Ghost Killer (20 page)

Clare took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her face, blew her nose. “Yes.”

“She recorded most of the action. Linda Boucher coming in and yelling and aiming for
you.”

“Oh.” Clare swallowed, drew away from him to settle back in her seat; tension dripped
away from her. Her brows came down. “I don’t think anyone heard her call me a ghost
seer except us . . . and Enzo . . .” Her voice cracked.

Yep, that was another sob; more tears ran down her cheeks.

“We’ll get him back.”

She nodded but her expression indicated doubt. Hell! Zach’s hands clamped around the
steering wheel. He
would
damn well get that dog back. He
would
protect Clare, at any cost. Dread and darkness pressed on him. He knew in his bones
this case had turned bad, gone to deadly for him and his.

One small thought gave him relief. He’d caught up with his Counting Crows Rhyme precognition.
As of this moment, he’d foreseen no more deaths. He let out a breath.

Clare cleared her throat. “Zach?”

“Yeah.”

“You said that Ms. Boucher was dead when . . . when she walked in?” Clare’s voice
went squeaky.

He nodded. “I believe that.”

She gulped. “So, like, we’re . . . we’re . . . dealing with
zombies
now?”

HE HADN’T THOUGHT
of the situation from that angle. Zombies. God. What next? No damn Counting Crows
Rhyme for zombies, unless it was “the devil’s own self.”

“I didn’t sign up for zombies,” Clare said.

Clare’s statement flicked his sense of irony at the whole mess of the last month.
He snorted. “Clare, baby, you didn’t sign up for any of this. It was thrust upon you.”

A small pause and a change of the quiet, then a slight giggle. Her lips quirked, and
she sent a sideway flirtatious look. “I like your thrusting, Zach.”

He coughed a laugh, grinned at her. “Ditto.” He hit the ignition. “Want to go back
to the hotel and try out more of my thrusting abilities?”

She gave him a wavery smile. “I
want
to go home to my wonderful historic house in Denver and up to my lovely bedroom and
into the sleigh bed my great-aunt Sandra gave me and slip between my thousand-thread-count
sheets with you.”

“Sounds good to me. We can make it in five hours. Or call someplace now and charter
a plane back to Denver from Alamosa.” He put the car in gear and continued southeast
through the valley to the larger town.

Her smile tipped to wry as she glanced at him and folded her hands on her lap. “You
don’t know how to do that, order a plane up in a half hour.” Her brows went up and
down. “Neither do I.”

Zach flexed his fingers. “We’ll learn.”

She sighed. “I’m sure. We both have the money to do that now. And heaven knows I can’t
take the wretched knife on a regular flight.” She glared at her purse that lay in
the wheel well by her feet and had since before he and Pais had come to question her.
To Zach’s relief, she hadn’t mentioned the weapon. “Yes, I want to go home.” Her chin
lifted, set. “But I can’t.”

“We can’t.”

“We can’t. I didn’t get to eat my food, and I’m hungry.” She put her hand on her stomach,
then moved it to her side.

“Do your ribs hurt?” Zach asked before he realized she’d touched the opposite side
of her previous injury. “Damn, that hellish ghost got a piece of you, didn’t he?”

With a grimace, she rubbed her hand over her side. “Yes.”

“Dammit. You need a doctor? Maybe we should go back to the hotel and I can look—”

“I’m hungry, Zach. I want to eat. Let’s go on into South Fork and have a meal.”

“All right.” He pressed on the gas.

Lightly, she said, “I’ll look at my side in the ladies’ room, and if it seems bad,
I’ll let you look at it, too.”

“Always a great date with you, Clare,” he said.

She blinked. “We really haven’t had any dates, have we? We met a couple of times for
lunch, and I took tea at Mrs. Flinton’s—”

“I’ll take you out when we get home,” he interrupted. He preferred not to think of
that day at Mrs. Flinton’s when he’d cut off the budding relationship with Clare,
didn’t want her thinking of it, either. She was with him now, exclusively with him,
and he didn’t want any damn uncertainty in her mind about that. Geez, he couldn’t
believe they’d never even eaten out together. Flipping through his recollections,
he had to frown. Nope. One time they were on the way, but had decided in favor of
sex instead. Seemed like they always decided in favor of sex instead. All fine and
good, but he needed to treat her better.

