Ghost Hunter

Chapter 19

SHE AWOKE TO A NAGGING HEADACHE AND A FAMILIAR little psi buzz. A small paw gently patted her cheek.

Elly opened her eyes and looked at Rose, huddled beside her on the pillow. The dust bunny had a fresh green flower clutched in one paw.

"You went out last night after we brought you home, didn't you?" Elly asked, taking the flower.

Rose bounced up and down.

"Thanks. It's beautiful. But I gotta tell you, every time you show up with one of these, I get very nervous. Promise me you're not stealing them?"

Rose chortled happily, pleased that the gift had been accepted with proper appreciation.

Out in the kitchen a cupboard door closed.

Elly jackknifed into a sitting position. The movement allowed the quilt to fall to her waist. She looked down and saw that she was still wearing the dress she had put on to go out for the evening. A deep sense of unease gripped her.

Cautiously she peeked beneath the edge of the quilt. The skirt of the expensive cocktail dress was sadly crumpled. The hem had been pushed up almost to her waist. She noticed that she was not wearing any underwear.

Probably not a good sign, she thought.

Cooper appeared in the bedroom doorway. He was wearing his black-and-amber framed glasses, a black crew-neck pullover, and khaki trousers. He had a copy of the newspaper in his hand.

Instinctively, she yanked the quilt protectively up to her chin.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I'm your friend from out of town, remember? You're letting me stay with you."

"That was just a story. I didn't mean it literally."

"Unfortunately, I'm a literal kind of guy. At any rate, I checked out of my hotel. I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Now hold on here just a minute, Cooper. I never said-"

"How's the head?"

"Terrible." She massaged her temples with her fingertips. "I don't feel very good. Maybe I'm coming down with the flu."

"Don't think so. What you have is a classic hangover. Remember those Emerald Ghosts last night?"

She concentrated. "I've got a vague recollection of a large glass filled with some sort of green stuff. It was delicious. Sweet and tart at the same time."

"There were three large glasses, and they were obviously pretty potent."

"Oh." A few more memories floated back. A dark, intimate dance floor, sultry music, a kiss that had made her insides melt. She winced. "Right. I remember now."

His smile was slow and knowing. "Yeah, I can see that. Got anything downstairs in your shop for that headache, or do you want something from the medicine cabinet?"

She marshaled her thoughts. "Downstairs. First cabinet. Bottom shelf. There's a packet labeled Harmonic balm. Put a spoonful into a mug and add boiling water."

He unfolded his arms and straightened. "I'll get right on it."

"On second thought, make that two spoonfuls."

"Check."

An uneasy thought intruded. "Wait a second," she said when he turned to leave. "Where did you sleep last night?"

"On your sofa."

"If that's true, what happened to my underpants?"

He smiled slowly. "You know, I think I'm going to let you work that one out all by yourself. See you at breakfast."

She heard him whistling in the hall.

*****

SHE WAS STANDING UNDER AN INVIGORATING SPRAY OF hot water, trying in vain not to think about the night that had just passed, when the bathroom door opened.

"What in the world?" She grabbed a fistful of the shower curtain and peered around the edge.

Cooper stood in the small space, enveloped in steam. He had a mug in his hand. Rose was perched on his shoulder, nibbling on a piece of toast.

"You, again," she said, beetling her brows at him. "Now what? I'm in the shower, for heaven's sake."

"Sorry," Cooper said. "Didn't mean to scare you. Thought you might want to get going on your special tonic."

She sniffed, inhaling the soothing aroma of the Harmonic balm. The promise of headache relief seemed a lot more important at the moment than trying to make Cooper aware of the fact that they were not on the sort of intimate terms that allowed him to wander in and out of her bathroom at will.

She took the mug from him. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. When you come out, we'll talk about what you said you sensed when you made your trip to the ladies' room last night."

He departed, taking Rose with him.

She stood there for a while, sipping the tisane and forcing herself to relive the night.

She finally remembered what had happened to her panties.

*****

"WHEN DID YOU FIGURE OUT YOU COULD SENSE PSI energy from plants?" Cooper asked, scraping eggs out of the pan onto Elly's plate.

She shrugged, her attention riveted on the eggs. The tisane had done its job, and now she was ravenous. "At about the same age that my brothers came into their dissonance-energy para-rez abilities. Shortly after puberty."

He put the plate in front of her. "The usual time when strong paranormal senses develop."

"Yes." She forked up a large helping of the eggs. "The thing is, my kind of talent isn't supposed to exist."

"Neither is mine," he reminded her dryly.

"Correction. Yours may be a big Guild secret, but at least there are those who acknowledge that it exists. Heck, they've even gone to great lengths to conceal the information. But in my case, the experts would be strongly inclined to say that I was delusional. That kind of diagnosis would have killed my chances of leading a normal life. That's why Mom and Dad were so serious about keeping it a secret."

