Midlife Ghost Hunter: A Paranormal Women's Fiction (The Forty Proof Series Book 4) Read online

  Alan scrunched his eyes shut, and my heart sank. How could it be worse than years in lock up? Gawd, Gran would kill me when I got out. I mean, assuming she didn’t fade away. My heart clenched at the thought of losing her completely. “Alan. Tell me. I need to know what I’m up against so I can be ready to fight.”

  He wouldn’t look at me, and for all that our marriage together had been a pile of shit sitting on a bunch of garbage, I knew him. And he was worried. Upset. Trying not to freak out.

  “Bree . . . they’re pushing for capital punishment.”

  Because I was so stressed, I didn’t fully understand what he was saying, not really, I blurted out, “They want to give me lashes? Like a spanking?”

  A burst of tittering giggles erupted behind me, and one of the ladies mumbled, “I’d take a spanking from that silver fox I saw earlier. Yummy. He can spank me anytime.”

  Alan let out a growl and tried to grab the bars, but he tumbled straight through them and into me, which was strange because he was dead and yet I could still feel him. Almost solid, almost not. Like weirdly cold pudding

  Alan was pudding. I focused on that thought because it was easier than what was blooming inside my brain.

  His hands clenched into fists and he held them near his face. “Bree, listen to me. They are trying to have you executed for my murder, which even I can see from the evidence room you did not commit. Someone wants you dead, Bree. They are doing everything they can to make it happen, and the police are helping them. All posthaste.”

  “Oh.” My legs gave out and I slid to my knees, my hands on the bars the only things holding me up. Alan was still talking but I couldn’t hear him through the roaring white noise between my ears. The police were trying to have me executed for a murder I had nothing to do with.

  Why?

  I’d done nothing to attract the attention of the human police. If it had been the shadow world’s police force, I would have said sure, they might have reason to get rid of me. But not the regular police.

  “There would still be a trial,” I mumbled, my mouth more than a little numb as I struggled to process what Alan was saying.

  He kept talking, his words beating back the buzzing in my head, but not much. Planted evidence. Pay offs. Rush trial. Ridiculous bail. No way out.

  I pressed my head against the cool bars and fought the despair that wanted to drown me, the undertow of giving up wrapping around my legs and tugging hard. A deep breath, then another and another, until the rest of the white noise slid away and I could look up without my vision sparkling and going black at the edges.

  “Then I’m going to need a lawyer. One that isn’t dead,” I managed to say. “They have to give me that much.”

  Like I’d wished on a star and the universe was providing instant fulfillment, a police officer stepped into the anteroom of the cells, clipboard in hand. Irritation flickered over his face, and a dusting of white powder on the corner of his mouth told me that I’d interrupted his coffee break and donuts. “O’Rylee, Breena. You have a visitor. Says he’s your lawyer?”

  I pulled myself to my feet until I was standing once more, if not steady, at least upright. I had called no one, so Corb and the others must have pulled this gem out of the bag for me. A lawyer was good, and whoever it was would be able to slow down this train. Maybe they could get a stay of execution. Literally.

  That’s what I thought, anyway, until he stepped into the room.

  My eyes locked on him, and I was sure I was seeing things.

  “Ohhh, the silver fox,” the old woman with the fluffy white hair said. “I was hoping he’d come my way.” She tittered and I stared at the man I’d thought had left me high and dry. The guy who could have been my rock to cling to in stormy seas. And instead . . .well, he’d become a rock I stubbed my toe on.

  Crash stood in the doorway dressed in dark jeans, a button-down white shirt, and a black tie, and damn him, if he didn’t look just as good as when he was wrapped in nothing but a towel. No, that wasn’t true, I liked the towel look a lot. Even if I was pissed with him, the fluffy-haired old gal was right.

  Crash was downright delicious, no matter how you sliced it.

  Blue eyes flecked with gold stared back at me, and he lifted one eyebrow. “How am I not surprised to find you in hot water just hours after you were in the frying pan?”

