by H. P. Bayne
“I thought we had the day off to move Sully,” Dez said by way of greeting.
“Plans changed,” came the reply from Lachlan Fields. “Finish whatever you’re doing and bring Sullivan by my place. We’ve got a job.”
Lachlan hung up without awaiting argument, and Dez grumbled as he returned the phone to his pocket. He raised his brows at Sully. “Before you get smug, he wants you too.”
Sully shrugged, seemingly unfazed. He’d always tolerated Dez’s boss—as of late, Sully’s boss too—a lot better than Dez. Lachlan, ex-cop turned private investigator, brought with him the gruffness, cynicism and hard-bitten sarcasm that came with a life in law enforcement. Dez had spent a few years as a police officer too, enough to know what he was missing. For the most part, acting as Lachlan’s second in his P.I. firm was satisfying, but it wasn’t police work. On many days, working for Lachlan involved camping out in a car that was too hot or too cold, snapping photos of cheating spouses or tailing people working a secret job while reaping benefits from social services. Not exactly the rush of a foot chase or a struggle with a violent criminal.
Then again, working for Lachlan—particularly with Sully involved—hadn’t exactly been boring either. Few private investigators could boast an ability to see ghosts. Dez knew of no one besides Sully who had the gift of seeing the ghosts of homicide victims—and only homicide victims. The existence of a sometimes-dangerous, largely unseen world had a way of keeping Dez on edge.
Dez turned back to the microwave clock. The word “RESET” faced him from the display, and he set about making it go away before he did anything else.
“What are you doing?” Sully asked from behind him.
“Delaying the inevitable.” Dez sighed and pushed away from the counter.
When they arrived at Lachlan’s twenty minutes later, he wasn’t alone.
“Elizabeth Bradwell; goes by Liz,” Lachlan said, waving a hand in the direction of a teenage girl in the chair across from him at his desk.
Since his retirement from the police force, Lachlan had worked by himself, renting an office in a converted Victorian mansion in the city’s North Bank district. Once a bedroom, the office boasted a molded fireplace and a large window, but nothing else. He’d moved in a desk, a filing cabinet, an area rug, a couple of potted trees and some artwork. The space was homey, but with two associates now on his payroll, it was also tight. Add in a client, and there was next to nowhere to go.
Being six-foot-six and carrying a thick layer of muscle didn’t help Dez any when it came to fitting into tight spaces. With few comfortable places to stand, he gravitated to the nearest corner behind Lachlan, leaving room for Sully to stand beside the desk.
The girl was pretty, with long, blonde hair pulled into a loose knot atop her head and a hint of makeup. Her eyes flitted from Sully to Dez, where they travelled the distance from his knees to his head far above her. Dez offered a smile, hoping to offset any anxiety his size might cause.
“She went to the police this afternoon but was given the brush-off,” Lachlan said.
“What about?” Dez asked.
“My boyfriend, Gabe Pembroke,” she said. “He’s missing. He didn’t show up at school today, and he isn’t answering his phone. None of his friends have seen him, and his mom told me he didn’t come home last night.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventeen, same as me. I’m worried, but the sort of questions the officer asked made me think they aren’t going to do anything.”
“What sort of questions?” Dez asked.
“They asked if he has any sort of physical or mental illness that could put him in danger. He doesn’t. They asked if he was at risk of self-harm or if he uses drugs. He’s not suicidal, and the most he’s ever used is weed. And they asked if he’s been having problems at home. He has, for most of his life. He doesn’t get along with his parents. Gabe takes off sometimes. He has for years. That’s what he told me once, anyway. The officer suggested Gabe probably ran away from home and is staying with a friend or something. But he isn’t. I’ve asked around. I’m really worried about him, especially after last night.”
“What happened last night?” Dez asked.
Liz sat back a little in her chair, far enough she could wrap her arms around herself in a way that made Dez think of self-protection. “We saw the Edge Creek Light.”
