After Moonrise: Possessed / Haunted

After Moonrise: Possessed / Haunted Gena Showalter P.C. Cast After Moonrise, the elite detective agency, crosses into the dark side, but it can be dangerous when the living communicate with the dead…HAUNTED by P.C. CAST Curtis Raef can channel the most violent of emotions. His power has solved hundreds of police investigations. But his gift comes with a curse… cynical, hard and alone, he’s burning out fast. Then Lauren Wilcox arrives with a haunting case: her murdered twin sister is communing with Lauren’s spirit. Raef’s the only one who can help. But which twin does he want to save? POSSESSED by GENA SHOWALTERThe picture Aurora Harper’s painting is so disturbing she’s convinced she’s witnessed a murder and suppressed the memory. Now she needs Detective Levi Reid to help her track down the victim – and the killer. But Levi’s dealing with his own issues, blacking out for no reason at all. They’ll step into the dark together…but are they ready for what they might find? NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORS Praise for the novels of No.1New York Timesbestselling author P. C. CAST ‘Move over, Stephenie Myer.’ —People on Hunted ‘intense and thoroughly entertaining.’ —Kirkus Reviews on Destined ‘P.C. Cast is a stellar talent.’ —New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning Praise for the novels ofNew York Timesbestselling author GENA SHOWALTER ‘One of the premier authors of paranormal romance’ —No.1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole ‘The Showalter name on a book means guaranteed entertainment.’ —RT Book Reviews For more information about After Moonrise and other new paranormal and urban fantasy fiction available from Harlequin MIRA, visit www.mirabooks.co.uk After Moonrise Possessed P.C.Cast Haunted Gena Showalter www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk) Possessed P.C. Cast This one is for my man, the Rose. Thank you for reminding me about hope. I love you. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to send hugs and kisses to Gena Showalter! It is beyond awesome to be able to work on cool projects with my girlfriend. Ms Snowwater, I totally heart you! A big thank you to my wonderful, long-time editor Mary-Theresa Hussey. It is soooo nice to be working with you again! Katie Rowland— THANK YOU FOR THE TU DETAILS. Now go get ready for finals. Seriously. As always, I appreciate, respect and adore my agent, Meredith Bernstein. 1 The bully’s dad caused Raef to discover his Gift. It happened twenty-five years ago, but to Raef the memory was as fresh as this morning’s coffee. You just don’t forget your first time. Not your first orgasm, your first drunk, your first kill and, not for damn sure, your first experience of being able to Track violent emotions. The bully’s name was Brandon. He’d been a big kid; at thirteen he’d looked thirty-five—and a rough thirty-five at that. At least, that’s what he’d looked like through nine-year-old Raef’s eyes. Not that Brandon picked on Raef. He hadn’t—not especially. Brandon mostly liked to pick on girls. He didn’t hit ‘em. What he did was worse. He found out what scared them, and then he tortured them with fear. Raef discovered why the day Brandon went after Christina Kambic with the dead bird. Christina wasn’t hot. Christina wasn’t ugly. She was just a girl who had seemed like every other teenage girl to young Raef: she had boobs and she talked a lot, two things that, even at nine, Raef had understood were part of the pleasure and the pain of females. Brandon didn’t target Christina because of her boobs or her mouth. He targeted her because somehow he had found out she was utterly, completely terrified of birds. The part of the day that was burned into Raef’s memory began after school. Brandon had been walking home on the opposite side of the street from Raef and his best friend, Kevin. On Brandon’s side of the street was a group of girls. They were giggling and talking at about a zillion miles per hour. Brandon was ahead of them and, as usual, by himself. Brandon didn’t really have any friends. Raef had barely noticed him and only kinda remembered that he’d been kicking around something near the curb. Raef and Kevin had been talking about baseball tryouts. He’d wanted to be shortstop. Kev had wanted to be the pitcher. Raef had been saying, “Yeah, you got a better arm than Tommy. No way would Coach pick—” That’s when Christina’s bawling had started. “No, please no, stop!” She was pleading while she cried. Two of her friends had screamed and run off down the street. Two more had stayed and were yelling at Brandon to stop. Brandon ignored all of them. He’d backed Christina against the fence to Mr. Fulton’s front yard, taken the smashed body of what was obviously a road-killed crow and was holding it up, real close to Christina, and making stupid cawing noises while he laughed. “Please!” Christina sobbed, her face in her hands, pressing herself against the wooden fence so hard that Raef had thought she might smash through it. “I can’t stand it! Please stop!” Raef had thought about how big Brandon was, and how much older Brandon was, and he’d stood there across the street, ignoring Kevin and doing nothing. Then Brandon pushed the dead bird into Christina’s hair and the girl started screaming like she was being murdered. “Hey, this isn’t your business,” Kevin had said when Raef sighed heavily and started crossing the street. “Doesn’t have to be my business. It just has to be mean,” Raef had shot back over his shoulder at his friend. “Bein’ a hero’s gonna get you in a lot of trouble someday,” Kevin had said. Raef remembered silently agreeing with him. But still he kept crossing the street. He got to Brandon from behind. Quickly, like he was fielding a ball, he snatched the bird out of Christina’s hair, and threw it down the street. Way down the street. “What the fuck is your problem, asshole?” Brandon shouted, looming over Raef like a crappy version of the Incredible Hulk. “Nothin’. I just think making a girl cry is stupid.” Raef had looked around Brandon’s beefy body at Christina. Her feet musta been frozen because she was still standing there, bawling and shaking, and hugging herself like she was trying to keep from falling apart. “Go on home, Christina,” Raef urged. “He ain’t gonna bother you anymore.” It was about two point five seconds later that Brandon’s fist slammed into Raef’s face, breaking his nose and knocking him right on his butt. Raef remembered he was holding his bleeding nose and looking up at the big kid through tears of pain and he’d thought, Why the hell are you so mean? That’s when it happened. The instant Raef had wondered about Brandon, a weird ropelike thing had appeared around the boy. It was smoky and dark, and Raef had thought it looked like it must stink. It was snaking from Brandon up, into the air. It fascinated Raef. He stared at it, forgetting about his nose. Forgetting about Christina and Kevin, and even Brandon. All he wanted was to know what the smoky rope was. “Fucking look at me when I’m talking to you! It’s sickening how easy it is to kick your ass!” Brandon’s anger and disgust fed the rope. It pulsed and darkened, and with a whoosh! it exploded down and into Raef. Suddenly Raef could feel Brandon’s anger. He could feel his disgust. Completely freaked out, Raef had closed his eyes and yelled, not at Brandon, at the creepy rope, “Go away!” Then the most bizarre thing happened. The rope-thing had gone away, but in Raef’s mind he went with it. It was like the thing had turned into a telescope and all of a sudden Raef saw Brandon’s home—inside it. Brandon was there. So were his dad and mom. His dad, an older, fatter version of Brandon, was towering over his mom, who was curled up on the couch, holding herself while she cried and shook like Christina had just been doing. Brandon’s dad was yelling at his mom, calling her an ugly, stupid bitch. Brandon watched. He looked disgusted, but not at his dad. His look was focused on his mom. And he was pissed. Really, really pissed. It made Raef want to puke. The instant he felt sick, actually felt his own feelings again, it was like turning off a light switch. The rope disappeared, along with the telescope and the vision of Brandon’s house, leaving Raef back in the very painful, very embarrassing present. Raef opened his eyes and said the first thing that popped into his head. “How can you blame your mom for your dad being so mean?” Brandon’s body got real still. It was like he quit breathing. Then his face turned beet-red and he shouted down at Raef, spit raining from his mouth. “What did you just say about my mom?” Raef often wondered why the hell he hadn’t just shut up. Got up. And run away. Instead, like a moron, he’d said, “Your dad picks on your mom like you pick on girls. I know ‘cause I just saw it. Inside my head. Somehow. I don’t know how, though.” Raef had paused, thought for a second and then added, trying to figure it out aloud, “Your dad was calling your mom an ugly, stupid bitch last night. You watched him.” Then the weird got, like, weird squared because Brandon reacted as if Raef had all of a sudden grown two feet, gained a hundred pounds and punched him in the gut. The big kid looked sick, scared even, and started backing away, but before he turned and sprinted down the street, he yelled the words that would cling to Raef for the rest of his life. “I know what you are! You’re worse than a nigger, worse than a creeper. You’re a Psy—a fucking freak. Stay the hell away from me!” Oh, shit. It was true. No way … no way … Raef had sat there, bloody, confused and—embarrassingly enough—bawling, while his best friend called his name over and over, trying to get him to snap out of it. “Raef! Raef! Raef …” “Mr. Raef? Raef? Are you there, sir?” Coming back to the present, Raef shook himself, mentally and physically, and picked up the phone, punching the intercom button off. “Yeah, Preston, what is it?” “Mr. Raef, your zero-nine-hundred appointment is here, thirty minutes early.” Raef cleared his throat and said, “You know, Preston, it’s a damn shame my Gift doesn’t include predicting the future, or I’d have known that and been ready for her.” “Yes, sir, but then I would probably be out of a job,” Preston retorted with his usual dry humor. Raef chuckled. “Nah, there’d still be all that filing to do.” “It’s what I live for, sir.” “Glad to hear it. Okay, give me five and send her in.” “Of course, Mr. Raef. Then I’ll get back to my filing.” Raef blew out a breath, grabbed his half-empty coffee mug and stalked over to the long credenza that sat against the far wall of his spacious office. He topped off the coffee and then stood there, unmoving, staring out the window. Not that he was actually seeing the excellent view of Tulsa’s skyline on this crisp fall day. Kent Raef was trying to scratch the weird itch that had been tickling his mind all morning. What the hell was wrong with him? Why the walk down memory lane this morning? God, he hated the thought of that day—hated remembering that scared, crying kid he’d been. He’d just wanted to be shortstop for his team, and try to fit in with everyone else. Instead, he’d been a psychic. The only one in his class. Norms didn’t react so well to a Psy—especially not a nine-year-old Psy that could Track violent emotions, no matter how supportive his parents had been—no matter how cool it had been when the USAF Special Forces had recruited him. Raef hated remembering those years and the pain in the ass it had been learning to deal with his Gift and the way asshole Norms reacted to it. It made him feel like shit to go back there—to revisit those memories. Today it also made him feel kinda shaky, kinda strange. If he didn’t know better he’d think he was picking up emotions from someone—soft emotions, like yearning and desire, overshadowed by a deep melancholy. “Shit, Raef, get it together,” he grunted to himself. He did know better. Soft emotions? He snorted. His psychic powers didn’t work that way—didn’t ever work that way. A pissed-off jerk who took out his problems by kicking his dog was the softest Psy Tracking he’d ever picked up. “I need to get a life,” he muttered as he returned to his desk and sat down, just in time for the single knock on the door. “Yeah, come in,” he snapped. The door opened, and his secretary, Preston, announced, “Mrs. Wilcox to see you, Mr. Raef.” Raef automatically stood as the tall blonde entered his office. He held out his hand to her, and ignored the fact that she hesitated well into the realm of rudeness before she shook it. A lot of Norms didn’t like to be touched by his kind, but she had come to him, not the other way around, and so she was going to have to play by his rules. On his team, a handshake was nonnegotiable. Of course, her hesitation might be due to the fact that his skin was too brown for her liking—she did have the look of one of those fiftysomething, old-oil-money cougars who were convinced that their shit didn’t stink, and that the only reason God made anyone with skin a darker shade than lily-white was because of the unfortunate but unavoidable need for menial laborers. “Constance Wilcox,” she said, finally taking his hand in a grip that was surprisingly firm. He recognized the name as belonging to one of Tulsa society’s elite, though he definitely didn’t move in those circles. “Kent Raef. Coffee, Mrs. Wilcox?” She shook her head with a curt motion. “No, thank you, Mr. Raef.” “All right. Please have a seat.” Raef waited for her to settle into one of the straight-backed leather chairs in front of his wide desk before he sat. He didn’t particularly like the fact that he’d had old-world gentleman programmed into his genes, but some habits were just not worth the effort it took to break them. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Wilcox?” “Don’t you already know that?” He tried not to let his annoyance show. “Mrs. Wilcox, I’m sure my secretary explained that I wouldn’t be Reading you. That’s now how my Gift works. So, relax. There’s no reason for you to be nervous around me.” “If you can’t read my mind, how do you know that I need to relax and that I’m nervous?” “Mrs. Wilcox, you’re sitting ramrod straight and you’ve got your hands so tightly laced together that your fingers are white. It doesn’t take a psychic to tell that you’re tense and that your nerves are on edge. Anyone with half a brain and moderate powers of observation could deduce that. Besides that, my Gift deals with the darker side of the paranormal. People don’t come to me to find lost puppies or communicate with the ghost of Elvis. People come to me because bad things have happened to them or around them, and bad things happening in a person’s life tend to make him or her—” he tipped his head to her in a slight nod “—nervous and tense.” She glanced down at her clasped hands and made a visible effort to relax them. Then she looked back at him. