Nightwalker (11 page)

Even in bed, she kept humming.

Like any private detective, Dillon had picked up a few tricks in his day.

And since Cheever had informed him that he didn’t have enough to go to the ADA and ask for a search warrant, Dillon had decided that he had to take matters into his own hands. In fact, Cheever had said, “It’s nuts. Cops have to follow certain rules and the public doesn’t. Some things just suck.”

Dillon had taken that to mean that Cheever was all for him doing a few things that skirted the wrong side of the law.

Limos were often sitting just outside the entrances of the various hotels and casinos, awaiting the pleasure of some newly flush high roller.

But a walk along the Strip showed him that neither the Sun nor the Big Easy currently had its latest-model white super-stretch out front. A few casual questions to the right people elicited the information that both limos were at a garage for maintenance. Interesting coincidence, that.

A few more questions gave him the name of the garage each casino used. The same name both times. Another interesting coincidence.

The garage wasn’t open when he swung by, not that he had expected it to be. It was surrounded by a high fence with a barbed-wire coil along the top, but it wasn’t electrified.

Two Dobermans guarded the premises instead.

After a quick stop at a nearby supermarket, he headed back to the garage. He opted to park on the road that ran behind the property, then dodged the traffic and crossed the median to reach the rear of the establishment. There, he waited for the dogs to appear. It wasn’t a long wait. He spoke to them as they approached, concentrating on the tone of his voice as he lured them over for the meat he’d purchased. He hadn’t drugged it; he was counting on his ability to befriend the dogs. He was patient, feeding them, talking to them. He slipped his hand through the wire, touching them, still reassuring them. Finally, he climbed the fence, crossing carefully over the barbed wire. One of the dogs started to snarl, but he spoke to it firmly, and the snarl became a whine. He patted both dogs as he walked slowly through the lot toward the garage itself, encouraging the animals to accompany him.

There was no alarm on the door to the garage itself, and the lock was easy to pick. The owners apparently had a lot of faith in their dogs. Then again, a garage wasn’t usually a prime target for thieves.

It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, but after that it was easy to find the two super-stretches. He was dismayed to see that both had just received new paint jobs. It was easy enough to identify which limo
went to which casino, though, thanks to the vanity plates.
Sun 1
and
Big E
were pretty damn obvious.

He wore thin plastic gloves, to keep his own prints out of the equation, just in case the limos become part of an investigation.

Neither one appeared to have been involved in the kind of accident that would have killed someone. The paint was fresh, but neither vehicle appeared to have had any bodywork done, not that he thought the murderer would have been sloppy enough to use the same vehicle twice.

A thorough inspection of the Sun’s limo yielded nothing. He was sure no obvious blood spill would have been left behind for the cops or anyone else to find, but he’d come prepared. A spray of Luminol and a small black light showed no signs of bloodshed, either.

It was possible, though, that the knife itself would have temporarily sealed the wound, but he searched thoroughly anyway. In the end, he found nothing, not only no blood, but no sign of bleaching to remove blood, either.

Lots of semen, though.

He moved on to the limo from the Big Easy.

Once again, both his first inspection and then a spray of Luminol showed nothing. Not a speck of blood, and no hint of bleaching. But as he ran his fingers along the upholstery next to the right-hand passenger door, he found something else, maybe something just as good.

It looked like a button from a designer shirt. He studied it in the narrow beam of his small flashlight and wondered if Tanner Green had been missing a button when he died. That would be easy enough to ascertain.
He pulled out his phone and took a quick picture of the button, then returned it to where he had found it.

One of the Dobermans was starting to whine.

Dillon quickly flicked off his light, then quietly stepped out of the limo and closed the door softly behind himself, as both dogs raced toward the door, which he had left slightly ajar.

Someone was coming in. He cursed himself for not having heard signs of movement earlier, but it seemed that whoever was arriving had come in as stealthily as he had himself.

He rolled under the BMW parked beside the limo, and did his best to look and sound like a slab of cement floor.

“Idiots left the door open,” a man noted irritably. “Fat lot of good you friggin’ dogs were doing, sleeping in here.”

Hugo Blythe, Emil Landon’s surviving bodyguard.

Dillon rolled again, moving from car to car, making his way toward the door—which, luckily, Blythe had also left open—as the other man made his way straight to the limo Dillon had just exited.

