“Businesslike hair?” Donald Trump, the President, Steven Spielberg—I couldn’t imagine the look.
Hannah used her hand to demonstrate the look. “Like proper, never a strand out of place and always perfect.”
“Half of the population.” Kipp shook his head in apparent frustration. “Was he a police officer?”
“No,” Hannah replied. “He worked for an insurance company in Southaven.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “An insurance adjuster?” A cop made sense. He’d have experience with death, know police procedures and have the ability to hide evidence as he clearly had done to keep under the radar. An insurance adjuster? No, I didn’t believe that for one second.
“Yes, he told me that,” Hannah said.
Kipp gazed at Hannah intently. “How much did you know of Percy?”
“Everything,” she answered in a wistful tone. “We were in love.”
Got it, she loved the guy, but he killed her. I couldn’t get past the fact she had yet to show a single moment of dislike for the man who ended her life. Something was off here.
Kipp obviously didn’t care or had yet to notice, since he continued without pause. “Do you know where Percy lives?”
She shrugged. “He never told me where he lived and never took me anywhere but to a house he rented.”
Rented, my ass!
“Have you ever seen his wife, learned her name, anything of that sort?” Kipp asked.
She winced at the mention of
wife
. “He kept us separate and I never asked about his other life. Our life was the only one I was ever concerned about.”
I wanted to shake her to break the spell of love woven over her, but Kipp remained calm. “Did you ever go to his workplace?”
She shook her head. “He’d never let me. With his wife and all, he said he didn’t want to hurt her.” She sighed. “He had such a gentle heart.”
I glanced to Kipp with a “can you believe her” look and he gave a quick nod in agreement before he focused back on Hannah. “I know your family wants to bring you home. Do you know where you’re buried?”
Hannah glanced down at her hands and her lips pursed as if searching for an answer.
I suspected we’d sit for a while. Ghosts only remembered what they needed to cross over and anything that took place since their spirit materialized. She’d remembered why she died because she needed the information to move on, but other than that, I doubted she’d remember anything of importance.
“The night was so dark when I…” She never looked up. “After I woke up, everything confused me. I couldn’t think straight. All I wanted to do was get home to my parents.”
I could’ve let Hannah struggle, but my heart ached for her. Most of the time, I helped ghosts so they’d leave me alone. To help one because I truly wanted to, I never thought the day would come. “Do you remember the last place you were—not when you died—but what you were doing before?”
Hannah pondered for many seconds before she whispered, “We had spent the night together at his rented house. He drove me home afterward, but I picked a fight about what I wanted. I’d never seen him so angry and before I could make sense out of anything, he pulled off the road and dragged me into a forest.” She glanced up and misery weighed on every part of her expression. “If I’d never got mad, never said anything…”
Silence drifted around us.
Think, Tess! Say something to make her feel better!
I came up empty.
Kipp finally broke the awkward pause. “Something doesn’t add up here. There’s no way you could’ve gone to the safe house if Percy wasn’t in law enforcement.”
“Safe house? Law enforcement?” Hannah stared wide-eyed at him. “You said that before, but I’m sure he’s not a cop.”
“I don’t think he told you the truth,” Kipp said.
The sadness in Hannah’s expression deepened, and coming from a dead woman, it was grave sorrow indeed. “He lied to me?”
“Only a cop would have access to the house, but there’s no Percy Mills on the force.” Kipp cocked his head. “Did you ever see his identification—anything with his name on it?”
Hannah wrapped her arms around herself and glanced at the ground as she shook her head.
“When you went for dinner, he never pulled out a wallet?” I did a little digging of my own. We were losing her focus and sometimes ghosts needed a push to remember things.
Hannah didn’t even look up to shake her head again.
Kipp glanced at me and frustration weighed heavy in his expression. I understood perfectly. The conversation with Hannah had gotten us nowhere. Before I voiced more questions, Hannah gasped, startling me enough to jump.
“He lied to me.” Finally a little reaction from Miss Blinded-By-Love. “He made it all up.”
Kipp ignored her outburst. His gaze stayed on mine. “We need to go back and tell Zach everything we learned here.” He stood, looking down at Hannah. “Give us a couple days to see if we discover any leads, but if you need to find us, come to 2500 Cedar Bark Cove…”
Before he finished, Hannah lunged off the bench, fists tight and face taut with anger. “Fuck him.” Who knew she’d been even capable of such language. “Fuck him and the white horse he rode in on.” She proceeded to march across the yard toward the sidewalk.
“Where are you going?” I called after her.
Hannah glanced over her shoulder with an icy glare. “I’m going to hunt him down and haunt him.”
Chapter Four
Back at the house, I might have been a wee bit grateful and curious what promises Zach had made to Caley to make her leave. She might love me, even believe in my ability, but hearing about Hannah would throw her over the edge and I didn’t want to have to explain.
I plopped down onto the loveseat. “Hannah said she had an affair with a married man, stated she planned to go public and Percy Mills killed her because of it. Do you know him?”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Zach replied. “He isn’t part of our precinct.” He pondered, and finally said, “Nope, I’m sure he’s not a cop in Memphis, I would have heard the name before.”
I didn’t hold the same confidence. There had to be thousands of cops who worked the Memphis streets. “Do you have a photographic memory or something?”
“I never forget a name.” Zach smiled. “Call it good police work.”
Hence why I’d make a terrible cop. I couldn’t remember a name even after introductions. It’d always been my downfall. My neighbor had told me his name three times and I still couldn’t figure out if his name was George or Gary—maybe even Gavin.
