her eyes before he disappeared into the bathroom, saw the strong lines of his back, his muscular butt. Gorgeous man. Virile. More man than she’d ever had before, more than she’d have been able to handle before her gift had dropped into her. Not a man she’d have wanted before—too rough, too many shadows. He’d have scared her and challenged her, and she’d been happy in her rut.
Now she couldn’t bear the thought of not knowing him. Her heart gave a massive thump as more of her mind cleared from the amazing sex and reminded her of the morning events and the deadly situation they’d become entangled in.
She could lose—not him, she hoped, never him. Lose her life, that would be more acceptable than losing him, and now she knew how very much she cared for him. More than sweet and sweaty passion, more than affection, slipping too easily into love.
An awful mewling sound came from her, thankfully covered from Zach’s hearing by the pulsing of hard, noisy water streams.
Sitting up gingerly as she shoved the frightening thoughts from her brain so she could simply function, she stood and turned her mind back to the logical thread of conversation and the point she’d been trying to make before lust had swamped her. The accountant in her came to the front. She couldn’t let this important conversation go.
Slowly she walked into the bathroom. She liked showers with Zach, and she did need one, but though their sexual interlude had been relatively quick, they had a deadline to meet.
The frosted glass of the enclosure revealed only the bronze color of his body and the shape of it. She took a wet maroon washcloth he’d left on the sink for her and cleaned up, figuring angles.
Zach shampooed, and the scent of tea tree oil wafted out. She wondered if that had been his choice, or if the bathroom had come stocked like the furnished apartment and liquor cabinet.
Finally deciding to be blunt, she cleared her throat and projected her voice. “Having a will is important.”
He flinched but said nothing. She rinsed the washcloth, wrung it, and hung it on the towel rack, then tried initiating the discussion again. “Zach,” she called. “A will?”
Without looking at her, he began scrubbing and her body took notice, so she turned her back away from the vision of him.
His voice raised over the pounding water. “My mother will get my disability and retirement funds. Not that she needs the money.”
“Did you note her as your beneficiary?”
He grunted. “I don’t recall. Probably.”
“If not, your assets would be inherited by both your parents, and considering your mother is in a mental health facility, no doubt your father would receive them on her behalf.”
“No. I don’t want the General to have control of my money and dole it out to her.”
“Who else would you like to manage your funds for her?” Clare asked.
“Goddammit to hell.” The sound of water stopped abruptly. “Distant cousins on Mom’s side, I guess, as trustees for her. Though I haven’t checked any of them out lately. Not for a couple of years.” The door opened and she heard towel-rubbing. Then he walked around to face her and his blue green gaze lasered to her and latched on.
She raised her hands. “No. Absolutely not. Don’t make me responsible for your mother.” She bit her lower lip when he continued to stare. “What about Mr. Rickman?”
“I’d trust him with her life. He isn’t a money man. You’re a money woman.”
“If you must,” Clare said, “go to my old firm, Burgess, Sturgis, and Heaps.”
He stared at her. “Seriously? They’re named that?”
She gritted her teeth, loosened her jaw, then said, “It’s an old, traditional firm. They are very well thought of in the financial community.”
Zach smiled at her, a simple, sincere smile that made her heart squeeze in her chest. “They must be tops if they hired you.”
“Thank you.”
He flung the towel over the bar and strode from the bathroom.
Clare couldn’t leave the thick cotton that way and folded and straightened it. When she entered his bedroom, he was dressing in nice slacks and a linen shirt.
She made the bed. It would be better to strip it and remake it, but she didn’t know where the extra sheets were and it was his bed, not hers, and time ticked down.
Zach went to a hidden wall safe and opened it, put a gun in his bag. Not the weapon he usually carried, which was on the table on his side of the bed, not even the second one that he called his clutch piece, but a third weapon. He swung the bag to the floor. “Take that with you, and I’ll meet you at your place as soon as possible. Can I park my truck in your garage?”
