Spirit and Dust

38


THE JUDGE’S GAVEL fell, and Carson was off the hook for everything but the motorcycle theft, since two FBI agents had actually seen him do it. Some of that might have been luck, or extenuating circumstance, or even a lot of payoffs—like two car owners and some museum boards—or the fact that when it came right down to it, no one could really explain what happened at the Field Museum that day.

And of course, Carson had all the dirt on his father’s criminal activities. Not just a whale, but a whale of a whale with a really big headline takedown. The making of a DA’s career. I wasn’t in on the details, but I bet they were happy to work with Carson and his high-priced lawyer.

At the verdict, the courtroom erupted in camera flashes and reporters calling out questions. From a few rows back, I watched Carson stand and shake his lawyer’s hand. He was looking a lot better than the last time I’d seen him. Which, really, was not a stretch. It had been two months, and I’d only seen his picture on news websites until I returned to Chicago with Agent Taylor to testify at the hearing.

My cousin Amy, who’d come from Texas for moral support, asked, “Ready to get out of here? Or do you want to say hi?”

“He knows I’m here. Trust me. If he wants to talk to me, he’ll find me.”

She gazed at me for a long moment, ignoring all the people trying to get past us in the busy courtroom gallery. “You know, guys are weird. Sometimes, when they think they’ve offended you—because they have—they don’t know how to come talk to you, because they think you don’t want them to, and they’ve been raised to respect when a girl doesn’t want them around.”

I took that advice for what it was worth. “Sorry, Amaryllis. You’re not exactly the expert on smooth-sailing romance.”

She frowned in equal parts annoyance and embarrassment. “Well. Things sometimes work out for the best in spite of our best efforts to screw them up.”

The crowd was getting to be too much for me. Because you know who has a lot of ghost baggage hanging around them? People who spend time in courthouses. “Let’s get out of here.”

We grabbed our things and headed out to the hall. Winter involves a lot more stuff in Chicago than it does in Texas. Coats, hats, scarves, gloves. I don’t even own half that gear.

A couple of reporters waved recorders at me, asking questions, but I’d gotten good at ignoring them, and Amy had always been good at spin-doctoring the weird parts of Goodnight life without actually lying. She’d helped both Taylor and me prepare our testimony, because we didn’t want to lie and we couldn’t tell the weird parts. Not even the Goodnight charm could handle faux demigods, real mummies, and spirit dinosaurs.

Agent Taylor was down the hall, talking to the judge, who’d ditched his robe for shirtsleeves in the overheated courthouse. He waved me over, and I approached warily, worried we’d been caught out in the spin-doctoring, but it seemed His Honor was just being nice.

“I wanted to thank you for your help with this case, young lady.” The judge held out his hand and shook mine heartily when I took it. “It sounded like Carson got tangled up in things way beyond his control.”

“We both did,” I said, the rote response.

The judge started rolling down his sleeves. “Well, I’d better get back to work. Thank you again, Agent Taylor. And you, Miss Goodnight.”

An unexpected glimpse of black distracted me, and Taylor had to nudge me to respond. “You’re welcome, Your Honor.”

The judge went back to his chambers, or wherever, and Taylor and I began strolling down the hall, to where Amy waited. “What bee got in your bonnet?” he asked.

“What bee in my … What are you, ninety?” I glanced over my shoulder, but the judge had disappeared. “He had a tattoo on his arm.”

“Well, yeah. Lots of people have tattoos, Daisy. Don’t get weird.”

I snorted. “Too late. So, when can I start working murders again?”

“Anytime. I’m back on duty, and you’re cleared of everything. In fact, that was why I was talking to the judge. To make sure there are no surprises here in Illinois. You’re good to go, Jailbait.”

“In two more weeks, you’ll have to stop calling me that, Jack.”

“In two more weeks, I’ll still be too old for you.”

