The Voodoo Killings (33 page)

He was gone. I shivered and pushed myself up to a crouch, testing my legs. As I managed to stand, the nail wound started to throb. I hoped my tetanus shot was up to date. My backpack was lying on the beach beside me. Considerate of Gideon. I grabbed it and made for the highway.

I slipped on the shale and broke the heel off my right boot.

Great. How the hell was I going to get home?

Calling Aaron was out. No way was I letting him see me like this. Nate couldn’t drive worth a damn, and it was too dangerous for him to bring Cameron.

Where was my phone? I dug it out of my backpack—happily, it was dry—dialed and counted six agonizing rings before he picked up.

“Catamaran’s.”

“Randall?” I said. “I need one hell of a favour.”

—

I swirled the contents of the coffee mug. Not coffee. Instant chicken noodle soup.

Randall watched me take another few sips before he put a second mug in front of me. Coffee. I settled on alternating sips. Randall had also bandaged my leg and wrapped me in a big towel, but now he started in on me.

“So let me get this straight. You went down to the beach to deal with a couple of ghosts.”

“Right. To ask them about a hundred-year-old murder case, one
we think is related to three recent killings. Zombie stuff.” I’d told him the short version on the way back to the bar.

“And you ran into not one but two poltergeists?”

I shook my head. We’d been over this too. “Only one of them was a poltergeist. The other is a really messed-up ghost.”

“Only poltergeists can do that kind of stuff.”

I shook my head. “A sorcerer’s ghost can too.” Randall didn’t look as if he was buying it. “What, you think I’d make that up?”

He shook his head and went back to polishing the glasses. There’d been only a few people in the bar when Randall brought me in, slow for a change. They hadn’t wanted to know what was going on. Smart people.

“I just never pegged you for someone that unlucky. Or who had pissed off that many ghosts. My mother was one hell of a practitioner, and not in forty years did she ever run into problems. My grandmother never did either.”

What could I say to that? “Thanks for the ride. And the soup.”

“You mind if I offer you a bit of advice?”

“Can I stop you?”

“Look, kid, in all seriousness, get the hell out of this murder investigation. Let Aaron and Sarah deal with it.”

“It’s not that simple, Randall. Sarah and Aaron are out of their league and they know it.”

Randall frowned and pointed a finger at me. “Not your problem. It’s theirs. Tell them it serves them right for firing you. They want you back, they can bloody well pay you.”

“I’m a practitioner. It’s in my best interests to figure out who the hell’s behind these murders.”

Randall shook his head. Then he leaned towards me across the bar. In a whisper, he said, “How’s he doing, Kincaid? You know. Friday night?”

“Oh, he’s doing better.” Not a lie.

“Know what happened to him yet? How he ended up in my bar?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out. But I do know that it was only an accident he ended up here.”

Relief spread across Randall’s face. Had he really been worried someone had sent the zombie here on purpose? Who would have it in for Randall like that?

I shelved that and other thoughts for later. Not that I didn’t appreciate the pep talk, but about the only thing I could handle right now was a scorching shower and a gallon of hot tea and my bed.

“Do you think you could make one of these for the road?” I said, holding up my empty cup of soup.

CHAPTER 20

BAGGAGE

I’d had three lousy hours of sleep before Nate kicked me out of bed—
three
. After he had pelted me with half the pennies in my change jar, I gained a groggy understanding that Cameron was not doing well.

“Not doing well” was an understatement. Finding out he’d been murdered hadn’t sat right with him. Nate had done the only thing he could under the circumstances: tricked Cameron into the bathroom—the only real room in his apartment—and barricaded the door with a chair. When I finally stepped through the front door an hour later, the first thing my eyes fell on was the ruined canvas left on the studio floor. The one he’d spent the last twelve hours working on…

A zombie destroying his obsession? Not good.

And now we were wandering through downtown Seattle at night on our way to Club 9—Cameron pissed off, me running on next to no sleep, and Nate, well, being himself. As the three of us waited on a corner for the walk light, I checked the time on my cell: 11 p.m. Nate wasn’t exactly visible, but he could hear me. “I still can’t believe you didn’t come to check on me, Nate.”

