Ghost Talker (14 page)

“Really!” She sounded surprised.

He swigged Tivoli beer and wiped his mouth on a colorful napkin of an abstract pattern. “Yep. They both referred to him as new and young. Misleading.”

“Yes?” Oh, he had her now. She wasn't nearly as curious as Zach himself. Or Mrs. Flinton, Mr. Welliam, hell, even as Rickman or Desiree Rickman, but she had to know the details of the guy now.

“Yes. A better word would have been ‘immature.'” He paused, deliberately, until she gave him a reaction.

Leaning forward in her chair toward him, she repeated, “Immature.”

“That's right. Texas Jack is, what, thirty-five? Died at thirty-five I mean.” He knew the man's age but continued to engage Clare.

“Thirty-three. Texas Jack died of pneumonia at thirty-three,” she said, and she leaned forward far enough that he could see the entire cleavage of her breasts, the deep shadows between them. Nice.

“Zach?” she prompted.

He cleared his voice, proceeded slowly. “Darin Clavell died at forty-two. He was nine years older than Texas Jack.”

She blinked and leaned back against her chair. Too bad. “Immature.”

Zach concentrated on the food.

“Immature,” she repeated softly. “Texas Jack left home in Virginia and traveled through the wilderness, the Wild West, ending up on his own in Texas before the Civil War at fifteen. Became a man at fifteen. Darin Clavell remained immature, not a man, at forty-two.” Her gaze sharpened. “He didn't have a wife or children?”

“Because those can age you and make you an adult?” Zach asked with amusement. “Nope. Single guy.”

The dimness of the room seemed to shadow her eyes, or maybe she lowered her lashes so he couldn't see much. Her mouth trembled. “What happened to him?”

Zach shoved more food into his mouth. Man, this tasted good. Clare had an inner cook screaming to be released. His duty, for sure, is to free her.

Meeting her eyes, Zach said gently, “Hard to tell. Accident or suicide.”

“What?”

“His apartment caught fire. He was a smoker. Also apparently drunk or drugged at the time.”

“Marijuana?”

“Maybe, but not legal. I plan on heading out to discover the exact details, see the full official file with all notes if the local cops will help me.”

She stared at him.

“Clare, he didn't die here in Denver, though he'd visited here, and the museum and the grave site, of course. He died in Oklahoma City.”

“Oklahoma City.”

“I've tugged on a few of my police contacts, and if I'm lucky I might be able to see the official file. I want a good feel for his personality so we can gauge how violent he might become when he discovers he's dead. How to handle him so he'll go on.”

Clare nodded. “Always the danger of a ghost devolving into a chaotic, evil spirit.”

“I'll do some talking to neighbors, Clavell's closest relatives, some cousins. Rickman and Welliam agreed to proceed this way and I'll be leaving tomorrow. Minimum trip of two days, I think.”

“You're going away.”

“I'm traveling on business.”

“Of course.” Her spine stiffened. She drank her tumbler full of herbal iced tea. After a moment of relative silence while Zach finished his dinner, Clare graced him with a small smile.

“And while you're away, I will speak with Texas Jack, though he isn't interacting with the poltergeist much.”

Alarm flared in Zach. “You won't send Texas Jack on, will you? Not without me.” She lost all connection with reality, became dangerously chilled, her heart barely beating when she helped one of her major projects transition.

“Unlikely, as I believe we will need the information you gather to confront the poltergeist—Mr. Clavell—and move
him
on first. Texas Jack sees that as much as his duty as you do, Zach.”

That was his logical Clare. “You're right.” He nodded and stood, clearing his place setting and taking it into the kitchen and dishwasher.

Clare followed with her dishes. “But I haven't been able to understand why Texas Jack hasn't crossed over himself. Until I do, until
I
try and fix that, or we—Texas Jack and I together—resolve the issues holding him here, he can't move on.” She sent Zach an irritated look as she started the dishwasher. “He's said nothing to me of any problems.”

