Ghost of Lies (Medium Trouble Book 1), page 9
All the while, my brain is trying to decide what’s going on here. There’s no way he’s talking to a ghost. There’s just no fathomable way. Did he find the water bottle? But how could my team have missed it and he didn’t?
I just… there’s no way he can talk to ghosts, right?
When my team emails me the list of Roberts who would have been leaving class around the same time as Harper, I hold it up to Hiro. “Can you tell me which one?”
He takes the phone and without even looking at it, he points it away from him before saying, “She says the third one. Robert Matthews.”
He doesn’t look at it as he hands it back, either, and I can’t help but wonder if he did that on purpose to show me that he couldn’t have that knowledge without someone helping him.
“So can…” I stare at Hiro as I try to find my words. “Harper… go with us to verify that we have the right guy?”
“Um… we can try. She’s kind of attached to this area at the moment—newer ghosts seem to fixate on their place of death—but she can move on if she tries. I’ll see if she’ll follow me,” he says.
“We’re going to let someone else apprehend him while I stay back with you. I just want her there to tell us for certain.”
“Do I hold the cat the whole time?” Hiro teases.
“He can wait in the car. Let’s go.”
I head out to my car while the team works on the scene before following two officers to Robert Matthews’ home. I park on the street as I glance over at Hiro before getting out. He gets out as well and smiles to his left.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly as the officers knock on the door.
Robert answers the door with alarm in his eyes as they dart between the two officers.
“She said that’s him,” Hiro says before turning from me. “It’s okay.”
I watch as Robert covers his face and drops to his knees before the officers even say anything. Even from here, I can hear him going, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
As I watch the whole thing play out, I find myself at a loss for words. Today, I went into things positive that this was going to be an absolute waste of my time, and instead, we closed a case I feared was going to stay open. And with the help of someone I never thought would actually be helpful.
Even after they pack Robert into the car and drive off, I’m still just standing there, staring at the spot Robert had been kneeling.
“Harper…” I start, not sure what I’m going to say.
“She’s gone,” Hiro says. “Ghosts move on when they feel at peace… I think seeing Robert hold that level of regret let her move on.”
“Get in the car,” I order, unsure what else to say. I don’t mean to make it sound so sharp, but the logical part of my brain is telling me Hiro is trying to trick me somehow.
“Okay…”
He gets in as I pull open my door, but I have to move Bandit who has taken over my seat. I set him on Hiro’s lap without wondering if he actually wants the cat.
He rubs Bandit’s ears before glancing up at me. “You know you should get him a little carrier or something in case you’re in a crash, right?”
I ignore him as I sit there, scrutinizing him and trying to figure out how he is pulling this off. “Close your eyes.”
His eyebrows lift. It’s clear he’s amused, which makes me trust him even less. “Why? This sounds sketchy. Are you going to do something sketchy?”
Me? Has he forgotten about his own existence? How am I even remotely the sketchy one here? “Is there a ghost here?” I ask, sounding ridiculous even asking such a question.
“Um… yeah, Natalie is here.”
“Alright, close your eyes.”
He seems a bit confused but closes his eyes. “Okay…”
“How many fingers am I holding up?” I ask as I hold up two.
“Two.” There is no hesitation. He doesn’t tilt his head my way or open his eyes at all. Instead, he looks quite relaxed in my passenger seat while stroking the cat who is all purrs.
“Now?”
“One.”
I close my hand in disbelief. No, no, no… this isn’t right. This isn’t real. “Which one was it?”
“Your right pinky.”
I put out four fingers, feeling like a fool. “Now what?”
“She said your willie is out, but she’s also a fucking pervert, so I’m going to guess it’s not,” he says.
“What?” I ask, startled by the answer.
He opens his eyes and looks over at me. “So… me solving a case wasn’t enough, we now have to guess the fingers? What else do you want me to guess? You’re just so determined to be right, aren’t you?”
I narrow my eyes at him, but his grin is undeterred. “What are you?”
“Alien,” he whispers.
My eyes narrow even more at his ludicrous answer.
“Natalie is now sitting on your lap,” he says nonchalantly, like this is a normal occurrence. “Her breasts are like right in your face. She’s jiggling them now.”
I continue to stare at him, refusing to react to this information.
His grin shifts back to a more normal expression. “What else do you want from me? How about this, I want you to type something on your phone, and show it to… your steering wheel, alright? I’ll tell you what it says.”
I quickly type “buttercup, blueberry, tree,” hoping random words will throw him off and I can go back to sane town.
“Natalie says that it says ‘Hiro wants… your…” He’s silent before he glares at the steering wheel. “I will banish you, evil spirit,” he growls. “Anyway. Buttercup, blueberry, tree.”
I toss my phone in the back seat, start the car, and begin driving. I don’t know where I’m driving to or what getting away from this place will do for me when the issue is in the vehicle with me.
“I will forgive you for everything evil you’ve ever said or done to me if you stop somewhere for food,” Hiro says with a smile aimed right at me. “I mean, it’s a lot to forgive. Like the time you detained me on my birthday, and the time you interrogated me, and the time you conned me into getting in your car with you before you dropped me off without my car.”
