Ghost Seer (3 page)

Hurrying back to her small office, she hit the icon. “Hi, Tuck—”

“Hey, Auntie Clare!” Dora, nine years old, grinned out at Clare.

“Hi, Dora.”

“Dad wants to talk to you. He’s here somewhere.” Dora glanced around.

“How’s it going?” Clare asked.

“Good.” Dora’s expression turned serious. “It’s an a-
mazing
house. We’re sad and missing weird G.G. Aunt Sandra, but it’s good to see the house one last time.” For an instant Clare strained to look beyond Dora to the house itself.

The house was the one thing Tucker had asked to help out with the estate, and Clare had taken him up on the offer.

Dora hefted a sigh. “I’ll miss it.”

“Hey, pumpkin.” Tucker swept his daughter up in his arms, hooked his ankle around a chair and slid it over, and sat. “Hey, Clare.”

“Hi, Tucker.”

Stroking Dora’s head, Tucker said, “I know that the estate and house are yours since you didn’t take any payout from G.G. Uncle Amos’s trust, but is there any way we can keep it?”

Clare tried to keep her clenched jaw from showing. She’d sold the house, had a contract and a closing, and would take a substantial penalty for withdrawing. “Sure, we can keep it. I can deed it over to you.”

Tucker’s mouth turned down. “Not the folks?”

“Sure, if I knew they’d take care of it.” They wouldn’t. Tucker was ten times the father her own was, and Beth, Tucker’s wife, was a great mother. Dora was growing up knowing she was the center of their lives, and very loved.

Smiling with a hint of teeth, Clare said, “You get Mom and Dad to give me a call today or tomorrow and I’ll cancel the contract. Where are they now? I haven’t heard from them in a year.” They sure hadn’t come to Great-Aunt Sandra’s memorial, months ago. Too busy playing on the coast of Italy, or maybe France, or perhaps in the Greek islands.

Tucker’s square face took on color. “I haven’t heard from them, either.”

“Where are you sending their portion of the furniture?”

A sigh from her brother, and then he said, “I’ve been dealing with Terrence, G.G. Uncle Amos’s trust’s attorney. He’s found a storage unit in White Plains, New York, for the parents’ share of the furniture, and his office will handle the transfer on their end.”

“Has he heard from our parents?” Clare asked softly.

“No.”

Dora looked at Clare with owlish eyes. “Jal and Viva are in the wind again. They sent me a present for my birthday, though.”

She saw the lie of that in Tucker’s eyes. He covered for the parents when Clare wouldn’t.

“Tucker, if you want the house, it’s yours,” Clare said.

“I like the house,” Dora said. “But I like our home in Williamsburg better!”

Tucker eased. “That’s good, baby.”

Clare said, “We sold it to a nice family, Tuck.”

His smile curved. “Kids?”

“Four.”

“They’ll love this place,” Dora enthused.

Enzo barked.
Yes, they will! Children always loved Sandra’s and my home!

Clare turned her head sharply to look at the ghost dog.

“Clare?” asked Tucker.

She blinked and rubbed her right ear. “I’m here.”

His eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

“Maybe overdoing it a little working on the estate,” she mumbled.

“Well, that’s mostly done, and I’ll handle the work here.” He squeezed his daughter. “I feel better knowing there’s a family moving in, don’t you, kiddo?”

Dora nodded. “For sure.”

Everything’s good! Sandra would like them.

Clare hadn’t thought that Enzo had even met them, and didn’t want to ask.

“I love you, Auntie Clare.” Dora puckered and made a loud smooching sound. At least it wasn’t “weird Aunt Clare” . . . yet.

“I love you, too, Dora, and Tuck.”

“Love ya, sis.” Tucker winked. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

BYE!
Enzo shouted. Dora frowned a little before Tuck closed the program.

Clare sagged in her seat.

 • • • 

Enzo barked in the middle of the night; a wave of chill air yanked Clare from sleep. She blinked, and her hand went out toward the dog, fingers turned frigid.

You must help me!

The apparition was back.

O
NCE AGAIN THE
gray and black and white and transparent man stood at the end of her bed.
You’ve got to get it. YOU’VE GOT TO GET IT!

Panting with cold and fear, Clare huddled against the headboard and drew up the comforter. She should add a blanket . . . in the hottest August on record. Yes, something was wrong. She should be grateful that this illusion didn’t move close to her and try to interact with her the way the dog did.

He looked a little different, a little rougher. Was he fraying around the edges? What did that mean?

You must get it. The one I put in a box. Get it first.
His lips twisted as he looked down at himself.
Then we will work to find the one I misplaced.

Again his stubborn chin lifted and she felt the cold pressure of an intense gaze—or thought she did.

This is the right time. You are the right person. Things are falling into place. It’s HERE, and finally the time is right and I may be able to go on, if you help me.
She didn’t like the desperate plea in the glittering rounds that might be eyes. Maybe this was a dream.

