The Prophet

Chapter Three

My heart tripped at the implication of his words. I thought of my stalker, the elusive watcher who had been dogging me for days. Now I understood my lethargy and my insomnia. Fremont’s very presence was draining me of my life force just as Mariama had siphoned my energy earlier. Or had that been Fremont even then?

“You have to help me,” he said.

I gazed down at my trembling hands. “I’m beginning to realize that.”

“As soon as we find him, as soon as justice is served, I’ll leave you in peace.”

“I have your word?” The word of a ghost. That was a new one.

“What reason would I have for lingering?” he asked.

I shuddered to think.

“You said find him. If you were shot in the back, how can you be so sure the killer was a man?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” he admitted, and for the first time, I sensed some doubt. Maybe even a hint of fear. “I don’t even know why I was in the cemetery that night.”

“You have amnesia?” A surreal question if ever there was one.

“About the events surrounding that night? It would seem so.”

He gazed out at the street as I searched his profile. The detail I could see in the twilight was amazing. The strong line of his jaw and chin, the sharp shelf of his cheekbone, the outline of his lips. Even knowing what I knew, I still found it difficult to accept that he was dead.

“I suppose that makes sense,” I said, tearing my gaze away. “I’ve read that accident victims often can’t recall details leading up to the crash. This is similar. You suffered a severe trauma.”

“Yes, the trauma was severe,” he murmured.

“What’s the last thing you do remember? Before you died, I mean.”

He fell silent, and now I sensed some turmoil, some inner conflict. “I remember meeting someone.”

“At the cemetery?”

“I don’t know. All I remember is the scent of her perfume. The smell was still on my clothes when I died.”

“So the killer could have been a woman.”

“It’s possible. I have a vague recollection of an argument.”

“Do you know who she was?”

Another hesitation. “Her name eludes me.”

“What did she look like?”

In the split second before he answered, I could have sworn I saw a shudder go through him, but it seemed unlikely a ghost would be affected in so earthly a manner. Surely I was ascribing my own human emotions to him.

“I don’t know. But her perfume…”

“Go on.”

“The scent is still on my clothes,” he said, almost in defeat. “I can smell it even now.”

I thought of the exotic fragrance that had drifted to me earlier, riding the same ghostly breeze as the nightingale’s song. If Fremont had been following me then, the scent might have come from him.

And then something else occurred to me. Had he seen Mariama and Shani’s ghosts? Was that why he’d disappeared?

Could ghosts even see one another? Interact with one another?

Years and years of questions bubbled up inside me, but it was so strange to be able to ask them of a ghost. Stranger still that my fear had dissipated. Was I still under a spell?

Once again I found myself heading into dangerous territory, spurning Papa’s warning and flirting with disaster. One door had already been breached because of my wanton disregard of the rules. Would my connection with a ghost open yet another?

“What’s it like?” I heard myself ask him. “Behind the veil, I mean.”

“It’s called the Gray. The place in between the Dark and the Light.”

The place, he’d said. Not the time. The distinction seemed significant.

“Does it still hurt? From where you were shot?”

“There’s no pain,” he said. “There’s nothing really.”

“But you feel something. You must. You’re here because you want vengeance. That means you’re still capable of human emotion.”

“I’m here because I can’t…” His ghostly voice trailed off.

“You can’t what?”

“Rest,” he said wearily. “Something is keeping me here.”

“And you think if we expose your killer, you’ll be released?”

“Yes.”

I thought about that for a moment. His urgent need to find the killer corroborated what I’d always suspected. Not all ghosts were drawn through the veil by their rapacious hunger for human warmth or their insatiable desire to rejoin the living. Some were earthbound for reasons beyond their control. Apparently, Robert Fremont was one of them. I wondered if Shani was another. If Mariama’s ghost kept Devlin chained to her by his guilt and grief, did those same emotions keep Shani bound to him?

“Can you see them?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The other ghosts. They’re all around us. Surely you’ve noticed them.”

“I keep my distance.”

“Why?”

“They’re insidious,” he said with contempt. “Leeches preying on the living because they refuse to accept death. I’m not like that.”

“But isn’t that what you’re doing to me?”

“Only for as long as I need your help. I have to sustain myself until I can find a way to move on,” he said. “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”

“So, what do we do first?”

He moved, stirring the air, and I felt a faint chill creep up my spine. I had to remind myself yet again that, despite our strange arrangement, he was still a ghost and, therefore, dangerous to me.

“We follow the clues,” he said. “No matter where they lead us. Understood?”

“I…”

“Understood?”

I almost jumped. “Yes. Understood.”

He nodded and turned away. “Someone was in the cemetery after I was shot that night, someone besides the killer. We have to find that person or persons and get them to talk.”

I gave him a skeptical look. “Did you see someone?”

“No,” he said. “But I sensed a presence.”

A presence. “If you were that close to death, how can you be so sure you weren’t dreaming or hallucinating?”

“I felt someone going through my pockets. It was real, but if you don’t believe me, read the police report. My cell phone was missing when my body was recovered.”

“How am I supposed to get my hands on the police report?”

“You said you could be resourceful when the need arises. Find a way.”

I was starting to get frightened again. This was absolutely the strangest night of my life, and that was saying something for me.

Was I really being blackmailed by a ghost? Did he truly expect me to conduct a murder investigation all on my own? If I failed, if I couldn’t uncover his killer, would he haunt me for the rest of my life? Would he continue to devour my warmth and energy until I remained nothing more than a shell?

I tried to remain calm. “Assuming we somehow manage to find this…whoever it was, how do you propose we make them talk? I’m not a cop. I know nothing about interrogations. And frankly, what you’re proposing sounds incredibly risky. Not that you have to worry about it.”

“I’m not out to get you killed,” he said.

“That’s reassuring.”

“So long as you do as I say, you’ll be fine.”

And I was supposed to believe him?

Yet, even as I quivered in fear, an unexpected excitement coursed through me. All my life, I’d been sheltered and protected, not just from the ghosts, but from the world outside my cemetery gates. There was a time when I would have clung to that seclusion, to that safety, even to my loneliness, but the secrets I’d uncovered about myself in Asher Falls had made me reevaluate my ability and my very existence. I wanted to believe there was a purpose to my life, a reason why I saw ghosts. It wasn’t just a dangerous legacy. I had been given a gift.

And now here was a ghost who offered me a way to attain a higher purpose. A reason to embrace that dark gift rather than hide from it on hallowed ground.

If I could help the Prophet move on, perhaps I could do the same for Shani and Mariama. And then Devlin would be mine—

I was a little shocked by the direction of my thoughts, and I told myself I wouldn’t go there. It was too dangerous. Too foolish to even contemplate a time when Devlin and I might possibly be together. Besides, for all I knew he’d already moved on with the brunette. He might already have put our past behind him.

Then why had he sent a message on the day I’d left Asher Falls?

Why had his ghosts lured me into that woman’s garden tonight? Why did Mariama feel so threatened by me?

It wasn’t over with Devlin. A part of me knew that, no matter what happened, no matter the passage of time or the miles between us, it would never truly be over. Devlin was my destiny. The one man I wanted above all others was the one man I could never have.

Unless I could somehow find a way to close that door.

I tried to tamp down that sinister glimmer of hope as I glanced at the ghost. “If I help you, we’ll be even, right? My debt to you will be paid in full.”

Robert Fremont smiled. “Never bargain with the dead. We have nothing to lose.”