Dez failed to suppress a shudder. He caught Sully’s eye, but naturally, the discomfort seemed to be all on Dez.
“The ghost light on the stretch of track east of the city?” Sully asked.
Liz nodded. “Gabe really wanted to take me out there. He’d gone with his friends a few nights before, and he was really pumped about it. I’d never been there, and I never want to go again.”
“What happened?” Sully asked.
Liz looked up at him as he perched on the edge of Lachlan’s desk. “It didn’t do anything at first, so Gabe did the thing where you knock three times on the track. It worked. The light appeared. But it didn’t do much, so Gabe shouted at it, saying we had its head. Next thing we knew, it started toward us, like really fast. We panicked and ran. On the drive back, Gabe was really quiet. He didn’t talk for the longest time, but he finally told me what happened. He said he didn’t just see a light. He saw the shape of a man inside it. And something said his name.”
“A ghost, you mean?” Dez asked.
Liz nodded. “Twice, in his ear, like a whisper. His full name: Gabriel.”
Dez raised an eyebrow. “Huh. And I take it that didn’t happen when he was out there with his friends the time before?”
Liz shook her head. “If it had, I don’t think he ever would have gone out there again.”
“So what happened afterward?” Sully asked.
“Before everything happened, we’d talked about going back to my place and watching TV, but Gabe dropped me off at home and kept going. He wasn’t himself. I mean, he wasn’t going to hurt himself or anything, but something was off about him.”
Dez thought about the cold winter weather, about the dangers of being out in it for too long. If Gabe had been in a negative state of mind and had wandered off somewhere, he might have met a bad end. But it was just as possible he’d found somewhere warm and safe to hole up until he’d gotten his head screwed back on.
“The times he’s left home, has he ever told you where he went?” Dez asked.
“No,” she said. “He’s really private. I did ask him when he told me that, but he changed the subject.”
Dez gave her the most comforting smile he could muster. “Can you give us a minute to discuss this with our boss?”
“Sure,” Liz said before lifting herself out of the chair and leaving the room.
She closed the door behind herself. Dez could see her foggy form a short distance away through the office door’s frosted glass pane. He stepped closer to Lachlan and Sully to allow for a hushed conversation.
“Just curious, Lachlan,” he said. “She’s seventeen, so I’m guessing this isn’t a paid gig. And as far as I can see, it’s a job for the KRPD. Why are you so interested in investigating this?”
“Honestly, I’m not. I tend to agree with the police on this sort of thing. Most missing persons files close themselves when the subject suddenly returns home. Rarely do they evolve into anything lengthy or substantial. Gabe’s a healthy, young guy who had the bejeezus scared out of him by some urban legend. Quite frankly, he’s probably avoiding his girlfriend because he feels like he lost face in front of her last night.”
“I’ll ask again,” Dez said. “Why are we here?”
Lachlan shrugged. “I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress. Look, we don’t have to do a whole lot with this, all right? Go out, make a few inquiries, see if you can find the kid. Probably not a bad idea to nip it in the bud given the current cold snap. I don’t want to be the guy who turned away a request for help just before some kid’s frozen body was pulled out of a back alley somewhere.”
“You say
‘you,’ but you really mean Sully and me, right?”
Lachlan smirked and jabbed a finger toward Dez. “Now you’re catching on, kid.”
3
Sully knew their first task would be finding out what—if anything—police were doing to find Gabe.
The easiest means of getting the needed information was to consult Dez’s wife, Eva, a constable with the Kimotan Rapids Police Department’s patrol unit.
She met them downstairs at Lachlan’s building, leaving her patrol car idling on the street as she met them inside the spacious entry hall.
“Gabriel Pembroke has been added to our BOLOs for the day,” Eva said, referring to the department’s list of people to be on the lookout for. “A photo and description have been circulated, and the same details have been passed along to our media relations folks. They’ll send it out to the public if we don’t turn anything up within the next day or two.”
