Raintree: Haunted (Raintree 2)

“That’s right.” She was still annoyed about her car, but she wasn’t about to stand there waiting for a mechanic while Raintree went to the crime scene and tried to piece together any clues he might have missed yesterday.

Hope no longer believed to the pit of her soul that Gideon Raintree was crooked, but she had no proof one way or another, and she didn’t know him well enough to entirely trust what her instincts told her. She’d been burned more than once by a man who hadn’t been what he’d claimed to be. It wouldn’t happen again.

As he pulled his car out of the parking lot, Raintree said, “Leon called me Gideon. If you’re determined to hang with me until we get this whole partner thing straightened out, you might as well do the same.”

Calling him by his first name felt so personal. So friendly. How could she be friendly with Raintree when she still suspected, however uncertainly, that he might be corrupt?

Maybe he really was just a good cop. Maybe she would discover that he was as great a detective as he appeared to be, and his motives were nothing but noble. If that were the case, she would work with him, and learn how and why he was so good.

In truth, more than that was causing her hesitation. In spite of her down-to-earth personality and her dedication to her career, she had the very worst luck with men. She always picked the wrong guy. If there were twenty nice guys in a room and one stinker, she picked the stinker every time. She’d felt an unwanted but undeniable attraction to Gideon Raintree from the moment she’d laid eyes on him, and the last thing she needed right now was to get involved with another stinker.

“Okay, Gideon it is,” she said. “I guess you might as well call me Hope.”

The half smile that crossed his face made him look as if he knew something she didn’t, as if he was in on a secret joke and she wasn’t. “You sound so enthusiastic about the prospect, how can I refuse?”

The apartment didn’t look any different than it had yesterday. It was just quieter. Deader. Sherry Bishop wasn’t hanging over his shoulder, wailing about the injustice of being dead and not getting to wear her new boots. There weren’t cops and neighbors hanging around in the hallway, watching. It was just him and Malory trying to piece together a very bizarre crime.

His new partner stood near the door, studying the crime scene through her own calculating eyes. She was quiet, as if she understood that he needed silence and space to do his thing. At first she had been a distraction, but he was already accustomed to her presence. It had taken him almost a year to get this comfortable with Leon.

The blinds were open to let the morning’s natural light shine into the apartment. The ripped couch, the bloodstains and the wanton destruction looked obscene in the light of day, out of place and evil and wrong.

Standing in the quiet apartment, Gideon could almost see the progression of events. The doorbell had rung late in the evening. A woman’s voice had informed Sherry Bishop that there was a pizza delivery. She opened the door, the woman rushed in and…

“There was something odd about the knife.”

Gideon turned around and saw a very faint image of Sherry sitting on the couch as she had when she’d been living. Only now the couch was in shreds, and she was dead.

“The knife,” he whispered as he dropped to his haunches so he was face-to-face with her. From this vantage point, she looked a little more solid.

“What?” Hope took a single step toward him.

He silenced his new partner with a raised hand. She hated that, he knew, but he didn’t want to scare Sherry off. He couldn’t even afford to look away, because if he did, he might lose her. The ghost before him wouldn’t last long, not in her present state. “I’m thinking out loud,” Gideon said without looking at Hope.

“Oh.”

“What about the knife?” he asked softly.

“It was antique looking, you know?” Bishop said. “I think maybe it was silver, and there was something fancy on the handle.”

“Fancy how?”

“I couldn’t see the whole grip, because that psycho bitch was holding it, but there was an

engraving. Words, I think.”

“What did it say?”

The ghost shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t English, I don’t think. I wasn’t exactly trying to read at that moment.” Already she was starting to fade. “She was really angry. Why was she so angry? I never did anything to—”

Sherry didn’t fade away; she disappeared in an instant. Gideon remained there before the sofa, hunkered down and thinking. She’d seemed certain the killer had done this before. This afternoon, when he sat down with the files he’d requested, maybe he would be able to figure out if that was true or not. They not only had the type of weapon and wound to match, but there was the matter of the missing finger and piece of scalp. This killer took souvenirs, and that was the key that would lead him to previous victims, if there were any.

It was unusual for a serial killer to be a woman, but it wasn’t impossible. What had drawn the killer to Sherry Bishop? What had caught her eye and brought her here?

He heard and felt Hope crossing the room. She moved smoothly, silently, but he was in tune with her energy, and that was what he felt as she moved closer.

“Okay, you’re spooking me a little,” she said as she stopped behind him.

“Sorry.” Gideon stood and turned to face her. “I want the uniforms to scour the surrounding area searching for the knife.”