Sam poked his fork into the Alfredo noodles, neither looking up nor responding. His thoughtful silence was nothing new, but she had a feeling there was more going on behind it than she knew.
Finally, after several tense moments, he heaved a sigh. “I told you I was twelve when the family went to Jerome,” he started abruptly. “I had only really begun to understand spirits a few months earlier.” He looked up at her now. “You remember how Daniel was the first time it happened to him?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “He wasn’t at all happy about it.”
“Neither was I, at first. Oh, I had always had a sense of things beyond the physical, beyond the visual, but the first time I made that connection, the first time I understood that something was being asked of me—required of me—I was not the least bit happy. How is a twelve-year-old boy supposed to bring salvation to a lost soul?”
Lacey didn’t answer. She could see in the depths of his black eyes that this was something he hated admitting. Now, at the age of forty-two, he had so much experience, so much confidence in his abilities, but looking back at the young boy he once was had to be painful. Hell, Lacey thought, what adult could look back at his or her childhood without flinching?
He lowered his head and took a bite of his food, chewing deliberately.
“That trip almost soured me on the whole thing,” he continued. “I very easily could have walled myself up then, tuned it all out and shut down completely.”
“I understand,” Lacey said softly. “We don’t have to do this. We’re allowed to say no. I’ll just call Lorraine—”
“No,” Sam interrupted. He captured her with his intense stare. “I have to do it. I have to go.”
Lacey set her fork down. “Are you sure? If this is going to be difficult for you, put undue strain on you, then no one would blame you for turning it down. You do wonderful things for a lot of people, but you don’t have to do it at the expense of your own sanity. No one has the right to ask that.”
Sam was already shaking his head. “No. I do have to. And it is for my own sanity.”
“But—”
Sam held up a hand to stop her. “That was thirty years ago. For all that time, it’s… haunted me.” He made a wry half smile. “I felt like I left Jerome with my tail between my legs, scared, beaten. Now I have the chance to go back and… redeem myself.”
The last two words faded into the silence. Lacey felt like she and Sam had been frozen in a weird tableau, their eyes locked, their bodies immobile. She forced her throat to work, licked her lips and swallowed.
“I think you know by now that no matter what you want or need to do, I’m there with you,” she said gently. “That includes now. I just want you to understand that there is absolutely no pressure on you to do this. Not from me, not from Lorraine, not from anyone. If you say yes, I’m in. If you say no, that’s the end of it. Period.”
Sam studied her for a moment, his eyes roving her face. She almost didn’t want to breathe, wanting nothing to interfere with his careful thought process. Instead she merely gazed at the man she loved, the warm copper skin, the dark eyes, the sculpted, planed face.
“Yes,” he said.
She breathed then. “Okay. We’re in. I’ll call Lorraine after dinner.”
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see his shoulders relax, feel the tension leave his body on a deep exhale. He returned his attention to his dinner.
She got up and pulled the calendar down off the wall, then brought it back to the table. She tapped that day’s date.
“Today is Wednesday. Do you want to go tomorrow?”
Sam glanced at the calendar, angling his head so he could see the days and weeks. “No. Let’s go Monday. If it takes more than two days, I don’t want to miss a weekend with the kids.”
That was her thinking, also. She blocked off the entire next week. “Okay. We’re set.”
After dinner, she took her time doing the dishes. She didn’t want to push back against Sam’s decision, but she wanted to give him plenty of space to second guess himself. She was fully confident he could overcome his childhood fears; she just wanted to make sure he felt the same way.
Once she closed up the dishwasher and squeezed out the sponge to dry, she got her phone and settled beside him on the couch. He was browsing through the pictures on her camera.
“What do you think?” she asked as she tapped the call button. “Turned out good?”
“Yeah, they look fine.”
The line rang. “Hello?”
“Hello, Lorraine? This is Lacey Fitzpatrick.”
“Oh, yes, hi. I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“We just wanted to be sure of our schedule,” Lacey explained. “We could come on Monday. Does that work for you?”