She stared hard, trying to catalog every detail of this vision, and she found darker spots in him. Without thought, she said, “What are those?”

He glanced down again.
Buckshot, a couple of bullets.

“You died of gunshot wounds?”

His lips compressed into a line.
No. They were just still in me.
The words continued to come to her mind and she shuddered.
Please.
He stretched out a pale hand.
I did wrong, I admit it. I was a bad and mean drunk, I admit that, too. But I’ve been here more than a century and a half and don’t deserve to stay so long!
His expression changed to despairing.
Away from my beautiful wife. She isn’t with me. I can’t find her. Help me, please.

Enzo yipped and whined, turning large, pleading eyes on Clare.

She cracked . . . mind, heart, something. Sloughed off a piece of her that might deal with this insanity . . . just for now. The psychologist could help her put herself together, eventually, when she trusted him more . . . but for now . . . Wetting dry and cold lips, she whispered, “What do you need?”

I have found the box, a box my wife had that I used. Get it for me, please, I beg of you. That is the first step in freeing my tormented soul.

He should have sounded melodramatic, but the emotions she thought she felt rushing from him were so sad, too sad. She swallowed.

We can go now
, the manlike vision . . . illusion . . . ghost? . . . said.

“Now? Right now?” Clare glanced frantically around the bedroom. It was tiny, hardly enough room for the bed, the transparent dog-thing, and the man-shadow. And if the city during the day spun out pale visions, what would night bring? “I don’t think so.”

The man-shape floated to the footboard of her bed and hitched a hip on it, balancing somehow, though she could see the curved wood through him. He crossed his arms.

“You’re going to stay?” she asked, appalled.

He nodded, not speaking. Was that better or worse?

Maybe if she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, he would go away. Enzo hadn’t. It looked like she had another imaginary friend she didn’t want.

She sniffed in disdain and slid back into bed. She hadn’t turned on the fans tonight. Though the heat wouldn’t fall to the midsixties until four
A.M.
, she was barely warm.

Three times that hour, she awoke, opened her eyes, and saw the ghost man staring at her.

Finally she sat up. “Where is this box?”

I can show it to you. Come.

Driving at night, when, if you were someone who believed in ghosts, undead spirits gathered. “No.”

He sat on the far corner of the bed, staring at her with a black gaze that yet seemed to burn with determined fire. Enzo crept closer to her and thumped his cold tail on her thigh.

“Oh, all right. Let’s get this over with.”

She’d been right about the night. She drove slowly, creeping, really, through a fog of phantoms, ignoring shapes and wide mouths and pleading hands, shivering all the way. She turned on the heater.

Finally the specter who’d been leading her stopped, miles from her home. Mercifully there were fewer people here, probably because it had been outside city limits during the era that she was sensitive to.

The human mind can only comprehend ghosts from one slice of history
, said the man, uncannily reading her thoughts.

Enzo barked.
Right, right, right!
He bolted through the car door and in front of a building.

Reluctantly, Clare got out of the car. The thunk of the door closing was muffled.

I am very lucky you are here to help me
, the vision continued. He waved a hand that showed calluses in places that didn’t look normal and modern to Clare.
The box is in there; you must get it.

“Oh, no, I won’t.” But now she was close, she saw it was an auction house. She scanned the hours posted on the window and the flyer for the next auction.

It is in THERE!

Clare headed back to the car. “The next sale is tomorrow night. The place lists a website. We can look for your box there.”

The ghost appeared confused.

“I’m heading back home. You can stay or go.”

He walked into the building—as did Enzo—and Clare sighed with relief. She didn’t admit that she missed the dog on the way back through weird white-shadowed Denver.

But both dog and man awaited her in her living room. Her shoulders slumped.

I saw the box!
Enzo panted, drool as usual falling and not hitting her shabby rug.

I will see you tomorrow night.
Lines grooved in the apparition’s forehead.
This costs me much energy, but to be free, I will do anything. Promise me you will get the box!

Enzo barked,
You need to do this Clare. For yourself and for him. HE is your first project! PROMISE HIM!
For the first time, that Other spirit she sensed also inhabited Enzo’s body came to the fore, looked at her with dark, dark fog moving in the eye sockets, thundered in her mind.

Clare reeled back at the blast of cold, and hit the closed door.

PROMISE
, they shouted together—or her own mind insisted.

“I promise,” she said weakly, shivering.

The man vanished.

She went into the tiny second bedroom that held her ruthlessly organized home office, complete with a new computer. Enzo followed, circled and circled again, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were all innocent dog. Then he stared at the notebook.

I know that toy! It shows pictures and places. Let’s look now!

Dragging up a chair, they found the auction house’s website. There was a lot of antique furniture, some in excellent shape that made Clare’s mouth water—but Aunt Sandra’s house had just sold. Clare’s brother was supervising closing it up and dividing the furniture. Clare could expect a truck with her share within the week. Other trucks would go to her brother in Williamsburg, Virginia, and a storage unit in New York.