I stared at him, stunned that he’d actually said it. Okay, he’d said it before, which was how the whole jailbait thing started. But this time, he said it like he was reminding both of us. And I wasn’t sure why it made a difference, but it did. I liked knowing it was safe to have a crush on him. But maybe not too safe.

With a careless shrug, I started walking again. “It doesn’t matter. We could never date anyway. Doesn’t the FBI have rules against partners dating? Even if I am just an unpaid consultant.”

“I’d certainly never want to date Gerard, so I never asked.”

We reached Amy, who was pretending to check her text messages, or maybe really was reading them, but also keeping an eye down the hall, where Carson was talking to his lawyer and his aunt.

Talking to them, and sliding glances my way.

“When he breaks free of them,” said Amy from the corner of her mouth, “go over there. Have pity on the guy and let him say what he has to say.”

I didn’t have to go over. When Carson wrapped up his conversation, he headed toward me. I looked around for an escape route, but Amy grabbed my arm and made me stay until Carson reached us.

He nodded to Taylor and to Amy. Then to me he said, “Hey, Daisy.”

“Hi, um, is it Chris? Christopher?”

“It’s still Carson.”

“So you’re going for the one-name celebrity thing?”

He frowned. “I was going for the ‘come over and see how you’re doing’ thing.”

“Oh.” I folded my arms and wished I knew what to do with my hands other than flap them around nervously while I talked. “Sorry.”

The four of us stood there awkwardly until Amy turned to Taylor and said, “Is there a place to get a cup of tea around here?” She blew on her hands. “Even my insides are cold. We’re a long way from Texas.”

Taylor looked reluctant to leave us, but Amy was sort of a force to be reckoned with when she got going. Then they were gone and Carson and I were standing in the hall on our lonesome. Well, as lonesome as you can be in a really busy hallway full of reporters and stuff.

“Do you want to walk for a bit?” Carson asked. “I can guess where your cousin and Taylor are going. We can walk that way and you can join them.”

I couldn’t think of a reason to say no, and there were several reasons to say yes. Just because closure is a pop-psychology cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true. My talent with the dead was sort of all about closure.

We walked all the way to the front doors in silence, and then he helped me with my coat, also in silence, and then we stepped outside, where a bunch of reporters nearly went into raptures when they saw us together. Then I stayed silent, and Carson said, “No comment, no comment,” as we shouldered through the crowd.

Which was how I found out Carson had a bodyguard. He stopped the guy from following us down the street.

“He’s just for times like this,” Carson explained. “The rest of my days are very normal.”

“Uh-huh.”

We walked for a few steps, and he said, “You look great in that suit.”

“I hate it. It looks like something a sexy TV lawyer would wear.”

“Which is probably why I like it.”

I turned to him, skipping to the entrée in this three-course dinner of awkward. “This is crazy. Why are we talking about my clothes? Why are we here at all? Do we have anything to talk about with no mummies rising or dinosaurs stepping on us? With no one trying to hijack or kill us—?”

I clapped my hand over my mouth, because that was tactless, even for me. His father was going to jail for a very long time, and his half sister was dead, which deserved respect even if she was a homicidal nut job. Not that I would put it that way to Carson.

“We’re talking,” he said, in that composed voice he used when he wasn’t feeling very composed at all, “because I want to see you.” He cleared his throat. “Like, socially.”

I folded my arms. “How is that going to work, Chicago and Texas? Do you have some frequent-flier miles to burn through?”

“Well, you’re off from school for the winter break, right? Do you have a passport? The Cayman Islands …”

“Oh. My. God. Just … no.” I started walking again, at a good clip, thanks to my long legs and a tailwind. The Windy City for sure. “I’m not going to the freaking Cayman Islands with you. Why would you even want to?”

He caught my elbow and drew me to a stop. “Because I want to find out if we have anything to talk about when not …” He tightened his jaw, then went on. “When not all those things you said.”

I folded my arms and studied him. There was no doubt he was sincere. “Why?”

“Because I like you. I like the way we fit.”

“Carson, you raised the dead. And that was before you were possessed.”