“Oh, sure; the sooner the better. How many days should I reserve a room for you?”
Lacey glanced sideways. Sam was still looking at pictures.
“We never know how long these things might take,” she said. “Why don’t we start with three nights? If it looks like we’ll need more time, we can extend that.”
“Three nights,” Lorraine agreed. Lacey guessed she was jotting notes.
“But there’s one thing,” Lacey cautioned.
“Oh?”
“Can you book us a room somewhere outside of Jerome?”
“Outside?” The woman’s voice reflected her surprise.
“Yes. My partner says Jerome is full of ghosts, so he’ll need a place where he can be free of them during the evenings.”
“Oh. I see.” Lorraine chuckled. “Yes, he’s absolutely right about that. I’ll get you a room in Cottonwood. That’s about ten miles away.”
“Sounds perfect,” Lacey said, letting out a breath. “It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just a decent motel.”
“You’ve got it. I’ll make the reservations and give you a call back with the details. Do you want to fly in? You’d have to come to Phoenix, then take a rental car. I can arrange all that.”
“Hang on a sec,” Lacey said. She covered the mouthpiece and turned to Sam. “Fly or drive?”
“Drive,” he said. “Maybe we can run up to Tuba City when we’re done.”
Lacey returned to the phone. “Lorraine? We’ll drive over. We may want to make another stop on our way home.”
“All right. We’ll settle up on gas money when you get here.”
“Sounds great,” Lacey said. “We’ll see you sometime Monday afternoon.” She hung up the phone and looked over at Sam.
His eyes still on the screen of the camera, he smiled. “Don’t worry. Lace. We’re good.”
She fervently hoped so.
~~~
THREE
By Monday morning when they pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the freeway, she was feeling much better about it. Sam had not shown a minute’s hesitation since he’d decided, and she had busied herself with his webpage and the new pottery offerings. Maybe, she thought, this would just be a normal case—if there was any such thing.
They navigated out of LA, caught the I-10 eastbound and headed for Arizona.
The winter chill of the desert had a way of turning the air crystal clear. The sky was bluer there, the brown and tan landscape in sharp contrast. She always forgot how much she loved Arizona until they returned to it. It was a welcome change from the smog and congestion of LA.
Shortly before Phoenix, Sam directed her to a shortcut, a two-lane highway that skirted the metropolis and angled northeast toward Northern Arizona. This was different than the way they’d come before when they’d taken I-40 to Flagstaff, and took them through the saguaro forests of the Sonoran Desert. It was like night and day to the ponderosa pine forests of Flagstaff. She loved the diversity of Arizona.
“We’re just about an hour out,” Sam said, checking his map. “We’ll go up Black Canyon, across some high country, then down into the Verde Valley. That’s where Cottonwood is.”
“And Jerome?” she asked.
“It’s halfway up a mountain above Cottonwood. Not far.”
She glanced over. “But far enough?” she asked with a smile.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Plenty far enough.”
The landscape unfolded as he said it would, the road twisting up narrow Black Canyon to arrive at a high plateau of rolling hills and dry water courses. The land was covered with mesquite brush and rocks, and Lacey marveled at the backbreaking job of putting a road through. Those early pioneers, she thought, had to have been amazingly resilient people.
At the edge of the plateau, the road tilted downward, and they drove the wide, curving ribbon of asphalt down to the Verde Valley. The Verde River itself coiled like a serpent through the valley, its slow-moving green waters hidden by but marked by the procession of tall cottonwood trees.
In the distance beyond the valley, the San Francisco Peaks of Flagstaff jutted above the horizon, bright white with snow.
Lacey took the off ramp for Cottonwood and followed Highway 260 to the bustling town. As she drove, she noted all the businesses along Main Street. They’d have everything they needed here. On the far side of town she found their motel, the nicer, higher-end version of a national chain. They checked in and took their bags to their room.
