Chapter 25 #10
“You come under false pretenses,” Justice said.
“We’ve already given Captain Forrester and his people the information we have about the human predators who made bad choices.
They are gone for the foreseeable future.
Use whatever words you use on your reports when someone disappears.
” The woman paused. “Now ask the real question you came here to ask.”
“What is the price for the answer?” Beth asked when she realized that Gibson wouldn’t think to ask.
Justice looked at Beth. “That she never comes back to Wyrd for any reason.”
God, they really don’t like her.
“I don’t have a question,” Gibson snarled. “But I’ll give you an answer. You want to know why I hate you? Because my mother came here, got taken in by your flimflam bullshit, and a few weeks later she killed herself.”
Silence. Then Frost said, “What was your mother’s name?”
“Angela Gibson.”
The woman with the sketchbook put it aside, opened the pocket doors behind her part of the room, and disappeared. She returned a few minutes later with a sheet of drawing paper. She turned the paper around to reveal the sketches, and said, “Angela Gibson.”
The paper held several sketches that spilled into one another, but the three that held Beth’s attention were the gravestone with Angela Gibson’s name, her birth and death dates, and the number seventy; the hand with a distinct scar near the base of the thumb pouring a powder into a glass of clear liquid; and the ghostly image of a woman who looked like an older version of Gibson standing behind the gravestone.
Frost said, “Your mother didn’t kill herself.”
Gibson collapsed. Beth and Castelletti caught her arms and eased her to the floor.
A chair was brought, and they helped Gibson into it.
“Mom’s stepbrother had a scar like that on his hand,” Gibson whispered. “He…killed her? Why?”
“If she knew or guessed, she didn’t say,” Justice replied.
“She’d gone to a reader on your side of the river,” Cards said. “Whatever she learned from that person gave her warning—and brought her to Wyrd to make a bargain with the Arcana.”
“She bargained for the full measure of her years, regardless of her age when she died,” Justice said.
Beth stared at the gravestone and calculated Angela Gibson’s age when she died. Then she looked at the ghostly image—and understood. “She bargained to become a ghost, didn’t she?”
“A spectral being who could protect what she loved the most.” Justice looked at Gibson.
Castelletti pulled a packet of tissues out of his pocket and gave them to Gibson, who stared at the sketches as tears ran down her face.
Gibson pulled a couple of tissues out of the pack, wiped her face, and blew her nose.
“My mother rearranged her finances after coming here, tied up a lot of her money in a trust for me, revised her will. All the burial arrangements were prepaid, and there wasn’t much left of her money when she…
died…because most of her liquid assets had been given to a couple of companies for ‘services rendered.’ I couldn’t find out what those services were, and her lawyer didn’t know. ”
How much did it cost to become a ghost? Beth wondered.
“When the house and other physical assets were sold, her stepbrother and I received the proceeds as our inheritance,” Gibson said.
“An equal split. By the time all the bills were paid, it wasn’t much—and no one told me about the trust until I received the letter from the lawyer on my mother’s seventieth birthday.
” She studied the sketches, focused on the one in the bottom left-hand corner.
“She was sixty-seven when she died. Two years later, her stepbrother died in a horrific car accident—although there was some question that it was an accident. There was no reason for the car to be traveling at those speeds on a rain-slick road unless the driver put his foot all the way down on the accelerator.”
“Except…?” Beth asked when Gibson hesitated.
“Except he was still alive when the EMTs and rescue vehicles arrived, and he kept telling them that he had seen Angela. He had broken into my apartment and taken a piece of jewelry she had given me years ago, and she wanted it back. That’s what he said with his last breath: he had seen Angela.
” Gibson wiped her nose again. “Funny thing was, someone had broken into my apartment that day. The jewelry box on my dresser was open, and the good jewelry was scattered over the top of the dresser, but only a brooch with a broken pin was missing.” She hesitated. “They found it in the wreckage.”
Gibson looked at Frost. “She looked out for me those three years she would have had if he hadn’t…”
“When we make a bargain, we keep it,” he said.
Gibson let out a watery laugh. “Mom watching over me. Well, that might explain the man I was dating who ran out of my apartment without getting dressed and was arrested for indecent exposure. Turned out he was a bit of a con artist when it came to women. If he’d looked into the bathroom mirror and saw my mother looking back… ” She shook her head.
