Ghost Seer (6 page)

She plunked her leather bag that contained the books on Jack Slade next to a comfy old wing chair and sank into it, a little hungry but too weary to eat.

Enzo sat in front of her looking like an old black-and-white photograph. He scratched his ear with his hind leg. All right, an early silent movie.

I did not like any of those houses, Clare. The ghosts were not friendly.

Ignoring that she didn’t believe in ghosts, she pulled the knitted afghan from over the chair and pulled it around her. Weird. The house should be hot.

Clare, are you listening to me?

Sleepy, she muttered, “You’ve been talking all darn day.” Even when she’d been focused on Zach, Enzo’s comments had buzzed in her mind, not that she recalled them much.

I LIKE Zach Slade. He smells right!

Oh, yeah, Enzo had said that, had danced around the table, had checked out the guy—well, she had, too.

Jackson Zachary Slade wasn’t her usual sort, obviously more of a physical guy; just the way he moved showed that, even with the cane. She did like looking at his shoulders—hair a little longer and shaggier than she normally preferred, but it had looked good on him. His hair appeared silky, and black with tints of dark brown. He had strong features with prominent cheekbones and a skin tone that could indicate that trace of Native American blood he said he had. His eyes were a changeable blue-green, and the heat in those eyes as he looked at her had her own blood dancing a Gypsy beat.

A sexy, interesting guy who’d listened to her, and, even better, liked what he saw in her.

There’d been an enticing physical attraction, a hum in the air that promised heat.

Smiling, she wiggled a little and pulled the afghan over her shoulders, eyes nearly closed before she realized a pair of translucent gray trouser legs stood before her chair and she jolted awake, clutching the blanket close.

There he was again: Jack Slade, looking enough like the drawing to be identified by it. Which was rather interesting because the portrait hadn’t been completely verified as the man.

“Jack Slade,” she said.

He made a short bow.

“I met someone with a name like yours today.”

The ghost bridled.
What?

“His name is Jackson Slade.” Now that she could compare them, the current Jackson Zachary Slade didn’t look a bit like the vision her imagination painted before her.

My name
, said the ghost,
is Joseph Albert Slade
, but his expression turned softer, sorrowful.
My lovely wife never bore a child; I never fathered one.
The shadows darkened in his eye sockets.
I don’t believe much of the Slade line in Illinois persisted, either.
He waved a hand, as if that were unimportant, as if anything other than his own personal problems were unimportant.

“Did you kill Jules Beni?”

Jack’s smile was fierce, showing a white gleam of teeth. He ran his fingers over his pocket-watch chain, then put his hand over one of the areas of his torso that showed the lead that had remained inside him. Jules Beni had been the one to ambush and shoot Jack.

“Did you kill Jules Beni?” Her voice was shriller than she liked, but her throat was colder.

N
O.
THE APPARITION
shrugged.
I put a reward, dead or alive, on Beni’s head. The money was considerably more for him alive. My men killed him. He was dead when I got to the Cold Springs stage station.

“Much of your life is nothing but legend,” Clare murmured, flipping mentally through the facts, trying to figure out what next she’d ask him to satisfy her curiosity.

You promise you will get the box tonight?
he insisted.

Her mind went to how much money she had. A fortune. She should easily obtain the box. “Yes.”

Good. We will talk later, then.
A brief smile from him had her nearly smiling in return. The gunman was not an incredibly handsome man, but not an ugly guy by any means. “There’s no need to bother on my account,” she said.

But he’d vanished and the cold diminished, and she tilted sideways in her chair. Surely she’d dreamed that visitation? Dreamed them all?

Maybe.

She hoped.

 • • • 

Zach could have stopped the gentle steamrolling of Barbara Flinton, but the old woman was as soothing as Clare Cermak had been exciting—as soon as he’d firmly stopped any talk about woo-woo stuff from Mrs. Flinton.

As he listened to her stories, her persuasion that she
needed
the antiques that were being offered that night at the auction house, his own past rose. No, he didn’t think he’d ever find out what happened to his brother, Jim, and that would be a continuing ache.

But he could make sure that no one conned this old lady.

And he convinced her to listen to him that night at the auction, even as she pressed him to “just take a peek” at the apartment she had vacant. “Perfect for a young man like you, with a separate entrance so you can have private visitors.” She winked at him.

He figured that Rickman had probably put a security cam over that entrance, especially if no one was using the apartment now.

When her driver texted that traffic was beginning to pick up and they should end their tea, Zach paid for the meal and helped Mrs. Flinton into the hired Mercedes, then gave in to her entreaties to go home with her. His car was safe in a parking garage, and he sure didn’t want to fight rush hour—rush
three
hours—to head north out of the city, especially since he’d only have to turn right around and come back for the auction.

