A Spooky Legacy, page 2
I jerked at the sound of Danny’s soft whistle as he hung up the phone. It was a moment before I could shelve all things family-expansion related and get focused. “How’s our esteemed leader?”
“Pissed.” He kept swearing Lieutenant Lindsey Tate’s bark was worse than her bite. He usually said that after I was nursing the sizable chunk she’d taken out of my ass, so the jury was still out on that. “She also wants to see you first thing.”
“Tell her I’m dead.”
“Too late.” His voice was a damn sight too cheery, especially considering he’d just signed my death warrant with all caps. “I told her you’d see her at eight, sharp.”
Which just goes to show you, things can always get worse.
Someone dressed as Spider-Man waved and Danny waved back before recrossing his arms. Spider-Man waved again, more vigorously this time, and Danny sighed. “I’ll be back. Either Kevin found another freaking dead body, or he’s got to use the bathroom.”
“Either way, wash your hands,” I advised, much to his amusement.
“Wow,” Franklin murmured. “I…just, wow.”
I turned to find his eyes trained on Danny as he strode away. Yes, I was aware of exactly how nice his ass looked in those dark wash jeans that were worn and torn in all the right places. And yes, that shirt showed off his defined biceps. That didn’t mean I was putting up with all the fucking ogling, ghost or no.
I narrowed my eyes. “Would you like to see if it’s scientifically possible to die twice?”
He held up his hands. “Nothing wrong with looking, is there?”
“When it comes to my husband? Yep.”
“Your husband?” He hummed, his face filled with something akin to wonder and this time his wow was a lot less pervy and more filled with wonder. “Things…have certainly changed. Yessir, I think I’ll stick around for a little while.”
Okay, maybe I liked him a bit more. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try to get him to cross over. I’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t good for spirits to just wander until they lost all sense of themselves. But while he was here….
I turned to Franklin, now picking flowers that verged on weed territory. “I don’t suppose you can tell me anything else about these body parts,” I said. “Like, I don’t know, how you found them?”
He didn’t bother to look my way. “I hear things.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So where are the heads?”
“Not those sorts of things.”
I sighed. “Of course.”
A few hours later, I spotted our ME making his way to the coroner’s van. He had a trash bag in each hand and was carrying them like they were filled with unicorn dust. I saw Joss heading that way to intercept him and startled into action, hustling through the mushy sawgrass. Dammit, I had questions, too. Like how long it would be before we could turn this shitshow over to homicide.
I beat him by a couple seconds, probably because his long legs were slightly hampered by his boxy-shaped domino costume. Deckland, his partner, was only a few steps behind, his steampunk hat slightly askew. And then there was me, hands on my hips and cat ears perked. We all regarded Saunders questioningly, looking like the strangest superhero team ever assembled.
We knew better than to rush him as he polished his glasses. “Two bags, two bodies,” he finally said. “Looks like we’re missing more parts than just the heads, but I’ll have to play a little match game in my office to be sure.”
I grimaced. I preferred Monopoly, but to each his own. I had a feeling that building a Frankenbody was not a bad way to pass Halloween for a ghoul like Saunders. I couldn’t help but notice he still hadn’t answered the question we were all waiting for with bated breath.
I felt a presence behind me. I knew it was Danny before he even said a word. Considering how quietly he moved, that should be quite a feat. But we were connected in every possible way. Simple as that. I’d know him anywhere, even in pitch-black darkness.
Sure enough, I heard his baritone a second later. “Cut the bullshit suspense, Saunders. How long?”
I swallowed an inappropriate laugh. Hey, I never said he was a people-person. He was my person, and that would always be more than enough.
A whisper of a smile that Saunders would never admit to made his mustache twitch. “Well. I certainly can’t give you an exact answer without proper analysis of the remains in my office,” he said, drawing things out as long as possible. I had a feeling he was the type to open gifts by carefully peeling up each piece of tape. “I can tell you this, though. The body parts appear to have been frozen at some point.”
I groaned.
Homicide 1, Cold Case Squad 0.
Joss punched the air with a quiet whoop, then fist-bumped his partner. “Yes,” he said with feeling just as Danny swore. “And just like that, I’m back to the party. See ya, boys. Have a good murder.”
Joss and Deckland ambled back to the side of the road. Once a long, lonely stretch of highway with swampland on either side, it was now lined with vehicles. Joss turned and saluted us both, right before he got in his Ford Explorer. I wistfully watched as the taillights illuminated and he drove off.
“Fucker,” Danny muttered.
I concurred thoroughly.
2
We didn’t leave until after midnight.
I drove with the radio on low and the windows down so I could stay alert. My mind was usually buzzing after leaving a crime scene, but I’d passed that stage hours ago. Now I was just trying my damnedest to keep my eyes open.
As if to agree, there was a huff and a sigh from the passenger seat. I glanced over fondly at the Danny-shaped lump using his hoodie as a pillow against the window. He swore he’d help keep me awake but abandoned the plan five minutes into the drive. I wasn’t mad about it. We’d caught a case where our main clue was assorted body parts in a few Hefty bags. We were going to need all the rest we could get.
