Sketch a Falling Star (23 page)

Rory thought she heard a little quaver of hurt in her voice. She didn’t envy Eloise her circumstances. Struggling with the effects of a stroke would have been hard enough, but she was also dealing with a new psychic ability the stroke seemed to have kick-started. Not an easy combination at any age.

Olga was shaking her head in apology. “Most times she is being really very nice.”

“I know,” Rory said. She turned back to Eloise. “Why don’t I take a message for the marshal?”

“No, that won’t do at all. I have to talk to him.” She squeezed past Rory to enter the house. Great, now what? Rory couldn’t exactly grab her and push her back out the door.

“This…this is not possible, Ms. Eloise,” Olga stammered, completely flustered. “You cannot…we cannot….” Having apparently run out of English words with which to address the situation, Olga lapsed into her native tongue. Rory couldn’t understand a word of it, but she was pretty sure it included a plea for help from a higher authority. She added her own to it, along with a sidebar to Mac in case he happened to be listening.

“I’ll just sit down and wait,” Eloise said, in a tone that brooked no discussion. She walked into the living room and made herself at home in the easy chair Zeke generally claimed.

Rory ushered Olga into the house, since there was no way of knowing how long her charge’s sit-in might last. If it went on for too long, Rory would have to call in the Bowman cavalry to end it. She could do that right now of course, but it made more sense to try to accommodate Eloise, or the woman would be back on her doorstep as soon as she could swing it.

“Sorry, too sorry I am,” the aide kept repeating as Rory showed her into the living room and offered her a seat on the couch. Then Rory excused herself and fled up the stairs.

The most pressing concern she faced was how to contact Zeke, followed immediately by how much flack she could expect to take if she did reach him. He’d been adamant about keeping Eloise out of their—wait a minute, Rory reminded herself, he was in no position to cast stones, having so recently violated one of the most basic rules of their living arrangement.

Rory stood in the middle of the study wondering how she was going to contact him. She tried flickering the lights to see if he would respond to the same cue he gave her. Nothing. When no other method occurred to her, she called out his name as loudly as she dared with company downstairs. Again nothing. She was on the verge of abandoning her efforts when the marshal materialized in front of her.

“What’s all the squawkin’ about?” he grumbled. He looked more disheveled than usual, his hair in need of a comb and his cheeks in need of a well-honed razor. If Rory didn’t know better she’d think he’d been roused from a conventional nap in a conventional bed.

Choosing her words carefully, she explained the current situation to him.

“It’ll be my pleasure to throw that old biddy out of the house,” he said, locking eyes with Rory as if to say he was damn sure she was somehow responsible for Eloise’s visit. “What does she want?”

“I wish I knew, but she wouldn’t let me take a message. She said she has to speak to you. Are you feeling strong enough to spend a few minutes with her in full 3-D?”

“I expect so. But she already knows I’m more than a few body parts shy of mortal, so it shouldn’t be a problem if I can’t hold it together.”

Time to tell him about the Olga factor.

Zeke managed to look even more put-upon. “Then it’ll be your job to draw her attention away if I start fallin’ apart.”

That seemed to be as good a plan as any, so Rory signed on, and the two of them marched back down the stairs together.

As soon as they walked into the living room, Rory realized they hadn’t given this meeting enough thought. For starters, Zeke had forgotten to change out of his Wild West duds and into something a bit more updated. And then there was the issue of shaking hands. How would he avoid it when she introduced him to Olga? Rory was relieved to see that he’d already worked out that detail. He’d stopped far enough away from the two women that a handshake was not de rigueur.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said to Olga in a particularly gracious manner. His scruffy appearance aside, Rory could imagine him in a dress coat, doffing his top hat and bowing with a gentlemanly flourish.

Olga beamed at him, her distress over Eloise’s behavior apparently forgotten for the moment. If she noticed that Zeke’s outfit looked like it had been stolen from the costume department of a film studio, she didn’t mention it.

Eloise rose from the chair, her expression unchanged, and held onto the arms until she found her balance. “I’d like to speak to Ezekiel in private.”