  2

  The police officer came toward the cell with handcuffs hanging from the finger of one hand and the key held in the other, his knuckles white. He jammed the key in and cranked it hard enough that I thought for a second he might break it, and my next thought was that it would really suck to be stuck in here with the women I’d met and the smear of poo everywhere. I felt bad for them, but I didn’t want to stay with them.

  As soon as the door was open, he tossed the handcuffs to me, aiming them straight down so I didn’t have a hope of catching them. They clattered across the floor to rest at my feet against the toe of my boots. Someone had definitely pissed in his cereal that morning.

  “Put them on,” he snapped.

  “That’s rather unprofessional,” I said as I bent and picked up the cuffs, carefully putting them on one at a time, not tightening them too much. I knew better than to argue, seeing as the officer was obviously spoiling for a fight. This was not the time for me to put up a big stink. Maybe Crash would have a way out of here for me, a magic spell, or a legal loophole that I didn’t know about. I was afraid to hope, but it had to be a good sign that he was here.

  Or maybe he’d just showed up to apologize for the way he’d left things after I helped him kill Derek, the goblin king. Or for kicking me out of my gran’s house with nothing but a note.

  A note. Like he was a teenager who’d rather send a breakup text than look me in the eye when he said goodbye.

  A lot of maybes in the pot and not much to take away from them. The police officer led me out with his hand tight on my right elbow, squeezing hard enough to make me wince. He took me out of the cell block, past Crash, and down a short hall to a small room with no window. A simple folding table and two chairs sat in the middle, leaving little space for anything else. I sat in the chair, the cop left, and a moment later, Crash stepped into the room and shut the door behind him with a soft click.

  The smell of clean, freshly showered man flowed from him, a hint of coal fires, and some sort of aftershave that mingled through the air and made me want things I really shouldn’t have. Damn my hormones for not getting with the program.

  “They don’t have any cameras or listening devices in this room.” Crash pulled the chair out across from me and sat, resting his hands on the table, fingers linked loosely. His eyes swept over me, as if looking for something. Maybe bruises? Wounds? Evidence that I really had killed Alan?

  “No? Are you sure about that? If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve said the police would have no reason to arrest me, and yet, here I am. Apparently about to be strung up for a murder I didn’t commit.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs at the ankles. I was not in the least relaxed, but I was not going to give him the . . .well, satisfaction wasn’t the right word. He looked tired, and why not? We’d been up into the wee hours the previous night—no, not having that kind of fun—fighting for our lives against a goblin and his accomplice, who worked for the council of Savannah.

  We’d survived, but even just sitting here I could feel the bruises and muscle tension slipping over me.

  He frowned. “How did you know?”

  Alan, who’d, of course, followed me, muttered to himself as he paced the tiny room, and I realized that as much as we hated each other, he was trying to figure out a way for me to not be executed. Focused on his own thoughts, he didn’t make a single noise about Crash.

  I blew out a breath and waved my cuffed hands in his general direction. “Alan. He did a quick recon mission and told me. He doesn’t like me, but I’d bet he’s worried we’ll be stuck together for eternity if I die like this.”

  Crash gave a s
low nod. “Alan, were you able to see what exactly they have on her?”

  Now Crash couldn’t actually see Alan, not the way I could. I suspected he could catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, or a shadow of sorts where my ex-husband was pacing, whereas I could see him as if he were still alive.

  Alan paused. “They have my blood in a bottle, and they are currently putting it on the knives they took from her. They are also planting the blood on her hip bag and that jacket she has. They aren’t even making the splatter pattern correct, which tells me that they are truly just going to sink her hard. But why? Who’s after her? Was I killed just to frame her?”

  I shook my head and then realized that Crash hadn’t heard any of that. I passed it on, and Crash stood and left the room without a word.

