Thunder Moon (Nightcreature 8)

“I liked her.”

“Me, too.” I disconnected, then contemplated Walker. “You’re good.”

I heard the words an instant too late and wanted to snatch them back before he made some sexual innuendo. But Walker wasn’t the type. He merely contemplated me with an expression that said, Told you so.

“How did Ms. G. die?” I asked.

“I can’t say for certain without an autopsy, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say it was her heart. Did she have a history of problems with it?”

He was good.

“Congestive heart failure, or so her friend next door told me.”

He sighed as if I’d said something he expected but didn’t much like. “That would explain it.”

“What about her face? She looks ... scared.”

Ms. G. had died at home in a way she’d been warned she might, yet her expression said otherwise, and that made all my nerve endings hum.

“She was alone,” he said. “Probably in pain; she could have gone into shock. No matter how prepared we might think we are, when the time comes, we aren’t.”

Walker brushed his hand over Ms. G.’s eyes and chanted a short chant in Cherokee. When he turned, his face appeared drawn. But why would he be upset over the death of an elderly woman who’d lived a full life, one he hadn’t even known when she was alive?

“You okay?” I asked.

He rubbed his forehead. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seem upset.”

“Death pisses me off.”

“You can’t win them all, especially when you weren’t even her doctor.”

“I know. It’s just—” He shrugged.

Walker was a mystery. He seemed to mourn Ms. G.’s passing with a sorrow that mirrored my own. Although I was no longer completely suspicious of him, I was totally curious.

“What did you say?” I waved at Ms. G. “The chant?”

“The Cherokee equivalent of last rites.”

“She’s not Cherokee.” Or Catholic.

“Doesn’t matter. I told her spirit to go to Usunhi’yi.”

“Translation?”

His lips curved, reminding me of how they’d tasted on mine. “The Darkening Land in the West.”

“Where the spirits go after death.”

“You do know something.”

My eyes narrowed. “There’s no need to get snotty.”

“You can, but I can’t?”

“Now you’re catching on. Why would you send a little old white lady’s spirit to the Darkening Land?”