The dogs, thankfully, were following Blythe, tails tucked as they whined nervously. Apparently they knew the man. Maybe Emil Landon did business with the garage that went beyond having his vehicles serviced here. The dogs knew Hugo Blythe. And they didn’t love him, they feared him.

Mulling over the possible meanings of that knowledge, Dillon slipped under the car parked closest to the rear door and watched as Blythe entered the limo.

Then he made his escape.

He raced for the fence, scaled it quickly and had just leaped free of the barbed wire and landed hard, rolling to mitigate the impact, when he heard the first shot.

It was followed quickly by a second.

Blythe was running in his direction as he fired again.

Dillon sprang to a crouch and ran.

Luckily Blythe was lumbering and slow. Dillon made it to the road and crossed the flow of traffic. He was in his own car and rejoining the stream of traffic before Blythe ever made it to the fence.

Jessy became aware that she was dreaming somewhere in the middle of her dream.

She was back at the Sun, which was as crowded as always, and she was being chased. She was weaving through the crowd and between the tables, craps tables, poker tables, roulette tables. She was inside, but there was a low ground fog, which she knew was ridiculous. Fog didn’t rise inside. Fog was for outside.

Suddenly she—and the fog—were outside. Now she was being chased around a cemetery. But it wasn’t an ordinary cemetery. It was like Boot Hill. Old West cemeteries didn’t have fine marble markers. The crosses were wooden and primitively made, the graves surrounded by stones.

Sagebrush danced by in a breeze she couldn’t feel. The dust of the desert seemed to choke her, then die away in a fog that couldn’t—shouldn’t—be in such a dry place.

And from the distance, she could hear the buzzers and bells of the casino. She could see a poker table….

There were men around it, but something wasn’t
right about them. They weren’t real. They were part of the fog. And they were dressed in old railway frock coats and dusty old hats. She could hear the faint sound of a tinkly old-time piano.

She needed to stay away from the poker players; somehow she knew that. So she veered away, and then, though she was still in a cemetery, it wasn’t the one she had just run through but a Native American burial ground, where the dead had been placed high above the ground on wooden platforms, wrapped in their best furs, with their spears, arrows, quivers and buffalo-skin shields left to hang at their sides. The rows of scaffolds that marked the graves seemed to stretch on forever, but she was sure it was better to run between them than toward the poker players.

The mist rose around her, but it was thin enough that she could peer through it and see Dillon Wolf standing there, wearing a long black frock coat and somehow seeming to be one with the burial ground, the dead and the past.

She shook her head, because she didn’t want to be part of that world.

But she
did
want to touch him. She wanted to reach out and touch him, see the heated gaze of his eyes and feel the slow stroke of his hands on her skin. Despite the situation, the location, he wasn’t afraid, and she sensed that if she could find the courage to run to him, she wouldn’t be afraid, either. She would find security and more, because the light in his eyes was like a promise. Even then, even in a dream and surrounded by mist, she wanted to join him, to know his touch. She almost literally burned to move closer.

Yet something in her was still afraid. She didn’t quite have the courage to breach the chasm—of age, experience,
power
—that lay between them.

He was one with the mist, knew the souls that rested there.

And she was still being pursued.

She could hear men behind her, their voices growing louder as they drew closer, and though she didn’t know what they were saying, she knew that they represented a real and imminent danger.

They wanted her dead.

She turned away, too afraid to go forward, and angled to the west. She had to escape both the promise and the fear.

She heard a jingling, like spurs….

But when she looked back, the men coming after her were wearing suits and could have stepped off the floor of any of the casinos, except that their faces were shrouded by the eerie fog that continued to rise and thickened strangely to hide their features….

She turned in absolute terror to run again.

And then Timothy was standing right in front of her. “Trust in the ghost dancers!” he cried. His arms were open, as if to catch her in his safe embrace, and he looked as young and strong as he had been for so much of her life. He was a bastion of safety against the danger that was nipping at her heels. “The ghost dancers speak with the dead, and the dead will give them the answers they need. They see what was, and they can help stop what must never come to pass.”

“Timothy, there are no ghost dancers anymore,” she
told him. “They failed. The words they heard weren’t true, and they died as they tried to restore tribal control to their former lands.”

