“Like I want a child.” Shuddering, he dressed with care, not waiting for Fred to come and assist him. “A sniffling, nasty, dirty child is not anything I want near me.”
As he left his home, he told Fred that he’d be back in a week. It was time he did his own search of the Simon-English home, and there had better be some answers around for him to find. Then he was going to visit some of his mother’s estates. She had several that he used on occasion, and he needed to relax before tackling Mrs. Simon-English, the old bitch herself. He wanted his mother’s money almost as much as he wanted the West fortune. Joel Delaney was going to have it all.
~~~
Steele was sitting at the table enjoying some much needed down time and a nice hot cup of tea when someone came into the room. Ignoring him would have been easy, he supposed. He wasn’t really there, but this man looked as confused as any ghost he’d ever met. And the man had been hurt…tortured badly before he’d been killed. Steele could see that as well. When the ghost wandered around the kitchen for the second time, Steele sighed. Then he looked at Nick when he entered the room and sat at the table. He, of course, could not see the ghost just yet.
“I was thinking about taking a drive around the city for a few days. Do you think you can spare me? I need…I just need to be gone for a while.” Steele nodded to the ghost, and Nick looked in that direction. “Someone need you?”
“I would think he needs us both by the looks of him. Someone has taken a knife to his entire body and then shot him.” The ghost looked at him and then looked at his body. “I don’t think he knows just yet.”
Ghosts, for the most part, were harmless. Especially the ones that came to see him. He had rules and, as he was very well known in the spectra world, those rules were seldom not followed. This man was here on his own, but Steele would bet from the look of this guy there would be more just like him.
“I think something happened to me.” Steele told him he was sure of it. “I was…am I dead? I mean, how can I be walking around like this and not be?”
“I’m sorry to tell you, but you are. What is the last thing you remember?” The man sobbed and Steele waited. He knew that in a few minutes he’d have to tell the man he was dead again. It was as hard for them to realize that part of their demise as it was for someone being told they had a terminal disease.
“We were…there was a woman. She took us out of our home and…my wife? Have you found her yet?” Steele said that he’d not. “We were there with our family. In our house for the holidays. I think she might have killed us all. My wife and I were in the kitchen having a late…what happened to me?”
“You were murdered. What year was this, do you remember?” The man cried again but told him the year. Steele noticed that Nick was taking notes. “You’ve not been gone long, sir. Just about five months. Do you know what your name is?”
“My lovely wife. She was just sitting there and bam, that thing hit her in the head. The woman was with my oldest son. I told my wife that he didn’t look like he was sure about them, but you know how the young are.” Steele nodded and repeated everything to Nick. “She said—the woman, not my lovely wife—she said that she wanted to talk to us. Then she hit my wife. Margaret was her name. My Maggie. The woman’s name was…. I’m sorry. I can’t remember right now.”
“That’s fine. You’re doing just fine. We’re going to find you. And your family.” Nick nodded and left them, only to return a few seconds later with a laptop. “Your name is…?”
“Charlie. Charles and Margaret Hicks.” Nick was clicking away on the keyboard as Charlie continued. “My son is Charles too, but he never liked it. So he went by Sam, our middle name.”
“Did you live in Ohio, Mr. Hicks?” Nick couldn’t see the man, but he could ask him questions. “I have a missing report on Charles…I have a missing report.”
When Steele looked at the computer as Nick turned it to him, he felt his heart twist. There was a list of names on the missing report that would keep them busy for a while. Charlie said he did live there and asked again what had happened to him.
“You’ve been killed by a woman who entered your home. What can you tell me about her? Anything? Like, do you remember what she looked like? What she sounded like?” Charlie said he couldn’t remember and cried softly. “We’ll find you, Charlie. If you can take me to where you woke up now, I’ll have someone find the rest of your family too.”