“Has the case been assigned to anyone at Missing Persons yet?” Dez asked.
“Not that anyone told us at the morning briefing. Honestly, no one seems overly worried yet. As I understand it, Gabe’s parents aren’t even too concerned. Sounds like he’s done this sort of thing before.”
Dez raised a brow. “Even if it means he’s out there, frozen to death in a ditch?”
“That question came up at the briefing. He’s taken off in the winter as well as the summer. Always comes back perfectly fine but refuses to say where he’s been. He’s kept his getaway spot to himself. Apparently, he hasn’t let his new girlfriend in on his secret.”
“Pretty much what she told us. And if he isn’t there this time?” Sully glanced between Dez and Eva. “Think it would be a problem for us to pay his parents a visit ourselves?”
Eva offered a small smile. “If you think it’ll help. Bear in mind, they probably have no idea a private investigator’s been consulted. I’m not even exactly sure why you’re involved.”
“Lachlan,” Dez said, simply, as if the name should be explanation enough.
Eva chuckled. “Okay. You’ve got the address and everything?”
“We got it from the girlfriend,” Dez said. “We’re all set.”
Eva smiled up at him. “You know, I could have told you all of this over the phone.”
Dez grinned back. “Sure, but then I couldn’t do this.” He leaned down and drew Eva into a kiss.
Sully turned away with a smirk and an eye roll. “Let me know when you two are finished.” He leapt away with a laugh as Dez tried to backhand him.
Eva made a final request before returning to her car. “Listen, if the question arises, make sure you tell them you didn’t get their contact info from me or anyone else with the KRPD, all right?”
“Got it,” Sully said. “Thanks, Eva.”
After she’d slid in behind the wheel, they headed to Dez’s SUV. As Dez dropped into the driver’s seat next to him, Sully debated whether to say what was on his mind now or to wait until later. He decided it might be best to get it out of the way now, to give Dez time to deal with the issue.
“You know if we don’t find him pretty quickly, we’re going to have to stop by the tracks and look for the ghost, right?”
Dez had been about to shift the vehicle into drive. He stilled, then dropped his hands and his head with a heavy sigh. “I knew you were going to say that.”
“It seems to have been the last significant thing he did before disappearing, and it rattled him bad.”
“I know. I heard.” Dez lifted his head and met Sully’s eye. “Doesn’t mean I have to like the idea.”
Sully offered his best attempt at a smile. “I don’t much like it either. After the past few months, I kind of wanted a break from the ghosts. Seems I can’t get away from them.”
“We don’t have to go after dark, though, do we?”
“By the time we talk to the parents and drive all the way out there, it’s going to be close to six,” Sully said. “Given the time of year, it’ll be dark. Anyway, I always heard the Edge Creek Light could only be seen after sunset.”
Dez raised a hopeful-looking eyebrow. “Yeah, but this is you. I mean, if regular schmucks can see it at night, someone like you might be able to see something in the daylight.”
“Okay, sure, but we’re left with the same problem. We need to talk to the parents first, and we can’t wait until tomorrow to go out to the tracks. Not if there’s a clue there to help us find Gabe.”
Dez flattened out his mouth and blew out a breath, causing his lips to flap noisily around the movement. “Yeah, all right. I hear you. Jeez, I shoulda known partnering with you in private investigation would end up in a ghost hunt sooner rather than later.”
Despite the grumbling tone, Dez offered Sully a smile and a head shake before pulling away from the curb.
Sully tried for a return smile, an attempt to convince himself as well as Dez. If he’d learned one thing about the impact of his gift on his life, it was that even if he went out of his way to avoid the ghosts, they had a way of finding him.
Gabe’s parents, Will and Shelby Pembroke, lived in a modest house in a suburb on the west side of the city—about as far from the site of the Edge Creek Light as you could get.
Sully’s heart sank. Extra distance meant extra time needed to get to the tracks, which meant it would be extra dark by the time they arrived.
Dez would not be happy.
