Wildest Dreams (7 page)

“It seems.”

“It’s nothing new, really.” She bustled from behind the counter and directed me to a low bookshelf. “Cliffside was born in violence. That’s our history, the root of the energy pattern that determines our collective destiny.”

“How old is the town?”

“Well, we’re dealing with written history, which is sometimes hard to trace. What I can tell you is that the Russians first came to this region in the early 1800s. They built Fort Ross in 1812, and another settlement was established near the present sight of Cliffside in 1815. In 1818, several Russian women accused of practicing witchcraft in the Cliffside settlement were tried and convicted by Russian authorities.”

“Like the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts?”

“What happened here was similar. Six women were executed at Hangman’s Point, just north of town. To this day the hanging tree still stands. Some people claim that the spiritual resonance from the event still permeates everything that happens in Cliffside. I’m open to that kind of logic. I can’t help thinking that last night—”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Well,” she laughed, “it’s only a theory.” She handed me a couple books on the Hangman’s Point witches. “If you like, you can visit the Point. I can give you directions. On nights when the energies are right, people with gifts such as yours have actually seen the shades of the Russian witches.”

The clerk led me to a table at the front of the store, where several Janice Ravenwood books were on display. “These should help you,” she said. “And they’re all autographed. Janice lives in Cliffside.”

I thanked the clerk and looked at the books. Janice had started at the bottom of the book world:
Living with the Dead
and
The Ghost Inside You
were both self-published under her own imprint. She turned the second book into a bestseller on the talk show circuit. At least that was the story according to the cover copy for her third,
Marble Roads: Journeys From the Grave
. New York had snatched that one up. It was all about Janice and her spirit guide, a “noble blonde beauty who died at the dawn of the nineteenth century.” The noble beauty in question was one Natasha Orlovsky, who not too surprisingly was one of the Hangman’s Point witches.

I flipped to the back flap of
Marble Roads
and studied the hazy photo of Janice Ravenwood. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was fanned over a black evening dress and she was doing her best to look beautiful in a noble, Russian kind of way.

Which was another way of saying that the photo did exactly what it was supposed to do and then some. The way I figured it, with a jacket photo like that and a couple rungs’ ascendancy on the bestseller lists, Janice was sure to earn herself a spot in Clifford Rakes’s wallet gallery.

But I was getting ahead of myself, concentrating on the sizzle and forgetting the steak. I took the time to sample the words Janice Ravenwood had written. It was the usual stuff for the usual crowd, pillow books for the unimaginative and the gullible, but it wasn’t all bad. Janice could actually write. She had it all over Shirley MacLaine, and she kept the touchy-feely bits to a minimum. For example, she handled each and every one of those philosophical intangibles that troubled me in a straightforward glossary that closed out
Marble Roads.

I was tempted to clip it and save it for easy reference.

Maybe keep it in my wallet.

Or the wallet I’d recently stolen.

Keep it right there with those photos of bestselling literary lionesses.

But clipping could wait. I grabbed paperbacks of
Living with the Dead
and
The Ghost Inside You
,
adding a
Marble Roads
hardcover to my stack. Then I reached under my untucked shirttail, my hand barely skimming the pommel of my K-bar as I extracted Clifford Rakes’s wallet.

Good old Clifford.

“I think these should get me started,” I said, sliding the books toward the cash register.

The clerk’s expression told me that I’d obviously made the right impression. “In two weeks, Janice will be doing a signing for
To the Devil a Daughter
,”
she gushed. “It’s Circe Whistler’s autobiography. Janice was the ghostwriter.”

“They couldn’t have timed that one better if they’d tried, huh?”

“Well, it’s not out just yet,” the clerk explained, managing to look slightly embarrassed. “We’re not scheduled to have copies until next week, but I’d be glad to reserve one for you if you’re interested.”

“Do you think there’s any chance I could get in touch with Ms. Ravenwood before then? She seems like such an expert. I’d love to talk to her about the things I’ve seen.”

