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“We have a lot to talk about,” he said.
“We do?”
“Yes. Maybe you should sit. You look a little unsteady on your feet.”
Was it any wonder?
But I didn’t want to sit. I wanted him gone, banished back to the realm of the dead, along with Shani and Mariama. I considered bolting past him into my house, into my sanctuary, but I wasn’t altogether certain it would protect me from the likes of this ghost. For all I knew, he could follow me inside, and I didn’t want to lose the peace of mind of a hallowed place, illusionary though it might now be.
My legs felt leaden as I climbed the steps, the burden of his unspoken demands already a heavy weight. He didn’t rise, but then I could hardly expect him to. Why should a ghost be bound by earthly ceremony? Especially the spirit of a man whose life had ended in murder.
I sat down on the veranda, placing distance and the shopping bag between us. I felt nothing more than a faint chill emanating from his presence, and even that might have been my imagination.
“I told you once that I needed you as a conduit into the police department,” he said.
“I remember.”
“I need more than that now, I’m afraid.”
I was afraid, too. Deathly so.
“I need you to be my eyes and ears in this world. The living world.”
“Why?”
“Because you can go places I can’t enter. Talk to the people who won’t see me.”
“No, I mean…to what end?”
“As cliché as it sounds, I need you to help find my killer.”
I stared at his manifestation in silence. “How is it you can do all these things—converse with me, invade my sanctuary, appear to me as though you’re still alive—and yet, you don’t know who murdered you? Shouldn’t you know? You told me once you had a gift. You said that’s why you were called the Prophet.”
“I never claimed to be omniscient,” he said, and I thought he sounded annoyed, whether at my questioning of his ability or his current limitations, I had no idea. “I could never control the visions.”
I could relate. I had no control over my gift, either.
“Haven’t you read anything about my death?” he asked.
“Not much.”
“That’s disappointing. I would have thought after our last meeting you’d want to know more about me. You struck me as the curious sort. Or was I wrong about you?”
That aroused a spark. “I’ve been a little preoccupied since that night. I was almost murdered myself, remember? And I have a living to make, a business to run. But…” I paused to draw another breath. “I did look you up once. There wasn’t much on the internet about you and I don’t talk to Devlin. How else was I supposed to learn about you?”
He sighed. “I was hoping you’d be a little more resourceful.”
I wasn’t exactly thrilled with him, either. I really wanted him to just…vanish. “In that case, maybe you should look to someone else for help.”
“There is no one else. I searched a long time to find you.”
That gave me pause. “How did you find me?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Not my concern!” My voice hardened. “Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t look you up because I wanted nothing more to do with you?”
Careful, a little voice warned. I’d already been the recipient of one ghost’s ire that night. It wasn’t wise to provoke another.
He took a moment to answer. “You have a backbone, at least. That’ll come in handy.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
“Maybe I was a little too quick to judge you. You have to know that I have a lot riding on this relationship.”
We had a relationship? The notion of that made me shiver.
A neighbor walked by on the street. She gazed up at the house, then hurried on past. I saw her glance over her shoulder once. She must have thought me crazy, sitting out there in the dusk arguing with myself. I could hardly blame her. If not for Papa’s ability to see ghosts, I might have wondered about my sanity a long time ago.
“What happened to you?” I asked with grudging curiosity. “I know you were killed in the line of duty—” I broke off. “Is it okay that I speak so bluntly about…?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Good. I didn’t want to have to walk on eggshells around him.
That drew me up short again. Even my internal dialogue was starting to freak me out. How had Robert Fremont managed to slip into my life so effortlessly? How had I allowed myself to accept him so readily?
He’s a ghost. He’s a ghost. He’s a ghost.
I chanted the mantra to myself even as he continued to converse with me.
“I was shot in the back,” he said. “I never saw my killer. My body was found the next day in Chedathy Cemetery. That’s in Beaufort County.”
My gaze had still been fixed on the street, but now I jerked around in shock. Mariama and Shani were buried in Chedathy Cemetery.
“You were a Charleston cop,” I said. “What were you doing all the way down in Beaufort County?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
He said nothing.
