Ghost Memory (2 page)

It sounded like he had given a lot
of thought to his problem, and I was willing to bet he was on the
right track.

“Thulu should be able to trace the
missing money, as well as find what’s in the house.”

“Oh really?” Mr. Swanson’s eyebrows
rose appreciatively. “If we can find the rest of the money, Don
should be able to live there comfortably for the rest of his life.
But he’s older than I am and not in the best of health. He will
need care before long. I was the healthy one. Who would have
thought I’d be the first one to die?” he said ironically. He
quirked a smile as he looked at me intently. “So, do you think you
can help?”

I nodded. “I’m sure we can. Thulu
excels at finding things.”

“Yes, I know.” He gave me a warm
smile. “The two of you have quite the reputation among the dead.
You’ve helped a good many people and word has traveled about you.
I’m sure you know there’s a lot of excitement about you officially
opening an agency.”

“Thank you. It seemed the right
choice.” The compliment made me feel a little better. Thulu and I
worked with the supernatural. I saw and heard the dead and could
translate for just about anyone. Thulu could find anyone or
anything. He could also see the dead, but couldn’t hear them and
relied on lip-reading and my notes during our interviews.

It seemed we dealt mostly with the
dead, but now and then we’d get a request from a supernatural
being, although that was rare. Sometimes the supernatural weren’t
my favorites to deal with, but at least they paid in cash. That was
something that ghosts couldn’t always do.

We were in our last semester of
college, putting the final touches on the skills we’d need as
private detectives. Only we were going to deal strictly with the
supernatural and the dead. No living human clients for us. Nuh-uh;
no way, no how. Besides, it was a natural choice, what with mine
and Thulu’s abilities. We’d been getting jobs since we were kids.
More and more of them as we got older and clients realized we could
interact with them.

“I’ll let Thulu know about your
case when he gets home.” I looked down at my tablet. “Is there
anything else you can think of that we need to know? Will Mr. Quinn
be easy to approach? Or will we need to convince him to let us
in?”

Mr. Swanson pulled on his right ear
lobe thoughtfully. It was a habit I was sure he’d had in life as
well.

“To be honest, I was the one who
never believed in life after death. Don was always the one who was
more open-minded to any possibility. He really is a remarkable man.
I’ll be there when you go to the house and, if necessary, give you
enough information to convince him that you’re in contact with
me.”

I smiled appreciation. “Excellent!
That always makes things much easier.”

“Well, I’ll let you get on with it.
Please, just call out when you’re ready to go to the house.” Mr.
Swanson stood, gave me a short bow and disappeared.

He’d already figured out that
simply calling his name would effectively call him back to me. That
was good. It always made things easier when the dead knew what they
could and could not do. Especially since they were time challenged.
At least, time passed differently for them.

I’d been told by one ghost that she
thought a few minutes had gone by and it had been two years. Hers
was a rather extreme case, though, and I hadn’t run into very many
who’d had that happen often. Still, they did tend to lose track of
time, and it was not uncommon for what seemed to them to be a few
hours to actually be days or weeks on the live side.

The new case sounded pretty
standard, and I was happy another one had come along. We had plans
to open the agency soon after graduation, and had spent more than a
few weekends scouting likely locations. If the dead were really
that supportive, maybe it might be worth our while to ask them
about good, obscure locations that would be easy for ghosts and
other supes to find, but that would not attract the attention of
the living.

Talking with Mr. Swanson had pushed
my earlier misery to the back of my mind. With the disappearance of
our latest client, I was left alone to contemplate the morning’s
events.

Trying to wash away the guilt, I
finally took my shower, letting the hot water beat on the back of
my head and neck. I dried my hair and ran a comb through the blond
strands. In the mirror, red-rimmed, green eyes stared back at me
hollowly and my face seemed pale. The light freckles across my nose
were almost obscured by the redness. Crying did nothing for my
looks, that’s for sure.

