After Moonrise Read online

  “Hang on. Your sister’s already dead. Maybe what you’re feeling is her struggle to stay attached to you while her spirit is being drawn to the Otherworld. Lauren, the truth is that for most spirits it is difficult for them to remain on this plane of existence. They should be moving on.” He tried to speak soothingly, but he wasn’t good at the touchy-feely stuff. Plus, it was looking more and more as if he should just refer Lauren and her family, dead and alive, to the After Moonrise medium.

  “You’re not getting it,” Lauren said, looking more and more animated. “Aubrey isn’t moving on. She can’t. He’s not done killing her.”

  “Come again?”

  Lauren sighed. “This is what Aubrey has been able to tell me: her killer has bound her spirit. He’s bound all of their spirits. Physical death was just the beginning of their murders. He doesn’t stop until he drains their souls of life, too. You have to find him. He’s not done killing.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “And you know that this psychic serial killer is draining spirits because your sister told you in there.” Raef pointed to where Lauren still clenched her fist over her heart.

  Her spine stiffened and her chin went up. “Don’t patronize me, Raef. I know it the same way you know you’re talking to ghosts of the dead instead of your own overactive imagination, even though no one else can see and feel what you do.”

  “All right.” He nodded his head slowly. “You got me there.” He stood up and took his keys from his desk drawer. “Then let’s go.”

  “Go?”

  “To the scene of Aubrey’s accident.”

  “You mean to the place she was murdered,” Lauren said firmly.

  “Either way, I need to check it out.” He raised a dark brow at her when she didn’t move. “You did know that it is my standard procedure to go to the site of the death, didn’t you?”

  “Yes—yes, I knew,” she stuttered. “It’s just that, well, I haven’t been back there since.”

  “Not once? Not even when your sister has been manifesting to you?”

  Lauren shook her head. “No.” The word was a whisper.

  “I can take you home first,” he said, walking around his desk to her. “We can talk afterward and—”

  “Would it be better if I come with you?” she interrupted, her voice sounding firmer. “I mean, for you and the investigation.”

  “It probably would be, especially because your situation is so unique.”

  Lauren stood. “Then I’ll go.”

  * * *

  THE TRIP FROM THE After Moonrise downtown offices to Midtown’s Swan Lake was short and silent. Not that Raef minded. He was naturally quiet and never had understood the need most people felt to chatter uncomfortably to fill a peaceful lull. He also had to ready himself for what would happen when he visited the site of a death and opened himself to the psychic images left there. Accident or murder, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the damn park, and it was always better to take a quiet moment to center himself first.

  As he drove down Utica Street, he glanced at Lauren. Her face was pale and set. She was staring straight ahead. He thought she looked like a marble sculpture of herself.

  “It’s not going to be that bad,” he said, turning right at the entrance to the lake and parking his car along the curb that ringed the area. “I’m the psychic, remember?” Raef tried to add some lightness to the moment.

  She turned cold blue eyes on him. “She was my sister. My twin. We’ve been together since we were conceived. Psychic or not, going to the place where she was killed scares me.”

  Before he could even try to come up with something comforting to say, her gaze moved from his to Swan Lake. She shook her head and gave a little humorless laugh, saying, “It’s stupid to call this place a lake. It’s tiny. Except for having water, there’s nothing ‘lake’ about it.”

  “They call it Swan Lake because Swan Pond doesn’t sound right,” he said.

  She looked back at him. “I hate this place.”

  He nodded. “That’s a normal reaction, Lauren. Your sister died here—of course you have a strong negative reaction to it.”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  He wanted to tell her that the relatives of the dead always felt like there was more to it than simple death, even if it took their loved one peacefully, in the middle of the night, during the winter of life. Instead, he swallowed back the condescension and said, “Are you ready? You can wait here if you need to.”

  “I’m ready, and I’m going with you.”

  She sounded one hundred percent sure, but her face was still unnaturally pale as they walked slowly to the sidewalk that circled the oblong-shaped body of water. Raef thought that Lauren had been right—the place was no damn lake, even if it was pretty and well tended. The sidewalk had only a fourth of a mile circumference, or at least that’s what the helpful signpost said. It was the same signpost that talked about the different types of waterfowl that could be found in the area, in particular noting the mated pair of swans for which the lake had been named.

  The sign also asked visitors not to feed the fowl, including the swans. And it insisted everyone except “authorized personnel” remain outside the fence that ringed the area.

  “The entrance to the dock that takes you to the island is over there.” Lauren pointed down the sidewalk to their right.

  Raef nodded and they continued walking. He glanced around them. The October morning hadn’t turned cold and cloudy yet, as Channel Six weather had predicted. Big surprise that they got it wrong. So it was a gorgeous morning, but an off hour, only just before 10:00 a.m. Too late for morning walkers and bird-watchers, and too early for those who liked to eat their lunch at the park. There was only a retired couple sitting on a bench on the opposite side of the lake, reading a paper together. Good. Less gawkers, he thought, while he followed the line of the sturdy green fence that ensured park visitors didn’t disturb the waterfowl. A flurry of honking and splashing pulled his gaze to the lake. One of the swans was bullying a group of ducks that must have drifted too close to his personal space.