I did not like the feeling of foreboding that knotted my stomach. “I’m still not exactly clear on what it is you expect me to do.”
“I already told you what I need.”
“I know, but—”
“Just listen to me. We have to act quickly. Do you understand? It has to be now.”
His urgency took me aback. “Why now? It’s been over two years since you were shot.”
He glanced up at the sky. “The stars have finally aligned. The players have all taken their places.”
Could he have sounded any more cryptic?
“Does that include me?”
“Yes.”
I turned back to the garden, searching the shadows. “And if I refuse to be a part of this?” Whatever this was.
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?” he asked.
Now it was I who fell silent.
“Have you not noticed the dark circles under your eyes? The sunken cheeks? The weight loss? You’re not eating or sleeping. Your energy is waning even as we speak.”
I stared at him in horror. “You’re haunting me?”
Chapter Three
My heart tripped at the implication of his words. I thought of my stalker, the elusive watcher who had been dogging me for days. Now I understood my lethargy and my insomnia. Fremont’s very presence was draining me of my life force just as Mariama had siphoned my energy earlier. Or had that been Fremont even then?
“You have to help me,” he said.
I gazed down at my trembling hands. “I’m beginning to realize that.”
“As soon as we find him, as soon as justice is served, I’ll leave you in peace.”
“I have your word?” The word of a ghost. That was a new one.
“What reason would I have for lingering?” he asked.
I shuddered to think.
“You said find him. If you were shot in the back, how can you be so sure the killer was a man?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” he admitted, and for the first time, I sensed some doubt. Maybe even a hint of fear. “I don’t even know why I was in the cemetery that night.”
“You have amnesia?” A surreal question if ever there was one.
“About the events surrounding that night? It would seem so.”
He gazed out at the street as I searched his profile. The detail I could see in the twilight was amazing. The strong line of his jaw and chin, the sharp shelf of his cheekbone, the outline of his lips. Even knowing what I knew, I still found it difficult to accept that he was dead.
“I suppose that makes sense,” I said, tearing my gaze away. “I’ve read that accident victims often can’t recall details leading up to the crash. This is similar. You suffered a severe trauma.”
“Yes, the trauma was severe,” he murmured.
“What’s the last thing you do remember? Before you died, I mean.”
He fell silent, and now I sensed some turmoil, some inner conflict. “I remember meeting someone.”
“At the cemetery?”
“I don’t know. All I remember is the scent of her perfume. The smell was still on my clothes when I died.”
“So the killer could have been a woman.”
“It’s possible. I have a vague recollection of an argument.”
“Do you know who she was?”
Another hesitation. “Her name eludes me.”
“What did she look like?”
In the split second before he answered, I could have sworn I saw a shudder go through him, but it seemed unlikely a ghost would be affected in so earthly a manner. Surely I was ascribing my own human emotions to him.
“I don’t know. But her perfume…”
“Go on.”
“The scent is still on my clothes,” he said, almost in defeat. “I can smell it even now.”
I thought of the exotic fragrance that had drifted to me earlier, riding the same ghostly breeze as the nightingale’s song. If Fremont had been following me then, the scent might have come from him.
And then something else occurred to me. Had he seen Mariama and Shani’s ghosts? Was that why he’d disappeared?
Could ghosts even see one another? Interact with one another?
Years and years of questions bubbled up inside me, but it was so strange to be able to ask them of a ghost. Stranger still that my fear had dissipated. Was I still under a spell?
Once again I found myself heading into dangerous territory, spurning Papa’s warning and flirting with disaster. One door had already been breached because of my wanton disregard of the rules. Would my connection with a ghost open yet another?
“What’s it like?” I heard myself ask him. “Behind the veil, I mean.”
“It’s called the Gray. The place in between the Dark and the Light.”
The place, he’d said. Not the time. The distinction seemed significant.
“Does it still hurt? From where you were shot?”
“There’s no pain,” he said. “There’s nothing really.”
“But you feel something. You must. You’re here because you want vengeance. That means you’re still capable of human emotion.”