“You must listen, and listen well,” he went on, ignoring her outburst. “You must let yourself hear the truth. We must all hear what they are saying, not drown them out because of what we want to hear.”

She woke up abruptly.

Or did she?

Was she really awake? Or was she still trapped in her nightmare?

For there, sitting at the end of her bed, was a man.

A dead man.

Tanner Green.

She drew a gasping breath…and screamed.

“I
t’s all right; I got rid of him.”

Startled awake, Dillon blinked into the first pink stages of early-morning sunlight to see Ringo standing over him.

Dillon jerked to a sitting position. “Where the hell have you been? And…got rid of whom? What happened?”

Ringo perched at the foot of the bed, dusting off his hat on his knee and shaking his head in disgust. “Tanner Green. Was that guy really supposed to be some kind of scary bodyguard? Because he’s a pussy, a wuss, as you guys say these days. All I have to do is jingle my spurs and he’s gone.”

“I don’t want him to go away—I want to talk to him.”

“Oh yeah? Before or after he gives Jessy Sparhawk a heart attack?”

“Oh, hell. What happened, exactly?”

“He’s following her like some lovesick calf. He was just sitting in her room, and when she woke up and saw him, I thought she might have a coronary on the spot. So I stepped up. He disappeared. She blinked. Got up, made coffee, and sat in the living room staring at the television, only the television wasn’t on. After a while, the sun started coming up, and it seemed like she was all right, so I came back over here to tell you what was going on. Hey, did you hear about the guy who was killed in a hit-and-run? He worked at the Sun.”

“I know. And I know where the car Tanner Green
might
have been pushed out of
might
have come from
because
of the guy who was killed in that hit-and-run.”

Ringo swore softly. “So he was murdered?”

“I’d say so.”

“He told you about the car—and then he was killed.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. And I know you. It’s eating you alive, right?”

Dillon nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted. “But I don’t know whether the fact that he spoke to me had anything to do with it, or whether the killer already suspected he had seen something and might mention it to someone.” He sighed deeply and repeated, “I just don’t know.”

“But he gave you a clue on the car? At least there’s a start.”

“It was a limo. And I’m pretty sure I’ve been in it.”

“Well, you still seem to be all in one piece,” Ringo commented. “So—who killed Tanner Green?”

“I still don’t know, but it might have been someone
from the Big Easy. I need to find out more before I bring the cops in, or the evidence will be gone, and I won’t have enough so someone can be charged with a crime and hauled in.”

“So you found blood?” Ringo asked.

“No, but I found a button.”

“A button. Wow,” Ringo said sarcastically.

“My point exactly—I need more. And you need to get back over to Jessy’s place,” Dillon said, frowning. He wanted to get to the crime lab and find out if Tanner Green had been missing a button from his shirt.

“I’m a ghost,” Ringo reminded him.

“Yes, and…?” Dillon said dryly, returning the sarcasm.

“
You
need to get over to Jessy’s place.”

“Ringo, I’m worried about her, but I can’t go where I’m not wanted,” Dillon said. “Or at least not invited.”

“You’ve got to get that woman to talk to you,” Ringo said, looking at him seriously. “She’s…she could wind up in trouble. She could wind up being hurt.”

She could wind up being dead.

The thought rose silently between them.

A strong sense of unease swept through Dillon. “She didn’t know Tanner Green. She has nothing to do with what’s going on. And there would have been no reason for her to know Rudy Yorba, either.”

“Yes, but you’re convinced that Tanner Green said something to her before he died.”

“I know he did. I saw the tape.”

“Other people have seen that tape,” Ringo pointed out.

“Other people?
Cops.
Jerry Cheever can be a jerk, but I’d swear he’s an honest cop.”

“Maybe he is. But it’s a big police force. Someone else could be on the take. And there’s big money floating around this town. Most men have a price they’re willing to do just about anything for.”

Dillon was feeling worried enough about Jessy. He didn’t need Ringo giving him this guilt trip, especially when there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. He couldn’t force Jessy Sparhawk to see him. She’d only agreed to talk to him the first time to be polite. If he was too persistent, he might never get close to her.

“Call her,” Ringo said.

“Ringo, it isn’t 7:00 a.m. yet.”

“That would practically be lunchtime out on a ranch,” Ringo said.