“Since
Marble Roads
,
Janice has become very popular. And with the Circe Whistler book coming, well…I’m sure you understand that Janice is a very busy person. She doesn’t often do private consultations —”

“Sure.” I handed over Clifford’s American Express Card. But since I’m here in town…well, I really feel that I have to at least give it a try. I’m having such a hard time with the things I’m seeing, and I really want to understand what’s going on.”

The clerk’s brows knitted in real concern.

Mine did too, but in anticipation.

She opened the cash drawer, slipped a card from one of the trays, and handed it to me.

There was a phone number, but no address.

It didn’t matter. This kind of detective work, I could handle.

I signed for the books and the clerk bagged them for me Then I returned to the pay phone. This time I made a call.

Janice picked up on the second ring. I mentioned her work on the Circe Whistler autobiography. I said that I was with CNN, specifically
The Larry King Show
.

I didn’t say much else.

I didn’t have to.

Janice took my introduction as an overture. She asked if I’d like to come over for lunch. A few seconds later, I had her address. I should have known it all along.

“It’s the house at the end of Hangman’s Point Drive,” she said. “My place overlooks the hanging tree. You can’t miss it.”

2

At the end of Hangman’s Point Drive, a tree with gnarled branches scratched the iron sky.

Not one leaf on that tree, and nothing grew beneath its bare branches. I stepped over slabs of bark that lay on the ground like scales shed by a dying dragon. Lover’s graffiti scarred the trunk, and fat black beetles scuttled in a pile of broken branches near a historical marker that looked more like a headstone.

Anyone else might have thought the hanging tree was dead. Ready for the chainsaw. But I knew that it was alive.

I could see that clearly.

The tree bore fruit. A fine crop of ghosts. Six Russian witches dangled from nooses that had rotted long ago, but the ropes didn’t seem rotten to me. To my eyes they were as fine and strong as the day they were knotted, like healthy stems bearing the weight of ripe apples.

The ropes twisted and creaked against the rising wind. The storm was coming on fast. I leaned against the trunk and stared up at the iron sky through a tangle of crippled branches. The smaller branches swayed against the surging storm, scratching the sky more eagerly now. Before long, I knew they’d slice heaven’s belly and rain would fall like cold droplets of blood.

I waited for that moment, and so did the witches.

Spaced evenly on low branches like decorations on a maypole, hands bound behind their backs with festive satin hair ribbons, the ghosts danced on the wind. A plump redhead here, a thin brunette there. A tall girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, her naked feet forever kicking just an inch above the ground. An older woman with long black hair that lashed her face like a scourge, and another who had shed one of her shoes and seemed to be searching for it with eternally downcast eyes.

But it was the sixth witch that held my attention. She was blonde, with features that might be described as noble. I threaded my way through the others until I stood near her, close enough to study her bright blue eyes.

She was Natasha Orlovsky, Janice Ravenwood’s spirit guide. She had to be. She was the only blonde in the bunch.

She looked down at me, and she didn’t blink. Her expression softened as our eyes met, so suddenly that it surprised me. Despite the claims of the woman at the new age bookstore, I had no way of knowing how long it had been since someone with a heartbeat had looked into Natasha’s eyes.

I was willing to bet that it had been a very long time, indeed. I wanted to talk to her, but I couldn’t see how that was possible. For one thing, I couldn’t speak Russian. But it wouldn’t have mattered if I could. Natasha Orlovsky’s spirit couldn’t speak to anyone, in any language. Like her sister witches, her lips were stitched closed.

In death, she was mute. There was no way that she could answer my questions, even if I could find a way to ask them.

There was no way she could tell me anything.

Me, or Janice Ravenwood, or anyone else.

“I’m sorry, Natasha,” I said, even though I knew she couldn’t understand me.

She moaned, or maybe it was only the branch that bore her spirit’s weight. Resignation colored her eyes. And then the rising wind caught her, and the rope twisted, and the storm turned her eyes away.

A raindrop splashed my hand.

The first of many.

It felt like a tear.

* * *

The house was small and old. Nothing more than a vacation bungalow, really, though Janice had tried to spruce it up. Flowerpots dotted the porch, and the knocker on the front door was a brightly polished brass sun that smiled cheerfully.

