Prowlers - 1 (29 page)

It was just that the suddenness and brutality of the act had stunned him. Molly had always been capable of handling herself. She was smart and quick and strong, and he would have chosen her to watch his back over any guy he knew. But she had also always

been sweet and kind and good, and it had pained him to see the hatred and rage that drove her to fire those rounds.

Yet on some level it had thrilled him as well. Molly was not going to let things scare her. Not anymore. All his life Jack had felt that he was at the center of the world. He figured most people thought that way. And when he and his friends got together, he had seen himself as the leader, the one they counted on for answers and to figure out what to do next.

When Molly fired those rounds, however, he had to wonder if maybe if she hadn't been the decision-maker, the leader, all along. Either way, he would never underestimate her again. She was in this one hundred percent. Whatever he decided to do now, he knew Molly would back him up.

"Miss Hatcher," Castillo said. He scratched at the George Clooney stubble on his chin and offered an uncertain smile. "Seems to me that there actually is something funny about all this, but I couldn't put it into words. Maybe you understand what I mean."

"Maybe we don't," Courtney interjected.

Castillo frowned and regarded her carefully.

Courtney brushed a strand of her sandy blond hair away from her eyes and returned his hard gaze.

"You're Courtney Dwyer?" the detective asked.

"That's me. This is my place," she said. Then she looked at Jack. "Our place. If you have questions, get on with them. I want to be able to open for lunch tomorrow, if possible."

With a nod, Castillo turned to Bill. He narrowed his eyes as he studied the big man. 'And you?"

"Bill Cantwell. I tend bar here."

Something about the way Castillo eyed Bill made Jack wonder if the cop knew more about the bartender than he let on. Then Castillo's eyes lit up.

"Yeah. Cantwell. You used to play for the Patriots, right?" Castillo said.

"That's me," Bill admitted.

"You were impossible to take down back then."

Bill grinned. "Still am."

Castillo nodded again.

The nodding was starting to get on Jack's nerves. The cop was eating up time they did not have if they wanted to stop Tanzer before he left town.

"Want to get to the questions, detective?" Jack asked.

The cop raised an eyebrow. "You in a hurry, Jack?"

"Like my sister said, we want to open tomorrow."

Castillo chuckled. "You guys are pretty cool, aren't you? Stone cold. After what went down here, you just sit there and tell me you're worried about lunch tomorrow."

"Maybe we are," Courtney snapped.

"Maybe," Castillo agreed. Then he focused on Jack. "But, see, a little more than a week ago two of your friends were murdered by a vicious killer. Or killers." He offered a tiny ironic smile.

"Then yesterday some nasty folks tried to kill you two on the T. That was you two, wasn't it?

You and Molly?"

Molly laughed. "If the police had treated it like a

crime and actually taken statements, you'd know, wouldn't you?"

"You killed two of these monsters."

"Monsters?" Jack asked, feigning surprise. "But I thought you guys said they were wolves."

Bill and Courtney laughed at that one. Molly only stared at Castillo.

For his part, the cop was not pleased. "Don't get coy with me now, Jack. All this stuff keeps

coming back to you and your friends here, and that tells me you know more than you've let on. I want it. And then I want you to forget it."

Castillo's expression was grim.

Jack leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "You're something, you know that? You expect us to pretend we didn't see what we saw here tonight?"

The cop shrugged and glanced around the restaurant. "Who'd believe you? You have no proof, Jack, unless you've got a security camera you didn't tell me about. You can play ball with me, or I can arrest you for obstructing justice and maybe a few other things. Nothing will stick, but I can make things difficult for you and your sister and your little place here."

With a tiny growl—as if now that the animal in him had been loosened it could not be completely hidden again—Bill rose from his chair, about to reach for the detective.

"Bill, no," Jack said.

The big man stopped, but he glared at the detective.

In that same moment Jack saw movement out of the

corner of his eye. When he glanced up he saw Artie standing off to his right. Through his transparent form, Jack could see the crime scene team as they continued to gather evidence.

In the blink of an eye it all changed again. The world turned inside out and Artie had flesh. Jack was back in the Ghostlands, where the living seemed to be intangible phantoms and only the dead had substance. The cops and forensic techs were just specters now, as were Bill and Molly, Courtney, and Detective Castillo.

But the Ghostlands version of Bridget's was full. Several dozen people wandered through the pub and restaurant, some of them moving slowly, as if tired or anguished. Others, like Artie and Corinne Berdinka and Father Pinsky, stood and watched.

