Spirit and Dust

  At least Carson seemed as annoyed by that as I was. So we agreed on something.

  The room seemed smaller somehow, once he’d taken charge. He had a trick of fading out when he was with Maguire and Lauren, standing still and contained, as if he were just the muscle, waiting for orders. It would be easy to underestimate him. Maybe that was why he did it.

  But now he was all business. “Yes, of course we did an Internet search for the Oosterhouse Jackal. Nothing useful came up, but Maguire has people on it.”

  I was sure he did. Scary people without the restrictions of, oh, say, jurisprudence or civil liberties. My job was to follow the clues to Alexis. That was what I’d sworn to do.

  But something kept nagging at me. I mulled over what it might be as I went back to the curio case, looking at the stuff Alexis had collected, picking up the figurine Lauren had warned me away from. It actually did look old, even felt that way to the touch. But to my other senses it was oddly … inert. At any rate, it was not cursed from the tomb.

  When I turned, Carson was watching me, as if curious when the show would start. “I still don’t get it,” I said, fidgeting with the carved stone. “Why would the kidnappers ask for something that Maguire doesn’t have, or even have access to?”

  “Lauren and I have a theory,” he said. “We think Alexis knows what it is or where to find it. So maybe the kidnappers assumed the boss does, too.”

  “Her dorm room was totally trashed,” I said. “It could be they were looking there for this jackal thing. Whatever it is.”

  He took the stone figurine from my hand and placed it with care back on the shelf. “She wouldn’t keep anything valuable in her dorm. It’s too unprotected.”

  No argument there. But his point did spin up a new idea. “This place,” I said, meaning Castle Maguire, “is like a freaking fort. When was Alexis last home? Could she have hidden something here?”

  “About a week ago,” he answered. “The mansion would be a safe place to keep something secure from outsiders. We thought of that, and Lauren did her divination thing. There’s no sign of anything on the property.”

  “Yeah, but if you don’t know exactly what the Jackal is, any kind of locating spell would be only slightly better than guessing.” I knew that much, because it was usually the same for psychics.

  I’d also caught his qualifier—safe from outsiders. Where would Alexis keep something she didn’t want Maguire to know about?

  “Is there a picture of Alexis somewhere? Maybe a photo album?” I wanted to get a better image of her physically to see if that helped at all.

  Carson nodded to a wall that separated the sitting part of the suite from the bedroom part. It held a decorator-perfect arrangement of frames, but when I went closer I saw that the shots were mostly candid: teenage Alexis with glasses and braces, slightly older Alexis with straight white teeth, arms around her girlfriends, all of them wearing school uniforms a lot like the one I’d worn to Our Lady of Perpetual Snobbery in San Antonio. There was Alexis in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, on the ski slopes of the Alps, in front of the British Museum and the Trevi Fountain.

  The only picture with her father was also the only formal portrait, one of those where they try to make it look unposed and natural but it just ends up looking like a magazine photo of a happy family. Maybe it was a magazine shoot. In any case, Alexis and her father didn’t look miserable, but their body language was almost businesslike.

  Contrast that with the one picture of Alexis with Carson. He wore a tux—and wore it really well—and they leaned into each other, grinning cheekily at the photographer. The photo couldn’t be very old, but the carefree guy in the photo seemed a lifetime of experience from the young man standing nearby, watching me with folded arms.

  I pointed to the picture. “Did someone put a happy spell on your prom tuxedo or what?”

  He allowed himself a shadow of that smile. “Alexis’s first sorority formal, our freshman year. She went to an all-girls high school and hadn’t dated much until then, and she was wary of asking a stranger.”

  Yeah, I could see where having Devlin Maguire as a dad would impede romance, with the bodyguards and all. So who was Carson to her? He would have been too young to be Maguire’s employee then. He still looked too young now.

  “How long have you known Alexis?” I asked, moving to the nightstand to poke around. The something was still nagging at me. Something besides curiosity about Carson.

  His answer was unobliging. “A while.”

  “Since you started college?” I asked, undeterred.

