A Gift of Ghosts (Tassamara) (15 page)

But her eyes narrowed as she saw him rubbing his
temple with a wince of pain, as he responded wryly, “It’s a pleasure to meet
you, too.” Huh. Did Lucas, like the others in his family, have a psychic gift?
But she dismissed the thought as he ushered them through the foyer, past the
formal living room, and down a hallway to a more casual but still luxurious
family room.

The room held half a dozen people and one very
upset ghost. Akira dropped her eyes to the ground on an intake of breath. Shit.
The ghost was kneeling by a blonde woman who was sitting at the edge of a plush
recliner, her face buried in her hands as if she was too tired, too overwhelmed
to hold her head up. He had the flickering, flaring edges of passion, as if his
form couldn’t contain his energy.

But it was only tinted a pale red, Akira
reassured herself, stealing another glance. Barely pink. That meant that his
consciousness, such as it was, was still in control. But murder-suicide? And of
a child? It might not matter that the ghost was able to control himself if he
didn’t choose to. She could feel her heart beating faster, a pulse pounding in
her neck.

No one here knew anything, she realized. No one
would be able to help her if the ghost attacked. Abruptly, and for the first
time in years, she longed for her father.

A warm hand slid into hers, and squeezed. “Okay?”
Zane asked, tone quiet so that only she could hear, eyes intent on her face. She
tried to smile at him, but she couldn’t quite manage it. He didn’t understand,
she knew. It wasn’t just the ghost: if he knew there was a ghost here, he would
think of Dillon or Rose, and not see the problem. But ghost energy was like
other energy—and a shock from an electric outlet didn’t compare to getting hit
by lightning, a fire in a fireplace was nothing like a burning house.

“I’ll try to make this quick, but—” He looked in
the direction of the blonde woman and even though Akira didn’t want to take any
chance of the ghost seeing her, she followed his gaze. The woman had lifted her
head and the tear stains tracking down her face, the red eyes, the exhaustion
were all obvious, even from across the room.

Akira bit her lip. The woman had lost a child. Zane
was her chance of finding him, or at least finding answers. He shouldn’t make
it quick, he should take as long as he needed to be sure. She pressed her lips
together, but said steadily, “I’ll be fine. Take your time.” She hoped her
words were true.

He let go of her hand, stroking up her back and
resting his hand on her neck for just a second or two, then nodding at her and
moving away, crossing the room to where Lucas was standing, almost on top of
the ghost.

Akira turned away. A sliding glass door led to a
patio, and she crossed to it, not really looking, trying to think through her
options if the ghost discovered her. A quick escape? But if he hadn’t died
here, he probably wasn’t tied here. She wouldn’t be able to get away from him
so easily.

She rested her hand on the door pull anyway,
feeling the comfort of the cool metal under her hand. There were plenty of
people in the room, she reminded herself, and no reason for the ghost to single
her out. As long as she didn’t pay attention to him, he wouldn’t pay attention
to her. It would be okay, really it would.

And then her eyes narrowed. Oh, dear. She glanced
back at Zane. The blonde had stood and was shaking hands with him, an uncertain
hope on her face. Akira bit her lip and looked back out into the yard. And
then, with a sigh, she flipped open the lock on the door and stepped outside.
She tried to feel resolute, but really, she was mostly just hoping she didn’t
wind up regretting what she was about to do.

***

Lucas introduced Zane to the mother, but Zane
promptly forgot her name. He didn’t want to remember. He just wanted to get
through this and get out of here.

Lost kid cases could be amazing. Once, he’d
located a toddler, who’d wandered away from home, in a drainage ditch almost
two miles away. Another time, he’d found a kidnapped girl, alive and well and
scared out of her wits, in the trunk of a car. Those were fun.

Mostly, though, lost kid cases sucked. Big-time.
Sure, it was nice to show up and be a hero, but it didn’t usually work that way.
Even custody cases, where the child was almost always alive and well, sometimes
left him feeling queasy. He’d helped find and return a little girl to a dad
with sole custody once and the desperation in the mom’s eyes kept him awake at
night for months afterwards.

And this time, he already knew. The absolute flat
nothing he felt when he touched the photo of the beautiful blond toddler meant
the boy was dead. When he touched a photo of a living person, he almost always
got something—oh, maybe not something very clear—but something. A sense of
distance, if the person was far away; a sense of light and color and
surroundings, if the person was nearer; an absolute knowledge of place if the
person was close by. Touching something that belonged to the person improved
his range, touching hair or blood or something with DNA improved it further. In
this case, though, it would make no difference and the hope on the mother’s
face was almost painful.

Really, insurance cases were just so much better.
Why couldn’t he just find some missing jewels? A nice painting? Hardly anybody
ever cried about stolen goods.

“Let’s sit down on the couch,” Zane suggested to
the blonde. “Before we start, I need you to know that I don’t think I’m going
to be able to help you.”

“Your brother’s said that already.” The woman
nodded and tried to muster a smile. “But I’ll try anything.” Her eyes filled
with tears, and she blinked them back. Zane tried to hide his wince. Damn it.
If Lucas had just brought her to the airport, he could have been done with this
and out of here already.

As they sat down, he continued, trying to be
soothing without sounding hopeful. “What I’ll do is hold your hand for a while
and see if I feel anything. With objects, I have a better range when I’m
touching the person who owns the object, and that sometimes helps with missing
family members, too.”

“If he can’t find Daniel,” Lucas interjected. “He’ll
try to find Rob, the car, their clothes, anything we can think of that Rob
might have with him.”

‘
Oh, fuck you,’
Zane thought furiously at
his brother,
‘I told you the boy is dead. I don’t do dead bodies!’

