A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder

  Sam’s words both stunned and chilled me to the bone. For a long moment I couldn’t even breathe I was so scared.

  “Em,” Heath said softly. “Talk to me.”

  I opened my eyes and they immediately misted. I was terrified for myself, for my unborn child, and for Heath. “They’re all coming back,” I said to him.

  “Who’s coming back?”

  “All the demons. All the spooks we’ve locked up. They’re coming back for me all at once.”

  “Is that what Sam said?” Heath asked. He too looked extremely shaken.

  I nodded. “Oruç’s dagger has opened up a portal which is allowing the spooks to come find me.”

  Heath walked over to the bed and sat down next to me. “But that shouldn’t be possible, right? I mean, spooks create their own portals so that only they can go through them. They don’t share.”

  “It doesn’t mean they can’t,” I said. “A portal is just a portal, Heath. If one spook creates the hole and gives his permission to the others to use it, there isn’t anything that should stop them from doing that. And if a spook like Oruç, who not only hates women, but hates me in particular, decides the best way to get his revenge is by forming alliances with other spooks who’d also like to see me dead, then there’s not a lot stopping him from opening up that portal and letting all our worst nightmares run free.”

  Heath stared at me with widened eyes. “Oh, shit!”

  “Yeah.”

  And then Heath said, “If the dagger is opening up the portal, then that means that son of a bitch who stole it and just let the Grim Widow attack you has to be close by, right?”

  Another jolt of alarm went through me as Heath raced to the window and looked outside. I watched him as he lifted the blinds and peered this way and that. “I don’t see anybody suspicious,” he said.

  “He could be in the building,” I told him.

  My husband’s back stiffened and he stepped away from the window, paused, then flew out of the bedroom. I heard the front door open and close, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I was still reeling from the attack, and didn’t think I could chase after him until I’d caught my breath. Finally, Heath came back into the condo and the bedroom. “I couldn’t find anybody who didn’t belong here in the hallways or outside,” he said. “He might’ve already gone.”

  “And if we don’t know who this guy is, then we won’t be able to recognize him when he does show up with the dagger again.”

  Heath looked shaken by my words. “We’ve got to get you out of Boston,” he said. “We’ll go into hiding. Maybe we can head to Santa Fe and find a hotel or an apartment there for you to stay.”

  “Where will you be?” I asked.

  Heath got up and began to edge toward the suitcase on the floor again. “I’m gonna shut Oruç’s portal down.”

  I thought about that for a minute. Heath was a damn good ghostbuster. He’d fought by my side on dozens of ghostly encounters, and he’d always had my back, but he’d never faced anything like what was coming at me right now.

  One on one, Oruç’s demon, the Grim Widow, and Sy the Slayer had been almost more than Heath, Gilley, and I could handle. How the hell did Heath think he’d be able to take them all on alone?

  And then another thought occurred to me—and that was, if these spooks and demons were coming after me, wouldn’t they also be coming after all of us? Gilley had been on more ghostbusts than Heath, and one of those had involved one of the most vile, disturbing ghosts I’d ever had the great displeasure of meeting. A ghost named Hatchet Jack, who’d enjoyed torturing and murdering young boys.

  A chill traveled down my spine when I thought of Hatchet Jack and Sy the Slayer getting together to conspire about taking us down. “I can’t go anywhere,” I said to Heath.

  He paused the frantic motions of pulling open dresser drawers long enough to say, “You’re going, M.J. I’ll call my mom and my cousins and my granduncle. We’ll get you on sacred ground and protect you and the baby.”

  I stood up and bent to retrieve my jeans and a clean hoodie that’d missed the suitcase when Heath had heaved it over his shoulder. “Heath, we both know that even on sacred ground I could still be vulnerable. If Oruç’s demon has opened this portal and he’s encouraging every spook and demon we’ve ever encountered to come back through it, then there’s a certain demon out in Santa Fe who’s gonna love to come visit me again, sacred ground or not.”

  “Whitefeather won’t let that happen,” Heath said defensively.

  Pulling on my jeans, I sighed. “Honey, there isn’t going to be an inch on this earth that’s safe for me as long as that dagger’s portal is open.” I just knew that to be true, and looking at him, I had the feeling that my husband did too.

  Heath was holding an armload of my clothes tight to his chest. I saw him waver as his gaze traveled to the suitcase on the floor, then back to me. “I’d die if anything happened to you, Em,” he said. “Please let me take you to my family. The tribe will protect you.”

  I moved over to him and pulled the clothes out of his arms. Setting them aside, I cupped his face and said, “Don’t you think I’d also die if something happened to you? I can’t be in this world without you, Heath. I know what it does to you to lose the person you love most in the world. You never get over it. You never heal. And if I leave, they’ll all come after you. And Gilley. And the rest of the crew. You can’t face them alone. You need me, and I need you.”

  Heath’s face was a mask of pained indecision. He knew I was right, but his protective spirit and fatherly instincts were at war with the truth.

