Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

HIRO

As soon as Maddox is asleep, I send off a message to Valiant_Vali, hoping to move things along. Maddox finally seemed relaxed and the last thing I wanted to do was draw him back into this nonsense, so I waited until he was asleep. Reading the messages, this Vali person was picking at sore spots that were bothering Maddox but in a way that made it seem like they were helping. They clearly wanted to lay everything out so the person they deemed the victim could finally find answers in their words.

It doesn’t take long before they send me to a messaging app that I’ve never used before. I wait until Maddox is awake for permission to download it, and he has me do it instead on an untraceable work phone before sending information about the app to the department. We have to assume there’s something with the app that makes it untraceable so the officers who’d been looking for it on the phones of the victims were unable to identify it.

The morning stretches on without much change, and it isn’t until Shion and I are out getting some lunch to take back to the department that Maddox texts me to inform me that he’s got something.

“Ooh, finally,” I say as we head back to the car.

“I’m not getting too excited,” Shion comments.

“So… knowing that this person is looking for… retribution for things… you still can’t think of any way it relates to you? To explain why someone is after you?” I ask curiously.

Shion glances over at me. “I mean… maybe someone was jealous of my charming good looks,” he says and flashes me a grin, but there’s something about how he says it that makes me hesitate.

“Definitely.” There’s much sarcasm added to that.

He laughs and waits for me to start driving.

“I’m being serious,” I say.

“Me too.”

“I won’t judge you.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Never said you did… but I won’t judge you… unless you need to be judged… then I will.”

He grins at me. “I’m not too worried.”

“So?”

“So… the only thing I can think of—and I have no fucking idea why they’d want to kill me when it wasn’t my fault—when they drove by… I got a glimpse of the driver…”

Now this surprises me. “You saw the driver… did you tell them that?”

“Maybe not.”

“Why?” I ask.

He shrugs.

Realization hits me. “You felt like you deserved to get punished… or felt guilty, so you didn’t want to share the information.”

“He’s a fucking kid. It would ruin his life if it got out that he tried to hit me with his car. Especially now that we know someone is trying to manipulate him into thinking like this. So… I just… thought it’d be best to remove myself from the situation. And once we find the manipulator, maybe he’ll see reason. If not, we can confront him…”

“He could have vital information,” I say.

Shion doesn’t say anything, and I realize that it really is guilt eating at him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“Are you going to if I beg?”

“Maybe if you ask Nicolás his thoughts on me. Like are we to the point where I should just move to the US or is that a bit too soon?” he jokes.

I grin. “Do you even have his number yet?”

“Hell, no. That man is impossible to read. He doesn’t look at pretty women and doesn’t look at handsome men… or handsome women and pretty men. Nothing. He just really doesn’t look at anyone but like… you guys.”

“Because we’re handsome,” I say, throwing his excuses back in his face.

“Must be.”

“He’s kind of shy and reserved. You don’t always see it because he’s super open with us, but he is pretty shy. How about this…” I park at the department and write out a text that says, “Hey, Nicolás. Had fun the other night. Shion said he had a great time” before showing Shion. “There, simple, not in his face but if he wants to latch on to it, he can.”

“I would have preferred, ‘What are your thoughts on seeing Shion shirtless?’ The alliteration sounds good as well.”

“If that’s what you want.”

He just laughs and gets out of the vehicle as I realize that he one hundred percent is dodging my question about the person after him.

“Shion…”

“We’ll talk later. Let’s see what Maddox has,” he says.

I sigh and scurry after him as we head to Maddox’s desk.

“We have a number and a name that connects to the information they’ve been using on the forum,” Maddox informs us, looking quite pleased as he takes his burger and starts eating it as we talk, so I hand Shion his. “We don’t have an IP address, but the email was traceable and they were able to track down the man’s name and location from there.”

“Damn… that was fast,” I say, rather impressed. It’s like movies and TV shows lead you to believe that everything happens instantly, when in reality, it takes quite a while to get information. Especially when it’s hard to verify that a life is currently in danger, which is why I’m surprised we already have some information.

