The Dark Man (10 page)

Ulie.
Shit
. I’ll need to call Melanie from wardrobe and check in on him. I told her I’d be back by midnight tonight. There’s no way that’s happening now. So it looks like I might need to do a little begging, too. She’s not my biggest fan, if I haven’t made that clear, but she tolerates my existence when I ask for help.

Her heart is bigger than her disgust.

When Mike leaves to call his wife, I’m left standing on the stoop with Craghorn. I don’t want to pepper the guy with even more questions, especially after the detective and Mike have bombarded him, but until we get a chance to compare notes, it’s a necessity.

But first I say, “We won’t be bringing you in tonight, okay? This will strictly be just me and Mike.”

Why? Because there’s no way in hell I’m making the mistake of using someone who might be susceptible to a demonic entity as bait. Not again. I learned my lesson with Chelsea Hopper, and I’m still trying to atone for that.

I add, “You got somewhere to stay? Friends with an extra bedroom?”

“Friends,” he replies, as if they’re something he remembers from another life. “No. Not really. None that I’ve seen in years.”

“Family in town?”

He shakes his head. “Dead or a thousand miles away.”

“Okay, no big deal.” I pull my wallet from my back pocket and fish out a couple of hundred dollar bills. “I’m staying at the Seaside down at the oceanfront. They know me there. Just ask for Delane at the front desk, tell her I sent you, and then book an oceanfront room. You mention me, she’ll probably comp you a nice dinner in the restaurant. Go relax, Dave. Get away from this place for a while. You could use a recharge, yeah?”

There’s no need to mention the fact that Delane is one of many reasons why Melanie from wardrobe is no longer Mrs. Ford Atticus Ford.

Craghorn’s hand advances and retreats toward the bills, as if he’s gingerly waiting on them to bite his fingertips, and then he takes them, folds them in half, and stuffs them in a pocket.

But not before I notice the scars. No wonder he’s kept his hands in his pockets this whole time.

“Whoa, let me see.”

“See what?”

“Your right hand.”

“I … it’s nothing.”

He shows me anyway. It’s mottled pink with raised flesh, scratch upon scratch.

I grit my teeth and wince. Some of them look fresh. Others have been there awhile. You would think that you couldn’t get that many scars across the back of a single hand, but they’re thin lines, crosshatched, like someone has been gouging him with a stickpin. I picture the razor-sharp point of a demonic claw, slowly dragging along, splitting flesh. One single, screeching nail on a chalkboard made of skin.

I grab the stretchy jacket fabric around his wrist and pull the sleeve up to his elbow. My heart sinks. This poor man. “Oh, buddy,” I say, mimicking my mother when I got hurt as a child.

Craghorn’s entire arm is covered in scratches, some new, some months old, and I don’t have to ask about the rest of his frail body. I can see it in my mind already. I’m sure he’s covered head to toe in claw marks. I doubt there’s much skin left that isn’t. He’s not wearing a jacket and slacks in 104-degree heat because it’s cold inside his house; he’s wearing them because this goddamn thing has used him as a canvas.

“Get out of here,” I say. “You leave, and don’t you ever come back. We’ll handle this.”

Craghorn leaves, but not without protesting as much as he can muster, and I call Melanie from wardrobe to check on Ulie. She’s not pleased that I’ve inconvenienced her yet again, but says she’s okay with it, because of this: “Ulie is just the cutest wutest puppy wuppy in the whole wide world. Yes, he is! Who’s the cutest puppy?”

The conversation stopped being directed at me about two minutes ago.

I say my goodbyes to the cutest puppy in the whole wide world and promise her that it’ll only be one more night. She knows me, and she knows I can’t keep that promise when I’m heavily involved in a case, and says as much.

“It’s fine, Ford,” she adds. “He’s in puppy heaven. Doesn’t even know you’re gone.”

Ouch. That stings, but I know that she’s not really referencing Ulie. I’m sure his feelings are the conduit for what she’s trying to tell me.

“Thanks, Mel,” I say. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“Any word on Chelsea’s story?”