  I turned away from him to let him think it through, and quietly put my clothes back in the dresser. Then I went out to the front hall closet and got dressed in all my ghostbusting gear. When I looked up after pulling on my boots, Heath was standing in the kitchen, staring at me. “Okay,” he said when I caught his eye. “You win. It’s you and me in this thing to the end.” I knew it cost him something to admit he wouldn’t be able to deal with all the spooks on his own.

  I nodded to show him that I understood and we never needed to talk about it again.

  “Where d’you want to start?” he asked, after I’d handed him his own magnetically lined clothing.

  “The museum,” I said, grabbing an infinity scarf to hide the bruises around my neck. It was a loose scarf, but I figured I could fiddle with it in the car using the vanity mirror. I didn’t really want to be in the condo one minute longer, so, to hurry Heath along, I reached for the handle of the front door. “If we can’t reach Gopher and we don’t know who might’ve blabbed something to the wrong person about the knife, then we’ve got to work backward starting with the crime scene and figure out how the thief broke in without triggering the outside alarm, and also figure out how Oruç’s demon overcame all the magnets. There has to be a clue to the killer’s identity in all of that. And, in order to get a look at the crime scene, we’re gonna have to play nicey-nice with the police. Which means we’ll start by paying a visit to Olivera at the precinct.”

  With that I turned and pulled open the door, ready to march down to the car, but stopped short and even jumped back a little when I saw the very person I’d just mentioned, standing on my doorstep with raised fist, ready to knock.

  The police, it seemed, had saved us a trip, and the look on Olivera’s face, as her gaze settled on my neck and then shifted to Heath standing behind me, made me quickly understand that nicey-nice had up and gone out the window.

  Chapter 7

  “Detective Olivera!” I said a little too loudly.

  “Mrs. Whitefeather,” she replied. “What happened to your neck?”

  I wrapped the infinity scarf around my throat twice and pulled it up a little to cover all of the exposed skin between my chin and my collarbone. “It’s a rash,” I said. “I’m gluten intolerant and I must’ve been served something with gluten i
n it this morning at the restaurant we ate at for breakfast.”

  She cocked her head and squinted at me. “Oh, yeah? I’m gluten intolerant too. I’d hate to go to that same restaurant. Where’d you eat?”

  My mind went blank. I couldn’t think of a single restaurant. Not one. “Um . . . ,” I said, fumbling for the name of literally any restaurant. “I . . . it was . . . McDonald’s.”

  She cocked one eyebrow. “You’re gluten intolerant and you ate at McDonald’s?”

  “I figured the egg and hash brown special would be safe,” I said, fiddling nervously with the scarf.

  Her eyebrow remained cocked. “I’ve never seen anybody break out in a rash quite like that,” she said. “Mind if I take a look?”

  “Yes, actually,” I said, tucking the scarf more snuggly into the top of my jacket. “Anyway, my rash isn’t important. What is important is that we need to talk to you about the break-in at the museum.”

  Olivera studied me suspiciously. “I’m listening.”

  “We want your permission to take a look at the crime scene,” Heath said from over my shoulder.

  “Why?” she asked, her eyes narrowing even more at him.

  “Because what happened shouldn’t have happened,” he said simply. “There’s no way that demon could’ve overcome the electromagnetic field created by all the magnets in that room. Something else was at play there, and if M.J. and I can just take a look at the scene, maybe there’ll be something there that will offer up a clue about the killer’s identity.”

  “My CSI team has been all over that room, Mr. Whitefeather. If there was a physical clue there, we would’ve found it.”

  “So what’s the harm in having us take a look?” I asked.

  She crossed her arms. “I’m not sure yet. But your names keep getting connected to trouble, which is why I’m here.”

  A note of alarm went off in my mind. And I knew some other terrible thing had happened, even as Detective Olivera continued. “You mentioned a former detective in San Francisco who could vouch for you. It took me almost two hours, but I finally found a murder case connected to an Inspector MacDonald where the victims were stabbed and the murder weapon—an antique dagger—mysteriously went missing from the evidence room.”

  Olivera pulled out a file from the inside of her coat. From that she extracted a photo of the dagger. Of course it was Oruç’s. “The murder weapon was photographed before it came up missing,” she said. “Look familiar, Mr. and Mrs. Whitefeather?”

  “Okay,” I said, with a shrug. “So what? Inspector MacDonald entrusted us with the dagger. Yes, that was wrong, but people still went to jail. Justice was still served.”

  “I’ll say,” she said. “I talked to an inspector this morning about your old pal. He came up in a police report from last night, as a matter of fact.”

  A cold shiver vibrated along my shoulder blades. “What happened?” Heath asked urgently.

  “Ayden MacDonald was found in the airport parking garage beaten to a pulp. He’s sustained severe injuries.”

  I gasped and put a hand over my mouth. My knees buckled slightly and Heath caught me, steadying me as I absorbed the news. “No!” I whispered. “No, no, no, no, no!”

  “In his pocket,” Olivera continued as if I hadn’t reacted at all, “was a one-way ticket to Logan. I’m assuming he was coming here to meet with you about the missing dagger?”

  “He was,” Heath said. “We were expecting him around three this afternoon.”

