His gaze intensified. “What are the right questions?”
“The ones I can’t truthfully evade without going to jail.”
He leaned back now, his constant micro-movements indicating the restlessness of a guilty conscience. “How often you got cops asking around?”
“Never. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
He squinted just a bit before glancing around my setup. He relaxed.
Apparently, he figured the police wouldn’t believe a person like me even if they questioned me. That, or his lawyer could easily discredit me.
Both were spot-on assessments.
“I need to get some weight off my back, if you know what I’m sayin’,” he said, then a glimmer of uncertainty crossed his features. “My buddy said you’d know what that meant.”
“Are you referring to the three ghosts standing behind you, or does this relate to a haunting of a specific location? Because I don’t travel.”
“Oh my God,” Daisy breathed, and then shivered.
The man in front of me tensed. He just barely kept from looking behind him, I could tell.
“It’s… I got…” He swallowed, and his eyes flicked to the kids at my left. “I feel this…weight…all the time,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. “But it ain’t guilt, because…you know…”
“That weight is the ghosts, and no, I don’t know how not to feel guilty when I kill someone.” I waited a beat and earned a flicker of annoyance. He’d definitely killed them, and definitely didn’t feel remorse. He was not a man to trifle with. “But you want them gone, yes? That’s why you’re here?”
A spark of anger lit up his eyes. “Sayin’ that sort of stuff can get you in trouble.”
“Clearly.” I gestured at the three people pushing up close to his back, eyeing me like a starving man would a steak. “The answer is yes, I can get rid of them. For a price.”
His shoulders tensed again, and no wonder. His personal poltergeists were practically sitting on them. The rugs I’d given to the kids would’ve bought him some distance from them. But if anyone deserved to be haunted, this guy did.
“How much?” he asked.
He had money, he had done a terrible deed a few times over, and he was clearly desperate.
He could also break my jaw if I pissed him off. As he’d said a moment ago, he didn’t suffer from a guilty conscience.
“Three hundred, one for each issue.” I stared at him, no facial expression, and no blinking.
His eyes narrowed. “Two hundred.”
“Look, buck-o, I’m not the one being tailed by my indiscretions. Pay the price, or live with it, because I assume you had someone else try to sever that attachment, and it didn’t work, right? How else would you know what’s going on? But, I mean, look at ’em. They’re on you good and tight. That’s gotta be draining the energy out of you.”
He shifted to the other side, and the folding chair groaned mournfully. His jaw tightened.
Oh yeah, he’d tried to get help. But those poltergeists were clearly not having it. They had a story to tell, and they weren’t leaving until someone heard them out.
I slumped. Guess who’d have to be the big ears of this operation?
“Three hundred, and you’re lucky I’m slightly afraid of what you’ll do if I ask for more.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
He leaned forward again, and his personal hell leaned with him. I could almost feel the weight of their horror. Of their memories. Of their extreme anger that justice hadn’t been served.
I only wished I could do something more for them than send them on. Someday this guy would certainly go to jail for what he’d done. These types of guys always did, one way or another. Visiting Alcatraz would tell you that much. But I knew, to them, it wouldn’t be soon enough.
“Fine. Three hundred.” He didn’t make a move toward his pocket.
I didn’t bother getting started.
His eyes narrowed again. That was clearly his reaction du jour. “You tryin’ to scam me, wanting the money up front? I ain’t payin’ if this don’t work.”
“Oh yes, you fucking will pay if this doesn’t work,” I said in a sudden flare of anger. I had zero patience and a wicked temper. They were the main reasons why I was absolutely wretched at this type of work. “This is going to truly suck. They are just about to open their big traps and spill all. I’m not going to want to hear it, because you seem like a real piece of work. I’ll probably have nightmares because of this. So if I’m going to subject myself to this horror, you’re going to pay for it. Don’t like those terms, get the fuck out. I have better things to do than getting jerked around by a lowlife piece of trash like you.”
