The Last Victim (19 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Is that right?” Charlie’s eyes flashed fire. Standing scarcely more than arm’s length away, Garland looked as big and bad and muscular and intimidating as ever. At that moment Charlie was just so furious she didn’t care. Taking a step forward, she thrust a pugnacious finger at his chest. “Listen, you jackass: any more dirty talk in my ear, and what I do next will make that whole incense-and-candle thing look like a party game.”

Garland’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You threatening me, Doc?”

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie replied with relish. “Count on it.”

“I wouldn’t.” He smiled a tigerish smile. “If I were you.”

“Oh, dear, maybe you’re right. Maybe I
shouldn’t
threaten you.” Charlie clapped both hands to her cheeks à la the
Home Alone
kid, then let them drop again as she finished by fixing him with a glare. “Maybe I should damned well
promise
you that if you don’t stay away from me, bad things are going to happen. To
you
.”

“If anybody should be threatening anybody, I should be threatening you. Last night you did your damnedest to kill me.”

“I did not. Nobody can kill you. You know why? Because you’re
already dead
.”

“Yeah, well. Whatever. You did your best to screw me over, then.
You think being sucked into that damned wind tunnel you created didn’t hurt? It did. It hurt like hell.”

Remembering, Charlie suffered a brief pang of conscience. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to send you to where you’re supposed to be.”

“You were helping me out, in fact.”

“That’s right, I was.” Honesty compelled her to add, “Sort of.”

“Let’s get real, Doc: you tried to send me off to hell.”

“If that’s where you’re supposed to be, it’s not
my
fault.”

“Well, you can forget it: I’m not going.”

“The thing is, you don’t exactly have a choice. You die, you go. So go already.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Too damned bad.”

“You know what? I don’t care. As long as you go be a ghost somewhere else and keep your nose out of my business, I don’t give a flip what you do.”

“What, you didn’t appreciate my heads-up about your new boyfriend? I was just trying to help you out there. Keep you from winding up with a dud in the sack.”

Charlie didn’t smile; she bared her teeth. “And I was just trying to help
you
out by hurrying you on your way to eternity.”

“Yeah. About that: you try that woo-woo stuff on me again, I’m liable to get nasty.”

“Nasty how? Are we talking popping out of dark corners going Boo? You’re ectoplasm, remember?” The face she made at him was pure mockery. “You don’t scare me, Casper.”

“Casper?” He looked both surprised and affronted.

“Yeah,” she said, rubbing it in.

“Just so we’re clear, Doc, I ain’t no fucking Casper. Mess with me again, and you’re liable to find that out. The hard way.”

“Oh, I’m shaking in my shoes. At least, I would be, except, guess what?” Charlie stabbed a finger at him again, only this time it sank knuckle deep into his wide chest. The electric tingle she felt at the contact was hardly noticeable. It paled in comparison to the satisfaction she got from watching his expression change as her finger penetrated what appeared to be the solid surface of his shirt, then withdrew with as little fuss and muss as if she’d been poking air. “You’ve got no
substance. You’re about as dangerous as water vapor. Except for being childishly annoying, there’s absolutely nothing you can do.”

“Start waving your incense at me again, and you’ll wish I was only being childishly annoying.”

“Oh, so there are other options? Enlighten me, why don’t you? Exactly what
are
you going to do, tough guy?” She took another pugnacious step toward him. With her face tilted up now and him looming over her, they were practically nose to nose. His eyes were as brightly blue as the ocean had been earlier. He looked, in a word, alive. As vividly alive as anyone she’d ever seen, as a matter of fact, even though he absolutely was not. “Moan a little? Rattle some chains? What?”

His face hardened. “You try sending me to Spookville again, Doc, and one of two things is gonna happen: either you’re not going to succeed and I’m going to make tonight’s
childishly annoying
little threesome the least of your problems, or you will succeed and then I’ll find my way back just like I did this time. Only next time I’ll bring something with me: one of those monsters prowling through the fog, maybe, or some other poor damned soul who’ll help me make your life miserable. And that’ll just be for starters. I guarantee it.”