  “Since before.” He obviously knew I was fishing for information on more than just Alexis, and he gave me a grudging morsel. “Maguire sent me to school.”

  I paused in my drawer rifling. “Is that why you work for him?”

  He smiled slightly, but the humor in it was bitter. I’d hit a nerve. “That would be the simplest answer.” It was also clearly the only one I was going to get. “Are you finding anything?” he asked. “Or just pretending to look while you give me the third degree?”

  “Trust me,” I said, tough, like I was some badass ghost interrogator. “If I give you the third degree, you’ll know it.”

  I shut the bureau drawer. This room was neat as a pin, cleaned regularly, and totally unhelpful on a psychic level. What I needed was a dead person.

  “There aren’t any pictures of Alexis’s mom,” I said, suddenly noticing. “Where is she?”

  “Gone,” said Carson.

  “As in dead?” I asked, maybe a little too hopefully.

  The corner of his mouth turned up at my tone. “As in remarried and living in Europe.”

  “What about a grandparent or an aunt or uncle?” I asked. “Someone she was close to, who might check in on her from the beyond now and then?”

  “Her maternal grandmother.” He must have followed my line of reasoning, and anticipation sparked in his eyes, though he kept it tightly reined in. I suspected Carson kept everything tightly reined in. “Lex—Alexis, I mean—always spoke of her fondly.”

  “Excellent. Grandmothers are the worst busybodies.” I rubbed my hands together, shifting into higher gear. I pretty much never reined anything in. “Does Alexis have something of hers? Anything intimate or personal should do.”

  “How should I know what’s intimate or personal to her?” asked Carson.

  “Dude, you were her backup date. Obviously you’re close.” I had been actively ignoring the “dead” part of the spectrum, so as not to overshadow the “live” part that I didn’t See very well. Now I refocused and scanned the room intently for some hint of remnant.

  “What do girls inherit from their grandmothers?” I asked. “China. Knickknacks … How about jewelry?”

  Carson, jolted by the suggestion, turned toward a painting on the wall. As soon as I focused on it, I felt a faint psychic hum. A wall safe, maybe?

  We nearly raced each other to it. Sure enough, Carson swung the frame from the wall to reveal a safe with a keypad lock, and the something went from nagging to unrelenting.

  “It’s been there all along, but I’ve been trying to focus on Alexis.” I felt like an idiot. “We’ve wasted so much time. The jackal might be in there right now!”

  Carson shook his head and started keying in a number. “I already looked. There’s nothing in here but jewelry. But maybe there’s something for you to read.…”

  He glanced down at me, breaking off when he saw my narrow-eyed stare. So he didn’t know where Alexis kept her intimate stuff, but he knew the combination to her safe? “There’s a master code,” he explained, correctly interpreting my suspicion. “The boss gave it to me this morning so I could search.”

  So I was right. The mansion was not the place to keep something hidden from Maguire. Alexis would know that. Carson would, too. But whose side was he on? He was obviously loyal—maybe obedient would be a better word—to the boss. On the other hand, he didn’t seem happy about that. So maybe there was nothing obvio
us here at all.

  I pushed that thought aside as Carson opened the safe door and pulled out a velvet-lined tray full of sparkle. I had never seen so many gemstones up close. The fire inside them was downright hypnotic.

  But the stones weren’t what called to me. It was a pile of pearls. Their glow was softer, like warm, pale skin. And more, they seemed to hum, raising gooseflesh on my arms as I dipped my fingers into the tray and pulled them free into a long, perfectly matched strand. The necklace sang with impatient intensity.

  “It’s about time,” chided a voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere. “I’ve been waiting an age for you to get to me, young lady.”

  8

  THE SHADE OF Alexis’s grandmama was head-to-toe haute couture, from pearls to little black dress to classic pumps. Her brown hair was swept up à la Audrey Hepburn, and I was sure she could have breakfasted at Tiffany’s in her day.

  She looked down her nose at me and sniffed. “Stop gaping, dear girl, and show some manners. It’s bad enough your generation goes around uncovered half the time.”