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not comfortable with this.” “This?” No, hell, no. He wasn’t going to make it any easier for her. Not this morning. Not when it felt like something was trying to crawl under his skin. He was fucking sick and tired of dealing with people who hired psychics from After Moonrise, but acted as if they’d find it more desirable to work side by side with someone who was unclogging their backed-up septic tank—by hand. “Death.” She said the word so softly Raef almost didn’t hear her. He blinked in surprise. So, it wasn’t the psychic part that had her acting like an ice queen—it was the dead part. That was easier for him to understand. Death, specifically murder, was his job. But that didn’t mean he liked it, either. “Death is rarely a comfortable subject.” He paused and, realizing there was a distinct possibility he had come off like a prick, attempted to look understanding. “All right, Mrs. Wilcox, how about we start over. You do your best to relax, and I’ll do my best to help you.” Her smile was tight-lipped, but at least it was a smile. “That sounds reasonable, Mr. Raef.” “So, you’re here because of a death.” “Yes. I am also here because I don’t have anywhere else left to go,” she said. He’d definitely heard that before, and it didn’t make him feel all warm and cuddly and saviorlike, as it would have made some of After Moonrise’s other psychics like Claire or Ami or even Stephen feel. Which made sense. They could sometimes save people. Raef only dealt with the aftermath of violence and murder. There was no damn salvation there. “Then let’s get to it, Mrs. Wilcox.” He knew he sounded gruff, intimidating even. He meant to. It usually made things move faster. “My daughter Lauren needs your help. She’s why I’m here.” “Lauren was murdered?” Raef dropped the gruffness from his voice. Now he simply sounded clinical and detached, as if he was a lab technician discussing ways to deal with a diagnosis of terminal cancer. He picked up his pen, wrote and underlined Lauren at the top of a fresh legal pad, and then glanced back at Mrs. Wilcox, waiting semipatiently for the rest of the story. She pressed her lips together into a tight line, clearly trying to hold in words too painful to speak. Then she drew a deep breath. “No, Lauren was not murdered. She is alive, but she’s not whole anymore. She’s only partially here. I need your help to restore her spirit.” “Mrs. Wilcox, I think there has been a mistake made in scheduling. It sounds to me like you need to meet with another member of the After Moonrise team—one of our shamans who specialize in shattered souls. My powers only manifest if there is a murder involved.” He started to lift the phone to buzz Preston, but her next words made him hesitate. “My daughter was murdered.” “Mrs. Wilcox, you just said that Lauren is alive.” “Lauren is alive. It’s her twin, Aubrey, who was murdered.” Raef put down the phone. “One twin was murdered, and the other’s alive?” “If you can call it that.” Her face was pale, her expression strained, but she was keeping herself from crying. Despite his bad mood his interest stirred. A living twin and a murdered twin? He’d never encountered a murder case like that before. “Mr. Raef, the situation is that one of my daughters was murdered three months ago. Since then my other daughter has become only a shell of herself. Lauren is haunted by Aubrey.” Raef nodded. “It happens fairly often. When two people are very close—siblings, husband and wife, parent and child—and one of them dies or is murdered, the deceased’s spirit lingers.” “Yes, I know,” she said impatiently. “Especially when the murder is unsolved.” Raef sat up straighter. This was more like it. “Then you have come to the right psychic. I’ll need to be taken to the murder scene, and will also need to speak with Lauren. If her twin is haunting her, then I can probably make direct contact with Aubrey through Lauren and piece together what happened. Once the murder is solved, Aubrey should be able to rest peacefully.” He rubbed his forehead, wishing the uncomfortable feeling of yearning would get the hell out from under his skin. He was not that nine-year-old kid anymore. He was tough, competent, and he knew how to handle his shit. “Yes, peace. That’s what I’m here to find. For both of my girls.” “I’m going to try to help you, Mrs. Wilcox. You said Aubrey was killed three months ago? And the murder hasn’t been solved yet? It’s unusual that the forensic psychic wasn’t able to close this file.” Her blue eyes iced over and the sadness that had been shadowing them was frozen out. “Is solving my daughter’s murder what you mean by closing this file?” Damn! He’d actually said that aloud. What the hell was wrong with him? He might not have the graveside manner of someone like touchy-feely Stephen, but Raef usually showed more tact than offhandedly insulting an already upset client. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry that my wording seemed callous. I assure you that I am cognizant of, and sorry for, your loss.” She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The reason Aubrey’s file wasn’t closed is because the police psychic couldn’t communicate with my daughter about the murder. Either one of them.” Raef frowned. “That’s highly unusual, Mrs. Wilcox. Did you give legal permission for your daughter’s spirit to be questioned?” “Of course,” she snapped. “But it’s not that simple with Aubrey and Lauren. It never has been.” “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t understand what—” Her imperiously raised hand cut him off. “Perhaps it would be easier if I showed you.” Without waiting for Raef’s response or permission, she stood and walked quickly to the office door. Opening it she said, “You can come in now, Lauren.” The woman who entered his office looked like a younger version of her mother—a leggy, twentysomething blonde with waves of platinum hair so light it was almost white. Her body was lusher than her mother’s, who had the appearance of too many carb-free years and maintenance liposuction. Lauren, on the other hand, looked like she might enjoy a burger and a beer once in a while. Scratch that—the expensive silk knit sweater and the designer slacks and shoes said she might enjoy a fillet, a fancied-up potato and some expensive red wine once in a while. His gaze traveled from her curvy body to her gray-blue eyes, and he felt his own narrow in response to what he saw—emptiness. Her smoky eyes were as expressionless as her face. Lauren stopped in front of his desk and stared blankly over his shoulder. Then there was a shimmering in the air around her, and a transparent duplicate of her materialized. It was as Raef got to his feet to face this new apparition that it hit him like a punch in the gut. The ghost radiated waves of emotion—yearning, desire, loneliness, longing—emotions Raef had never picked up from another human being, dead or alive, since his psychic talent first manifested that day so many years ago. He tried to throw up his mental barriers, the ones he used at murder scenes to successfully block out the lingering spirits and their terror and pain and anger, the only emotions he had, until now, ever been able to Read. But his barriers weren’t working. All he could do was stand there and be battered by the desire and longing that emanated from the ghost. “Kent Raef?” The spirit’s voice drifted through his mind. He cleared his throat before he answered, but his voice still sounded scratchy. “Yes. I’m Kent Raef.” The spirit sighed with relief. “Finally!” She glanced at her twin. Lauren blinked, as if coming awake after a long sleep, and the ghost and the girl exchanged smiles. “Good job, sis.” “You knew I’d figure it out eventually,” Lauren said. “And you know it bothers me terribly when you speak to the air like that,” said Mrs. Wilcox. “I can tell that corncob is still firmly inserted up your butt, Mother,” said the ghost. Lauren coughed to cover a giggle, which was echoed by the ghost, who laughed out loud. The laughter in the room raced across his body like static electricity, tingling and bringing all the nerve endings in his skin alive, totally disconcerting him. Raef pulled his thoughts together. Ignore the emotions. You can figure out what the hell is going on with that later. Right now he just needed to do his job—solve the murder, put the spirit to rest, close the case file. “Aubrey, why don’t you tell me about your death and from there I can—” Raef was interrupted by a shriek that moved across his skin with the force of a blow. Aubrey’s mouth was wrenched open as she screamed in agony, a sound that was echoed eerily by her living sister, then her spirit wavered, like heat waves off a furnace, and she disappeared. 2 “So you saw, or at least heard something?” Mrs. Wilcox’s words were clipped, and in the silence that followed Aubrey’s disappearance her voice sounded unnaturally loud. “Aubrey manifested and spoke to me. Briefly.” Raef answered her, although he didn’t look at the older woman. Instead, he was watching Lauren carefully, noting that her empty expression hadn’t returned, and even though her face couldn’t be called animated, she at least didn’t look zombielike anymore. And also noting that the torrent of emotions that had poured from Aubrey had been abruptly cut off. He cleared his throat, wishing like hell his coffee had a shot of Jack in it. “Please have a seat, Miss Wilcox. There are several things I need to go over with both you and your—” “Why don’t you go home, Mother?” Lauren surprised him by interrupting in a brisk, no-nonsense voice as she sat in the chair beside her mother’s. “It would probably be better if I answered his questions alone.” “What if it returns, Lauren?” “Mother, I’ve told you before that I see Aubrey a lot. She’s dead. That doesn’t make her an it. She’s still Aubrey.” “I wasn’t speaking of your sister’s ghost,” Mrs. Wilcox said coolly. “I’m referring to the horrid fugue state that sometimes comes over you.” “Mother, I’ve tried to explain this to you before, too. It doesn’t just ‘come over’ me. There’s a reason for it.” Mrs. Wilcox’s face remained implacable and Lauren sighed. “I’m not going to be driving. If I zone out again I’m sure Mr. Raef can babysit me long enough to get me home.” “Lauren, I …” her mother began, and then seemed to check herself. She stood and inclined her head formally to Raef. “I assume you will be certain my daughter returns home safely?” “I will,” Raef said, not liking the family drama he’d stepped into. “Then I will speak to you later, Lauren. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Raef.” After the door closed behind her mother, Lauren sat and met Raef’s gaze. “She’s not as cold and uncaring as she comes off as being. But all of this is just too much for her.” “Define this,” he said. “This would be my sister’s death and the fact the police have been unable to solve it. Add a dash of Aubrey haunting me with a sprinkle of possession and stir in a big blob of my soul being drained and you get a recipe that would freak out anyone’s mom.” Lauren’s voice was calm, her body appeared relaxed. It was only in her blue eyes that her desperation showed. Raef got up and walked to the credenza. He topped off his coffee and then poured a generous cup for Lauren. “Cream or sugar, Miss Wilcox?” he asked over his shoulder. “Both, and if we’re going to work together I wish you’d call me Lauren.” He fixed the coffee and then handed it to her. “Lauren it is. My friends call me Raef.” He resumed his seat and gave her a brief smile. “Actually, my enemies call me Raef, too.” “Do you have many enemies, Raef?” “Some,” he said. “Do you?” She shook her head. “No.” “How about your sister?” “No. That’s just one of the reasons this whole thing is so awful. None of it makes sense.” “Tell me what you know about your sister’s death, and I’ll see if I can begin making some sense out of it.” “I don’t know where to start.” Lauren’s impassive expression tensed and when she sipped her coffee Raef noticed her hands were trembling. “Start at the beginning. When was she killed?” “July 15. She was alone, even though she shouldn’t have been. I’m almost always with her on jobs—” She paused, flinched in obvious pain. “I mean, I used to almost always be with her.” Lauren corrected herself and regained her composure, then continued in a steadier voice. “July is in the middle of our busy season for maintenance, so we often had to split up to finish jobs on time.” “Maintenance? What type of work did you and your sister do?” “Landscaping. July can be a rough month on plants if we don’t get enough rain and the Oklahoma heat turns up early, like it did this past July. Plants burn up if they’re not maintained properly through the heat. Aub and I own Two Sisters Landscaping. Or at least we did.” She faltered again, and took another sip of her coffee. “I’m sole owner now.” “Of the company? As in you are the biggest stockholder?” “Own the company as in Aubrey and I started it, ran it and were its first two employees.” She met his eyes. “Yes, we actually got our hands dirty. A lot.” She held up one hand and Raef’s brows lifted in surprise when he saw that instead of being well manicured and delicately white, Lauren had short, bluntly clipped nails and obvious calluses on her work-hardened palm. He would have never guessed that the daughters of a rich Tulsa socialite would be into something as blue-collar as landscaping. “I would have thought a psychic would be better at hiding his thoughts,” Lauren said. Raef looked from her hand to her eyes. Then, much to his own surprise, he heard himself admitting, “I usually am.” “Dirt-digging girls from rich families must seem pretty unusual to you,” Lauren said. Raef gave her a lopsided smile. “Sounds like it’s a reaction you’re used to.” “Let’s just say our family wasn’t thrilled when Aubrey and I opened the business six years ago. We were lucky they couldn’t stop us.” “Explain that,” Raef said. He didn’t feel the prickle of foreboding he usually did when he stumbled on what would eventually become a lead for solving a murder, so he really didn’t need to question Lauren about her family’s attitude about her business, but he realized he wanted to question her—wanted to know more. And that was odd as hell. “Aubrey and I received an inheritance from our grandfather when we turned twenty-one. It was ours to do whatever we wanted with—so we started our own business, but instead of buying a chic little boutique in Utica Square someone else could run, or following family tradition and investing in real estate, we bought plants and dirt. At least, that’s how our mother put it. Our decision wasn’t popular, but it was ours to make.” “So, how was business?” “Excellent. It still is. We have five employees and have had to actually turn away jobs. That’s why Aubrey was alone that day—we’d overextended and she was the expert in aquatic plants. So she went by herself to Swan Lake.” Raef felt a shock of recognition, and couldn’t believe he hadn’t put two and two together before then. “Aubrey Wilcox, middle of July, electrocuted to death while she was working with the water plants on the Swan Lake island.” Then he realized why he hadn’t recognized the name on his appointment book. It wasn’t a murder investigation. The death had been ruled accidental. What the hell? “It wasn’t an accident,” Lauren said firmly, as if she was the mind reader. “But if I pulled the police report it would say your sister’s death was accidental, wouldn’t it?” “Yes. Does that mean you won’t take the case?” “No, I’ll take the case.” Which was nothing unusual. Sometimes families needed his services for closure. Hell, not just his services, but psychics in general. The police could tell the bereaved over and over that it was suicide, or an accident, and they would still hold on to the hope that there was a bad guy, a reason, a focus for their rage and despair. That’s where a Psy came in—and it was one of the reasons they’d become big business, even in a world that was mostly filled with Norms who were uncomfortable with psychic Gifts. By communicating with the spirit of the dead person directly, a psychic could help families come to terms with the truth, move on, find closure. Of course, Raef personally usually preferred a good, old-fashioned murder case—hatred and anger he could deal with. Despair was another story. “Aubrey told me she was killed.” Raef shook himself mentally. “I thought your sister’s spirit was having a hard time communicating about her death.” He’d witnessed that. He’d asked her about her murder and she definitely hadn’t communicated with him. “She is having a hard time communicating. When I say she told me I don’t mean that she actually said, ‘Hey, sis, I was murdered.’ I mean she told me in here.” Lauren closed her fist over her heart. “There are things she’s not allowed to put into words, but I can feel them. She and I have always been two halves of the same whole. I don’t know how else to explain it because if you’re not us, it might be impossible to comprehend. Add to the whole confusing mix that whatever is going on after Aub’s death is affecting me, and you have some serious weirdness. Raef, the truth is, even I don’t understand what’s really happening. I was hoping you could help me—help us. Please help us, Raef.” Raef paused, studied Lauren and collected his thoughts. When he finally spoke it was slowly, as if he was processing information aloud. “The police ruled her death an accident, but your twin has made it clear to you, and only you, that she was murdered. Is that correct?” “Yes.” “And even though she manifests to you, which I’ve witnessed, there still seems to be some barrier between the two of you, as if she’s being blocked or controlled by another force?” “Yes, especially when she tries to communicate with me directly about her murder.” She sounded incredibly relieved. “You can’t know what a relief it is to talk to someone who doesn’t call me a freak and who will actually listen to me!” His smile was authentic, but grim. “Try being a nine-year-old who can Track negative emotions, and only negative emotions. I understand what it’s like to be discounted and called a freak.” Lauren expelled a long breath in a relieved sigh. Her shoulders relaxed and she finally took a sip of her coffee. “Good. Then we talk the same language.” “So your sister is actually possessing you,” he said, looking up from the notes he was taking. That was unusual. Possession by a spirit wasn’t unheard of, of course, but spirits didn’t usually possess family members. He couldn’t remember ever hearing of one twin possessing another. “Well, I don’t know if you’d call it real possession. She manifests, like she did earlier, and we can talk.” She paused, blinking hard as if trying to keep herself from crying. “I miss her. A lot. I don’t feel normal without her.” Lauren shook her head and wiped at her eyes. “But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that when she does try to communicate with me about her death, she gets ripped away from here and I can feel what’s happening to her, and it’s like …” Lauren’s words trailed off. She shuddered. “It’s like I’m being killed, too.” “Hang on. Your sister’s already dead. Maybe what you’re feeling is her struggle to stay attached to you while her spirit is being drawn to the Otherworld. Lauren, the truth is that for most spirits it is difficult for them to remain on this plane of existence. They should be moving on.” He tried to speak soothingly, but he wasn’t good at the touchy-feely stuff. Plus, it was looking more and more as if he should just refer Lauren and her family, dead and alive, to the After Moonrise medium. “You’re not getting it,” Lauren said, looking more and more animated. “Aubrey isn’t moving on. She can’t. He’s not done killing her.” “Come again?” Lauren sighed. “This is what Aubrey has been able to tell me: her killer has bound her spirit. He’s bound all of their spirits. Physical death was just the beginning of their murders. He doesn’t stop until he drains their souls of life, too. You have to find him. He’s not done killing.” 3 “And you know that this psychic serial killer is draining spirits because your sister told you in there.” Raef pointed to where Lauren still clenched her fist over her heart. Her spine stiffened and her chin went up. “Don’t patronize me, Raef. I know it the same way you know you’re talking to ghosts of the dead instead of your own overactive imagination, even though no one else can see and feel what you do.” “All right.” He nodded his head slowly. “You got me there.” He stood up and took his keys from his desk drawer. “Then let’s go.” “Go?” “To the scene of Aubrey’s accident.” “You mean to the place she was murdered,” Lauren said firmly. “Either way, I need to check it out.” He raised a dark brow at her when she didn’t move. “You did know that it is my standard procedure to go to the site of the death, didn’t you?” “Yes—yes, I knew,” she stuttered. “It’s just that, well, I haven’t been back there since.” “Not once? Not even when your sister has been manifesting to you?” Lauren shook her head. “No.” The word was a whisper. “I can take you home first,” he said, walking around his desk to her. “We can talk afterward and—” “Would it be better if I come with you?” she interrupted, her voice sounding firmer. “I mean, for you and the investigation.” “It probably would be, especially because your situation is so unique.” Lauren stood. “Then I’ll go.” THE TRIP FROM THE After Moonrise downtown offices to Midtown’s Swan Lake was short and silent. Not that Raef minded. He was naturally quiet and never had understood the need most people felt to chatter uncomfortably to fill a peaceful lull. He also had to ready himself for what would happen when he visited the site of a death and opened himself to the psychic images left there. Accident or murder, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the damn park, and it was always better to take a quiet moment to center himself first. As he drove down Utica Street, he glanced at Lauren. Her face was pale and set. She was staring straight ahead. He thought she looked like a marble sculpture of herself. “It’s not going to be that bad,” he said, turning right at the entrance to the lake and parking his car along the curb that ringed the area. “I’m the psychic, remember?” Raef tried to add some lightness to the moment. She turned cold blue eyes on him. “She was my sister. My twin. We’ve been together since we were conceived. Psychic or not, going to the place where she was killed scares me.” Before he could even try to come up with something comforting to say, her gaze moved from his to Swan Lake. She shook her head and gave a little humorless laugh, saying, “It’s stupid to call this place a lake. It’s tiny. Except for having water, there’s nothing ‘lake’ about it.” “They call it Swan Lake because Swan Pond doesn’t sound right,” he said. She looked back at him. “I hate this place.” He nodded. “That’s a normal reaction, Lauren. Your sister died here—of course you have a strong negative reaction to it.” “There’s more to it than that.” He wanted to tell her that the relatives of the dead always felt like there was more to it than simple death, even if it took their loved one peacefully, in the middle of the night, during the winter of life. Instead, he swallowed back the condescension and said, “Are you ready? You can wait here if you need to.” “I’m ready, and I’m going with you.” She sounded one hundred percent sure, but her face was still unnaturally pale as they walked slowly to the sidewalk that circled the oblong-shaped body of water. Raef thought that Lauren had been right—the place was no damn lake, even if it was pretty and well tended. The sidewalk had only a fourth of a mile circumference, or at least that’s what the helpful signpost said. It was the same signpost that talked about the different types of waterfowl that could be found in the area, in particular noting the mated pair of swans for which the lake had been named. The sign also asked visitors not to feed the fowl, including the swans. And it insisted everyone except “authorized personnel” remain outside the fence that ringed the area. “The entrance to the dock that takes you to the island is over there.” Lauren pointed down the sidewalk to their right. Raef nodded and they continued walking. He glanced around them. The October morning hadn’t turned cold and cloudy yet, as Channel Six weather had predicted. Big surprise that they got it wrong. So it was a gorgeous morning, but an off hour, only just before 10:00 a.m. Too late for morning walkers and bird-watchers, and too early for those who liked to eat their lunch at the park. There was only a retired couple sitting on a bench on the opposite side of the lake, reading a paper together. Good. Less gawkers, he thought, while he followed the line of the sturdy green fence that ensured park visitors didn’t disturb the waterfowl. A flurry of honking and splashing pulled his gaze to the lake. One of the swans was bullying a group of ducks that must have drifted too close to his personal space. “They’re mean,” Lauren said. “Doesn’t matter how pretty they are—they’re mean and dirty. And the biggest reason my company has to come out here so often.” “You still have the contract to maintain the plants here?” Lauren nodded, but she looked uncomfortable. “Aubrey wants it that way. She doesn’t like to let a little thing like her death get in the way of good business.” “But you said you hadn’t been here since her death.” “I haven’t. I have five employees, remember?” Then Lauren’s use of the present tense about her sister’s wishes caught up to his thoughts. “So she communicates with you about your business?” “She communicates with me about lots of things, just not about her murder. Actually, I don’t feel right unless she and I are talking. I don’t feel whole without her….” Lauren’s words trailed off as she came to an awkward silence. As if just realizing what she’d said, she shook her head and attempted a smile. “I’m repeating myself, but it’s hard not to. My life isn’t the same without her.” Raef started to comment, but Lauren’s humorless laugh silenced him. “Yeah, I know. It’s normal for me to feel her loss. Normal for things to be different. Normal to grieve.” She shook her head, looking out at the small lake. “I’ve heard it all. Not one single person really gets it.” There didn’t seem to be anything Raef could say to her that hadn’t been said, obviously to no effect, by others. Plus, maybe Lauren was right. He’d never heard of a twin manifestation and possession before. Maybe there were unusual forces at work in this death. Who was he to scoff at the abnormal? Hell, he lived in Abnormalville; even the other psychics at After Moonrise kept him at a distance. You don’t have to be a Greek god to know that if you invite Discord to a party, all hell is gonna break loose. Shit, his life sucked. They’d come to a locked gate in the fence, and Lauren stopped. Just inside the gate there was a small wooden dock and a slim, slatted walkway that led from it to the island of craggy stone, foliage and a waterfall-like fountain cascading down one side of it that sat in the middle of this end of the lake. “There.” Lauren’s voice was pitched low. “It’s out there that it happened.” The eyes she turned to him were haunted with sadness. “You’ll need to go out there, won’t you?” “Yes.” She drew a deep breath. “Then let’s go.” Lauren flipped open the metal cap that held an elaborate keypad for the locking mechanism on the gate. Her hands shook only a little as she pressed the series of buttons that made the gate whir and click, and finally open. Without waiting for him, she strode through it and onto the dock. It was only then that she stopped, hands fisted at her sides, eyes looking at her feet, at the water, at the shore. Everywhere except out at the island. “I’ll be right behind you,” Raef said. “Okay. Yes. Okay. I can do this.” Lauren stepped onto the walkway. Raef stayed close to her, worried that she might pass out and fall into the damn water. That was something neither of them needed. They were halfway to the island when Raef steeled himself and then dropped the barriers he usually kept firmly locked around his mind. Death, he whispered to himself, come to me. He braced himself for the influx of terror and anger and hurt and pain that always flooded him so near the site of a death. And there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only thing he felt was the brush of the unseasonably warm October breeze and his own confusion. “Here.” Lauren had reached the island. Raef realized he’d stopped and quickly closed the distance between them. “This is where it happened.” She pointed a shaky hand at the base of the rocky island where it met the water. There were several floating plants that looked to Raef like lily pads, along with some bushy clumps of underwater grasses. “Aubrey was replacing the water lilies, trimming the black bamboo and cleaning the algae from the spirogyra. She stepped down there—” Lauren motioned to a ledgelike edge of the island “—and was working with the plants, half in and half out of the water. The mechanism that powers the pump to the waterfall is under that ledge. The police say she cut the electrical line while she was working with the plants. The pump shorted out, sending an electrical current through the water and killing Aubrey. Technically, that’s what happened. But it was no accident.” “Are you sure?” Lauren’s pale cheeks flushed. “I already told you. I am absolutely certain my sister was killed!” “That’s not what I’m asking. I want to know are you sure that this is where she died.” “Of course I am.” “Her death happened here and not at St. John’s?” Raef made an impatient jerk of his chin at the hospital that was directly across the street from Swan Lake. “Yes. She was dead when the joggers found her. They even came to her funeral. I talked to one of them myself. She was