“You can’t bring things back with you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s not the way it works.”

“What do you know about how it works? You ever been dead? No. Let me give you a hint, Doc: you don’t know shit about it.”

“I—” Charlie had to break off as the door opened just then to admit an elderly, white-haired woman in a tea-length lilac dress. She was maybe seventy, medium height, thin, sweet-faced, a little stooped. As the door swung shut behind her, the newcomer looked right through Garland. Of course, she was seeing nothing but thin air.

“Oh, hello,” the woman said to Charlie, who had frozen in place. It was one thing to
know
that no one besides herself could see Garland, and another to ignore the solid-to-her, rampantly male figure standing inches away from her in the middle of the ladies’ room as another woman walked right past him without a clue that he was there. As she made her way toward the lavatory, the old woman smiled brightly at Charlie and added, “Beautiful night out, isn’t it?”

“Y-yes indeed,” Charlie stuttered. It was all she could do to get the words out. She knew her eyes had gone wide, and her expression had to be a study in alarm. There was a reason for that: the woman wasn’t alone. Bursting through—literally
through
—the closed door as if the heavy metal panel didn’t exist came a tall, stocky, dreadlocked man in a black track suit. He was armed with a wicked-looking knife. Screaming, “Tell me where the money is,” he ran toward the old woman, viciously swinging the knife at her back as soon as he was within reach of her.

Charlie’s heart leaped. She started to call out a warning, clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the words before they could escape, and hurried in the attacker’s wake, only to stop stock-still on the threshold between the lounge and the restroom. With a racing pulse she watched as the knife drove harmlessly through the victim’s lilac-clad back. The woman disappeared into one of the stalls, unaware.

Violence crackled in the air, potent as a thunderstorm.

“What the—?” Garland began from behind her. But he broke off as the knife-wielding apparition—because an apparition was what it was, as Charlie had known from the first—turned on her. For a split second the apparition’s eyes met hers. His were wild, crazed, terrified—and terrifying. He knew she could see him: it was there in his harsh-featured face.

As quickly as their eyes locked, he raised the knife high and charged her.

“Where’s the money, bitch?” he screamed, his face contorting with fury. Except for his shriek, no other sounds accompanied the assault: no scrape of feet on tile, no rush of a body moving through air, no rustle of clothing.

Nothing. Because there was nothing physical there.

Adrenaline shot down Charlie’s veins anyway. But before she could react, before she could summon up something potentially disarming to say, like
You’re dead, give it up
, before she even had time to move out of the doorway or do anything except suck in air, Garland somehow stepped in front of her, planting himself between her and her would-be attacker. Charlie found herself blinking at his back. His torso was honed, V-shaped to the waist above a small, tight, athletic butt. The muscles of his legs appeared to tighten and flex as he braced
himself. His arms bunched. His shoulders suddenly looked as wide and formidable as an NFL linebacker’s in full gear.

“Back the fuck off,” Garland roared at the other apparition, who didn’t. The two of them converged, the knife slashed at Garland’s chest, Garland grabbed the other man’s wrist, and they both vanished.

Gone.
Poof
.

A toilet flushed.

Shaken, heart still pounding, struggling to get her suddenly roiling stomach under control, Charlie tottered a couple of steps forward then leaned against the nearest wall as the old woman emerged from the stall. With a glance and a smile for Charlie, she headed for the sink, where she turned on the faucet.

Charlie welcomed the rush of running water because she hoped it would cover the sound of her quickened breathing.

It was clear that the old woman had no clue that anything out of the ordinary had just happened.

“Is something the matter, dear?” As she soaped her hands, the woman glanced at Charlie’s reflection in the mirror.