“More fool he.” Zach came over and laid his arm over her shoulders, moved her from the kitchen to the hall and the elevator to the second floor and the master suite.

“He loved—loves—his wife,” Clare said, closing the doors of the elevator and turning into his arms, resting against him.

Another chance for her to tell him that she loved him. Or for Zach to tell her. He kissed her instead.

*   *   *

Since Zach's plane left early in the morning, and he kept enough clothes in her house for such a quick business trip, Clare offered the use of one of her carry-on bags.

She walked into her bedroom closet and smiled at the organized space. Only about half full, the tiny room soothed her. As a thrifty person, she didn't think she'd fill it up soon, despite her new wealth.

Zach came up behind her. She hadn't heard him due to his trained quietness and the thick carpet, but she sensed him all the same. She gave him the handle of the discreet black bag, and he slid it into the bedroom but remained standing in the doorway.

“The hidden safe is glowing,” he said.

Frowning, she stared at the cedar panel that should have appeared like every other panel in the closet. Zach was right; a faint glow could be seen behind her half-stack of plastic shoe boxes.

“What do you think causes that?” he asked with mock innocence.

Clare believed she knew. But she'd have to move the boxes and open the safe, because Zach's curiosity would nag them both. She let out a breath through her nostrils. “I think it's the gift from the universe that I received upon concluding our last case in Creede.”

Zach jingled something in his pocket. She glanced at him. “The big gift, not those.”

“Authentic screw checks are getting more valuable every day. A lot more collectible than when Jim and I got some the last summer we spent here in Colorado.”

It was good that Zach casually mentioned his brother who died at sixteen. He hadn't been able to do that when they'd first met.

“You and your brother collected Old West brass tokens for time with prostitutes,” she stated.

He grinned. “Sure, we were boys. But I think Jim had one for a bath and a shave, too.”

“What did your parents think?”

Zach's smile faded and his attitude deepened to its usual intensity. “Dad disapproved of course, but I think he had some, too, from his childhood. Mom thought it was funny.”

She shouldn't have brought up his parents—the father he disliked and was estranged from, the mother who lived in an expensive mental health care facility in Boulder.

“Your mother looked very good Saturday when we visited.”

Zach's tension eased. “Yes, she did. I think she's getting better, more coherent. Maybe becoming more serene.”

“I think she likes you visiting her more often.”

“Yeah, that's why I moved back to Colorado.” Absently he jingled the five tokens that Clare had found on her dresser Friday morning. Pulling one out, he looked at it and Clare did, too. About the size of a half dollar, it said,
Orleans Club, Good for One Screw
.

“Hard to read in the dim light from the bedroom,” Zach said, but he didn't flip the light switch, instead he stared at the panel. “Still glowing yellow around the edges.”

“Enzo?” Clare called.

I'm here, Clare!
The ghost dog appeared from wherever he'd been. Clare had last sensed him in the backyard chasing live squirrels. The Lab charged through her, freezing her calves, and all the way through the closet, then slunk back through
the far wall. She ignored his shamefaced look at overshooting the mark as he sat and wagged his tail.

I love you, Clare!

“I love you, too, Enzo.”

He barked and shouted at Zach.
I LOVE YOU, ZACH!

“Love ya, Enzo,” Zach replied, then put a hand on her shoulder as if to see the dog better.

Clare gestured toward the safe. “Can you see what's glowing in the safe?”

Beside her, Zach snorted and muttered, “Yeah, send the dog to do the dirty work.”

She turned her head and met his eyes. “Enzo, ah, probably has an affinity for it.”

No, I don't.
Enzo shook his head.
It is a real thing, a thing for the living to deal with. Solid.

“It's creepy,” Zach added fake helpfully.

“I know that,” Clare muttered under her breath.

It IS creepy
, Enzo whined.

Phantom dog and very live lover stared at her.

