Fortunately, we found Halle’s pickup before the tow truck arrived. While she distracted the cop, I hopped into the cab and took off. The officer gave a half-hearted pursuit before giving up and going back for more one-on-one time with Halle. Sadly, in a stranger-than-fiction turn of events, she vanished when he got a call over his radio, never to be seen or heard from again. At least by the cop. He could run her tags and make the connection, but she hadn’t really broken any laws. She was simply reclaiming the pickup she’d parked badly. And she hadn’t actually done the take back. It had been practically stolen out from under her by a maniac in a shredded shirt and ripped jeans.

  After years of practice, I could run defensive scenarios all day.

  I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and looked over at Halle. She was still shivering, and I didn’t know if it was due to her dress and hair still being damp or the accident she’d witnessed. The Arkwright Building must have the fastest elevator in all of Washington. She and Bobby had made it down just in time to watch me play tag with a delivery truck.

  I blasted the heater as we drove, the setting sun creating bright splashes of pink and orange in the rearview. “Can I ask you a question?”

  She was chewing on her lower lip as she stared at my leg. Or, more precisely, the super cool wound there.

  I slid a hand over it, suddenly self-conscious.

  She snapped to attention with my question. “Sure.”

  “What did you mean, some people deserve to be haunted?”

  “Oh,” she said, surprised. She hugged herself and looked out the window. “Nothing. You may not believe this, but I haven’t always been a good person.”

  “You’re right. I don’t believe it.”

  She turned to me suddenly, huffing out an exasperated puff of air. “Can we just address the elephant in the room?”

  “I didn’t realize there was one.”

  She shifted in her seat to face me head-on. “How?”

  “Well, first, we aren’t even in a room, so I don’t think my not noticing the elephant in it is the most pertinent element of this conversation.”

  “No, I mean…you really knew.”

  Ah. That.

  “You knew the exact date, time, and place Zachary was going to die.”

  I held up a finger to put her on pause. “Not the place, just the date and time.”

  “But you saw it. You were able to figure out where he was from what you saw. How?” She dropped her gaze, racking her brain. “How is that even possible?”

  “Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you, dismember your lifeless body, and bury you in Jason’s backyard.”

  “Can you…can you really talk to dead people?”

  “Tell her!” Aunt Lil said. She was sitting between us in the cramped cab, making the situation fairly awkward as I tried to look at Halle from around her blue hair. “We need to help her. If she’s being terrorized, we’re all she’s got, Constantine.”

  “Yes, I can. Aunt Lil is here now.”

  Halle reared back, though just barely before catching herself. She squinted and looked around, trying to peer into the veil as I fought a grin. “Can she hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell her she has a lovely voice.”

  I gave up and let the grin get a solid foothold. “Aunt Lil likes your voice,” I relayed.

  “Oh.” Halle sat up straighter. “Thank you.”

  “Okay,” Aunt Lil said, clapping soundlessly, “my job here is done. I’m going to go check out that hottie at the bar some more. He may like Betty, but she ain’t got a ring on her finger yet. Am I right?”

  She disappeared before I could answer.

  Halle folded her hands in her lap. “It’s very nice to meet you, Lillian.”

  Should I tell her?

  “I hope we can become friends.”

  This was getting awkward. “She’s gone.”

  “Really?” Her shoulders dropped. “I had so many questions.”

  “She does that. Pops in and out like a loose lightbulb. It’s okay until she decides to ride sidesaddle in my lap on the bike. I almost died making this trip. Twice.”

  She laughed softly, the sound like a summer breeze. “Where did she go?”

  “To stalk Jason.”

  She laughed again. I was on a roll. “He probably deserves it.”

  “Agreed.”

  She smoothed the skirt of her dress and asked, “Have you always been able to do what you do? Like, since you were a kid?”

  I thought for a moment before answering, wondering how much to tell her. They say honesty is the best policy, but I’ve found people don’t really want to hear how bad they look in a swimsuit. “Since I was a kid? Yes, to a degree. But things became…amplified a handful of years ago.”

  “Amplified how?”

  I took the exit that would lead us back to Cruisers and my bike. “Do you remember the weird outbreak that shut Albuquerque down about five years ago?”

  She shot up again with the memory. “I do. That was bizarre. A virus caused people to go crazy and become violent overnight.”

  I clicked my tongue. “That’s the one.”

  “They had to quarantine the whole city and then it just stopped.”

  “Thanks to a few of my closest friends.”

  “They stopped the virus?” she asked in awe.

  “It was never a virus. It was supernatural in nature.”

  Her mouth rounded prettily. “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, they kind of started it so it was pretty much up to them to stop it. The important thing is, they succeeded.” When she simply watched me, waiting for more, I obliged. “These friends are supernatural entities themselves and kind of accidentally opened a hell dimension on Earth. The demons from that dimension possessed…certain people and turned them violent.” She didn’t need to know they only possessed people with mental illnesses. People like me. “I was one of them.”

  She sucked in a soft breath and then covered her mouth with both hands.