  “They’re mean,” Lauren said. “Doesn’t matter how pretty they are—they’re mean and dirty. And the biggest reason my company has to come out here so often.”

  “You still have the contract to maintain the plants here?”

  Lauren nodded, but she looked uncomfortable. “Aubrey wants it that way. She doesn’t like to let a little thing like her death get in the way of good business.”

  “But you said you hadn’t been here since her death.”

  “I haven’t. I have five employees, remember?”

  Then Lauren’s use of the present tense about her sister’s wishes caught up to his thoughts. “So she communicates with you about your business?”

  “She communicates with me about lots of things, just not about her murder. Actually, I don’t feel right unless she and I are talking. I don’t feel whole without her....” Lauren’s words trailed off as she came to an awkward silence. As if just realizing what she’d said, she shook her head and attempted a smile. “I’m repeating myself, but it’s hard not to. My life isn’t the same without her.”

  Raef started to comment, but Lauren’s humorless laugh silenced him. “Yeah, I know. It’s normal for me to feel her loss. Normal for things to be different. Normal to grieve.” She shook her head, looking out at the small lake. “I’ve heard it all. Not one single person really gets it.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything Raef could say to her that hadn’t been said, obviously to no effect, by others. Plus, maybe Lauren was right. He’d never heard of a twin manifestation and possession before. Maybe there were unusual forces at work in this death. Who was he to scoff at the abnormal? Hell, he lived in Abnormalville; even the other psychics at After Moonrise kept him at a distance. You don’t have to be a Greek god to know that if you invite Discord to a party, all hell is gonna break loose.

  Shit, his life sucked.

  They’d come to
a locked gate in the fence, and Lauren stopped. Just inside the gate there was a small wooden dock and a slim, slatted walkway that led from it to the island of craggy stone, foliage and a waterfall-like fountain cascading down one side of it that sat in the middle of this end of the lake. “There.” Lauren’s voice was pitched low. “It’s out there that it happened.” The eyes she turned to him were haunted with sadness. “You’ll need to go out there, won’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Then let’s go.” Lauren flipped open the metal cap that held an elaborate keypad for the locking mechanism on the gate. Her hands shook only a little as she pressed the series of buttons that made the gate whir and click, and finally open. Without waiting for him, she strode through it and onto the dock. It was only then that she stopped, hands fisted at her sides, eyes looking at her feet, at the water, at the shore. Everywhere except out at the island.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Raef said.

  “Okay. Yes. Okay. I can do this.”

  Lauren stepped onto the walkway. Raef stayed close to her, worried that she might pass out and fall into the damn water. That was something neither of them needed. They were halfway to the island when Raef steeled himself and then dropped the barriers he usually kept firmly locked around his mind.

  Death, he whispered to himself, come to me.

  He braced himself for the influx of terror and anger and hurt and pain that always flooded him so near the site of a death.

  And there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  The only thing he felt was the brush of the unseasonably warm October breeze and his own confusion.

  “Here.” Lauren had reached the island. Raef realized he’d stopped and quickly closed the distance between them. “This is where it happened.” She pointed a shaky hand at the base of the rocky island where it met the water. There were several floating plants that looked to Raef like lily pads, along with some bushy clumps of underwater grasses. “Aubrey was replacing the water lilies, trimming the black bamboo and cleaning the algae from the spirogyra. She stepped down there—” Lauren motioned to a ledgelike edge of the island “—and was working with the plants, half in and half out of the water. The mechanism that powers the pump to the waterfall is under that ledge. The police say she cut the electrical line while she was working with the plants. The pump shorted out, sending an electrical current through the water and killing Aubrey. Technically, that’s what happened. But it was no accident.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Lauren’s pale cheeks flushed. “I already told you. I am absolutely certain my sister was killed!”

  “That’s not what I’m asking. I want to know are you sure that this is where she died.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Her death happened here and not at St. John’s?” Raef made an impatient jerk of his chin at the hospital that was directly across the street from Swan Lake.

  “Yes. She was dead when the joggers found her. They even came to her funeral. I talked to one of them myself. She was floating facedown in the water right there, tangled in the spirogyra grass.” Lauren’s hand was still a little shaky when she pointed to the spot below them where her sister’s body had been discovered. “There—right there is where they pulled her from the pond.”

  Raef didn’t say anything else. He just continued to stare at the water and the odd, curling grass that floated like Medusa’s hair just beneath the surface.

  Nothing. He felt nothing.

  “Raef, what is it? What’s happening?”

  “Your sister couldn’t have died here.”

  Lauren frowned at him. “Of course she did. That’s the one part of the police report that was completely accurate.”

  “How about the coroner’s report? Are you sure it concurred?”

  “Yes. The coroner listed her time of death as more than an hour before the joggers called 9-1-1.”

  “You’ve read it? You’ve seen the report?”