I entered the house and found Janice Ravenwood in the kitchen, making precious little hors d’oeuvres for a reporter from CNN.

“You’re a fraud,” I said.

I must have surprised her. She gasped and gave a little start, but even in the cold silence of my accusation her eyes refused to surrender their secrets.

But they would not hold those secrets for long. Not if I could do anything about it. “I guess Natasha didn’t warn you about me,” I said. “Then again, it’s pretty hard to say anything when your lips are stitched together like a torn mainsail.”

“What…what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you. And Natasha Orlovsky—your spirit guide and co-author. She’s hanging in that tree out there. Her spirit is, anyway. If you really communicated with her, you’d know that. The same way you’d know that the men who strung her up stitched her lips together.”

A little silver shiver filled the ensuing silence. Janice was shaking; her bracelets made nervous music in the small kitchen. I listened to the sound, and I let her think about what I’d said. I smelled the fresh mushrooms and red peppers that she’d just finished slicing, the fragrant basil that waited in a wooden bowl. She held a small knife in her hand. It made music, too. The blade stuttered against the rolling butcher’s block that separated us.

Janice Ravenwood wasn’t one to give up easily. “There’s a reporter coming for lunch,” she said. “He should be here any minute.”

“A guy from CNN?”

The blade stopped stuttering and Janice started. “H-how do you know that?”

“I should have told you—I’m psychic.”

She stiffened. “Don’t play with me, Saunders.”

“Okay. Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe I got your phone number from the local new age bookstore. Maybe I phoned you myself. And maybe I pretended to be a reporter, and you invited me to lunch.”

“All right. You’ve shown me how smart you are. Now tell me why you’re here.”

“Maybe I came here to find out about you. Maybe I wanted to see what you could do for me. Maybe I wanted to see what Natasha could tell me about a ghost without any skin. Maybe I’d like to know where a ghost like that might hide.

“And maybe I saw another ghost when I got here. Maybe I saw six of them.” I glanced through the kitchen window at the dead witches swinging in the rising storm, and I described each ghost to Janice Ravenwood.

She listened without a word. I wondered what was going on in her head. One thing was sure—she wasn’t letting go of that knife. She stared down at it while I talked. By the time I finished, I could tell she’d regained her composure.

When she looked up, her gaze was appraising. She had questions of her own. The first one began, “Your gift—”

“Don’t call it that.” I wasn’t going to let her take control. “What I’ve got isn’t any kind of gift. It’s a curse. I was born with a caul. I see the dead…or haven’t you guessed that by now?”

“I’ve met people like you before. I’ve even worked with a few….”

She wouldn’t stop staring at me. She was getting too brave.

I pulled the K-bar.

She saw the blood on it.

That shut her up.

“Don’t waste my time,” I said. “I know your game. I’m all done playing it. You can’t give me the answers I came for. But you can give me some answers I need.”

She put down her knife and took a step backward, her hands raised conciliatorily. “I know you don’t believe me. I know you think I’m a fraud. But I can help you if you let me. I do have powers. Maybe not the powers I’ve claimed, but if you’ll give me a chance I’m sure I can tell you anything you want to know.”

Her eyes locked with mine. There was a door behind her. It stood open. Less than five feet separated us, but she was on the other side of that rolling butcher’s block.

I shoved it out of the way and it crashed into the sink, spilling sliced mushrooms and red peppers and basil. Janice turned to run but I caught a handful of her long blonde hair and stopped her cold.

One pull and she was on the floor at my feet. Before she could take a breath, the K-bar blade was against her throat.

Words crossed my tongue like ice. “If you’re not a fraud, then you can call up Circe Whistler’s ghost.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I want to talk to Circe’s ghost. I
need
to talk to her. If you’re not a fraud, you conjure her up, and you do it now.”

“I ... I can’t do that. What you want is impossib—”

“Then you’re a liar.” The blade nicked her skin. “And I’ve got no use for a liar.”

“Wait! You’ve got to believe me! I swear that I can help you if you just give me a chance!”