While it’s evident that people have died because of this, the issue is that the only reason we know that is because of the ghosts that haunt me. I tried collecting identifying features for the team to look into, but so far, it’s been hard to find matches when some of them might be from closed cases and others might not even be cases yet. Otherwise, we have very little to go off and little capability to escalate the issue.

Technically, Maddox shouldn’t even be on the case since he was targeted at one point… but no one can prove that unless they can see my ghosts. I also think Parker knows that with my ability, we’re going to figure this out faster than handing it off to someone else.

“His name is Calvin Watson,” Maddox says between bites of his burger. “Thirty-nine years old, Caucasian. Lives about two hours from here.”

“Did you let my superiors know?” Shion asks.

“I did. They said you requested they send over the surveillance footage in the station from when the lights went out?”

“Yes. Hiro claiming that the individual behind this—this Vali person—had to have been somewhere in the station for the ghosts to act like that made me put in a request last week. They finally got it sent over?”

“They did, though none of them are Calvin. There were definitely some blind spots that could have been missed, but when we gave them the name as well as the username information, they said they would be conducting new interviews with the two culprits to see if they could get anything more out of either of them.”

“Good,” Shion says. “Sooooo… are we going to this Calvin Watson’s place?”

“We are… but you’re going to have to stay in the car,” Maddox responds, looking apologetic.

“That’s fine. I’ll be good and stay out of trouble,” Shion says.

“Sorry,” Maddox tells him.

Shion shrugs. “No big deal.”

Since Avery is also going with us, the four of us get into one of the work vehicles and start driving once we’re finished with our lunch. When we arrive, Maddox parks in front of the apartment.

All four of us get out of the vehicle, but Shion doesn’t follow; instead, he leans against the door. I take a minute to look here and there for ghosts who might help, but I’m not seeing any lingering around that can even spare me a glance.

Hurrying to catch up, I realize that Maddox is at the front door of the apartment, eyeing a call box to the right of the door.

“I’ll go around back in case there’s an exit, and to see if I can identify his vehicle anywhere,” Avery states. “I’ll get a good surveillance of the place.”

“Be careful, please,” Maddox says.

“Says the man who gets into way more trouble in a week than I have ever been in during my entire career.”

Maddox doesn’t know what to say to that, and I try to pretend that I’m not the cause of most of that trouble.

“I’ll walk with her,” Shion offers. “Definitely just going for a walk and not involving myself in your activity.”

“See? I have this not at all involved man to walk beside me,” Avery says as Shion walks with her to the back while Maddox hits the button for the apartment number. Someone answers almost immediately, a woman by the sound of it.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, my name is Detective Booker from the Clinton PD, and I was hoping to have a moment of your time. May we come up?”

“Uh… yeah… okay…” She seems quite uncertain but does buzz us in.

We head inside and up the stairs as I crane my neck this way and that, but I don’t see anyone dead yet. When we reach the door, Maddox knocks and a woman almost immediately answers.

Maddox flashes his badge before introducing us to her and getting her name. “I’m looking for Calvin Watson. Can I speak to him?”

She looks confused. “There’s no one here by that name.”

Footsteps behind us make us both turn to look as a woman in her sixties heads down the hallway toward us. “Hi, I’m the landlord, saw you holding your badge… is there an issue?”

Maddox introduces himself before saying, “We’re looking for Calvin Watson.”

“Oh… Calvin doesn’t live here anymore. Moved out ohhh, a year or more ago, maybe? The apartment sat empty for a month or two, since I did some renovations in the kitchen, and then my new tenant here moved in about nine or ten months ago. Haven’t heard a thing from Calvin since he left. He slid the last payment under the door, didn’t even ask for his deposit back. Just up and left.”

“No one ever called you for references, like he might have gotten a new apartment?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“Could I have exact dates on when he first moved in and the date he left when you have a moment? If you can’t obtain them today, you could send them to my email or text this number,” Maddox says as he hands her a card.

“Sure.”

“Anything unusual about him?”

