Living With the Dead

by Kelley Armstrong

  The second one he had seen. Another woman, this one young, lying naked in the claw-foot bathtub. Not such a bad image... if she hadn't slit her wrists and looked as if she'd been in that tub for weeks. Finn had worked a few floaters in his time, and it wasn't a vision he wanted to see first thing every morning. He'd moved out within two weeks, and lost a big chunk of cash.

  That second one still bothered him. Even on crime scenes, the ghosts he saw appeared whole and unharmed as they'd looked before their death. And the drowned woman had never moved, never spoken, never opened her eyes. He'd wondered whether there'd been something he was supposed to have done. He'd researched the case, but never found anything. Just an anonymous death in an anonymous city.

  Finn rang the bell a third time, then leaned forward, straining to hear a struggle or an argument. Archer said Peltier wanted to talk to him, but she could have changed her mind.

  He should have brought backup. Under any other circumstances, he would have, but here he'd figured he already had it in Judd Archer. He didn't know the guy, but he'd heard his story - ex-cop turned celebrity bodyguard. Not true. Archer had never left the force. He was undercover, trying to break into an organized crime ring through their purported relationship with some glitterati types. If things went bad in there, Archer would be Finn's backup.

  Finn wondered whether Portia Kane was one of those celebs who supposedly liked hanging out with young mobsters. If so, that could answer some questions about her death. And this Peltier... Jansen said Peltier hadn't been with Kane long. She could be a plant, maybe a mobster's -

  Finn shook his head. He was daydreaming again. One foot in this world, one foot in the next, his mother used to say.

  He gave the doorknob a tentative turn. It opened. When Peltier woke Archer, relocking had probably been the last thing on his mind.

  Finn called a hello. No one answered. He took out his gun and started forward.

  The lights were on in the front hall and what looked like the kitchen beyond. Finn stepped into the kitchen and saw Archer standing over a body.

  Finn's gaze flicked from the body to the figure above it. The ghost glanced up. Their eyes met.

  "Shit," Finn whispered, and looked away.

  Gun poised, Finn began searching the house for Archer's killer. He made it through the front rooms and was heading to the bedrooms, when a voice behind him said, "You want some help with that?"

  Finn hesitated then, not glancing back, continued on.

  "I know you can see me," Archer said, stepping in front. "You looked right at me in the kitchen. You can hear me, too, or you wouldn't have paused when I spoke."

  Finn lifted a finger, telling Archer to wait until he'd finished his sweep. Insensitive but necessary. He'd once been so engrossed in questioning a victim's ghost - and keeping the rest of the team from overhearing - that he'd missed the killer hiding behind the sofa. The only thing that saved him from a bullet was the guy's shock when he leapt out to discover the detective was talking to thin air.

  So Finn continued his search, with Archer tagging along, calm and focused, as if he was just another officer on the scene. Finn met two kinds of ghosts: those too distraught to give a coherent account and those whose accounts were eerily coherent. They knew they were dead; it just hadn't sunk in yet.

  They'd finished searching the spare room when Archer, heading out the door, went to pull it farther open for Finn, and his fingers passed right through. He stared at them, then did it again.

  "Ah, shit." Archer's shoulders slumped.

  "I'm sorry," Finn said.

  Archer nodded. He kept staring at his hand, and Finn resisted the urge to pepper him with questions, knowing the clock was ticking and at any moment Archer could vanish.

  "So what happens now?" Archer said. "Am I stuck here? A ghost?"

  "You'll be taken to the afterlife." Finn had no idea where ghosts went when they disappeared, but it was something after life, so he wasn't lying.

  "I guess this is how you solve all those cases, huh?" Archer managed a small smile. "Insider information?"

  "It helps. Can you tell - ?"

  He stopped, remembering Archer's body lying on the kitchen floor. The longer he waited to call in the death of an officer, the more fast talking he'd have to do to explain the delay... and fast talking really wasn't his thing.

  While he called for assistance, he asked Archer to explain what happened. Unfortunately, this was one of those times when having access to the most important witness wasn't going to help. Archer hadn't seen who'd killed him. He'd been making coffee and, the next thing he knew, he was standing over his body.