His face appeared in front of me. “Whoa—just wait a minute. For the last time, I did
not
ditch you with a poltergeist.”

“At what point does me not showing up constitute you starting to worry?”

“Hey,
I
was doing exactly what you told me to do: watch Cameron. I wanted to stay at the pier. But oh no, the great Kincaid Strange can handle herself.” He floated close enough to whisper. “And trust me, I had my hands full with Cameron, all right? You couldn’t have dragged yourself out of bed any slower, could you?”

The light turned to Walk and Cameron took the lead. He’d been quiet ever since we’d left his studio. I lowered my voice. “I almost drowned.
And
froze. I should still be in bed.”

“You know, I hear the whining….”

I sighed. There was only so mad I could be with Nate. He was a ghost. Even if he hadn’t been an irresponsible overgrown juvenile when he was alive, asking Nate to be concerned about the passage of an hour or two was like asking a cat to read. Being a good friend is accepting the limits of the people you surround yourself with….

I focused on Cameron. He was fixated on the sidewalk. He hadn’t said a word about the painting.

“How are you holding up, Cameron?” I said, catching up.

He glanced at me. “You mean, how am I handling the concept that someone close to me, someone I probably considered a friend, tried to kill me? No, wait—they
did
kill me.”

“You don’t know it was a friend. It could have been anyone. We still haven’t completely ruled out an accident.”

“Samuel won’t be stopping by tomorrow to see the painting, or any time else.”

“I think you’re overreacting—”

Cameron whirled on me. “You tell me, Kincaid. You saw the same clips I did.”

By “clips,” Cameron was referring to an incident last week, one he didn’t remember. But whether that was due to his zombie memory loss or his state at the time was anyone’s guess. If I hadn’t made him call Samuel to ask whether he could show him the new
painting, he’d never have found out about the last opening. Fist fight. With a critic. In an art gallery. On YouTube. And he didn’t remember a damn thing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cameron said.

“Cameron, I asked you to go through your FB and social media so you could find possible triggers or conflicts. What did you think I wanted you to look for?
GIFS
of cats?”

Cameron stomped ahead, still angry.

“This is what I’ve been putting up with,” Nate whispered. I ignored him and focused back on Cameron.

“So you hit a guy?” I called after him. “It happens. People have bad days and do stupid things all the time. It didn’t land you in jail, so apologize, move on and forget about it. And it doesn’t mean your art dealer killed you. Your antics might have cost him a client or two, but he also has the most to lose financially from you dying….” I trailed off. What was it I’d read once about artists? Worth more dead than alive?

Cameron had stopped to stare at me.

“Well, he does. You don’t have nearly enough finished work to make killing you worth it.”

Cameron rolled his eyes at me before turning them back down at the sidewalk. “Remind me never to talk to you when I need cheering up.”

“Ditto,” Nate added.

Well, at least he was talking again. Albeit snarkily. I sighed. And I still hadn’t broached the issue of checking his bindings, not with the state he’d been in when I arrived at the loft. But I needed to see what was happening. “I’d like to check your bindings again when we get back. It will probably hurt—”

“I don’t care, Kincaid. Go ahead, wherever and whatever you’d like.”

I grabbed his arm and spun him around so he was forced to face me. He wore another look I’d often seen on a zombie’s face: despair.

“You can do whatever you want to me after we’re finished tonight. All I want to do right now is find out who the hell killed me.”

I reached out to grab his shoulder before he could turn away from me again. He caught my wrist before I could touch him. I hissed as his finger bones bit into my flesh. “Cameron, let go—”

He didn’t let go. Instead, he pulled me into a side street and with his free hand lifted his shirt, exposing the bandage. I drew in a sharp breath as he gently lifted the cotton pad. The skin around the wound had turned white, making the red and inflamed edges appear all the more angry.

It was getting much worse.

I’d been so set on getting him out of the loft and to the club, I hadn’t thought to check the wound.

“Like I said, I really don’t think it matters anymore what experiment you run on me.”

“Cameron—”

He shook his head and started walking towards the club.