floating facedown in the water right there, tangled in the spirogyra grass.” Lauren’s hand was still a little shaky when she pointed to the spot below them where her sister’s body had been discovered. “There—right there is where they pulled her from the pond.” Raef didn’t say anything else. He just continued to stare at the water and the odd, curling grass that floated like Medusa’s hair just beneath the surface. Nothing. He felt nothing. “Raef, what is it? What’s happening?” “Your sister couldn’t have died here.” Lauren frowned at him. “Of course she did. That’s the one part of the police report that was completely accurate.” “How about the coroner’s report? Are you sure it concurred?” “Yes. The coroner listed her time of death as more than an hour before the joggers called 9-1-1.” “You’ve read it? You’ve seen the report?” “Yes and yes. I’ve scoured over it. I practically have it memorized, much to the TPD’s irritation. Raef, what is it?” “There’s nothing here. No psychic Tracing of a death at all. And that is impossible.” Lauren opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, a strangled gasp wrenched from her. She swayed, her eyes fluttering, and Raef moved quickly to her side, steadying her by grasping her arm. “Easy there. I’ll figure this out and—” His words broke off abruptly as emotions rippled through him. But they weren’t death scene emotions, familiar if numbing in their violence. Instead, joy and warmth and a poignant sense of longing filled him. He tried to throw up his mental barriers, but his traitorous Gift ignored it, leaving him naked and defenseless to the onslaught. Then the air beside Lauren rippled and her twin’s ethereal body manifested. “I knew you’d come. I knew you wouldn’t let us down. I remembered you from that article in Oklahoma Today magazine last year.” She grinned impishly. “It said you were the best psychic detective in Oklahoma—that you were like an Old West sheriff. You always got your man.” Raef swallowed hard, trying to pull himself together. I can feel her joy! Never before. Never during the twenty-five years his Gift had manifested had he ever felt a positive emotion from any spirit. Aubrey laughed and the sound washed through his body like magic, sensitizing his nerves and his skin so that the fine dark hair on his forearms prickled as if she had just run a teasing, caressing hand over them. “Ah, come on, Kent, relax. You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, still smiling joyously. “Raef.” He ground the word out automatically, the usual gruffness of his voice intensified by the force of the emotions filling him. “People call me Raef.” “I’m not going to,” Aubrey said. “I like Kent better. Plus, you can’t really call me a person anymore, can you?” Raef just stared at her. Had a spirit ever called him anything? No, hell, no, none of them had. He usually just Tracked the negative emotions left by the bad guys. He followed violence and hatred and fear until it led him to a living murderer. Ghosts didn’t have shit to do with him. Until this ghost. Aubrey’s gaze went from him to sweep around Swan Lake. “It’s beautiful here, don’t you think? The trees are particularly lovely. So wise and strong, like soldiers standing guard.” She turned shimmering blue eyes back to him. “They must take a lot of care.” As soon as she’d spoken the words Raef felt it. The slicing pain hit him as Aubrey’s semitransparent body doubled over. Lauren moaned, and her arm trembled violently under his grasp. “Kent!” Aubrey gasped. “Help us!” She disappeared as Lauren collapsed into his arms. 4 “Oh, God,” Lauren groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick.” “No. Not here.” Raef slid an arm around her waist and half carried, half dragged her from the dock and through the gate. He’d retraced their path and was almost to the car when Lauren spoke again. “Wh-where are we going?” “Don’t know. Right now I’m just getting us the hell outta here,” he said, wrenching open the door to the car and guiding her semicarefully into the passenger seat. He hesitated, watching her closely as she sat, face in hands, and trembled. “You still gonna be sick?” “Maybe,” she muttered into her hands. Yeah, well, me, too, he thought, but instead said, “Try not to be,” then closed her door and hurried around the car, putting it in gear and getting the hell outta there. Silent and on autopilot he drove, turned left on Lewis and was halfway to Fifteenth Street before he realized he was heading for his house. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m taking a client home? Raef glanced at Lauren. She’d taken her face from her hands. Her arms were wrapped around her, as if she was literally trying to hold herself together. Her face had gone from dead pale to splotchy pink. She was still trembling. Suddenly she reminded him of Christina Kambic all those years ago, and he had a terrifying urge to protect her. Shit! Shit! Shit! What’s wrong with me? “I’m not going to be sick. At least, not right now,” Lauren said stiffly, definitely misunderstanding his sideways glances. “Want me to take you home?” he asked inanely. “No.” Lauren made two quick shakes of her head. “Your mother’s place?” “Hell, no.” She looked straight at him then. “Anywhere but there.” He only met her blue-gray eyes for a moment before making his decision. Raef grunted and turned right on Fifteenth, catching the green light and taking a quick left on Columbia, entering the quaint little neighborhood that was hidden between busy Fifteenth Street and kinda dicey Eleventh Street. He drove down a couple side streets, took another left and then pulled into the cobblestone driveway of the 1920s-era brick house he called home. Raef turned off the car and looked at Lauren, who was gazing at him, an obvious question mark on her flushed face. He blew out a long, frustrated breath, got out of the car and opened her door for her. “It’s my place,” he explained. “I don’t take clients here.” “Yet here I am,” she said as he closed the car door behind her. “Yeah, well, that’s just part of a list of don’ts that I’ve broken today.” As they walked together up the curving sidewalk that led to his spacious front porch, he held up his hand and ticked off fingers like an umpire keeping count of strikes. “First, I don’t usually feel as fucking bizarre as I did right before I met you.” He paused when they were standing on the porch and added, “And your dead sister.” Another finger went up. “Then I don’t go to a murder scene—a documented scene of a death—and not pick up death emotions.” “Death emotions?” she interrupted. He bit back his annoyance and answered her with a sharp nod and a sharper tone of voice while he dug in his pocket for his house key. “Yeah, death emotions. Bad ones. Like fear and panic and agony and hatred. Being able to Track negative emotions is my Gift.” “That sucks,” she said. He shrugged. “It’s the way it is—the way it’s been since I was nine.” “Yeah, don’t take this the wrong way, but a Psy Gift is really pretty weird. I mean, it’s not like anyone can predict it.” “You’re telling me?” He snorted, and then opened the door for Lauren and motioned for her to go inside, following her closely, still explaining but also watching how her eyes opened in surprise as she took in the sheen of the hardwoods and his antiques that were comfortable as well as expensive and tasteful. “Which leads to don’t number three.” He put up the last finger. “I don’t feel what I felt when your twin manifested—joy.” Raef paused again and shook his head, remembering. “I even felt her laughter. Her laughter.” Lauren’s brow furrowed. “But you’re a psychic. Feeling emotions is what you guys do.” “It’s not that simple. No one just gets a blanket ESP stamp, like, Hey, here ya go, buddy, now you’re a psychic so you can read everyone’s minds,” he said sarcastically. “Look, you don’t have to sound like that. I don’t know about this psychic stuff. No one really does—or at least I don’t think anyone really does.” She put her hands on her hips. “It’s not like your people are superopen with how the Gift works.” “It’s not like your people really give a shit,” he countered. “Well, I give a shit now!” Lauren shouted, surprising both of them. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “Sorry. I’m not usually such a bitch.” He chuckled. “Yeah, well, I’m usually such a bastard.” The air around them shimmered, and then, in the middle of Raef’s living room, Aubrey manifested, saying, “No wonder you don’t bring women home.” This time her emotions were muted. Her sparkle wasn’t totally gone, but it had definitely dimmed. Still, she smiled at him, and as she did Raef felt a flutter of pleasure wash against his skin as, once again, he picked up her emotions. She’s pleased to see me, Raef realized. That’s what I’m feeling. “He didn’t say he didn’t bring women home.” Lauren broke into his internal dialogue. She shook her head at her twin, speaking to her in a totally normal, if tired, voice. “He said he didn’t bring clients home. I’ve been telling you for years, if you’re gonna eavesdrop, get it right.” “Touch?,” Aubrey said, grinning at her sister. Raef frowned at both women. “It’s not just about me not bringing clients here. I also don’t bring work home. Period.” “You mean this cool old house is a no-ghost zone?” Aubrey said impishly. Raef didn’t say anything because he was feeling her playful sense of humor, and that feeling had his voice lodged somewhere in his gut. “I have to sit down,” Lauren said, glancing at him and then the wide leather couch. “Do you mind?” “Yeah, I mean, no. Hell, I mean, yes, you may sit,” Raef stuttered like an idiot. Aubrey giggled, obviously getting some of her sparkle back. “You’re freaking him out,” Lauren said as she sat heavily. “And you’re exhausting me.” Aubrey’s sparkled dimmed. “Sorry, sis,” she said. She didn’t move to sit beside her sister, whose face was back in her hands, but Raef watched her lift a semitransparent hand toward her, like she wanted to touch her. He felt her sadness then, and realized he hated it and had a ridiculous urge to do something, anything, to erase her sadness and bring back her joy—her joy he could feel. And that was just fucking not normal. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said gruffly. Both women, alive and dead, turned their pretty faces to him. “I need to know what the hell is going on here.” He pointed at the ghost. “Were you murdered or not?” Raef watched the twins exchange a look. Lauren spoke first. “Tell him. He’ll see, and it’ll make the explanation easier.” “It’ll hurt,” Aubrey said. “I know. Just do it fast and get it over with. I’ll see you again soon,” Lauren said. Aubrey nodded and then faced him. She met his gaze for a long time—long enough for Raef to be struck by her beauty. Yeah, she looked a whole lot like her twin, that figured. But she was softer, curvier, shorter—and her hair was longer. Just then it was lifting around her in response to a nonexistent wind. “I know you can help us. I believe in you, Kent.” He knew she was telling the truth. He could feel her belief. It was warm and strong and very, very disconcerting—which left him utterly unprepared for her next words, and the flood of agony that followed them. “My body was murdered by a man who has trapped my soul and the souls of a lot of other people. He’s feeding off our pain. His name is—” Aubrey’s words were sliced off as her ghost was ripped in half and Lauren shrieked with her twin in agony—an agony Raef felt all too well, an agony so great that it had his vision narrowing and his heart racing. The torn pieces of Aubrey’s ghost were burned away like morning mist before sunlight and she was gone. Again. Raef realized he had staggered to the couch and was clutching the back of it to keep himself upright. He raised a shaking hand and wiped sweat from his brow. The sound of a body dropping to the floor had him struggling to refocus in time to see that Lauren had slumped, unconscious, from the couch. “Shit!” Raef hurried to her, carefully lifting her back on the couch, laying her down and checking for a pulse. “Strong and steady,” he muttered. “Good—good. Hey, come on. Wake up. You’re fine. Everything’s fine,” he said, more for himself than for her. Lauren’s eyelids fluttered and then opened. He started to breathe a long, relieved sigh, but then he realized how vacant those blue-gray eyes looked. Not only was the light not on, but nofuckingbody was home. And that scared the shit out of him, so much so that he automatically fell back into what he knew best about dealing with while scared. His voice deepened, hardened, and MSgt Raef barked at her like the Special Forces NCOIC he’d once been. “Lauren! Get your ass back here on the fucking double! You haven’t been given permission to go any damn where!” Lauren blinked, shook her head as if she’d just come in from the rain, and then her eyes animated and she focused on his face. “Raef.” Even though the name wasn’t a question, he nodded. “You’re back. Good.” “Feel bad, though,” she said weakly. He grunted and nodded. “Bet you do. Your soul’s attached to Aubrey’s, isn’t it?” “Yes. Always.” The two words were whispers. “All right. Well, that explains a lot about this cluster fuck.” He stood. “Are you leaving?” “Sadly, no. You’re in my house, remember?” Lauren looked around, as if she hadn’t remembered until then. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. You don’t bring clients here.” “I don’t brew strong tea with honey for them, either. Which is what I’m going to do for you. Sit. Don’t move. Don’t faint. And don’t fucking disappear on me again.” “Yes, sir,” she said with what he already understood was uncharacteristic meekness. He stopped halfway to the kitchen. “And for Christ’s sake, don’t call me sir. I was an NCO. I used to work for a living, unlike a fucking officer.” He didn’t need to be psychic to feel Lauren’s confusion all the way from the living room. “Civilians …” he grumbled as he clattered through his orderly cupboards and flipped on the electric kettle, tossing a bag of English breakfast tea, a dollop of local honey, a squeeze of fresh lemon and a healthy slosh of single-malt Scotch into each of the large mugs. When he brought the brewed and spiked tea to the living room he was relieved to see that Lauren was sitting up and studying the art on his fireplace mantel. She turned and raised a brow at him. “Ert??” “Yep,” he said, handing her the mug of tea. She took the couch and he sat in a leather chair across from it. “Your wife likes Ert??” “Not married. Anymore. And no, she did not. I like Ert?.” “Ert? was gay.” “Yes, I’m aware of that.” She raised a brow at him. “You were military, weren’t you?” “Air force—OSI, that’s Office of Special Investigations to civilians. Ten years—been out for almost five now,” he said, sipped his tea and then added, “FYI—most military men don’t give a shit whether the guy beside him is gay. They care more that the guy will stay beside him and cover his back. You shouldn’t stereotype, Miss Wilcox, since you don’t appreciate it when people assume you’re just some stuck-up rich bitch who doesn’t work for a living.” Her other brow raised at the word bitch, but she just sipped her tea, nodded and said, “Scotch and lemon and honey is my sister’s favorite kind of tea.” “Was,” Raef corrected her. “She’s dead. Let’s start right now with dealing with that, even though you can still see her and talk to her. That might help you start separating yourself from what’s happening to her—at least long enough for me to try to figure out how to catch the guy who’s doing it to her.” “She’s not going to be able to help you do that.” “Because he’s keeping her from helping me,” Raef said. “He’s keeping her from helping anyone—even me. Any time Aubrey tries to talk about her murder, even tries to hint about it, it’s like he has some kind of electric line into her soul.” Lauren shook her head and Raef could see she was fighting back tears. “How the hell can he keep causing her such pain even after her body is dead?” Raef didn’t have one damn clue about how to answer that question, so he countered with one of his own. “It’s not just Aubrey who feels pain caused by him. It’s you, too.” “Yes, it’s me, too. And that’s not all. She’s getting weaker. He’s draining her, and the weaker she gets—the more she’s drained—the weaker I get. Somehow he can use her, and apparently several other people, even though they are all dead.” Lauren stared into his eyes. “How? How is he doing it?” “I’m going to be straight with you, Lauren. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Even when I was in the air force and Tracked terrorists. I experienced some really bad stuff, and some really bizarre stuff, but nothing that was leeching a ghost’s soul and the ghost’s living twin. Sorry, but I just don’t have the answers for you.” “So, basically, you don’t know what you’re doing.” “Basically, you’re correct. With your case I do not.” “Well, then, what am I going to do? Just fade away with Aubrey where we’ll exist forever somewhere between agony and darkness?” This time a tear escaped Lauren’s eye and rolled down her smooth cheek. “Not if I can help it,” Raef heard himself say. Lauren threw up her hands and repeated, “How?” “By doing something I hate like hell. I’m going to call in the cavalry and ask for help, even though it’s a damn annoying cavalry and she’s going to be obnoxiously pleased that she’s going to have to bail me out.” 5 “She’s way too small to be the cavalry,” Lauren whispered from beside Raef. They were sitting at his huge old desk peering into the big-screen Mac as the redhead answered the video call. She raised a scarlet brow and turned clear green eyes on Lauren, saying, “I don’t know what you mean by cavalry, but she’s not deaf.” “Hey, I’m sorry,” Lauren began. “I didn’t mean to—” “Yeah, yeah, stand down, tough girl,” Raef interrupted. “Milana Buineviciute, this is Lauren Wilcox. She’s a client of mine and I called you the cavalry, she didn’t.” Raef moved his gaze from the quick-tempered little redhead to Lauren. “Lana is the head medium for our Oklahoma City branch of After Moonrise. She’s a pain in the ass, and even though she claims to be Lithuanian I suspect her of being a Russian spy, but she knows more shit about ghosts than anyone I’ve ever met. Not that that’s a compliment.” “Atsiknisk,” Lana told Raef blandly. “Which means ‘fuck off’—in Lithuanian, not Russian. Try moving into the twenty-first century, Raef. The Cold War has been over for longer than I’ve been alive.” She looked at Lauren. “Good to meet you, Lauren.” Lana glanced back at Raef. “Hey, sudzius, she’s not a ghost.” “I’ve worked with you long enough to know you’re calling me a shithead, and I know Lauren isn’t a ghost, Nazi. It’s her twin sister who is dead.” “Nazis were German, not Russian or Lithuanian,” Lana told Raef smoothly before turning her attention back to Lauren. “A twin’s death is always difficult. Her ghost, she is with you?” Lauren nodded. “Yes, quite often, actually.” “What you are doing with this girl?” Lana snapped the question to Raef, her accent suddenly becoming more pronounced with her annoyance. “She should be working with a medium. If Vivian Peterson isn’t the right choice there in Tulsa, bring her here to me.” “Her sister was murdered—that’s why she’s here with me, not because I’m into overtime or trying to poach someone’s clients. You should know that,” Raef said, not caring that he sounded as pissed as he felt. Lana’s expression softened and she brushed back a strand of bright red hair from her forehead. “Sorry, Raef. You are right. I’ve been going through my own sudas lately.” “Which makes you the shithead?” he said with a quick smile. “Taip. Definitely. And now that we’ve established that, I am ready to listen.” Lana picked up a legal pad and a pen. “Tell me what has happened.” Raef quickly recapped Aubrey’s death and the events that had followed, reluctantly admitting everything, even the fact that he could feel her softer emotions, and ending with her latest manifestation in his living room. While he talked, Lana took notes, asked just a few pointed questions and looked grimmer and grimmer. When he was done she sighed and ran her hand through her fiery hair again. “Do you know what he is? This murderer who steals souls?” Lauren asked into the silence. “I do, but only through rumor and what amounts to fairy tales used to frighten children.” Lauren looked confused and Lana smiled. “I should clarify and say fairy tales used to frighten psychic children.” Raef felt a sliver of shock and sat up straighter. “The murderer is a psychic.” “Taip,” Lana agreed. “But more specifically, the murderer is a psychic whose Gift has to be much like yours.” “Mine?” Raef shook his head. “What are you talking about?” “You said you felt her emotions, and they were all softer, positive emotions. That’s not the norm for you, Raef.” “To say the least,” he snapped. “And this ghost, she seems to be filled with positive emotions?” Lana said. Lauren nodded. “Aubrey was full of joy and positive energy in life—she still is in death.” “When Aubrey tries to talk about her murder, when she gets anywhere close to darker, more negative emotions, like the fear and pain and even anger or hatred that remembering what happened to her evokes, that’s when she dissipates, correct?” Lana asked. “Yeah, it’s like he has a hook into her that he can reel back whenever he wants,” Raef said. “Not whenever.” Lana continued, “Lauren, if Aubrey manifestsand says nothing about her murder, if she simply visits you, does the killer pull her back to him?” “No, but we always end up trying to talk about her murder. She’s being drained. Even when we don’t say anything about her death at all. She’s still being drained,” Lauren said. “Because he’s feeding off her emotions—the negative ones—fear, pain, panic, hatred. He can’t tap into the softer emotions. My guess is he can’t even Trace her spirit when she’s feeling them.” Lana met Raef’s gaze. “He’s a psychic like you gone bad.” “Shit. I knew this was a cluster fuck of massive proportions,” Raef said. “Why? If he’s like you, then it should be easier for you to find him,” Lauren said. “Can’t you use your—” she paused and made a vague gesture with her hand “—your Gift or whatever and Track him down?” Raef jerked his chin at Lana. “Ask the cavalry. She’s the ghost expert.” Lana’s green eyes sparkled and her smile reminded Raef of a ginger cat who had just lapped a bowl of cream. “Oh, Raef can find him, but he cannot use his Gift like he usually does. The murderer has that way blocked. You already told me what happens whenever your sister tries to speak of her death.” “He knows it. He stops her,” Lana said. “And he hurts her more.” “Which proves Aubrey does know who killed her and could lead us to him—if he let her,” Raef said. “Damn! It’s frustrating as hell!” “Aubrey can still lead you to her killer, she just has to do so through positive emotions. Use them to Track him.” “Positive emotions?” Raef snorted. “How the hell do I learn about Tracking with those? Joy isn’t gonna lead me to a murder site and a serial killer.” “You don’t have to learn about positive emotions, sudzius. I have told you before, if you let go of your attachment to negative emotions, your soul will naturally reset itself and begin to accept and understand their opposites.” “And I’ve told you before—I’m not like the rest of your touchy-feely gang,” Raef said. “Great, you mean he has to get happy to find my sister’s killer?” Lauren said. “What the fuck is this, a motivational speech? I don’t have any attachments to negative emotions. Negative emotions are my damn job. I don’t need to get happy. I just need to find a murderer,” Raef told the two women. Both women smiled knowingly back at him. He considered pouring more Scotch into his tea. Instead, he faced Lana. “So, that’s the bottom line? I have to move through positive emotions to find this killer?” “That’s the bottom line,” Lana agreed. “Like you, the guy is a fish out of water when he’s not attached to hate and fear and pain. Let Aubrey show you how to flank him through joy and love and happiness.” “Flank him, huh? I knew you were a Russian spy,” Raef muttered. Lana grinned. “Here’s the good news. All human soul are designed to accept love and happiness and joy, or at least they are if they can let go of their attachments to hate and fear and pain. And you’re human, even though you are a man. Good luck. You’ll need it.” Lana waved a goodbye to Lauren and then disconnected the Skype call. Raef and Lauren sat in silence, watching the screen saver come on—a series of pictures of a North Side beach house in Grand Cayman where he vacationed every year. At that moment Raef wished desperately he had his ass in the sand and a cold beer in his hand. “Do you think that’s true?” Lauren’s question seemed loud and out of place, but weirdly enough Raef thought he knew exactly what she was asking. “You mean the part about all human souls being designed to accept love and happiness and joy?” “Yes, that’s what I mean,” she said. “No,” he said. “I don’t.” “I don’t think I do, either, but I can promise you Aubrey would think it’s true—even now. Even dead.” He looked at her and saw how tired she was and how dark and sunken her blue eyes were. “I guess it’s a good thing Aubrey’s leading this hunt, then.” “She won’t be doing anything for a while. When he jerks her back like that, so hard and so painful, it takes a lot out of her and she doesn’t manifest for hours, sometimes a whole day.” “It takes a lot out of you, too,” Raef said. Lauren shrugged. “I’m still alive.” “You need to rest. Let me take you home, or to your mom’s. Whichever you’d rather,” he said, disconcerted by how hollow the thought of Lauren being not alive made him feel. “Thanks. You’re right. I’m exhausted. You can take me to my home. Not my mother’s. Never my mother’s, no matter how out of it I am.” “You’re not out of it. Actually, I think you’re doing pretty damn well for someone who’s being soul sucked by a serial killer.” Lauren smiled as they walked back to the car. “That shouldn’t make me feel better, but it kinda does.” “Hey, that’s me. Mr. Warm and Fuzzy.” Lauren laughed then, and Raef was taken aback by how much she suddenly reminded him of Aubrey—so taken aback that he didn’t have much to say as he drove the short way to Lauren’s house, which was in the Brookside area of Midtown Tulsa, just a few miles away. When he pulled up in front of the neat little bungalow, Lauren said, “Thanks, Raef. I guess I’ll see you soon.” “I’ll call you tomorrow. Let me do some digging about this soul-sucking crap and then you and I will take another whack at working with Aubrey.” “Sounds like a good plan.” Raef went around and opened her car door for her, and when she hesitated, obviously gathering her energy to get out of the car, Raef took her arm and guided her to her feet. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be fine from here.” “I’m going to make sure you stay that way,” he said. Lauren looked up at him, and as their eyes met and held, Raef felt a sensation deep inside him—one he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. “I believe in you,” Lauren said, eerily echoing her twin. Then she went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek softly before turning away from him and going into her dark house and leaving Raef to drive away rubbing his cheek and muttering, “Cluster fuck … a total goat-herding, cat-roping cluster fuck …” 6 Raef didn’t go home. Instead, still muttering to himself about unnatural disasters, he stopped by his After Moonrise office and grabbed some Psy books from a very surprised Vivian Peterson, who was their resident expert on ghosts. Raef didn’t like her. Never had. She was just too damn ooie-ooie. Her hair was green, for God’s sake. On the way back to the house he stopped for take-out pizza at the Pie Hole and a six-pack of Blue Moon beer—both the liquor store and the pizza place were within walking distance of his house. “Which is just one of reasons this place is so perfect for me.” Raef sighed with contentment as he chugged the first bottle of beer between bites of the Everything Pie Hole Special. He didn’t open the first research book until he’d worked his way through half of the pie and half of the six-pack. Then he started reading. Within fifteen minutes he was shaking his head and opening another beer. He flipped through the chapters of the first book, The Spirit Hunter’s Guide, reading quickly. “‘Possession, succubus infestation, poltergeists, noxious aroma invasions …’” Raef read aloud. “This ghost stuff is some seriously not right shit.” He swigged another beer and tossed that book aside, picking up a slimmer volume titled Shamanic Retrieval. Paging through it Raef found essays sectioned off with the titles “Soul Theft and Loss,” “Souls Lost to Love” and finally “Retrieving a Stolen Soul.” “About damn time,” he said under his breath and began to read. Retrieving a stolen soul must be done with skill and care. Remember, we must act in harmony with the universe—harming others, even others who have stolen souls, puts us out of harmony. Raef snorted. “Like I give a fuck?” He kept reading. Soul thieves usually take spirits because they believe they need the power to live. This is rarely true. Only one psychic in thousands can actually feed from the energy of another’s soul. The problem is some less than scrupulous psychics can convince themselves that they can use the power of another—therein you find a soul thief. “The problem is the asshole I’m dealing with can feed from souls.” Raef continued. Because of the power attachment to the stolen soul, it is complicated to convince the thief to release it. There are two basic ways to attempt, with responsibility to universal order, to retrieve a stolen soul. Then in bold writing Raef read: 1) Offer the thief a gift to replace the soul. Sometimes an animal spirit can be traded for the human soul. “That sucks for the poor dog,” Raef said. 2) Trick the thief by distracting him or her, and then pull the soul away yourself. Of course, this takes the well-honed skills of a shaman or a medium, and should not be attempted by a psychic with a different Gift. To do so may cause harm to the thief and, possibly, the stolen soul, as well as the inexperienced psychic. Raef sat back, sipping his beer and thinking. Should he bring in another psychic like Lana? He didn’t give a shit about the thief’s safety—the guy was a killer. Even though he’d rather not get his own ass in a bind, he wasn’t particularly worried about himself. Raef had been handling his own shit for decades. He did care about Aubrey, as well as her sister—which was almost as irritating as it was unusual. It just wasn’t normal for him to care. “Hell, this isn’t a normal case,” he reasoned aloud. “And this isn’t a normal soul stealing, either,” Raef rationalized aloud. “It’s a murder. The soul part is only secondary. So, the ooie-ooie crap needs to take second place to the murder. And I’m the right man to take care of the murder part.” He reread number two. “‘Trick the thief by distracting him or her, and then pull the soul away yourself.’ How ‘bout I do the distracting, like get this guy arrested and put away for life, and Aubrey just runs like hell—so to speak.” Nodding to himself, Raef paged through, skipping the sections on “Restoring a Soul’s Light” and “Finding Shattered Souls,” but stopping at the heading “Retrieving Souls from the Land of the Dead.” The Land of the Dead is not the equivalent of a Christian heaven or hell. It is not one of the three layers of the Otherworld. It is a place for lost and broken souls—be they dead or alive. It is a dangerous place, even for a trained shaman or medium. It’s filled with hopelessness. Sometimes shattered souls can be found there. Sometimes soul thieves choose the Land of the Dead as a holding place for their victims. Whether you are healing a shattered soul or retrieving a stolen one, enter the Land of the Dead without protection and experience, and you risk becoming lost, too. “Jackpot!” Raef said. “Definitely sounds like the place I need to go.” He skipped the rest of the warnings and went straight to the heading titled “Entering the Land of the Dead.” Begin by lighting a candle. You are seeking shadow and smoke, death and darkness, you will need to keep a light close to you, both figuratively and literally. Reluctantly, Raef got up and went to his bedroom where he always kept a vanilla candle ready to burn. He used to like the way the candlelight flickered off his wife’s smooth skin. Kathy had been lush and sexy, and the warm light of a flame used to make her look like a love goddess come to earth. Of course, he hadn’t actually burned the damn candle in years, not since his wife had decided she couldn’t live with his job—or in her words, I can’t stand what your job does to you, Raef. It makes you sad, and nothing I do ever changes that. Raef paused halfway back to the living room, candle in hand. “Why the fuck am I thinking about that? Kathy’s been gone five years. The candle only stayed because I like the way it smells.” Raef stifled a sigh of annoyance. So, yeah, it would be nice to see another naked woman in candlelight, but that hadn’t happened in a long time. “Too long,” he said as he lit the vanilla candle and picked up the book and the beer again. “All right, what next?” Shamanic battles of life and death can happen in the Land of the Dead. If you attempt to go there you must be skilled and courageous and well protected. “Yeah, yeah, get to it,” he mumbled. The Land of the Dead can be found past the Otherworld boundary. Think of the Otherworld as if it were an ancient map when man believed the world was flat, and if you went too far you fell off into nothingness. That nothingness is the Land of the Dead. To find it, keep the light of your candle strong in your mind’s eye. Then begin to meditate upon the reason for your quest. A shaman or medium can Track a soul with the help of his or her Gift. “Huh.” Raef snorted. “I’m not an ooie-ooie shaman or a medium, but I can Track things. Usually murderers, but whatever. Nothing is normal about this case. Maybe I can Track more than I thought I could, or at least when it comes to Aubrey and Lauren maybe I can.” He kept reading. Know that once you have Tracked the soul to the Land of the Dead, your psychic Gift will cease to work. You must use mortal guile and your own wisdom to retrieve the lost one. “First good news I’ve heard yet,” he said, chuckling softly. Raef closed the book and looked at the candle. He stared at the flame until it seemed as if the light was burned into his mind. Then he began thinking of Aubrey. She made him feel joy. She laughed. She laughed a lot, especially for a dead girl. She was blonde and beautiful and had a sparkle that even death couldn’t dim. She called him Kent. No one called him Kent. Raef closed his eyes, held the light in his mind and Aubrey in his heart and, just as he did at a murder scene, began to feel around with his Gift … seeking … questing … searching…. Only this time he wasn’t trying to Track rage and fear and pain. This time he was questing after a sparkling blonde whose laughter reminded him of champagne. When he actually found her it jolted him with surprise. Murder victims he’d Tracked before had led him to their killers with dark, smoking trails—or rivers of pain and hatred like oil slicks. Aubrey’s trail was a shimmering thread of joy that flickered bright and then dim. Why? he wondered. What’s going on with her? Then he recognized the dimming—he’d seen it before; it was worry. Raef reached with his Gift to grab on and Track the illusive, glittering thread, but instead of Tracking he felt an already familiar sensation pass over his skin, and her voice, somewhere between annoyed and surprised, sounded in the air around him. “Kent, what are you doing?” He opened his eyes. Aubrey had materialized in front of him, between the couch and the old steamer trunk he used as a coffee table. It had gotten dark while he’d been reading, and the living room was dim—the only real light cast by the vanilla candle. The lack of light agreed with Aubrey. She looked almost substantial, and Raef noticed she was wearing only a slip of a dress, one of those silk things that laced up the front and hugged women’s curves so well. And Aubrey had some serious curves to hug. The joy that had been dimmed by worry sparkled alight as Aubrey cocked her head to the side, studied him and then began to laugh. Her laughter skittered across his skin, raising the hair on his forearms, and calling alive sensations that had been dead within him a lot longer than Aubrey had been. “What?” he said, scrubbing a hand roughly across a forearm. “Why are you laughing?” “‘Cause I just realized what you’re doing.” She grinned, but didn’t continue until he prodded, “And what do you think I’m doing?” “It’s not think, Kent. It’s know. I know you’re checking me out.” Raef frowned, trying to ignore the crackle of humor that lifted around her and washed against him. “That’s not what I was doing before you showed up, and why does that make you laugh?” “Because it means your love life is even deader than me.” She giggled. “That’s not funny,” Raef said. “And before you showed up I was trying to Tr—” “No!” For a moment she sounded frantic, and the humor that had been bubbling around him faded. Then, she reached up and took hold of one of the diaphanous laces that held the front of her dress together. Aubrey smiled teasingly at him. “No, let’s not go there. If we go there, then I’ll have to leave, and neither of us wants that. How about we go here instead.” With one deft pull, she undid the tie and the lacing fell open, exposing her naked flesh. “You’re naked!” Raef blurted, and then mentally smacked himself. Were boobs all it really took to make me forget she’s dead? “No, I’m naked under this.” Aubrey slowly ran her hands down the front of the silk dress, lingering over her breasts until her nipples began to harden. She gasped in pleasure. “Wow—” her voice was a breathy whisper “—I feel amazing.” Still touching herself, Aubrey half walked, half floated closer to him. “You can feel me, Kent. I know you can.” She was only an arm’s length from him, and she was so fucking sexy there in the candlelight, all skin and lush curves and nipples that were tight and ripe and ready for his tongue. Raef reached for her, and felt a shock and a chill when his hand met with nothing but air. Her laugher bubbled around them. “Not like that, silly! Feel me in there.” Aubrey took one hand from her body, leaned forward and pressed her hand against his chest, over his heart. He didn’t feel the pressure from her hand. He didn’t feel anything except her laughter and his raging hard-on. “I don’t feel shit! You’re a ghost. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.” “I’ve made you feel before. I can do it again, and it’s important that you do. It’s the only way we can move forward. The only way we can fix what’s wrong.” She was standing right before him. Her hands went to one of the loosened laces of her dress. She tugged again, this time harder, and the silk slid through, opening the dress completely. With a teasing smile she shrugged her shoulders and it slid from her body to pool in a semi-substantial puddle at her feet. “Oh, God. You are so damn beautiful,” Raef couldn’t stop himself from saying. “Then feel me, Kent. Let go of all of that baggage you have because of the past, and allow yourself to feel pleasure again.” Aubrey caressed her breasts. Then slowly, she moved one hand down her body, over the curve of her belly, and slid her fingers under the triangle of blond curls between her legs. Raef couldn’t take his gaze from her. His body was aching in hot, hard response. Automatically, he rubbed his hand over his jeans and down the long length of his swollen cock. “Yes! Let me see you. Let me watch you.” “Then let me feel you!” “Kent, baby, you can do that yourself. Just let it happen. Let go of the past and be willing to feel pleasure in the present.” “Yeah, okay. Anything,” he said. “I let go of all that crap.” “Why? Tell me why,” Aubrey whispered. “Because I want to feel pleasure. With you!” He almost shouted the words. As soon as he’d spoken it hit him—her emotions. He’d felt her laughter before. He’d even felt her joy. But what he was feeling now sliced through him like a sword: joy, laughter, lust, desire, pleasure, all wrapped together. The emotions entwined and implanted within him. Raef ripped open the front of his jeans and took his cock in his hand, stroking himself as he watched her blue eyes widen. “You are incredible!” Aubrey said. “And you do feel me.” “I do feel you,” he gasped. “I feel what you do to yourself. I feel what you do to me.” “Then feel this….” Aubrey’s gaze never left his as her fingers moved more quickly over herself. Raef was staring into her eyes as they both came to orgasm—he was still staring at her when she whispered, “This makes you closer to me, and the closer to me you get, the closer you’ll be to finding him. But you can’t do it through negative emotions. You have to Track him through the opposite—joy and pleasure, happiness and hope. He can’t fight that, and he won’t be able to stop you from—” This time the soul thief didn’t rip Aubrey in half when he jerked her back to him. This time he made her explode into little pieces, so that her scream was cut off like a snuffed candle, leaving Raef drained, confused and alone in the darkness without her. 7 “I just jerked off with a ghost. I am seriously fucked up.” Raef stared at the ceiling, lifted the bottle of single-malt Scotch he’d retrieved from the kitchen and took several long drinks. He meant to go back to reading the soul-retrieval stuff. Instead, he stared at nothing and thought about Aubrey. “She staged the whole thing,” he mused aloud between gulps of Scotch. “She has to be guiding me. She’s probably getting info from her connection with Lauren. And hell, she’s the one trapped. She’s gotta have something figured out about what would get her free. She obviously knows I can’t Track this guy through negative emotions. He has them blocked. But he’s not gonna pay attention to positive emotions because guys like him—and me—aren’t good at the softer side of emotions. We’re not used to ‘em.” He blew out a long breath. How long had it been since he’d had sex, anyway? “More than a year since my relationship with Raven had crashed and burned. Christ, her name had been Raven. What the fuck had I expected?” He shook his head at his own stupidity, and at online dating in general, and realized the room was spinning a little around him. Raef snorted and took another drink of Scotch. By now he hardly felt the burn. “Aubrey’s good at positive emotions. Hell, Aubrey’s good at a lot of things.” He stared at the ceiling until his eyes blurred, blinked and finally closed. Later he would remember that his last thought that night wasn’t about Aubrey’s hair or her boobs or how hard she’d made him or the way she touched herself—his last thoughts had been about her laughter and how the sound and feel of it had been better than all of the sex stuff … and the sex stuff had been really good. THE BANGING ON RAEF’S front door woke him. It was loud and jarring, and only slightly less obnoxious than the pounding pain in his head. “Yeah, Jesus, yeah, I’m coming.” He glanced at the clock before wrenching open the door—8:30 a.m.? Damn, he was going to be late for work. Which meant he should have opened the door with a thank-you-for-being-my-alarm-clock instead of a snarl, but life just wasn’t fair. “What the hell do you—” His words broke off when he saw Lauren’s raised brows. “I’m a morning person. I figured you’d be on your way out the door for work. The cab dropped me off ‘cause I thought I’d go with you,” she said unapologetically, though she did raise her hands, which were holding two tall cups of QT coffee. “I come bearing offerings.” He opened the door, took one of the coffees, stepped back and, with a grunt, gestured for her to come in. She walked past, giving him a Look. “You’re not ready to go to work.” “No kidding.” His voice sounded like there was gravel in his throat. “You look bad. Real bad,” she said. “Scotch. A lot of it,” he said. She shuddered. “I did that once. Never again.” “I’m a slow learner,” he said. “I got some Merritt’s doughnuts in the kitchen. They’re only two days old so they’re not too much like bricks. Make yourself at home while I’m in the shower.” He disappeared into the bathroom, closed the door, and as memories of the night before flooded his mind, Raef thought seriously about using the razor to slit his wrists. “Why can’t I be one of those drunks who don’t remember anything?” Raef asked his rough-looking reflection in the vanity mirror. He shook his head. Slightly. It still hurt like hell. “You had sex with a