Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Don’t judge.

I clean up real nice.

—T-shirt

I took small, leisurely sips of the beer I’d been given. The tenth one in two hours. I could only pass my glass to the person next to me so many times before someone noticed. The patrons were taking turns buying me drink after drink for saving Zachary’s life.

According to Jason, I just happened to see Zachary crossing the busy intersection and noticed the truck bearing down on him. My lightning-quick reflexes took over, and I whisked him out of harm’s way.

It was a complete coincidence we were in the same place at the same time, so Jason’s ability to lie with a straight face saved him from the torment of my wrath yet again. Lucky bastard. So here I sat as person after person asked me to tell the story.

Halle was smart. She’d ducked out with her father ten minutes into the celebration when I went to change. She was probably on her houseboat right now, sleeping soundly. The mental image of her in a slinky nightgown, blond hair spilling over a pillow, long legs tangled in silk sheets, caused every blood cell in my body to rush to the more sensitive regions of my anatomy.

The redhead put yet another beer in front of me, her smile as sweet and inviting as a tangerine. Three hours ago, I would’ve jumped at the chance for some alone time with the stunner, but even then, it would have only been to get the blonde out of my head.

Jason came up behind me and slapped me on the back. Because I hadn’t just been hit by a fucking truck. He laughed when I glared at him. “Looks like you robbed another grave today.”

I took a pretend sip and questioned him. “What are you talking about?”

“You kept yet another body out of the ground. Your reputation remains intact, Grave Robber.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. I failed. “That’s a ridiculous nickname. And what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, let’s see.” He looked up in thought. “You got the nickname when you punched an opponent in the solar plexus so hard he stopped breathing.”

“I was there.”

“And you fell to your knees, ripped off your gloves, and started doing CPR in the middle of the ring.”

Too bad I hadn’t thought to do that several years ago when I punched a man in a bar fight and knocked him unconscious. He later died. I had every intention of turning myself in, but the leader of the motorcycle club I belonged to, one of the best friends I’ve ever had, convinced me not to. Told me to lay low. As a result, a video of the incident showed up on our doorstep a few weeks later, and we were blackmailed into committing some pretty horrendous crimes. More importantly, I lost the ability to take a swing at anyone for any reason. I was supposedly destined through prophecy to fight in a war against Satan himself, but I could no longer fight. I was as useless as a knitted condom.

“I. Was. There,” I reminded Jason. “And?”

“And today you robbed another grave.”

“How do you figure that?” Thankfully, realization dawned before I looked like a complete idiot. “Oh, right. Zachary.”

“See? Self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Let’s not talk about prophecies.”

“Whatev. When are you going to stop accepting beers you have no intention of drinking and get some rest?”

I shook my head. “Not just yet. I want Halle’s address.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, so does every other man in this bar.”

I bit down and said under my breath, “She’s in more trouble than you or I ever imagined.”

He eased closer. “What do you mean?”

I moved even closer and said into his ear, “Unless I’m greatly mistaken—it happens—she’s going to be murdered in about two months.”

Jason stilled and studied me as though trying to figure out if I was kidding or not.

“I don’t joke about death.” When he continued to stare, I added, “I mean, I do, but I’m not joking about this. I would never.”

“How?” he asked, his eyes glistening as emotion swelled inside him. As Halle’s reality sank in. After a few seconds, anger took hold, and he asked from between clenched teeth, “Who?”

“I’ll explain, but right now I need that address.”

He nodded and said, “Give me a sec,” before crossing the floor to his office.

I followed.

“Are you okay to drive your bike? I can get you a ride.”

“I barely touched the beers they bought.”

He passed me a piece of paper with Halle’s address and a hand-drawn map of the slip she rented at the marina. “There’s that, too, but you’re pretty beat up. Your wounds looked serious.”

“I’ve had worse. Trust me.”

“I know. I was usually the one giving them to you, but this time is different.”

“Not really. Being hit by you or a six-ton delivery truck feels startlingly similar.”

“Vause,” he said, not buying it.

“Vigil,” I countered, relisting it and hoping he’d press the buy it now button.

“Fine,” he said, caving. “Just be careful. And, please, get to the bottom of this before either of you gets killed.”

I pointed a finger pistol at him and winked. “That’s the plan, Stan.”

“And don’t call me Stan!” he shouted as I walked out.

Putting on my helmet proved far more painful than I ever imagined it would, and the real possibility of a subdural hematoma—I’d had several in my life—had me worried. Not, like, bad, but there was definitely a tinge of concern. Getting into my leather jacket was just as irksome. I would really feel that truck tomorrow.

As I drove down deserted streets and through shadowy trees to the marina, I thought of a hundred different scenarios that might explain the man in Halle’s last moment. Could he be a departed? Yes. Since I could see the departed even in pictures and on film, he very well could be.

They were as plain to me as anything else in the shot, though their coloring was a little off and their images a little blurry. But the departed handling objects in the physical world was another story. Few could perform such tricks, and when they did, they usually couldn’t do it for long. A departed being able to hold a straight razor and use it to cut someone’s wrists was very unlikely.