“Of course.” But she stared at the piece of luggage. “I don’t have a concealed weapon permit. What if I get stopped by the police?”
“Clare, you never go over the speed limit,” he said with condescension.
“I do, too!”
“What, by two miles an hour? And you live close to here, not more than fifteen minutes away.”
“Oh, all right.”
“Gotta go. C’mere.” He’d finished dressing, including his ankle and leg brace, his holster at the small of his back, gun, and a sports jacket.
She walked into his embrace, felt his strong arms close around her, and felt safe. For all too short a time. Tilting her face for his kiss, she enjoyed the press of his lips on hers, his tongue sweeping along her lips, leaving his taste on them.
Though he’d been gone from the plains of Montana for a week, the tang of sage remained. A smell and taste she’d always associate with Zach. She became aware of his slight arousal, again, how satisfying, and her own inner muscles clenched. How soon she’d become accustomed to frequent, excellent sex.
He rubbed her back up and down with his big hands, caressing her, soothing her, murmuring in her ear. “We’ll get through this.”
Her stomach tightened, but she tried not to reveal her nerves. “I’m sure,” she lied.
With a stare under lowered brows, he said, “Later.” One side of his mouth lifted. “Use your new keys on the way out. The alarm code is one-two-four-three-five-seven-six.”
“All right. An easy sequence to remember.”
He picked up the curved-handled old-fashioned wooden cane and twirled it, smiled, and turned away. She saw his shoulders tense and he marched from the bedroom and out of the apartment. She wanted to go with him, but since he thought that would upset his mother, she wouldn’t.
Though he was wrong if he thought to spare his mother pain, because he wouldn’t. Geneva Slade had never gotten over the death of one son; Clare could only imagine how another dark loss might overwhelm her.
* * *
Enzo awaited her when she got home. He sat in the large entryway next to the stairs with cocked ears, though his cheerfulness subdued. His tail wagged a couple of times, but she heard no swish, j
ust felt the standard chill radiating from her ghostly pet.
You are really going to do this, Clare? he asked.
She inhaled a quick breath, let it out choppily. “I am not going to let a boy be eaten by an evil ghost.”
Her phantom dog rose and trotted up the stairs. You will need the big knife, then. I will show it to you.
“Knife!” For one brief instant, courage blazed inside of her. A weapon, she’d have a weapon! Then her stomach jolted and her throat closed again. She had no clue how to use a big knife.
But Zach would. If the knife was, say, a long dagger, it might be used as a sword. Zach used his cane as a weapon; he could teach her cane moves, couldn’t he? She was sure he knew how to use a regular knife.
“Is the knife . . . supernatural?” she asked Enzo, following him up the stairs, turning right toward her bedroom. Perhaps if the weapon was supernatural, all she’d have to do was hold it and let it lead her to the evil ghost and dispatch it. Like the fairy tales Great-Aunt Sandra had told her as a small child. Fairy tales. Fiction.
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. And in fairy tales, the prince or princess had to overcome great obstacles. And if you weren’t the right princess, you could die. Clare bit her lip.
Her gift passed through the family, too. And her successor to the awful thing was her niece, Dora, who wasn’t quite as young as Caden LuCette. Like him, Dora was untrained and, unlike Caden, Dora would experience the Cermak’s gift—deadly cold, the threat of insanity and death if she didn’t accept her psychic power. Though her parents, Clare’s brother and sister-in-law, would probably accept Dora and her gift.
Clare! Focus! You can’t daydream! We can do this. The knife will help!
Clare shook herself to find she stood in the tiny office she used for her ghost seer cases. Atop the battered desk lay her old laptop from two years ago. She’d framed maps on the walls: a huge one of Denver on which she’d shaded the worst areas for ghosts of her time period; one of Colorado; and one of the United States. Some smaller maps were reproductions of old ones, Denver in 1887, 1890, 1893, 1903. Those last three years were later than the time period she was sensitive to, 1850–1900, and ghosts, the American West . . .
Ghost Killer Page 3