“K, you can’t bring him in the club like that,”

Nate whispered. Nate was right. If he ended up in a fight, how the hell would I explain exposed knucklebones to a crowd of screaming people?

“Cameron, tell me why you destroyed your painting and locked yourself in the bathroom,” I called after him.

He stopped and stood staring at the sidewalk.

“Come on.” I leaned against a brick wall. “Might as well get it over with before we need you to talk to people.”

His lightened green eyes flicked over me. “Why do you work with Otherside?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe because I have a cast-iron stomach that verges on supernatural?”

“If you’re not going to take this seriously, why the hell should I?”

Why the hell did I use Otherside? “Cameron, sometimes you do what you can. I
can
work Otherside, ergo, that seemed a better career option than waiting tables.”

Cameron shook his head. “You’d make more money as a coffee jockey. You’re avoiding the question. I’ve seen you, and it’s more than just a job. You tell me why you do it and I’ll tell you why I destroyed the painting.”

I sighed. “I started working with Otherside when I was taking history at college. I was writing a paper on pioneer Seattle before the fire and I decided to interview people who’d lived through it, rather than rely on textbooks.” And that bit of initiative had led to its own set of problems….

“But what do you get out of it now?” Cameron said. When I didn’t immediately reply, he added, “You live with a ghost who’s your best friend. In fact, as far as I can tell, you can count your living associates on one hand.”

There were a lot of why questions in my life. Why had I left home? Why had I changed my name? Why had I barely spoken to my parents in ten years? Why did Aaron judging my life choices piss me off so much? Why did I do
anything
? “I got tired of all the lies we tell ourselves to fit the box other people stick us in. I got tired of the box. The dead don’t judge your choices. They don’t have much interest in what you do with your life.”

“You seek the truth.” Cameron’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I raise zombies and talk to dead people, Cameron. In most countries, that gets you a one-way ticket to jail.”

“I paint to express myself,” he said. “What I’m feeling, what I see in the world around me. I realized this afternoon that I won’t be finishing any of my works.”

“I thought finishing was what you wanted to do? That’s what you bartered with Max for.”

He stayed silent as we crossed the street. I could see the club entrance at the end of the block, if not by the neon sign then by the crowd outside.

Cameron turned to face me, stopping me in my tracks. “Here’s some undead truth for you, Kincaid. I was an idiot. It doesn’t matter how many paintings I finish, I’ll never create anything again. That’s why I ruined my painting and why I don’t care about what experiments you try on me. I wish I’d never done this to myself.”

“You think that now—”

“Don’t tell me it’ll pass, Kincaid.” Cameron shook his head at me. “You realize we’re the same? You can’t stop using Otherside any more than I could stop painting, even though it’s probably killing you too.”

I grabbed his arm. “I am
nothing
like you. The only reason I’m using Otherside is to try and help you and find a killer.
That’s it
. I don’t
need
to use it.”

Cameron stared down at me. “You know what I think? I think only half of you hanging out with the dead is a search for truth. I think it’s mostly because the dead don’t care enough to call you on your bullshit.”

Cameron walked over to speak to the bouncer while I stood there racking my brain for a comeback. I didn’t have one.

I took a deep breath. Zombies might be perceptive, Kincaid, but that doesn’t mean they always have a point. Yeah, keep telling yourself that and you might start believing it. There wasn’t anything else to do but follow Cameron into Club 9.

—

A dark purple neon sign spelling out Club 9 hung over two black doors. On either side of the doors was a bouncer, dressed in black. I scanned the people in the lineups for any reaction to Cameron, but they were too caught up in their own world to care about others.

I caught Cameron giving me the once-over. I didn’t miss the small shake of his head. “What?”

“You’ve more or less got a goth thing going, but you need to blend in. Try not to say much, and look deep and intellectual.”

Nate broke into peals of laughter.

I stuffed my temper and followed Cameron inside as the bouncer waved us in.

The club was up a flight of stairs lit with tube LEDs in the same shade of purple as the sign outside. The noise and flickering purple and white lights got more intense with each step. Halfway up I closed my eyes, but there wasn’t much relief to be had. The sooner we were out of here, the better.