  “One of my friends, one of the supernatural entities, was able to extricate the demon inside me, with the help of a departed Rottweiler named Artemis.”

  “Dogs can become ghosts, too?”

  I laughed. She would focus on that part. “They can, though like humans, they usually cross.”

  She sank back in a stupor. “Dogs really do go to heaven?”

  “I like to think there’s a special one just for them.”

  “Why did it possess you? Was it a wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time kind of scenario?”

  Back to the honesty thing. I’d come this far. May as well lay it all out on the table. I mustered all the courage my depleted stores had to offer and charged forward. “It took a while, but my friends figured out the demons from that particular dimension only possessed people… with a mental disorder.” I circled an index finger around my ear to make light of that fact. “You know, the crazies.”

  I expected her complete and total withdrawal from the conversation. Instead, she tilted her head and studied me. “What kind of mental disorder?”

  I checked the GPS. “Is it this turn or the next one?”

  “Oh,” she said as though suddenly realizing how close we were. She pointed. “This one.”

  With a nod of understanding, I turned left and then pulled into Cruisers about half a block later. I threw her truck into park and then turned to face her. “Thank you, Halle. Zachary wouldn’t be alive right now if not for you.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re the one who went head-to-head with a delivery truck.”

  She pressed her hands together in her lap as we sat, neither of us sure what to say. I was so bad with small talk. And since we were just sitting there with nothing to do, I took another look. Just a quick one. Just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

  Since her impending death wasn’t detrimentally close at hand, I had to actually concentrate to see her last moment. The closer the death was, the less I had to focus until it became overpowering. Like today with Zachary. The moment had shone brightly in my mind the second my gaze drifted anywhere near him. Times like those, I couldn’t stop the visions if I wanted to, thus my obsession with the kid’s inevitable demise.

  But this time, I didn’t stop the vision of Halle’s last moment. Even though watching it was like a knife twisting painfully in my heart. I took my time and studied her surroundings. The red bathwater. The limp hands. The slit wrists. The image paralyzed my lungs, and I wanted to leave, but something from my first glimpse had been nagging me, niggling at the back of my mind. I needed to know what.

  Then I saw it. A reflection in a mirror…

  “Halle,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. But before I could say anything else, a raucous cheer hit us, and patrons started streaming out of the bar, clapping, hooting, and hollering. They surrounded the truck and started banging on the hood in enthusiasm.

  I rolled my eyes. I was going to kill him.

  “Do you think they know?” Halle asked with a giggle.

  I spotted Jason, his shit-eating grin full of pride. Did he tell the whole fucking town? “He is so dead.”

  Halle giggled again and got out of the truck as those around her offered to buy her a drink. An older gentleman pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. Had to be her father, Jason’s partner.

  Jason opened the driver’s side door and hauled me out, but celebrating was about the last thing on my mind. All I could think about was Halle’s last moment and the reflection in the mirror of a man’s hand holding a straight razor.

  Chapter Four

  Don’t judge.

  I clean up real nice.

  —T-shirt

  I took small, leisurely sips of the beer I’d been given. The tenth one in two hours. I could only pass my glass to the person next to me so many times before someone noticed. The patrons were taking turns buying me drink after drink for saving Zachary’s life.

  According to Jason, I just happened to see Zachary crossing the busy intersection and noticed the truck bearing down on him. My lightning-quick reflexes took over, and I whisked him out of harm’s way.

  It was a complete coincidence we were in the same place at the same time, so Jason’s ability to lie with a straight face saved him from the torment of my wrath yet again. Lucky bastard. So here I sat as person after person asked me to tell the story.

  Halle was smart. She’d ducked out with her father ten minutes into the celebration when I went to change. She was probably on her houseboat right now, sleeping soundly. The mental image of her in a slinky nightgown, blond hair spilling over a pillow, long legs tangled in silk sheets, caused every blood cell in my body to rush to the more sensitive regions of my anatomy.

  The redhead put yet another beer in front of me, her smile as sweet and inviting as a tangerine. Three hours ago, I would’ve jumped at the chance for some alone time with the stunner, but even then, it would have only been to get the blonde out of my head.

  Jason came up behind me and slapped me on the back. Because I hadn’t just been hit by a fucking truck. He laughed when I glared at him. “Looks like you robbed another grave today.”

  I took a pretend sip and questioned him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You kept yet another body out of the ground. Your reputation remains intact, Grave Robber.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes. I failed. “That’s a ridiculous nickname. And what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He looked up in thought. “You got the nickname when you punched an opponent in the solar plexus so hard he stopped breathing.”

  “I was there.”

  “And you fell to your knees, ripped off your gloves, and started doing CPR in the middle of the ring.”

  Too bad I hadn’t thought to do that several years ago when I punched a man in a bar fight and knocked him unconscious. He later died. I had every intention of turning myself in, but the leader of the motorcycle club I belonged to, one of the best friends I’ve ever had, convinced me not to. Told me to lay low. As a result, a video of the incident showed up on our doorstep a few weeks later, and we were blackmailed into committing some pretty horrendous crimes. More importantly, I lost the ability to take a swing at anyone for any reason. I was supposedly destined through prophecy to fight in a war against Satan himself, but I could no longer fight. I was as useless as a knitted condom.