“Well, this isn’t a ranch, this is Vegas, and I need you to get back over to her place. Now. Watch over her, Ringo. Somehow—today—I’ll find a way to see her. To make her trust me.”

“I’ll do my best,” Ringo said. “But…”

“But what?”

“I’m a dead man. She’s going to need flesh and blood to help her against the danger that’s out there now.”

Jessy sat in front of the television, shivering. She was even too afraid to go and take a shower.

She turned on the news, but she hardly paid any attention to the national news.

She was too busy wondering if she could somehow manage to get dressed, or if she would see another ghostly image and end up fleeing out the front door in her nightshirt and bare feet.

The local news drew her attention, though, when the picture of a gaunt young man filled the screen. She didn’t recognize him, but according to the newscaster his name was Rudy Yorba, and he was dead, the victim of a hit-and-run after he had left work two nights ago.

The news anchor went on to say that this particular crime was particularly troubling because the victim had been working for the Sun, the casino that had been the site of the murder of Tanner Green just one night earlier. The police were asking anyone with information that might pertain to the accident to call their local precinct.

There were no ghosts on the screen, just an anchor-man. And there didn’t seem to be any ghosts hanging around the house, either. Even so, she wanted to scream and go running from the house.

She stood up decisively. She had to get ready and get out. Get close to people. Lots of them.

She kept her eyes straight ahead as she hurried into her bedroom, gathered her clothing and locked herself in the bathroom. She soaped and rinsed in record time, then dried herself off furiously, brushed her hair and teeth, and managed a minimum of makeup.

Then she left the house in a rush.

She burst into Timothy’s building, then stopped to give herself a firm mental shake. Maybe she should have gone for therapy after what had happened. Maybe she was suffering from some kind of civilian post-traumatic stress disorder and that was why she kept seeing the dead man.

“You’re here early,” Jimmy, the orderly, said, smiling,
looking normal and reassuring in his scrubs. Seeing him, Jessy instantly felt as if the world was returning to normal.

“Yeah, I woke up early,” she said, “so I thought I’d have breakfast with Timothy.”

“Go on ahead. He’s in the breakfast room, sitting with Mrs. Teasdale.” Jimmy winked playfully.

She had to laugh. Her grandfather was quite the ladies’ man when he chose. “Thanks, I’ll go up.”

The television was on in the breakfast room, and the 8:00 a.m. news was on. She saw Rudy Yorba’s face on the screen again, with the anchor repeating the police request for anyone with information to call them.

Timothy saw Jessy as she approached the table and rose with a surprised smile. “Granddaughter. So early. It’s a delight to see you. You know Mrs. Teasdale, of course?”

“Of course. How are you, Mrs. Teasdale?” she asked.

Mrs. Teasdale had suffered a stroke, followed by a heart attack, but she’d worked like a trouper to walk and talk again, and she had done very well. She was immensely wealthy, but her family lived on the East Coast. They had tried to get her to move East to be nearer to them, but she had decided that she was never leaving the home. She and Timothy were great friends, and Jessy was pretty sure that “friendship” was behind the older woman’s decision.

“I’m fine, dear, but the news is just so distressing these days. That gangster or bodyguard, the other night…that was one thing. Live by the sword, die by the sword.” She waved a jeweled hand toward the TV. “But now this poor young fellow…He lived by parking cars, and he died
after being hit by a car. It’s not a totally accurate analogy, I suppose, but still, it’s awfully ironic. And sad.”

“It’s very sad,” Jessy agreed. “The police try very hard to crack down on drunk driving, but they can’t catch everyone.”

“People don’t listen,” Timothy said. “They don’t listen to the wind. There are signs, but no one pays attention.”

Jessy almost groaned aloud. If there was one day when she didn’t want to hear Timothy talk about ghost dancers or people in the walls or talking in the wind, it was today.

It would be better if her ghost
were
in the wall or drifting in the wind. But no,
her
ghost had to sit at the foot of her bed.

“Let’s not dwell on sad thoughts,” Mrs. Teasdale said. “How are you, Jessy? How’s that pirate show of yours going? Did Timothy ever tell you? I was a showgirl once.”

“Yes, Timothy told me,” Jessy said.