“Oh, all right. It's my responsibility. I understand that.” Still, she let her lower lip protrude. She'd gotten over her distaste of bones, but this object instilled another whole level of repulsion. Moving farther into the closet, she sat and carefully shoved the shoe boxes aside, clearing the space before the panel that concealed the safe. Working the secret levers in the correct order, she slid the cedar away from the safe door and opened it.

Her upper lip lifted as a not-quite-physical, more-like-spiritual odor curled into her nostrils. Nasty smell.

Yes, the new addition to the safe since Friday morning glowed. She should have rid herself of it that very day, but her wish for a good price had gotten the better of her. She didn't touch the facedown photo frame with her hands but used an old, stained potholder near the safe she'd tucked there for the very purpose.

Pulling it out, she swiveled to hand it to Zach, who had both hands tucked in his pants pockets. “I don't want it,” he said.

She gritted her teeth, then smiled. “Why don't you take it to the vault at Rickman Security and Investigations?”

He rocked back on his heels. “Pretty sure even Rickman would consider it creepy.” Zach jutted his chin. “Let's look at it again.”

Clare felt that seeing it once was enough—not because of the image, but because of the implications. Suppressing a sigh, she turned the portrait over.

Zach gazed at it without expression. “I think when you did the research on it that you said it was only the second extant signed photograph of Jesse James.”

“That's right.” Clare stared at the words above the autograph, and read them, throat rough. “‘To my good friend, Bob Ford.' Jesse James signed a picture of himself and gave it to the man who'd murder him. I think Ford might even have asked for it.”

Shaking his head, Zach said, “Yeah, creepy.”

She shoved the framed photo at him. He grabbed a folded knit scarf from the shelf above the hanging rods and took the picture.

“Hey, I like that scarf!” Clare protested.

“Too late now,” Zach said. “You throwing me out of your bedroom, Clare?”

She raised her brows. “Consequences of your own actions, Zach. You wanted to see what glowed.” She pointed to what he held. “It was that. Now I want it out of my house. So I'm throwing you out of my closet and asking you to take it to Rickman's.”

“Shoulda thought this through,” Zach muttered.

“Yes, you should have,” Clare agreed, closing the safe and the panel and carefully pulling her shoe boxes back to their proper place. She rose from the floor and brushed past Zach—behind him so she couldn't accidentally hit the picture frame. “And you're welcome to return . . . for homemade peach pie and vanilla ice cream . . . when you're done stashing that portrait
somewhere else
.”

His breath came out on a chuff. “Pretty sure Mrs. Flinton wouldn't like it in one of her safes in her mansion.”

“You could put it in your apartment safe.”

“Where it might glow, and be seen from the windows, even with the drapes closed.”

“Too bad.”

“May as well get a little workout in the office building's gym while I'm gone. I missed that today, and boy do my muscles know it.” He left the closet, bent, and kissed her cheek. “I'll be back. Save that pie for me.”

“You've got it.” But she accompanied him down the stairs.

“What did the only other autographed photo go for at auction?” Zach asked.

“Less than the asking price of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. How much less, I don't know.”

“Uh-huh.”

Clare blinked and stopped on the stairs. Zach glanced back at her. “What?'

“When I researched the price, I discovered that photographs of Wild Bill Hickok are even rarer than those of Jesse James.”

Zach smiled slowly. “And our new friend Texas Jack Omohundro hung out a lot with Wild Bill.”

“Yes.”

“What about autographs?”

She nibbled her bottom lip. “I'm not sure I saw
anything
about Wild Bill Hickok's autograph.”

Brows going up and down, Zach said, “Worth a mint, then.”

“Perhaps. I know the biography I'm reading about Texas Jack has a picture of Wild Bill Hickok's signature from when the three of them, Jack, Wild Bill, and Buffalo Bill acted together.”