Lucas shrugged at him and Zane knew he’d heard.
Lucas’s range wasn’t great, but at this distance, he could read anything Zane
thought if Zane put a little force behind it.
‘We’re just going to
disappoint her,’
Zane added.

“We know you need closure, Diane,” Lucas
continued, and although ostensibly his words were directed to the mother, his
eyes were on Zane’s.

“I know there’s not much hope.” Diane’s words
were soft. “But not knowing? Never knowing? It’ll kill me. I would never have
thought I’d turn to a psychic for help, but I’m desperate.”

Zane tried not to sigh, to smile reassuringly. “You
know there are a lot of fake psychics in the world, right?”

“I’m desperate,” she repeated. “Anything you can
do.”

Great. She was going to turn into one of those
people who poured their life savings into charlatans if he didn’t find
something, he just knew it.

He glared at Lucas again.
‘You owe me for
this.’
Lucas nodded and he knew he’d gotten his message across, as he took
Diane’s hand and tried to focus on finding.

***

“I can’t really push you, sweetie.”

“Wanna go high,” demanded the little boy, his
lower lip pouting.

Akira sighed and looked back at the house. She
hoped no one was looking. Grabbing the metal chains that held the swing, she
pulled it back, up and up, as high as she could reach, and then let it go. He
chortled with delight as the swing fell and rose, fell and rose again.

“Again, again,” he begged, and Akira obeyed, a
reluctant smile curving her lips.

“Is this where you died, honey?” she asked,
trying to make the question casual. She didn’t want to upset him again. The
storm of ghost tears that she’d precipitated the first time she’d asked still
stained his face.

“Mama said no,” he answered sadly. “No swing, too
little.” At the highest height of the swing, with a squeal of glee, he pushed
himself off, and fell, tumbling through the air. Akira couldn’t resist the gasp
of horror and the instinctive grab, but it was hopeless. Even if he’d been
flesh-and-blood, she couldn’t have caught him. For a moment, a bare second, he
was a crumpled shadow on the ground, and then he bounced back up again.

This was where he’d died, she realized. And it
wasn’t a murder-suicide but an accident-suicide.

“Can you help him?”

At the sound of the voice behind her, Akira
whirled. It was the ghost from the house, edges still quivering and flashing.
She took two steps backward.

“No, please,” said the ghost, reaching out a hand
to her, but not moving forward. “I know you can see him. See us. I don’t mean
to scare you. But please help him.”

Akira swallowed. “Help him how?” she asked,
trying to keep her voice steady.

“I can’t get close to him,” the ghost told her. “Something
starts to happen when I do. I think it hurts him?”

Akira nodded. This she knew. “Your energy is too
strong. You suck in power from your surroundings and when you get near another
ghost, you—well, rip him apart, basically.” She took another step backward, not
feeling inclined to mention what he could do to her.

“But why?” he asked, voice despairing, energy
level flickering a little higher. “I didn’t start this way.”

Oh, dear. Should she try to run? “Despair, grief,
anger,” she answered. “The more upset you get, the more energy you pull in. At
a certain point,
it
works like an overdose of neurotransmitters might in a living human.”

“Which means what?”

Akira took a deep breath. Should she be telling him this? Was
she going to make it worse? But something about his looks—the lanky build, the
shaggy hair, the deep brown eyes, the wire-rimmed glasses, the pale skin—said
intellectual to her. “There’s a theory that psychosis is caused by excess
dopamine. The energy does something like that.”

“I’m going to lose my mind?” He sounded horrified.

“If you don’t calm down, um, yes.”

“How can I calm down?” His energy jumped a little higher, the
pink deepening. “I’m a ghost!”

Akira’s heart was starting to pound in her ears. She took
another step away, glancing behind her to check for obstacles. “If you don’t,
you’ll destroy your son,” she pointed out, hoping that she was right about the
accident. If he had murdered his son once, a second time might not seem like an
obstacle.

“Dada?” The little ghost boy wandered forward,
and his father hastily shifted away. The boy plopped down on the ground, and
started to weep. Akira crouched next to him, wanting to console him, not sure
how.

“Calm, calm,” the father repeated. Akira could
see him taking deep breaths and for a moment, she wondered what breathing felt
like when you were a ghost. But his red edges pulled back a little, the aura
around him diminishing. “Can you help him?”

What was he asking her to do? Akira wondered. Set
up a ghost orphanage? She imagined, briefly, bringing the swing set back to
Florida and putting it up in her back yard. The little ghost boy could join the
bigger boys. Maybe they’d have fun together. But then she tried to envision
explaining to the tearful woman inside why she wanted the swing set and shook
her head. That was never going to work. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“I never expected this to happen,” the father
said. “I thought dead was dead. The heart stops beating, the brain shuts off,
life is over.”

Akira eyed him warily. He didn’t seem upset about
the discovery, not really. Not like the religious ghost she’d met once who was
very, very angry about not being in heaven. Akira stretched her hand, opening
and closing the fingers. Sometimes those bones still ached.

“But this can’t happen to everyone. I’ve looked
for others. I went to the cemetery, the hospital.”

“Hospitals usually have a few spirits hanging
around.” Akira was trying to be cautious, watching the light around the ghost
for any hint that he was losing control. But he seemed to be calming and he was
being careful, too, staying several feet away from her and the little boy.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But one disappeared while I
was talking to him. And another asked me if I saw a door, and then faded away.
So there has to be somewhere else, not just here. And some way to get there.”

Akira frowned. A door? She’d interacted with a
lot of ghosts and they did disappear. When she was young, she thought they went
somewhere, but her father had scoffed at that. They were just energy, he
insisted, energy changing forms. “How did you talk to them?” she asked. The
flaring around his edges would be dangerous for any other ghosts in his
vicinity: how had he gotten close enough?