Medium Rare: (Intermix) (13 page)

Skag sighed. “More or less. All families have specialties. Your family is better than most at combating the Old Ones, the spirits that have turned demonic.”

“You think a demonic spirit sent the hellhounds and the ravens?”

“Possibly.”

“Does that mean we’re up against something very powerful?”

Skag sighed. “Probably. A ghost that’s become demonic can amass a great deal of power if it’s been around long enough. Particularly if it’s been absorbing human souls.”

Rose shivered. “What can we do to protect ourselves?”

“At the moment, not much beyond warding the house against them. Let me investigate further. I’ll see if I can pinpoint the particular spirit in question and find out more about its nature.”

Rose walked through her living room, which now resembled a well-furnished tomb, at least in terms of light. “Any chance I could take off the shutters for a while?”

“Only if you’re ready to put them back up again as soon as the sun goes down.” He floated into his usual chair. “Anyway, I don’t know why you’d want to remove them. They give the room a certain cachet.”

“Right. Sort of early Addams Family.” She pulled the salt box out of the pantry, then went to the back door. A quick check showed more obsidian and more nails.

Busy ladies, her grannies. The enemies, whoever they were, must have been formidable.

Rose pushed the weather stripping aside and poured salt across the threshold in a thin line. Behind her, Helen made a grumbling sound.

“Don’t give me that. If you can appear magically on my front porch when some kind of supreme big-bad is trying to turn me into hamburger, a pile of salt shouldn’t bother you that much.”

She closed the door and headed back toward the front, passing Skag as she moved through the living room.

“Have you checked Locators’ e-mail lately?” he asked. “We could use a new job or two. Delwin’s taking more of your time than I anticipated.”

Rose poured more salt into the front doorjamb, then closed the door and headed for the study. “Realistically, I doubt that Evan Delwin is going to seriously affect the business, but you’re right. We should be working.”

She typed in her screen-saver password, then navigated to her mailbox at Locators. Autumn Patrick’s name was at the top of the list of incoming mail. “Good for you, Autumn,” she murmured.

“Something?” Skag raised an eyebrow as she entered the living room again.

“Something.” She held up the printout of Autumn’s message.

He skimmed the pages, then sighed. “Straightforward. Routine. In other words, dull. I was rather hoping for something more challenging.”

“We’ll take what we can get. Besides, we’ve got an extra interest here. Autumn and her sister were at the last séance with Alana DuBois.”

His brow wrinkled slightly. “Really. She suddenly takes on a great deal more interest.”

“I thought you might see it that way. Can you locate her late husband?”

He shrugged. “Probably. I doubt he’ll be in my favorite haunts, so to speak, but he’s recently departed, so he should still be hanging around. I’ll try to track him down by tomorrow.”

“Good. When you find him, ask him where he put the baseball. And if he put it in a safety deposit box, ask him how Autumn is supposed to get into it—get the location of the key and any passwords involved if you can.”

“I think I know the business by now, Rose.” Skag’s voice was dry.

She ignored him. “I’ll e-mail Autumn with the usual deal—flat rate, results guaranteed, yadda, yadda. Except . . .” She bit her lip. “I’ve got to figure out how to get the results to her without letting her know I’m involved.”

“I fail to see why your involvement would be a problem.”

“Evan Delwin told her about Locators yesterday while we were interviewing Autumn and her sister. She thinks I’m his assistant. If she finds out I’m head of the company, she’ll think it’s a scam.”

Skag’s boredom disappeared. “Delwin knows about our enterprise?”

She shook her head. “Not about you. At least, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know about you. He knows it’s my company. He recognized the phone number.”

“How very interesting. Delwin continues to surprise me. It must have something to do with his genetic heritage.”

“Genetic heritage?” She raised an eyebrow. “He’s descended from a long line of investigative reporters?”

Skag shook his head. “He’s descended from the Great Dell, one of the better magicians of the last fifty years. In fact, Delwin’s father gave every indication of developing into one of the greatest of the century. Too bad his career was cut short.”

Rose shivered. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to ask. “What happened to him?”

“He was killed in an onstage accident. Performing one of the most dangerous tricks in his repertoire. Apparently, Dell’s timing was off, or his assistant’s was. At any rate, he was killed in front of a crowd of several thousand in one of the larger Las Vegas casinos.”

Rose winced. “That’s horrible.”

He shrugged. “That’s show business. However, it may have given our Mr. Delwin his surprising distaste for the magical.”

“Mr. Delwin is nothing if not surprising.”