  “Yes and yes. I’ve scoured over it. I practically have it memorized, much to the TPD’s irritation. Raef, what is it?”

  “There’s nothing here. No psychic Tracing of a death at all. And that is impossible.”

  Lauren opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, a strangled gasp wrenched from her. She swayed, her eyes fluttering, and Raef moved quickly to her side, steadying her by grasping her arm.

  “Easy there. I’ll figure this out and—” His words broke off abruptly as emotions rippled through him. But they weren’t death scene emotions, familiar if numbing in their violence. Instead, joy and warmth and a poignant sense of longing filled him. He tried to throw up his mental barriers, but his traitorous Gift ignored it, leaving him naked and defenseless to the onslaught. Then the air beside Lauren rippled and her twin’s ethereal body manifested.

  “I knew you’d come. I knew you wouldn’t let us down. I remembered you from that article in Oklahoma Today magazine last year.” She grinned impishly. “It said you were the best psychic detective in Oklahoma—that you were like an Old West sheriff. You always got your man.”

  Raef swallowed hard, trying to pull himself together. I can feel her joy! Never before. Never during the twenty-five years his Gift had manifested had he ever felt a positive emotion from any spirit.

  Aubrey laughed and the sound washed through his body like magic, sensitizing his nerves and his skin so that the fine dark hair on his forearms prickled as if she had just run a teasing, caressing hand over them.

  “Ah, come on, Kent, relax. You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, still smiling joyously.

  “Raef.” He ground the word out automatically, the usual gruffness of his voice intensified by the force of the emotions filling him. “People call me Raef.”

  “I’m not going to,” Aubrey said. “I like Kent better. Plus, you can’t really call me a person anymore, can you?”

  Raef just stared at her. Had a spirit ever called him anything? No, hell, no, none of them had. He usually just Tracked the negative emotions left by the bad guys. He followed violence and hatred and fear until it led him to a living murderer. Ghosts didn’t have shit to do with him.

  Until this ghost.

  Aubrey’s gaze went from him to sweep around Swan Lake. “It’s beautiful here, don’t you think? The trees are particularly lovely. So wise and strong, like soldiers standing guard.” She turned shimmering blue eyes back to him. “They must take a lot of care.”

  As soon as she’d spoken the words Raef felt it. The slicing pain hit him as Aubrey’s semitransparent body doubled over. Lauren moaned, and her arm trembled violently under his grasp.

  “Kent!” Aubrey gasped. “Help us!”

  She disappeared as Lauren collapsed into his arms.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Oh, God,” Lauren groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “No. Not here.” Raef slid an arm around her waist and half carried, half dragged her from the dock and through the gate. He’d retraced their path and was almost to the car when Lauren spoke again.

  “Wh-where are we going?”

  “Don’t know. Right now I’m just getting us the hell outta here,” he said, wrenching open the door to the car and guiding her semicarefully into the passenger seat. He hesitated, watching her closely as she sat, face in hands, and trembled. “You still gonna be sick?”

  “Maybe,” she muttered into her hands.

  Yeah, well, me, too, he thought, but instead said, “Try not to be,” then closed her door and hurried around the car, putting it in gear and getting the hell outta there. Silent and on autopilot he drove, turned left on Lewis and was halfway to Fifteenth Street before he realized he was heading for his house. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m taking a client home? Raef glanced at Lauren. She’d taken her face from her hands. Her arms were wrapped around her, as if she was literally trying to hold herself together. Her face had gone from dead pale to splotchy pink. She was still trembling.

  Suddenly she
reminded him of Christina Kambic all those years ago, and he had a terrifying urge to protect her. Shit! Shit! Shit! What’s wrong with me?

  “I’m not going to be sick. At least, not right now,” Lauren said stiffly, definitely misunderstanding his sideways glances.

  “Want me to take you home?” he asked inanely.

  “No.” Lauren made two quick shakes of her head.

  “Your mother’s place?”

  “Hell, no.” She looked straight at him then. “Anywhere but there.”

  He only met her blue-gray eyes for a moment before making his decision. Raef grunted and turned right on Fifteenth, catching the green light and taking a quick left on Columbia, entering the quaint little neighborhood that was hidden between busy Fifteenth Street and kinda dicey Eleventh Street. He drove down a couple side streets, took another left and then pulled into the cobblestone driveway of the 1920s-era brick house he called home.

  Raef turned off the car and looked at Lauren, who was gazing at him, an obvious question mark on her flushed face. He blew out a long, frustrated breath, got out of the car and opened her door for her. “It’s my place,” he explained. “I don’t take clients here.”

  “Yet here I am,” she said as he closed the car door behind her.

  “Yeah, well, that’s just part of a list of don’ts that I’ve broken today.” As they walked together up the curving sidewalk that led to his spacious front porch, he held up his hand and ticked off fingers like an umpire keeping count of strikes. “First, I don’t usually feel as fucking bizarre as I did right before I met you.” He paused when they were standing on the porch and added, “And your dead sister.” Another finger went up. “Then I don’t go to a murder scene—a documented scene of a death—and not pick up death emotions.”