I sighed heavily as I moisturized
and changed into some comfortable sweats. I briefly considered
logging into our online game, but wasn’t really up for even that,
even though gaming was usually one of my go-to places when I wanted
to get away from the real world.

Instead, I curled up on the sofa
and quickly dozed off, in spite of the awful feeling in the pit of
my stomach.

The February sun slanting in the
window told me it was late afternoon when I woke up. Thulu sat in
the easy chair, watching me calmly, a slight smile on his face.
When he realized I was awake, his smile broadened, showing his
dimples.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah,” I answered sheepishly. “Is
he going to be okay?”

“Yeah, sure, he’s going to be
fine.”

“Good. Does he hate me?”

“No, of course not. I explained
that you’d taken some street-fighting classes and instincts took
over before your brain thought it through. He understood.”

“Do you hate me?”

The look of utter surprise was
answer enough. He quickly moved over to the sofa and pulled me into
his arms.

“I could never hate you! How can
you ask such a thing?”

“Well, you looked pretty upset, you
know.” I tucked my head under his chin, listening to his steady
heartbeat.

“Fi, there is nothing on this earth
you can do that would make me hate you.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.” Okay, so
it was a lame answer, but it was the best I could muster up under
the circumstances. I looked up to see a twinkle in his eye.

“But what is it with us and broken
noses?” he asked, dimples showing.

I shrugged. It did seem to be a
theme with us. Mine had been broken as a child, during a bike
accident. I’d skidded across some gravel while racing a friend and
landed on my face. I still had a slight bump on the right side.

Thulu’s broken nose also happened
when he was a kid. He’d been trying to teach Karate to his cousins
and got clobbered in the face.

The fact that we both had little
bumps on our noses made me feel like we kind of matched.

Thulu’s brown hair was streaked
from the sun with blond. His warm, brown eyes also had gold flecks
in them and in certain lights they looked gold. He was tall and
slender, but had good muscle tone from his Karate.

He was the more social one, in
spite of being calmer and low-key. That made it weird for me, since
I was the one who had total contact with the dead. Not that he was
a chatterbox. He was often quiet, but he also had a gift for making
friends easily. No question about it, he was quite charming. It
made it easier for me that I didn’t have to be a social butterfly.
We’d have been in deep trouble if we’d had to rely on my social
skills to interact with people. I had a deep fear of regular people
finding out about our abilities, so I preferred to keep my
distance, except with family. Fortunately the Thulukans were more
accepting of my reticence.

I didn’t know what else to say
about the debacle and searched for something else. I remembered our
new client. “We have a new case.”

“When did that happen?”

“He was waiting outside our door
when I got home.”

He held up a hand. “Wait. Before
you tell me, let’s order something to eat. I’m sure neither of us
feels like cooking tonight.”

I realized my stomach had a hollow,
empty feeling that wasn’t due to the guilt of the afternoon. I
nodded, thankfully.

Thulu pulled out his cell phone and
went into the kitchen where we kept our takeout menus. “Pizza
okay?” He called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, sounds fine to me.”

He ordered the pizza and while we
waited, I filled him in on everything Peter Swanson had told me. It
didn’t take very long.

Thulu nodded appreciatively.
“Sounds pretty straightforward. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

While we waited on the pizza to
arrive, Thulu called Donovan Quinn and asked if we could see him.
He told him we were friends of Peter Swanson’s. Mr. Quinn agreed
that we could come by, and we set an appointment for late the next
morning, after our classes were done for the day.

I called Peter Swanson’s name and
he popped in immediately. I introduced him to Thulu, and told him
the plan for the next day. He thanked us for starting on his case
so promptly, before disappearing.

Once the pizza arrived we camped
out on the sofa. Thulu brought me a glass of wine, and I sipped it
appreciatively.

I was supposed to read a chapter
for class the next day, but I simply wasn’t in the mood. Instead,
Thulu and I watched TV. I was mostly over my anguish of the day and
very relieved that it hadn’t damaged my relationship with Thulu.
Not that much could damage that, which I knew perfectly well. But
even knowing that hadn’t stopped me from having a sick feeling in
my stomach.