“You have your answer,” Justice said. “Our associate will escort you to the hotel, where you can consume a restorative beverage while the other detectives have their meeting with Lucas.”
Beth stared at the woman who entered the room. She was certain no one would offer a name. She was also certain this was the unknown woman who had accompanied one of the Rachel Nightingales to a bank to close all of Nightingale’s accounts.
After Gibson left the pavilion with her escort, Frost led Beth and Castelletti to his office. Going to his desk, he picked up two letters and handed them to Beth.
Beth looked at the letter addressed to Captain Forrester and shivered. She unfolded the other letter.
“Shit,” Castelletti said, reading over her shoulder. “That explains why Colin went with Dare’s Doggs, but how is he able to make contact with us?”
“As it says,” Frost replied. “He bought a bus ticket and made a choice—and landed in a neighborhood where communication with Destiny Park is possible. The two boys who pursued him…Their intentions decided their destination, which is why they are unlikely to return. Not even as ghosts.”
“Is communication with that neighborhood possible in both directions?” Beth asked. “Can Captain Forrester send a letter to his son?”
“Send it? Yes. Will the boy receive it?” Frost shrugged. “It depends.”
“On what?” Castelletti’s voice had sharpened—and was matched by a sharp look from Frost.
Words have power, Beth thought. Intentions matter. “Did you need to see us for anything else?”
Frost looked at Castelletti and said, “No. Nothing.”
Castelletti jerked as if he’d been slapped. Then he slowly let out a breath. “I’m sorry if I sounded…brusque. We’ve been worried about the captain’s son.”
“Understandable.”
Which wasn’t the same as being forgotten—or forgiven.
Castelletti walked out of Frost’s office.
Beth took her time tucking the letters into her purse. Then she looked toward the door that led to another room and said, “How is Rahele doing?”
Frost got a peculiar look on his face. “She is teaching the crow to write poems.”
Oh. “Well, that’s better than teaching him to write limericks.”
Frost stared at her.
Mischief bubbled up inside her, impossible to resist now that she could bring Captain Forrester some news about his son. Beth gave the ruler of Destiny Park a cheeky curtsy and said, “Good day, Mr. Frost.”
His face looked stern, but she thought she detected a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Good day, Detective Fahey.”
Beth hurried out of Frost’s office and caught up to Castelletti on his way to the hotel to fetch Detective Gibson.
They didn’t talk during the return ride across the river.
Maybe because no one knew what to say about the revelations regarding Gibson’s mother.
Maybe because no one knew how Captain Forrester would react to the information that his daughter had also been targeted by the bullyboys known as Dare’s Doggs.
Maybe because no one wanted to say “what goes around comes around” as it applied to Albert Palmer and what happened to the boys he had sent across the river.
15
“Detective Gibson got an answer,” Castelletti had said. “But not the answer she expected. We escorted her back to the twelfth precinct. She was still shaken up when we got off the ferry on this side of the river.”
Now Charles Forrester stood around the large evidence table with his team, waiting for the rest of the report.
Because there was more. Something had happened on Wyrd.
The way Tom Castelletti was distancing himself from Beth Fahey told him that much.
He’d talk to Tom privately. If his people couldn’t work together, investigating the strange would be even more dangerous.
Fahey withdrew two envelopes from her purse. She handed one to him and said, “This one is private.”
Charles’s breath caught when he recognized Colin’s handwriting. His hand trembled as he accepted the envelope, and it took every ounce of discipline he had to stand there with his team instead of locking himself in his office to read his son’s message.
Fahey held out another envelope. “The team should know about this.”
He looked at the envelope. “That’s addressed to Frost.” And to the Sorcerer King.
“Yes,” she replied, “but it was intended for both of you.” She hesitated. “For you as a police officer.”
Charles opened the letter and braced a hand on the table as he read the report. “Who’s Tia Downing?”
“Don’t know,” Castelletti said. He glanced at Fahey, who shook her head.
“Captain?” Ian Kuhn said.
Charles handed him the letter and looked at Castelletti and Fahey. “You both know what it says?”
They nodded.
Kuhn finished reading and whistled. “Your boy has backbone, trying to save his sister by making that choice.”
Hold it together. There are still things we need to do.
Pulling Jazz out of school wasn’t one of those things, although he wanted to do exactly that. God, how he wanted to do that.