She knows that any moment I’m not working for The Man—like, literally, the cops, government agents—I spend my time trying to find, and destroy, the thing that hurt that little girl. “I went back out to that farmhouse right before I came to Virginia.”

“Any luck?”

“Helluva lot better than last time. Listen, Mike’s coming. I’ll tell you about it when I come to pick up Ulie. It’s good. Big time. Could help a lot if I ever get a damn chance to follow up on it.”

“Wait, hang on. Did you say Mike? As in, Mike
Long
?”

“Yeah.”

“One sec, let me check the news.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t hear anything about the world ending.”

“Funny. Oh, hardy har, hardy har.”

“He’s actually there. With you. On a job,” she says, not like it’s a question, but as a statement of absolute disbelief regarding a true fact.

“He lives down in Kitty Hawk, remember? And
this
, Jesus, Mel, this is
big
. Whatever’s in this house, it’s as bad as that right-hander that got Chelsea. Maybe even stronger.” I almost tell her about the marks all over Craghorn’s body, but I change my mind. I don’t want her to worry about me. You know, since I’m foolishly thinking she’ll care. “I
need
Mike’s help. Seriously. So I called, and amazingly enough, he came.”

I can hear her sigh. “For only the second time, the almighty Ford Atticus Ford has met something he can’t tame.” I can’t tell if she’s talking about the demon, or herself. That’s a long story for another chapter. I’m still hunting the ghosts of our marriage. Maybe they can tell me what went wrong. Maybe they can give me answers.

Not about what happened, really, because I know what I did.

About why I let someone like her go.

I’d like to ask them what I was thinking, because I have no clue.

“Yeah,” I say. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

“Tell Mike I said hi and to behave himself.”

“Apparently he’s off the sauce. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that too much.”

“I meant for him not to kill you tonight. He wouldn’t last long in prison.”

“Jokes galore today, huh?”

“It’s a necessary evil around you, my friend. Okay, Ford. Call me when you get into town. Ulie misses you.”

And for about half a second, for the teeniest, tiniest moment, I hope that this statement might not be about the dog, either.

I hang up. It’s not and never will be. I done screwed up good.

Thunder grumbles in the distance. It would be nice if a rain shower came through and cooled things down a bit, but most likely what’ll happen is, it’ll rain for five minutes, just enough to soak this concrete jungle. And here, this close to the ocean with the humidity sitting at about 7,000 percent, it’ll do nothing more than turn all of Hampton Roads into a suffocating sauna.

I’m almost looking forward to the freezing air inside the Craghorn compound.

But not really, considering the thing causing it might finally commit me to an insane asylum.

I turn my eyes away from the dark clouds shouldering out the blue sky on the horizon and see Mike walking toward me. His expression is glum. He looks like he went a few rounds with Tyson and finally managed to crawl off the mat long after the match ended.

“Didn’t go over so well, huh?” I ask.

“Well, I got permission, but if you ask me, there was another right-hander on the other end of that line. She was
not
happy.”

“Not my biggest fan anymore?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “As if she ever was.”

“Good point.”

“She’ll never forgive you for Chelsea.”

“Her and about forty million people.” I let that simmer a moment. Then I ask him, “Have you?”

“Forgiven you?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

His tone suggests I already know the answer. I do, but it was worth a shot, regardless.

I have to wipe the layer of sweat from my forehead. It’s now mixed with hair gel that seems to be melting off my damn head and leaves my hand gooey. I fling away the droplets, and the remainder gets swiped down my pants leg. Pretty sure that my trademark black from head-to-toe outfit was the worst idea imaginable in this heat. Right about now, I’m praying that storm in the distance makes its way here. I’d love to have about five minutes of relief before we go tackle this beast.

I ask Mike if Craghorn showed him any of his scars earlier.

“Not until I asked. He wanted to show me how the doorbell would ring by itself at all hours of the night. Caught me looking at the scars on his hands, and I made him show me what else had been done to him. I wanted to ask you about it because something felt weird.”

