Audrey Claire - Libby Grace 01 - How to be a Ghost (16 page)

“I said fre—” I began and stopped. What was I doing? I needed to get out of Clark and let him handle things. He would not fall over his own feet or sound scared when he gave an order.

I left his body as smoothly as I had taken it over, but the very moment I did, a heavy darkness descended. The few lights on the street didn’t dim, but it was as if there was something out here waiting for me in the shadows. I whirled this way and that, scanning the area but saw nothing. One second the sensation threatened to overwhelm me, and the next it receded.

I shook myself and turned to check on Clark. He straightened and looked down at his hand, holding his weapon then out into the street frowning. I knew by this time whoever had broken into the mayor’s office was long gone. Clark turned back to the door, and his flashlight appeared out of nowhere. He shined it inside, and he and I both saw the overturned chairs where I had fallen. I saw in the dim lighting suspicion illuminate his handsome features.

“Probable cause,” he muttered and uttered a few words into his radio.

I gave myself a pat on the back, grinning. Of course Clark didn’t know he had been the one to unlock the door and knock over the chairs, but someone had broken into the office, so he wasn’t wrong in his assumptions.

He entered the building with me floating right behind him. Unlike my foray, Clark knew where to find the lights, and he flipped them on. He scanned the interior, picking his way around the fallen chairs and checking before he made each step. He reached the mayor’s office and found the door open. We both entered, but I floated through him when he stopped cold. I heard rather than saw him shiver behind me, but my focus was all on the desk. Someone had left a minidisc in the center, and I had a sneaking suspicion the mayor was not the one who left it there.

“This is the chief,” Clark said into his radio. “Get me the judge on the line now! I want a search warrant for the mayor’s office. She’s not fighting me on this. And send somebody over here to help me.”

“Chief, it’s three in the morning,” came the tinny response.

“Now,” Clark repeated, and released the button on his radio.

Before I knew it the place swarmed with people, including the mayor. She swept in, looking neat as a pin and fit to murder someone just for dragging her from her bed at that insane hour.

“What is the meaning of this, Chief Givens?” she demanded as soon as she entered her office. “Why are all these people here? I do not like my things poked through or moved! If you value your position as—”

“As I stated on the phone, mayor,” he interrupted with what looked like a threadbare rein on his temper, “there’s been a break-in. What I want to know is have you ever seen that disc before?”

He pointed while I admired the fact that he didn’t quake under the mayor’s threat of losing his job. The mayor’s hot gaze shifted from Clark to her desk, and her beady eyes widened until I was sure it hurt. Her jaw dropped, and she clenched her hands into fists. My guess was she had never seen the disc, but she feared whatever was on it.

“Dust it,” Clark snapped, and one of his officers whisked forward with a kit. He seemed to cover every available surface with fingerprint dust. The mayor paled and swayed as she watched and whirled on her heel to leave the office. I followed and found her at the hall water fountain popping a pill in her mouth and guzzling water. When she returned, she wasn’t exactly stable, but she probably wouldn’t pass out.

Methodically, they searched the entire office from the secretary’s desk to the mayor’s. I studied the mayor’s face, but she seemed no more alarmed now than she had been on seeing the dust. Either she had nothing to hide, or she didn’t expect them to find her secrets.

“Chief,” one of the officers called. I rushed over with Clark, and we discovered at the same time the wire sticking out of a grate above a file cabinet. “Might have attached to a camera.”

Clark frowned and nodded. I gauged the angle if a camera had been placed above the file cabinet and realized it would most likely have been aimed right at the mayor.

“Depending on the lens, it could have taken in the entire room,” the officer went on, and I gasped. Clark turned as if hearing my gasp, and I darted away.

“Get it into evidence,” Clark said. He left the task to the other man and approached the desk to lift the disk by its edges. “I need to know what’s on here.”

“Hold it right there.” The mayor stepped into his path. “That was on my desk, so it is my property.”

Clark met her gaze. “Correction, mayor. This is evidence. If you want to get technical, it’s public property as is everything in here. We
are
public servants. Aside from that, I have a warrant to search this entire building, and anything I deem to be pertinent to my murder investigation
will be
examined.”