The landlord thinks about it before shaking her head. “Occasional noise complaints on him but nothing severe. Mostly blasting music. Whenever I’d give him a call, he’d apologize and keep it quiet. His neighbor was a bit fussy, though. She wanted dead silence after seven p.m., so a lot of the time, I kind of let it slide if it was still early.”

“Any way we could speak to her?”

“I wish, but she passed on a couple of months ago.”

“Did she die here?” I ask.

The lady seems confused by the sudden interest. “No, at a hospital.”

“I see.” Doesn’t mean she’s not here, though… I eye the neighboring apartment, but I’m sure there’s a new tenant in there now who would be quite confused by us barging in to talk to a dead woman who had noise complaints.

“If you hear anything pertaining to him, please let us know,” Maddox says.

We start to head out as the landlord hurries back to what I assume is her apartment. Before we get to the stairs, though, the lady whose apartment Calvin used to have rushes up.

She looks quite hesitant. “This is… like I don’t even know what you’re doing… but I just… come here, please.”

“Of course,” Maddox says as we follow her back to her apartment and inside it.

“So… when I moved in, the guest room had some… stain in the closet. I mean, I didn’t notice it when we were checking over the apartment since the bulb in the closet was out and the rest of the place was clean. It wasn’t until I replaced the bulb that I noticed the way the closet looked. When I asked the landlord, she said her cleaning crew spilled stuff.”

Once inside the spare bedroom, she pushes the closet door open and waves inside. From the glue spots on the floor and the unfinished edge of the carpet that leads into the room, it’s clear that the closet had once been carpeted like the rest of the room. But what’s there now is bare flooring that is stained quite dark.

“Was the carpet gone when you arrived?”

“It was, and there was like a… cut-up piece of carpet crammed in here. It matched enough that I didn’t notice it at first, but my vacuum snagged it, so I pulled it up and underneath was this. I really thought it looked like blood, but the landlord said that it wasn’t. That the cleaning company did it.”

“If it was blood, it had to have been a lot to leak down there, right?” I ask.

“Not necessarily, it looks like there’s no padding underneath and the carpet is quite thin in this room. Definitely a landlord cutting corners to keep renovation costs down.” Maddox kneels down. “Have you scrubbed it since you’ve been here?”

“No… I was going to, but I just never got around to doing it. Is it something significant?”

“I don’t know… I’ll take a sample if you don’t mind, but I might need to send a tech in to get a better look at it. It looks like it’s been cleaned quite well, so it might take a bit of work to get a sample out of it. Do you mind?”

She shakes her head. “Of course not… do you think it’s blood?”

“I will know better when we test the particles.”

My grandpa and Natalie pop into the room and hurry right over to fill me in with what they’ve found.

“No ghosts present. Does she happen to know anything else about the lady who passed? We could try to hunt her down,” Natalie says.

“The older lady next door, did you have any troubles with her?” I ask.

“No, she was super sweet. She said the previous tenant here was very disruptive. Apparently, he said all the right things to the landlady but was an asshole to her.”

“Do you know anything about her family or anything?” I ask. But the issue is she likely passed on if there was nothing tying her here.

“I mean… her son would come visit her, but I don’t even know his name or anything about him.”

“Thank you,” I say as Maddox finishes up with the closet.

“Thank you for your time. I’ll be in contact if we need more. One last question, did the lady ever mention if anyone else stayed with him?”

“She did say that he had a girlfriend… but she rarely saw her, and she seemed to leave him there toward the end since she didn’t see her anymore. She thought that maybe that’s why he left. She said he was ‘head over heels in love with that lady.’ And that he was heartbroken she left him, and he didn’t want to be here without her or something.”

“Thank you. If you think of anything else, please call or send me a text. Please don’t hesitate, no matter how mundane it seems.”

“Okay,” she says as she takes the card.

We head out the door as Keaton pops up in front of me. “While the landlord was getting that information ready for you, I was able to read his file. I have his parents’ address. They were down as an emergency contact and cosigned the lease with him.”

“Perfect,” I say.

“What?” Maddox asks.

“Keaton got the parents’ address. They must have been close enough to cosign with him.”