  I closed my mouth and smoothed the pleats in my skirt before I could stop myself. I’d gone to Catholic school for twelve years. When a woman in black says jump, I don’t wait to ask how high.

  The apparition didn’t surprise me, but the strength and suddenness of it did. I figured I’d have to coax the threads of personality from the necklace into something coherent. But this shade was very sharp, as if fed daily by memory.

  Carson had startled when I did, but he seemed to be following my gaze rather than sighting on his own. “Can you see her?” I asked him.

  He shook his head and reached out, as if testing the wind. “It’s not as cold as I thought it would be.” The ghost gave his hand a scathing look, and he pulled it back as if she’d stung him. “I take that back. Brrr.”

  “Let me do the talking,” I said. “And keep your hands to yourself.” Remnants needed careful handling. They couldn’t always be reasoned with like a whole living person because they didn’t have whole-person logic. Sometimes they were a snapshot of a moment in time. Sometimes they were a hodgepodge of steps in their life’s journey.

  Like the woman in front of me. She seemed to be in her late twenties—a lot of shades appeared the way they had at a favorite time of life—but she had all the imperiousness of an elderly society matron.

  “What do you mean you were waiting on me?” I asked.

  She made an impatient noise. “I heard your voices. I haven’t been able to rest since Alexis was last here. I knew something was wrong, and now the two of you are here, poking around like a pair of common thieves.…”

  I hurried to reassure her. “We’re not here to steal anything, Mrs.…”

  My leading pause hung empty. She assessed me for a long moment before finally filling it. “Mrs. James Hardwicke the Third. You may call me Mrs. Hardwicke.”

  “Right.” Mrs. Hardwicke was kind of fascinating. She’d obviously had a very clear self-image in life, which had carried over into death.

  “Is it Lex’s grandmother?” Carson asked me. “What is she saying?”

  The matron shot him a look. “If you’re going to grope a lady, young man, you might at least address her directly.”

  We’d wasted so much time already, I shouldn’t have wasted more being amused by that. “She says you should apologize for groping her.”

  To my surprise, Carson blushed. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. It was inadvertent.”

  “Humph,” she said, giving him a quick inspection. He was a bit rumpled from our tussle, and he had the barest hint of God-knows-what-o’clock shadow along his jaw. His short brown hair stood up all over, and his trousers had no hint of a crease.

  “When Alexis was last here,” I pressed Mrs. Hardwicke, “what made you worry about her?”

  “Her demeanor, of course. She was very anxious. A grandmother can tell these things.”

  “Anything else?” I asked. Had Alexis known someone was after her, or this jackal thing? “Did she do something unusual? Leave anything behind?”

  “Nothing but the key,” said Mrs. Hardwicke, as if this should be obvious.

  “The key?” I echoed, half for Carson’s benefit.

  “What key?” he asked, still holding the tray of jewelry like a plate of canapés.

  Alexis’s grandmother sighed. “The key she put into the safe, of course. That was the last time I saw her.”

  I elbowed Carson aside and peered into the eye-level safe. There were two shelves. The jewelry had come from the lower one, and the upper one was empty.

  “There’s nothing,” said Carson. “I looked.” He set down the tray and peered over my shoulder. In another situation, his breath on my ear would have been very distracting.

  “You’re blocking the light,” I said, though really I just needed him to step away so I could concentrate. There was something. My psyche caught the whiff of dirt and ash and the hollow sound of metal and stone. I needed both hands, so I looped the strand of pearls around my neck. Then I reached into the safe, feeling along the shelves and sides.

  I tapped on the back and it rang hollow. With a press of my fingers, a panel slid away, and a cold piece of metal fell into my hand. The psychic vibration ran up my arm like a live current and knocked me backward into Carson, who caught me around the waist as the object fell to the carpet with a heavy thunk.

  “Honestly,” said Mrs. Hardwicke, tutting in disapproval, “the way you girls throw yourselves into a man’s arms these days. No finesse.”

  With a little groan, I struggled to get my feet under me. “Next time I’ll try for a dignified swoon.”

