“Morgan Raines was Julia’s partner on the Charles-ton Police Force. He was shot down by a scumbag druggie seven years ago. She says he showed up a few months later and saved her life when she was almost killed in the line of duty, too.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, nodding, that pleasant expression still on her face. He didn’t have any trouble reading it—she was thinking about calling for the guys in the white coats and padded wagons. “I take it you’ve met this guy?”
“No. Only Julia can see him.”
She snapped her fingers. “Wait, I think I saw this in a movie once.
Mystery Men
. This guy claims he can become invisible, but only if nobody’s around to see.”
Chuckling ruefully, he shook his head. “Julia’s going to like you.”
“That’ll make my day, I’m sure—being liked by Casper’s gal pal.”
“Whatever. Believe it or don’t. All I can say is, I’ve seen and done too much freaky stuff in my own life to question somebody hanging out with a ghost.” Lowering his voice, he added, “Sharing someone’s dreams isn’t exactly normal, either.”
Lexie’s smile faded and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He’d made his point. She would at least open her mind to the possibility.
And once she met Julia . . . well, it was hard for anyone to resist Julia Harrington when she set her mind to being liked and trusted. The woman was almost as big a force of nature as Lexie.
Saturday, 4:45 p.m.
Surrounded by people who knew and cared about Aidan, Lexie had to wonder why he’d ever left Savannah. These people, his former coworkers at eXtreme Investigations, obviously missed him. She had no doubt they had been behind him all the way on that last publicity-tainted case. From the moment she’d gotten in Aidan’s SUV, which his friends had driven over to her house, it had been painfully clear they all thought he was crazy to have moved to Granville.
Not that they were rude, God, no; they’d all been wonderful. More warm and considerate toward her than most people around here were these days—except for Walter and his family. But it was clear they thought he had wasted a year of his life on regret. Julia Harrington, who might talk to ghosts but was also incredibly charming and down-to-earth, seemed especially appreciative that Lexie had drawn Aidan back into the “land of the living” as she called it.
Huh. Guess she’d know
.
“So have you found out what Chief Dudley Do-Wrong did with the bones?” asked Mick Tanner, the guy who’d had Aidan’s back during the fight in the alley. With his broad grin, twinkling eyes, and flashing dimples, she suspected the sexy guy could be a wicked flirt. But he’d been nothing but cordial and professional with her.
Maybe because Aidan had given him a hard, warning look when he’d taken Lexie’s hand to shake it. But she could have imagined that. After all, he’d known her less than three days. They weren’t involved, had no claim on each other.
Except in their dreams.
“Lexie? The bones?” Mick prompted.
“Oh, sorry. No, I don’t know what he did with them. That’s something Aidan and I were going to get to work on. I was thinking it would be worth having Walter call the DA’s office, filing a request for information. If Dunston gets some heat from them, he’ll have to come up with some kind of answer.”
“Sure,” Mick replied, “as in, ‘Bones? What bones?’ ”
Lexie shook her head thoughtfully, disagreeing. “Twenty-four hours ago, I might have believed that. But he’s in the hot seat now. The spotlight is shining bright and he’s going to play Mr. Good Cop at least as long as he thinks people in this town give a damn.”
Olivia, who was as elegantly lovely as her boss, Julia, was flamboyantly sexy, cleared her throat. “Does your friend Walter know the medical examiner well? If he does get the remains, would he be open to allowing them to be . . . examined by anyone else?”
Lexie didn’t know Olivia’s background, if she was a psychic like Aidan, or saw ghosts like Julia. Come to think of it, she didn’t know what kind of power Mick had, either. But she suspected Olivia was not asking because she had some kind of forensics background. The tension in her tight shoulders and the haunted shadow in her eyes said she didn’t want to examine those remains but that she had to.
“Actually, yeah, they’re old friends. If he can pry those remains away from Dunston, I imagine he’d be willing to let you examine them, as long as he knows you have the credentials and reason to do so.”