“Not bad,” Lacey said, taking in the two king beds, the sitting area and the sideboard stocked with coffee maker, microwave and mini fridge.
“It’ll do,” Sam agreed. He laid his two bags on the nearest bed. “Do you need to hang anything before we go?”
Lacey had unzipped one bag, but held off opening it. “I could,” she said. She tried to gauge his mood, but couldn’t tell if he was anxious to go or nervous. “Nothing’s going to get wrinkled though, if you want to go now.”
He nodded once. “Let’s go.”
Lacey drove and Sam held the map in his lap. The afternoon sun cast the town in a golden glow which reflected off the cars crowding Main Street in the early stages of rush hour.
“Keep going west?” she asked.
“Yeah. There’ll be a roundabout and we cut off on Highway 89A South. That’ll take us up to Jerome.”
It took less than fifteen minutes to reach the town. The road—highway indeed, Lacey thought—was a narrow, twisty two-lane that doubled back on itself more than it went straight, zig-zagging up the steep grade. Small quaint houses were tucked into corners above or below the road, most with wood siding and steeply pitched roofs.
“Turn left at the next street,” Sam said.
Lacey complied. Just off the highway was a tiny neighborhood of tiny houses, most painted in pastel shades of blue, green or peach, some with proverbial white picket fences and flower beds gone to seed for the winter.
“Here it is,” Sam said. He pointed out a robin’s egg blue house with white trim. A mid-sized white SUV sat in the driveway and Lacey pulled up to the curb.
“Is it okay here?” she asked. She had no idea where the hotbed for ghosts was, or how far they were from it.
“Yeah. So far, so good,” he said.
Before they were halfway up the concrete walk, the front door opened.
“You made good time,” Lorraine called. She stepped out on the front porch to greet them. She was probably in her fifties, dressed in slacks and a sweater with a jaunty scarf tied loosely about her neck. She had honey blonde hair and lively blue eyes.
“The traffic was pretty light,” Lacey said, shaking her hand.
“You’re lucky,” Lorraine said. “I-17 often gets congested around Black Canyon.” She shook Sam’s hand as well. “So nice to meet you. Come in, come in.”
She led them inside to a comfortable room of fabric couches and chairs arranged around a rock fireplace. The hearth was dark, but showed evidence of recent use. A hand-knitted afghan draped one couch in harmonious earth tones.
“Please, have a seat,” she said. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
Sam shook his head.
“We’re good,” said Lacey. She set her pack to one side and sat back against the cushion. She’d been watching Sam closely, and planned on letting him take the lead in this. So far, he seemed fine.
“Well,” Lorraine said, sitting across from them. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m really hoping you can succeed where others failed.” She smiled warmly.
“Uh, others?” Lacey asked. She glanced at Sam.
“Yes. I even called those what-do-you-call-‘ems, ghost chasers, or whatever. Those guys on TV who have all the high-tech gadgets: night vision, ghost meters. You know. They spent two nights in the building, with cameras and recorders and everything. Didn’t change a thing.”
“Oh.” Lacey thought she knew who Lorraine was talking about, but there were so many reality ghost shows anymore, it was hard to keep up. At least she knew Lorraine wasn’t talking about Webb and Esmeralda.
“So they didn’t discover who was in the building—or why?” Sam asked.
Lorraine shook her head. “Not that I understood. I confess, I didn’t get everything they explained to me, stuff about electrical manipulations, plasma and such. But basically, nothing changed.”
“All right,” Sam said. “Well, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to go on over and check it out.”
“Oh, certainly,” Lorraine said. “I was hoping you would.” She tilted her head at him. “You don’t need to wait until dark?”
“No.” Sam smiled slightly. “If a ghost is there, it’s there night or day. That night time stuff is mostly just for effect.”
“Oh.” Lorraine nodded. “Well, then let’s go. I’ll drive. It’s not far, only a few blocks, but the temperature is dropping.”
