Death at First Sight (Spero Heights Book 2) (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Dr. Delph pressed his forehead against the tiled wall of his shower, letting the icy water pelt his back. He felt like he’d been in a daze ever since witnessing his death through Lia’s eyes, and he needed to snap out of it. Fast.

His thoughts suddenly landed on the Fates.
So it
is
death then
. And just when he’d wrapped his mind around the idea that they’d delivered a companion to his doorstep. He felt foolish for surrendering to his desires, and even more foolish for dragging Lia into this mess, for allowing her to depend on him when he wouldn’t be around for much longer.

The comforting words he’d offered her were automatic, undoubtedly inspired by the post-coitus high that was quickly wearing off. But he would’ve tried to give her a brave face regardless. Lia was distraught enough without his anguish lending extra fuel. She didn’t need to know that the Fates had abandoned him, that he had little hope of changing the visions they bequeathed her.

He thought to call Selena, but she would charge in and do what she did best: Kill first and hope no one asked questions later. He couldn’t have that. A dead officer was not what Spero Heights needed. And Selena wouldn’t fare well in prison—not that she’d make it that far. She’d die first, and she’d told him as much, numerous times. The pups would be orphaned yet again, something Dr. Delph’s conscience couldn’t endure.

It’s better this way,
he tried to convince himself. He’d leave a note for Selena on his desk, letting her know that the town’s secret was safe and that Lia could stay as long as she wanted. Maybe she would build a new life here after all, even if it wasn’t with him by her side.

He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, quickly drying off. There was little time to spare, and he still needed to fabricate a medical exam. He was so distracted by his gloomy fate that he didn’t notice Daisy sitting on the edge of the counter until he glanced up at the mirror.

“Good grief,” he rasped as he stumbled back a step. “The bathroom is off limits, Daisy.”

“I see the newcomer has disrobed in your bedchamber,” she said disapprovingly. “Is she a lady of the night?”

“No,” he snapped. “And keep your voice down. She needs her rest.”

“
I
need rest,” she pouted. “But you never invite me to lie unclothed in your bed.”

“You’re a child, Daisy. It would be unethical,” he said, pulling a second towel from a cabinet to dry his hair, now that he couldn’t use the one tucked around his waist.

“I’m at least a hundred years older than
she
is,” Daisy said, her black-filled eyes watching him intently.

“Spirits do not mature after death. We’ve discussed this in great detail.”

“It’s because I’m dead, isn’t it?”

This particular conversation was so familiar that Dr. Delph could have read it from a script. But he wasn’t in the mood for it tonight. Anger flared up through his chest, but when he realized this would likely be the last time he conversed with the poltergeist, it fizzled out.

He sighed. “Please be kind to Lia. Consider it my last request of you.”

Daisy’s transparent brow crinkled, but then she gasped softly. “Are you ill, dear doctor? Does death approach?”

Dr. Delph grimaced. “Indeed it does.”

“Should you be left behind, once your earthly form is shed, we will have grand, ethereal adventures together.”

“I won’t be left behind, Daisy,” Dr. Delph said, turning to give himself a long, hard look in the mirror. “I am a vessel of the Fates, so they would not allow me to depart if their business with me was unfinished.”

“But your family line will perish,” Daisy said, a sad note in her voice. It hardened again as she added, “Unless you’ve seeded the harlot sullying your bed.” Then she harrumphed and disappeared, leaving a ringing silence behind. 

Dr. Delph blanched. The ghost had a point. There was no way of knowing for certain. Not this soon anyway. But it seemed too cruel, even for the Fates, to take him if he had a child on the way.

The troubling thought renewed his determination. Whether or not the Fates intended to take him tonight, he would not go quietly. He had relied on their direction for too long. It was time to take matters into his own hands.

He ran a comb through his hair and pulled it back into a low ponytail before quickly brushing his teeth. Then he slipped back into the bedroom and pulled on a pair of charcoal slacks and a white dress shirt. He added a tie and vest. If he was going to die, he could at least rest assured that he would look good doing so.

Lia watched him with watery eyes and then reached out, grasping his arm when he sat down on the edge of the bed to put on a pair of black loafers.

“If I go now and wait for him outside, maybe he’ll leave you alone,” she said. Guilt and remorse weighed heavy in her eyes, and it was all Dr. Delph could do not to read her thoughts. He had hardly quenched his own doubts, and he was sure hers would undo him completely.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t bare that. Besides, I’ll be back before you know it,” he told her, believing the impossibility of his words just enough to remove himself from the bed with a strained smile. He took Lia’s hand and brushed a kiss against her knuckles before grabbing a suit jacket from his closet and heading through hidden bookshelf entrance into his office.

He had ten minutes to type up a false exam file, and if he was very lucky, he would have enough time left over to put together a clumsy survival plan.

His mind raced through a rough list of the resources at his disposal. There was no time to call for assistance, and even if there had been, there was no one he wanted to put in danger on his behalf. He would have to take care of this dilemma on his own.

