Spirit and Dust

12


“WHAT THE HELL just happened?” I had to shout over the noise, since we were speeding down a country road in a car that was totally missing its rear window. All that was left was a frame of pixelated safety glass. I craned my neck to look into the backseat but saw nothing that could have caused the damage.

Carson clenched the steering wheel at ten and two, a smattering of cuts on his white knuckles. There was one on his cheek, too, blood seeping in a slow trickle. “Just hang on, will you?”

“I will not just hang on,” I said, frustration and freak-out making me shrill. “Someone just Lord Voldemorted the back end of our car! I want to know what was that flash of light and where did Mrs. Hardwicke go and, seriously, does everyone in Minnesota have superpowers?”

He ignored that and adjusted his grip on the wheel. “I mean buckle your seat belt, Sunshine. We’ve got someone tailing us.”

Sweet Saint Frances of Rome. I yanked the strap across my lap and fumbled it into the clasp just as Carson gunned the car through a yellow light to take a hard left turn from the right-hand lane. The engine whined and the tires squealed, and I may have made a couple of those sounds myself as I grabbed the door handle and braced for who knew what.

We straightened out and shot down a deserted state highway. I risked letting go long enough to look back, where a pair of headlights made the same turn we had, ignoring the red light and gaining on the straightaway.

“Are they still there?” asked Carson.

“Yep.” The wind through the missing window whipped my hair around my face and I gathered it the best I could. “Why are you heading into town?” I asked, alarmed to see the lights of the outskirts of Spring Creek.

“Quickest way to the interstate,” he said, never taking his eyes off the road. “I’m going to try to shake them on the way. Hang on.”

No argument from me this time. I sank into my seat as he punched the engine. It was just like a movie, except I couldn’t picture James Bond in a Ford Taurus. Carson took a turn without braking, miraculously not hitting the car illegally parked within twenty feet of the intersection. Another immediate left and we were in a dark warren of side streets. I hoped he knew where he was going, because I was totally lost.

And I was getting carsick, which never seemed to happen in heist movies, either.

“Will you lose all respect for me if I hurl?” I said.

He didn’t spare me a glance. “Roll down the window, because we’re not stopping.”

I didn’t dare move that far. Plus, if we flipped, I wanted all my parts inside the vehicle. So I battened down the hatches and breathed deep of the icy air coming in the back window.

Two more turns and we emerged onto the access road of the interstate. Carson took the ramp at an insane speed and we shot onto the highway like a shell from a cannon. He wove between two eighteen-wheelers, then slid into the gap between two more semis on overnight runs.

Only then did he glance at me. “Still need to stop?”

We were tucked so tight between the trucks I was surprised we didn’t have to buy them drinks first. “More than ever, if you don’t keep your eyes on the road.”

Incredibly, he smiled at that, then got back to business. “We’re going to have to ditch this car,” he said after checking the rearview mirror.

“You’re the boss.” I didn’t know anything about eluding kidnappers or police. I only knew ghosts. I was missing the graveyard, not to mention my law-abiding life. Though really, I’d settle for solid, unmoving ground just then.

“Who’s St. Frances of Rome?” Carson asked, after a glance at my face, which must have looked as bad as I felt.

Had I said that aloud? “Patron saint of automobile drivers.”

That got a half laugh. “Appropriate, the way they drive there.” He cut the headlights and the dashboard console went dark, though we were still bathed in the light of the semi behind us. “You might have another quick word with her. We haven’t quite lost them yet.”

There was an unlit turnoff ahead. It didn’t rate being called an exit. We slowed only enough for the truck behind us to ride our bumper, then slipped down the ramp at full speed. The service road plummeted out of sight and into shadow. Carson drove with calm intent, like a runner in the zone, a thrumming tension in his body as he hauled on the wheel and put the car into a skidding turn.

I prepared for death, wondering if then I would be able to talk to the living like I talked to ghosts now. But incredibly, we slid between the columns of the overpass and came to an abrupt stop before the drop-off into a drainage culvert. The engine subsided to an idle, and the car filled with the sound of our breathing. Overhead, the eighteen-wheelers rumbled like thunder across the vaulted ceiling of our concrete sanctuary.

I fumbled the door open and staggered to the culvert, where the turkey sandwich made a return appearance. I almost never eat meat. I would almost certainly never eat turkey again.

Carson killed the dome light. A moment later he was crouched beside me, making sure I didn’t tumble into the ditch while I heaved. Finally I half fell to a seat on the concrete, gasping and mortified. Wordlessly, Carson cracked the seal on a bottle of Coke and offered it to me.

It was something Agent Taylor had done a million times, and my throat clenched over sudden tears. I hoped he was all right. I hoped Alexis was all right. I felt swamped by responsibility, for them, for my family, even for Mrs. Hardwicke. The stress of it welled up until I thought I might puke again.

