“Adam Harrison,” she said softly.
He nodded. “Adam had a son, Josh, and Adam adored him. He died, but he still hung around Adam, trying to help, even though Adam couldn’t actually see him. Adam started putting together a team of people to look into cases with a paranormal angle because he always recognized the ability to see ghosts, to talk to them, in others, even though he didn’t have it himself for many years. He’s still not really able to see ghosts the way some of us can, but he’s learned to sense their presence, sometimes even get a sense of what they want. In my family, the ability—which I thought for a long time was just me being crazy—is called nightwalking. It’s being able to see what exists in a slightly different dimension, I guess. But it’s not an evil ability. It’s just frightening to some people, at first. When you think about it, though, the whole thing is actually kind of reassuring.”
“It’s reassuring to think I might end up seeing more ghosts?” she asked. She realized that at some point he had come over to the counter, leaned across it and taken her hands. She liked the feeling. It was almost as if his warmth and vitality was passing into her, as if he was giving her strength.
He gave her hands a quick final squeeze, then released them, turning back to open the oven. He grabbed pot holders and drew out a foil pan of lasagna, which he set on a trivet on the counter. Then he looked at her. “I was glad to become a nightwalker,” he said, “because it meant there was another place, another world after this one. That there was a supreme being and the essence of a person lived on.” He smiled and shrugged. “My mom was a Catholic, so my spiritual ethic has a lot of elements mixed into it. In my mind, there’s one big power, and it doesn’t matter how you recognize it or what you call it. I think a person’s time on earth is best spent learning how to be decent to others. If there is a heaven or a great white prairie in the sky, I know my parents have earned their place there. And that’s something I find reassuring.”
She stared back at him. It was a wonderful thing, belief, she had to admit.
“Want to set the table?” he asked her.
“Uh, sure.”
He was already reaching into the refrigerator for the salad makings. She slipped off the stool and started retrieving plates from the cabinet he indicated, then found silverware, napkins and glasses, and set them out in the family room, on a table that looked out over the patio.
“This is a very nice house,” she told him.
“Thanks. I like it.”
“I guess you make a decent living as a ghost buster,” she said, hoping her tone was light enough, then thinking maybe she shouldn’t have spoken at all. “Sorry, that was nosy and none of my business.”
“It’s all right. We’re paid pretty much the same rates as any investigators, but we do all right. Adam negotiates the contracts and gives us our assignments. We can turn down any case we don’t feel comfortable with, though.”
“Emil Landon just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you’d work for,” she said, and then realized the rudeness of her comment.
He laughed. “Honestly? I loathe the bastard.”
“So why did you accept the assignment?”
He shrugged. “I just figured that if Adam wanted me to, there had to be a reason somewhere. Now, even if Landon fires me, I’ll stay on it. I barely knew Tanner Green, and I knew Rudy Yorba even less, but they deserve justice. I won’t let Yorba’s death go down as an accident. Not when he was murdered.”
“You can’t blame yourself for his death,” she told him.
A slight heightening of his color told her that she had touched a nerve, and she was suddenly sorry she’d said anything.
“He might have been targeted already. I just don’t know. And that’s why solving this is so important.”
He finished fixing the salad and poured iced tea for them to drink with dinner. While they ate, the conversation flowed easily. She asked questions, he answered them, and then he asked her about her life. He was a comfortable man to be with, she thought as she found herself telling him about the other cast members and about Timothy—even about old Mrs. Teasdale and the other people at the home who made it such a nice place for Timothy to live.
The frozen lasagna was actually very good, which she hadn’t expected, and the salad was fresh and delicious. Best of all, she was starting to feel as if she had known Dillon Wolf forever.
She didn’t want to leave.
But when the dishes were washed, Clancy fed, and they’d even had coffee out back by the pool, she decided it was time to say something before she over-stayed her welcome.
“I should go home.”
“Do you have a pet?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Huh? No.”
“Then why are you worried about leaving?” he asked.
“Well, my car is still at the police station, for one thing,” she told him.
“I have friends there. Nothing will happen to it,” he told her. “Look, you’ve been scared—nearly frightened to death—tonight. Stay here. There’s a guest room. And a computer—anything you might need.”