"Jack? You okay?"

He turned to look into his sister's eyes and was unnerved to see her this way, as nothing but a gossamer shade of herself. "I'm fine," he said.

"You can't believe the cops will handle this," Artie told him. His best friend's ectoplasmic form drifted over to him. "They just want to make this case go away. They don't care if the Prowlers move to another city, as long as Boston doesn't have to deal with them anymore."

Jack nodded.

"Well?" Detective Castillo demanded. He saw that Jack was staring off at nothing and tried to figure out what had caught his attention. "Hello? Jack?"

Jack focused on the detective again, and suddenly he

realized that the few figures that lingered around Castillo were somehow linked to the homicide detective. They were phantoms from Jason Castillo's own life. One of them was a girl no more than sixteen. When Jack locked eyes with her, the girl began to speak.

And Jack repeated every word.

As the others all stared at him, and Castillo's eyes widened with ever-growing horror, Jack spoke in a high, female voice, one filled with sorrow.

"In 1987. You were a rookie. My name was Annette Ramos and I screamed for help. You could have saved me, but you were afraid to go in without backup. They cut me up, mutilated me in the minutes you hesitated. When you finally went in, I wasn't quite dead yet. I looked up and saw the fear in your eyes, and then I died. You never told anyone I was still alive when you went in. You didn't want anyone to know you could have saved me."

Castillo recoiled, jumped up out of the chair, and glanced around as if the voice had come from elsewhere. Then he rounded on Jack, eyes wide and teeth bared in fury. "How the hell did you do that?"

Jack smiled at the insubstantial police officer, comfortable now with the vision of the Ghostlands that surrounded him.

"We all have our secrets," Jack said. Then he glanced at Bill and Molly and Courtney and winked.

"You son of a—" Castillo snapped and started toward Jack.

"They're in an old church tower converted to an

apartment in Copley Square," Jack said. "If I've got this right it used to belong to Eric Carver, who's one of the Prowlers your guys just hauled out of here. There are about fifty of them, give or take, and their leader's name is Owen Tanzer. If you kill Tanzer, you might be able to take the others, but with Tanzer alive, they're more dangerous."

Castillo stood staring at him. Then he shook his head. "Why?"

"Why?" Jack asked. "Isn't it obvious? Tanzer's the leader of the pack."

While the detective thought that over, Jack gazed around at the ghosts. He stared for a long moment at the specter of Annette Ramos. The girl was furious at Castillo and that anger had kept

her here, in the Ghostlands.

"He's a good man," Jack whispered suddenly. "Even after you're gone, you'll still haunt him. You can go on now, if you want to."

Annette's spirit smiled gently, and a tear slipped down her cheek. She was solid, only a few feet from him, and he thought that if he reached out then he might be able to touch her, to lay hands upon the Ghostlands. But for some reason, though he had been touched by Artie once before, he thought that might be dangerous.

"Thank you," Annette whispered.

Then Jack blinked and the Ghostlands were gone. Only Artie's ghost remained, lingering in the background, barely visible now. Artie gave Jack a thumbs up. "Way to go, bro," he said.

Molly twitched and acted as if she had heard something. She shot Jack an inquisitive look, but he pretended not to understand.

'All right," Castillo said, 'let's say I believe you."

"You do believe me. Don't screw around, now, Jace. We don't have the time for it. Here's what we're going to do. We'll give you brief statements, saying whatever the hell you want us to say. But we won't come down to the station. Leave us out of it as much as you can. The less often our names appear in your report the better. In return, none of us will say a word about anything. Just wrap this up as quickly as you can. Get over to the lair, slaughter the bastards, and be done with it."

The detective pursed his lips, which formed a tight white line. He didn't like being told how things were going to be; that much was obvious. But there was little in what Jack had said that he could argue with.

Castillo glanced at the other three. "Jack speaks for all of you?"

They all nodded, but both Bill and Courtney were staring at Jack with great curiosity. He had an idea their surprise had less to do with the hard tack he'd taken with the cop than with his channeling the voice of a dead woman. Jack felt bad for not having told his sister what he was going through, but Bill was another story.

He shot the bartender a hard look. Bill was the last person who should have been taken aback by discovering that Jack was hiding something.

"We all have secrets," he said again.

Castillo seemed to notice the tension among them. The cop frowned, then shook his head and waved a hand. 'All right. We'll do it your way. But once you've given your statements, you all