1 Death Warmed Over

by Kent Holloway

  Before Becca could answer, Silas’ hand shot out, snatching the transmitter from her hand. “That’s okay, Linda,” he said into the mic. “We’re near the motel. We’ll just go ahead and handle it.”

  Becca yanked the transmitter from his hand, glaring at him as she did so. There was a pause on the other end of the radio.

  “Are…are you sure about that?” Linda finally asked.

  Still scowling at the man, Becca brought the mic to her lips. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll swing by the motel and have a look around.” She replaced the transmitter and took the next left. “Silas? What have you done?”

  “Me?” He stared out the windshield innocently. “Why do you think I have anything to do with a man in an Hawaiian shirt running around my motel?”

  “Linda didn’t say anything about a Hawaiian shirt.” She gave her head a frustrated shake. “Seriously. What did you do?”

  She flicked her emergency lights on and sped through the residential neighborhood toward State Road A1A.

  Finally, he looked over at her, offering her a nervous grin. “Okay,” he said. “But I think when it’s all said and done, you’re going to laugh.”

  “Spill.”

  He sighed. “Well, you know that little experiment I’ve been talking about?”

  “Yes.” The word ground its way out through clenched teeth.

  “Um, yeah…that would be Elliot Newman.”

  “The archaeologist that was killed by a bus?”

  He nodded.

  “What about him?”

  “Well, I think he’s probably our peeping Tom.”

  Becca slammed on the brakes of the cruiser, bringing it to a grinding halt. Fortunately, there was no traffic behind her and she pulled over to the curb. Then she unbuckled her seat belt and turned to glare at him.

  “Excuse me? Mind saying that again?” She was pretty sure a plume of smoke was rising from her ears as she spoke.

  “The strange man,” he said, running a hand nervously through his hair. “I’m pretty sure it’s Elliot Newman.”

  “But he’s dead.”

  “Yeah, well…not anymore.”

  She turned back to stare out the window. She took a deep breath. Then another one.

  “And how, I might ask, is that possible?”

  “Um, hello?” Using both hands, he thumbed back at himself. “Death?”

  “Yeah, I get that. Let me rephrase my question. Why is a dead archaeologist now running around the motel’s property?”

  “I have no idea why. He’s supposed to be keeping a low profile inside my room.”

  “You know what I mean, Mot.”

  He chuckled but stopped the moment he noticed her face. “Look, I thought maybe he’d be a help to us in finding the Hand of Cain. The guy was studying the pirate ship wreck on the coast, as well as its fabled treasure, before he died. I believe that’s where the Hand was discovered. I figured he’d have some insight into the players around here who might have an affinity for ancient artifacts and could point us in the right direction.”

  “So, you can bring people back from the dead?”

  He shrugged. “Sorta.”

  “All this time, you could bring back people who had died?”

  “It’s kind of my thing.”

  “And you never once thought to just bring Andrea Alvarez back to life to see if she knew who killed her?”

  Silas shook his head. “Doesn’t work like that. Alvarez isn’t one of mine. It wasn’t her Time. So, I’ve got no control over her afterlife. Elliot was a different story.” Sometime during the conversation, he’d removed the yo-yo from his pocket and was absently winding the string around his right forefinger. “And before you ask, no. It’s not something I would do willy-nilly. It goes against everything I believe in to snatch someone from their final reward and plop them back in their bodies. But with Elliot, I didn’t think I really had much of a choice.” He looked over at her. “Besides, I told you several times what I planned to do and you never tried to stop me.”

  “That’s because I never in a million years thought you were serious about it!”

  He fidgeted some more with the yo-yo string and nodded ahead. “Shouldn’t we be going? If it is Elliot, he’s probably freaking out right now. He’s been in and out of consciousness since I woke him up and will have no idea what’s going on.”