“You think we can put in a request to the universe . . . or to Texas Jack . . . for an authentic Wild Bill Hickok autograph after you help Jack move on?” It warmed her that Zach accepted absolutely that she'd have no trouble fulfilling her duty to
her latest phantom. She smiled. “I think it would be tacky to ask Texas Jack. True, this last gift is a little creepy and I'd rather not have something else so difficult to . . . handle. Also true that one of my major projects sensed my feelings and gave me a wonderful reward . . . but I don't want to actually, ah, project a request to Texas Jack or Enzo and definitely don't want to say anything to the Other—”

“Nope. The Other, he's supercilious, condescending, and contrary.”

The adjectives she'd have used were
patronizing
,
threatening
, and
dangerous
.

Zach finished his descent of the stairs. “I'll ask Enzo.”

Ask me what?
Enzo appeared in the hall.

“About gifts from the universe after Clare moves a spirit on.”

“Guns would be better,” Clare said.

“What?”

“Guns of those who used them in the Old West are more valuable than signatures.”

Zach perked up. “I suppose they would be.”

“Though they could also be creepy,” she pointed out.

Shrugging, Zach said, “Just a tool.” He touched the small of his back, where he'd holstered his own tool—his own weapon.

“I think the emotions attached to that photograph make it creepy. Emotions would be attached to guns, I'm sure.”

“Uh-huh,” Zach said, moving into the entryway.

Enzo leapt around him.
Are you going out, Zach? In the truck, Zach? Can I ride with you in the truck and go out?

“Heading downtown, Enzo,” Zach said.

Enzo wiggled his whole body.
Take me. TAKE ME! I LOVE going downtown and smelling the good smell of old ghosts!
He sniffed lustily.

“Sure, you can come along.” His fingers sank into the top of Enzo's ghostly head as he tried to pet the Lab. “Clare, you got one of those canvas shopping bags I can put this in?” He angled the rectangle of the hidden framed photograph at her.

Grimacing, she found one in the settle bench and handed it to him. “Don't bring it back.” Then she disabled the security system.

“I won't.” He paused. “It occurs to me that if you gave—or we had Tony Rickman give—our old client Dennis Laurentine a call, we might get a good price and quick cash for this. He might like it for his collection.”

Something inside Clare relaxed. “Another arrogant being.” She nodded. “I would feel all right selling that to him.” She frowned. “But I don't want to pay Mr. Rickman a commission.”

“Gotcha.”

“If he wants to charge us for storing the portrait, fine. I'll find out where Mr. Laurentine is and offer the photograph for sale.” She paused. “It's a good thing everyone in the antiques business believes I inherited all these items from my
great-aunt Sandra, who had them stored.”

“How long you think we can go on with that before people get suspicious?” Zach asked.

“Her house was pretty big, and though she didn't hoard, she
did
like and appreciate a lot of antiques and objets d'art.”

“As well as inheriting stuff from the previous ghost seers in your family who lived in Chicago.”

“As well as that,” Clare agreed.

“See you later.” He bent and kissed her again, looped the straps of the bag over his left shoulder, took his cane from the stand near the door, and left.

*   *   *

Zach's truck had just turned at the corner when the sprightly tone of Clare's cell announced a call from Mrs. Flinton.

“Good evening . . . Barbara.”

“Good evening, Clare dear. Do you have plans for this evening?”

Clare hesitated. “Not really. Would you like to come over for peach pie and ice cream?”

“Thank you for the invitation, dear, but Mr. Welliam has convinced me that it has been too long since I've attended a meeting of the Denver Parapsychological and Psychic Association. Naturally, we'd like you to come with us, dear.”

“It's late.”

“Not that late,” said the chipper voice of someone who preferred nights. “And the DPPA likes meetings that take place fully after dark. Some psychic gifts and talents are stronger then. We can pick you and Zach up on the way.”

“Zach isn't here.” The lucky man.

A small pause. Perhaps Mrs. Flinton had considered dragging him out of the psychically gifted closet, too. “Oh. We can pick you up.”