He ground out his cigarette. “So I’ve noticed. As it happens, however, I despise surprises.”

The doorbell sounded deep within the house. Skag narrowed his eyes. “That should be Mr. Surprising now. Maybe I’ll go off and search for Clint Patrick.”

“Evan?” She shook her head. “It can’t be Evan. He wouldn’t come back so soon. You saw his expression last night.”

Skag gave her a flat look. “Yes. I also saw the way he looked at you earlier in the evening. Believe me, Rose, he’s back.”

Her cheeks turned warm. “Oh, go find a spirit or two.”

He chuckled as he began to fade. “I live to serve. Figuratively speaking, of course. Keep your eyes open, Rose, Delwin is proving to be very tricky.”

She watched him fade into nothingness, then headed toward the insistent sound of the doorbell. “Maybe Delwin isn’t the only tricky one around here.”

Chapter 14

Rose opened the door to find Evan on her doorstep. “You came back.”

The corners of his mouth edged up. “Wasn’t I supposed to?”

“Sure. I mean, of course. It’s just, well, after last night, I didn’t know if you . . . ,” her voice trailed off.
Babbling, Rose. Stop babbling.

He narrowed his eyes. “You mean you didn’t know if I’d be willing to come back to a house that was like something out of Hitchcock? Don’t worry about it. It’ll take more than an attack by crazed ravens to scare me off. We Delwins come from hardy stock.”

She heard a whir of wings behind her. Lenore had arrived.

His eyes widened in disbelief. “There’s a raven on your banister.”

She sighed.
Of course he can see her.
“That’s one of the things I like about you, Evan. Your swift grasp of the essentials.”

He shook his head, as if he were trying to clear it. “What the hell, Rose? Is this one from last night? You rescued one?”

She nodded again. “She’s adopted me. Out of gratitude, I assume. Her name’s Lenore.”

Evan still looked slightly poleaxed. “It adopted you? I don’t even know what that means. Is it a pet? Where did it come from? How did it get here?”

Rose pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know exactly, to tell you the truth. It just sort of showed up last night. And stayed.”

He shook his head slowly. “So now you’ve been adopted by a bird and a dog?”

“Yep. Probably an indication of my winning personality. At least as far as animals are concerned.” She turned back to the banister where a bright-eyed Lenore perched. “Lenore, this is Evan.”

“Moron,” Lenore chirped.

His eyes narrowed.

“Limited vocabulary, but it sometimes comes in handy.”

Evan’s expression turned thunderous. “Rose . . .”

She shook her head. “Evan, I don’t know. She’s here, and she seems to be staying. Just go with it, okay?”

He paused for a moment longer, then shrugged. But he didn’t look happy.

Rose headed back into the darkened living room. “As long as you’re here, could you help me open these shutters? I haven’t had a chance to see which windows need replacing yet.”

He helped her push the heavy shutters to the side. She grimaced, studying the amount of cracked glass underneath. She’d need a lot more Autumn Patricks to pay for all the repairs.

“Do you want to take these down now?” He glanced at the dusty shutters that blocked a significant amount of light.

She thought of the room as it used to be—cheery curtains, sunlight, the sound of birdsongs in the late afternoon.

The sound of bird bodies hitting the shutters at midnight.

“Not yet.” She turned toward the kitchen. “You want some coffee?”

“Why not? I feel like I might still be dreaming.”

She pulled a couple of mugs off the shelf as Helen padded into the kitchen behind them. She settled at Evan’s feet, leaning against his leg. Lenore arrived with a rustle of feathers and perched on the chair next to him, regarding him thoughtfully.

“What’s with these animals?” He raised an eyebrow as she passed him a mug of coffee. “Are they like guard dogs? Do they think I’m going to lift the silver?”

She shrugged. “They don’t look like they have any doubts about you. I’d guess they’re bonding.”

He regarded Lenore with narrow eyes. “Terrific. Is she housebroken?”

“No idea. She’s a new arrival, remember?”

Lenore cocked her head to the side, then began preening her feathers, supremely unimpressed.

“Did you have a reason for coming around today? Or did you just want to make sure I was still alive?”

His lips spread in a lazy grin. “Well, yeah, there’s that. I’d miss you if you weren’t around, Rosie.”

She decided to ignore that slight fluttering in her chest and press on. “Okay, nice to know. But today you’re here because . . .”

“Because I’ve got a couple of leads I want to pursue, and I need your help.”

She told herself she was definitely not disappointed. “What’s up?”

