Chapter Thirty-One
“IMPRESSIVE,” BOSWELL SAID as he pulled up to the cannery. “These old brick buildings are a lot harder to penetrate with a surveillance signal.”
I wished he’d stop talking. I was already kicking myself for letting him know where I lived. Bad enough I’d convinced myself Jacob had been hustled off to an unidentified location with a bag over his head.
The Crown Vic was parked out front and the lights were on, but as I hurried up the walk, I unbuttoned my blazer and gave my shoulder holster a shrug to reassure myself it was there.
The TV was on—first thing I noticed when I shoved through the door—and the house smelled like minestrone soup.
The mail had been pushed aside and Jacob’s voice carried from somewhere deeper inside, “Sounds like Vic is home.”
An observation…or a threat?
My hand was on my sidearm as I peeled out of the foyer, mentally mapping out exactly how I’d draw and fire based on where a potential target was likely to be standing. But instead of being cattle-prodded by a bunch of National goons, I found Jacob seated at the dining room table.
Across from Sarah.
A tabbycat pranced out from behind the sofa and rubbed her face on my knee.
“Simon!” Boswell exclaimed happily.
The cat ignored him and ground more spit into my slacks.
I was wobbly with relief that I hadn’t walked into a torture scene. Just goes to show how easy it is to let your imagination get away from you. “I see we have company,” I said carefully.
Jacob narrowed his eyes at Boswell and answered, “I see we do.”
We each had some explaining to do, but that would have to wait. Boswell was glad enough for a home-cooked meal, so I parked him at the dining room table while Jacob followed me into the kitchenette to “help.”
“She would’ve taken off again,” Jacob whispered.
Yeah, I figured. “And I’ve gotta keep Boswell from cutting off his ghost to spite his face.”
Thankfully, Jacob didn’t demand an explanation.
Soup is hardly a challenge to plate up, and there’s only so much whispering you can get away with.
Add to that, the sudden reprise of losing my lunch in the haunted apartment’s bathroom as the brothy vegetable chunks sloshed into the bowl, and I decided to skip dinner altogether.
“A van is a perfectly good environment for a cat,” Boswell was telling Sarah as we came back to the dining room. “It would be his own territory. With his scent on it.”
So. Much. Pee.
“Her scent,” Sarah said. “And you can’t have my cat.”
“I’d say you relinquished any right to him when you tossed him outside,” Boswell muttered into his soup. “But I’ll consider leaving Simon with you, if you tell me how to get rid of my spirit fragment.”
Jacob shot me a “WTF” look.
Sarah’s brow furrowed. “What’s a spirit fragment?”
“No one’s getting rid of any spirit fragments tonight,” I said, then added, “nighttime is the worst time to mess around with something like that. The etheric plane turns up its volume way too loud after dark.”
Boswell didn’t quite buy it. “How do I know you’re not just stringing me along?”
“More people see ghosts at night,” I told him.
“That’s just because they’re suggestible,” he said. But I’d introduced enough doubt that he let the subject drop.
Where to put everyone became our most pressing concern.
We triaged. Sarah needed privacy and a soft landing, so she got the bed.
Boswell insisted he was “fine,” so he got the couch.
The packaging on the new air mattress claimed it could hold our combined weight—but mainly it meant Jacob and I could sleep central, halfway between both of them, and head off any midnight wanderings.
Even with the so-called “plush” surface and a pile of blankets, it felt like trying to sleep on a balloon. Jacob did his best to stay still, but every time he so much as shifted, the mattress bounced me wide awake. But Boswell had no such problems, if his snores were anything to go by.
“So,” Jacob finally ventured, when it was clear neither of us would get any shut-eye. “Things got…complicated today.”
Had he heard about me using the SPECs behind his back? I didn’t see how. He’d been busy with Sarah ever since he took charge of her. “Yeah, about that—”
“I just need you to remember I’m in your corner.”
Good thing I hadn’t mentioned burning through all my Florida Water and salt and blaming him for not stocking my kit.
“Always,” I assured him. And as Posy Simon hopped up, gently bouncing the balloon mattress with her careful cat steps to settle in a warm ball between us, I wondered how to explain the subtle body theory without admitting to using the very technology I’d insisted Jacob avoid.
Yes, he was canny. And yes, he’d flown under the radar all these years without National being any the wiser as to how Stiff his Stiffness truly was.
But all it would take was one slip-up…and the abduction scenario I’d dreamt up would become a reality.
I must have slept then, because the next thing I knew, I heard a floorboard creak.
The sound was amplified through the air mattress, with my ear pressed right against it with my pillow toppled off the back.
I snapped awake to a gray pre-dawn only to find Boswell squatting on the floor beside the air mattress box.
The box was open and lying on its side, and Boswell was struggling to open a can of tuna with our spare can opener.