“I had a twin sister back then,” Mrs. Teasdale said wistfully, a sad smile curving her lips. “Serena. We were identical, but, oh, what fire she had! I went on to marry Roger—though, sadly, we had no children. Serena burned up the Strip all by her lonesome for another decade, then went on to marry and have four boys. I’m blessed, though. With Roger gone, the boys are very good to me.”

That was it!
Jessy thought suddenly. Tanner Green had been a twin. She had seen his twin walking around town, and maybe the twin had even been drawn to keep an eye on her because of her involvement with his
brother’s death. Stranger things had happened. Twins had a special bond, or so she had always heard.

Of course the twin hadn’t been in her house.
That
had been a trick of her mind.

“I have Jessy. And the ghost dancers, of course,” Timothy said. “Jessy, one of these days, I want to go out to Mallaluca and see the family. Maybe we could go out for a festival, and show Sally here the Ghost Dance?” Timothy said.

“Of course,” Jessy said. Mallaluca, the town where some of his distant relatives still lived, was only a few hours away. “That would be lovely. I’ll look into some dates.” She stood, her intention of staying for breakfast forgotten now, suddenly anxious to drive down to the police station and find someone who could tell her more about Tanner Green. She kissed Timothy on the cheek and offered Mrs. Teasdale a broad smile. “You two have a nice day. Timothy, I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me if you need anything.”

She barely said goodbye to Jimmy, she was so anxious to leave. And yet, even as she drove, she felt her heart sinking.

Surely if Tanner Green had a twin someone would have mentioned it. She had to know for sure, though. Because if Tanner Green
did
have a twin, then maybe she could begin to be…

Sane.

Dressed and ready to leave the house, Dillon paused when the newscaster started talking about Rudy Yorba.

He tried to tell himself that the younger man’s death
was nothing but coincidence. Even after more than twenty-four hours, the police still had no leads, and they were asking the public to notify them if they saw a newly damaged vehicle or had any other information that might aid the investigation into the accident in any way.

Accident, hell. He’d been questioning Rudy, and now he was dead. The victim of a mysterious hit-and-run. That was no coincidence.

He left his house and headed to the police station, where he found Jerry Cheever in his office. The detective seemed both disturbed and surprised when Dillon started asking what was going on with the Rudy Yorba case.

“We went through this yesterday,” Cheever reminded him.

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Jerry groaned. “Either way, it’s not my case,” Jerry told him. “I know you have a bug up your ass about this case, but it makes no sense. What could his death have to do with Tanner Green?”

“Jerry, I questioned Rudy Yorba about Green right before he was killed,” Dillon told him. He had no intention of telling Cheever yet that he’d also broken into a garage based on the information Rudy had given him, even if Cheever had basically suggested it.

“Come on, Jerry, what would the man have been doing walking along the highway that late?”

“He ran out of gas, sweet and simple. He was probably walking to the off-ramp, looking for a gas station,” Jerry explained.

“No AAA?” Dillon demanded.

“No, not in his wallet, anyway. There’s just no mystery here.”

“Really? I think there is. These days, everyone has a cell phone, and cars come with roadside assistance.”

“He drove an old car. And without AAA, who was he going to call? A drunk hit him, got scared and drove away. Come on, Dillon, not everything is a conspiracy.” Jerry ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. “Don’t I wish this
was
all related, that somewhere there’s a clue that would give me some answers.”

“Don’t you have
any
thing?” Dillon demanded.

“It’s not my case. I’ve told you that. Go check with vehicular homicide.”

“Cheever, what the hell kind of a cop are you?” Dillon demanded.

For a moment Jerry Cheever seemed about to explode in turn, but then he looked down, gritted his teeth, then looked up again. “It’s departmental organization, and that’s just the way it is. But go and talk to Len Durso. He and his partner got the call. They’re top-notch, and so are the crime-scene team, who’ve inspected the body, his clothing, the road, you name it. If there
is
a connection, I sure as hell pray they—
we
—find it.”

Dillon realized that Cheever was looking past him, frowning slightly as he peered through the glass windows of his office.

Dillon swung around and groaned softly. Jessy Sparhawk was standing just outside. Her eyes widened as she saw him, and for a moment he thought she was going to turn around and leave. But she didn’t. Blue eyes
wide and captivatingly innocent, she stood her ground. Dillon felt his heart surge and silently cursed himself, wondering again just what it was about this woman that he found so compelling.