Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Harold Goddard, alias Mr. Smith, had sent men to watch Carson’s house and the entrance to the marina where he kept his boat.
The watcher at the residence had noted that the same car had driven past a couple of times.
The guy had been able to snap a photograph of the driver.
He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, but it wasn’t possible to pick up much detail from a photo of a moving car.
When he froze and enlarged the image, he only got a picture of a guy with a ball cap pulled low.
And the camera hadn’t captured the license plate.
The man watching the dock hadn’t noticed any unusual activity, but Harold had also been able to set up a camera on a telephone pole at the edge of the parking area.
Now he scrolled through the tapes, looking for the same car—and found either it or its twin, a Chevy Blazer.
This time the driver was a guy wearing casual clothing and carrying a tackle box and a fishing rod.
He looked like he was on his way to a fishing trip.
But that could just be a disguise designed to throw off anyone watching.
Interestingly, he caught up with a casually dressed young woman who was also heading for the dock. Stopping her before she entered the marina, he steered her back toward the parking lot, where they disappeared behind a white van.
They were there for several minutes, after which they both pulled away—the van first.
What was going on here? On the face of it, they looked like they had planned to meet up at the dock.
And then? She’d shown up at the wrong marina, and he’d told her where they were really supposed to be.
Or what? Had the guy who had driven past the house earlier come to the dock dressed in fishing gear so anyone watching would assume he was there for recreational purposes?
Then he’d seen the woman and told her what?
Was he surprised to find her there? If so, how did he know her? Was she a friend of Carson? In Harold’s research on the man, he hadn’t come upon anything more than casual liaisons with women.
He didn’t like it. Too bad he didn’t have the license plate of the van, either. But was there some other way to figure out who she was? At the very least, he’d have to instruct his men watching the house and the marina to look out for both suspicious vehicles—and suspicious individuals.
* * *
Gabe kept his gaze on Olivia Langston.
“What do we want from you? The same thing Travis’s aunt wants, only we’re a couple of steps ahead of her. A guy who called himself Mr. Smith captured Travis, tortured him for information, and then killed him.”
Still coping with the concept of the ghost, Gabe asked, “Travis told you that?”
“Of course—Travis. Who else would know?”
“Motive?”
“He was either working with Dr. Solomon or knew about his experiments. He’s obsessed with the children from the clinic. He’s tried to capture them before, but because they were bonded, they got away. So he changed his tactics and went after a lone individual—Travis.”
“Why does he care about the children?”
She shrugged. “I believe he thinks we’d be useful. Or dangerous.”
Gabe considered that. If you had to make sense of this weird situation, that might be it.
Olivia began to speak again. “We were trying to figure out how to find Mr. Smith and make sure he doesn’t do this to anyone else.”
“Like you?” he said pointedly.
She winced. “Me and anyone else he might go after. You were already trying to figure out what happened to Travis. We can help each other.”
As she spoke, Gabe thought he heard the echo of a male voice under Olivia’s. What? Was he getting sensitized to the ghost?
He hardened his expression and punched out his words.
“First, let’s get some things straight. You’ve already found out that Smith is totally ruthless.
He kidnapped, tortured, and killed an innocent man.
To make sure nobody goes after him, he has operatives watching his victim’s boat and also his residence.
If you want my help, you have to promise me that you’re not going to do any more investigating on your own.
I mean, you don’t want to end up in Smith’s torture chamber, being asked to explain how you know anything about Travis Carson, do you? ”
He was glad to see a flash of fear cross her face as reality set in.
“I guess not.”
“You guess? If I wasn’t clear before, I’ll say it again. Stay away from the guy and let me do my job.”
He started to stand, but his legs buckled, and he landed back on the couch. So much for the hard-ass detective who was going to take over from the amateurs. Currently, he didn’t have the strength to get up.
Olivia gave him an apologetic look. “It looks like that thunderbolt has aftereffects.” She shook her head. “We were just starting to practice it, and we didn’t know what it would do.”
“Maybe I’m lucky you were just getting into it.” He dragged in a breath and let it out. “Okay, I’m going to see how much work I can get done here. Bring me my laptop from the car.”
“I could lend you a laptop.”
“No. I’ve got access to databases you don’t. The car is parked in a little turnoff along the road. Turn left when you get to the end of your driveway.” He fumbled in his pocket for the key and handed it to her.
“Do you need anything? More water?”
“That would be good, but get the laptop first.”
When she left the room, he turned his head to the other end of the sofa where she’d said Travis was sitting. “Are you still here?”
Nobody answered, but the piece of paper on the table moved a little as though it had been ruffled by a sudden gust of wind.
“Do me a favor and clear out. I don’t like the feeling of someone watching over my shoulder while I work.”
There was no audible reply, but he hoped the ghost was considerate enough to respect his wishes.
The ghost. He was thinking of Travis Carson as “the ghost.”