Could it have been a reflection off a television or a computer? Absolutely. A tablet? Yes, to all three. But what were the odds Halle would have slit wrists while a movie played in the background that just happened to have a man holding a straight razor?

I pulled into the marina and found the slip Halle was temporarily renting. According to Jason, she usually moored off her father’s property, but the dock had been damaged in a recent storm so she’d had to move to the marina while Donald had it repaired.

The houseboat, a gorgeous single-story that probably cost more than my life, barely fit into the slip. All the lights were out save a night-light in the kitchen. I stepped onto the boat and knocked on the door off a small outdoor patio, but Halle didn’t answer. Of course, she didn’t. Only rock stars and burglars were awake at this time of night.

I started to leave when the cloth panel on the door moved aside, and a pale face peered out at me.

“Wh–what are you doing here?” she asked, her gaze sliding past me. Checking to see if I’d brought a friend?

I shrugged. “I owe you, and I pay my debts.”

“What?” She seemed to panic, which confused me. Though in her defense, confusing me wasn’t that hard to do. “You don’t owe me anything.” Her frantic gaze darted around like a hummingbird caught in a glass jar. When she finished scanning the exterior, she looked over each of her slender shoulders then back again.

Had I caught her with someone? “Look, if you have company…”

“What? No.” She straightened, unlocked the door, and cracked it open. “I don’t have company. I just don’t understand why you’re here. In the middle of the night.”

“And here I thought we were besties.”

“Not without pizza, we aren’t.”

I laughed. “I’ll remember that next time.”

She opened the door wider and gestured me inside. “Please, do.”

Her place was cool. Modern yet chic. Lots of blues and grays with wood floors and stainless fixtures. But the most appealing aspect of the whole setup was her tiny, moss green terrycloth robe that stopped mid-thigh. And her legs were no joke. Slender, shapely and lightly tinted by the sun.

She closed the door and leaned back against it. “When you say you owe me…?”

“I’m here to see if something’s haunting you.”

“I was afraid of that.”

I leaned a hip against a granite countertop. “You keep fighting me on this. Is there a reason?”

“No,” she said, seeming offended. “It’s just…I mean, I wouldn’t fight you if you really can talk to ghosts.”

“We’re back to if ?”

“Oh-em-gee,” Aunt Lil said, twirling in the middle of Halle’s small kitchen, her floral tent ballooning around her. “I’m moving in.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “She already has a ghost, Aunt Lil. She doesn’t need another one.”

“But this place is amazing.”

“Aunt Lillian is here?” Halle asked, and I grinned at the familial address.

“She is.” I glanced around casually but didn’t see any other departed. “Would you like me to look for your ghost?”

“Oh, gosh,” Halle said, waving a dismissive hand. “I don’t want to put you out. You’ve done so much for me already.” She opened the door again, walked over to me, and started pushing me toward it.

“Like what?” I asked, confused again. Maybe my subdural hematoma was flaring up.

She stopped. “Well, you…you…got a blanket for me from that technician, who was in love with you.”

“In love?”

“You know what I mean. Crushing on you.” She shoved again, inching me toward the door.

“I’m beginning to think you don’t want me to find your ghost.”

She snorted and slapped my shoulder. “What?”

Why wouldn’t she want me to confront the ghost who had supposedly been terrorizing her to the point of making her contemplate suicide for years? Unless…

I gazed down at her as she shoved a hip against my thigh for leverage.

Unless there never was a ghost.

I faced her and took her shoulders. “Halle, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” She squirmed out of my grasp. “What do you mean?”

“Was there ever really a ghost? Did you make it all up?”

The shock and indignation that thinned the fullness of her mouth, jutted out her chin, and stiffened every muscle in her body, made me rethink the conclusion I’d haphazardly jumped to. Tears welled in her eyes, and she swallowed hard before saying under her breath, “Please, leave.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

She turned and grabbed her phone off the counter. “Fine, I’ll call the police.”

“Fine.” I sat on a sofa that lined the front of the living space.

Aunt Lil sat beside me. “Constantine, what’s going on? Why are you treating her this way?”

I gave the woman my full attention. “Because she’s lying, and I want to know why.”

“Yes,” Halle said into the phone. “Can you send someone immediately? I have an intruder.” She nodded. “The marina. Yes, slip six.” She nodded some more, those acting skills coming in handy once again. “You’re five minutes away? That’s perfect.”

She hung up, her expression smug. “You should probably leave before they get here.”

With a resigned sigh, I slapped my palms on my knees, winced at the pain that shot all the way down to my ankles, and stood. The elation that flashed across her face convinced me even more that she was hiding something.

I turned toward the door to give her one last shred of hope before ripping it away. “I probably would’ve left,” I said, gesturing toward her phone, “if your volume hadn’t been so high.”

“What does that mean?”

I leaned closer and whispered, “It means you were listening to the weather report. Not talking to the cops.”