  With a growl, she put the car in drive and sped on to the motel. The moment she pulled into the covered turnabout, a beleaguered-looking older gentleman wearing a rumpled and sweat-stained button down ambled out into the parking lot to greet them.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, chief,” he said, walking over to the driver’s side door. “That guy is like a wild man. He’s crazed, I tell ya.”

  Becca got out of the car and looked the man up and down. “And you are?”

  “Ernest Guillespe, Chief. I’m the day manager of this place.” He eyed Silas as he slipped from the car. “You!” He pointed a long, crooked finger at him. “That lunatic came out of your room! We might tolerate the occasional discreet rendezvous with our guests, but whatever you two were doing in there was unnatural. Unnatural, I say!”

  “You have no idea,” Silas said with a grin.

  Becca glared at him. “You’re not helping.” She then took the manager by his shoulders to calm him down. “Mr. Guillespe, we’ll take care of it. Now, where is he?”

  The old man pointed toward the beach. “On the other side of the motel, hiding in the dunes. He’s freaked out our guests somethin’ fierce. We’re not one of the fanciest places around here. This kind of thing can ruin our business.” He glared at Silas. “Which I’m blaming you for, Slick. I ain’t paying for whatever you’ve been up to, no siree.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Guillespe,” Becca said. “Now go on inside and let us handle this, okay?”

  “I’ve a mind to give Mr. Mot the boot after this little fiasco,” he mumbled, but nodded and walked back toward the motel lobby entrance.

  “I don’t blame you one bit,” Becca called back. “I’m of a mind to do something similar.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Silas said as they began making their way around the side of the motel. “I was just trying to give us an edge against our adversary.”

  “You were messing with the forces of nature.”

  “I am one of the forces of nature, remember?” he said as they made their way to the boardwalk that led directly to the beach, glancing out over the rails at the dunes on each side.

  If she wasn’t afraid of scaring off the previously deceased Elliot Newman, she would have screamed. The man could be absolutely infuriating.

  “I think you should be quiet now,” she said. Her eyes scanned from right to left, searching for a trace of her quarry. “I swear, I may just shoot you here and now. I won’t hurt you, but it’ll feel really good.”

  “Well, that’s not a very nice…”

  A rustle of vegetation to the left stopped him from uttering the rest of his sentence. They followed the noise, peering into a thick patch of palmetto bushes. Becca caught the slightest hint of movement. Pink skin. Something garishly red. Something ginger as well.

  “Mr. Newman, is that you?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and even.

  “Elliot?” Silas whispered.

  The pink, red, and ginger thing in the palmetto bushes shifted.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Newman, we’re here to help you.”

  A ginger-covered head peaked up from the bush. Becca saw a man with a pale face, wide-bewildered eyes, and a jaw slack in confused gawk. He blinked.

  “I…I don’t know where I am,” he said with a trembling, high-pitched voice.

  “Summer Haven, mate,” Silas said, offering a friendly wave. “Glad to see you up and about again.”

  The timid little man squinted in the sunlight, trying to catch a better glimpse of Silas. “Do…do I know you?”

  “It’s a bit of a long story, really.” Silas straightened his tie, nervously. “If you come
out, we’ll talk about it. I promise I’ll clear everything up.”

  Elliot shifted to his left, but he didn’t stand. He peered around the left side of the bush now and looked at Becca. “I…I don’t trust that man.” He pointed at Silas.

  She chuckled, raising an eyebrow at her partner. “That’s because you have very good instincts, Mr. Newman. He’s foolish and impetuous. I, on the other hand, am chief of police here. You can trust me.”

  Like a doe, uncertain of what to do, he rose from behind the bushes and Becca struggled to suppress a giggle when she saw the ridiculous attire he was wearing. He was dressed in a pair of cargo shorts, at least three sizes too big, and a bright red Hawaiian shirt with yellow floral print. Like most gingers, he was fair-skinned and was already showing signs of sunburn on his exposed flesh from where he’d been out in the sun too long. His face was thin with large, expressive eyes and a mouth that seemed to hang open perpetually.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Newman.” She held out a hand to him over the boardwalk’s rails. “Let me take you some place a little more comfortable so we can figure things out, okay?”