Rubbing her eyes, which seemed to do nothing but move around grit, Clare zipped through the photos until Enzo barked.
I see it!

Clare stared at it dubiously: a puzzle box made of plum wood of unknown origin and date. It didn’t look like much. Pretty battered. At least she might be able to get it cheap. She wrote down all the information, turned off the computer, and trudged to bed, accompanied by the imaginary dog. She should get a real one.

Maybe. When she was sane again.

Enzo looked up at her sorrowfully.
You still don’t believe in me.

Clare opened her mouth and shut it, then said, “Not really.”

He shook his head and for an instant he didn’t look like the image of a dog, but a skeleton dog. . . . She wrapped her arms around herself.

Only a little bit of you believes in me. That is not enough, Clare.

The echo behind his voice scared her, as if he were once again more . . . or less . . . than a dog . . . spirit.

She got back into her nightgown, folded her comforter—doubling, then quartering the queen-sized cloth—turned off the lights and curled under the cover.

Enzo blinked down at her, head through the comforter and sheet.
You aren’t doing good.

What do you mean?
Clare
thought
back at him, feeling drained of energy herself.

Enzo cocked his head as if listening, then drooped a little and said,
If you don’t accept your gift that you can see ghosts, then you will die. And if you accept that you see them but don’t help them, you can go crazy
.

Clare sobbed. Exactly what she’d always feared—madness.

 • • • 

The next morning, Clare couldn’t throw off the night fears, or the fact that she’d made a really odd promise to something that might be an aspect of herself.

Her great-aunt’s death had shaken her, for sure.

But a promise was a promise. Since her parents had casually made and broken so many, she made a habit of keeping all of hers. Even promises to herself—a hot fudge sundae if she said no to overwork, for instance.

Now she had no work, but
destiny
had rung in her mind and reverberated throughout her body.

And to remind herself of her promise, she took Aunt Sandra’s perfume spritzer and sprayed scent on her neck and wrists . . . and sniffed. It wasn’t too heavy. Tears welled in Clare’s eyes at the fragrance of sandalwood, tuberose, wild berries . . . she’d looked up the mixture once. That dark and mysterious fragrance that meant “Aunt Sandra” to Clare, in all her weird kindness. The perfume that meant
Gypsy
to Aunt Sandra.

Clare gulped, shook the thought away, and moved on. She decided to buy a larger house, move to one of the more charming areas of Denver. She’d always liked the ambiance of Cheesman Park, but
nothing
would get her there now. She completely dismissed that idea. Everyone knew Cheesman Park had been a graveyard, and when they’d added the parking garage to the Botanic Gardens they’d found more graves.

Even if she didn’t believe in ghosts, she didn’t want to be in an area with a lot of dead people that was right in the time period now haunting her. . . . She did a quick check on her tablet computer. Yes, burials at Cheesman began in 1858. No way, nohow was she moving there.

Much of the Capitol area and LoDo had been built in that time period. Then there was the area around the Molly Brown house, but most residential homes around it had been demolished.

Looked like she’d be going to the Western floor of the Denver Public Library after all, just to find out what area might be . . . safe. And—she nerved herself at the thought—she might have to put in some hours driving around the city to find out where she could live. Even the suburbs and the plains might be touchy—Indians roved and camped on the plains.

Yes, she’d be doing some research.

With a huff of breath, she admitted she might as well research the vision of the man.

She needed to move fast since even at a high-end price, Sandra’s house had been snapped up. Clare could put the items she wanted in her new house, instead of the storage area she’d planned. Finding a home would be a project to take her mind off her poor mental health.

She felt better after the decision. She’d always prided herself on her quick decision making—unlike the rambling conversations of her parents discussing all their options that had driven her crazy in her childhood.

Just one of those personality traits she didn’t share.

She figured out exactly how much she wanted to spend on a house and had made a list of three columns: one of things she MUST have, like a landscaped yard; one with the features she’d prefer; and the last, “extras.”

Before heading off to the library, she organized her briefcase with pen and paper, tablet computer, and her new top-of-the-line smart phone. This time she called a cab to drive her downtown. She wouldn’t have to deal with traffic, parking, or apparitions who got in her way.

Or handle any imaginary figment other than Enzo, who ran through the house and the door of the cab, barking all the way.

Clare gritted her teeth. She would
not
talk to him, no matter what outrageous thing he said.

So, where are we going? Are we going to find the ghost man? We are going back into the city? I LIKED the city. Will the ghost man be there? Those remnants of ghost squirrel energy are YUMMY! Will you take me to the park again, huh, huh?

I AM GOING TO THE LIBRARY FOR THE REST OF THE MORNING. YOU CAN PLAY IN THE PARK!
she “shouted” mentally.

Hurt doggie eyes. He turned and seemed to look out the window. She
wouldn’t
feel guilty.

Once inside the clean and organized library with exceedingly helpful librarians, Clare felt more in control. Since the fifth floor housed the genealogical section as well as the Western collection, there were more people there on a weekday morning than she’d anticipated.