  "Did you hear anything?" Finn asked after he'd hung up.

  "Nah. I was grinding beans." He gestured to a small appliance on the counter. "Yes, I grind my own. I had a girlfriend who got me hooked. Anyway, those things make a helluva racket." He paused. "I may have heard the shot, but it was too late."

  "Where do you keep your gun?"

  Archer told him, and Finn went to check, motioning for Archer to follow and keep talking.

  "Guess I left the front door open, huh?" Archer said. "That must be how the guy got in."

  "If the killer wasn't already in."

  "Huh? Wait, you mean Robyn? No way."

  "You didn't see who killed you."

  Archer seemed to consider lying, saying he'd caught enough of a glimpse to know it wasn't her. But the cop in him won out and he said only, "Rob had nothing to do with this, unless it was indirectly. If Portia's killer thought Rob was a witness, he or she could have followed her here. But my money says it's unrelated. Someone made me as a cop, decided to take me out."

  Finn wasn't buying "tragic coincidence," but there wasn't time to argue.

  "Was Portia Kane connected to your investigation?" he asked.

  "Nah. She was just an easy client to cement my rep with, you know? She got me access to the people and places I needed."

  "And Robyn Peltier?"

  "Her PR rep. Not a drug supplier. Not a con artist. Not a mobster's girl. If you knew Rob, you'd laugh at the thought. She's a complete straight arrow. She doesn't smoke, doesn't drink - which is why those few glasses of champagne screwed up her judgment tonight. She treated Portia more like a little sister than a client. Tried to keep her straight, and was always there when she needed someone."

  "I spoke to an actor who was clubbing with them tonight," Finn said. "According to her, Peltier was a hanger-on. Kane let her party with them, felt sorry for her."

  Archer snorted. "Trust me, Rob was the one on pity-duty. Portia wasn't a bad kid, but she was needy, and what she needed most was a friend. She clung to Rob like she'd found her new best buddy."

  "Did Peltier resent that?"

  "If she did, she could have walked away. She had no ties to L.A. All her family is in Philly. She didn't need this job. She didn't kill Portia and she didn't kill me. My money's on - "

  Archer vanished.

  Perfect.

  Finn waited, but when they were gone, they stayed gone. And Judd Archer was no exception.

  * * *

  HOPE

  Hope awoke and rolled into the middle of the hotel bed. Karl's spot was empty. No surprise there. It didn't seem to matter how late they got to bed - or how long it took them to get down to sleeping after they got there - Karl was always up first. Even when he slept, it was never soundly. On his own since fifteen, he'd spent too much of his life on guard against other werewolves looking for an easy notch in their belt.

  Last year, when he'd encouraged Hope to get back into rowing, he'd joked that he'd get up for her dawn practices... in time to meet her for breakfast after. But if he was in town, whether they were at his condo in Philly or hers in nearby Gideon, he always drove her. He'd drop her off, saying he'd grab a coffee and paper and wait, but when she was out on the water, she'd see him, apart from the huddle of sleepy partners and spouses, tucked into some dark corner, sipping his coffee and watching.

  A guy doesn't stand in
the cold November drizzle at 6 a.m. to support his girlfriend if he's not committed to the relationship. But after a life without family, friends, lovers, what was she to him? The beginning of a new stage in his life? The satisfaction of a suppressed urge to mate? Or a temporary diversion?

  Hope told herself to enjoy it while it lasted. Nothing came with guarantees. But the more she saw Robyn spiral downhill, the more she worried about herself.

  When her powers first started kicking in, bringing visions of death and destruction, she'd spent years struggling for sanity. Even after she'd learned she was a half-demon, it didn't solve the problem - it just gave it a name. She'd wobbled back onto her feet, but it was Karl who helped her stand firmly. Without him, would she be like Robyn, her world thrown off its axis again?

  The hotel room door opened with the clank of silverware. She jumped up to help Karl with the breakfast tray, but he waved her back. He'd been to the breakfast buffet again. Though buffet-style eating didn't meet his culinary standards, he could fill two large plates and eat half of hers, which met his metabolic requirements. Taking buffet food back to your room was probably against hotel policy, but with a smile and a generous dose of charm, Karl usually got what he wanted.

