Raintree: Haunted (Raintree 2)

After he made the call he would head for the office. He knew without a doubt that Frank Stiles had murdered Johnny Ray Black, but he didn’t have the evidence just yet. He would, though, in time. He thought again about taking a few days off, just until the summer solstice passed. If everything was quiet at the station, he could bring the case files home and work from here.

Then Emma’s final words rang in his ears, as if she were whispering to him still. “It’s just begun.”

TWO

Monday—10:46 a.m.

The small apartment had been trashed. Broken glass sparkled on anonymous beige carpet; books and carefully chosen knickknacks had been raked from the shelf to the floor; an empty pizza box lay discarded on the floor; and someone had taken a sharp blade to the old red leather sofa that sat in the middle of the room. Had the sofa been mutilated with the same knife that had killed Sherry Bishop? He didn’t know. Not yet.

Gideon kept his eyes on Bishop’s body while the woman behind him talked, her voice quick and high. “I thought maybe Echo was on her way home early and had ordered a pizza on her cell, you know? She does like to eat late at night, so I didn’t even think…” She snorted. “Stupid. My mother will kill me when she finds out I let a wacko into the apartment.”

Gideon glanced up and back. Was that an expression Sherry Bishop had used a hundred times before and automatically called upon now? Or did she not yet realize that she was dead? My mother will kill me…

She looked almost solid, perched on the chair behind him. As usual, she wore a faded pair of hip-hugger jeans and a T-shirt with the hem ripped to display her belly button and the piercing there. The hairdo was new.

Echo had found the body earlier this morning, after returning from a weekend trip to Charlotte. She’d immediately called him instead of dialing 911. So much for taking the week off. Gideon had made the necessary calls by cell phone, while on his way to the scene. After he’d arrived, he’d talked to Echo in the hallway. He’d calmed her down as best he could, and he’d been here to stop the first patrolmen who arrived from entering and possibly contaminating the crime scene. The uniforms stood in the hallway still, peering into the apartment like kids who weren’t allowed into the candy store. Had he ever been that young?

They were all watching, but he couldn’t worry about that. He already had a reputation as being odd; that was the least of his worries.

“Did you know him?” he ask

ed softly.

“Her,” Sherry said.

A woman? Gideon glanced at the body again, then at the mess the attacker had made of the apartment. She’s very bad, Daddy. Very bad. When Emma had appeared to him in the dream, Sherry Bishop had been dead for hours. Not only dead, but mutilated. The index finger of her right hand was missing, cut off after death, judging by the small amount of blood that had been shed. A neat square of her scalp, as well as a portion of blond and pink hair, had also been taken. He had a hard time comprehending that a woman had done this, but by now he should know that anything and everything was possible.

“Did you know her?”

The specter shook her head. She looked almost real, except that she wasn’t entirely solid. It was as if she were manufactured entirely of a thick mist. Her pink-and-blond spiked hair, the jeans and T-shirt she wore, her pale skin. It was all slightly less than substantial. “I opened the door, she rushed in and said she wouldn’t hurt me if I didn’t scream, and then she hit me on my neck and…” She laid a hand over her throat and looked past Gideon to the body. Her body. “That bitch killed me, didn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so. Anything you can tell me about her would be helpful.”

Sherry looked at the body and gasped. “She cut off my finger? How am I supposed to play the drums with…” The ghost fell back against the couch. “Yeah, I know,” she sighed. “Dead.”

“Detective Raintree?” One of the patrolmen stuck his head in the room. “Are you, uh, okay?”

Gideon lifted a hand without looking at the officer. “I’m fine.”

“I heard you, uh, talking.”

This time Gideon did look at the kid. Hard. “I’m talking to myself. Let me know when the crime scene techs arrive.”

He heard Echo start to cry again, and the officers turned to comfort her. His cousin was distracting them so he could work in peace, he knew. There wasn’t a man alive who would mind comforting Echo Raintree.

The ghost of Sherry Bishop sighed again, and her form vibrated. “They can’t see me, can they?”

“No,” Gideon whispered.

“But you can.”

He nodded.

“Why is that?”

Blood. Genetics. A curse. A gift. Electrons. “We don’t have time to talk about me.” He didn’t know how long Sherry Bishop would remain earthbound. Maybe a few minutes more, maybe an hour, maybe a couple of days. Perhaps she would demand justice and hang around until his job was done, but he couldn’t be sure. He could never be sure. Ghosts were damned unreliable. “Tell me everything you remember about the woman who attacked you.”

Detective Hope Malory rushed up the stairs of the old apartment building, slowing her step as she approached the third floor. Half a dozen cops and a handful of neighbors were milling around in the hallway outside the victim’s apartment, all of them trying to peer inside as if there were a show going on. All but one petite young woman with short blond hair shot with liberal hot pink streaks. She hung back, almost as if she were afraid to see what was happening inside.