Catching sight of herself, Charlie wasn’t surprised at the question. The humidity had added waves to her usually smooth chestnut hair, but still it fell in attractive profusion to her shoulders. Her sapphire blouse and black pants were maybe a little office-y for a Friday night out, but they were expensive-enough-looking for the surroundings and had the added, happy bonus of showing off both her coloring and her slim figure. No, what was wrong with the picture of herself that the mirror was throwing back at her was her face. It was rigid with tension. Her skin looked too tight, making her high cheekbones and square jaw seem way more prominent than they actually were. Despite her slenderness, her cheeks were usually a little too round, a little too rosy, which—coupled with her slender nose and full lips—tended to make her look just a tad too youthful to be taken entirely seriously. Not tonight. She was utterly white, big-eyed, shocked-looking. Before she saw and clamped her lips together to combat it, her mouth trembled. She looked like … she had seen a ghost.

Well, duh. Two actually
.

As the thought popped into her head, Charlie was surprised into a wry inner smile. Then she got a grip.

“I know this may sound strange, but I was wondering … have you been involved in any kind of violent incident in the last week or so?” Charlie asked. Her upset stomach made her voice sound a little thin. “With—with a man wearing dreadlocks?”

Turning abruptly away from the sink, where the faucet still ran, the woman looked at her with sudden fear in her eyes.

“Who are you? What do you know about that?”

“Nothing. Don’t be afraid, I just …” Charlie thought fast. “… thought maybe I recognized you. And him. From the papers.”

“It wasn’t in the papers. We kept it quiet, because we thought there might be some backlash. The police said my husband was totally right to do what he did. The man broke into our shop. He would have killed us. George had to shoot him.” The woman was as white and shaken-looking as Charlie had been a moment before. “Who are you? How do you know about this?”

As she spoke, she was edging around Charlie with the clear intent of booking it back through the lounge and out of the restroom. Telling the woman that the ghost of the violent robber her husband had shot and killed had attached himself to her would not only serve no earthly purpose, it would also most likely not be believed.

Think fast again
.

“That explains it, then. I must have seen the pictures in the police report,” Charlie said to the woman’s fleeing back. “See, I file those, and, well, I guess I saw your picture and remembered the face.”

“I didn’t know anyone ever took my picture.” Yanking the door open, the woman looked back at Charlie. “The policemen said no charges would be filed.
My husband had no choice
.”

Then she was out the door.

“I know that,” Charlie called softly after her as the door swung shut, then held her breath and waited. If the knife-wielding phantom was anywhere around, he should be materializing about now to follow the old woman. And Garland—where was he?

Could two ghosts hurt each other? Charlie had never experienced a situation like that, so she had no idea. Uneasy visions of an epic, otherworldly battle to the death (or whatever the already-dead equivalent of death was) danced through her brain; she banished them with an impatient shake of her head.

There was no point in worrying about something she could do nothing about.

As she moved toward the sink, where the water still ran, Charlie realized that Garland had said at least one true thing: she had no idea what actually happened after someone died. Once the spirits she saw left her vicinity, anything was possible.

Her stomach was still unsettled, still threatening to rebel. Cupping her hand beneath the running faucet, she scooped up a handful of cold water and swallowed it, then did it again. It seemed to help. She was reaching for the tap to turn the water off when Garland spoke behind her.

“Interesting life you lead, Doc.” He sounded a little breathless. “You got any more of those deep, dark secrets your boyfriend couldn’t find up your sleeve? I mean, besides me and the whole ghost whisperer gig you got going on?”

Perversely, she was almost glad he was back, Charlie realized as she shut off the tap and turned to face him. At least now she knew he hadn’t been murdered—or cast into outer darkness or anything else horrible—by the maniacal knife-wielder.

She instantly dismissed the idea that she might actually have been worried about him, however briefly, however minutely.

“Don’t you have anybody else you can haunt?” Her voice was sharp.

His brows went up. “Gee, Michael, thanks for keeping the bad guy with the knife from hurting me.” His mocking falsetto made Charlie’s eyes narrow. It
—he
—was really starting to get on her nerves. “I am
so
grateful. Really I am.”

“He couldn’t have hurt me, just like you can’t hurt me.” She was (almost) positive about this one; she’d lived in the world of ghosts-on-the-ground for too long. These rules she knew. “No substance, remember?”