The car pulled into a quiet circular drive in Cherry Creek North and parked. Yee came around to help Mrs. Flinton out and hand her the walker, then told her when he’d return to pick her up for the auction.

Yee met Zach’s eyes above the car when he exited the other side and gave him a brief nod. Apparently this guy, Mrs. Flinton’s regular driver from the hired car company, approved of Zach, too.

Zach returned the nod, then stilled as he saw the house—the mansion. The rough-cut stone was gray with occasional flecks of silver winking in the sun, and the fence at the side of the house showed silver-tipped iron spears. Something inside him just surrendered and accepted he’d be living here.

Hunches were one thing—cops and deputies ran on those—but not many of them, including him, believed much in fate.

He scanned the whole area—the drive that wended between stone pillars, huge front yard, portico porch, front walk, and smooth pathway to a side door under a carriage light. No crows.

Keeping pace with a spry Mrs. Flinton, he followed her to the portico and they mounted the three steps of the stone porch at the same time and the wide wooden front door opened.

The woman who looked at Zach might have been as old as Mrs. Flinton, but appeared a lot more solid, muscle and fat. Her gray-shot-with-blond hair lay in a braid around her head; her pale blue gaze lingered on his cane. “Well, come on in, Barbara. Bet you’re pleased with yourself; tea at the Brown Palace!” the woman said in a Minnesota-accented voice.

“I only had one glass of champagne, Bekka,” said Mrs. Flinton in a virtuous tone.

It had been more like one and a half before Zach had taken the glass away when she’d confided she was on a limited alcohol regimen.

“And I’ve brought home a tenant.” Mrs. Flinton stopped moving and gestured from herself to Zach to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Rebecca Magee, may I introduce Zachary Slade—”

Zach tensed a little to see if his last name meant anything to the new woman; it didn’t seem to, nor had Mrs. Flinton commented on it, so only Clare had made a connection with the old gunfighter.

Mrs. Magee nodded and Zach nodded back.

“Mrs. Magee is a friend who takes care of the house and me.” Mrs. Flinton beamed. “We’re Barbara and Bekka.”

Mrs. Magee snorted, narrowing her eyes at him as her gaze swept him up and down, then she switched her focus back to Mrs. Flinton. “Tony Rickman called and told me about him. I’ve freshened up his suite.”

“Good, good.” Mrs. Flinton picked up her walker and got moving again, though she slid a glance at him. “Zach’s going with me to the auction tonight.”

A louder snort, and the housekeeper stepped back, holding the door wide open. “Finally, someone with sense.”

“You told Tony on me.” That sounded like an often-repeated line to Zach.

He followed Mrs. Flinton as she sailed into her huge mansion. Eyeing her walker, he figured she could give lessons in movement to him.

And it occurred to him that he might think of other lessons—like visiting a dojo and relearning some moves—and a whole range of attacks and defenses featuring a cane. He’d have to buy stronger orthopedic shoes, dammit.

He got a tour of the first floor of the house . . . a little echoey as only three sets of footsteps moved around in the big place.

Then Mrs. Magee showed him the apartment that was part of the original building but had been the housekeeper’s. He glanced at her. “Where do you live?”

She smiled smugly. “In the old carriage house.” She flicked a hand toward the back of the building. “Not on site.” Her smile turned warmer when she looked at Mrs. Flinton. “Barbara is nice, but the late Mr. Flinton . . .” She shook her head.

Abuse? Zach’s face hardened. Mrs. Flinton put her hand on his arm. “No, no, nothing like that. Just a demanding man who didn’t sleep much.”

Mrs. Magee drew herself to her full height, about five inches shorter than his six feet, four inches, fixed a stare on him, and crossed her arms. “I am not available for meals at two in the morning. Even if I work here.”

Zach shrugged, gestured to the counter of the small Pullman kitchen. “I can cook.”

The housekeeper sniffed. “We have breakfast at seven
A.M.
, lunch at twelve thirty, and dinner at five thirty.”

“You’ll make enough for three, Bekka,” Mrs. Flinton said firmly. “Just put the leftovers in the main kitchen fridge for Zach. He’s a private investigator and will have unusual hours.”

Not as bad as cop hours, Zach was sure. And since he wasn’t starting a new job in the public sector—and, yeah, that still stung—he wouldn’t be low man on the totem pole and have to take graveyard shift.

“Like this evening,” Mrs. Magee said. She flapped her hands at Mrs. Flinton. “Shoo. Go take a rest, you were up at five this morning.”

Mrs. Flinton pouted again and stumped out, her walker hitting the gleaming hardwood floors loudly with each step.

“Does she need help up the stairs?” Zach asked, before he realized
again
that he walked with a cane.

“Elevator down the hall,” Mrs. Magee said, then gestured at the apartment. “Look around, it’s furnished.” Her slightly protuberant blue eyes considered him once more. “And though Mrs. Flinton might consider this a done deal, I know you have to agree, too.” Her lips pursed, went in and out. “I think you’d be good for her, for us. We usually like to have a man in the house.” She whisked from the doorway down the wide hallway.