“I found out where Augie Garcia holds his séances. I want to get into the one this weekend.”

She shook her head. “He’d never let you. Not even if I asked him. Not after the last time you were there. He’d figure you were going to turn him in for code violations or something.”

“I don’t need Garcia’s permission—I just need to get in. After I’ve seen one, maybe I can make a guess about what happened to Alana DuBois. At least I’ll have an idea about what she did when she was being a medium.”

She set down her cup with a clink. “Oh, you are
so
not going without me. If you go, I go.”

One corner of Evan’s mouth inched up again. “To tell you the truth, I hadn’t been planning on going to this thing alone.”

She blew out a breath. “Oh.”

Rose leaned back in her chair, glancing out the kitchen window at the evening shadows. Another cloudless sky, which of course meant nothing. Every day had started cloudless before the fog came rolling in at night. She shivered. Maybe she
should
stay home and let Evan handle things, particularly after dark.

Stay home and let the skeptic check the séance for clues?
Oh, yeah, great idea, Rose.

“Is it tonight?”

He shook his head. “They hold them on the weekends. Probably tomorrow or Saturday. I figure two of us might get in easier than I would alone—less suspicious that way. Makes it look like we’re on a date.”

Rose felt her heartbeat skip. A date with Evan? Well, it wasn’t the worst idea she’d heard lately. “How do we book some seats?”

“Call the Nightmare. Autumn said they made reservations over the phone, and then they paid when they got there. If Augie won’t let us in as ourselves, we can try booking under other names, assuming nobody at the séance knows you.”

Her heart thumped again. “Why would people at a séance know anything about me?”

He gave her a curious look. “Because there might be people there from the Nightmare.”

“Oh. Right.”
Steady, Rosie.
She blew out a breath, then shot a warning glance in Helen’s direction as she eyed Evan’s shoelaces. “Maybe I should wear a disguise.”

A long silence stretched between them suddenly. She was uncomfortably aware that he was studying her.

“Maybe so,” he drawled. “You did a great job of disguising yourself the first time I met you. Complete with glasses.”

The hard shine of his eyes made her want to duck. But dealing with Skag had at least taught her to defend herself from sarcasm.

“I thought you’d want to hire somebody who looked like a librarian. No big deal—just professional clothes. I do dress like that sometimes. And I wear the glasses now and then.”
Although not since Halloween.

“Yeah, I can see where it might be an advantage to be inconspicuous.” His eyes warmed for a moment. “You’re pretty memorable.”

She dropped her gaze to her hands again, feeling the flush spread to her ears. She really hoped that was a compliment.

He pushed his cup away, sighing. “Okay. It’s a deal. I’ll call them later, give them a couple of fake names, and then we’ll see what happens.”

“I know somebody else who might be able to tell us about Alana DuBois.”

“Who?”

“William Bradford. He might at least be able to tell us if he remembers her. If he remembers Sylvia Morris, that is.”

He grimaced. “Somehow I don’t think Bradford’s likely to talk about Alana or Sylvia. She was going to give me the goods on him, remember?”

“But wouldn’t you like to hear Bradford’s version?”

“I’d love to hear Bradford’s version, but I’m not going to get it. I’ve tried to get appointments to interview him before. He’s not particularly eager to talk to me. His staff sent me copies of interviews he’s done with other writers—ones who were more inclined to accept his view of reality.”

She shrugged. “He probably knows your reputation. But he doesn’t know me. Maybe he’d be willing to talk to me about his childhood.”

Evan shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I’m not all that interested in interviewing Bradford anymore. He’s been interviewed lots of times—he’s a pro. You want his biography, I’ll give you a copy, with a nice glossy cover. I don’t figure either of us could get anything new from him. What I’d really like is one of those private sessions he does, the consultations. That’s where he makes his real money.”

“How much does a consultation cost?”

“I don’t know exactly. Depends on the person, and the amount of time they spend with him. As I understand it, the starting fee is a thousand.”

“Dollars?” Rose stared at him. It appeared that she’d been seriously underpricing Locators’ services.

He grimaced. “Yes, dollars. What else would he be paid in? Goats?”

“If he won’t do an interview with you, chances are he also won’t set up a private consultation with you, either.”

“No kidding.”

“But again, he wouldn’t know me.”

Evan shook his head. “No way. If I don’t go to the séance by myself, you sure as hell aren’t doing a consultation by yourself. Besides, I need to be there to see how it goes down.”

“I could record it.”

He shook his head again. “It wouldn’t be the same. I need to see Bradford in action to know how he’s handling the questions.”