Lost in thought, I saw movement in my rearview mirror and glanced up only to find my backseat fully occupied. A woman was sitting in the seat behind Danny, and oh joy, Franklin was back, too.
I sighed because it was too damn late at night to be dealing with these bloody single-minded ghosts. “That had better not be another gift. Your last one wasn’t exactly a crowd pleaser.”
“I didn’t bring her,” he protested. “She came on her own.”
I glanced up in the mirror again. The woman was dressed casually in an oversized t-shirt covered in sunflowers, and black yoga pants. She was small but curvy, and short, probably no more than five two. Her wavy dark hair fell to her shoulders in a style that bordered on tousled and messy, and her face was rounded and sweet. She had whiskey-brown eyes.
Anxious brown eyes.
“Have you found my daughters?” She asked.
“Erm.” I cleared my throat. “This may seem particularly redundant, seeing as how you seem to think we’re in the middle of a conversation and this is the first time I’m seeing your face, but who are you again?”
“Quinn Parker,” she said impatiently. “We haven’t spoken?”
“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure, no.”
“Oh.” She briefly looked flummoxed. “Well, that’s strange. But things have been a tad fuzzy since…”
She waved vaguely at herself. I couldn’t see anything that would’ve led to her demise. Thankfully. It was rather hard to talk to someone with a gruesome injury. Unfortunately, I knew that from experience.
“I can imagine,” I finally said.
“But you’ll help find them, right?”
“It’s kind of what I do.” Unfortunately. I looked between her and Franklin and took a wistful shot in the dark. There was nothing I loved more than knocking out two birds with one stone. “I don’t suppose you two know each other?”
She glanced back at Franklin as if startled to find him there, and then gave an oh, him kind of wave. “I’m here about my daughters. I don’t know who he is and to be perfectly honest, I’m not all that bothered to know.”
“I’m not all that bothered, either, in fact,” Franklin said in his faintly lilting accent.
“Okay, in the competition of who’s the most fucking bothered, I win, hands down,” I said. That shit was undebatable. “Quinn, do you know who did this to you?”
“Well, they seem to think we left on our own,” she said with a frown. “But that just can’t be right.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“Well…no,” she admitted. “But if we left on our own, then why am I dead? Shouldn’t I be living under an assumed identity someplace?”
Well, she certainly had me there.
“What do you remember about your last day?” I asked.
“I’d been fighting off a bug all weekend, and by Monday, I could tell resistance was futile,” she said. “So I called in sick and worked remotely.”
“Where did you work?”
“The Hope House. It’s a women’s center in Aventura.” She smiled a little wistfully. “I got a delivery of flowers and a mini cake from Nate, which was a nice surprise. Sunflowers, my favorite.”
“And Nate is your…husband?” I guessed.
“Yes. I picked up the girls after school and we settled into our normal routine. Homework, dinner, baths…the usual. Just a day like any other.” When I glanced up in the rearview mirror, she was frowning. “Seems so wrong that such a day would be our last.”
“What happened after dinner?” I asked quietly.
“We watched a movie, I think. I don’t even remember what it was now. The girls fell asleep halfway through, so Nate and I put them to bed.” Another wistful smile. “We went back downstairs to clean up and fell asleep on the couch.”
I waited a few moments until I realized that was it. “That’s the last thing you remember?”
“Sorry. I know that probably wasn’t all that helpful.” She bit her lip. “Please…just find my girls. I need to know they’re okay.”
“I will,” I assured her. “Ferreting out the truth is kind of what I do.”
I just wasn’t sure she’d like the result.
I glanced up in the rearview again, wondering if there was something else I could do to help her find peace in the meantime. Dakota had helped me figure out a way to send a spirit on to the next plane—willing or not. Of course, things went a lot smoother if they were willing, but either way, I could help them move on.
Hesitantly, I lifted my hand. Little sparkles of gold danced from my fingertips that only we could see—bridge and spirit. She reared back as if I’d thrown a live fish in her face. “Easy,” I said gently. “I just thought I could help you—”
“Find my daughters.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I already told you how you can help me.”
She wasn’t the only one perturbed. Judging by the nervous looks he was sending me, Franklin wasn’t too keen on my particular brand of help, either. “They said you’d try to do that,” he said anxiously.
“Who’s they?” I demanded.
Neither ghost deigned to answer what was a very clear question.
Guess it was only appropriate that I’d be gossiped about in the ghost world, too. My colleagues certainly did enough of that. Even without confirmation that I saw ghosts, they made a meal of the rumors. The general consensus seemed to be that I was nice enough but a little creepy. And our solve rate was also a touch too high for a cold case department. The higher ups seemed to concur, but with the added caveat that I was too good at my job to let go. I was certain there was a compliment in there if I squinted hard enough.
“I debated whether I should even come to you,” Quinn muttered to herself. “I mean, I could’ve waited for the new star, but that will take far too long. I need experience. Not innocence.”
“What?” I frowned. “And more importantly…what?”
“I’d like to stick around for now, so none of that if you mind.” She pantomimed my fingers with the sparkles. “When you find them, my girls will be needing their mother.”