  I could almost feel my life ticking away as the seconds slid by. Gawd in heaven, what a mess. I rubbed my hands over my face, the cuffs clinking. If I was killed, would my spirit be with Gran? No, I couldn’t think about that right now.

  I focused on the moment. “Alan, I know you had dealings in the shadow world. Was it just with Davin, or did you have dealings with, like, the mob or something? Someone who might want to get whatever money you have left?” I asked. Maybe there had been someone he’d pissed off. Not impossible considering his attitude.

  He didn’t slow his pacing. “Yes, just with him, but he had connections that went far higher up and I . . .well, I wanted those connections. I thought it could help me with my firm, get me better paying cases and maybe my own company.” He grimaced and waved a hand at his ghostly body. “Look where it got me.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking through the possibilities. “No loopholes to get me out on good behavior?”

  “You?” Alan snorted. “Please, we both know good behavior is not your forte . . . and it wouldn’t matter if it were. Bree, no lawyer will be able to get you out of this.” I opened my eyes as he crouched by the table, and for a moment, I saw a glimmer of the man I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Smart, confident, and a little bit worried about me. “They will rig the jury. They will bury all the evidence once it’s done and scrub you from the files. It happens more often than people realize.”

  Horror made my throat tighten, but I spoke through it. “How can you know all that?”

  “Because they were talking about it in the evidence room,” he said. “Whoever has it in for you is deadly serious about getting rid of you, and they’ve paid the police department here very well to make it happen.” Emotion crossed his face. “This is not how the justice system should work! You should get your fair trial, at the very least.”

  I realized he was more worried about the system being broken than my life, but I didn’t have enough energy to care.

  The door opened once more and Crash came in and went to his chair and stood behind it, an air of defeat on him. “I can bail you out, but you’ll have to stay with me, and it will be house arrest. You won’t be able to leave at all.” He said it as if it was terrible news, and for him, I guess it was. He’d just kicked me out, and now he’d be seeing even more of me than he had before. Damn, that stung.

  That sting turned to anger in a flash.

  Forget this shit. I wasn’t going to wait for him to tell me why he’d suddenly turned his back on me and booted me out of my own grandmother’s house. I wasn’t a doormat. And I wasn’t a damn teenager either. Angst did nothing for me.

  “What the hell, Crash? I don’t do games and this feels like a damn game. I helped you get away from Karissa when you were stoned out of your ducking mind, then I saved us from that psycho goblin, yet you’re acting like I’ve damn well treated you like crap! You’re acting like I did you wrong!”

  Was I yelling? Yes, yes, I was.

  I drew a breath and threw down the gauntlet. “And that’s after a shower where you couldn’t finish the job!”

  Maybe I was hoping that someone could hear after all. Because that last line wasn’t quite true.

  His eyebrows dipped low. “Maybe if your ex-husband’s ghost hadn’t shown up, I would have finished the job!”

  Alan grimaced and slid out of the door. “I don’t need to listen to this.” I had to agree with him. He was so not the person I wanted here while I yelled at Crash about our almost-sex-scene.

  I stood, scooting the chair backward so I could lean over the table and give him a serious glare. “Why? So you could feel better about kicking me out of my gran’s house? You figured you’d at least send me out with a mind-blowing orgasm? A pity duck?”

  He leaned forward. “You don’t know the half of what you are doing! You’re fumbling through the shadow world like a damn wrecking ball. I can’t understand how you aren’t dead ten times over! But someone is trying hard to make sure you end up in an early grave, and I’m trying to keep you from it. That’s why I walked. My connection to you brings you even more danger!”

  So now we were both yelling. Excellent. I slapped my hands on the table so hard, my palms stung and tingled and the cuffs jangled. “Maybe if someone would give me straight information instead of acting all mysterious and secretive, I wouldn’t get in so much ducking trouble! Maybe if that someone was a damn team player instead of pretending he didn’t need help, we could figure this out!”

