After Moonrise: Possessed\Haunted (6 page)

“You are incredible!”
Aubrey said.
“And you do feel me.”

“I do feel you,” he gasped. “I feel what you do to yourself. I
feel what you do to me.”

“Then feel this....”
Aubrey’s gaze
never left his as her fingers moved more quickly over herself. Raef was staring
into her eyes as they both came to orgasm—he was still staring at her when she
whispered,
“This makes you closer to me, and the closer to
me you get, the closer you’ll be to finding him. But you can’t do it through
negative emotions. You have to Track him through the opposite—joy and
pleasure, happiness and hope. He can’t fight that, and he won’t be able to
stop you from
—
”

This time the soul thief didn’t rip Aubrey in half when he
jerked her back to him. This time he made her explode into little pieces, so
that her scream was cut off like a snuffed candle, leaving Raef drained,
confused and alone in the darkness without her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I just jerked off with a ghost. I am seriously fucked
up.”

Raef stared at the ceiling, lifted the bottle of single-malt
Scotch he’d retrieved from the kitchen and took several long drinks. He meant to
go back to reading the soul-retrieval stuff. Instead, he stared at nothing and
thought about Aubrey. “She staged the whole thing,” he mused aloud between gulps
of Scotch. “She has to be guiding me. She’s probably getting info from her
connection with Lauren. And hell, she’s the one trapped. She’s gotta have
something figured out about what would get her free. She obviously knows I can’t
Track this guy through negative emotions. He has them blocked. But he’s not
gonna pay attention to positive emotions because guys like him—and me—aren’t
good at the softer side of emotions. We’re not used to ’em.”

He blew out a long breath. How long had it been since he’d had
sex, anyway? “More than a year since my
relationship
with Raven had crashed and burned. Christ, her name had been
Raven.
What the fuck had I expected?” He shook his
head at his own stupidity, and at online dating in general, and realized the
room was spinning a little around him.

Raef snorted and took another drink of Scotch. By now he hardly
felt the burn. “Aubrey’s good at positive emotions. Hell, Aubrey’s good at a lot
of things.” He stared at the ceiling until his eyes blurred, blinked and finally
closed.

Later he would remember that his last thought that night wasn’t
about Aubrey’s hair or her boobs or how hard she’d made him or the way she
touched herself—his last thoughts had been about her laughter and how the sound
and feel of it had been better than all of the sex stuff…and the sex stuff had
been really good.

* * *

T
HE
BANGING
ON
R
AEF
’
S
front door woke him. It was loud and jarring, and only slightly less obnoxious
than the pounding pain in his head. “Yeah, Jesus, yeah, I’m coming.” He glanced
at the clock before wrenching open the door—8:30 a.m.? Damn, he was going to be
late for work. Which meant he should have opened the door with a
thank-you-for-being-my-alarm-clock instead of a snarl, but life just wasn’t
fair. “What the hell do you—” His words broke off when he saw Lauren’s raised
brows.

“I’m a morning person. I figured you’d be on your way out the
door for work. The cab dropped me off ’cause I thought I’d go with you,” she
said unapologetically, though she did raise her hands, which were holding two
tall cups of QT coffee. “I come bearing offerings.”

He opened the door, took one of the coffees, stepped back and,
with a grunt, gestured for her to come in.

She walked past, giving him a Look. “You’re not ready to go to
work.”

“No kidding.” His voice sounded like there was gravel in his
throat.

“You look bad. Real bad,” she said.

“Scotch. A lot of it,” he said.

She shuddered. “I did that once. Never again.”

“I’m a slow learner,” he said. “I got some Merritt’s doughnuts
in the kitchen. They’re only two days old so they’re not too much like bricks.
Make yourself at home while I’m in the shower.” He disappeared into the
bathroom, closed the door, and as memories of the night before flooded his mind,
Raef thought seriously about using the razor to slit his wrists. “Why can’t I be
one of those drunks who don’t remember anything?” Raef asked his rough-looking
reflection in the vanity mirror. He shook his head. Slightly. It still hurt like
hell. “You had sex with a ghost, and that ghost’s twin sister is in your
kitchen.” He sighed and started to lather up his face, muttering, “Might as well
be a freshly shaven, clean perv.”

When he got out of the shower and opened the door to the hall,
Raef was confronted by two things—the smell of bacon and eggs, and Lauren. She
had
Shamanic Retrieval
open in her hand and was
carrying it back to the kitchen. Looking up from its pages she stopped to stare
at him.

Color bloomed in her cheeks.