“Up to you,” I said. “Just trying to help.”
I felt her impatient gaze on the back of my head as I continued to drive.
“So…when do we start?” She finally blurted.
“Not at freaking midnight, that’s for sure,” I said dryly. “Also, if I need your help doing my damn job, I’ll let you know.”
She huffed. “They said you’d be like this.”
“Who?” I demanded again as she disappeared like a figment of my imagination. I turned my stare to Franklin, who just shrugged. “I’d rather not get involved.”
Yeah, well. Too bad some of us didn’t have that option.
“Pity,” I murmured.
3
Ihadn’t planned to dive into the Parker case until Monday. But on Sunday, my father needed Danny’s help in the garden. I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time. So what’s a guy to do? Twiddle his thumbs? Watch TV? Tackle any one of the dozen household chores building up? All of those options—especially the last one—went under the category of Nah. And a subheading of Get Real. The Parker mystery had me in its grasp. Mundane chores would just have to wait.
I worked in the waning daylight coming through my office window. I’d probably need the lamp soon, but I wanted to enjoy natural light as long as I could. I’d also sneaked to the foyer and snagged the plastic Halloween pumpkin by the door. Danny hopefully filled it with candy, year after year. We never got any trick-or-treaters, but the candy managed to, erm, disappear anyway.
It was a good thing the only witness to my thievery was spectral. Franklin was curled up in my armchair by the window. He had a blanket pulled around his shoulders as he looked out at the backyard. The lights were on in the pool, and the surface glistened like blue glass. My mother had hung fairy lights on her back porch, giving it an almost fairy-tale quality. So I could see why he was enjoying the view. I just didn’t know why he had to enjoy the view from my favorite chair.
When I asked him rather tartly if there was some place else he needed to be, he’d just smiled beatifically. No, but thank you kindly. All I need is a quiet place to rest and think. The soil is talking and I’m tired of listening. He also asked if he could trouble me for a cup of tea, a request that I thought was kinder to just ignore. I blinked away images of him drinking a carefully prepared cup of tea, the hot liquid running through his ghostly form and seeping into my upholstery.
It wasn’t like I could kick him out. I mean, I could, but I wouldn’t. That just wouldn’t be fair. My office was the only room in the house we allowed ghosts to enter, after all. At first, it had been good enough to keep the bedroom and bathrooms ghost-free, which we did with the help of a salt/rice ritual recommended by my mother. But after some particularly nasty encounters with ghosts and finding out some of the frightening things they could do, we’d salted and riced the entire damn house.
That didn’t help me beyond that space, though. Everywhere else was fair game, like work. The grocery store. The park. My car. It was a rare occasion that I didn’t have a ghostly passenger on the highway, chattering over my music and making me regret…well, all my choices in life.
Usually.
There had been a lot less of them lately. While I was happy about that, I couldn’t help but wonder why. There was always a why. And always a chance that the why could get me very dead. But for now? I was going to enjoy the dearth of ghosts around me. They didn’t need me, and I certainly didn’t need them. Or something less bitter.
I heard the murmur of voices outside and peeked out the blinds, only to find Danny and my father still in the garden. Danny had changed into basketball shorts, a tank top, and beat-up sneakers—his version of gardening wear—and was wielding a shovel. If I had to guess, it was probably to dig a hole for the row of large leafy plants near my father’s foot.
My father shook his head and made a couple of hand gestures. I could almost feel Danny’s sigh as he moved a few inches to the left. Not that much! I could read my father’s lips as he shook his head again.
Oh my. I bit back a laugh. I wasn’t aware that digging a hole required so much supervision. Clearly, my father had decided to measure the length of Danny’s patience and see when it intersected the fuse for his temper.
With a long-suffering sigh, Danny moved back to the original spot. My father made the hurry-up motion with his hands, which made Danny look down at the shovel. Calculatingly. As if remembering the possibility of witnesses, his gaze shifted to my office window. His face looked very, very grim.
I snapped the blinds shut.
I wasn’t worried. Danny was well acquainted with what family wasn’t supposed to look like. His father was in prison for homicide and had been for most of Danny’s life. He didn’t even know where his drug-addicted birth mother was, or if she was even still alive. And while he’d been lucky to get adopted by Paula, her love had always come with strings—my words, not his.
So the love he had for my parents was a tangible thing. He loved my family down to their kooky bones and they loved him right back.
Satisfied that I wouldn’t have to arrest my husband for beaning my father in the noggin with a shovel, I got back to work. I quickly logged in to a database I no longer had the right to use. I knew I wouldn’t have long, so I printed out the most interesting bits as I found them.
The Parker family had gone missing nearly ten years ago. Quinn, Nate, and her two daughters—twins, Regan and Ryan. Quinn’s brother Caleb had sounded the alarm, spurring a nationwide search that lasted six weeks. No one could say law enforcement didn’t put everything they had into finding the girls. The FBI had led the charge, coordinating with local law enforcement and a platoon of volunteers.
But then life happened.
That was just the way of things. News ebbed and flowed, and there would always be something more pressing to cover. More murder, more missing people, more natural disasters, more thoughts and prayers. Rinse and repeat.