“Any farther, they’d be out of town,” Dez muttered, suggesting his thoughts had travelled exactly where Sully had guessed.
Dez led the way from the SUV, leaving Sully to jog to catch up. Two vehicles—a small sedan and a truck bearing the logo of a construction contractor—sat in the driveway, and Sully realized suppertime was approaching. He and Dez hadn’t asked anyone if the couple had other children. If they did, and the kids were significantly younger than Gabe, the Pembrokes wouldn’t thank Sully and Dez for turning up as they were, without warning.
“Maybe we should have phoned first,” Sully said.
“In my experience, turning up unannounced can get a better response. If people don’t want to talk, calls go ignored or they come up with reasons to keep you at bay.”
“But he’s their son. He’s missing.”
“And he’s done it before. If they’re getting at all fed up with him, and especially if they have other kids, they might simply be willing to ride this out like they have the other times.”
They’d reached the side door atop a set of cement steps. Sully glanced around while Dez knocked. No room for a garage here. Behind the house showed the same. What Sully could see of the backyard established it was given over to a bordering stand of mature trees and shrubs this side of a new-looking high fence. Sully guessed Shelby was a green thumb in the summer months—no way a garage was cutting into her space.
A few long moments passed. Dez raised his hand again when Sully spied movement through the frosted glass pane making up most of the door’s top half. A couple of seconds later, the door opened to reveal a plump blonde woman, her hair tugged into a messy knot atop her head. She had to be near forty, and every year showed on her face. A network of lines and the dark bags under her eyes suggested this was not a woman having an easy go of life.
She raised pencilled-in eyebrows as she regarded them. “Yes?”
Dez reached into his pocket and produced one of the business cards Lachlan had printed for him.
“Dez Braddock and Sullivan Gray,” Dez said, inclining his head toward Sully as he introduced him. “We’re private investigators, and we’ve been asked to look into your son’s disappearance. We hoped we might have a few minutes of your time.”
Shelby didn’t move from her spot at the small opening between door and frame. “I didn’t call for a P.I.”
“No, you didn’t,” Dez said. “Gabe’s girlfriend did.”
Shelby tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “What girlfriend?”
Sully raised an eyebrow. “Liz Bradwell?”
“Oh, her.” Shelby
chuckled through closed lips. “Gabe’s always got a girl fawning over him. I can’t keep them straight most of the time.”
“You’re saying he’s got more than one girlfriend?”
“Far as I know, he just dates one at a time, but they don’t last long.”
Dez tried again. “I was wondering if we could come in to speak with you for a few minutes.”
“Do you have news about my son?”
“Not yet,” Dez said. “But we’ve been asked to look for him, and we could use your help answering a few questions.”
Shelby glanced back into the house, then eyed them again. “I’m in the middle of getting supper ready. Could you come back later?”
“We can talk in the kitchen, if it helps.”
Judging by the expression on Shelby’s face, it didn’t. Sully could see it there, in the way her mouth opened, then shut: She wanted them to leave but knew such a request might make her seem like a bad parent. Her son was missing, after all, and the two men standing on her stoop were offering to help find him.
She relented, opening the door wider and allowing Sully and Dez to step inside and remove their boots. Sully expected they provided her some small relief by not taking off their coats, proving they didn’t intend to stay long. No doubt Dez wanted the visit to the tracks over with as soon as was humanly possible.
Shelby led them through the back porch and past a storage room before showing them into a small but open kitchen overlooking the backyard. It appeared to have been recently redone—no great surprise given the nature of the truck parked in the drive—boasting butcher block countertops, stainless steel appliances and crisp, white cabinetry. An island doubled as a breakfast bar, and Dez slid onto one of three stools, allowing him to watch Shelby continue her work at the island.
“Need a hand?” Sully asked.
She shook her head, then returned to slicing through chicken breasts. “What do you want to know?”
“Is your husband home? Maybe we should talk to him at the same time.”