“If he needs a cosigner at that age, he likely had poor credit or some other reason she was reluctant to take him on,” Maddox says.

“Could also be rich parents paying his way,” Keaton suggests, which I tell Maddox.

“That’s true,” he says. “Let’s head to their house and see if he’s staying there or if they’ve seen him.”

“If the lady is wrong and he still has the same girlfriend, or a new one, he could have moved in with her,” I say.

“Yeah, they might know her name.”

We share what we’ve learned with Avery and Shion before driving to his parents’ house. When we see the state of the place, Keaton’s idea that they helped pay for the apartment seems pretty likely. I think we could have fit three of our houses into this one.

Maddox knocks on the door and a man answers relatively quickly.

“Can I help you?” he asks, already wary. I’m sure he expects we’re solicitors wanting something.

“Hi, we’re with the Clinton PD. I’m Detective Booker, this is Detective Avery, and our consultant Moore. We were hoping to speak with your son Calvin.”

A guard between us is immediately slapped in place the second Maddox mentions Calvin. It’s even worse than the look he’d given us when he thought we were here to try to convince him of something. “Did something happen?”

“We’re hoping to speak to him. Does he live here?” Maddox asks.

“He does not.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

Maddox hesitates, likely because it’s quite the jump when he’s not even sure why we’re here yet. “That is your own option. We simply wish to speak to Calvin.”

A woman peeks around the corner. “You’ve seen Calvin?” she asks, sounding quite eager.

“They’re detectives looking for Calvin,” the man tells her.

“We haven’t seen Calvin in months,” she says. “He gets like this, though… spells where he’s just so busy he doesn’t find time to see us.”

“Has he called?” Avery asks.

“No, he’s never been one for phone calls, but we text a few times a week.”

“Can you ask him where he’s staying?” I ask. “It’d be preferable if you didn’t bring us up just yet. We’d prefer to talk to him in person.”

“Of course,” she says. “He’s working right now, though, so he probably won’t reply for a bit.”

“Where’s he work?”

“I don’t know… it’s one of those online companies. He works from home.”

“Do you know why he moved out of the last apartment?” Maddox asks.

“Said the neighbor was too fussy.”

“Could we wait a few minutes to see if he replies?”

“Why are you asking about him?” the dad asks, still quite distrusting of us.

“His email information came up during an investigation. It doesn’t mean he has anything to do with it. It just means his email was in correlation with it. We’d like to ask him more. The apartment he used to stay at… they said he had a girlfriend?—”

“I bet she was using his email,” the mom interrupts. “He wouldn’t get caught up in anything illegal. He’s a good kid. But yes, please come in.” Her husband doesn’t look pleased as she leads us through the nice house and into the living room.

We head inside and I look around, hoping for some ghosts to talk to as my ghost army is off on their search. They’ll have the place investigated before long.

“The mom totally texted him that you were here,” Reggie says. “You know she’s warning him in case he did something wrong so he can have time to hide it.”

“I thought about deleting it as she texted but didn’t think a ghost infestation would help you get anywhere,” Grandpa informs me.

“Weirdly, people rarely react well to it,” Reggie says thoughtfully. “You’d think realization of the afterlife would thrill them.”

“We checked the house over but besides a decrepit cat baking in the sun, nothing else living is in the area,” Grandpa says.

I pull out my phone and text the group so we can talk without the others hearing.

Me: Reggie said that the mom alerted Calvin that we’re here.

Maddox: The father was instantly defensive. He’s wanting to protect him about something, but the mom is concerned and willing to deal with us in the hopes of figuring out where her son is.

Shion: I’m totally staying in the car and not nosing around out here. But these people have some money. There are also three cars in the garage. Let me send you the license plate numbers to run to make sure one of them isn’t his and they’re hiding him.

Avery: When I looked up his car, he owns a red Chevy SUV.

Shion: Yep, in the garage. Doesn’t appear to have been used much lately. It still has snow stains on it, like that film you get in the winter. Hiro, did your ghosts check that he’s not in the house?

Me: Yeah, no one else is in the house.

