“Hey, Vannah.” Hands shoved in his pocket, and his shoulders hunched, Clark looked defeated.
“Hey, Clark, what’s up?” Pain flickered in the depths of her dark eyes. We went from the three musketeers to the walking wounded.
“I think I might have a description and stomping grounds. The tarot card fetish is a dead giveaway. It’s two Caucasian males mid-forties to mid-fifties. They have dark hair they tend to keep mid-length and dark eyes. They’re tall, over six feet and lanky. I don’t know if it’ll help. But I figured it was more than you had now.” He shrugged.
“How do you know all that?” Vannah narrowed her eyes.
“Ghost hotline.”
“Wow, thank you, Clark.” She shifted on the couch, and Carey could see her discomfort. If it was because they’d been caught in the act or she’d been reminded he was a ghost, he couldn’t say. The whole ghost tip made him uneasy.
“I’m just glad to finally be of some use. It’s been pretty anti-climatic. I come down and do what? Pop in and out.”
“I think Carey and I both agree just seeing you changed our lives irrevocably. You can’t be more poignant than that.”
“Well, when you say it that way.” Clark smiled.
For a brief moment it was like time had reversed and they were as they had always been. Carey savored the moment, held it close to his heart. Clark’s return had been an upheaval, unearthing emotions, and unresolved issues that had been ignored for years. This was the good part, a new happy memory to get him through the darkness creeping in around them.
Chapter Eight
“Damnit!” Savannah slapped her palms against the desk. Frustrated, she shoved away from the wooden prison she’d been chained too for what felt like an eternity. A week of searching, and nothing!
“It’s like these guys are ghosts! I can’t find hide nor hair of them. No loose ends, no cases that line up or bodies that fit the description. If they did all these kills based on cards, where are the remains?” Not expecting an answer, she paced the tiny confines of the office.
“Listen, it’s getting late. Why don’t we call it?” Carey's reasonable suggestion made her surly. I’m like a lion with a thorn in its paw. She wanted to snarl and hurl a cutting comment. Instead she walked over to the window and peered out. The sun had begun to fall from the sky lighting the sun up all golden and pink. Right now the people of Dale were out enjoying the beauty, blissfully unaware of the sick bastards who moved among them in the shadows. It gutted her.
She ran a hand through her hair and nodded. Her nerves were paper thin. The walls around them seemed to shrink. The need to escape hit her like a roundhouse to the chest. On autopilot she returned to her laptop and shut it down.
“You don’t look right.”
“I don’t feel it either. Burning the wick from both ends and I’m ready to just … “
“Run away?”
“Yeah.” Pressing her middle finger and her thumb into her temples, she issued a light massage.
“Let’s go then.”
“What?” She shook her head. “A weekend camped out in your apartment wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“Me either but don’t act like you wouldn’t love every second.”
“Hmm.” Her body hummed with the unspoken promise his words held. Stress release sounded right up her alley.
“Save it.” The knowing look in his eyes intrigued her.
“For?” Confused she furrowed her brow.
“The lake house.”
The quaint log cabin nestled in the woods an hour away flashed in her mind.
“No.”
“Come on, we always had fun up there.”
“That’s the problem.” Her mu