  Hope checked the clock. Nine o'clock. Any other day, she'd be late for work. Fridays, though, she usually spent at home writing. Or she did in L.A., where the True News office was the size of a boiler room, and twice as hot and noisy.

  As Karl handed her a coffee, he said, "So, are you going to tell me what you saw last night?"

  "Hmm?"

  He stripped off his shirt and crawled back into bed. "At the club. You saw a vision or heard a thought that bothered you. And you conveniently distracted me when I asked."

  "Ah. Right. Well, see, there was this jewel thief who stole a celebutante's diamond bracelet..."

  "I put it back." He sipped his orange juice.

  For Karl, Portia Kane's bracelet was a fat, lazy rabbit hopping in front of his nose, too tempting to ignore. Hope chased tabloid stories to satisfy her less civilized urges; he stole jewels to gratify his. They did what they had to and if when the phone rang late at night while he was out of town, Hope jumped awake with her heart in her throat, certain he was in jail, she wasn't ever going to tell him that.

  "Something was bothering you last night," he said. "I'd like to know what it was."

  "Just your typical niggling power blip. Everyone seems to be having such a great time at a place like that, but I'm picking up all the bad - jealousy, hurt, anger. Add alcohol and drugs and it's a chaos powder keg. I could feel my nerves twanging, waiting for the explosion."

  "We could have taken Robyn and left. I'm sure she wouldn't have complained."

  "But I have to get used to it, right? If my powers are getting stronger, I need to get stronger."

  A low noise in his throat, a grumbling growl. Their major point of contention.

  "It was only when Rob started withdrawing from the conversation that I couldn't help picking up other stuff," she said.

  "And... ?"

  "There was another supernatural there. That's not unusual in a big crowd - especially in L.A., with the Nast Cabal based here. But this felt weird. Wrong."

  "What race?"

  "That was part of the problem. I got a vision, but it was just random flashes of faces."

  "I'd guess necromancer, but you'd recognize that."

  Hope put her plate aside, barely touched. "I have no idea what the supernatural type was, but I know he or she was thinking about Portia Kane. Something about pictures. I thought maybe they wanted to get a photo of her, but there was a definite negative vibe there."

  Karl eyed her plate. As she passed it to him he said, "I presume someone like that generates a lot of ill will. Perhaps another woman wanted her picture in the papers and was preempted by Portia."

  "Maybe. Anyway, for the next twelve hours, we're off duty. Work for me this morning. Then I'm having lunch with Robyn, and afterward you and I are going apartment hunting. I might invite her to help us look. Otherwise, she'll just go home and work." She paused, coffee cup at her lips. "Is that condescending? Trying to get her out and about?"

  "That's why we're here."

  "But she's got family. Other friends. Am I being arrogant?"

  "You got the job offer, so you came. Robyn is a side project."

  Project? That did sound arrogant. But at least he was supporting her decision, even if it wouldn't be his. The world had never done Karl any favors, and he saw no need to treat it any differently.

  "I'll ask her to come apartment hunting then." She took the L.A. Times and passed him the Wall Street Journal. "Then, you and I can kick back, maybe take in - "

  Hope stopped. There, beneath the fold, was the headline: "Portia Kane Shot Dead." She skimmed the short paragraph on the front page, then flipped to the rest inside.

  "Portia's dead."

  "Hmmm?"

  "Portia Kane. She was murdered last night, after we left."

  As Hope reached for the phone, her gaze snagged on Robyn's name in the last paragraph.

  She stared at the words. Read. Reread. Then she dropped the paper and scrambled from bed. She pulled out her clothes. The paper rustled behind her as Karl retrieved it.

  Robyn was missing. Last seen at the club. Now sought by the police. Hope had caught that vision, known someone in that club had Portia on his mind, and she'd brushed it off, leaving Portia to die and Robyn to be kidnapped. Or worse.

  Pants half on, Hope stopped and turned to the nightstand, where her cell phone lay. Karl got to it first.

