Living With the Dead (Otherworld 9)

He checked the rearview mirror. "Good. They've seen us. It'll be obvious something happened, maybe you tried to escape, which will support the story."

He cranked the wheel away from the curb, then accelerated. "It is a story, Hope. Yes, I want revenge against the person responsible for my son's death, but that person isn't you. You tried to stop it. In your place, I would have done the same. So it's not you I'm after."

"Adele."

He slowed near the medical center, checking for police before turning into the lot. "Neala - his mother - tried to warn me about Adele. I've been gone since Colm was two. I stayed away. That was the deal." Silence as he circled the lot. "But Neala kept in touch, let me know how he was doing. Then, last year, she called me in a fury. She'd caught Adele and Colm making out."

"How old is Adele?"

"Exactly Neala's point. You get it. I didn't. Maybe as a guy all I could think was that, at his age, I'd have been in heaven if a nineteen-year-old came on to me. Like Neala, I suppose you see the problem. It's fine for a fourteen-year-old to fantasize, but for a young woman to reciprocate..."

"Something's wrong."

"Which is what Neala said. I knew it wasn't normal, but the kumpania is very insular. Adele wouldn't have a lot of options for a sexual outlet. Maybe she was immature for nineteen. Maybe Colm was mature for fourteen. I made excuses and chalked up Neala's reaction to a mother's jealousy." He paused a moment, then jackrabbited into a spot, slamming on the brakes hard enough to smack her forward, ribs aching.

"Stay put," he said as he opened the door. "We need to make a good show of this, in case they're already watching."

* * *

ROBYN

Robyn sat on the ambulance tailgate as the paramedic checked her eyes. He hadn't looked at her shoulder. He didn't know he needed to.

Robyn had made a deal with Detective Findlay. If he was going to find Adele, he needed her help, and he wasn't getting it by dumping her in a hospital room. So she wouldn't mention the shoulder and he'd pretend not to know about it.

He hadn't liked that, his blue-green eyes cranking up the frosty blue, his square jaw getting squarer. But she was right and, as she pointed out, it was her safety, therefore her decision. He hadn't liked that either, his look saying that, as a murder suspect, she didn't have that right, but he was too polite to say so.

He reminded her of the cops they used to send to her school, parading them as proof that Officer Friendly really was friendly. Robyn wasn't so sure friendly was the word she'd use to describe Detective Findlay. Just... courteous, which was more than she deserved, after pulling a gun on him and ranting about werewolves and demons.

As Robyn looked around, Detective Findlay ambled back to her. No, ambled wasn't the right word either. It implied aimlessness, and Detective Findlay carried a decisive air that forbade anything that vague. But he took his time, like a grizzly bear fixed on a target, in no particular rush but broaching no deviations to his path either, presuming all smaller beasts would get out of his path.

One of the officers did scamper into his path to intercept him. It was a young officer, barely twenty, with an eager smile, big eyes, big feet and a tendency to stumble over them. The detective didn't seem to notice the officer until he was a hairbreadth from smacking into him.

Lost in thought? Or busy listening to his ghost? He had the same distant look Hope got, the one Robyn now knew meant she was seeing a vision. When he saw the young officer, he snapped out of it with that same blinking jolt of surprise.

What was it like to see ghosts? What did they look like? What did they say?

The ghost Detective Findlay had been communicating with seemed to be some kind of spirit guide, helping him by scouting for Hope and Karl. Did Detective Findlay only see that one spirit helper? Or a world of ghosts? If it was ghosts, did that prove life after death? Did that mean Damon was still out there, somewhere, and if he was, could Detective Findlay -

Robyn banished the thought. Hope and Karl were missing. Adele Morrissey was still at large. Making contact with her dead husband sat at the bottom of Robyn's priority list. It had to.

Detecti

ve Findlay spoke to the officer, then continued on to Robyn. "You okay?"

The paramedic answered for her, in far more detail than needed, the detective's patient nods belied by his fingertips tapping against his leg.

"If she's okay, I need to get her back to the station."

"Sure," the paramedic said. "We could - "

"I'll take her in my car." He looked at Robyn. "Ms. Peltier?"

That was all he said, his broad face impassive. No meaningful look passed between them, but those tapping fingers told her something was up. He hadn't been so eager to get her into custody until now.

Robyn slid from the tailgate. Detective Findlay dismissed the paramedics, gave final instructions to the officers, who were canvassing the motel guests and staff, then led Robyn to his car.

"We have a fix on Hope," he said as he fastened his seat belt. "She's with the guy from your motel room. Ball cap and sports jacket."