Dead Demon Walking (21 page)

September brought a sudden, drastic
fall in temperature. I did not leave the windows open at night now,
although I held off on lighting the furnace. The sun warmed the
house during the day and lingering heat saw me through the night
hours, with a little help from a nice fat duvet.

I lay in bed as the burgeoning light
of a new day slowly revealed the fireplace I never use, the mantel,
my desk and dresser, and riddles played tag with my brain. Maureen
Owen.

I grabbed my cell phone off the
nightstand and dialed Royal’s number.

***

Jack prowled the kitchen as I filled
my bowl with cereal. I looked a question at Mel. She shook her
head. I supposed I’d have to ask. “Jack, why are you
circling?”

“
I’m straining my senses to
detect approaching danger.”

“
You are, are you? And why
might that be?”

“
So you can run like
hell.”

“
Ah. Feeling protective,
are we?” I gave him a considering frown. “And you’re worrying about
this now because. . . ?”

“
Self-preservation,” Mel
said. “With what’s happened the last year, our Jack is worried
someone will nail you and we’ll be left here alone.”

“
So, I was thinking,” he
mused, “we should get this thing with Dale settled.”

Shucks.
I fell right into that one.

Before I could devise yet more excuses
I shouldn’t play the medium for Jack and Jericho, I picked up the
phone and speed-dialed Jericho’s number, which I’d programmed in at
Jack’s insistence.

Mac eyed me hopefully, but slunk away
to lie against the back door when he saw I was not going to the
pantry.

Jericho picked up before the second
ring. “Miss Banks?”

I swung so I could lean on the
counter. “Mr. Jericho. I’m sorry it took me longer than I thought
to get back to you. Can we set up an appointment?”

“
You mean a
meeting?”

No, an appointment to get my stupid
sense of compassion realigned. “How does the weekend suit
you?”

“
I’m at home, Miss Banks.
We’ll have to make that appointment later in the year.”

“
No!” from Jack, who had
his ear so close to the phone he could hear Jericho’s
voice.

“
I have information on
Llewellyn, but I suppose it can wait.”

A silence followed that announcement
as Jack - as if he dare not speak lest Jericho hear him - made
wild, negative gestures with both hands.

I could hear Jericho breathing. When
he spoke, his tone had turned from brisk to hesitant. “Can you tell
me now?”

“
No. This should be
face-to-face.”

I thought I heard him
swallow. “I have a heavy caseload, but I may be able to get away in
. . . two weeks? September 18
^th
? I could fly in that morning
and take an evening flight home.”

I didn’t have to check the calendar
which hangs on the wall next the fridge. “Morning will be fine.
I’ll see you then.”

I hung up. There, done,
committed.

“
Tiff,” Jack said in a
small whisper, “can I change my mind?”

“
Too late,
Jack.”

He whined some more, but I didn’t
listen. I switched my thoughts to what I wanted Royal to do. With
that in mind, I tipped my cereal back in the packet and replaced it
in the pantry. I’d dosed myself with Dramamine fifteen minutes ago,
but I wasn’t taking any chances.

I chewed on a thumbnail and paced to
the window.

Down the street, before the road
dropped over the brow of the hill, Daisy McClusky pulled mail from
her box. Her husband Frank looked over their low hedge. The dog
must be inside the house, else it would be barking at its old
master’s shade. Two houses closer, I could just make out young
Gillian in the bushes outside her yard. Jack and Mel harangued each
other behind me.

Dead people all around me.

What would my life be like if I didn’t
see the dead? Would I have friends, a regular, boring job? Hell,
I’d probably enjoy it. I wouldn’t know any different.

Royal’s truck cruised over the brow of
the hill, to my house and parked neatly at the curb.

I smiled a welcome as he walked in the
kitchen, copper-gold hair flowing like liquid metal over the
shoulders of a black leather biker jacket. The jacket, paired with
faded blue jeans and a white tee, gave him a roguish look. We met
near the table. He circled my shoulders with his arms and murmured
in my hair, “I’m sure it is forever since I held you.”

He kissed me as if we had not seen
each other forever. I snuggled in, savoring his scent, the demon
warmth of his body, how his lips worked over mine.

“
Lord, they’re at it
again,” from Jack.

“
Shush,” Mel whispered. She
can happily watch Royal and me all day and night, which is why we
have house rules. Mel and Jack can’t peek in the bedroom when Royal
is there with me, but what goes on elsewhere in the house is open
season.

I unglued our lips with a regretful
sigh.

His mouth rested on my hair. “What did
you want to talk about?”

“
Maureen Owen. How does she
fit into this?”

“
She does not.” His hands
slid down to my wrists. “I ran it through Snoopy.
Nothing.”

He put his fingers under my chin and
tipped my face up. “Why are we going over the conundrum of Maureen
Owen again?”

“
I’m getting there.” I
hesitated over the reason I called him. After digging in my heels
whenever he wanted to demon me from one location to another, I felt
awkward asking him to do exactly that. But we couldn’t fly to where
I wanted to go because nobody must see us leave and I didn’t want a
paper trail of credit cards and airline tickets. Driving would take
too long.

“
Royal, why did Maureen
call me? And how did she get my cell number?”

A tiny sigh lifted a wisp of my hair.
“She asked for your help. Obviously, someone who knows you are an
investigator gave her your number.”

“
And think on this: The
killer got Janine first, then went directly to Maureen’s family.
Did Janine know them? He was looking at papers - did he get their
whereabouts from off something in her office?”

He eyed me contemplatively. “I found
nothing to connect Janine Hulme to the Owens and neither did The
Bureau.”

“
They didn’t find anything
to connect me to Janine. They’re not infallible.”