“Only once. And you put them back down again. It sounds like we’re a great team.”

“That’s why you want to see me? Because we’d make a good crime-fighting team? I already have that.”

He gave me a look. A we’re-standing-on-a-busy-sidewalk-and-people-are-taking-our-picture-but-if-we-weren’t-I-would-let-you-know-exactly-why-what-you-just-said-is-stupid look.

And suddenly Chicago didn’t seem so cold after all.

“Okay,” I said. “This is how it’s going to be. If you want to see me, you come down to Texas for the holidays. You spend them on the Goodnight farm with all my family, which contains several very intimidating chaperones. Much better chaperones than your aunt.”

He blinked. And maybe paled a little. “All your family? Can’t we just go on a date? I promise not to pick you up in a Corvette.”

“You can pick me up in a not-a-Corvette on the twenty-third. But the next two days …” I chewed my lip for a second, analyzing this impulse. “You need to see how a real family works, Carson.”

He thought about it until my nose started to run in the cold. “That sounds a lot like taking my medicine.”

“Dude!” I threw my hands in the air. “Do you want to get to know me, or do you just want a holiday hookup?”

“Why is this an either- or question?”

I made a disgusted sound and started walking again. Carson caught my arm before I’d gone more than two steps. “Hey, I’m sorry. It’s just … you’ve got a lot of family. Can’t I start small? With a cousin or something?”

I thought about it, not for as long as he did. Because I was freezing. “My cousin is in that coffee shop. Let’s start with her.”

After only a microscopic hesitation, he slid his hand down to link with mine. “Do I have to bring presents for all your family?”

“They’re not going to approve of you if you’re cheap.”

“Then I’ll have to come to Texas early so you can help me shop.”

“You can mail-order. I’d rather raise another dinosaur than go to the mall at Christmas.”

We walked along, hand in hand, like the normal couple we were not, and never would be, because we weren’t normal. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket with a text from Taylor.

What do you hear?

I thought about it. I liked not normal. Maybe I could handle being a not-normal couple.

I slipped off my glove and texted my answer with one hand while Carson and I bantered, and he held the other.

Nothing but the rain.





AUTHOR’S NOTE



I don’t usually like to use specific places in my books because (a) it constrains me to what’s actually there and (b) I tend to destroy them. But I made an exception for this book, mostly because of Sue. And how could I not use places so full of real, cool stuff?

Things that are real: the Oriental Institute, its pharaoh statue and reading room; the Field Museum with its twenty-three mummies, Great Hall, and three man-eating lions; the St. Louis Art Museum and the Little Dancer Degas bronze and room of Egyptian art.

And of course, Sue the T. rex is real. I couldn’t make that up. You can even follow her on Twitter @SUEtheTrex.

Things that are not real: pretty much everything else. I tried to keep to the true layouts and geography, but the St. Louis museum in particular got a rearrange (and has no Pompeii art or exhibit).

I love museums, and the Field Museum is awesome. You can actually watch the lab geeks work in the DNA and fossil labs. Sorry I made such a mess of the place, guys.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



I must thank, as always, my marvelous agent, Lucienne Diver, of the Knight Agency, and my editor, Krista Marino. This book went through a lot, because I went through a lot while I was writing it. They were both patient, but not so patient they didn’t push me to my best writing. Thanks also to all the staff at Random House.

Love and appreciation to the IHOP Musketeers, aka the Ninja Turtles, for listening, laughing, and butt-kicking as necessary. To Jenny Martin, Carson’s biggest fan, and my favorite writing buddy. To Kate Cornell, for asking me just the right questions to help me sort out the rough spots. To Cheryl Smyth, my magical sounding board. Yes, C, we need to work on that Goodnight family tree.

As always, love and gratitude for the support of my family and friends. It’s been a crazier ride than normal, and I couldn’t have made it without you.

And finally, to my readers, and to the bloggers, teachers, and librarians, just for being awesome.