Raef tightened the towel that was around his waist, feeling
even more naked than he was—and he was pretty damn naked.

“I made breakfast,” she said, before turning away and hurrying
the rest of the way to the kitchen.

“I’m hungover,” he called, hurrying the rest of the way to the
bedroom.

“I know. It’s good for you, though. Trust me. I was a biology
major in college,” she called in return.

Raef pulled on jeans and an old air-force sweatshirt. As he
walked into the kitchen he told his phone, “Call work.” Feeling oddly like an
obedient child, he sat at the breakfast-nook table, where Lauren had already
placed a full plate of eggs, bacon and toast—along with a cup of fresh coffee
and a shot of what smelled and looked suspiciously like single-malt Scotch. He
raised a brow at her as he spoke. “Preston, reschedule my appointments for
today. I’m still on the case I took yesterday and I’ll be working in the field.
Thank you.” Raef hit the end-call button, forked up some eggs and bacon, and
said to Lauren, “What does being a biology major in college have to do with
hangovers?”

She sat across from him with her own plate of breakfast.
“Simple. Hangovers are biological. Food helps. So does hair of the dog.
Actually, I’m not sure if the hair-of-the-dog part is biological or
psychological, but it works.”

“Yeah, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’m just surprised there was
any Scotch left in that bottle.” He gulped the shot and grimaced, reaching for
the coffee.

“Well, there was barely a whole shot left. I’m assuming the
bottle was mostly full when you started?”

“Yep,” he said through bites of eggs and bacon that were really
tasting damn good.

“Rough night?”

He swallowed and avoided her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Okay, well, sorry about your rough night, and like I said
yesterday, I’m not usually this bitchy, but hungover or not we have work to do.
Aubrey should be able to manifest again by now, so as soon as we’re done eating
I’ll focus my thoughts and she should—”

“Oh, go ahead and eat. I don’t mind
watching. I’m finding out that I kinda like it.”

Aubrey’s giggle washed around them as she materialized and Raef
almost choked on a mouthful of eggs.

“Good morning, sis. Morning,
Kent.”

“Hey, Aub, you look good. All bright and happy,” Lauren
said.

“I had a verrrry interesting
night.”

The smile she sent Raef was brilliant and sparkling, and seemed
to catch him in a spotlight. He felt it. He actually
felt
her happiness. It was like an endless Saturday, or having box
seats at the World Series, or knowing you’re going to have lots of sex. Lots of
really good sex.

“Oh. My. God. You two did it. I don’t know how it’s possible,
but you two
did
it
last night,” Lauren said, glaring from Raef to
her sister.

“How the hell could you know that? You’re a Norm! You’re not
psychic.” Raef threw up his hands in exasperation.

Aubrey giggled some more, causing Raef’s skin to prickle.
“She knows because Lauren and I have always been connected. I
think you’d call it our own interpersonal psychic link, which means you
really do have to stop lumping us with the Norms.”

“Which also means you two did do it last night.”

“What we did was create pleasure, and
pleasure is definitely a positive emotion. Right, Kent?”
She grinned
at Kent.

“Doesn’t feel like it right now,” he mumbled.

“Cheer up. It’s not like she got you pregnant,” Lauren said.
Then raised her brow and, sounding so much like her mother that Raef even
recognized it, announced, “You didn’t masturbate, did you, Aubrey Lynn Wilcox?
You know what I told you about that.” And then Lauren Wilcox dissolved into
giggles that included a very unladylike snort.

Aubrey laughed with her sister, full-throated, filling the
breakfast nook with joy that washed through Raef. He couldn’t help it. He
couldn’t stop it. Raef threw back his head and laughed along with the ghost and
her twin sister.
Happy,
he thought.
I’m happy around her—around them. And I haven’t been happy in
a very long time.

“That’s right, Kent. Feel it. Feel it with
me. Pleasure and humor, joy and happiness. Feel them and keep them close to
you, like shields. Because when you stop looking at the forest and find the
tree, you’ll only get one piece of the puzzle. He has the rest of the pieces
hidden where only you can find them when you follow me. You won’t be able to
use your Gift there, but you can use
—
”

“No, Aubrey! Don’t!” Raef shouted, and came to his feet so fast
the chair toppled over behind him. But he was too late. Aubrey’s semitransparent
body had already been ripped away.

“Oh, no!” Lauren gagged. Holding her hand over her mouth she
staggered to the kitchen sink and puked up eggs and bacon and coffee.

“Here.” Raef handed her a paper towel. “Just breathe.”