ghost, and that ghost’s twin sister is in your kitchen.” He sighed and started to lather up his face, muttering, “Might as well be a freshly shaven, clean perv.” When he got out of the shower and opened the door to the hall, Raef was confronted by two things—the smell of bacon and eggs, and Lauren. She had Shamanic Retrieval open in her hand and was carrying it back to the kitchen. Looking up from its pages she stopped to stare at him. Color bloomed in her cheeks. Raef tightened the towel that was around his waist, feeling even more naked than he was—and he was pretty damn naked. “I made breakfast,” she said, before turning away and hurrying the rest of the way to the kitchen. “I’m hungover,” he called, hurrying the rest of the way to the bedroom. “I know. It’s good for you, though. Trust me. I was a biology major in college,” she called in return. Raef pulled on jeans and an old air-force sweatshirt. As he walked into the kitchen he told his phone, “Call work.” Feeling oddly like an obedient child, he sat at the breakfast-nook table, where Lauren had already placed a full plate of eggs, bacon and toast—along with a cup of fresh coffee and a shot of what smelled and looked suspiciously like single-malt Scotch. He raised a brow at her as he spoke. “Preston, reschedule my appointments for today. I’m still on the case I took yesterday and I’ll be working in the field. Thank you.” Raef hit the end-call button, forked up some eggs and bacon, and said to Lauren, “What does being a biology major in college have to do with hangovers?” She sat across from him with her own plate of breakfast. “Simple. Hangovers are biological. Food helps. So does hair of the dog. Actually, I’m not sure if the hair-of-the-dog part is biological or psychological, but it works.” “Yeah, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’m just surprised there was any Scotch left in that bottle.” He gulped the shot and grimaced, reaching for the coffee. “Well, there was barely a whole shot left. I’m assuming the bottle was mostly full when you started?” “Yep,” he said through bites of eggs and bacon that were really tasting damn good. “Rough night?” He swallowed and avoided her eyes. “Yeah.” “Okay, well, sorry about your rough night, and like I said yesterday, I’m not usually this bitchy, but hungover or not we have work to do. Aubrey should be able to manifest again by now, so as soon as we’re done eating I’ll focus my thoughts and she should—” “Oh, go ahead and eat. I don’t mind watching. I’m finding out that I kinda like it.” Aubrey’s giggle washed around them as she materialized and Raef almost choked on a mouthful of eggs. “Good morning, sis. Morning, Kent.” “Hey, Aub, you look good. All bright and happy,” Lauren said. “I had a verrrry interesting night.” The smile she sent Raef was brilliant and sparkling, and seemed to catch him in a spotlight. He felt it. He actually felt her happiness. It was like an endless Saturday, or having box seats at the World Series, or knowing you’re going to have lots of sex. Lots of really good sex. “Oh. My. God. You two did it. I don’t know how it’s possible, but you two did it last night,” Lauren said, glaring from Raef to her sister. “How the hell could you know that? You’re a Norm! You’re not psychic.” Raef threw up his hands in exasperation. Aubrey giggled some more, causing Raef’s skin to prickle. “She knows because Lauren and I have always been connected. I think you’d call it our own interpersonal psychic link, which means you really do have to stop lumping us with the Norms.” “Which also means you two did do it last night.” “What we did was create pleasure, and pleasure is definitely a positive emotion. Right, Kent?” She grinned at Kent. “Doesn’t feel like it right now,” he mumbled. “Cheer up. It’s not like she got you pregnant,” Lauren said. Then raised her brow and, sounding so much like her mother that Raef even recognized it, announced, “You didn’t masturbate, did you, Aubrey Lynn Wilcox? You know what I told you about that.” And then Lauren Wilcox dissolved into giggles that included a very unladylike snort. Aubrey laughed with her sister, full-throated, filling the breakfast nook with joy that washed through Raef. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop it. Raef threw back his head and laughed along with the ghost and her twin sister. Happy, he thought. I’m happy around her—around them. And I haven’t been happy in a very long time. “That’s right, Kent. Feel it. Feel it with me. Pleasure and humor, joy and happiness. Feel them and keep them close to you, like shields. Because when you stop looking at the forest and find the tree, you’ll only get one piece of the puzzle. He has the rest of the pieces hidden where only you can find them when you follow me. You won’t be able to use your Gift there, but you can use—” “No, Aubrey! Don’t!” Raef shouted, and came to his feet so fast the chair toppled over behind him. But he was too late. Aubrey’s semitransparent body had already been ripped away. “Oh, no!” Lauren gagged. Holding her hand over her mouth she staggered to the kitchen sink and puked up eggs and bacon and coffee. “Here.” Raef handed her a paper towel. “Just breathe.” She took the paper towel with a hand that trembled and wiped her mouth. Raef went to the fridge and grabbed a can of Sprite, popped the top and held it out for her. “This’ll help. Rinse your mouth and then sip it.” Lauren didn’t take the can. She just stood at the sink, wiping her mouth over and over again, staring blankly out the kitchen window to Raef’s backyard. “Lauren?” She didn’t even blink. He jerked the paper towel from her hands, threw it into the sink and then took her shoulders into his hands, turning her to face him. “All right. That’s enough. Come back now.” She stared straight ahead at his collarbone. He hadn’t realized until then how short she was—petite, really. And those sharp blue-gray eyes of hers were still vacant and glazed. Raef gave her shoulders a shake. Not too rough, but hard enough it should bring her attention back to her body. He deepened his voice and took all the emotion out of it. “I said that’s enough. Get back here, Lauren!” Like throwing a switch, the light came into her eyes. Lauren blinked and looked up at him. “Raef? What—” Her whole body started to tremble and, feeling totally in over his head, he did the only thing he could think to do—he pulled her into a hug. She buried her head in his chest and shook. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re back. You’re fine,” he said inanely, thinking how small she was—God, would she even weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet? “It’s getting worse,” she said against his chest. “Where were you? Where do you go when that happens?” he asked. She stepped back out of his arms and looked at him in surprise. “Ohmygod, Raef! I never even thought about where I go, just how I feel.” She shook her head and went back to the breakfast table, pushed aside her half-eaten plate and sat heavily. Lauren wrapped her hands around her mug of coffee and took a sip. Raef righted his chair and did the same. “So, describe it to me,” he said. She looked over her mug at him. “It’s foggy there. And cold. Ugh, and it’s wet, too.” “Wet? It’s raining?” Lauren shook her head. “I don’t think so. Maybe it’s not really wet, but that place makes me feel like I’m drowning,” she said. “Could be part of the spiritual draining. That must be how your body and mind are interpreting it.” “It’s so hard to tell you anything for sure because everything is in black and white, but foggy or blurred, like one of those old silent movies.” Her eyes narrowed contemplatively. “Actually, it’s a lot like a silent movie. Things skip around, like movie frames freezing.” “Is anyone else there?” “Yes,” she said without hesitation, and then added more slowly, “Aubrey is there, and there are other people, too. But they’re hard to see. They fade in and out. They’re only vague images. I do know they’re in pain. They’re all in pain.” She shook her head again. “I’ve known it all along and just refused to think about it because it’s so, so terrible there. But it has to be where the murderer is keeping his victims’ souls.” “The Land of the Dead,” Raef said. “What?” He snagged the slim book from where Lauren had left it on the kitchen counter. “It’s in here. It’s also what Aubrey’s talking about when she gets ripped back there by him.” “Bread crumbs. She’s trying to lead us to her with bread crumbs, but they keep getting eaten,” Lauren said. “Maybe not totally eaten.” He got up, refilled their coffee and brought a legal pad and a pencil back to the table. “So, whenever Aubrey’s emotions change—whenever she tries to talk about her death or her killer—he can sense it and he rips her away from here. Correct?” “Correct. But it happens so fast that she never really gets to tell us anything.” “But she tries,” Raef said. “Maybe we should listen better.” “Okay, well, I’m not going to be very good at that because I feel her pain and I get ripped away with her. Or at least part of me does—that part that’s attached to Aub.” “I get that. So let me help, or at least help with what I’ve witnessed. The first time Aubrey disappeared was in my office when you hired me and I asked her to tell me about her murder.” Lauren nodded. “I hired you because she told me to, and that took her a while because she kept getting ripped away. She finally just described you and then said ‘KooKoo Kitty.’ I figured it out from there.” “KooKoo Kitty? How the hell did you find me from that?” Lauren smiled. “It’s twin speak. We had a cat when we were twelve. Someone had dumped her on our grandparents’ ranch by one of our guest cabins. She was, of course, pregnant. She was a sweet, friendly little thing, so Mother let us keep her as one of the barn cats, but said we’d have to give away the kittens and get her spayed. We called her Cabin Kitty. Well, she had her kittens and then promptly lost her mind protecting them. She attacked every cat, dog, chicken and even horse at the ranch. We renamed her KooKoo Kitty.” “Nice story. Still don’t know why the hell that led you to me.” “Oh, that’s easy. After Moonrise and the whole Psy thing is seriously cuckoo, and you’re the only tall, dark and handsome working there.” “Thank you. I think.” Then he tried not to dwell on the fact that Aubrey described him as handsome. “So, that was time number one.” “Obviously the murderer doesn’t want you involved in his case.” “Yeah, well, too late. Second time was at Swan Lake.” Raef thought back, frowning. “I don’t remember her saying anything even vaguely pertaining to her death, do you?” “Actually, I do remember what she was saying because it seemed harmless.” She moved her shoulders. “Sometimes I can tell she’s getting ready to get ripped back. I mean, I know that she’s trying to tell me something.” “Like today.” “Exactly. But yesterday she was totally happy. All she was doing was talking about the trees. She called them soldiers, wise and strong, and said they must need a lot of care. And that was it. He took her away.” Raef’s eyes widened. “I’m an idiot. She wasn’t talking about trees—at least, not just about them. She had to have been giving us a clue about the murderer for him to have jerked her away.” He sat up straighter. “Ah, shit. She did it again today. She said when I stop looking at the forest and find the tree I’ll get a piece of the puzzle.” “Raef! Whoever killed her must have been working on the trees at Swan Lake,” Lauren said. “Puzzle piece found,” Raef said grimly. “And that tree-loving bastard better watch the hell out.” 8 “So what you’re saying is on July 15 there were no city tree trimmers at or around the area of Swan Lake?” Raef was talking into his cell as he paced across his home office. “That’s correct, Mr. Raef, I see no record of having sent our tree trimmers out to Midtown at all that day.” The city worker’s voice sounded like she was talking to him through a tin can. Hell, with the City of Tulsa Works Department and their crappy budget, that might be true. He glanced at Lauren where she sat at his computer. She looked up at him. He shook his head, and she went back to concentrating on the computer. “Could you double-check your records, ma’am?” “Certainly. Hold please,” she said. “I’m on hold. Again.” Raef growled and continued prowling around his office. Finally the tin-can voice returned. “Sir, I have checked and rechecked our records for that day and the day before. All of our tree-trimming teams were in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood on the fourteenth and the fifteenth of July. I am sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” “Yeah, me, too, but thanks,” Raef said, disconnecting. “Struck out,” he told Lauren. “Well, I think I just hit a home run,” she said, excitement raising her voice. “How so?” He went to look over her shoulder at the Swan Lake website she had up. She’d clicked into several of the pictures and was studying them intently. “First, I’ve quit thinking like a grieving sister and started thinking like a landscaper. Those are elms.” Lauren pointed at the picture. “Actually, almost all the larger trees lining the pond are elms.” “Okay, why is that important?” “Because of our weather patterns elms are especially susceptible to Dutch elm disease. It can be devastating to them.” “And?” Raef prompted. “And the pretty neighborhood around Swan Lake wouldn’t stay pretty if its biggest shade trees withered and died from a nasty, highly contagious fungus. These trees are healthy—strong and soldierlike, as my sister would say. That tells me Midtown has an arborist.” “A what?” “Tree doctor. This many elms, old and young, tell me they’ve been well cared for. Hang on, if I remember correctly …” Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she searched and clicked. “And I do! There’s an innovative preventative treatment for Dutch elm disease that needs to be applied in the spring and early summer.” She looked at him. “Mid-July would have been a perfect second-application time.” “I was calling the right department, but asking the wrong question,” Raef said, but before he punched the city number again, Lauren’s words had him pausing. “He has more souls trapped than just Aubrey’s. I can feel them.” “He’s a serial killer,” Raef said grimly. “I wonder how many more accidents have happened to people in Tulsa in the past year or so, and how many of them were close to other well-tended groves of trees.” Raef hit the number to the After Moonrise office. “Preston, I need you to get into the database and do a search for me. Deaths ruled as accidental in the past year. I’ll need specifics on the death sites. Pay special attention to details about the trees in the area—like, did the accident happen in Mohawk Park or did someone fall down the stairs at the BOK Arena. I’m interested in the trees, not the structures. Our killer has a connection to trees, might even be a tree doctor. Got it? … Good. Call me back ASAP.” He