“Hiro,” Keaton says. “Uhhh, you’re needed over here right now.”

The mom is coming in with some drinks, making me hesitate.

“Here we go,” she says, sounding quite cheery as she begins passing out the glasses.

“I need to use the bathroom,” I announce as I jump up and start toward Keaton before she can say anything more.

“Bathroom’s this way, honey,” she says.

“What was that?” I ask as I hurry after Keaton. Maddox is probably staring after me as I do a fantastic job of messing up their investigation. The mom quickly sets down her tray before she hurries after me, obviously confused, when Keaton stops in the hallway and points wildly at the photo on the wall.

I stop to look then stare at it in disbelief. “Oh shit.”

“Oh shit is fucking right,” Keaton says.

“What?” the woman asks. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I’m sorry. This is your son?”

She’s bewildered now. “Yes?”

“That’s a lovely picture.”

She’s clearly uncertain how my reaction went from saying “Oh shit” to complimenting the photograph. And she’s even more uncertain as I rush back to Maddox and grab his arm. “One moment, please,” I say as I hurry him outside and Avery hurries after us.

“Um… is this a new way of confusing all parties involved?” she asks.

“Calvin is dead,” I announce.

Maddox looks surprised. “You saw his ghost?”

“No… I mean yes… but not in the house. Why the hell didn’t you show me a picture of him before we drove hours out here?”

“I… I don’t know. We were looking at it before you came in… I thought you saw it.”

“He’s dead. He was on the plane on the way to Japan. He was the guy who I said was chilling with his sleepy girlfriend. Just happy as can be. He’s fucking dead. The girlfriend is the one who stopped us when we got off to ask about the lights.”

“What was his girlfriend’s name?” Maddox asks.

“Fuck if I know! I just thought he was some random ghost! He called himself Marshall. Said his girl was boring. He never mentioned he was murdered.”

“We don’t know that he was murdered,” Maddox says.

“He was probably murdered,” Keaton comments.

“Keaton agrees with me,” I say.

Maddox raises an eyebrow. “I understand, but we can’t assume anything until we find proof.”

“What are we whispering about, and why was I not invited?” Shion asks as he hurries up. “You know the main character needs to be present when interesting facts are revealed. And boy, are the parents staring at us through the window.”

“Calvin’s dead. His ghost was on the plane to Japan,” I explain.

“Well, that’s not at all concerning,” Shion says. “He didn’t happen to tell you how he died, who killed him, with what murder weapon, and the location of the body?”

“Ghosts rarely play Clue with me,” I respond.

Shion grins. “You’re funny.”

“But no. He was just like ‘Hey, I’m chilling here with my girlfriend. She’s taking a nap and is so boring.’ So she’s got to be the mastermind, right? She’s this Vali person? That would make sense with the way the ghosts were acting on the plane… they weren’t hovering around someone… they were… frantic. I bet it was because instead of a victim being there, a killer was there,” I say.

“You think she’s the one we’ve been talking to?” Maddox asks.

“I… don’t know,” I realize.

“We can’t speculate anything until we have further proof,” Keaton says, even though he was just declaring that Calvin got murdered.

“I know we can’t assume it’s her,” I grumble.

“The way you describe him, he seems rather fond of her for her to be his killer,” Maddox says. “Hmm…”

“She could be getting vengeance because someone killed the man she loves,” Avery suggests.

“It’s a possibility. Hiro… what are you feeling?” Maddox asks.

“I… don’t know, but with the blood in the closet… I mean… you kind of have to wonder if that’s where he was killed,” I say. “The last month’s rent was slid under the door. No contact with the mother besides text messages.”

“Right, but at this point we need more that is pointing toward her or someone else being the killer,” Maddox states. “Let’s find her, and hopefully he’ll be with her so you can ask him. You have the flight number?”

“I do,” I say as I pull it up on my phone.

“Don’t get too eager, this could take a while. We’ll have to go through all the necessary steps to get the information,” Maddox cautions.

“And in the meantime, she could convince five more people to kill someone,” I say.

“I know, it’s not fair, but that’s how this works.”