  Breathing hard, I stared him down, not caring that our noses were touching as we yelled back and forth. Not caring that the air all but crackled with tension as we yelled out our frustrations.

  A growl slid from his lips, and a split second later, he dragged me across the table, into his arms, and I was kissing him back as hard as he was kissing me. The pull between us refused to listen to reason. The magic on his skin sung to my own and the fire of his touch lit up my body, burning away any thought of bruises or pain, burning away the hurt that he’d caused me by turning away from me after the fight. His mouth and all of him made me hot and twisted up, left me wishing there were a bed in the corner of the room with those soft sheets he favors that slithered over naked skin so very nicely.

  No, I didn’t plan on letting him off the hook—at the very least, he owed me a better explanation—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to soak up the fiery kisses he planted on me, just in case . . .just in case there wasn’t another time.

  Just in case the police had their way. That’s what I told myself.

  Trust me, you wouldn’t have turned down the opportunity either.

  Even so, I was the first to pull back, just enough so I could breathe. “You really hurt me, Crash. I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive you. You’re going to have to work for it.”

  His hands smoothed down over my arms to take my fingers, and he stepped back, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath. At least I wasn’t the only one so affected by this thing between us. “Shit. You’ve gotten under my skin and I was . . .you are . . . damn it, I can’t even talk properly.”

  He didn’t let me go, but instead pulled me closer and set his chin on top of my head, his breath ruffling my hair. “I don’t want you to die, but trouble keeps finding you, or you keep finding it. I don’t know how I can keep you safe. . .” He trailed off and I looked up at him.

  “Everyone dies, Crash. Maybe not you, because you’re fae, but everyone else dies. And me, I’m going to live full speed, foot on the pedal until that moment. Even if that moment is here and now.” I grabbed his face and kissed him hard even as Alan gagged in the background, muttering about kissing a troll.

  Crash kissed me back, but this time he pulled away first. “I’ll get the bail set up. Your trial date is set for three days from now.”

  Alan walked through the door again and began to pace, cursing a blue streak about the abuses being done to the system, which was kind of rich, really, considering he’d manipulated the court system plenty to stick it to me in the divorce. Crash, of course, didn’t hear him, but he frowned as if he could pick up on the energy Alan was throwing off.

  “You going to tell me why you kick
ed me out of Gran’s house? Or ignored me as if I were beneath you?” That last one was the real stinger for me, because I struggled more than I liked to admit with my sense of self-worth. I mean, being forty-one and divorced because the ex you hated cheated on you is bad enough. Add in a little extra weight, a dead-ended career and an uncertain new one, and a girl’s left feeling a little uncertain now and then. I wasn’t perfect, you know. I still struggled with the ups and downs.

  Some days, I was strong as iron.

  Other days, I was as squishy as overcooked pasta.

  Crash didn’t let me go. “Because you’re not the only one with enemies. The closer you are to me, the better your chances of dying—” He paused. “There is more at play in the shadow world than the problems with the council and the O’Seans causing a ruckus. You’re right. We all die at some point. I just don’t want your death to be because I let myself get too close—”

  The door banged open, cutting him off. The officer who’d brought me in strode across the small room and grabbed me by the cuffs, dragging me out of Crash’s arms. “Time’s up.”

  3

  Officer Cuffs (as I thought of him now) hustled me to the holding cell with the other women. Crash must have followed, something I guessed solely based on the way their eyes looked past me and went all dreamy and soft. Which was interesting.

  Alan saw Crash as a troll, hideous and ugly.

  Women saw Crash as sex on a stick made for licking all night long.

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “You make the guys think you aren’t competition, then show off for the ladies, huh? Clever.”

  He winked and gave me a slow-burn smile that set off all sorts of fireworks in my lower regions and reminded me it had been a long, long time since I’d had any sort of tumble in the sack worth remembering. I mean, the shower moments with him were good, and I replayed them more often than I cared to admit, but the whole scene had been left rather unfinished if you know what I mean.