“I like your place,” Jackson said.
“Thank you,” Marnie told him. “It’s home. And it is mine—and I’m lucky. My tenant is my cousin. We’re both only children, so Bridget is the closest thing I have to a sister. Anyway, between us both having guest rooms, we can accommodate family when they want to visit.”
“And guests,” Jackson said. “You’re comfortable with us being here? We’ll take up all the room, you know.”
Marnie poured coffee as the two men settled into the breakfast nook.
Jackson Crow was an impressive man, with his height and the breadth of his shoulders. He was obviously friends with McFadden and seemed to regard him highly, as well.
“So,” she said, setting the coffee before him. “FBI. And how do you know McFadden—um, Bryan?” she said, realizing that she’d referred to him by his surname.
Was it somehow ridiculously too personal to call him by his given name?
“The head of our unit, Adam Harrison is—among other things—a philanthropist. He was dedicated to public theater.”
“Which means he was good friends with my parents,” McFadden said.
“So Bryan and I have known one another for several years. We recently worked a case together—kidnapped child, hidden in a bunker in the woods by one very frightening individual. Bryan found the hideout. Underground.”
Bryan said quietly, “Amazing outcome. We were all grateful. Sadly, we couldn’t explain to the parents that it was all thanks to an old fur trapper who was killed during the American Revolution.”
Marnie was glad she had set down the mug of coffee she’d poured for Jackson. Otherwise, she’d have surely dropped it.
She froze, looking from one man to the other.
“Has the ghost of Cara Barton been around this morning?” Jackson asked.
“What?” she whispered.
“Has Cara been around? You see her. Bryan told me you do.”
Marnie sat. She almost sat right on top of Bryan, and she barely noticed. She was staring at Jackson Crow.
“You’re with the FBI?”
“I am.”
“And you see—ghosts?”
“So does every member of my special unit.”
She looked at Bryan. “But you don’t belong to this unit?”
“He’s been asked,” Jackson said.
Bryan shrugged. “My brothers and I have been considering our options, one being to open a more or less ‘special’ private investigation firm. Then again, I am considering the Krewe of Hunters.”
“Our unofficial name,” Jackson said. “There are many opportunities with the unit, and each member is invited to bring forth any situation they consider to be important.”
“That’s pretty cool, really,” McFadden said.
Marnie nodded, looking a little blankly at both of them. She couldn’t find her voice for a minute. It really didn’t feel normal to discuss ghosts with one person, much less two—not when everyone seemed so casual about the fact that ghosts existed.
“I—I haven’t seen Cara this morning,” she managed at last.
“I saw her last night,” McFadden said.
“Did she see what happened?” Marnie asked.
“Yes.”
“What!” she exclaimed. “Then why are you sitting here? Why haven’t you arrested someone?”
“The man in your pool was killed by Blood-bone.”
“Blood-bone?” Marnie said.
“A man in costume, I’m assuming,” McFadden said drily.
“A man in a Blood-bone costume found this guy in my backyard, shot and killed him and walked away, and no one reported seeing anything odd in the least?” Marnie said incredulously.
“It is Hollywood,” Jackson said.
“Well, almost kind of Hollywood,” McFadden corrected.
“This is just crazy!”
“Yes, well, it is unusual,” McFadden said.
She finally realized she really was just about sitting on his lap. She blushed, aware again of just what a physical influence he had suddenly acquired over her.
Suddenly? Or had it always been there?
She didn’t know.
In that moment, she realized she didn’t want to think highly of him, she didn’t want to have to admire him and like him and even be somewhat head over heels in lust with him. It was far too frightening to feel such a draw—and to trust someone and want to be with them, as she was beginning to trust and want now.
“So, anyway, I have to get to the medical examiner’s—I’m meeting Detectives Manning and Vining there. We’ll find out what we can about the dead man from the pool,” McFadden said.
“And I’ll be hanging with you. Hope that’s all right?” Jackson asked her.
She nodded.
“Maybe I’ll get to meet Cara Barton.”
“Here’s hoping. Because you all seem just fine with it,” Marnie said.
“You will be, too, eventually,” McFadden said softly. “Lock up?” he added to Jackson.
“You bet.”
McFadden excused himself. Marnie jumped up. He took her by the shoulders and looked down into her eyes, smiling gently.
“We’re going to solve this—all of it!” he promised her.
She nodded weakly.
He headed out, and Jackson followed him to lock the door.
“It really will be okay,” the FBI field director told Marnie when he returned to the kitchen.
She sank back into a chair at the breakfast nook. He sat at the table across from her.
“Why?” she asked weakly. “I’ve gone my whole life, and now...now, all of sudden, Cara appears before me. Dead. Her ghost. Why?”
“Because she needs your help, and evidently she really loved you. She really wants you to be able to have a life.”
“But...why now? I’ve never even felt a shiver down my spine before.”
“Perhaps it has always been there—the ability. But we have abilities we only develop when we need them. And right now, Marnie, it seems you need the dead.”
*
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner was massive, and county officials often dealt with a backlog of fifty to a hundred bodies.
They were in luck that day, Vining told Bryan. The examiners were fairly caught up—and the body from the pool had taken precedence over those who were elderly and had died alone, and a few other cases that could be put on hold.
Bryan wasn’t sure what those cases might be, but the office of the chief medical examiner in every county was responsible not just for suspected murder, but for suicide, and to answer any questions when someone had died alone.
They had donned scrubs, and Vining led Bryan and Sophie down a hall, then stopped to open a door that looked as if it was for a very large refrigerator. Inside the room were row after row of silver gurneys, all holding the remains of someone who had lived and breathed not long ago. They were covered with sheets that appeared to be thin plastic, faces hidden.
They were all awaiting attention.
In death...flesh and blood, so much meat.
Bryan braced himself. He’d seldom seen ghosts in a morgue. In his experience, they only sometimes frequented morgues, burial grounds or cemeteries. They weren’t happy places, though many did feel compelled to attend their own funerals. Some tried to comfort those they’d left behind—some determined to know if they would at the very least attract a good crowd of those who then wished they’d been better friends in life.
No essence of a soul lingered in the refrigerated room of corpses.
“Yes, I can see they have a few people who need an ME’s tender care,” Bryan said.
“Crazy cities here, crazy county,” Vining said. “Thankfully, on this, we have some real help. Doc Priss is the best. She came in last night and made sure we had fingerprints from the deceased put through the system. We can hope for something, at least in the way of an ID. We’ve taken pictures we could release, but I’d rather not go that route. I’d prefer we find out on our own, if possible. But if we don’t get something by tonight, I will get his image on the news.”
Doc Priss called to them from where she was waiting at the end of the hall.