I’d heard the desperate sound of begging before…and the sound of empty promises. Still, I hesitated. Maybe because this was about the little girl. Maybe I just wanted to give her every chance I could, no matter how slim.

Janice’s fingers brushed my left hand, the hand that held the knife. But she didn’t try to push the blade away.

Instead, she reached for it.

Gripped it. The blade sliced her skin silently—just a shallow cut—but deep enough so that I heard the gentle patter of blood on the scarred linoleum floor.

Janice stared at me.

Her eyes held more secrets than they had a moment before.

“The first one was a long time ago, in Reno,” she began. “You still felt bad about it in those days. His name was Eddie Budz, and he was a blackjack dealer with a bad habit of pocketing chips. You stabbed him six times and he painted you red before he fell. After that, you learned to take them from behind. You killed in Baltimore and Austin and Denver. You spilled blood on Florida sand, and on the snow-blanketed Canadian prairie, and on the sharp black lava of Hawaii.”

Janice kept on talking. I thought she’d never stop.

She was telling the truth, of course.

“The last one was in Los Cabos.” She eyed me hard now, making me pay for my disdain. “But of course, I already know all about him. My gifts aren’t necessary to relate that little tale. Diabolos Whistler was alone, except for those mummies stacked in his library. You came up from behind and stabbed him just above the first vertebra. He gasped a little bit. Then he started mewling—”

“That’s enough.” I pulled her fingers off the blade. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“Ask me anything,” she said. “If this knife was involved, I can give you an answer.”

“Yesterday I found my knife in Circe Whistler’s chest. Someone stabbed her and skinned her alive. I didn’t do it. I need you to tell me who did.”

“I can tell you many things, but I can’t tell you who killed Circe Whistler.”

“You can,” I said. “And you will.”

I raised the K-bar.

A familiar voice behind me: “Drop the knife, Mr. Saunders. For once, Janice is telling the truth.”

The voice raised gooseflesh on my neck, but I didn’t drop the knife. I pivoted fast, catching Janice in a headlock with the blade pressed to her throat.

“Janice can’t tell you about my murder,” Circe said. “You see, I’m not dead.”

Unfortunately, she was right. Diabolos Whistler’s daughter stepped toward me, and she wasn’t a ghost by any stretch of the imagination. Circe was very much alive. Her strong arms were outstretched, and she followed a Colt Python that filled her black-nailed hands.

“You’re full of surprises,” I said.

“So are you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You think I’m going to miss an interview with CNN? Satan himself wouldn’t miss that.”

I had to laugh. That was why Janice had revealed the true nature of her powers. It was a stall. She wasn’t trying to help me. She was waiting for Circe to bail her out.

“You really had me fooled,” I said. “I really thought that you were dead. Who was the corpse, anyway? One of your doubles?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll do any more of your homework for you, Mr. Saunders.”

“Fair’s fair,” I said. “But I really could use the help. I get the feeling that I’m a little out of my league with you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short—you surprised me, too. And you caused me a lot of trouble. You weren’t supposed to run.”

“Sorry I wasn’t more cooperative.” I angled toward the open door. “Maybe you should have filled me in on your plan. Then I would have known just what to do.”

“All you had to do was die.” Circe smiled. “And it’s not too late for that.”

Circe’s gun was five feet from my face.

I figured she knew what to do with it.

I pulled Janice’s head closer to mine as I stepped through the open doorway.

“Circe,” Janice begged. “Listen to him. Give him a chance to tell you what he wants—”

I tugged her hair and we went back another step. The adjoining room was small and dark, its lone window draped with spiderwebs and a half-dozen fat black arachnids. Crammed with boxes and bookshelves, this was obviously a storage area. I hadn’t spotted a door yet, but I hoped I’d see one soon. I didn’t like the idea of going out through the window with all those damn spiders—

Circe cocked her pistol.

“No!” Janice said. “Oh, Circe…please don’t shoot!”

“Shut up,” Circe said.

Janice squirmed. I yanked her hair.

“Move again and I’ll cut your head off,” I warned.