  “I. Was. There,” I reminded Jason. “And?”

  “And today you robbed another grave.”

  “How do you figure that?” Thankfully, realization dawned before I looked like a complete idiot. “Oh, right. Zachary.”

  “See? Self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  “Let’s not talk about prophecies.”

  “Whatev. When are you going to stop accepting beers you have no intention of drinking and get some rest?”

  I shook my head. “Not just yet. I want Halle’s address.”

  He scoffed. “Yeah, so does every other man in this bar.”

  I bit down and said under my breath, “She’s in more trouble than you or I ever imagined.”

  He eased closer. “What do you mean?”

  I moved even closer and said into his ear, “Unless I’m greatly mistaken—it happens—she’s going to be murdered in about two months.”

  Jason stilled and studied me as though trying to figure out if I was kidding or not.

  “I don’t joke about death.” When he continued to stare, I added, “I mean, I do, but I’m not joking about this. I would never.”

  “How?” he asked, his eyes glistening as emotion swelled inside him. As Halle’s reality sank in. After a few seconds, anger took hold, and he asked from between clenched teeth, “Who?”

  “I’ll explain, but right now I need that address.”

  He nodded and said, “Give me a sec,” before crossing the floor to his office.

  I followed.

  “Are you okay to drive your bike? I can get you a ride.”

  “I barely touched the beers they bought.”

  He passed me a piece of paper with Halle’s address and a hand-drawn map of the slip she rented at the marina. “There’s that, too, but you’re pretty beat up. Your wounds looked serious.”

  “I’ve had worse. Trust me.”

  “I know. I was usually the one giving them to you, but this time is different.”

  “Not really. Being hit by you or a six-ton delivery truck feels startlingly similar.”

  “Vause,” he said, not buying it.

  “Vigil,” I countered, relisting it and hoping he’d press the buy it now button.

  “Fine,” he said, caving. “Just be careful. And, please, get to the bottom of this before either of you gets killed.”

  I pointed a finger pistol at him and winked. “That’s the plan, Stan.”

  “And don’t call me Stan!” he shouted as I walked out.

  Putting on my helmet proved far more painful than I ever imagined it would, and the real possibility of a subdural hematoma—I’d had several in my life—had me worried. Not, like, bad, but there was definitely a tinge of concern. Getting into my leather jacket was just as irksome. I would really feel that truck tomorrow.

  As I drove down deserted streets and through shadowy trees to the marina, I thought of a hundred different scenarios that might explain the man in Halle’s last moment. Could he be a departed? Yes. Since I could see the departed even in pictures and on film, he very well could be.

  They were as plain to me as anything else in the shot, though their coloring was a little off and their images a little blurry. But the departed handling objects in the physical world was another story. Few could perform such tricks, and when they did, they usually couldn’t do it for long. A departed being able to hold a straight razor and use it to cut someone’s wrists was very unlikely.

  Could it have been a reflection off a television or a computer? Absolutely. A tablet? Yes, to all three. But what were the odds Halle would have slit wrists while a movie played in the background that just happened to have a man holding a straight razor?

  I pulled into the marina and found the slip Halle was temporarily renting. According to Jason, she usually moored off her father’s property, but the dock had been damaged in a recent storm so she’d had to move to the marina while Donald had it repaired.

  The houseboat, a gorgeous single-story that probably cost more than my life, barely fit into the slip. All the lights were out save a night-light in the kitchen. I stepped onto the boat and knocked on the door off a small outdoor patio, but Halle didn’t answer. Of course, she didn’t. Only rock stars and burglars were awake at this time of night.

  I started to leave when the cloth panel on the door moved aside, and a pale face peered out at me.

  “Wh–what are you doing here?” she asked, her gaze sliding past me. Checking to see if I’d brought a friend?

  I shrugged. “I owe you, and I pay my debts.”

  “What?” She seemed to panic, which confused me. Though in her defense, confusing me wasn’t that hard to do. “You don’t owe me anything.” Her frantic gaze darted around like a hummingbird caught in a glass jar. When she finished scanning the exterior, she looked over each of her slender shoulders then back again.

  Had I caught her with someone? “Look, if you have company…”

  “What? No.” She straightened, unlocked the door, and cracked it open. “I don’t have company. I just don’t understand why you’re here. In the middle of the night.”

  “And here I thought we were besties.”

  “Not without pizza, we aren’t.”

  I laughed. “I’ll remember that next time.”

  She opened the door wider and gestured me inside. “Please, do.”

  Her place was cool. Modern yet chic. Lots of blues and grays with wood floors and stainless fixtures. But the most appealing aspect of the whole setup was her tiny, moss green terrycloth robe that stopped mid-thigh. And her legs were no joke. Slender, shapely and lightly tinted by the sun.

  She closed the door and leaned back against it. “When you say you owe me…?”

  “I’m here to see if something’s haunting you.”