Aunt Lil nodded. “Cloudy with a thirty-percent chance of rain.”

Having caught Halle red-handed, Aunt Lil and I fist-bumped. Kind of.

Halle slammed her lids shut, took three deep breaths, then refocused on me. “Fine,” she said, her serene demeanor reminding me of the calm before the storm. “Do whatever you want. Ask him whatever you want.”

“Him?”

Aunt Lil narrowed her eyes. “I feel like there’s more to this story than she’s letting on.”

“But let me just say,” Halle continued, “ghosts were humans once, too. And humans, all humans, lie.”

Aunt Lil gasped. “Did she just call me a liar to my face?”

“No, Aunt Lil. I don’t think she’s talking to you.”

“Well?” Halle asked, tapping an impatient foot on the floor. A bare, impatient foot with ankles and calves as graceful as a swan’s neck. She opened her arms to our surroundings. “Do you see anything?”

“You mean like a ghost?”

Her lids slammed shut again, and her fingers curled into fists at her sides as though bracing for the worst. “Yes. Do you see him?”

Back to him again.

“Is he talking to you?”

“The ghost?”

“Yes, the ghost!” she said, keeping her eyes squeezed shut, her temper finally uncorking. This was the Halle I knew and loved—the one with the hairpin trigger.

“I don’t see anyone but you.”

She opened her eyes slowly, one lid at a time, and glanced around. A dawning registered on her face and set her jaw. “Then you’re a fraud.”

“Am I?” I took a seat again. “I thought we were past this phase.”

“Either that or, I don’t know. Maybe he’s out.”

“Out? Out where? Working the night shift at 7-Eleven?”

She whirled around. Looking for the departed? “You said ghosts are always popping in and vanishing when you least expect it. Maybe he’s in the vanished stage. Which is too bad, really.” The relief that visibly washed over her was hard to miss. “I guess you should go then. No telling how long he’ll be gone. Thanks for stopping by, though.” She walked to the door and held it open, her brows raised in expectation.

“All right.” I stood and stretched but instantly regretted it as pain shot down my side. It was worth it, though, to watch the hope gather in her eyes and shimmer like stardust. “I’ll leave.” I paused for dramatic effect before adding, “As soon as you tell me why you think it’s a man.”

“What?” she asked, taken aback.

“Why do you think your ghost is male?”

“Oh, that,” she hedged. “I just figured most ghosts are male.”

“They aren’t.”

“Right. Well, I saw him once.”

One of my brows, the more sophisticated one, rose in surprise. “Did you?”

“Yes. I forgot to tell you.”

“But you don’t see ghosts.”

“True, but he’s been with me a long time. I was bound to see him eventually, right?”

I walked over to the counter, crossed my arms over my chest, and parked a hip there, studying every expression and emotion that flickered across her face. “But how could you see him if you don’t normally see the departed?”

She let out a sound that was part frustrated sigh and part growl. I liked it. “How should I know? It’s just what people do. Sometimes, they see an apparition, but most of the time, they live their lives completely oblivious to such things. Right?”

“Why?”

“Oh, my God.” She whirled away from me while I fought a grin tooth and nail. “I don’t make the rules,” she continued. “I have Netflix. I know how this stuff works.”

I tilted my head in doubt. “I don’t know that you do.”

She turned back for the sole purpose of setting my face on fire with the heat of her glare.

“Look,” I said, letting her off the hook, “if there really is a departed attached to you, it would be attached to you. Like it would never leave your side.”

“But Aunt Lillian,” she argued.

“Isn’t attached to me. She just likes my ass.”

“Constantine,” Aunt Lil admonished. Then she leaned toward me and giggled. “I mean, you’re not wrong.”

“And if a departed attached itself to an object you have,” I continued, “it would stick to whatever it is like Gorilla Glue.”

“Oh, that’s good stuff,” Aunt Lil said.

“Can the departed pop in and out? Yes, but not with the kind of constant haunting you’ve been experiencing for years. This is something else.” Something I’d been racking my brain to figure out.

She sank onto the sofa and looked as if she were staring through the walls of the houseboat into another time. “But it has to be a ghost. I’ve seen him.”

I fought the urge to go to her. “What did you see? Exactly.”

“A ghost walking through my house.”

“This house?”

“Yes. No. Every house. He’s followed me to every house I’ve ever lived in. He was even at the hospital when my parents…when they admitted me for observation.” The gaze that met mine was so full of anguish and desperation that it leached the breath from my lungs. “He’s followed me everywhere for seventeen years. Ever since…” She stopped, her eyes widening before she slammed her mouth shut as if she’d said too much. Her gaze darted to me, scrutinizing my reaction as though wondering if I’d caught on.

I did. “Ever since?” I prodded.

She lifted her chin, preparing to lie. It was her tell.

I held up a hand to stop her. “Never mind. I’ll find out for myself.” I stood and walked out, much to her surprise. I needed more info, and I was pretty sure I knew where to find it.