Ready & Willing (25 page)

“So tell me about this maybe, possibly criminal activity you’re involved in.”

As grateful as she was for the switch to a new topic, she couldn’t quite nudge the concept of Sean moving on to the back of her brain. Probably because she’d already pushed so much to the back of her brain today that there was no more room there for anything else. It did, however, step to the side enough that she knew it would wait while she finished with this matter before stepping forward to demand consideration again.

“What do you know about Edward Dryden of Dryden Properties?” she asked Leo. Might as well just get to the heart of the matter right off.

His expression changed not at all. In fact, he leaned back in his chair this time in a way that was genuinely relaxed and folded his arms to cup the back of his head in his hands. “I know he’s a big shot developer who’s got a lot of projects going up downtown, especially on those blocks of Main Street the city is most interested in revitalizing.”

“That’s all?” Audrey asked.

He did the shrug thing again, and again, this time it looked sincere. “What else am I supposed to know?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe that he’s linked to some big crime syndicate on the eastern seaboard?”

Leo laughed at that. “You know, one of the nice things about working as a cop in this city is that we don’t have a big organized crime element thriving here.”

“There are gangs.”

“Yeah, and that problem is one we’re aware of and on top of. But we don’t have any budding Tony Sopranos or Teflon Dons here, Audrey. And even if we did, Edward Dryden wouldn’t even make the long list of suspects. He’s an upright guy as far as I know. His business is legit enough that the city has hired him for jobs from time to time. He contributes to a lot of social programs, both private and public. A lot of his employees are regular volunteers. There’s not even a whiff of scandal about the guy.”

“So he’s a regular bastion of the community,” she said dryly.

“Well, I don’t know that I’d call him a bastion, since he came here from Philadelphia, but—”

“Philadelphia,” Audrey repeated as she sat up straighter in her chair. “They had a Teflon Don.”

Leo laughed again. “They also have my cousin Patricia who teaches first-graders and does recordings for the blind.”

“I know, but—”

“Why the interest in Edward Dryden?”

There was no way she could tell him a ghost had told her the guy was shady and needed looking into. So she only said, “A friend of mine has invested in one of Dryden’s projects, and now he’s worried about where his money is going. He’s . . . heard things,” she said evasively, “that make him think maybe there’s something shady going on.”

“
He’s
worried?” Leo repeated, smiling. “
He’s
heard things? So this friend of yours is a guy?”

“The
guy
is a
friend
,” Audrey corrected.

“Oh. Okay. I see.” But something in his voice told her he didn’t see it that way at all, and that maybe their previous exchange had come about at just the perfect time.

“Anyway,” Audrey forged ahead, “he has reason to think maybe Dryden isn’t who or what he says he is. He has reason to think maybe the guy is or has been involved in things that might, maybe, possibly be illegal. And I was wondering if maybe you could . . . if it would be possible for you to . . .”

“You want me to look into the guy’s background?” Leo asked.

“Can you?”

“Yeah, sure. I can run a rudimentary check on him. See if anything comes up that looks off.”

“There’s another name, too, that’s come up,” she told him. “Nicholas Pearson. Does that ring a bell?”

Leo shook his head. “Can’t say that it does. But I’ll add him to the list.” As if to illustrate that, he picked up a pen and scribbled both names into a small notebook he pulled from his inside jacket pocket. “Gimme a call day after tomorrow,” he added as he completed the gesture. “I should know something by then.”

Audrey expelled a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding and said, “Thanks, Leo.”

“I’ll do this under one condition,” he interjected.

Uh-oh.
“What’s that?”

He grinned that knowing grin again. “That you bring this
friend
around to meet me and Janet sometime.”

Audrey nodded unenthusiastically. “Sure, Leo. No problem.” Provided, of course, Nathaniel was still around after all this. Because if they didn’t figure out a way to get his soul back, there was no way of telling what would happen. And even if they did get his soul back, there was no way to know how long his interest in Audrey would remain. If it would even remain at all.

 

Audrey lay awake in her bed the night after talking to Leo—and after another day of avoiding Nathaniel’s calls, of which there had been more than a few—thinking about everything her husband’s former partner had told her. How Sean had said he would want her to move on in the event of his death. How he would have moved on himself in the event of hers. What did that say about his feelings for her? she wondered. What did it say about hers for him? Was she being unrealistic, thinking she would never fall in love again? Especially in light of the fact that she’d always been certain she would never fall in love in the first place, and then Sean had come along to make her see how wrong she was about that?

She wondered again where he was now. He’d been a good guy in life, so he must have ended up in a good place after his death. But why had Silas been able to return from the afterlife to contact her when she was a total stranger to him, but her husband, who had loved her, had not. Just how did the hereafter work, anyway? Did souls interact with each other? Did people walk around in some alternate dimension looking the way they had in life, having conversations? Or was there simply some kind of disembodied state of consciousness where you were aware of things? Of other beings? Were there feelings in the afterlife? Was there laughter? Was there joy? Was there companionship? Was it possible that Sean had indeed moved on in the place where he was? Had he met someone there? Had he built a life for himself in the hereafter with someone else? Why hadn’t he returned to her since it was clear that return was possible?

“Silas,” she said softly into the darkness. “Are you around?” When he didn’t reply or appear, she repeated, a little more loudly, “Silas? Are you there?”

She’d heard nothing of him for days, not since he’d given her the name Nicholas Pearson. Cecilia said he sometimes visited her when the shop was empty and Audrey was in the office seeing to paperwork or out running errands. But she said they only talked about the sort of getting-to-know-you things people talked about when they were getting to know each other. He’d told her nothing of Nathaniel’s situation, clearly leaving that to Audrey. Cecilia said she’d learned more about the operation of paddle wheelers and the commercial routes between New Orleans and Philadelphia than she probably needed to know, but judging by the pink blooming on her cheeks when she told Audrey that, she clearly hadn’t minded the lessons.