He asked the navigator system for the best restaurant in South Fork, then used the
hands-free phone to call and have them hold a table for them. Clare smiled and ducked
her head, then looked up the menu online so they’d be ready to order the minute they
walked in.

As they ate fabulous steak, Zach kept the talk on books and films and a few carefully
chosen anecdotes from his past, mostly from his days as an adult. He had a few good
childhood memories, as he supposed Clare did, but for both of them childhood had been
tough, in different ways.

Before they’d been served, Clare had checked herself out and when she returned, her
manner seemed lighter. She’d said she had surface scratches and some bruising but
nothing nasty. Zach would examine her later. They still had gauze and bandages from
the first aid kit they’d bought, along with some antibacterial cream. When he was
a cop, he’d carried a heavy duty medical kit in his personal vehicle. The way their
cases were going, he’d better make sure he had one now, too, as well as Clare keeping
one in her Jeep.

After they’d eaten, they walked out into the night, fingers linked, relieved from
the pressure and tension that saturated Creede. Zach felt no threat here that had
him wanting to keep his free hand available for his weapon. When they turned back
up toward the valley and the canyon, got away from town, the sky burst with stars
and a huge moon. Despite the falling temperature, Zach opened the sunroof.

“Incredibly gorgeous,” Clare murmured, tipping her head back to look. She still seemed
at ease, so they’d made the right choice getting away from Creede. “Eeek!” Reaching
down for her purse, she pulled out her phone, put in the numeric password—which she’d
given Zach—and began tapping. He thought he saw her searching the Internet.

“What?” asked Zach.

She looked over at him, the moonlight leeching her face of its golden tone and casting
it in dark and shadows and twilight. Zach preferred to look at her in the day, Clare
of the sun-kissed skin.

“You know there’s always a time element with regard to the appearance of ghosts and
when they are ready to move on.”

“Yeah.”

“So I thought about the moon.”

“The moon.”

“As far as I can tell, the best time for a ghost to move into the next-whatever is
specific to an individual—the anniversary of an event, or the time of day, or the
month or something.” Disapproval at the variety laced her tone. “So I was wondering
about the moon phase when Robert Ford died.”

“Good idea to check out.”

She nodded and went back to working on the little screen, shoulders hunched. Not paying
attention to the beauty of the night, the moon reflecting on the Rio Grande, the scent
of crisp air free of pollution. He understood her need for information, for control,
but—

“Put that away as soon as you have the info and enjoy the moment, the night, don’t
go surfing—”

She glanced up. “You’re absolutely right. Just one minute.” A few flicks of her fingers
later, several clicks of screenshots or saved info, and she stuck the phone back into
her purse.

“Anything interesting?”

“Hard to tell, but the day of the full moon in June 1892 was the tenth, two days after
Ford died.”

Zach tilted his head to indicate the moon visible through the roof. “We’re close,
too.”

“The exact time of the full moon is tomorrow morning at 9:15 a.m., but it won’t be
visible since it sets before then.” She paused, glanced at his strong profile. “You
know what this timing thing means?”

He spared a quick look and a smile at her. “What?”

“Despite what we do, the ghost can’t go on until it’s the right time.”

His mouth flattened. “That sucks.”

“Yes.” Her own inhalation felt shaky. “So I’m hoping it’s the phase of the moon or
something else so we can extinguish it
now
.”

“That sounds fine to me.” His head cocked and he looked at the moon through the sunroof.
“Looks pretty full now.”

“Yes, and just plain pretty.” She sighed, and leaned back into her seat, turned and
smiled at him. “And, yes, you’re absolutely right. I should enjoy the beauty of the
night and being with you. Have I told you how glad I am you’re with me?”

He felt his face warm. “Thanks. I like being with you, too.”

Another sigh. “That’s good, because I’m beginning to think I am a high-maintenance
kind of woman . . .” She was quiet for a couple of heartbeats. “Or, rather, the situations
I’ve gotten into . . . the circumstances of my new career . . . are challenging. Not
only for me, but for you, too.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I can handle it.”

“Yes, you’re very capable.” Her admiring tone went straight through his heart and
sent heat sliding down to his dick.

She put a hand on his thigh and he felt sensations from that touch in his favorite
muscle, too. He covered her fingers with his.