“Fine, while you work on that, do you mind if Shion and I try to figure out where the older woman who passed on might be? If they were neighbors for a while, I would have to assume she knew the girlfriend’s name. The parents seem to know nothing about this woman, but this lady was nosy. And that could be faster than waiting for the information.”

“Are you going to sit in the car with the doors locked and the windows up?”

Shion looks offended. “You didn’t make me sit in the car with the doors locked. Do I see some favoritism going on? Maddox… I’m heartbroken. I thought we had a lovely thing going on.”

“ You don’t get serial killers wanting to play games with you,” Maddox says. “I also got him a smart watch to call me the next time he’s attacked since he sets his phone down whenever someone comes to attack him, and do you see the smart watch on him?”

I glance at my wrist. “I… didn’t mean to not wear it…”

“I will watch him as closely as I can,” Shion says, but before we can do anything, the parents come out to face us.

“What’s going on?” the dad demands.

We can’t very well tell him his son is dead without proof. While there’s really no other explanation for why Calvin’s ghost was on the plane, we have no evidence to show them.

Maddox steps up to answer in his most professional tone. “We have reason to be concerned for your son’s well-being. We believe that there is someone else who is using your son’s information, and we need to find out who that is. The only person we are aware your son is in contact with is his girlfriend. Does Calvin have any other friends, coworkers, or anyone else you might know who could get us in contact with him or his girlfriend?”

“I really don’t know. He won’t answer my text. We were never… extremely close, but this is… is something wrong with him?” the mom asks, sounding panicked.

“I would need more information to answer that. What about pictures of his girlfriend?”

“I only met her once. She was at his apartment when I got there. She didn’t say much and was rushing out to work. She said something simple like ‘Nice to meet you’ and then was gone. Calvin said it wasn’t super serious when I asked him to bring her over to dinner sometime.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t have anything else.”

“Can you describe her to me?”

“I don’t have much to go on, but I can try,” she says as he starts to record it so we can reference it later. “She had dark hair, maybe shoulder length? She wore glasses with those… clunky big rims these young people like to wear… I… I really don’t remember more.”

“Was she taller than you?”

“I… I don’t think so? I don’t know. I’m not good at this stuff.”

“That’s okay,” Avery says. “Was she wearing a uniform? You said she was going to work. Was it something someone said that made you think that or something she was wearing?”

“I think so… like… maybe a waitress uniform? I don’t know. It was more professional, so not like fast food or something, but a weird time of day… I do think he said she was a waitress…”

“Would we be able to take your phone and read through the conversations you’ve had with your son? In case he mentioned her name or something about her?”

“I suppose.”

I eye the dad who still seems to want nothing to do with any of this. Is he just reluctant to be a part of this? Or does he really think there’s an issue?

“Anything more that you can think of, let us know. We want answers and I’m sure you do too,” Maddox tells them.

“I’m assuming his car is in your garage because you pay for it?” Shion asks. They look over at the garage, likely wondering why he was peeping through the window. “Same with his apartment. Does that mean you also pay for his phone bill?”

“We… do. He left the car at his last apartment, so the landlord called us to pick it up. When I asked him about it, he said he was sharing a car with his girlfriend because of a lack of parking space, and he didn’t feel like paying for a spot in the nearby garage.”

“Can you think of anything else you’re paying for?”

“Nothing else,” the dad says. “That is it.”

“What about credit cards? Do you pay off his credit cards?”

“No,” he says.

The mom looks a bit hesitant. “He… he does have a credit card… I gave it to him a while back and he promised he’d only use it for emergencies.”

“Can you look at the history of it? See what areas he’s frequented? Also look for anything pertaining to a household—electricity, water, et cetera?” Shion asks. “That might lead us to the house he’s staying at.”

“I’ll look right now,” she says.

“Before you leave, does he ever go by the name Marshall?” I ask.

“Yes, it’s his middle name. Calvin is the name he shares with his grandfather. And around fifteen, he became very… cross with his grandfather, and his friends began calling him Marshall,” she says before hurrying off to get the information we need.