I’m silent as I pull into a McDonald’s.
“Do you want something?” Hiro asks as he peruses the menu.
Silence.
“Are you going to pout now that you’re wrong?” Hiro asks as he leans forward to get a better look.
“Yes,” I say, determined to not give in to him no matter what I do.
He starts laughing before leaning over me to order. After he’s finished, I decide hunger wins out and order some food for myself before pulling up to the window. The moment I stop, Hiro tries handing me a credit card, but I ignore him and pay for it myself. I hand him the bag of food, and instead of driving home, I park in a parking spot out front where we can watch the traffic move past. He hands me my burger as I sit there, contemplating everything.
After a moment, I turn to him. “I’ve decided I don’t trust you, you’ve made all of this up, and it was all staged,” I declare.
“Natalie is still on your lap. Natalie, get down,” he says, like she’s a dog that won’t stop jumping.
I open a packet of salt and dust it over my lap, which makes Hiro laugh.
“Salt doesn’t affect them, but I also love how you insist you don’t believe a word I say yet you start tossing salt at her,” he says. “She got off. She asked why you have to be so salty all the time.” He barely manages to say that without laughing.
“You’re not funny,” I say as Bandit climbs onto my lap just to take a chomp out of my burger before I realize what’s happening. “You damn cat.”
Hiro laughs again as Bandit darts off with his bite to chew on in peace. “This your cat?”
“Sadly.”
“Sadly? You clearly love him,” he says, watching the cat purr as he chews. “You can’t even pretend you don’t.”
I let out a grumble so he can be well aware of my level of annoyance at this statement. “Don’t get fucking cocky and pretend you know everything now. I still think this is all a big hoax.”
Hiro nods. “Totally don’t blame you for not believing me after all of the stuff I showed you today. I mean, really, there’s an explanation for all of it, like I can read minds or I’m psychic or something. Ooh! I know. I’m a better detective than you.”
That makes me grumble more than him seeing ghosts does.
“Why are you so determined to help?” I ask.
“Because every time I see my brother, I can’t stop thinking about the guy who killed him,” he says.
He really does see his brother? “So your brother’s imaginary ghost is still here?”
Hiro grins at me. “Yes.”
“Is he here right now?”
“No… he’d probably murder me if he knew what I was doing. He gets really upset when I do anything that pertains to finding his killer,” he says.
“Sounds like he’s the smarter one in the family.”
“You can’t tell me if someone killed Ben that you wouldn’t do everything in your power to find him.”
“It’s different.” Even I can hear how stubborn I sound.
“Why? Because Ben’s blood related?”
“No, because I know what I’m doing and I can also protect myself.”
“Carrying a weapon around doesn’t make you invincible,” he says.
“Neither does wandering around and talking to ghosts.”
He’s quiet for a moment as he bites into a fry and seems to think. “Say what you will, Maddox, but I’m going to help my brother’s ghost find peace with or without you. But maybe we could work together to end this before anyone else has to die.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say, which seems to satisfy him more than I thought it would.
“You do that,” Hiro says.
Chapter Thirteen
MADDOX
“What the hell’s happened to you?” Ben asks as he grabs me in a headlock and starts holding his hand against my forehead like he’s checking my temperature. I battle him off me, already annoyed by his shit, and it’s only eight in the morning.
“Nothing. What happened to you? Ah right, you were born this goddamn annoying,” I growl.
That makes him laugh as I turn to face him.
“What’s this I hear about you and Hiro cleaning up cases?” he asks.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, wanting to pretend I know nothing about Hiro.
“Hey, Ben!” Hiro says as he climbs up the last step of the stairs and sees us. I scowl at him too, even though I told him to be here by eight, and that if he was late, he wasn’t helping ever again.
“Speak of the devil,” Ben says, positively thrilled by this development. It’s annoying how entertained by all of this he is.
“You must be talking about Maddox, then,” Hiro says with a grin, which makes Ben laugh. They’re like two annoyances that come together to make one big annoyance. “I hear they call him Mad Maddox.”
That really gets Ben going. “Only if we don’t ever want to see them again.”
“You two are working together today. Good luck,” I say, but as I walk away, Hiro hurries to catch up.
“I have my niece’s gymnastics recital or whatever it’s called this evening at six but beyond that, I am alllll yours,” he says with a smile.
“Don’t you have a business to run? I think they need you.”
“Yeah. But there’s this weird thing called employees who can run it for me when I’m gone. I also just received a huge donation to the bookstore from the mayor that’s going to let me hire some more help, so I’m all yours.”
“What’d you do to the mayor? Drug him? Con him? Threaten him?”
“Blackmail,” he says as we head toward an empty room in the back. “In exchange, he gave me a painting his wife did of an orgy.”
That makes me shift my attention to him. “Excuse me, I misheard that.”