Clare felt the strength and the sheer competence in Zach’s hand on hers and more tears
stung, so she had to swallow them. She had absolutely no doubt that Zach could handle
this case; it was her own puny skill she worried about.

She’d lost Enzo. The ghost had gotten him and she hadn’t been able to prevent that.
Along with the grief of losing her companion, the anxiety about being without a spirit
guide, was the fear skittering along her nerves just under her skin that she’d be
the next one to be consumed.

This case had brought out the coward in her, though she thought she had dealt with,
could
deal with, villainous humans more easily than a ghost. If she had her choice, she’d
still be denying psychic powers . . . especially in herself.

“We’ll get Enzo back,” Zach said again, patting her hand. She liked hearing that but
was pretty sure the retrieval of Enzo would be up to her, and that wasn’t a certainty
at all.

She and Zach sat in silence . . . until she saw a shadowy man’s aura in the distance.
Her stomach clenched. She shouldn’t see a
real
man this far away, let alone a ghost.

“Zach?” Her voice came thinner than she wished. She cleared her throat. She
was
a strong person, she
could
do this. “Zach, there’s a ghost up ahead, a cowboy or a rancher or something, leaning
against a fencepost.”

Zach’s fingers tightened over hers. He slowed as his gaze scanned to the left and
the valley, back to the road, to the right and the rising land. As usual, there’d
been few cars on the road, no vehicle lights either ahead or behind them now. “I see
him,” Zach said, slowing even more. “That is, I see a gray smudge next to one of the
fenceposts. We’re coming up on Wagon Wheel Gap, right?”

“Yes. It was settled before Creede.” She paused. “He might be able to give us some
information.”

Zach grunted. As they drew near, the man tipped his cowboy hat to Clare, straightened.
Zach made a U-turn in a wider spot in the road, driving up next to the phantom. He
was dressed in the clothes of a guy who worked with horses—chaps, sturdy shirt, cowboy
hat—all in shades of gray easy to see in the light. Definitely a ghost from Clare’s
time period.

Inexplicably, she was glad to see him—maybe because seeing a regular ghost wasn’t
nearly as bad as fighting a terrible one.

“Stay in the vehicle until I come around,” Zach said, hitting the warning blinkers.

She’d unlocked her door and had been opening it. Despite his caution, she’d have hopped
from the truck, but Zach made her think twice and she reached into the large side-pocket
of her purse and took out the knife—a tight fit. If she continued to carry the thing
around, she’d have to move up to her next larger bag, one with less compartments.

He didn’t open the truck door or hold out a hand to steady her for the long step down.
Despite the fact that they’d stopped for a supernatural being, he took no chances
and kept his gun hand free.

When she exited, she saw he held his cane like the weapon it could become in his hands.
She hadn’t pressed him about knife fighting yet, but she should.

The cowboy tipped his hat.
Glad to see you, ma’am.
His torso bobbed awkwardly in a small bow.
I’m Chaz Green.

Clare nodded and walked to him, stopped a little closer than she would with a live
human. Zach joined her and put his hand on her shoulder.

Good evening, Mr. Green,
she sent mentally to the ghost.
Have you decided to go on?

He gave a short nod.
This is MY place, and I figger it’s purtier’n Heaven would be and shure enough purtier
than hell. I been happy here.
His chest went out.
Been strong and happy enough that I warn’t sucked into that gray limbo most my kind
go.
He turned his head and spit a stream of dark-looking liquid out.

An amused sound came from Zach.

Pardon, ma’am,
the ghost said. He sighed and a small chill touched her face from his breath. His
gaze went beyond her toward Creede.
I been concerned about that nasty one,
he said with traditional guy understatement. Then his form rippled as if in the wind.
Reckoned it might head down into the valley and get me next. I’ve thought and thought
on it and thunk how to figger out who the thing could be—

Thunder split the air and the snowstorm ghost was
there
! Fury struck at Clare, whirled her around, nipped at her with sharp teeth. The pain
jolted her and she moved into the thing, trying to sense the core. Futility. She sucked
in freezing-razor air, stopped breathing.
ENZO!
she shouted with her mind.
Enzo, come to me!

I can’t!
whimpered Enzo.
I’m trapped. Get me out, Clare!