This far out of his element, he had to ask himself,
What would Graham do?
The vampire was always rushing off in an effort to change Dr. Delph’s grim visions. Very occasionally, he even succeeded. Dr. Delph needed that kind of luck tonight, and he had an inkling of where he might find some.

* * *

It was almost nine o’clock when Saunders finally arrived at Orpheus House. Dr. Delph spied him through the glass front doors as he stepped out of the community closet. He was in uniform, one hand resting on the butt of his gun, shoulders pushed back and chin lifted arrogantly. His name tag was crooked and looked suspiciously plastic against the dark blue of his shirt, Dr. Delph noted at he tucked Lia’s file under his arm so he could unlock the doors.

Wrath burned in the pit of his stomach, but he forged enough sincerity to give the bastard a terse smile. “Officer Smith?” he asked, glancing out at the parking lot to where a black sedan waited. The windshield was dotted with rain, and a rumble of thunder echoed overhead.

“Evenin’,” Saunders said, his expression stern and unmoving. He meant to intimidate. Dr. Delph could see through the dark pink aura encasing his thoughts as he searched the man’s head. It was a frightening place, full of self-entitlement and ruthless ambitions.

Saunders nodded his head back over his shoulder. “Squad car is in the shop,” he offered by way of explanation.

Dr. Delph searched deeper, quickly discerning that he didn’t want the company vehicle tracking his GPS to Spero Heights. That would look too suspicious. If the squad car actually had been in the shop, his precinct would have issued him a more suitable replacement. Dr. Delph knew that well enough without having to read his mind, but instead of pressing the issue further, he held out Lia’s file.

“A copy of the exam you requested,” he said.

“I appreciate your cooperation.” Saunders left one hand on his gun and reached his other out to take the file. A bandage wrapped around his thumb and wrist before stretching halfway up his forearm. When he caught Dr. Delph staring he snorted. “My damn dog bit me. Nothing a little peroxide can’t fix.” The parking lot light grazed his forehead, illuminating his flushed complexion and the sweaty sheen of his skin.

“It’s rather late, so if that’s all…” Dr. Delph took a step back, ready to say goodnight and close the door, but Saunders slipped his booted foot past the threshold.

“It’s not,” he said, crinkling the thin file in his hand. “The trucker who called in the tip mentioned a black woman at the scene when Miss James was admitted this morning. Can you tell me where I might find her?”

Dr. Delph blew out a surprised breath. The image in the man’s mind was gruesome. The trucker who had dropped off Lia hadn’t called Saunders. Saunders had pulled his plate information from a gas station surveillance camera and tracked the man down. Then he’d beaten him senseless for information before shooting him.

“Sorry,” Dr. Delph said automatically, waiting for his brain to concoct a suitable lie. He couldn’t give up Zelda. She was his friend, and Spero Heights was going to need her more than ever if Saunders fulfilled Lia’s vision. “I’d never seen her before. She must have been a tourist, just passing through.”

“A tourist?” Saunders scoffed. “Here?” He was suspicious. Not a good sign.

Dr. Delph swallowed back his pride for the small town and tried to smile again. “We’re well-known for our annual Cheese Festival,” he said.

Saunders pursed his lips, and his fingers drummed against the butt of the gun on his hip. “Well then, that just leaves you. Is there somewhere more… private, where we can talk? Your office, perhaps.”

Dr. Delph swallowed, seeing Saunders plans for him too vividly to summon a phony smile this time. Saunders sensed his unease, and a wide, fake grin spread across his smug face.

“This will only take a moment,” he said.

Chapter Nineteen

The clock in Dr. Delph’s bedroom reminded Lia of the one her father had kept on the wall of his study when she was a child. Its glowing, round face bubbled out of a distressed brass frame, shadowboxing the numbers inside and making it look like an oversized pocket watch.

Lia lay awake in bed, watching it count down the time, knowing that each
tick
and every
tock
was one second less that Dr. Delph had. She wanted to trust him, for his own sake, and more selfishly, for her own. She just didn’t know how. Not when the few men she’d had in her life had all failed her.

It was too late to leave now. Saunders was on his way.
He could be here now
, she thought grimly. And if he saw her come out of the clinic, he would know that Dr. Delph had lied. He’d be worse off than he already was.

Still, the waiting was torture. But it was all Lia felt like she was good at. She’d spent a lifetime perfecting the art. First she’d waited for the visions to go away, and then for the doctors to cure her. She’d waited for her father to get well. For her mother to understand her the way he had. For Aldini’s to finally kill her when her mother gave up and left her to rot in the hellhole asylum. And for the last ten years, she’d waited every morning for Saunders to bring her drugs. Now she waited for Dr. Delph to come back.

She was sick of waiting. She threw the covers back and slid off the bed, kneeling down to blindly search the floor for her tank top and panties. Then she quietly shuffled through Dr. Delph’s dresser until she found a pair of drawstring shorts. They would have to do.