Hiro looks dead serious as he shrugs. “He literally handed me a painting of three people having sex as a thank you. It was awkward, but I still hung it up right in my apartment so anyone who stops by can enjoy it.”
I just sigh because what else is there left to do when he constantly makes shit up?
When we walk into the empty room, I shut the door. “Did you bring… what I asked?”
“I brought He-who-shall-not-be-named,” Hiro says, and I want to be annoyed but I can’t when he’s literally saying it because of how I asked my question. I’m over here acting like I’d asked him to smuggle in some drugs.
“I feel like I’ve lost my mind,” I say as I set up my laptop. “Okay, Sean, is it?”
“Yes,” Hiro says.
Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I feel like an idiot. “Sean, I want you to tell me everything about the night you died,” I say.
Hiro looks to his left for a moment before his expression thins. “Sean, come on, he’s helping us.”
I can’t get used to this. There’s no way I can get used to this. This is too fucking weird.
“Sean wants to know that we’re just here to get his point of view, and that I’m not involved,” Hiro says.
“I want nothing to do with Hiro,” I concur, which really isn’t a lie.
“See?” Hiro says with a smile. “He hates my presence, and do you really think he’ll let me help when he thinks I’m crazy and simply talking to myself?” Hiro turns back to me. “He won’t answer anything until I tell you that he said if you let me help, he will haunt you until the day you die.”
I stare at him a bit uncertainly while trying to look like I don’t give a shit. “Tell him that I want nothing to do with you.”
That seems to amuse Hiro and get Sean to talk. “Alright, so he says he’d gone to the bar to have a drink with some coworkers before seeing that the one lady he worked with was struggling to even stand up. I guess she’d recently broken up with her boyfriend or something and decided to drown herself in alcohol. Since the lady lived a couple blocks from the bar and Sean didn’t drive, he had to walk with her.
“He walked her home with no issue, left her at the door and started toward the train station. She lived on the far side of town, so he said the street was pretty dark. He thought he saw someone following him, but he couldn’t tell and didn’t think anything of it. It was a neighborhood, so seeing someone out wasn’t a big deal. He said that’s when he heard footsteps behind him, and just as he started to turn to look, a dark bag went over his head, cutting out his vision. He said he reached for it as something snapped around his… around his neck,” Hiro says, and I can tell this is starting to stress him, but he just shakes his head and pushes on.
“Whatever it was that was wrapped around his throat grew tight and he started to claw at it. He threw himself forward, dragging the guy with him, but it was too tight around his neck. He couldn’t see where he was going, so his foot caught on the edge of the sidewalk, and he was flung forward. The weight of the man drove him down to his knees and he said he could feel grass under him, but there was nothing he could do. He said that when he threw himself back, his head smashed into the concrete and everything went dark after that.
“When he woke up, he was strapped down to a chair, unable to move or see anything. He could only tell that he was sitting. He could feel carpet under his feet and a chair beneath him. He said that he tried to struggle, but he couldn’t get his body to move. And that’s when he felt him…” Hiro seems upset, but he quickly composes himself before looking up at me.
Pretty much everything said corresponds with the police reports. I wasn’t the lead detective, but I was one of the ones on scene. I never engaged with Hiro at the time, but thinking back, I remember him. Sean had been found in a building that was rented out for gatherings at a park in the city. It was used frequently but was locked when it wasn’t rented out. What I remember most is an older detective, who has since retired, talking about how weird it was that the deceased’s brother was obsessed with seeing the crime scene to the point where he caught him trying to break into the building. They wrote it off as grief or that maybe he thought he could solve a case that was quickly running cold.
“You were trying to find your brother’s ghost,” I realize.
He looks startled. “What’s that?”
“I remember the lead detective saying how Sean’s brother kept trying to break into the crime scene. You were trying to get to Sean.”
Hiro nods. “Yeah… I was also losing my mind a bit. Sean wouldn’t leave the scene and without me going inside, I couldn’t even talk to him. I thought that maybe he knew or had seen something I could tell the police, but by the time I finally spoke to him, there was nothing left to tell them that they didn’t already have.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He gives me a soft smile. “Thanks.”
“Okay… I have a few questions for Sean. He never saw the guy, correct?”
“No,” Hiro says.
“What about when Sean said that he’d pulled the guy forward. He must not have been too tall, then?” I ask.
“Sean says he’s not sure if the killer moved with him or if he was able to pull him with his weight. He said he can’t remember clearly,” Hiro says.
“Hmm, okay,” I say. “Can you ask him if he remembers any smells or any—”
“He’s gone…” Hiro interrupts, looking apologetic. “He gets antsy when talking about it. But when he comes around again, I’ll pin his ass down and make him answer the rest. Probably nothing of use?”
“Nothing new, sadly,” I say.
“I’m glad you’re now resigned to believing me,” he says with a wicked grin.
I just grunt as a reply then give him a wave. “I’m done with you.”
“No, you’re taking me to the scene of the crime,” he says, determined.
The issue is once I start involving him in stuff, where does it end? Does it end with me putting him in danger? Does it put him on the killer’s radar? “I can’t now.”