“Olga, why don’t you come join me in the kitchen?” Rory offered. “There’s fresh coffee if you’d like.”

The aide seemed reluctant to trade Zeke for coffee, but she followed Rory into the kitchen anyway. Rory poured her a cup, to which Olga added two heaping teaspoons of sugar and as much milk as the cup could accommodate. They sat at the table, and Rory politely plied her with questions about her life in Eastern Europe, while she tried unsuccessfully to catch some of the conversation between Zeke and Eloise. Olga’s answers were short and a bit disjointed, as if she too were focused on the other room.

The meeting between the psychic and the ghost lasted less than ten minutes. “I’m going,” Eloise called out, her voice bright and airy, the carefree voice of a child.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Olga pushed back from the table with such enthusiasm that the coffee sloshed over the sides of her cup. She was either eager to resume her duties or to spend more time in the marshal’s company. Walking back into the living room, Rory had the answer. The aide’s face literally lit up when she saw the marshal was still there. It looked like Zeke had found himself a fan. For a moment, Rory considered him from this new perspective and realized with some surprise how attractive he was. He’d probably been no more than forty when he died, and if you put aside the Old West trappings, some might say he was handsome in a rough and weathered sort of way.

“Thank you kindly, Miss Eloise,” Zeke said with a dip of his head.

Rory was instantly on alert. This wasn’t the same Ezekiel Drummond she’d spoken to in the study such a short time ago. How had Eloise managed to cure his black mood so quickly? And was there a way to bottle the cure?

“I’m going home for some ice cream now,” Eloise informed them all as she headed for the door.

“No, no, is too much early for ice cream,” Olga said. She turned to Zeke with the mooning smile of a teen gazing at a rock star. “Has been pleasure to meeting you.”

Zeke did his little head dip for her, causing Olga’s cheeks to turn scarlet. He waited in the living room while Rory followed the two guests to the door. They were saying their good-byes when Olga gasped, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. Before Rory even turned around she had a pretty good idea what had happened.

The marshal was losing cohesion; his left arm was already missing. Terrific. She practically dove in front of the two women to block their line of sight. When she glanced over her shoulder, Zeke was once again whole, but the strain of maintaining the image was written plainly on his face. It was now or never. She moved aside so that Olga could see that he was whole, that her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. As her expression turned from horror to confusion, Rory opened the door and herded them out. Not a moment too soon.

When she came back into the living room, Zeke was gone. Damn, she wanted to know what Eloise had told him. She was about to call his name when the doorbell rang again, accompanied by another round of barking from Hobo, who was still outside. What was this—drop in on Rory day?

This time the peephole revealed her aunt Helene standing on the porch with a sunny smile.

“Hi, sweetie,” Helene said when Rory opened the door. She stepped inside and gave her niece a hug. “I just saw an old lady skipping down your street. And I don’t mean my age; I mean
old
.”

“That’s Eloise Bowman. She moved in with her son’s family after her stroke.”

“Talk about a strange sight. If I knew how to use the camera in my new phone, I would have taken a picture.”

“She’s a little weird and very sweet,” Rory said. Unless she’s on a mission. But her aunt didn’t need to know about that part.

“Listen,” Helene said, “I have some hot news for you, and since I was passing by on my way to yoga, I thought I’d deliver it in person.”

“Would you like some coffee?” Rory tried to remember if there was enough left in the carafe. If this trend kept up she’d have to start brewing more every morning.

Helene declined. “I have to talk and run or I’ll be—are you okay?” she interrupted herself. “You’re still in your nightgown.”

“It’s been a busy morning.”

Fortunately, her aunt seemed too fixated on her own agenda to push the inquiry any further. “I was out to dinner last night with Richard Ames,” she said. In response to Rory’s unspoken question she added, “We dated for a while when I joined the troupe. I never told anyone about it, because we both recognized early on that the chemistry wasn’t there. We still grab a bite together or see a movie from time to time. Totally platonic.”

“Okay,” Rory murmured, wondering where this was going.