Olivia nodded once, then looked away, focusing her attention out the window at the passing Georgia country-side. They had left town, heading west on Old Terrytown Road, with marshy flatlands and abandoned rice fields all around them. It wasn’t a particularly pretty drive, nor a popular place to live these days. Which could explain the abandoned houses. Some of them had been empty shells for a year, some for a hundred. Either way, the remaining neighbors were few and far between.
She couldn’t think of a better area to conduct meetings of a secretive club whose members had a predilection for teenage girls.
“Here’s the mile marker,” Aidan said, slowing as they drew close to the spot Walter had told her about.
They neared a mailbox that looked freshly painted and in use. Lexie studied the small name, and said, “Ah. Mr. McCurdy. He and Walter are old poker buddies. I’m sure he’s the anonymous source.”
“So this is the place,” said Mick. “Why don’t you pull over and let me get out, take a walk around? Obviously not many bones were found, and a single human body has a lot of them. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
Lucky enough to stumble over human remains on the side of a back country road. The thought was disturbing. But he was also right. “I should go, too. I know the area best.”
Aidan met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Yes to Mick; no to you. He can tromp around along the side of the road; you and I have a house to look for. We’re going to drive up and back and see if we spot any old gravel roads, driveways, or paths, remember?” He shifted his attention to Julia, who sat beside her in the backseat. “Unless you have any other ideas, Julia?”
She shook her head slowly, gazing down at her own lap. “I need to get out for a few minutes. Let me go with Mick.” Lifting her head, she said, “I, um, might be able to narrow down the location of this mystery house.”
Lexie saw the way everyone else in the vehicle nodded, and realized they all thought the woman might be able to get a ghost to tell her where they should search. She still couldn’t wrap her head around it, but she also knew the other woman came across as competent, sharp, and, most important, sane.
And like Aidan had said, how normal was it to have shared sex dreams? She’d gone so far as to accept Aidan’s psychic abilities as simple truth; it shouldn’t be that difficult to accept what she was told about Julia.
Only, of course, it was. Psychic stuff, even dreams, had at least some kind of scientific possibility. She knew much of the brain was a mystery to researchers, so it didn’t shock her to think it might be capable of a lot more than was accepted as fact. Someone who was able to tap into all that unused brainpower might indeed be able to see things others couldn’t or even into other people’s thoughts and dreams.
But ghosts? That was a whole other story. That was life and death, heaven and hell and earth in the middle stuff. She had her faith, and her beliefs; they didn’t include wispy remnants of the dead hovering around the living.
Not that she was rude enough to say such a thing to Julia’s face. Because, no matter what she thought, everyone else around her trusted and believed in the woman completely. Either that, or they just liked her enough to humor her.
Aidan pulled onto the shoulder, waiting while Julia and Mick climbed out. Olivia appeared undecided for a moment, then joined them. “No sense putting it off,” she said with a stiff little smile. “If we find something suspicious, I’m the one who’ll be able to figure out if it’s part of a human body.”
Okay, so maybe the woman did have a forensics background.
“Lexie, why don’t you hop up front so you can get a better view?” Julia said as she stood outside the door. “You be the spotter.” She glanced at Aidan. “When I get some information, I’ll call you and try to narrow your search quadrant, okay?”
“Understood.”
“It’ll be dark soon,” Julia added.
Lexie nodded in agreement. “We have no more than an hour of daylight left.”
“Okay,” Aidan replied, “so let’s make the most of it.”
Saturday, 6:30 p.m.
They started to arrive right on time.
Mayor Cunningham came first, then Harry Lawton. More followed.
Alone or in pairs, never in a group large enough to be noticed on the street, they’d smile at anyone passing by, then carefully make their way into a private side door of a building that was supposed to be closed for the weekend. The building, which provided office suites to a number of attorneys, investment types, and accountants, apparently also offered after-hours meeting space for some of its wealthy tenants.