"Humans have only been living on Harmony for two hundred years," Cooper said mildly. "That's not very long in evolutionary development terms. We've only identified a narrow range of paranormal talents. Who's to say that there aren't a whole bunch more just waiting to be stimulated in the population?"

She aimed the fork at him. "The problem at the present time, as you and I both know, is that people tend to be very uneasy about parapsych talents that don't fit the normal profiles."

"Can't argue that. Who figured out that your para-senses weren't coming in at the usual points on the spectrum?"

"Mom. She noticed that I seemed unusually fascinated with plants and flowers and herbs of all kinds. I spent hours hiking through the woods hunting for them, and when I found the ones I wanted, I brought them home and ran experiments with them. Started blending my own herbal concoctions. Somehow I could tell which herbs would do what for a particular person."

He looked at her. "That's what you mean when you say you custom blend the tisanes for your customers?"

She nodded and took another bite of eggs. "I can sense what herbs will resonate best with an individual's parapsych profile. Take moonseed, for example. It's an old folk remedy for insomnia. But there are several different species and a dozen different preparations. Taking the stuff as a sleeping aid has always been hit or miss in terms of effectiveness."

"Probably why it has always been relegated to the status of a folk remedy instead of a real medication."

'True. But if I do a proper consult using tuned amber, I can match the right species, preparation, and dose to the customer. The dose, by the way, is critical with moonseed. The stuff is practically tasteless in liquids, so people are inclined to take way too much of it. If it does work, it can wipe you out for a full day."

He looked amused.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"I'm thinking about the lecture I got from your father."

"What lecture?"

"The one in which he advised me that you were a delicate, gentle creature who had to be treated with great care."

She glowered. "Dad said that?"

"Uh-huh."

"Is that the reason why you never tried to do anything more than kiss me good night when you took me home from a date back in Aurora Springs?"

"Hell, no. Regardless of what your family believed, I knew that you were no fragile piece of spun amber the first time I met you."

"Really? Do you mean you sensed that I had a fairly strong degree of psi power? I've heard some people can pick up on that kind of thing in others."

"No." He looked at her over the rim of the mug. "The strength I felt in you was another kind of power."

"Like what?"

He hunted for the words to express what he had known that very first day when she had walked into the Department of Archives. "You're the kind of person your friends know they can trust and count on no matter what. You're loyal, but your loyalty can't be bought. You've got a soul-deep notion of what's right and what's wrong, and you'd go down fighting for what you thought was right, every time, regardless of the obstacles. And you're kind."

"Good grief, you make me sound as dull as untuned amber."

He frowned. "Just the opposite. You're the most interesting woman I've ever met."

She got a little tingly feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Really?"

He held up one finger. "What's more, just so you know, you possess one special quality that puts you way out of the boring category."

"What?"

"You're sexy as hell."

"Hah." She narrowed her eyes. "If I'm so gosh-darned sexy, why did you keep us at arm's length back in Aurora Springs?"

He leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out under the table, and cupped the mug in both hands. "At the start it was because I knew I was cruising under what you would consider false colors."

"Oh, yeah, right. The fact that I actually believed you were a librarian."

"I was a librarian." He shrugged. "But I wasn't sure how you would react when I became a Guild boss. When it happened, I could tell that you were very uneasy about the situation. I rushed to get the ring on your finger, but once I had it there, I told myself I should take things slowly and give you a chance to get used to the idea of marrying the head of the Guild. I knew you were not real keen on the idea."

She put down her fork. "Who says Guild bosses aren't insightful and perceptive?"

"Not me. Being a shrewd, farsighted, perceptive kind of guy, I assumed that hot sex would complicate the situation."

"How?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I was afraid that if we went to bed together, you might convince yourself that the only thing we had going for us was sexual attraction. I had a vision of you trying to reduce our relationship to the status of an affair and eventually calling it off entirely. Figured if I courted you in the old-fashioned Guild tradition, you would see that we were a good match in other ways."

She surprised him with a quick, amused smile. "Talk about overthinking a problem. Guess it was that scholarly upbringing your parents gave you. Too much history, logic, and philosophy."

"Guess so."

"Is there any more toast?"

And they said it was men who tried to avoid relationship discussions, he thought.

"I'll make some more." He got to his feet and went back to the kitchen counter to pop another slice of bread into the toaster. "Maybe we'd better get back to the subject of what happened last night at the club. You said you picked up traces of the same psi energy that you sensed when you handled those herbs that Bertha brought out of the tunnels?"

"Psi-bright. Yes."

He glanced at her over his shoulder. "But you didn't actually see any of the stuff?"