  “Sure. Sure.” He stumbled forward, like his limbs were too stiff to function normally.

  “It’s the embalming fluid,” Silas whispered in her ear, as if reading her mind. “His body is still trying to flush it out of his system. He’ll be stiff for another day or two, I’d say.”

  Three minutes later, the dead man scrambled over the railing and was led back to Silas Mot’s motel room without any more complications.

  36

  Elliot Newman plopped down on the queen-sized bed inside Silas’ room, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and shivered. “I…I just don’t understand what’s going on,” he said. “I feel so weird.”

  “That’s understandable,” Silas said, leaning against the dresser. “You’re dead.”

  Becca’s head snapped in his direction. If she could have burned him to a crisp with laser vision, she would have.

  “Um, I mean, you were dead. There’s a difference.”

  “Dead? What do you mean ‘dead’?”

  Becca shook her head. “Don’t you worry a bit about it,” she said, sitting down beside him. “He’s just got a rotten sense of humor.” She paused. “So, what’s the last thing you remember?”

  There was a part of her that was far too fascinated with this conversation than she would ever admit to being. It wasn’t every day that you could actually talk to someone who had been dead for a couple of days. Could he have the answers that humanity has sought since its existence? Life after death? The light at the end of the tunnel? She supposed these were all things she could ask Silas about, but she also knew she could never fully trust him with the truth. She needed to hear certain things from the lips of mortals…people who understood the instinctive lure such questions held for everyone.

  Elliot shrugged. “It’s all kind of fuzzy,” he said, scooting back in the bed until his back was pressed against the headboard. He was keeping a wary eye on Silas Mot. “I was in Summer Haven, preparing for an underwater excavation.” His gaze shifted over to Becca. “You’ve heard about the sunken ship, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah, so I had just booked our charter boat and scuba supplies and stepped out onto the sidewalk just outside Diver Dan’s, when out of nowhere, this gorgeous brunette with a body like a Greek goddess, came up to me, said I looked sad, and started kissing me.”

  Becca stared at the man, uncertain where his story was going.

  “And?” Silas asked.

  “And, it shocked me. I’d never had anything like that happen to me in my entire life. Confused, I stepped off the sidewalk into the street and…um…that’s all I remember.”

  And that’s when you got hit by a tour bus. Poor guy.

  “This woman,” Silas said, his eyes narrowing. “Did she have an accent?”

  “An accent?” Elliot wrinkled his nose, as if in thought. “Yeah, I think she did. Hispanic, I think.”

  Silas glanced over at Becca. “Esperanza.” He sighed. “It’s her M.O. She tends to like to send guys off with a smile on their faces.”

  “So, she killed him?”

  “Not necessarily. It was his Time. We know that or I would never have been able to bring him back. But sometimes, she likes to give people a special little sendoff. Maybe a nudge in the right direction, yes.”

  “W-what do you mean, ‘killed’ me?” Elliot asked.

  “Kid, I wasn’t lying to you a minute ago,” Silas said. “Of course, Chief Cole thinks I should coddle you and not tell you the truth, but that won’t do any of us any good. You need to know everything before we can proceed.”

  Then, Silas was good to his word and told him everything. Told him about his death. About the bus. About the woman who had kissed him, as well as just who Silas Mot really was. He told him about the Hand of Cain and the danger to humanity it represented, and the murder investigation he was currently helping Becca with in hopes of drawing closer to the one who possessed the Hand.

  And all the while, Elliot Newman, brainy archaeologist from Palatka, Florida, sat huddled on the bed—his knees pulled up to his chest—as he took it all in with a slack jaw and wide, unblinking eyes. He trembled when told about the bus running him over. His lips twitched when he learned about Esperanza. And he froze with abject terror when told that the Grim Reaper himself had raised him from the dead to help him track down this powerful artifact that could destroy people’s lives at the whim of whoever wielded it.

