Spirit and Dust

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.”