“Anyway, last night he’d had a few glasses of wine, and I guess he needed a sympathetic ear, because he started talking about how his daughter’s tuition was killing him. He’s had to pull money out of his retirement account. Said he’d lost most of his other savings in some kind of investment boondoggle with Brian.”

“Wow,” was all Rory could manage. Richard, who’d been knocked down the suspect ladder by more qualified prospects, was suddenly scrambling back up again. When she’d interviewed him, he’d mentioned financial loss, but not the extent of it. Losing most of his savings was a bigger deal than he’d let on.

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Helene said, “because he’s a decent man, and I’m pretty sure he could never kill anyone. But then I decided you deserve to have all the facts. Either way I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with myself.” She sighed. “And I’m not.” She gave Rory a peck on the cheek. “I’m off to de-stress with my yoga class.”

“Look at that,” Zeke said as Rory closed the front door after her. “And just when I thought Brett had knocked Richard completely out of the running.”

“Where are you?” Rory turned in a full circle looking for him.

“Sorry, this is about all I can manage until I do some rechargin’.”

She didn’t like talking to Zeke when he was invisible. A person’s body language and expressions often told her more than their words did. Besides, she never knew which way to face for this kind of conversation. But given the marshal’s current condition, there was no point in complaining, so she focused on the arm chair and imagined him sitting there. “What did Eloise have to tell you that was so important?” she asked. The subject of Richard Ames’s place in the suspect array could wait until later.

“She told me about your high-stakes car chase last night and that you have a tendency to go it alone instead of askin’ for help. That much I could have told her myself.”

“I had no choice last night,” Rory said. “Even if I had called for help, it wouldn’t have gotten to me in time to do any good.” The last thing she needed was Eloise “tweeting” to the marshal about her every move.

“I can understand how that might happen on occasion,” he allowed. “Hell, I’ve found myself in similar circumstances. But our concern is that you prefer to go it alone even when you don’t have to.”

Their
concern? Since when had Zeke and Eloise appointed themselves her
guardians ad litem
? Zeke had made it resoundingly clear that he was opposed to the very concept of a psychic. Yet Eloise had managed to change his mind in under ten minutes.

“Well, haven’t the two of you gotten cozy,” she said tartly. “I seem to remember it was you who ordered me to avoid her completely.”

Zeke issued an uncomfortable little chuckle in a nod to his fickle attitude. Rory would have enjoyed seeing his face at that moment, embarrassment not being a natural state for him.

“What can I say, darlin’? We came to an understandin’. It’s a foolish general who doesn’t know when to forge new alliances.”

“Or honor existing ones,” she reminded him sharply.

The marshal made no reply. He’d either used up his last reserves of energy or he’d chosen to end their dialogue before it deteriorated further. That was fine with Rory. She still hadn’t brought up the issue of his rule breaking, but that was one discussion she wanted to have when she could see him face-to-face.

1878

Huntington, New York

W
eeks before Drummond boarded the Long Island Railroad train, he’d already had his fill of public transportation. He’d followed Trask by rail across the country from Colorado to Kansas and then on to Missouri, where the fugitive hopped an eastbound train to New Jersey. Although the marshal hated working by the railroad’s schedule instead of his own, at least luck had started to turn in his favor. At most junctures, either the ticket agent or one of the porters recognized Trask from his picture and was able to tell the marshal where he was headed. As the agent in Saint Louis put it, “He ain’t the sort of man you’re apt to forget.” Like a serpent eating its own tail, the monster that animated Trask rode so close to the surface that anyone who crossed his path remembered him, making it possible to track him over great distances. Even so, there were setbacks that cost Drummond time. And time was a precious commodity when it came to finding Trask.

When the marshal reached Saint Louis, the agent who’d most likely sold Trask his ticket was away on vacation, and the marshal was obliged to wait a week until he returned. In New Jersey he was told that Trask had bought a ticket to Chicago, but as Drummond learned when he reached that city, Trask never used the ticket. Two more weeks wasted. Still Drummond refused to give up; failure was simply not an option. He’d become as desperate as the man he hunted.