  "I'll call her," he said. "You get ready."

  Hope was in the bathroom, brushing her curls back into a ponytail, when she heard him speaking.

  "Who is this?" he said, voice sharp.

  She threw open the door.

  "Where did you get this phone?" he demanded. A pause. "And where is that? What's the nearest intersection?"

  Karl finished with a string of curses and punched redial, but his expression said he didn't expect anyone to answer. They didn't.

  "Someone found her phone, didn't they? Where was it?"

  "He wouldn't say. Hung up when I asked for a street."

  "I mean where? In a bathroom? A coffee shop? On the side of a road?"

  He said nothing. Just hit redial again.

  "Karl?"

  "Behind a trash bin," he said after a moment.

  Hope was out the door before he could stop her.

  One advantage to being a tabloid reporter was that Hope knew all the tricks for getting a cop to talk when the department was saying "no comment." It helped that she didn't look like an ambulance chaser... or a hard-hitting journalist. It also helped that she was under thirty, female and relatively easy on the eyes.

  Hope wouldn't call herself a natural charmer, but growing up in high society - debutante season and all - gave her the basics, and Karl had taught her the rest. So after twenty minutes nursing a coffee in a shop near the police station, she managed to lure a young officer to her table.

  She sized him up and debated her options. She considered the wide-eyed crime groupie routine, but this guy looked like a cop whose intelligence outweighed his ego, so she went for option two. She confessed she was a tabloid reporter. Even flashed her creds.

  "But I'm new and I'm assigned to this Portia Kane murder and, well, it's just not like back home, you know? These guys totally play hardball, and they've buried me already. What I really need is a fresh angle."

  A nod, not unsympathetic, but wary. "My best advice would be to attend the press conference. I can give you a few tips on how to get your question answered, but I don't have any inside information on Ms. Kane."

  "Oh, I wasn't looking for that." Hope scooted forward in her seat. "I need a totally fresh angle, one they're all ignoring. The other woman. The missing PR rep. Are the police speculating on what happened to her? Kidnapped?"

  "Kidnapped?"

  "She's missing, right? And you're l
ooking for her."

  "Sure, but not as a victim. She's our prime suspect."

  * * *

  ROBYN

  To say that running from two crime scenes was the stupidest thing Robyn had ever done put it at the top of a very short list. Robyn didn't make stupid mistakes. Her father had always said that he'd never had to teach her to take care before crossing the street, because she naturally looked both ways - twice... then reconsidered whether she needed to cross the road at all.

  The biggest chance she'd ever taken was Damon. They'd met at the wedding of his sister, a casual friend of Robyn's. They'd been seated at the same table and talked through dinner. At the end of the night he asked her out, but she'd been seeing someone - Brett, an ad exec she'd been dating since her freshman year. He was a good guy who treated her well, and they had a comfortable relationship that both expected would lead to marriage, a minivan and a house in the suburbs.

  When she'd turned Damon down, he'd gone to his sister for details. Was Robyn engaged? Living with her boyfriend? No on both counts. So he sent her an invitation to a club where his band was playing. She didn't go. He sent a card, asking her for coffee - no strings, just coffee. She said no. Then he sent her a CD of him singing "500 Miles." The band at his sister's wedding had played that and, after one and a half glasses of wine, Robyn had proclaimed it the most romantic song ever.

  She'd listened to the CD. More than once. Then she called. He invited her to coffee again, but she couldn't justify meeting a guy she knew wanted more than friendship. Not when she was involved with someone. The only alternative was to end a good three-year relationship for a "coffee date" with a near-stranger. Madness, of course.

  That night, she told Brett it was over and called Damon back. A year later, they'd been celebrating their own wedding.

  As incredible as that payoff had been, though, she'd never seen it as proof she should take more risks. Just as a sign that she'd probably used up her life's allotment of good fortune.

  Yet that potentially dumb move wasn't even in the same ballpark as this one. How did someone accidentally flee from not one but two crime scenes? In one night?

  She hoped Judd was still alive, but she doubted it. His attacker had been shooting to kill. And who had his attacker been? Someone from his former days as a cop? A disgruntled current client?