She took the paper towel with a hand that trembled and wiped
her mouth. Raef went to the fridge and grabbed a can of Sprite, popped the top
and held it out for her. “This’ll help. Rinse your mouth and then sip it.”

Lauren didn’t take the can. She just stood at the sink, wiping
her mouth over and over again, staring blankly out the kitchen window to Raef’s
backyard.

“Lauren?”

She didn’t even blink. He jerked the paper towel from her
hands, threw it into the sink and then took her shoulders into his hands,
turning her to face him.

“All right. That’s enough. Come back now.”

She stared straight ahead at his collarbone. He hadn’t realized
until then how short she was—petite, really. And those sharp blue-gray eyes of
hers were still vacant and glazed. Raef gave her shoulders a shake. Not too
rough, but hard enough it should bring her attention back to her body. He
deepened his voice and took all the emotion out of it. “I said that’s enough.
Get back here, Lauren!”

Like throwing a switch, the light came into her eyes. Lauren
blinked and looked up at him. “Raef? What—” Her whole body started to tremble
and, feeling totally in over his head, he did the only thing he could think to
do—he pulled her into a hug.

She buried her head in his chest and shook.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re back. You’re fine,” he said inanely,
thinking how small she was—God, would she even weigh a hundred pounds soaking
wet?

“It’s getting worse,” she said against his chest.

“Where were you? Where do you go when that happens?” he
asked.

She stepped back out of his arms and looked at him in surprise.
“Ohmygod, Raef! I never even thought about where I go, just how I feel.” She
shook her head and went back to the breakfast table, pushed aside her half-eaten
plate and sat heavily. Lauren wrapped her hands around her mug of coffee and
took a sip. Raef righted his chair and did the same.

“So, describe it to me,” he said.

She looked over her mug at him. “It’s foggy there. And cold.
Ugh, and it’s wet, too.”

“Wet? It’s raining?”

Lauren shook her head. “I don’t think so. Maybe it’s not really
wet, but that place makes me feel like I’m drowning,” she said.

“Could be part of the spiritual draining. That must be how your
body and mind are interpreting it.”

“It’s so hard to tell you anything for sure because everything
is in black and white, but foggy or blurred, like one of those old silent
movies.” Her eyes narrowed contemplatively. “Actually, it’s a lot like a silent
movie. Things skip around, like movie frames freezing.”

“Is anyone else there?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation, and then added more slowly,
“Aubrey is there, and there are other people, too. But they’re hard to see. They
fade in and out. They’re only vague images. I do know they’re in pain. They’re
all in pain.” She shook her head again. “I’ve known it all along and just
refused to think about it because it’s so, so terrible there. But it has to be
where the murderer is keeping his victims’ souls.”

“The Land of the Dead,” Raef said.

“What?”

He snagged the slim book from where Lauren had left it on the
kitchen counter. “It’s in here. It’s also what Aubrey’s talking about when she
gets ripped back there by him.”

“Bread crumbs. She’s trying to lead us to her with bread
crumbs, but they keep getting eaten,” Lauren said.

“Maybe not totally eaten.” He got up, refilled their coffee and
brought a legal pad and a pencil back to the table. “So, whenever Aubrey’s
emotions change—whenever she tries to talk about her death or her killer—he can
sense it and he rips her away from here. Correct?”

“Correct. But it happens so fast that she never really gets to
tell us anything.”

“But she tries,” Raef said. “Maybe we should listen
better.”

“Okay, well, I’m not going to be very good at that because I
feel her pain and I get ripped away with her. Or at least part of me does—that
part that’s attached to Aub.”

“I get that. So let me help, or at least help with what I’ve
witnessed. The first time Aubrey disappeared was in my office when you hired me
and I asked her to tell me about her murder.”

Lauren nodded. “I hired you because she told me to, and that
took her a while because she kept getting ripped away. She finally just
described you and then said ‘KooKoo Kitty.’ I figured it out from there.”

“KooKoo Kitty? How the hell did you find me from that?”

Lauren smiled. “It’s twin speak. We had a cat when we were
twelve. Someone had dumped her on our grandparents’ ranch by one of our guest
cabins. She was, of course, pregnant. She was a sweet, friendly little thing, so
Mother let us keep her as one of the barn cats, but said we’d have to give away
the kittens and get her spayed. We called her Cabin Kitty. Well, she had her
kittens and then promptly lost her mind protecting them. She attacked every cat,
dog, chicken and even horse at the ranch. We renamed her KooKoo Kitty.”