I’d gone too far, but luckily, I knew exactly how to get myself out of the self-created jam.
I stood in a rush and eyed each and every one of his followers. “I can see you. I can hear you.” I held up a hand. “I didn’t say I wanted to, just that I could. I can’t help you in the way you want. I’m not a cop, or someone the cops listen to. But you’re weighing on him. You’re having an effect. Go ahead and siphon his energy, and then press yourself into him. Do you know how to do that?”
The important-looking dude in the white button-up shirt nodded, his expression determined, and I’d bet on my life that he’d been a cop or agent of some kind. The two slight characters looked to the stern-faced dude, but instead of moving closer and following his lead, they cowered where they stood. They were afraid of him.
So a cop or something similar, and probably a couple of lesser criminals. Basically, I really only needed to feel bad for one of the three. Those were better odds for my overall happiness when I left tonight.
I grabbed my chair by the back, turned it sideways again, and sat. The bay still sparkled pleasantly as the waves rolled by.
“Fine. Fine, okay,” the man said, and though his voice was hard, I could hear the traces of unease lining each word.
Magical and non-magical people alike were discomfited by the thought of the dead walking amongst the living. Hell, even the dead weren’t happy about it, especially when they didn’t know they’d expired and weren’t sure what “crossing over” meant. I was given the side-eye in both societies and from both sides of the “veil”—the line between the living and dead—as though I could help what kind of useless magic I’d been dealt.
If you weren’t unlucky, you’d have no luck at all, Alexis, my mother used to say.
She’d been absolutely right. I wasn’t sure what power the stranger thought he’d felt, but when it came right down to it, my magic greatly limited my options in life.
17
Alexis
The client (I didn’t plan to get his name) stood and pulled out a money clip stuffed with green. The guy was loaded, and he was squabbling over three hundred bucks?
He slapped it onto the TV tray in front of him.
“Put the crystal ball on it,” I instructed.
He hesitated with his hand over the cracked orb. “Won’t that…mess with your…thing?”
“No. It’s just a prop to make me look legit.” I motioned at nothing in particular. “Daisy, count that money.”
“This is all…very strangely done,” Daisy muttered as her clothes rustled. “Hello, good sir. Thank you for stopping by. I’ll just…” Money crinkled, then paper slid against paper. “Yup.” The bills crinkled again, and I knew she was slipping them into her pocket.
The folding chair creaked, and the sound of water lapping against the pillars of the pier filled the following silence.
“Do I have to do something else?” the man asked, impatience ringing in his voice.
“Nope,” I said, not moving. “I was just giving your friends there a chance to get in one last shot at you.”
“It’s like she doesn’t want repeat business,” Daisy said softly.
“I don’t.” Truth was, I had to gear myself up for the worst part of these gigs. A quick glance at the client’s followers told me they were all alert and eager to be heard. My heart sank. “Go ahead. I’m all ears.” I brought up the timer on my phone. “You each have five minutes.”
“Who…me?” the client said as the important dude behind him opened his mouth.
“Of course not you. When you talk, you have a whole host of people who have no choice but to hear you. Those people behind you only have me. And whatever other poor schmucks like me they happen across. I’m about to shove them across the Line whether they want to go or not. The least I can do is hear them out before they go.”
The man licked his lips nervously. Oh yeah, he was a real piece of work. He probably had a whole lot of secrets I shouldn’t hear.
I hoped I wouldn’t.
I reset the timer. “Go.” I gestured to the important-looking guy.
“I headed up the department’s investigation of Mr. Romano for some three months on suspicion of drug trafficking,” the dude began, cementing my earlier assessment. “We got a tip regarding a shipment…”
I let his voice ebb and flow around me. His words mixed together and became nothing but sound, rising and falling. I didn’t want to know the gory details of how he’d been kicked out of the land of the living, because they were probably grisly. I had a good imagination—I didn’t need help putting disturbing images into my mind’s eye.