“Which is why I suspect Percy Mills is not his real name,” Kipp said.
“Maybe he’s not a cop, though, just someone who broke into the safe house,” I retorted.
“Impossible.” Zach apparently understood the conversation between Kipp and me despite the fact he only heard my side. “You need a code to deactivate the alarm. If anyone entered without the code, the department would’ve been notified.”
My theory burned out, but I continued to search for something more plausible, not wanting to believe what they suggested was true. No matter how hard I tried, the truth stared us all dead in the face. Instead of pointing out what neither of them wanted to accept, I helped them along. “So that means…”
Both their expressions were masks of disappointment, and at the exact moment, they both lifted their gazes to mine and said in unison, “It’s a cop.”
I laughed, unable to hold back. “You both said that at the same time.”
“Ha,” Zach exclaimed. “Glad to know being a ghost hasn’t changed you—still stealing my lines.”
Kipp chuckled.
“You do that often?” I asked, more interested than I cared to admit.
Zach nodded. “All the bloody time.”
Cute little man bond!
“Back on subject,” Kipp said, clearly more focused than we were. “It’s the only assumption that a cop is responsible. There’s just no way anyone else could gain access to the safe house.”
When Zach still laughed, I raised my hand. “Oh, you need to stop now. Kipp is back to detective mode.”
Zach clamped his mouth shut, shook his head and stared up at the ceiling as if Kipp were up there. “I’m taking it she didn’t know how to identify him—”
I giggled, pointing to the chair. “He’s not up there, he’s sitting on the chair—and yes, all Hannah knew were lies, so we have no way of identifying him.”
Zach rolled his eyes. “Oh for fuck’s sake.” He looked at the chair without bothering to repeat the question. “What are you thinking, bud?”
“I think we should rule out Tess’s theory. Even though I suspect we’re on the right track here, we have to be sure—for all our sakes—that every other possibility is ruled out.”
He cannot be suggesting…
I searched his gaze, the determined set of his eyes showed my assumptions weren’t wrong. “Please tell me I’m not going where I think I’m going?”
Kipp grinned. “That’s right, sugar lips! We’re going back to the scene of the crime.”
In no time, we were back on the road, despite my continuous protests of how insane the idea was, which they both flatly ignored.
After a short drive while the early evening settled in, we approached a middle-class bungalow on a tree-lined street—completely dull, without any warmth and plainer than a home built by Mennonites. “This is a safe house?”
“What did you expect?” Zach scooted out of the truck and glanced over the hood at me. “Luxury?”
I followed Zach up the steps, looking around at all the creepy-crawlies that made the front porch their home. “Yeah, exactly. At least something that would be worth living in. This shithole isn’t suitable for a stray dog, let alone people. If someone brought me here, I’d be pissed.”
“They’re put here for protection.” Kipp looked at me sternly. “Not for a vacation.”
“They’re—” Zach said.
I raised my hand to interrupt him, not wanting to hear a repeat, since as of late I’d suffered a world of that. “Already heard it.”
Zach grinned before he opened the screen door. He bent down, coming closer to the security panel next to the door handle. After he entered in the four-digit code, the door beeped and opened. He stepped through and flicked the lights on.
I followed him in. “Okay, so you weren’t kidding about the house being secure.”
“The house has more invisible security than you could even wrap your pretty head around,” Kipp said.
I snorted. “Yeah, I gather.” The air seemed charged with electricity and a low hum sounded through the stale space. My assumption of a trespasser had been wrong. I suspected if you dared to open the fridge, spotlights would shine down on you and the walls would do that morphing thing into a steel cage to enclose you.
After my
Mission Impossible
fantasy, I spun around to meet Zach’s gaze. He stood with the door open and stared at me. “Are you okay?”
“Can I close the door?” he replied.
Huh?
“And you’re asking my permission be-e-cause?”
He rolled his eyes. “Has Kipp come into the room?”
I laughed. He worried about something irrelevant. “You do realize he can walk right through the door. He doesn’t need you to open it for him.”
Zach’s jaw clenched. “I’m not making Kipp walk through a door.”
“Stop goading him, he’s not like you and still thinks of me as well…me,” Kipp said.
I sighed away my laughter. “He’s in.”
Zach grumbled something incoherent and closed the door with a loud slam.
With that funny business over, I scanned the room, and clearly, the house had been decorated in the seventies. The couches resembled the color of vomit and fake wood coffee tables decorated the tasteless house. Dust covered everything and the smell of something dead lingered in the air. “Lordy, how long has it been since someone used this place?”
“A while,” Zach answered.
“Like in the last decade?” I swiped a path of dust off the coffee table with my finger. “Boy, the guy who brought Hannah here was a real charmer.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Kipp said.
“I suspect it’d been the perfect place to take her.” Zach strode toward the bedroom. “No one would see him here or even know the house existed.”
“Well, we know one thing,” I said. “She sure as heck loved him with all her heart.”
Kipp’s eyebrow arched. “What makes you say that?”
I spied a large spider who worked on his web in the corner of the ceiling. “Because no woman would come to a place like this unless she loved him.”
“Maybe it’d been the only option. Obviously, he wanted to keep their relationship private,” Zach called out from the bedroom.
“Private is one thing.” I grimaced as the stench of mold filled my nose. “Downright grungy is something else entirely.”
Kipp inclined his head in agreement.
“Come here, you two,” Zach shouted. “I’ve got something.”
I rushed into the bedroom only to encounter a complete mess. Vodka, whisky, just an obscene amount of empty alcohol bottles littered the floor around the bed while tissues were scattered about.