He thought again that Olivia Langston had run into the right detective down at the dock.
How many people would be willing to accept her ghost explanation?
He had an advantage because of his friends at Decorah Security.
Hell, some of them were werewolves. And one, Hunter Kelley, had even been the victim of a rogue government experiment.
He hadn’t even had a name until Katherine Kelley had been hired to socialize him because he was a clone being raised for a suicide mission, and the men training him didn’t want to think of him as a human being.
To them, he’d just been a tool until she’d rescued him.
So Gabe understood about illegal, overreaching government projects. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the sofa back. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to fall asleep. Probably he did, because the next thing he remembered was Olivia putting down his glass of water on the table.
When his eyes snapped open, she handed him the laptop and turned to leave. Maybe the ghost had told her Gabe wanted to be alone.
“Thanks.” He drank some of the water and set the glass down before picking up the laptop.
Then he got into one of the databases he’d told her about.
It had information on under-the-table government projects.
He found nothing in them on the Solomon Clinic, which wasn’t exactly a surprise.
But he was also able to search local newspaper articles.
There was one about Dr. Douglas Solomon opening his clinic in Houma, Louisiana, a little over thirty years ago.
Then there wasn’t anything about it until the story of the fire that destroyed the property.
Because it occurred at night, no one had been hurt.
All that squared with what Olivia had told him.
The local fire inspector had given the cause as a gas leak.
That might have been the end of the story, but as Olivia had suggested, the doctor didn’t shut off his activities with the destruction of his clinic.
He’d kept working at a lab built on the property owned by one of his former nurses.
Both of them died when that facility blew up in an explosion just a year earlier.
Gabe wondered what the guy had been fooling with when his second facility went up.
But reading about the fire and the explosion wasn’t going to get him any closer to locating Smith.
He looked around the room, then said aloud, “Carson, I know I told you to leave, but I’m wondering if you could give me some help.”
Again, the paper on the table lifted, making the hair on the back of Gabe’s neck prickle.
“Maybe I can ask you some questions,” Gabe went on. He looked at the paper that had moved of its own accord. “How about you make the paper flutter twice for yes and once for no?”
He held his breath until he saw the paper lift before settling back on the table.
“Okay. Do you think there’s anything in your house that would help me find Smith?”
The paper lifted once before settling again.
“And on the boat?”
This time, there were three flutters.
“That means you don’t know?”
Two flutters.
Gabe sighed, then asked, “Are you tied to this house? I mean, can you go anywhere else?”
The question was answered from the doorway as Olivia stepped into the room. Her gaze flitted from him to the other end of the sofa and back again, and Gabe assumed she was looking at the ghost.
He hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at her before. Now he took in her riot of long wavy hair, her pale skin, her delicate features. He couldn’t help thinking that if she was in a relationship with a ghost, she was wasting her affection.
He clenched his teeth, hoping that she couldn’t read minds. He had no business thinking anything personal about her, but he hadn’t been able to stifle the thought.
Pulling his mind back to business, he asked, “When I went down to St. Stephens, I could feel the connection with Travis fading. By the time I reached the road, I couldn’t sense him anymore.”
“But maybe it’s possible to change that. Why would he be tied to this house? He didn’t know you before Smith...went after him,” he finished,
“That’s right.”
“You said Smith talked about all kinds of powers that the children from the Solomon clinic had. Hurling thunderbolts. Moving objects with their minds. Smith probably didn’t know all they could do.”
“I think he was also afraid they could read minds,” Olivia added.
“But he has no idea as to the extent of their powers. Maybe it’s different for different couples.”
She nodded before crossing the room and taking the chair where she’d been sitting earlier.
“Why don’t you and Carson...?”
She interrupted. “He’d like you to call him Travis, if we’re going to be working together.”
“Okay, yeah, Travis.”
“Can we call you Gabe?” she asked.
“Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Why don’t the two of you try to...” He stopped and flapped his arm. “I don’t quite know how to say it, but you said you and Travis, um, bonded. I’m hoping there might be some way he could come along with you when you leave the house.”
“So you’ve bought into my crazy story about Travis finding me after Smith killed him?”
“Yeah. I guess I have to.”
She looked excited, and the paper on the table fluttered.
Then her eyes narrowed. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”
“You have to admit, it’s a hard claim to sell.” Gabe pushed himself up. “But I like it. It would be very useful to have an unseen presence who could perform psychic tricks.”
“And do what? You told me to stay away from St. Stephens.”
He sighed. “I know, but now I’m rethinking. Travis would be protection for you that Smith couldn’t possibly expect. Why don’t the two of you see what you can do?”
“Like what?”
“Like deepen the bond between you so he can go wherever you go.”
He pushed himself up and was glad to see that he was feeling almost normal when he stood. Maybe he had come up with a whole new approach to the case, but he cautioned himself not to get too excited. Maybe he’d asked Olivia and Travis to do what was impossible