Her lips thinned, and a vein bulged in her neck. Clark should at least try to be nice. He might have the upper hand in this investigation, but at some point it would be over, and he might find himself working as a fry cook at the local fast-food place.

From the emotions flitting over the mayor’s face, I guessed she had the same thoughts and considered threatening him with this logic, but it had gotten her nowhere the first time.

“If you’re going to look at it, you’ll do it right here,” she said, infusing her tone with authority.

“That’s fine.”

Clark’s quick agreement took the wind right out of the woman’s sails, and she deflated. A few moments were spent booting up the mayor’s computer, which would play the disk. I wanted to warn Clark. What if there was a program or some such that could destroy the mayor’s computer? The officer assisting him, who seemed to know a little about electronics, spoke up. “You want to be careful, chief. There could be a virus.”

Clark dismissed this line of thinking, whether because he had nothing to lose personally or because he was impatient to view the disk, I didn’t know. “If he wanted to destroy the computer, he could have just loaded it and be done. He left it to be found, so we’ll watch.”

He paused and took in the faces crowding the office.

“Everyone out!” Clark ordered. “And shut the door.”

Suppressed groans rose, but they obeyed. The mayor held out her hand for the disc. “Give it to me. I’ll put it in.”

He didn’t even pretend to consider it. “If you don’t mind, mayor, I’ll handle it.”

She bristled but relinquished her chair to him. After a bit of fumbling around and the mayor giving him clipped instructions, Clark brought up the video file in a program that would play it. He tapped the button to get the video going, and all three of us froze. I covered my mouth, eyes wide. My face burned.

“Shut it off! Shut it off!” The mayor toppled backward and hit the floor in a dead faint. I floated over her, and Clark sat there a full ten seconds looking at her before he sprang into action and helped her to sit up.

“Mayor, are you okay?” he called out, lightly smacking the backs of her hands. “Olivia?”

She came to slowly, her eyes glazed, her pallor ashen. “Wha—”

Clark hauled her to her feet and led her to a chair. He moved swiftly to close out the video program and ejected the disc while the mayor rubbed a hand over her face. I watched as Clark dropped the disc into a plastic bag and pocketed it.

“Mayor, I’m going to get one of the men to take you home,” Clark said. She didn’t appear to have heard. Clark waited for a response, but the mayor never lifted her head, and I began to feel sorry for the woman. Anyone who had ever been in love had had their heart broken, and the mayor, even at her age, had to deal with it in this very public and humiliating way.

Clark made sure his officer took care of the mayor, and he left the building to slip into his squad car. I joined him, taking the passenger front seat, and he sighed. “When did I come out here? I don’t remember.”

Guilt assaulted me.

“Never mind that. What about this?” He tugged the plastic bag from his pocket and studied the disc. Then he reached across to my seat. I had to stifle a screech when he shuffled papers around under me, reaching through my leg. I floated out of the way, but he grunted in frustration. “Not here.”

I wondered what he looked for, but I figured it out when he tugged his cell phone from his pocket. Good thing he had left it in there because I hadn’t remembered it when I dressed him, and maybe if I had touched it directly, it might have broken. He searched through the apps and found a voice-recording device. Then he held the phone to his lips.

“Found a disc with George Walsh and Miles Lucas in a…intimate activity.”

That’s putting it mildly
, I said to myself.

“Nothing I don’t already know about,” Clark continued, “but is Miles trying to frame the mayor or someone else behind it? The mayor has a solid alibi. I have interviews with her doctor in Raleigh the night of the murder.”

Doctor? I wondered. What kind of doctor was she seeing at night? And why all the way in Raleigh? I hadn’t gotten to her file before I ran out to check her office.

“Looks like the video was filmed at Miles’s apartment. I will need another warrant.” He clicked off of the recording. As far as I knew Clark hadn’t been to Miles’s apartment more than once, and he knew the video was filmed there? Maybe he guessed. Yet, he had sounded certain.

To my great relief, Clark decided the search and warrant could wait until a decent hour. Not that I felt fatigue. I had been refreshed hanging out in Clark, and being in a room full of people at the mayor’s office kept me that way, but I wanted to go home and check on Jake and Monica. After confirming Clark intended to head out at ten, I headed home, my mind swirling with all the details of this case.