“This was just supposed to be a routine reading.” I let anger force the words past the choking weakness. “Find a body, point the finger, go home to Texas.”

“I know,” Carson said, his voice deep and rumbly, with something that sounded like real regret. He took off his coat and draped it over my shoulders. “Drink your soda.”

I took a swig, swished it around, and let the carbonated burn chase away the taste of deli mustard and fear. That left only anger with no target. “I was not supposed to end up freezing my ass off in a remake of Harry Potter meets The Italian Job by way of Fargo.”

“Fargo is in North Dakota.”

“I don’t need a flipping geography lesson!”

He made a shushing gesture. In the dark of the underpass, I couldn’t see much of his face, but I suspected he was trying not to laugh. “You watch too many movies.”

I restrained myself from dumping my Coke over his head. “Says the guy with getaway driver on his résumé. And just what was that with the light show back there? What else are you packing?”

“What else am I packing?” he echoed. “Have we gone back to the forties?”

“I know your buddies at the compound were armed. How do I know what you’ve got in your pants?” He choked, and so did I, for different reasons. “Pockets!” I corrected, not that it stopped his laughter or my incendiary blush. Hello, Dr. Freud, my name is Daisy.

He stood, outlined by the moonlight. Deliberately, he unloaded his trouser pockets—plastic mummy, cell phone, and wallet, handing each to me before turning out his pockets and holding his arms to his sides.

“Want to frisk me?” he said. “I don’t mind.”

He’d just handed me his phone. Did that make him trusting or complacent? If I managed to not give it back, who could I call? I could at least try to see what the geas would allow. So I got to my feet and slipped my arms into the coat before handing him the wallet and mummy, hoping he wouldn’t notice that the phone went into the jacket pocket. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

He shrugged and stowed his stuff without looking at it. “Just trying to be fair. I’ve gotten a few inappropriate handfuls this evening, so I thought I’d offer.”

“Tit for tat, I think they call that.”

That was on purpose, to distract him from the missing phone, but the surprise in his chuff of laughter made me grin. There was an intimacy in laughing with someone, turning the ridiculous exchange into something warmer, something shared. Something closer to flirting.

Sweet Saint Gertrude, what was I doing? I couldn’t flirt with him. I didn’t even know if Carson was his first or last name. It didn’t matter, because he was an employee of a criminal enterprise and I was an FBI consultant and, oh yeah, technically kidnapped and probably in the throes of some kind of Stockholm syndrome.

I cleared my throat and worked to unweave what had become a moment between us. “No big deal. I gave you the benefit of the doubt that any groping was unintentional and expedient.”

He caught one edge of the coat I wore—his coat—then the other, and pulled me a step closer, knitting the spell tighter. “I appreciate that. When I grope a girl, I don’t want to leave any doubt that it’s on purpose.”

“That’s good,” I said, way more breathlessly than I liked. Stupid Stockholm syndrome. “Expedient groping isn’t nice for anyone.”

His hold on the coat was very light, but I was caught by the sharpening speculation in his gaze. Forget firearms, that was a lethal weapon right there. Especially paired with the devilish curve of his mouth. “Are you ever at a loss for words, Daisy Goodnight?”

“Well,” I said, heady with the thought of winning this battle, “I did get a perfect verbal score on the SAT.”

“That explains it.” He trailed his fingers to my shoulders, then down my arms. His breath was warm on my cheek, stirring my hair as he leaned in. “You are good at verbal scoring.”

Oh my God, was he going to kiss me? That was so inappropriate. I’d have to tell him that afterward.

Instead he just whispered, “But not much good at picking pockets.” He stepped back, holding the cell phone up between us. “Nice try, though.”

Ass.

“Come on,” he said. While I sputtered and fumed, he changed gears as if this was all in a day’s work. “It’s two exits back to civilization.”

He started down the dark service road, abandoning the Taurus. “Are we just going to leave the car?” I asked. Who just leaves a whole car?

“It’s too easy to identify,” he said, clearly expecting me to follow him. “Button up so you don’t freeze to death.”

“What about you?” I fell into step beside him. “Aren’t you cold?” He wore only a pair of dress pants and the same blue button-down shirt I’d soaked when I coshed him over the head with the flower vase about a decade ago.

“I have the nobility of my intentions to keep me warm.” He also had his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the distant lights of one of the last outposts of sub-suburban Minnesota.

“How about a plan?” I asked. “Do you have one of those?”

“Yes.” He counted off on his fingers. “One, don’t get killed. Two, don’t get shanghaied by the same people who grabbed Alexis.”

“Yeah. Them.” The fraternity of the invisible baseball bat. “We should have demanded they show us Alexis, to make sure she’s okay.”

“That would have been counter to item two,” said Carson. “Maguire will deal with proof of … of that.”

He was going to say proof of life. Evidence that Alexis was still alive. Obviously he watched movies, too.

