Ghost Layer (The Ghost Seer Series Book 2) (2 page)

He nodded to the receptionist before heading straight to his boss’s door. Zach stood with his hand on the lever until the electronic lock buzzed to let him into the inner office, decorated in gray and cream.

Two men watched him with military assessment as he entered. Tony Rickman, a craggy-looking man in his late forties with buzz-cut salt-and-pepper hair wearing an engraved wedding band, sat behind his dark wooden desk.

The guy standing near the desk, six foot six, two hundred and seventy-five pounds, pale white blond hair in another buzz cut, light brown eyes, had “ex-special-ops” written all over his body and attitude. He wore expensive black trousers with knife-edge creases, dull but not scuffed shoes, a black silk shirt, and a lightweight black jacket.

“Hello, Zach,” Rickman said.

Zach nodded and made an effort to keep his walk as smooth as possible, even with his cane and brace, as he headed toward the far left of the four gray leather client chairs. “Hello, Tony.”

“Clare Cermak called you?”

“That’s right.”

“Obviously, you’re back from Montana.” A note in Rickman’s voice told Zach that the man had expected Zach to check in.

“Just arrived a half hour ago.” He sat and stretched his jeaned legs out, propping his cane against the chair.

“Make yourself at home,” Rickman said.

Zach smiled. “Thanks, I will.”

“I don’t believe you’ve met another of my operatives, Harry Rossi. Harry, this is Zach Slade.” Rickman gestured to the guy, who scrutinized Zach and his threat level. Zach stood, studying Rossi with his flat cop stare. Something—shadows—in the man’s eyes showed he’d had to kill. Zach figured that showed in his own eyes.

After a few seconds, the big man smiled and took a few steps toward Zach. Zach met him halfway and offered his hand.

“Good to meet you,” Zach said.

“Likewise,” said Rossi. A quick, hard grip and then they retreated at the same time.

“Rossi works mostly as a bodyguard,” Tony said. “He’s currently placed with a long-term client of mine, Dennis Laurentine.”

Zach nodded. “Rossi looks good for bodyguard work.”

Rossi gave a quick grin, ostentatiously adjusted his shirt cuffs.

Returning to his chair, Zach said, “I don’t think Clare needs a bodyguard . . . yet.”

With a bland smile, Rossi said, “Not with you around.”

“Looks like we need Clare,” Tony said.

“Is that so?” asked Zach.

A quick double buzz came from the door lock as the receptionist opened it.

Clare walked in and Zach had the novel experience of having his heart jump in his chest. Damn, she looked good.

Rickman stood and so did Zach, automatically moving toward her. Just a step or two and he scented the exotic fragrance she wore that reminded him of more than kisses. He fought to control a hard-on. Did the damn multiplication table.

Still, she looked good, better than he’d last seen her the morning he’d crawled out of her bed and headed to Montana. Better than he’d ever seen her.

She’d come into her own and was done with the worry over closing out her great-aunt’s estate, moving into her own home, and dealing with a gunfighter ghost. The peach sundress she wore accented her golden skin and hazel eyes. Her brown hair with red tints was rich and glossy. He thought he made a noise in his throat.

She smiled like she was glad to see him and all his irritation at the wearying day vanished.

“Hi, Clare.” Moving quickly, he took her hand, kissed her cheek. Oh, man, that perfume and her natural scent did a number on him. He didn’t want to be with her here, with two other guys in the room. He wanted to be in her bed, or have her in his.

She brushed a kiss on his lips and relief flooded him. They were still on the same page, goddam good.

“Hi, Zach.”

He didn’t put his arm around her as he turned to face the men, but kept his body intimately close. “Clare, the guy behind the desk is the head of Rickman Security and Investigations, Tony Rickman. Beside him is Harry Rossi, another of Rickman’s men.” Zach had no clue how much she observed. As far as he knew, she wouldn’t recognize a military man by his stance, his movement, his attitude. Wouldn’t know when a guy was armed. She’d once said that she didn’t watch crime shows, so she was learning about police officers from him.

“How do you do,” she said politely.

Rossi nodded and stood at ease. Rickman came from behind the desk and offered his hand. Clare donned her professional woman manner, gripped it, and shook.

“Please, have a seat,” Rickman said. “Would you like some tea?”

She gave him a cool stare. “You’ve been talking about me with Mrs. Flinton? She’s the one who offers me tea.”

Rickman’s gaze cut to Zach. The guy wanted backup. Zach decided to test his luck, put his hand around her upper arm, and gave the lightest of tugs toward the chairs and stepped toward them himself. She slid her glance to him, and followed, answering Rickman’s question. “No tea, thank you. Coffee would be good.”