Chief Jack Dunston watched them from his window-front table at the restaurant directly across the street. He’d specifically requested the spot, because of this view. Spending a long time looking at the menu and ordering slowly, he’d spread out his meal as long as he could.
No way did he want to give up his front- row seat, not yet anyway. Not until he’d figured out what to do.
Ignoring everyone else in the crowded place, which was popular with business lunch customers during the week and laughing young adults looking to hook up on Saturday nights, he took out a notepad and pencil and began jotting down names. He knew all of them by sight. Most he’d expected to be there. A few surprised him.
What he didn’t know was how many more would show up, how they might know each other, and, most important, why they were here. Why did these men gather at this building the second Saturday of every month? Were they the mysterious “club” his own officers sometimes talked about?
“So, Chief, will that be it for the night? Would you like me to bring you your check?” his waitress asked, startling him into covering up his notes with his arm.
“Uh, give me a little while, okay?” he said, offering her a big, aww-shucks smile. “I might want some dessert.”
“You got it,” she said before sauntering away.
He immediately peered out the window again, seeing two more men go through that door.
Young and Wilhelm
. He added their names to the list, which had grown to about twelve. Twelve men who he wouldn’t think had much in common, beyond being respected around these parts. What the newspaper owner and the bank manager had in common with teachers and administrators, he had no idea.
One of them glanced around, his gaze falling on the front of this very place. Though he almost certainly couldn’t be seen through the window, Jack pulled back instinctively, not wanting them to know he was spying on them. Not because he worried about their reaction, but because he felt a little unsure himself about what he was doing here.
Though he’d known about these meetings, he’d never given them a second thought. Jack had noticed the once-a-month pattern—no matter what anybody might think about him as a chief, he did pay attention. He’d seen some of the successful men of this town coming together at this place, on certain nights of the month, and then leaving together in a big rented van. He’d never questioned it, never asked them why. He’d certainly never spied on them before. No, sir, he knew how to mind his own business.
But he
had
noticed.
Just like he’d noticed how nervous and jittery they sometimes got, especially back when those articles had been published in the paper.
Did he think some of the most respected men of Granville had anything to do with the disappearance of a bunch of Boro trash? Hell, no. Not a chance. But he didn’t doubt they were up to something. He had the feeling they feared too much attention about those missing girls could cast a glimmer of light on whatever they were trying to hide in the shadows.
Until now, he hadn’t really cared about being left out of the loop. Lately, though, it had started to bug him. Maybe because he’d been embarrassed, caught with his pants down in the paper and again at the game last night. Maybe because of the bruises on that reporter’s throat—the woman might be a pain in the ass, but she was only doing her job. And he sure didn’t want to think people were really getting attacked on the streets of Granville in broad daylight, no matter what neighborhood they were in. Nor did he like the threat from her pissed-off boyfriend, about a national spotlight being shone on this place. On him.
He was losing control of this town. And that he didn’t like most of all.
No matter what anyone thought, and no matter how much he liked getting that wad of cash in his porch fridge, Jack Dunston would not stand for being made a fool of. Nor was he going to ignore actual murder.
That might not be related to this
.
But he suspected it was. Something was going on with those secretive men across the street. Something dark and ugly going on here in Granville. The small bag of bones locked inside his desk at the station told him that much. He’d let himself believe they didn’t—couldn’t possibly—belong to a human being. But he’d since begun to wonder.
“So, have you decided on dessert, Chief? The carrot cake is awful good!”
Jack didn’t respond at first, merely watching as the big passenger van pulled into the parking lot across the street, just like always. He couldn’t see who was driving, but was able to make out a couple of shapes in the passenger’s seats, even before anyone from the building got in.
He wondered who those shapes belonged to.
The men began to emerge from the building, heading for the van. They were on the move, on schedule to leave right around seven p.m. Going to do whatever it was they did one Saturday a month.
He could stay here and eat a piece of cake. Maybe feel the mayor out tomorrow, hint that he’d seen activity in the building and wonder aloud what was going on. Or he could be a cop and follow them.