  “What was that?” Carson asked, steadying me until I stopped wobbling.

  I gestured to the floor. There lay an old-fashioned key, about five inches long including the sturdy filigree on the end. “Alexis hid that. It must be important.”

  “No, I mean that jolt you got,” he said, still hovering. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” Waving off his concern, I crouched to retrieve the key but first had to work up the nerve to touch it again.

  “Let me,” said Carson, grabbing it before I could. He held it up to catch the lamplight on its dull bronze surface. “I’m guessing this has got some ghostly kick to it?”

  Mrs. Hardwicke’s shade peered over our shoulders, a very human move. “Well, it should,” she said. “It’s the key to a mausoleum.”

  I turned to her in surprise. “How do you know?”

  She sniffed, and went to her “foolish mortals” tone. “Because it’s the key to my mausoleum, of course.”

  Long-standing remnants could be awfully pragmatic about their state of being. It made a nice but startling change from the recently dead wig-out by Bruiser’s shade.

  “What now?” Carson asked, sounding frustrated with the one-sided conversation.

  I blinked him into focus and he raised his brows to reiterate his impatience. Ingrate.

  “You are very pushy.” I stalled, because knowledge was gold and I was still processing this nugget. “Agent Taylor never rushes me while I work.”

  He gave a satisfying twitch of annoyance, then held up the key between us. “What. Is. This?”

  Alexis had hidden the key from everyone—including Maguire. That was important. So whatever the key opened—the mausoleum—had to be important, too.

  “What sort of girl-detective game are you playing, young lady?” demanded Mrs. Hardwicke as the silence lengthened. Her aura was keen and protective. “I’ve seen this young man”—she nodded at Carson—“with Alexis. But who are you?”

  Behind Carson was the picture from the sorority dance, and I saw that Alexis was wearing the pearls. That explained how Mrs. Hardwicke had seen him—she seemed to be tied to the jewelry. Otherwise she would have called to me as soon as I entered the room.

  “I’m here to help Alexis,” I told Mrs. Hardwicke. That was the rock-bottom truth. There was no debate about whose side I was on. Maguire had bound
me, but Alexis was my priority.

  Where did Carson fit into that? He was still waiting for me to answer him about the key. Where was his loyalty?

  Before I could answer him, something caught his attention. If a guy could prick up his ears like a dog, Carson would have alerted like a Doberman pinscher.

  With startling speed, he palmed the key and shoved the tray of jewelry into my hands. “Stow that and close the safe,” he ordered in a murmur, then stepped around me, heading across the suite just as the door flew open.

  “The cavalry is here.” Lauren’s voice carried around the bookcase that hid me, and the safe, from view. “Time for Elvis to leave the building.”

  9

  I COULDN’T EXPLAIN why I jumped to do what Carson said, except that I trusted Lauren less than I trusted him. Blocked from her view, I whisked the velvet-lined tray into the safe. I started to put the pearls back as well, but Mrs. Hardwicke’s voice stopped me.

  “Take me with you.”

  What? I asked her silently, my hand poised at the back of my neck. Why?

  “I know what you are,” she said, in a weird mix of plea and direct order. “You must help Alexis. I can help you do that.”

  From the other side of the suite I heard Carson say to Lauren, “It took them longer than I thought to get a warrant.”

  He meant the FBI, and a lightning strike of hope lit my heart. Agent Taylor—the cavalry—was on his way.

  I closed the safe and swung the painting to cover it, my brain running double time. If Lauren’s spell was working, Taylor still thought I was asleep on that smelly couch in the office. I needed to give him some kind of heads-up. Not for myself, but for my family. If anything happened to me, he would have to protect them from Maguire.

  Could I leave him a clue and get my message across? Taylor hadn’t ever shown any sign of ESP, but he had instincts that were almost as good. While I had the chance, I unlooped the pearls from around my neck and unfastened the chain I was wearing in the same movement. The pearls I slipped into my skirt pocket, feeling Grandmama Hardwicke fade to a bare psychic stirring. My own necklace and pendant I hid in my hand, just as Lauren called to me.