“Fine.” Rickman returned to his desk and pressed the intercom. “Coffee, cream, and sugar for Ms. Cermak.”

Zach took the last left chair, and Clare sat in the one next to him. He wished it were closer.

“You asked for this meeting?” Clare said.

Rickman lowered into his executive chair, but kept his manner casual. “Thank you for your work on the accounting ledgers in Mrs. Flinton’s case. She has spoken highly of you,” he said.

Clare inclined her head.

“We have a problem we’d like you to help us with,” Tony Rickman said.

Clare stilled beside Zach, wet her lips. “As a forensic accountant?”

A long, thumping pause.

“I’m afraid not. As a ghost banisher,” Rickman said.

Clare flinched. Her fingers tightened on a small purse she’d moved from her shoulder to her lap. “I’m not in that business.”

“Can you please hear me out? We have a problem,” Rickman repeated. “Or rather, one of our clients has a problem.” He gestured to Rossi, who treated Clare to a smile that showed male appreciation and twinkling eyes. Zach revised his first good impression of the man.

“I’m the bodyguard to Dennis Laurentine,” he said.

“The billionaire,” Rickman said.

Clare blinked. “Dennis Laurentine? No. He’s not. As of last month, Forbes’s website listed his net worth as being valued at approximately nine hundred and sixteen million. That makes him a multimillionaire, but not quite a billionaire.”

Rickman looked disconcerted. Rossi’s smile widened.

“Never argue with an accountant about money,” Zach said, lounging even more in his seat.

Clare sighed. “Well, Mr. Laurentine is very wealthy, and a client my former firm would have loved to have—would love to have. What does that have to do with me?”

“Why don’t you, ah, tell the story, Rossi,” Rickman said.

“Sure.” The bodyguard moved to the front of Rickman’s desk, leaned against it, his gaze focused on Clare. “Mr. Laurentine has a ghost problem on his ranch in South Park.” The ends of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “Or to be accurate, a bone problem. A dead guy is leaving his bones around.”

CLARE’S EYES WIDENED.
A hundred questions already buzzed in Zach’s mind. He watched her head tilt in the way that showed she listened closely. “Bones appearing after they’ve been buried? That doesn’t make sense,” she said.

Rossi said, “I’ve seen it happen twice. Mr. Laurentine knows the legend of this ghost guy and his bones—Higgenberry? Humperdink? The story’s very famous.” Rossi lifted a brow.

Clare shook her head as if she didn’t know the story. Hell, Zach didn’t either, and he’d been born in Colorado.

Shrugging, Rossi continued, “We opened the guy’s grave, no bones, reinterred the skeleton—and the signed poems that he’d left with his bones—at the cemetery near the original site of the town, fifty miles away and up a canyon. We also put observers and rigged cams on the grave. No one dug the skeleton up, but the bones appeared again.”

Crossing her arms, Clare shifted her gaze and stared out the window, that showed a panoramic view of the Front Range mountain peaks.

Clare said, “I can only . . . help ghosts of a certain time period.” Her gaze flittered to Zach and he smiled, hoping she knew he hadn’t backslid about acknowledging she had a gift for ghosts.

And she did. He could see them, too, when he touched her. Rickman sighed. “We are not proceeding in an orderly fashion about this. Ms. Cermak, are you aware that Mr. Laurentine purchased an old ghost town, a mining town, had it disassembled and reconstructed on his ranch?”

Clare’s mouth dropped open. Zach’s stare went to Rickman, who looked as stern as always, and Rossi, who rolled his eyes.

“The expense—” sputtered Clare before her mouth snapped shut.

“Probably why he’s only a multimillionaire,” Zach drawled. “That had to cost a pretty penny.”

“He gave local labor good jobs,” Rickman said.

“Why would he move an entire Western town?” Zach asked.

“Because he’s crazy about the Old West, being born in Rhode Island and all,” Rossi said sardonically. “He likes the flavor out here. So he says.”

A crack of laughter escaped Zach. “So when he moved the town, the ghosts came right along with it.”

“Seems so,” Rossi said.

“What were the dates of this town?” Clare asked prissily, obviously trying to wiggle out of the request she could see looming. As far as Zach knew, she had no intention of hanging out a shingle as a psychic, and probably resented being here. He’d sure rather be with her somewhere else, too. This meeting was a waste of time.

“The dates of the town,” Rossi repeated. The bodyguard and Rickman shared a glance. Rickman shrugged. Rossi turned his head back to look at Clare, then lines around his eyes tightened as if he was thinking back. “It was booming in the eighteen seventies maybe?”

Clare sniffed.

