The Fix Is In (Torus Intercession 4)

He was laughing harder.

“Fine. You’re a vegan, then.” It took him a minute to get himself under control, and he had to wipe at his eyes with a napkin. “It wasn’t that funny.”

“Your little face,” he repeated.

I groaned.

“Sorry, sorry. Okay.” He looked up at me and smiled like he was drunk. “What was your question?”

“You’re a vegan,” I stated.

“No, because I do eat eggs and dairy. I just don’t eat any kind of meat.”

“That would make my mother insane,” I informed him.

“Will I be meeting your mother?” he asked hopefully.

What was I even saying?

Thankfully, my own food finally arrived, a huge pork chop, three eggs, grits, and biscuits with white gravy. I was very happy. I waved at Chris and yelled over the thank-you.

“Benji,” Rais said, turning the computer around so he could see the picture on the screen. “Who is this?”

I looked at it with Benji and saw a man standing at a window inside the ruins of some kind of cabin, maybe, out in the woods.

“That’s the ghost,” Benji told him solemnly. “He’s the one I’ve been talking about. He’s not at rest, and the spectral attacks have happened because he saw me. He knows I can help, but I haven’t yet, and he’s getting more and more angry.”

I had a million questions, but before I could get the first one out, Rais interrupted.

“How do you know he’s a ghost?” he asked.

“Because I showed the picture around town, and no one recognized him or said they’d seen him before.”

“Did you show the picture to the deputy?” I questioned him.

Benji nodded. “I did, and he said he’d never seen him before either. Though I will say, he barely glanced at the photo.”

“Where and when was this picture taken?” Rais wanted to know.

“Up at the old sawmill, and about, oh, four months ago.”

“Everybody used to be able to go up there,” Sian explained. “That was when the land belonged to Ruben Navarro, but then Chuck Lindstrom bought it and made the property private, so there’s no trespassing now.”

Rais’s food was delivered then, and the waitress placed it down gently, asked him if there was anything else he needed, which, honestly, with the array of jellies she brought him, plus tabasco, steak sauce, pepper flakes, and an odd side of ranch, I had no idea what else he could possibly need.

“Thank you so much,” he told her. “I’m good.” He turned to Benji then. “I don’t think that’s a ghost,” he informed him.

“How do you know?”

Rais took a small part of the picture I hadn’t noticed before and, with the click of a button, blew it up. “Because that right there is a dirt bike, and maybe it’s just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere, or maybe your guy drove it up there for a reason.”

Benji squinted at the photograph. “But I asked everybody,” he told us. “I left no stone unturned. I put flyers up all over town and posted the picture digitally on the community billboard. No one knew him.”

“But all that means is that maybe he wasn’t from around here,” I reminded him. “I think we need to run him through a missing persons database and see what we find.”

“Why?”

“Because maybe he’s not a ghost at all,” I explained. “And the fact that you saw him, and caught him on film, could be the whole problem.”

“No,” he assured me, “that’s impossible.”

“It isn’t,” I argued. “In fact, it’s highly probable. It’s a much better explanation than him being a ghost. It makes a helluva lot more sense.”

“There’s no way.”

“Yeah? You wanna tell me when the attacks on you first started?”

“After I saw him, of course.”

“After you saw him, or after you started showing his picture around?”

“It was the same time, I guess. Maybe a day or so difference.”

“Interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”

“It’s not a coincidence. He wanted my help and started acting out.”

I nodded.

“Shaw––” he raised his voice “––this is a serious matter!”

“I absolutely agree,” I assured him. “But not how you’re thinking.”

“I don’t understand.”

I took a breath to smooth out my voice. “Let’s say this guy was in town doing whatever, maybe visiting, and you just so happened to get that picture of him. No one else noticed him or saw him except for whoever he was here to see. But maybe during the course of their visit, that person ended up doing him harm.”

“I don’t—you’re saying someone killed him?”

“Maybe. And maybe not even intentionally,” I acknowledged, thinking as I was speaking. “Maybe it was an accident. But whatever happened, you, and you alone, have evidence that this guy was here, and perhaps someone doesn’t want you snooping around and asking questions.”

“No,” Benji said, but didn’t sound terribly convinced.

“No? You’re absolutely certain?”

“You don’t understand,” he insisted. “Shaw, I went to great lengths to find him.”

“I have no doubt you did,” I soothed him. “But I also know that you don’t have a lot of support here beyond your circle.”