I pantomime pulling a sleeve back. “He showed you, right? Whole arm was covered, both sides.”

“Not just his arms. Nearly everything.”

“Yeah? I thought his entire body would be covered.”

“What’re we gonna do about him?”

“He’s already gone.” I point my chin east, in the direction of the ocean, and tell Mike that I sent Craghorn away. “Gave him money for a night’s stay at the Seaside—”

“Delane still there?”

“Yeah, but that’s not—forget it. Doesn’t matter.”

“So what’s he doing after we’re finished? What happens if we can’t get rid of this right-hander on our own? It’ll take a while to convince the Catholics to come down for an exorcism, and, even then, there’s no guarantee. He
can’t
come back here. Does he have family? Friends?”

“We already went over all that, and no, he doesn’t. I’ll figure something out.”

I’ve been known to help out a client on occasion if I’m moved enough by their story, but rarely do I commit myself this deeply. Mike and I made a lot of money in sponsorships and advertisements for The Paranormal Channel, and, in turn, we were extremely well compensated for it. Truthfully, I wouldn’t ever have to work again if I chose not to, but I have questions that remain and a little girl to avenge.

What I’m trying to say is, I have plenty of offshore accounts and investments that I can tap into. If Dave Craghorn needs a new place to live, I can afford to set him up until he gets rid of the deep shadows that are sucking away the light in his life. Nobody deserves that.

Mike says, “You know, I don’t get you, Ford. I’m not sure I ever did or ever will.”

“How so?”

“I get what you’re saying. I know exactly what you’re talking about. You’ll buy that guy a freakin’ house on the oceanfront if it means taking care of him. You got a good heart, but damn if it ain’t tainted black once in a while.”

“You mean Melanie? Cheating?”

“That’s part of it, yeah. How many were there? Ten? Fifteen?”

“Six,” I admit, angling the word out in a tone that suggests, ‘Hey, it wasn’t
that
bad.’

“One is all it takes. Anyway,” he says, checking the sky as thunder barrels through, “it’s more than just screwing up with Melanie. The greed, the motivation, stepping all over people on our way to the top, sending Chelsea into—never mind. This ain’t about her. It’s about—”

“It’s
always
been about her. At least since TPC yanked the show.”

“Let me finish,” Mike says. A sprinkle of rain splats against my cheek. “What I’m trying to say is, it will never make any goddamn sense to me how you can buy some poor soul a house with your own money, or cut a check for a couple mil’ to some kid’s charity, and then you turn right around and grind something into hamburger if you think it’ll get you somewhere. I don’t
get
it. I don’t know how you live with yourself, and I don’t know what motivates you to pay attention to the angel on your shoulder one day, and the devil the next.”

Mike is right. He’s always right. But I’m not ready to admit it.

Plus, I don’t know what the answer is either—faulty wiring, perhaps.

It’s funny how this is the most he’s ever opened up to me, especially on the back of a two-year separation. It sounds as if he’s been practicing this for a while, and no matter how much he says he’s only here to help Craghorn, I feel like he was looking for an opportunity to get this little speech off his chest. Maybe Toni got tired of listening to him recite it in front of a mirror.

No, Ford, be nice. Could be a distant attempt at forgiveness.

But, given a second to think about it, maybe I shouldn’t get that confused with pity.

Whatever. I’m glad to have him back.

I spend too much time analyzing things these days.

Best to let this discussion go to voice mail.

I slap Mike on the back, heartily, like old pals, and say, “Okay then. Nice chat. Now let’s go hunt some fucking ghosts.”

Mike and I go through our standard routine, and it’s fluid, like we never hopped off the bicycle. He’s wax on; I’m wax off. Easy as it ever was. He runs a baseline EMF check to see if there are any unnatural electromagnetic spikes that might cause a sensation of being watched and things of that nature. You get too much EMF humming around your body and brain, there’s a good possibility that it can cause visual distortions, even hallucinations. Some people are more sensitive than others, and that’s the way it is. No rhyme or reason.