“Mr. Laurentine will be joining us shortly,” Rickman said. “You can get specific information from him.”

“I’m not a medium,” Clare stated.

Everyone just looked at her.

She endured the silence with tight mouth and body for a good full minute before Rossi cleared his throat and said, “Ma’am, the bones appear in the beds of real nice women.”

Now all eyes focused on Rossi.

“This happens mostly when Mr. Laurentine is entertaining, has a whole houseful of people. It scares his guests, especially when we take the bones out, rebury them with respect, and they show up again.” Rossi shook his head. “Laurentine’s losing local people who don’t want to work for him, and they’re losing paychecks.”

Every guy in the room seemed to know Clare’s soft spot.

“He needs help,” Rickman said, then more quietly, “and you’ll be paid well.”

Clare’s gaze lasered from Rickman to Rossi, fixed on Zach. “Evidently my gift is common knowledge.”

Zach matched her glare with his cop one. “I told no one.” Then he thought he heard barking, which meant Enzo the ghost dog was probably here and talking to Clare. Zach watched the other two men. Rickman appeared too casual—did he hear the dog, too? And what did that mean? Rossi was the original stone face and Zach couldn’t tell what he might hear, see, or know.

At that moment the door buzzed again, no warning before the door opened. Rickman scowled. If Zach was to guess, Rickman would be having a chat with his receptionist before the day was done.

The man who walked in was the shortest of them all, five-seven, blocky build, shoulder-length sandy hair and pale green eyes, probably in his fifties. He wore designer jeans, a tailored polo shirt that matched his eyes, and a lot of power.

Nodding toward Rickman, he took the far right chair as if he owned the room, hell, as if he owned the building and all of downtown Denver. He glanced at Clare, his gaze dismissing Zach sitting beyond her. Rossi moved between the guy and the door.

“Mr. Laurentine,” Rickman said. “I’m glad you could join us.”

Laurentine sighed. “I suppose this is a matter that I must handle myself, since you haven’t wrapped up the deal within the time frame I thought you would.”

Rickman ignored that, went straight to the meat of the matter. “We need information about your town.”

“Curly Wolf?” The man rubbed his hands, his eyes lit with the gleam of an obsessive collector. “Fabulous place. A real jewel, I have some extremely historic buildings.” His face set. “I’ve been criticized for taking the town, moving it to my own personal and private property. But the buildings would have fallen apart and been lost to the future if I hadn’t saved them. Park County already has one ghost town for historic purposes, and there was no funding to take care of Curly Wolf.”

“What time period was the town active?” Clare asked.

The rich guy turned to face her, brows up. “You haven’t heard of Curly Wolf?”

“No.”

“Or its ghosts? Ghosts well known during the time? Such as the people who died in the smallpox epidemic of 1861, or the apparition now plaguing me?”

“No.” Clare wanted to squirm and suppressed the urge. Why was she being questioned? She was here to listen to a proposition for her to help; instead it felt like she was being attacked. Granted, Mr. Laurentine had eight hundred and ninety-six million dollars more than she, but she had enough so she could walk away.

Laurentine grunted. “Not well educated on this matter, are you? You get rid of ghosts? Prove it.”

Clare stood. “I’m sorry, Mr. Laurentine,” she said in a chill tone. “You mistake me for someone available to hire to handle . . . an unusual problem for you. I am not in that business.” Turning on her heel, she made it only a step before Enzo barked.

Wait
, Enzo yelled in her mind, then, in a deeper tone Clare dreaded because it wasn’t the ghost dog but that spirit she called the Other who spoke through the dog, said,
Watch!

Stomach lurching, she did. A figure in prospector’s garb materialized no more than a pace in front of her. She’d have to walk through him to the door. He wore heavy pants, a light-colored shirt, a vest, and had a trimmed beard. He stretched out a hand.
Help me!

Not again.

What do you want?
Clare directed her mental thought to the ghost.

“Ms. Cermak?” asked Rickman.

Without looking at him, she cut off his words with a gesture. Freezing air wafting from the spirit passed around Clare and into the room.

They said that I died of accidental causes.
The phantom wore a sad expression on his youngish face.
That I fell from the mountain while picking wildflowers.

Clare sighed.
They were wrong?

He nodded.
Yes. I was murdered.

“Of course you were,” she murmured.

“What’s going on?” asked Laurentine. He strode to her, curved his hand around her upper arm.

“Take your hand off her,” said Zach in a low, dangerous tone. She heard him rise from his chair. He moved into her peripheral vision, and the millionaire’s blocky fingers fell from her arm.

Rossi, the bodyguard, circled around her from the opposite direction and went right into the ghost. Rossi’s eyes widened and he grunted, pivoted in an athletic motion, and stepped out of the miner.