It certainly was. Lacey slid into the back seat of Lorraine’s SUV and jammed her hands in her pockets. Sam took the front passenger seat, just pulling the collar of his peacoat up close around his neck.
“I’ll start the heater going, but it might not have time to kick in.”
She wasn’t kidding. She drove back to the highway—one block—then three blocks through the commercial district. Lacey saw restaurants and bars, t-shirt stores and fudge shops, art galleries and museums.
“There’s a lot going on here,” she noted.
“The town is based totally on tourism,” Lorraine explained. “During summer and on any weekend, you can’t find a parking spot after nine a.m. It’s a two-edged sword. The town draws good business but it’s overrun with tourists.”
“There’s no mining here anymore?” Lacey asked.
“Oh, no. The mines played out decades ago. Jerome was a literal ghost town for years.”
Lorraine parked on Main Street in front of a block of two-story buildings all shoulder to shoulder. Most were retail shops, with only a smattering of people wandering in and out so close to closing time. But the building she’d parked in front of had no displays in the windows, only the words Crystal Slipper across the glass and a For Sale sign on the sill.
“This is it,” she said.
They all exited the car. Lacey reached inside her pack for her phone, but her eyes were on Sam. He stood on the sidewalk, staring at the building, his hands in the pockets of his peacoat.
“Just let me open it up,” Lorraine said. Keys in hand, she strode to the door.
“Wait,” Sam said.
Lorraine checked her forward motion and turned surprised eyes on Sam.
Lacey stepped up next to him. “What’s going on?” she asked softly.
“Get your camera ready. It starts right here.”
~~~
FOUR
Lacey tapped the video button. “Okay, we’re rolling,” she said.
Sam pulled his hands from his pockets and flexed his fingers. He scanned the bottom of the building where it met the sidewalk from one side to the other.
Lacey waved to Lorraine and motioned the woman to come stand beside her so she’d be out of Sam’s way.
He moved forward hesitantly, his hands up before him, palms out. For a moment, Lacey thought he would go to the doo
r, but at the last minute, he veered to the left and angled toward the outside corner of the building.
“Cold,” he said. “Freezing.” He reached the place where Lorraine’s building—a tan stucco—rubbed up against the brick building next door. He squatted down and ran his hands above the crack between the buildings, never quite touching the surfaces.
“Sorrow… and anger. Regret and… defiance. It cycles. Contrition, sorrow, then the anger again. But the cold. Teeth-chattering, pain like needles. Pulling into a ball.” He hiked his coat up higher on his shoulders and shivered visibly, then pushed to his feet. Holding his hands out before him, he framed the lower corner of the building like a director framing a shot. “She died right here. Leaning up against the building. Froze to death.”
Lacey stepped up beside him and saw the way his hands trembled, heard his teeth chattering as he spoke. She clicked off her camera and jammed her phone in her pocket. “He’s freezing,” she said to Lorraine. “Can we go inside? Get something to warm him up?”
“Oh, certainly. Just let me…” Lorraine shoved the key in the lock and twisted, then put her shoulder to the door and pushed it open. Lacey grabbed Sam’s arm and tugged him inside.
“Do you have coffee? Hot tea?” Lacey asked.
“Back this way.” Lorraine led the way across the empty store to a break room in the back. Inside was a kitchen counter with a microwave and sink. A refrigerator stood in the corner, and a 1950’s vintage linoleum table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by four vinyl-covered chairs.
“Coffee takes too long,” she said, “but the tea is quick.” She set her purse and keys on the counter and pulled a mug from an upper cabinet. She filled it with water and set it in the microwave, tapped out the cook time and pushed the start button. The cup began to revolve on the glass turntable.
Lacey dragged Sam to a chair and pushed him down in it. She tossed her pack on the table and began to massage his shoulders through his coat.
“Jesus, you’re like a block of wood,” she said under her breath. He was still shaking. She couldn’t get much of a grip on his knotted muscles through the coat, but didn’t want to ask him to take it off yet.
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