“I’m worried about Mrs. Hardwicke,” I said, which was not as random as it seemed. My subconscious was still gnawing on the smashed rear window and the timing of the shade vanishing.

Carson glanced at me. “Lex’s grandmother? Why?”

“There was something weird about the way she disappeared. Remnants can fade over time, or move on or dissipate. They don’t ever just … poof.”

That got me a longer study before he suggested, “Maybe she bailed? Or something happened when you dropped the necklace?”

“Possibly,” I conceded. “Except … kidding aside, I’m pretty good at this. And I’m sure of what I felt. I just don’t know what it means.”

He thought that over while we walked on in silence. Or maybe he was thinking something entirely different. But he was unmistakably contemplative, and I gave myself props for reading that much.

Our goal seemed to be a brightly lit truck stop. I was thinking wishfully about greasy doughnuts and bad coffee when Carson asked, in a tone I couldn’t read at all, “Why do you call them remnants and not ghosts?”

I chewed over how to explain. Psychics and mediums had certain common terminology, but all the ones I knew—in my family and those I’d met working with law enforcement—had their own methods of visualization. It wasn’t exactly an objective experience.

“What most people call ghosts,” I said, “aren’t like you see in movies, a whole person and personality. Most of them are just impressions or traces. Like a snapshot of a particular moment, or a looped recording of an event. Sometimes it’s nothing but an emotional resonance, like when you get a sad or creepy feeling somewhere.”

“But you talked to Mrs. Hardwicke like a real person,” he said, and I could sense that he wasn’t just making casual conversation, and this wasn’t just about Alexis’s grandmother. “You wouldn’t be worried about her if she was just some kind of … psychic looped video.”

“This is the bit that’s hard to explain.” We were almost to the truck stop, and I wanted to get this out while darkness softened cynicism and lowered barriers. “A remnant is just a piece—but it’s a piece of a soul. And a soul can’t be sliced and diced, so the whole is present in the part.”

He stopped, looking bewildered, and his gaze dropped to Saint Gertrude’s medal around my neck. “Is this a Catholic thing?”

“No.” This was a thing I’d sensed in my gut long before I donned my first plaid skirt and oxford shirt. It annoyed me when people slapped a label on something that literally transcended time and space.

“Think of it like DNA. If I cut myself and leave a blood trail, my whole DNA is in each drop, even though it’s only one part of me.”

“So where’s the rest of the soul?” he asked. “Heaven, hell … somewhere in between?”

I get this question a lot, from the desperate, the fearful, the grieving.… I usually get a handle on the reasons people ask. I didn’t have a handle on Carson. I didn’t think my grasp was long enough to reach that deep.

“I don’t know,” I said, which is not something I admit very often. “I do know that most remnants, unless they have a reason to stay, are happy to go.”

That wasn’t entirely true. I thought about the ghost that had started my day—my yesterday, really. But something in the intensity of Carson’s question made it impossible to tell him how complicated it could be.

“What do you mean, a reason to stay?”

I shrugged and started walking again. “Bits of spirit cling to things like fingerprints sometimes. But if we’re talking a cognitive-type shade—well, there’s unfinished business or some traumatic event. Some remnants get stuck in a rut and don’t know the rest of them has moved on. And sometimes someone leaves a piece of themselves behind voluntarily. My uncle Burt, for instance. He’s not leaving my aunt Hyacinth until she kicks off and can come with him.”

“Very sweet,” said Carson, trying for cynicism and not quite making it.

“Lots of ghosts like to pop in now and then to check in on their loved ones, or hang out in their favorite—”

“Haunts?”

I rolled my eyes and gave him that one.

His mood lightened to its usual … whatever it was. I’d been wrong to call it stoicism. That implied a lack of emotion, whereas Carson’s demeanor allowed humor and irritation and a few other things that had distracted me when I should have stayed on task. But I was on to him now.

“Carson,” I said as we reached the edge of the neon island around the truck stop. He turned, wary at my preparatory tone. I pushed my wind-tangled hair behind my ears and squinted up at him. “Have you lost someone close to you?”

“Why do you ask?” His cheeks were bright red with cold. “Do I have someone checking up on me?”

I shook my head gently. I admit I can be abrasive with the living. But I know how to be kind with the grieving. And bone-deep instinct told me that Carson, despite the careful casualness of his tone, had lost someone important to him. “I don’t sense anyone around you. But I can look more closely if you want.”

There was a nanosecond when he thought about it. And then we’d moved on. “Don’t bother.” He hooked a hand under my arm and hurried us into the outpost of transportation and commerce. “Come on. I’m freezing and you’re starving. I’ve been listening to your stomach growl for the past ten minutes.”

Nice. I’d been expounding on the metaphysical mysteries of the universe and that was all he noticed?

Except I wasn’t fooled. His demeanor was only a part of the whole. The Carson he let people see was just a remnant, with his soul hidden in an unknown beyond.