THANK YOU!
shouted the ghost toward Rossi, but that man was saying to Laurentine, “You should sit, sir.”

“I don’t think so,” said Laurentine. Now he moved into the specter . . . who hissed.

Scowling, Laurentine faced Clare. “You’re acting odd.”

She shrugged, watched as the prospector stepped aside from the live man with an expression of distaste.
He has no poetry in his soul
.

Is that so?
she asked the phantom mentally.

The apparition spread long, artistic-looking pale gray fingers over his heart and inclined his torso.
It is very so, my sweet.
He winked.

Uh-oh.

“You’re all acting odd,” complained Laurentine.

“Maybe you should take your business somewhere else,” Zach rumbled.

Rickman, the boss, sighed.

With narrowed eyes, Laurentine studied Clare. “I do have a problem. A very nasty problem that seems . . . supernatural.” He made a disgusted sound. “As much as I can figure that. I handled the bones myself, watched them buried.” He stomped away and she heard leather rustle as he sat.

The miner’s wraith shuddered.
They ARE my bones
.

Enzo, can you tell me anything about this gentleman?
Clare asked.

The ghost dog sniffed all around the phantom.
I like his smell, Clare
, Enzo, not the Other, said. Enzo’s tongue lolled.
He is the one we need to help now.

What’s your name?
she asked the specter mentally, now flushing and very aware that everyone stared at her.

A dark bowler hat appeared on the apparition’s head, just in time for him to doff it with a bow to Clare.
J. Dawson Hidgepath, at your service, miss.

His name meant nothing to her.

Enzo, can you show Mr. Hidgepath to the carriage house I use for consulting?

You’re going to open that space for consulting?
Hooray!
Enzo hopped around.
I told you that you needed to do that, and that it would be a very good space.

I’m using it to consult with . . .
She glanced at Hidgepath.
Those who’ve passed on. I prefer to see them there.

Again the apparition winked.
I prefer ladies’ bedrooms.

That sounded just great. Clare sincerely hoped to see no bones in her bed, no phantom, again, at the foot of her bed. She let herself relax as the wraith followed Enzo through the door. The cold dissipated.

She stood with her back to the others for only an instant then turned around and, keeping her expression bland, met Laurentine’s gaze and said, “Tell me about J. Dawson Hidgepath.”

The bodyguard, who’d stationed himself behind the millionaire, seemed to shake himself, rather like her ghost dog.

She remained the focus of all eyes. Zach took her arm and began to lead her back to her seat.

By the time she sank into the plush gray leather of the barrel chair, and Zach took his own chair, Enzo galloped back into the room, tongue lolling.

Hi, Zach!
Enzo sent to her mind as his muzzle opened and he barked. He trotted around the room, sniffing the living men, then came back and licked Zach’s hand. Zach stiffened. Her lover had admitted he could see ghosts when he touched her, and believed it was due to her psychic gift and talent. She thought otherwise but hadn’t said anything about it yet.

She angled to look at Mr. Laurentine, two seats over to her right. Enzo leapt into the chair between her and the multimillionaire.

Mr. Laurentine glowered at her, tapping an index finder on the arm of his chair. “So now you suddenly know about J. Dawson Hidgepath.”

“I know the name. He was a prospector?”

“His bones have been legendary for over a century, though they seemed to have stopped appearing near the turn of the twentieth century,” Mr. Laurentine said, then waved a hand. “But, of course, I didn’t move the cemetery of Curly Wolf when I bought the rest of the town. I only moved the buildings. I would not disturb the dead.”

“I see,” Clare said. Unfortunately she saw way too much . . . like ghosts.

“But the bones have begun to appear again,” Zach put in.

“How are you involved in this?” Mr. Laurentine asked.

“He’s one of my operatives,” Rickman said.

“He’s a friend of mine,” Clare said.

“He doesn’t look ex-military,” Mr. Laurentine said.

“I’m not,” Zach said, and his body and his eyes changed in that way he had.

“Cop,” Mr. Laurentine said, glanced at Zach’s cane. “Ex-cop.”

Zach shrugged.

The multimillionaire shifted more toward Clare. “And you’re Clare Cermak.”

“That’s right.”

“And you can lay ghosts.”

Yes, she can!
Enzo shouted, though his confirmation didn’t seem to have been heard by anyone else.

“You vouch for her?” Mr. Laurentine asked Rickman.

“Yes, enough that I’m willing to negotiate a fee for her as a consultant.”

Clare shrugged, not interested in that right now, but figured like most executives he’d take it for assent. “Mr. Hidgepath told me that his death wasn’t accidental. He said he was murdered.”