“I shouldn’t stay. It wouldn’t be right.”
“What’s really right and what’s wrong?” he asked her. “Are you worried about what people might think? Are you worried about your grandfather?”
“No, no, Timothy’s fine. He stays at the home most of the time. I take him out for weekends, sometimes, and I had him the other night because I was afraid they were going to force him out. I don’t usually play a lot of money at the craps table. Not that I’m anti-gambling or anything. It can be fun, if you don’t get carried away. But—” She broke off, looking at him. “I’m babbling, I think.”
“Babble all you want. I still think you should stay.”
“Are you using me as bait?” she asked him. “Are you trying to lure a ghost in?”
“Aren’t you trying to get rid of a ghost?”
She laughed.
He stood. “Come on. I’ll show you the guest room.”
He was serious, she realized. Apparently he really wasn’t after her body, and she had to admit, she was somewhat disappointed. He led her to the guest room, which was done in mauve and a sand shade that complemented the desert tones of the house and yard. The guest room even had its own bath.
And a new wide-screen television.
He offered her a T-shirt and baggy sweatpants to sleep in, and she thanked him, realizing that this was the first time in what seemed like forever that she hadn’t been afraid.
That she was even ready to see a ghost.
He left her, excusing himself to go work on the computer. She showered and changed, and was somewhat dismayed to realize that she liked wearing his clothes, as if they were a touch of the man himself.
Her cell phone rang, startling her. She made a dive for her purse and answered it quickly. Sandra’s voice came over the line. “Are you all right? Why haven’t you called me? I’ve been waiting for you to call,” she chided.
“I’m fine. Did I say I was going to call?”
“No. But I’m worried sick about you. Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine. And thanks for caring and checking up, Sandra.”
“So you’re home and you’re all locked in?”
“Everything is fine,” Jessy repeated, then hesitated before adding, “I’m at Dillon Wolf’s house.”
Sandra’s shriek was so loud that Jessy winced. “You’re what?”
“Calm down. It’s not a date or anything,” Jessy said quickly. “I’m not even with him anymore.”
“You’re at his house without him?”
“No, he’s here. He’s in the other room, on his computer.”
“I’m going to want details. I hope you know that.” Jessy heard Reggie saying something in the background, followed by an excited explosion that matched her mother’s.
“What’s going on?” Jessy demanded.
“Reggie wants details, too. I told her no, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get them.”
“There are no details,” Jessy insisted. “And I’m going now. But, Sandra?”
“What?”
“Thanks for calling me.”
“You bet, kid. I’m going to keep calling, too.”
With a smile, Jessy closed her phone. It wasn’t such a bad world. She had really good friends. And she didn’t have to be afraid, at least not tonight, because Dillon Wolf was just beyond the door.
It was probably a little late to be calling anyone, but Dillon had known Dr. Doug Tarleton, one of Las Vegas’s top medical examiners, for many years. Doug either answered his phone or he didn’t. If he saw the caller ID and wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t answer. If he was sleeping, the only number that would ring through was his emergency number.
Doug answered the phone on the second ring.
“Dillon Wolf,” he said, without even a hello. “I was wondering when the hell I’d be hearing from you.”
“Well, I was trying to go through proper channels,” Dillon said.
Doug laughed. “You mean Jerry Cheever? He’s a decent cop. He’s just got a chip on his shoulder. And, frankly, he’s not as enamored of Harrison Investigations as a lot of folks are.”
“He just acts like he’s got a stick up his ass, is all,” Dillon agreed. “Maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe a bully stole his Froot Loops when he was kid. Anyway, I’ve been trying to keep the channels of communication going through him, but it seemed past time to start going straight to the source. Where did I catch you?”
“I’m still at the morgue.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I was just finishing up when the report on that young guy came in—the hit-and-run victim. Man, dead is dead, I know, but the injuries that guy had…hell. Thank God the impact broke his neck—along with crushing his rib cage, and every bone in his chest and pelvis. Anyway, I had just finished reading that—damn thing was as long as a book—when the tox reports on Tanner Green came in. Get this. The guy was tripping.”