He went still. I could barely see his
chest rise and fall. “Janine knew you as a private
investigator.”

“
Yep. I think we should go
see her.”

***

The abrupt cessation of motion made me
lose my balance. “Oof!” I rebounded hard off Royal’s chest. He
wrapped me closer to him, but too late. I wouldn’t be surprised to
find bruises from the impact.

Though I’m loath to travel via
demon-speed, I asked Royal to zip us to Las Vegas. I’m growing
accustomed to it now, but still, it’s a stomach-roiling
experience.

“
Back in a minute,” he
said, and disappeared in a blur.

He was back before the minute passed.
“No cameras on the outside of the house or in the yard.”

That made our breaking-and-entering
easier. We walked alongside the house, through a wood gate and into
Janine’s backyard.

“
I have been thinking,”
Royal said.

I still held my stomach.
“You can
think
when we’re zooming along?”

“
We should take another
vacation when this is over, this time to a place far away
where
nobody
can
find us.”

“
I’m all for that. What do
you have in mind?”

“
I know a small, deserted
tropical island.”

“
If it’s deserted, what
about food and shelter etcetera? It’s a lovely suggestion, but
cracking coconuts for supper is not my idea of an idyllic
getaway.”

He grinned widely. “You are far too
practical. I’ll take care of everything.”

I made a mental note to remind him
about deserted tropical islands later.

He concentrated on the house before
nodding his chin as if satisfied. “The place is empty.”

An eight-foot wood fence surrounded a
small lawn edged by flower borders, but the plants had been allowed
to die. In one corner, murky, algae-covered water filled a small
pool shaped like a butterfly. Four folded lawn chairs lay on top a
round patio table.

Royal put a finger to his lips and his
ear to the patio door.

He stepped back. “I can’t tell from
out here. I have to go in.”

I nodded. If the place was still
bugged, the cameras would, possibly, pick up a blur, then go dead
when he disabled them and the microphones. The question would be,
were agents staked out nearby or were the devices remote? How long
would we have till they got here?

I waited on the flagstone patio as
Royal worked on the French windows. He cracked the door open, and
disappeared.

He returned a minute later.
“Clear.”

The Bureau had removed their audio and
visual equipment. They didn’t expect me back here.

“
Come with me?”

“
Are you sure?” he asked,
surprised by my request.

“
I like to go it alone with
a new one, but Janine’s practically an old friend.”

We stepped inside.

One armchair, an empty display cabinet
and a floor lamp remained in the great room. Tiny pieces of paper
trash littered the floor.

I caught Royal’s hand and his big,
warm fingers folded over mine with a little squeeze. “Okay, here
goes. Janine?”

“
I’m in the office!” she
called, as if she expected me.

And where might the office be? I
followed the direction I thought her voice came from, to a door in
the south wall.

It happened here. A small room with an
oriel window, the walls lined with bookshelves. A Maplewood desk
and swiveling office chair faced the south wall, an old wingback
chair upholstered in faded orange velvet tucked in the corner near
the door. The bookshelves were empty. Janine’s possession had been
packed.

The wingback chair’s front and arms
were stained the brown of old blood. The chair got the brunt of the
blood pattern, with a few spatters dappling the desk and a big ugly
gout on the carpeted floor.

Janine stood beside the desk, hands
clasped at her waist. “Robert is having everything in here taken to
the city dump,” she said wistfully, “including the
carpet.”

Even the Salvation Army wouldn’t want
stuff in this condition. I took a step nearer. “Hello,
Janine.”

She met my eyes. “I apologize for
disappearing like that. It was a shock, hearing about
Daphne.”

Yeah. Way to go, Gunn. “I’m sorry
about your stepsister.”

“
We were close. Does she
still . . . linger, like I do?”

Poor women. They would linger until
their killer died, and when would that be? I was a hair away from
saying Mrs. Fensham would not be alone, she had her husband and
son, but maybe it would emphasize Janine was on her own. So I just
nodded.

“
And Brian?

“
I’m sorry.”

Her gaze dropped to the floor. She
didn’t ask about Gregory Fensham.

“
Does the name Owen ring a
bell?”

Janine tilted her head. “Owen
Grafton?”

“
No. Owen is their last
name. Maureen Owen?”

That got an enthusiastic response. In
a rush of movement, she came to stand a few feet from me. “Yes,
Maureen, of course! I was about to tell you when that man came in
the house!”

“
Tell me what?”

“
Maureen came to see me six
months ago. It was amazing. She was delving into her family
genealogy and came here to read Professor Stadelmann’s book. I
self-published my own little book, what I knew of Edward and
Elizabeth, and donated two copies to the Clark County Library. They
sit right beside the professor’s book. Maureen read a copy and came
to see me.”

Elizabeth Hulme, the Victorian girl
who wrote the journal. She died beneath the ruined temple-pyramid
in Nagka when the native bearers blew it up with the expedition’s
explosives.

I didn’t say Maureen Owen was dead,
though I’d have to do so, because surely Janine would wonder why I
asked after her. Right now, she was too exuberant to consider
that.

“
You lost me, Janine. What
has Maureen’s genealogy to do with Elizabeth? She’s not a
Hulme.”

She ducked her head and tapped the
side of her nose. “Ah, but she is.”

She wafted about the room, fairly
jiggling with enthusiasm. “You see, Maureen wanted to either
corroborate or debunk an old family tale. I knew nothing of this
when she arrived. She asked about Elizabeth, so I showed her my
photo of Elizabeth and Edward, and Elizabeth’s journals - her eyes
almost popped out of her head when she read the second. Thank you
for sending it to me.”