“As long as he doesn’t want meals at two
A.M.
,” Zach said.

Mrs. Magee stopped and glanced over her shoulder, smiling. “Exactly.”

As soon as she turned a corner into the back of the house, Zach closed the door that separated the apartment from the rest of the house. And realized his leg ached like fury.

Leaning on his cane, he scanned the large main room, getting the idea that a guy had lived in it not too long ago. The colors seemed too neutral for a woman. He wondered a little about Clare Cermak. She had that contradictory thing going . . . the bold Eastern European name . . . he wondered if he could do a little research on her . . . and the cool and tidy accountant manner. He could see her in red . . .

Picking his feet up carefully as he reached a faded but thick oriental rug—with fringe, for God’s sake—Zach half fell onto the lushly cushioned leather couch. The audiovisual system was bad: small screen, only about twenty inches, old recording components. The place sounded quiet enough for him, no sense of a large and busy city,
that
was good . . . if he stayed . . .

His cell rang and he took it out of his jacket pocket, saw it was Rickman. “Slade.”

“I’ve got a little information from the auction house on the con man. And he
is
a con man.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Name is Lawrence Whistler, or current alias. The guy told our local auction company, Compass, which has a good rep, that he is from Massachusetts and handed them an auctioneer’s license and names of references. He just wanted to use their space on the way to the West Coast to set up his own place. Paid them a fee for storage of his stuff and asked to put his items on consignment in this auction.”

Zach made a disgusted noise. “They believed all that?”

“The license was from one of the schools the local auctioneers went to. I followed up on that; no guy by the name of Lawrence Whistler ever attended. The phone numbers of the references checked out when the auctioneer called them a couple of weeks ago—they aren’t so good right now.”

“Huh. I can just tell Mrs. Flinton that Whistler didn’t check out.”

Stretching, Zach put the cell on the thick padded arm of the couch, leaned down and kneaded at his sore leg, clenching his teeth with pain as he massaged around his ankle.

“That won’t work,” Rickman said. Zach could visualize the man shaking his head. “Aunt Barbara will believe only what she wants to believe, and she really wants these antiques to be her family’s. She’ll insist on going to the auction, maybe even confronting the asshole. Your job isn’t done.”

Zach grunted, then decided that a phone call needed more than a sour expression, like words. “All right.”

“Keep Aunt Barbara away from Whistler. We don’t know who he is or whether he’ll get violent if the deal goes bad.”

“Right.”

“And walk in with that cop arrogance, use that cop gaze on him.”

“What?”

“You know what I mean. Your whole attitude is ‘cop.’ One of the reasons I hired you. Most of my men can really intimidate—you know they’re bad dudes the minute they step into a room—but you have the cop style. Better for scaring the crap out of some people.”

Zach laughed, and didn’t hear much bitterness lacing it.

“You
are
a deputy sheriff, a peace officer, Zach. You always will be.” A pause. “My business . . . and my guys need you.”

Zach’s mouth fell open. He had no doubt that Rickman had some ex–special forces men in his business. He respected those men—well, those not associated with his father, the Marine.

Silence hung, then he heard Rickman’s huffed breath. “Different approaches to problems. Just take care of Aunt Barbara tonight, all right?”

“You got it,” Zach said, and Rickman cut the call.

A hard ball of tangled emotions loosened a little in Zach’s chest, unraveled a little more. The first thread had come undone when Clare Cermak had looked at him with appreciation in her eyes for a man she might like to have sex with.

Now Rickman had actually said Zach was
needed
at a business.

Just as he was, bum leg and all.

He leaned back on the couch, letting the cushions prop him up. A thin gray line of exhaustion edged his vision. He didn’t want to nap, to fall asleep. To be lame.

Because if a healthy and well-functioning Jackson Zachary Slade could screw up his life so badly, what could a lame one do? Not only to himself, but others?

He let his eyes drift shut just for a few seconds.

And he was sucked back into the darkness of nightmares. Again.

 • • • 

Clare and Enzo were only a little early to the auction, about twenty minutes before the event took place, and more people than she expected milled around the room.

Enzo led her directly to the box and it looked even more scratched and battered than the picture on the website; not at all impressive.

This is Slade’s box!
Enzo sounded thrilled. He nosed at it, but the dampness on his muzzle didn’t smear the light yellow-tinged wood.
Touch it, and you will be able to tell!

“Yes?” she said doubtfully, then snuck a glance around to see if anyone had seen her talking to herself. So
hard
sometimes to not answer Enzo. Surely a box that had existed since before 1864—the year of Jack Slade’s death—should have looked more valuable. In fact, someone should have recognized it as more valuable. Apparently not.