disconnected and glanced at Lauren. Even though she was completely focused on the computer she must have felt his look because Lauren said, “I’m already checking arborists in the area. Call the city back.” Raef did as he was told. “SO, THE CITY USES three arborists. Chris Melnore, out of Hardscape in Bixbie, Steve Elwood, who has his own tree-trimming business in Broken Arrow, and Dr. Raymond Braggs, who is a professor at TU.” Raef read from the list the public-works director had given him. “All three have serviced Midtown. Murphy’s Law is working well, which means the city had a major computer crash last week, so they don’t have a record of which one of the three might have been to Swan Lake in July. They’re gonna check and see if anyone kept any physical notes, but it’s doubtful that they’ll find anything. It was back in July and this is October.” “Can’t we just call the three men and ask if he was at Swan Lake that day? We could pretend like we’re calling from the city for, uh, tax records or something like that,” Lauren said. “We could, but you see how jumpy the guy is already. He jerks Aubrey outta here if she so much as mentions a damn tree. I don’t want him going rabbit on me.” “Then how do we figure out which one he is?” Lauren rubbed a hand over her face and brushed back a strand of long blond hair. She looks tired, he thought. Again. I have to remember that this is draining her along with Aubrey. “Well, we can’t do much until we get the list of accidental deaths from my office. Then we’ll check out the death scene and see if there is any link to a tree doc, and go from there.” “Or we could print off pictures of each of the three guys and when Aubrey manifests next see if she can point us to one of them.” “You mean before she screams and gets torn into pieces and part of you gets sucked away with her? No. How ‘bout I try some old-fashioned detective work instead.” “Aubrey and I can handle it. We’ve been doing this for months.” “How much longer do you think you two have?” he asked bluntly, his voice a lot colder than he meant it to be. Her face lost the little color it had had. “I don’t know,” she said listlessly. “I can’t tell because I don’t feel right—don’t feel whole—without Aubrey. So a piece of me is missing whether I’m being drained by a serial killer or not.” “All right, then, let’s not push it.” He gentled his voice. “You’re tired.” “I’m always tired.” “I’ll take you home. You can rest and I’ll call you as soon as I have something.” “Do you have to?” Raef raised a brow at her. She looked away and he saw some color in her cheeks. Before he could say anything she seemed to collect herself and turned her eyes back to his. Their gazes met and held. “I know you have a thing for Aubrey. That’s fine.” Lauren looked away. “That’s weird,” he said, wishing she’d meet his gaze again. “She’s dead.” “That’s fine,” she repeated as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t want to stay because I want to have sex with you or anything like that.” When he just stared at her, she added, “Not that you’re not an attractive man. You are. Really. Obviously my sister thinks so, and she and I have similar tastes in men.” She pushed a thick strand of blond hair from her face, looked up at him. This time her cheeks were bright pink. She was beautiful. His throat felt dry. He cleared it. When she didn’t continue speaking he prompted, “You and Aubrey liked the same guys?” Then he realized what he’d said and he hastily added, “Not that I’m into twin sex fantasies or anything too weird.” “Define too weird.” Her eyes found his again. And damned if his cheeks didn’t suddenly feel hot. “Well, after what happened last night between your sister and me, I think my definition of too weird is changing.” Lauren’s smile was warm—so warm it made his skin tingle. She gave a little laugh. “Okay, before this gets too crazy, let me start over. Raef, I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me stay here until we find my sister’s killer. I mean, if you don’t mind too much.” “That might be days or weeks,” Raef said. “It can’t be,” she said, no longer smiling or blushing. “There’s no way Aubrey and I have that long.” She drew a long breath. “The truth is that every time Aubrey gets ripped out of here and takes part of me with her, I’m afraid I may never come back. For some reason you are able to get me back. I don’t think you always will be able to, but for right now being around you makes me feel as safe as I’m able to feel.” Ah, shit, no! he thought. What he heard himself say was, “Fine. You can stay. But you get the couch.” “That’s perfect. I like to go to sleep watching TV.” “That shows a lack in your upbringing,” he said. “To say the least.” “What, rough time with nannies?” he asked sarcastically. “Mother doesn’t believe in nannies. She didn’t have any. Mother also doesn’t believe in children, especially not girl children. Sadly, she had two of them. And our father never paid any attention because we weren’t a son. Here’s a news flash—you don’t have to live in a trailer to be abused as a child.” “Hey, sorry. That was out of line of me,” he said, feeling like a douche bag. “Don’t worry about it. Almost everyone assumes Aub and I are spoiled rich girls.” She shook her head wearily. “Were, I mean. She’s dead. I have to start remembering that.” “All right, that’s enough. Let’s go.” Raef gestured for her to come out from behind his desk. “Are you making me leave?” He hated the soft, scared tone of her voice. “No, I said you could stay. I may be an ass, but I don’t break my word. What I’m making you do is take a nap.” She stopped halfway down the hall. “Seriously?” “Naps are healthy. Again, this shows another lack in your upbringing.” “I can assure you that’s only the second of many,” she said, following him to the wide leather couch that was already loaded with soft pillows and a faux-fur throw. She plumped a pillow, kicked off her shoes and curled up on her side, pulling the throw up to her neck. “You know, it really does look like a girl lives here.” “I didn’t realize pillows, a blanket and a few antiques and art were gender specific.” “Your pillows are baby-blue and cream, your throw is faux leopard and your art is Ert?. I have two words for you, and they’re hyphenated—girl-like.” She was looking at him through big blue eyes that were ringed with shadow, her hair was already rumpled and she was all curled up in a ball that he thought was so little he could almost pick her up and toss her into the other room—but she had an impish smile and a lifted chin that said she’d dare him to try. Raef liked her. Really liked her. He leaned down, clicked on the universal remote and handed it to her. “Girl-like or not, I also have all the cable channels—in HD.” “That’s not girl-like. That’s civilized.” He chuckled all the way back to his office. RAEF TRIED TO WORK, but it was an exercise in frustration. He searched the internet for everything he could find about the three tree doctors, and then stared at their websites. Nothing stood out and screamed psychic serial killer about any of them. Melnore, a white guy in his mid-thirties, was divorced and had a part-time kid, or at least that’s what his Facebook page said. Elwood, another white guy, didn’t have a Facebook page. His website had a fish with a cross in it and by his Photoshopped picture he looked to be late thirties to early forties and in denial about balding. “Great, a church boy. He’s gonna be fun to research.” According to the TU faculty website, Braggs completed the white, middle-aged trifecta. He was single and newly tenured at the university. His faculty picture was standard conservative suit and tie. He looked professorially boring. His bio didn’t mention any family. He needed a haircut, but besides that looked as harmless as the other two. “Could be any or all of them.” Raef pushed his chair back from his desk and rolled his shoulders. He felt like shit. Not hungover anymore, but tired and woolly-headed. He glanced at the computer clock—just after noon. Preston would be at lunch. He wouldn’t call for at least the next hour or so. “Combat nap time,” he told the air around him, then he padded quietly down the hallway and stole a peek at Lauren. The TV was on, but turned way down. The day had become overcast, and the room was dim, but he could see by the light from the TV that her eyes were closed. Good. We’ll both be better off after forty winks. Raef reclined onto his wide bed, fully clothed, put his phone on Vibrate, slid it into his jeans pocket and closed his eyes. Sleep came to him like it had since his days in the military—fast and easy. Which was exactly how he came awake, too, when the feeling intruded on an excellent dream he was having about playing shortstop during the World Series. Hope! I know it’s ridiculous, impossible, but I can feel hope. Raef lay there for a moment, just soaking in the emotion. God, it felt good. Better than pleasure. Better than joy. And then he realized why he was feeling it. Aubrey had to be here. Quickly, quietly, he padded on sock feet to where he could look into the living room. He’d been right. She was there, sitting on the couch beside Lauren, who was awake. They were talking in low voices, their heads tilted toward each other, and Raef was struck by how alike they were. It wasn’t just how they looked. It was the way they moved—the way they both talked with their hands. As he watched, Aubrey swept back a strand of diaphanous blond hair that had floated over her face, just like Lauren had been doing all morning. She said something Raef couldn’t hear, but it had Lauren giggling and then pressing a hand over her mouth, as if she’d just laughed at something mischievous—or raunchy, Raef thought as he watched Lauren fan herself like her face was suddenly hot. He didn’t think he’d made a noise, though he was smiling, but Aubrey chose then to look around her sister and straight at him. “Come on in, Kent. We have a proposition for you,” she said, sounding both mischievous and raunchy. 9 “What’s the proposition?” he asked, wondering why even though he sounded reluctant his feet were propelling him quickly to join the two women. “Aubrey wants to give you something,” Lauren said, still looking flushed-cheeked and sounding a little breathless. “But I need Lauren’s help.” Aubrey grinned at her twin. “And she’s agreed. Happily.” Raef was almost as suspicious as he was curious. Almost. “All right, what do you want to give me?” “We’ll tell you—or rather, we’ll show you—but first I want you to promise me you’ll open your mind and your heart and be willing to just go with it.” A red flag went up for Raef, but it was hard to assess the warning when Aubrey and Lauren were both beaming full-wattage smiles at him. “I need to know what it is I’m being open about before I make that promise.” Even he could hear the bullshit in his voice. Hell, he’d agree to be open to sprouting wings and jumping off the fucking garage if those two kept smiling at him like that. “It’s part of being open, Raef. You don’t get to know what you’re promising—you get to be open to all sorts of possibilities.” Then Lauren giggled, and her cheeks got even pinker. Raef went from being curious to intrigued, and that trumped suspicious. “All right. I promise. Now, what are you two cooking up?” Aubrey stood. “Just a little hope, and that plus pleasure and joy makes for a feast.” The ghost lifted her hand and Lauren stood beside her. The women smiled at each other. “Are you ready?” Aubrey asked her. “As I’ll ever be,” Lauren said. Raef thought she sounded nervous. “It’ll be fine. I’ll drive,” Aubrey said teasingly. “You always were better at driving than me,” Lauren said. She shook back her hair and laughed. “Just do it. I’m ready to take one for the team.” Aubrey looked from her twin to Raef. She really looked at Raef—moving her gaze from his feet, all the way up, slowly, to meet his eyes. Raef felt himself start to harden. What the hell? Just her look does that to me? Then Aubrey turned her gaze back to Lauren. “Oh, please, sis! Take one for the team? This is going to be better than buttered popcorn and Raisinets!” Raef thought he heard Lauren whisper something that sounded like “Nothing’s better than popcorn and Raisinets …” but he couldn’t be sure, and what Aubrey did next blew his mind so totally and completely that he forgot everything except what was happening right before him. Aubrey and Lauren were facing each other. Lauren opened her arms and Aubrey stepped into them, as if they were going to embrace. But their joining didn’t end with a hug. Aubrey seemed to melt into Lauren. Slowly and without any of the ripping or tearing or shattering that had come before, Aubrey disappeared. Lauren was silent and still for several moments. Then she lifted her right hand. Staring at it, she traced the fingers of her left hand down her palm, wrist and forearm. “Wow, I’d forgotten.” “Lauren?” Raef asked, even though his gut told him her answer before she did. She turned blue eyes to him. Her smile widened. “No, Kent, not Lauren. Or at least not just Lauren.” “Aubrey!” She closed the few feet between them. “Yes, it’s me.” She lifted her right hand again, cupping his cheek. “You shaved just this morning, but you’re already stubbly. All that dark, manly stubble. I like it. It’s going to feel wonderful against Lauren’s soft skin.” “Possession—it’s, uh, dangerous.” He sounded like an idiot, but her touch had his pulse jumping and his dick hardening. Her hand went from his cheek to his neck. Her fingers were soft and delicate and so, so warm. They slid from there down the front of his sweatshirt, pausing over his nipple, where she used her nails, lightly, to caress him. He inhaled sharply. She smiled. “For most people it is dangerous, but we’re twins. We shared the same womb. It’s different for us.” As she spoke, Aubrey moved her hand to the waist of his jeans. There she paused again, and slipped her hand up under the edge of his sweatshirt, until her fingers touched the skin just beneath his belly button. There she used her fingernails again. Lightly she stroked naked flesh, following the waistline of his jeans. “It’s still not healthy. Not right.” Raef was breathing so hard he sounded like he was running a damn marathon. “This is where the part about promising to be open comes in.” Her fingertips moved down until they found his erection, and then she traced the long, hard line of his cock—slowly—up and down. “Kent, you strike me as a man who keeps his promises,” she whispered as she leaned into him. “Am I wrong?” “No!” The word came out with a moan of desire. “But you’re not alive. And you’re not Lauren.” “Kent, just open yourself to me and let yourself feel it.” She lifted her other hand and curled it around his broad shoulder. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/gena-showalter/after-moonrise-possessed-haunted/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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