  I took an unsteady breath and tried to hold back the tears that were flowing down my cheeks. Even though I hadn’t had a lot of contact with Ayden since our time in San Francisco, I still considered him a dear friend.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I figured.”

  My mind was spinning. I couldn’t imagine Ayden dropping his guard enough to let somebody sneak up on him and pummel him nearly to death. He was too much of a seasoned investigator for that. “Do the police have any leads?” I asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “His wallet and watch were stolen, so the police initially thought he was mugged. That is, until I told the inspector all about the two of you and the murder at the museum. Said you two could be involved in MacDonald’s attack, and I’m here to inform you that he’s pretty anxious to talk to you.”

  I wanted to yell at Olivera. She was being mean on purpose. “Of course we didn’t have anything to do with Ayden’s attack!” I snapped. “We were with you until close to midnight last night, remember? There wouldn’t have been time to catch a plane, fly to California, beat up Ayden, then get back here in time for this stimulating discussion!”

  “How much money did you make last year, Mrs. Whitefeather?” she asked nonchalantly.

  I shook my head. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “Humor me,” she said. “What’d you pull down last year?”

  It was my turn to cross my arms. “Well, let’s see, I made a sum total of none of your damn business, Detective. What’d you make last year?”

  She smirked. “Funny. I made a whole lot less than that last year, which is my point. You two had to pull down some serious cash for this movie, and that cash can be spent in a lot of ways. If you two did steal back the dagger, and this former inspector got wind of it and wanted to come investigate, you’ve certainly got the means to hire someone out in San Francisco and shut MacDonald down before he even gets on the plane.”

  I turned to look at Heath. “Can you believe this bullshit?”

  “Em,” he said softly, and laid a hand on my shoulder.

  I took a deep breath. He was right. She was pushing my buttons on purpose, trying to see how I’d react. Reining in my temper, I turned back to her. “Detective, we didn’t hire anyone to hurt Ayden. He’s our friend. A close friend actually. Which means one of two things is at play here: One, he was actually mugged, or two, whoever stole the dagger has an accomplice and they’re the ones who made sure that Ayden didn’t get on the plane. Which means this thing is a whole lot more complicated than we originally thought.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked me.

  “It means that stealing the dagger and unleashing the spooks and demons was only part of the plan. The other part seems to be causing those of us trying to keep it under wraps harm.”

  Olivera tapped her finger on the side of her arm. I knew she believed me, but I also knew she didn’t want to. “Okay, Mrs. Whitefeather, who do you think took the dagger and murdered Phil Sullivan?”

  I sighed. “I don’t have any suspects in mind, but if you’ll just let us look at the crime scene, maybe there’ll be something there that will stand out to us. And it’ll help us help you.”

  “All right,” she said easily, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was short-lived.

  “I’ll take you to the crime scene, but only after you tell me why it looks like someone”—she paused long enough to look meaningfully at Heath—“choked you hard enough to cover your neck in bruises.”

  My hand reflexively went to my throat to make sure the scarf was still in place. With a sigh, I realized she was waiting for exactly that reaction. “It’s not what you think,” I said.

  “It never is,” she said drily.

  “The problem with the truth, Detective, is that you won’t like or believe it. But the truth is that I was attacked here just half an hour ago. My husband was the one who saved my life.”

  Her arms fell away from their crossed position. “Did you call nine-one-one?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, as far as I know, your station doesn’t have a demon investigation unit.”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Are you really going to make jokes with me right now, Mrs. Whitefeather? Do you get that I could haul your husband down to the station on suspicion of domestic abuse? Th
e bruises alone are enough to send him to a holding cell.”

  I took a step toward her. “Have you watched our movie, Detective Olivera? Seen any of the footage we took in Scotland?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then you’re right. Of course you don’t know that I’m not joking. I’m not joking about any of this. The demon spook we encountered in Scotland is back. She attacked me in my bathroom as I stepped out of the shower. She did this,” I said, pulling down the scarf, “and a couple of years ago, she nearly drowned Heath and put him in the hospital. She’s a killer, and she’s loose, and this dagger is at the center of everything.”

  Olivera squinted at me. I held her gaze. “You guys ever see a shrink or spend time in a mental institution?”

  I sighed heavily. “We’re not crazy. You need to watch the movie.”

  “What’s that going to prove?” she said. “Other than Hollywood is very good at special effects?”

  I turned back to Heath and threw my hands up in the air. How do you reason with someone so skeptical?

  “We could take her to Mrs. Ashworth’s place,” he said, and I brightened.

  Lucy Ashworth was an elderly woman who owned several old apartment buildings all around Boston. Heath and I had been working to clear a couple of spooks from her properties in the weeks leading up to our newfound wealth and success. We’d easily taken care of all of the spooks that’d been causing disturbances in her apartment buildings, save one, and that spook had refused to leave. No amount of cajoling or coaxing could get Mrs. Grady—who’d died in 1999—out of the Ashworth Commons Apartments.

  As spooks went, Mrs. Grady wasn’t especially dangerous—just mean. Or, better yet, she was temperamental . . . emphasis on mental. She liked to shove people and throw things. She also liked to shriek in your ear at two a.m., and I can tell you from personal experience that spook was loud.