“Assumed names again?”

“Works for me.”

“Okay.” She frowned. “How do I go about setting something up? Call for an appointment?”

He shrugged. “The only way I’ve seen it done is at Bradford’s shows. His assistants hang around afterward and talk to people who want Bradford to give them a consult.”

“So we need to go to Bradford’s show again?”

“Again?”

The word fell into the silence of the room like a stone. Her shoulders clenched tight.
Oops.

“You’ve seen Bradford’s show?” Evan raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head quickly. “I haven’t, but you have. You told me so.” Actually, she wasn’t sure he had, but it sounded reasonable.

He didn’t look entirely convinced. “I did?”

“The first day. When you told me about investigating Bradford. Anyway, should I check his schedule? It’s usually posted on his Web site. I think he’s still in town.” She really hoped she didn’t sound as guilty to him as she did to herself.

He nodded slowly. “Sure. Check it out. We can go tonight if he’s doing one.”

Fortunately, Bradford was doing one. “I can reserve the tickets online. What name should I use?”

“How about Rose Riordan? And guest.”

She paused, her fingers poised over the keyboard. An unpleasant shiver passed down her spine.

“What? Do people know you by that name?”

“No. I guess that’ll be okay.” She typed quickly before she could change her mind. Silly to be superstitious about a name. Bradford wouldn’t have heard of it. “Reservations for two—should I use my credit card?”

He gave her a dry smile. “Don’t worry, Rosie, I’ll reimburse you.”

“Always good to know.” If that was the only thing she had to worry about she’d be in excellent shape.

***

The theatre hadn’t improved any from the last time Evan had seen it. In fact, he’d have been willing to bet the theatre hadn’t been cleaned from the last time he’d seen it. Sighing, he settled into the unforgiving wooden seat. Beside him, Rose wiggled her bottom slightly, trying to get comfortable.

Thinking about Rose Ramos’s bottom was no way to get comfortable himself, of course.

She glanced down at the small index card the usher had given her to fill out. “What name are you going to use?”

He gave her a dry look. “I was thinking about Harry Houdini, or maybe Harry P. Ness, as an homage to Alana’s last séance.”

She shook her head. “If you want me to get an appointment for the two of us, you’d better at least make an attempt to play it straight.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

She glowered.

“Okay, okay, I’ll use my mom’s maiden name, Evan Anton.”

The rest of the questions were strictly cold reading standbys—what particular concerns did they have and who were they hoping to reach on the Other Side. At the bottom of the card was a discrete final word:
Are you seeking a private consultation?

He watched Rose print
Yes
in the space provided. His glance strayed to the question about names on the Other Side. She’d written
Alana DuBois
.

Evan cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

She shrugged. “I figure the worst that can happen is that they’ll ignore me.”

One of Bradford’s assistants came by with a basket for the cards. He was tall, blond and muscular, sort of a Hitler Youth type. Rose gave him a sunny smile, which he returned a bit uncertainly.

“Will Mr. Bradford arrive soon? I’m so anxious to see him.”

Adolf shrugged. “Only a few more minutes now.”

“Good. Does Mr. Bradford actually read our cards? Doesn’t that take him a long time?”

He gave Rose a bland look. “Mr. Bradford doesn’t see your cards at all. We ask you to write these things down in order to focus your thoughts on your loved ones. That way, Mr. Bradford can reach them.” He sounded as if he’d delivered that speech before.

“I hope he can help me.” She gave him another brilliant smile.

“I’m sure he’ll try.” Adolf was already climbing the steps to the other seats. Clearly the man had no functioning hormones.

Evan, whose hormones were just fine, thank you, blew out a quick breath. “What was that all about?”

She gave him the same sunny smile. “Just trying to be memorable, Evan.”

As far as he was concerned, she was already way too memorable for comfort. But maybe it was a good idea to get the attention of the assistants. Who knew who made the final decisions about appointments here?

The crowd shifted slightly in anticipation as the lights went down a few degrees in the theatre. The audience was still visible, but stage lights would highlight Bradford. Showtime!

After a moment, Bradford walked briskly to the leather chair in the middle of the stage. He smiled, transforming himself from a faintly brutish man to a more innocuous one.

“Good evening. Thank you, my friends, for being here. Tonight we may hear from friends on the Other Side. Or we may hear nothing. They’ll choose whether they want to speak to us. We can only open ourselves to the possibilities and let them come in. I’m sure they have much to say. They always have much to say.”