Chapter Ten

“I want to go too,” Monica almost whined. “You’re having all the fun.”

“This isn’t fun,” I admonished her. “This is me trying to figure out what’s happened to my body. Figuring out who killed George will lead me there, and I want it over as soon as possible.”

“How do you know it will lead there?” Monica said, sobering me. I firmed my shoulders.

“No choice. I have to go. I’ll fill you in later.”

“You better,” Monica demanded. “And be careful. Don’t overdo it.”

“I won’t.”

I blinked in front of the police station just as Clark folded into his squad car, and I took the safer back seat this time to ride along. When another officer slung a bag into the trunk and joined the chief, I was glad I’d made my choice. Steam wafted from a couple of topped paper cups the officer held. He handed one to Clark, and Clark breathed deep at the tiny opening in the lid. I sighed, a longing coming over me to smell the coffee and to taste it.

We headed out and were soon at Miles’s apartment complex. I wondered if Clark had told Miles he was coming and learned someone had because Miles opened the door at the first knock, and Clark dismissed the superintendent he had commandeered to gain entry.

“Miles Lucas, we have a warrant to search your apartment,” Clark announced, holding up an official-looking sheet of paper.

Miles didn’t even glance at it. “I don’t see why you have to look through my things. I have nothing to hide!”

Clark paused with his gaze sweeping the living room, and he glanced at Miles. “You’re saying you were not planning to move out of Summit’s Edge, and when you informed George Walsh of the fact, he sent you this note?”

Clark held up the sheet I had found in the mayor’s desk.

“I-I-I…” Miles stuttered and then frowned. “I am an artist. I was offered a job as an animator in Los Angeles. This is my dream come true, and George decided he wanted to hold me in this small town so we can be together. I told him I don’t love him and that I’m leaving.”

“That’s when you killed him?” Clark asked, deadpan.

“Of course not!” Miles hugged himself. Two spots of pink surfaced on his cheeks. “He said he would follow me. I wanted to start over in a new city and make new friends.”

“You were leaving him behind,” Clark filled in. “He wanted to hold you down. You couldn’t be free with deadweight.”

“No I couldn’t, but you make it sound bad. It wasn’t.” Miles stomped across to the couch and flounced down on it. “You don’t have anything on me. I won’t be bullied.”

His attitude was a whole lot different from when he had almost lost it in the library. Was that because he had planted evidence against the mayor and felt confident it would turn Clark’s attention to Olivia Walsh and away from him? If so, he had to be shocked to discover the police still wanted to search his place.

“Have you seen this disc before?” Clark asked.

By now Miles sulked and hardly gave the disc a glance. “No.”

“You didn’t record yourself and George Walsh…uh…”

Miles’s eyes bugged, and he flushed. “Of course not! Next thing you know he would have used that against me—or as a consolation prize after I was gone.” Miles half grinned and preened. Clark scowled at him.

“Wait.” Miles sat up straight. “You’re not saying that disc has…”

Clark ignored him and strolled from the room. I looked at Miles with Clark’s back turned, and the familiar expression of worry transformed the young man’s face. So he wasn’t as confident as he appeared. Thin shaped brows creased over narrowed eyes, and he chewed his bottom lip. I assumed he stared at nothing until I looked closer and noted how his gaze darted about the cluttered room. Miles searched for what might pin the murder on him. I had come across Miles’s folder in Clark’s office. He had no alibi, and he might have just filled in the blanks for motive with his own mouth.

Clark’s voice reached me from the bedroom, and I hurried down the hall. Clark and his officer stood at Miles’s open closet door. More disorder in the way of clothes and shoes spilled from the interior, but that wasn’t all. Clark or his partner had taken down a box crammed full with discs similar to the one found at the mayor’s office. There must have been hundreds of them, all labeled.

I floated down to take a closer look and trembled at seeing my name, Clark’s name, Isabelle’s, Monica’s, and many others. Next to the names were what I recognized without even a pause as house numbers. The discs corresponding to Gatsky’s did not include a number, but there were fewer than what was available with people’s houses, which surprised me. One would think more went on at a restaurant. Then I thought maybe the voyeur was interested in private matters behind closed doors.