"No, but as I told you, for me to pick it up at a distance means there must have been a large amount of the herbs in the vicinity or else a highly refined form of them."

"Enchantment dust."

"Probably."

He turned around slowly and lounged back against the counter. "No doubt about it, there's a strong connection to The Road."

"What are you thinking?"

'That there are a couple of possibilities. The first is that Ormond Ripley, the owner of the club, is running a drug operation."

"Why do you look doubtful about that possibility?"

"London told me that Ripley has always been careful to stay on the right side of the legal line."

She raised her brows. "Greed has no limits."

"Can't rule it out," he agreed. "But it's also possible that someone in his organization is running a little drug business on the side and that Ripley isn't aware of it."

She got an uneasy expression. "You're going to go back to The Road, aren't you?"

"I don't have much of a choice." He took the map out of his pocket, unfolded it on the table, and pointed to one of the rooms. "That's the women's restroom. Show me exactly where you were when you picked up the psi buzz from the herbs."

She examined the map closely. "I came out that door and turned right." She moved her finger along the hallway. "There are swinging doors here. I was standing right about there when a waiter came through the doors. That was when I caught the trace of psi."

He studied the markings on the map. "Looks like all the rooms on the other side of the doors are allocated to catering and food storage. There's also one marked Janitorial Supply. Can't see anyone storing dope in any of those places. Too likely to be discovered."

She tapped the map with one finger. "I'm sure I felt something, and it had to be coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the swinging doors."

He looked up. "Any chance the energy was coming from underneath the hall or from the ceiling above?"

"Not the ceiling," she said, very sure of herself. "But down below the floor is a real possibility. Most of the buildings in the Old Quarter have basements, cellars, and underground storage rooms of one sort or another. Wouldn't be surprised if there's a hole-in-the-wall somewhere beneath the club, too. Like I told you, this part of town is riddled with them."

He flattened both hands on the table on either side of the map. "I'm going to take a look today."

"How will you get in?"

"Same way I did last night, as a club employee. Shouldn't be too difficult. There are several hundred people working there. Even during the day a business like that will have a lot of staff running around."

"I don't know, Cooper, it sounds awfully dangerous."

The phone on the wall bonged loudly. Cooper reached for it, relieved to have a convenient interruption to a discussion he did not wish to continue.

"No." Elly shot up out of her chair, something akin to panic widening her eyes. She waved her hands madly. "Don't answer that," she mouthed.

But it was too late.

"Hello," Cooper said automatically.

"Cooper? Is that you?" The familiar female voice rose on a questioning note. "This is Evelyn St. Clair."

"It's me," he said. He gave Elly an apologetic look. "Good morning, Mrs. St. Clair."

Elly bounded around the edge of the table, hand outstretched. "Give me that phone."

"It's a bit early in the day," Evelyn observed bluntly. "What are you doing there at Elly's apartment at this hour?"

"Having breakfast," Cooper said, holding the phone out of Elly's reach. "Elly took me out on the town last night. Showed me some of the sights of the big city after dark. Got to say, I was amazed."

Evelyn laughed. "Cooper, you're teasing me. We both know you've spent plenty of time in places other than Aurora Springs in recent years. In fact, you didn't even move back here until you took the job in the Department of Archives."

"I'm serious, Mrs. St. Clair. Cadence City has been a real eye-opener."

Elly managed to get a grip on the phone. He let her have it and went to see how the toast was doing.

"Mom?" Elly scowled ferociously at Cooper. "Yes, I know. He slept on the sofa, Mom. Not that it's anyone's business."

The toast had popped up. Cooper removed the slice, put it on a plate, and carried it back to the table. Rose hopped down off the windowsill to join him.

"He's just a houseguest as far as the neighbors are concerned, Mom," Elly said. "Also, I might add, as far as I'm concerned."

There was another pause in the conversation. Elly listened with an air of grim patience.

"Yes, Mom, I know how it would look back home in Aurora Springs, but, see, that's the beauty of living in Cadence. Here in the big city, no one worries about what you do or with whom you do it. Everybody minds their own business. It's an interesting concept. Well, got to run. Almost time to open up the shop. Give my love to Dad. Bye."

She hung up the phone, crossed her arms, and glared at Cooper. "Henceforth, you do not, under any circumstances, answer my phone. Is that clear?"

Cooper gave Rose one half of a slice of toast and ate the other.

"Your house, your rules," he said. "But just out of curiosity, are you sure no one around here is interested in your love life?"

"For Pete's sake, I don't have a love life."

"You've got a sex life now, though. In my experience, a lot of folks, even your big-city, sophisticated, wine-snob types, are interested in other people's sex lives."

"Isn't it time you got busy with your so-called investigation?"

"Well, if you're going to be that way about it-"

"I am."