Clare would have liked to have waited for Zach, but he took his workouts seriously and she had no idea when he'd return. But she recalled Zach's patient look just that morning when she'd told him of promoting her accounting business . . . instead of her ghost seer business. Perhaps she did need to take another pace or two farther away from the closet she'd been hiding herself in as a psychic.

“All right, Mrs. Flinton.”

*   *   *

Enzo kept up happy comments as Zach drove them downtown. With a little narrowing of his eyes, he could see an extremely faint outline of the phantom dog. He'd always heard Enzo better than seeing the Lab, even when Zach'd first met Clare . . . and did so now when the Lab had his paws on the dash and his head through the windshield.

With time, Zach might be able to see Enzo better, and ghosts like Texas Jack, too. Zach smiled. Look how that telepathy thing with Clare was shaking out. Shaking her up. For some reason it wasn't shaking him up, particularly, and he got satisfaction out of the whole shaking-Clare-up thing. Maybe because she'd really rattled him to the core last week.

Loving her, being
in love
with her, shook him. A lot easier to accept her psychic gift, his own gift, than the fact he adored a woman, and had told her so. Once.

All right, maybe a couple of times when his bones had still been shivering from the dawn where they'd nearly lost Enzo and their lives.

But not since.

And yeah, he'd admit that he was waiting for her to tell him she loved him before he admitted it to her again . . . and knew that was all about pride and ego and—

We're here, Zach! Look at those squirrels!

Zach didn't see the must-be-dead-and-gone squirrels.

Look at that cowboy waving at me!
Enzo's whole body quivered.

“Go,” Zach said, and the wavery air in the passenger seat disappeared before Zach turned onto the downward ramp to the building's garage.

He gritted his teeth and parked in his handicapped space. He hated having the new license plate with the damn wheelchair on it, but had to concede it saved his foot, ankle, leg . . . whole body . . . from aching like a rotten tooth. Not like the building had an abundance of those spaces, either. He supposed he should be grateful to Rickman for giving him this one. Though since Rickman ran a security and investigations business and handled personal protection, no doubt other members of his crew had used the space temporarily before. Sometimes they got wounded in the profession.

Zach still didn't feel grateful. After nabbing the bag, Zach slid his key card to unlock the door and headed into the hallway, concentrating on keeping his footsteps and his cane tapping silent. A good exercise.

As he neared the intersection of the hall with the elevator bay to the left and the gym to the right, the elevator door opened and he tensed. So did Tony Rickman. Then the guy nodded, started toward him, glanced at the shopping bag looped over Zach's left shoulder, and did a double take.

Rickman actually backpedaled, quick, until he stood against the wall, primed for a fight. He held up his hand palm out. “Stop.”

Zach did, raising his eyebrows.

“What do you have in the bag, cop? What sort of gruesome evidence?”

“Clare and I have been calling it creepy, ourselves,” Zach said conversationally. He thought of taking the bag off his shoulder and swinging it in his free hand, but that would be mean. And it might cause Rickman, who obviously felt vibrations or some such from the portrait—helluva thing—to take Zach down. Or stomp on and destroy the picture. Explaining
that
to Clare would be a misery.

“What. Is. It?” Rickman asked. Sounded like he said it between gritted teeth.

“It's a photograph of Jesse James, autographed to his friend and killer, Robert Ford.”

Rickman's face went expressionless in the way that Zach saw as complete revulsion. Rickman's nostrils flared. “I don't
like it.”

Zach shrugged. “I don't either.”

Scowling at the bag, Rickman said, “Why are you bringing that here?”

“Clare didn't want it at her place. She's still going through the boxes delivered to her from her great-aunt's house in Chicago.” A lie in the way he'd put the two sentences together, but this time Rickman didn't pick up on that. His frown stayed fixed on the canvas grocery bag.

Rickman grunted, then said, “I don't want it in my office safe either.” With a jerk of his head, he turned on his heel. “There's a general building safe down here.”