She sat on the edge of the bed to pull them on. When she stood, a glowing flash of light in the mirror above Dr. Delph’s dresser caught her eye. She jumped and stumbled backward before landing on the bed again with a small gasp.

“Y-you must be Daisy,” she whispered.

The ghost hovered in front of the doorway that Dr. Delph had disappeared through a moment before. Her long nightgown was tattered and dingy at her ankles and wrists. Long, pale hair floated around her translucent face, making the black pools of her eyes all the more startling. She cocked her head to one side as she observed Lia with a blank expression.

“You don’t look with child to me,” she said, startling Lia further.

“Who said I was with child?” Lia thought her eyes might fall out of her head, and then she wondered if the girl had witnessed her intimate exchange with Dr. Delph. “You can’t tell something like that after one night.”

Daisy shrugged. “How should I know? Mother never spoke of such things. It was improper. Much like an unwed lady spreading her skirts for a strange man.”

Lia blushed and cleared her throat. “I don’t wear skirts.”

“Clearly,” Daisy said snidely, as if that explained everything.

Lia ignored her and reached for the door handle.

“You shouldn’t go out there,” Daisy said.

“And why not?”

“There’s a man with a gun in Dr. Delph’s office.” Daisy pressed her phantom cheek against the door as if she could hear through it, so Lia did the same.

“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered.

“Your fleshly ears are inferior to mine.” The faintest of smiles pulled up one corner of Daisy’s mouth, causing her pale lips to crack, and Lia wondered if ghosts could suffer from something as benign as chapped lips.

“Well? What do you hear?” she asked.

“The man suspects the doctor of lying.” Daisy pulled away from the door suddenly. “He told me that he foresaw his death drawing near, but I didn’t realize that it would be your fault.”

Her words struck Lia through the heart like a sword. Dr. Delph had warned her about the poltergeist, but she hadn’t been prepared for such honest cruelty. And she couldn’t say that she disagreed.

It
was
her fault. And she felt helpless to prevent it. Walking through that door would only hasten the doctor’s death. Staying put wouldn’t improve his odds by much, but it was the lesser of two evils at this point. Still, Lia’s hand twitched over the doorknob, aching to open it so she could throw herself between Dr. Delph and Saunders, as if that would do any good.

“Coward,” Daisy hissed in her face, her voice soft and full of spite. Lia could see her petrified expression reflected in the girl’s dark eyes. “Trollop. I will haunt you to your last day for this injustice.” She inched closer, malice screwing up her face.

Lia took a step back as she advanced, but just shy of colliding, Daisy disappeared, leaving her alone in the room again. Lia held her breath as a shudder rocked through her body. And then a muffled shot rang out from the next room.

The door flew opened and she tumbled through the bookshelf and into Dr. Delph’s office before she realized what she was doing. He was face-down on the floor behind his desk.

“No!” She took a step toward him, but a hand wrapped around her wrist and yanked her off her feet.

“What do we have here?” Saunders said, stuffing his gun back into his holster so he could use both hands to hold her in place. “Guess it’s my lucky day.”

Lia shook in his grasp, and her breath rasped out painfully. “Why?” she shouted in his face. “You didn’t have to kill him!”

“You think this is my fault?” Saunders laughed as he dragged her out of the office and down the hallway toward the front doors. “None of this would have happened if you’d stayed put like you were told.”

Lia pressed her bare feet into the tiled floor, straining to pull her arms free. Saunders’ laughter stopped abruptly as he turned and backed her against a wall. Her head and shoulders slammed against the plaster as he pushed his arm across her chest. The holster at his belt dug up under her ribs, and she winced as he crushed the breath from her lungs.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, girl, but you damn well better straighten up before I put a bullet to you too.” He waited a second longer, until Lia thought she might pass out, and then he dragged her out the front doors and toward a black car. Rain splattered against the sidewalk and pelted Lia’s face.

The carefree note in Saunders’ voice returned as he shoved her into the passenger seat. “Try to run again, and I’ll put you in the trunk. You don’t want that. Trust me. It was a bumpy ride out here.” He leaned down and clicked her seatbelt in place, pausing to lightly slap her cheek. “There’s a good girl. If you don’t make a fuss, I’ll stop and get us a coke on the way home.”

Lia waited for him to close her door before letting out a heaving sob. She covered her mouth and closed her eyes. The image of Dr. Delph laid out on the office floor was still burned into her mind. She wiped her fingers under her eyes and turned her head to face the window as Saunders climbed in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t look at him. It made her stomach curdle just being this close. When he reached over and squeezed her knee with his bandaged hand, she almost lost it.

Keep it together. Keep it together.
She repeated the mantra in her head. It wasn’t even that her own life mattered so much anymore. But it would be hard to take Saunders out from the trunk of his car. And that’s exactly what she intended to do. Even if it killed her.