Thulu and I had been together since
we were kids. We met on my first day at school after my grandmother
and I moved to San Francisco. My parents had died that previous
spring, and I was even less social afterwards than I am now.

Thulu had rescued me from my grief
and even brought me out of my shell. He told me he had known he
needed to find someone very important that day and when he saw me,
he said he knew he’d found the right person. Funny thing is, I knew
it, too. Even at ten years old, we knew it was special.

So, yeah, I knew deep down that I
didn’t need to worry. But I still had that disconnected feeling
that crying and sleeping during the day leaves behind. In spite of
the nap, I fell asleep easier than usual, snuggled up with Thulu,
safe in the knowledge that he still loved me.

Early the next morning, Thulu
cooked breakfast while I slept in. It was my usual MO. I woke to
the smell of coffee - something Thulu drank regularly. He had a
thing for exotic blends that smelled awesome. Too bad the taste
never seemed to match the smell for me. A fact that always made him
shake his head in mock sorrow when he insisted I try whatever new
kind he brewed up. I tried to appreciate the difference, but maybe
I simply didn’t have a coffee palate. Whatever the reason, they all
tasted pretty much the same to me. I preferred my morning Coke.

I stumbled into the kitchen, where
I got a kiss on the top of my head from Thulu. Helping myself to a
plate, I drowned my pancakes in syrup. My sweet tooth was always
strong, and that morning I needed it more than usual.

Thulu and I sat at our breakfast
bar, not talking much, since it takes me a while to become human in
the morning. He read the news on his tablet, now and then sharing a
tidbit he knew I’d be interested in, as I slowly came to life.

I hit the shower and dressed in my
usual uniform of jeans and a T shirt. I rarely wore make-up thanks
to smooth skin and a good complexion, so I didn’t often need a lot
of time to get ready. Unfortunately, that morning my skin was still
blotchy from the day before, so I resorted to making myself as
presentable as possible and sighed as I applied a light coat of
foundation to cover the red marks on my fair skin.

In spite of my taking extra time,
we were early as we headed out for the two classes we had that day.
Thulu and I had taken separate courses to maximize the things we
needed to know for our detective agency. After taking every class
together throughout middle school and high school, it was odd to
not be in the same classroom, but I felt it was worth it. Between
the two of us, we were pretty sure we had everything covered. At
least that we could think of.

That morning, I had a basic
Bookkeeping class and Anthropology. With graduation looming, I had
saved some of the easy stuff for last. They weren’t bad classes
really, but my professor for the Bookkeeping class tended to drone
on, and I had to force myself to pay attention that morning.
Anthropology was always enjoyable though, and that class zoomed
by.

Thulu had gotten out of his
Psychology class early and waited for me outside my classroom. He
took my hand as we headed off to our car and the exodus of students
trying to get out of the parking lot.

We drove across San Francisco to
the address we’d been given and found the old Victorian. It wasn’t
far from Thulu’s parents’ home and was close to the area where we
had grown up and gone to school together as kids. We were able to
find a parking spot not too far away. The outside showed a three
story home, but I was willing to bet a basement made it four
stories. It had been repainted a rich cream, with coral and brick
red trim. A swing sat empty on one end of the porch, and a wind
chime tinkled merrily in the breeze.

Mr. Quinn was obviously waiting for
us, as he answered our knock quickly. He greeted us with a smile
and indicated we could hang our coats on a coat rack in the foyer.
The house smelled wonderfully of something that had been freshly
baked with cinnamon.

We were ushered into a small parlor
to the left of the entryway. The room was cozy, with tea and
cookies already set up on the coffee table. The parlor was
furnished tastefully and although the furniture had seen some use,
the antiques were comfortable and solid. The walls had been
recently painted a pale blue that contrasted with the gleaming
woodwork.