If Audrey didn’t know better, she’d swear Cecilia was falling for Silas. But surely she knew better than to have feelings for a ghost. Yes, Silas was handsome and charming and strangely nice to have around. But there was that state of deadness to consider. That could really put a damper on any potential romantic relationship that might develop between the two. Who knew how long he was going to be earthbound? Not to mention, sometimes he could be so . . . so . . . Victorian. And how could you hug a ghost? Or hold hands with a ghost? Or have dinner with a ghost? Talk about your one-sided relationships. Surely those things had occurred to Cecilia. Surely the only feelings she had for Silas were platonic.

“Silas?” Audrey called out again into the darkness. “If you’re home, pick up. I need to ask you something.”

After another moment of quiet, she heard him say, “Pick up? What the devil does that mean?”

She cringed at his irritated tone.
Why so prickly
? she wondered. She hadn’t bothered him for days. “Sorry,” she said softly. “Did I wake you?”

“Of course not,” he replied, still sounding annoyed. “Do you honestly think I sleep?”

“I never thought about it,” she told him. “I mean, there is that old saying and stuff.”

“What old saying?”

“ ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ ” she said.

“People actually say that?”

“Sometimes.”

He expelled a petulant sound. “Then they will be sorely disappointed when they arrive. There is no need for sleep here.”

“But what if someone likes sleep?” she asked. “What if someone’s an insomniac in life, and their idea of paradise is the ability to fall asleep whenever they want? What kind of eternal bliss is it if the thing they wanted desperately in life can’t be found in the hereafter?”

He said nothing for a moment, then, “What do you want, Audrey?”

She turned to the left, toward the direction from which his voice had come. “You know, you don’t have to be so snarky. Jeez, I don’t hear from you for days, and then when I do, you’re mad about something. And Cecilia says you talk to her all the time.”

Gee, now who sounded irritated, annoyed, and snarky?
Audrey asked herself.

Silas sounded less irritated when he replied, “Cecilia isn’t in constant need of information or favors. Cecilia wants only to engage in interesting conversation. Cecilia is a lovely woman whose company I enjoy very much.”

“Oh, and I’m not lovely?” she demanded. “You don’t enjoy my company?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you implied it.”

“No, I was simply stating that when I talk to Cecilia, it’s because I wish to engage in lively conversation. When I talk to you, it’s because I’m on a mission.”

“So with her, it’s an assignation and with me it’s an assignment.”

He said nothing for a moment, then, in a tone that revealed nothing, replied, “Perhaps.”

Gee, maybe Cecilia wasn’t the only one falling for someone she shouldn’t be,
Audrey thought. Because Silas sounded kind of besotted himself. She wondered if she should remind him that his world and Cecilia’s had only come together because of the very mission he was on, and that there was no way to know what would happen once that mission was complete. Death may not be as final as she’d once thought it was, but it could still be a real conversation killer.

“I’m sorry if you think the only reason I ever want to talk to you is because of your mission or because I have a favor to ask,” she said.

There was another brief hesitation, then he said, “I accept your apology. Now then. Why is it you wanted to talk to me?”

Sheepishly, she told him, “I need a favor.”

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like “Damnable woman.”

In her defense, she added, “Well, at least it’s not about your mission in this case.”

Sounding only slightly less irritable, he asked, “What is it?”

This time Audrey was the one to hesitate before speaking. And when she finally did, it was to ask very slowly, “Can you . . . you know . . . find people? On the other side of the veil, I mean?”

He said nothing for a moment, then told her, “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to find anyone on this side.”

“Are you able to go back to your side from this side?” she asked. “Like can you move back and forth between this world and your world? Just where do you go when you’re not—” She stopped before finishing with
Here bugging me,
and instead said, “Here visiting me.”

“I don’t go anywhere,” he told her. “I’m still here, even when you can’t see or hear me. I just . . . Well. I switch off, for lack of a better way to put it.”

“How do you switch back on again?”

“When someone thinks about me, it brings me back.”

Which explained why Audrey hadn’t seen much of him lately, she thought. Her own thoughts had been so focused on Nathaniel that she hadn’t thought of much else. But if Cecilia was seeing a lot of Silas, it must mean she was thinking about him a lot. In a word,
Hmm.

“But could you go back and look for someone?” Audrey asked. “And then come back here and report to me? Is that possible?”

He said nothing for a moment, then, sounding very thoughtful, told her, “I don’t know. I can’t do it in the way you seem to think, though. I can’t just open a door and walk through whenever I want.”

“But you were able to find out about Nicholas Pearson after I asked you to see if you could learn more,” she pointed out.

“That was merely a matter of the man’s name popping into my head when I concentrated on the question you asked about him. I didn’t go interviewing people on the other side, asking if they knew him.”

“Well, could you do that then? Concentrate on a question I ask to see if you get an answer?”

“I don’t know,” he said. And something in his voice made her think he didn’t want to even try. “Audrey, as I said, I’m not certain of how the rules work. I don’t know if I can leave here and go back there. At least not until I’ve done what I came here to do. And even if I could go back before then, I’m not certain I would be able to return here again if I did.”

This time it was Audrey’s turn to be thoughtful. “You know,” she said, “you kind of sound like you don’t want to go back there. Even if you could.”

He stepped out of the shadows then, and although he’d claimed to have no need of sleep, he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him. “That’s because I’m not certain I do,” he said softly.

Audrey pushed herself up on one elbow, cradling her chin in her hand. “Why not? I thought you said it was a nice place.”

“It is a nice place, from what I recall,” he agreed. “But then, so is this place.”

“I thought you didn’t like the way things have changed so much here in the time since you’ve been gone.”