It needed throwing out, but neither Jacob nor I ever seemed to get around to it.
But Boswell didn’t know that, and he gamely twisted away at the crank as the can went round and round without actually opening.
“You’re not taking the cat,” I said.
Boswell flinched so hard he dropped the tuna, which rolled away. Tuna juice dribbled from the single puncture hole he’d managed to make with the bad opener. Posy Simon, watching the whole thing from her post on Jacob’s pillow, was unimpressed.
“Sarah abandoned him…her…anyway, I don’t think it’s fair to anyone. I can give Simone a stable home, once I find a new apartment. I was told the FPMP has housing services.”
Ugh. What other promises had they made when he went to sign his papers?
“Pretty soon I’ll be set for a good long while. In a non-haunted apartment. Hold on, are you the one that’s supposed to make sure it’s clean?” He said this as if he didn’t think I was capable of cleaning so much as a toilet.
“Likely. So you don’t want to get on my bad side.”
Boswell snorted. “As if you have a good one. But as to the matter at hand—you’ll note Simone didn’t go sleep with Sarah.”
“The cat didn’t sleep with you, either.”
Boswell waved that away. “Animals are far more sensitive than people. Simone probably sensed that Sarah is missing her emotion fragment.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sarah demanded.
We both flinched as she glared down at us from the top of the stairs.
“It’s just a theory,” I said lamely.
Jacob shoved off the covers and sat up with a groan. Posy Simon burrowed under the blankets to take advantage of the warm spot he’d left behind. “I think you need to start at the beginning,” Jacob said.
And so, we put on a full pot of coffee and gathered around the dining room table. I tried to be as tactful as I could, hoping not to frighten Sarah. But she just listened impassively.
Probably because she’d left her fear behind in that bedroom.
That must’ve been why Evelyn had repeatedly checked on me to make sure I was okay. Not because I was in over my head—but because she kept picking up on waves of terror when I was the only other one in the room. The only one she could see, anyhow.
“Can you even remember the incident where you ended up in the closet?” I asked.
“Of course I can remember it. Zack knocked two of my teeth loose and my head was ringing for a week.” Tough words. But she’d delivered them with a sort of bland detachment, like she was narrating a scene from a movie.
And then Boswell chimed in. “You see? She doesn’t need that fragment. And neither do I.”
Jacob looked to me for an explanation.
“Boswell thinks he’s being followed by his own repeater.”
“How else do you explain the constant surveillance?” Boswell demanded.
Sarah stood up and stretched until her back popped. “I don’t care about all this woo-woo stuff. I just want to stay one step ahead of Zach. Can you help me do that, or not?”
I said, “Is that the kind of life you want? Running from job to job and place to place because Sledge can track you down wherever you go? He should be behind bars, but that’s not gonna happen unless you report him.
No, he wouldn’t be put away forever. But it would give my office time to make you a new identity.
” I knew they were good at that. They’d buried mine without me even knowing it.
Sarah considered. “It is a pain in the ass to keep moving. And going from job to job. And don’t get me started on changing my phone number.”
But just as I thought she’d come around, Boswell had to chime in. “Don’t let the government tell you what to do. Plenty of people would love to be in your shoes. Just think what we could all achieve if we were fearless!”
“Don’t listen to him,” I said. “He just wants your cat.”
Jacob caught my eye. “Do we even know the fragment can be reintegrated?”
Well, he had me there. “Astral and etheric bodies snap back into place, so it’s worth a shot.
” I turned to Sarah. “Look, emotions are messy, but they serve a purpose.” She looked doubtful, so I hauled out the big guns.
“No one wants to be afraid. But what if that fear gives you an edge over pure logic when it comes to keeping yourself safe?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “I suppose I should at least check it out. Zach’s not gonna let this go, and I need all the help I can get.”
So would I. Emotions have never been my forte. I could barely see the fragment, let alone tell it what to do. Thankfully, we had a strong empath who could help. “I’ll have Evelyn meet us at the apartment.”
I pulled out my phone, but Jacob settled his hand over the lens before I could scowl it open.
“Vic.” He said it with an edge I knew all too well—emotionally tone-deaf, or not.
It was the way he spoke my name when he was trying to stop me from doing something idiotic without coming off like he thought I was stupid. “You can’t involve the office.”
“Why not?”
“When you brought in Boswell, you wrapped up your case.”
“But there’s still a repeater there. Laura wouldn’t want me to just wash my hands of it.”
“Laura wouldn’t,” Jacob agreed. “But she also wouldn’t want National to know how much leeway she gives you.”
Probably not. Dammit, why did someone like Evelyn have to go work for someplace like National? “Fine. We’ll handle this ourselves. I’ll just….”
Swing by the office and grab a few things. Right. That wasn’t gonna happen either.
I quelled a sigh.
Going rogue was nowhere near as fun as it sounded.