  When Silas finished talking, Elliot sat in silence. He was now rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped around his knees.

  “Uh…” Rock. Rock. Rock. “I…uh…” He blinked away a few tears. Looked at Silas, then at Becca. “Yeah, I’m not…”

  Before anyone could react, Elliot leapt from the bed and dashed straight to the door, slid the security chain out of its cradle, and pulled the door open to flee. But Silas was faster than he looked. In the span of a single blink, he was in front of the frightened man, shooing him back inside the motel room.

  “Hold on now,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “You haven’t heard my proposal yet. Trust me. It’s something you’re gonna want to hear.”

  Reluctantly, Elliot returned to the room and Silas closed the door behind him. He then gestured for the former dead man to sit down next to Becca. When Elliot had complied, Silas sat on the opposite bed across from them.

  “Look. Here’s the deal. I broke about a zillion laws of nature to bring you back.” He made a show of wiping his hands. “No problem. I’ll take the heat. But you have two options here, Elliot, my boy. One. You help me locate the Hand of Cain. If you do that, I’ll be able to justify your re-lifeing and you’ll be granted a second death later down the road. Two. You flake out, ostrich your head in the sand, and pretend none of this is happening, and I’ve got no choice but to send you back to the morgue where I got you.”

  “Silas!” Becca snapped. She wasn’t sure she liked the emotional hostage tactics he was using against the poor guy.

  “Sorry, Chief, but those are his only options. I don’t mind taking the heat for the abomination I’ve created by giving him life again…if he’s going to help save the world as a result. If he’s not, I’m sorry. But no matter how I might act, I do have rules I have to follow. I’ll have no choice, but to send him back.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Elliot asked. He wouldn’t look Silas in the eyes. Becca couldn’t really blame him.

  “Right now, I need you to rest. Your body still hasn’t purged your post-mortem toxins yet. That’s why you feel so stiff right now. Why you are so disoriented.” Silas grabbed the TV remote from the nightstand and handed to him. “Catch up on your shows. Think of it as a beach vacation.”

  “And then what? When I’m back to normal, what then?”

  “Then, you’ll proceed with your investigation into the sunken pirate ship. I think that’s where the Hand of Cain was discovered and there
might be some evidence that’ll point us to who took it.”

  Elliot shook his head. “That’ll be trickier than you think,” he said. “The wreck’s already been scavenged by several well-known treasure hunters. And last I heard…” He trailed off for a moment. “…before, ya know, I was killed…there was a deal being made to bring in that charlatan Lance Avery and his dumb archaeology show, Mysterious Expedition, here to televise the whole thing. Some rich widow was talking to the state to get full access to the wreck with the promise of television crews and tourists flocking to the area. I was in the process of fighting it—trying to get the state to maintain rights to the wreck—when I was….” He coughed. “…killed.”

  “But I thought those sites were protected from private parties?” Becca asked. “How could a private citizen get access like that?”

  “Apparently, this woman’s got major pull in Tallahassee. Don’t remember her name though.” He looked over at Becca. “What day is it?”

  “April 26.”

  “I’ve been…” He swallowed. It looked like it hurt. “…dead for four days now?”

  She nodded.

  “There’s no telling what’s happened to the wreck by now.”

  Becca looked over at Silas, then Elliot. “I’ll ask the sheriff’s office to send one of their marine units on routine patrols. And I’ll have Jeremy start doing some intelligence work…trying to find out who this mysterious widow is and building a profile on any strangers in town that might fit the treasure hunter bill.”

  “Not Tanner,” Silas said abruptly.

  “Huh? Why not?”

  “Just trust me on this. Don’t send Tanner or any of your other officers who wear long sleeve shirts. And keep this project as secretive as possible.”

  “Long sleeve shirts?”

  “I’ll explain everything when the time is right. For now, please. Just trust me.”

  “Okay.” She nodded, but she didn’t like where her thoughts were heading when she thought about Silas’ sudden suspicion of her most trusted officer.