Monday night, late
There was a knock at Sophie’s door. It startled her; she’d been online, researching the Black Dahlia case.
It was ridiculously late.
She should have been sleeping.
Hard to sleep, though, after what she’d witnessed today—in many ways.
It made sense to study the Black Dahlia case.
The Black Dahlia—Elizabeth Short—had been from Massachusetts. She had been a struggling actress, like so many a beautiful young woman in LA.
The police at the time had investigated all fifty-plus people who confessed to the crime; they had made comparisons to murders that had occurred in Chicago and in Cleveland.
Sophie believed that when they discovered the identity of their victim, they would find that she had been an aspiring actress, too. Because it appeared that a sick killer was obsessed with the past. If they were going to solve their current murder, she was going to have to know the old case forward and backward.
The murder in 1947 was a long time ago. And yet, there were still writers, film producers and ordinary citizens fascinated by the case, always looking for that one tiny clue that had been overlooked, that might finally give an answer to the question. Far too late, of course, for Elizabeth Short, and for this new victim.
She had to be careful, she knew. The murder of the Black Dahlia—according to most of the credible accounts Sophie was reading, Elizabeth Short had been dubbed the Black Dahlia after her murder, and not before—had received such widespread and almost hectic and desperate press coverage that one had to be careful reading. Much that had been written had been exaggeration or speculation.
Sophie was so deep in thought.
And then...a knock.
Absurd, but the sound sent alarms racing all through her bloodstream.
Normally, she didn’t pick up her department-issue firearm just to open her front door. Then again, people weren’t usually at her door when it was past midnight.
She saw no one—nothing—through the peephole.
Had she imagined the sound? Or had it just been something from the street?
The knock sounded again.
Again, when she looked outside the front door of her apartment, there was no one there.
She immediately tensed. She’d heard the knock. She held her gun ready, and opened the door. She lived in Los Feliz, which was generally a very good, safe neighborhood, but it didn’t hurt to be wary.
He was there. The man in the bizarre 1940s suit, hat pulled in a rakish angle over one eye.
“Well, you could shoot me. But it won’t help you any,” he told her. “I’m already dead.”
Somewhere in her mind, Sophie knew it.
But the truth was too bizarre to accept.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, not lowering her weapon.
“All you will do is put a big old bullet hole in your door, miss,” he said easily, touching the rim of his hat, “Or worse, you’ll fire into the night and hit some poor, hapless soul on their way to the little grocery store on the corner. Dead, Sophie. I’m already dead.”
She really couldn’t accept it.
“May I? Come in, I mean. Please, honestly, I’m here to help you.”
She didn’t give him any permission. She just stood there. Somehow, he slipped by her.
“I really suggest you shut the door,” he told her, moving easily into the living room and pausing by the sofa. “I’d like to sit, but you know, my mom raised me to be a gentleman. I can’t sit while you’re standing. And you look silly standing there, pointing a gun into the empty night.”
She was imagining him. Maybe she wasn’t such a hardened detective. Maybe this was all too much for her.
She found herself moving back in cautiously. She shut the door and locked it, keeping him in front of her—and her gun in her grip. She eased into the armchair facing the sofa. He took a seat across from her, grinning pleasantly.
“First things first—I’m Michael Thoreau. You can look me up. I’m for real. I was murdered while investigating the Black Dahlia case.”
He was full of it—but she’d play along.
“You were a cop?”
“Investigative reporter,” he said. “I was working hard on the Black Dahlia when some asshole shot me in a dark alley. Whether it was random, or someone associated with the case, I don’t know. My murder was never solved, either. I’ve been hanging around a really long time. Not at all sure why. Then today, I saw you. It’s happening all over again. I have been sticking around all this time to help you.”
“Unless you were there and saw who did it, I sincerely doubt there is anything you can do to help us. You need to leave—now. And I won’t press charges.”
“How they will laugh at you when you try to press charges against a dead man,” he said.
“Get up. Get out,” she said. “I don’t know who you really are, or what the hell you’re doing. If this is some kind of a prank, it’s a dangerous one. You could wind up getting yourself seriously hurt—or killed.”
“Oh, Sophie, Sophie. You know that I’m telling the truth. Look me up. Michael Thoreau. Go through the old papers. Everything I’m saying is bona fide. I can be there for you. I can go places you can’t go. Hey, I can sift through papers if something is being held from you by anyone just about anywhere. Come on, Sophie.”
She didn’t blink; she kept the gun aimed at him.
He smiled and rose.
She did the same.
“I’ll give you a bit of time. Not too much—we’ve got to get on this. But I guess this is new to you. Not to worry. I’ll be back.”
She felt him—felt him—as he passed through her.
And then on through the closed and locked door, back into the night.
Sophie’s breath left her, and her eyes closed as she sank into darkness.
Tuesday morning, nowhere near dawn
Some called it a “gift.” Many called it a “curse.” Some pretended to have it, and most often, people just had an inkling of whatever the “sixth” sense was that allowed one to see, hear and communicate with the dead. Those people felt the press of history and the ages seep into them at battlefields such as that at Gettysburg, churches like Westminster Abbey, or old crypts or graveyards, places sacred to the dead, like the Catacombs of Paris or a Capuchin Monastery.
Of course, in one way or another, the dead only communicated when they chose to do so.
Some—like Bruce’s parents—seemed to embrace their existence in death with almost as much gusto as they had embraced life.
The thought made Bruce smile. His folks were—beyond a doubt—a presence.
Bruce had a tendency to think of his abilities mostly as a curse—but then again, after his parents’ deaths, he had sat there and wished that he’d had just one more moment with them...one last time to let them know how much they had been loved, and what great parents they had been.
At that time, he’d never imagined he’d have the opportunity.
Not many people did. Largely, things left unsaid had to stay unsaid, regrets that lingered painfully in the human soul.
The problem for him was that—ever since he and his brothers had been visited by their parents—his gift seemed to have become acute.
He saw the dead far too often. Everywhere. Whether he wanted to or not.
He and his brothers all felt that they needed to use their talents to serve; at first that had meant joining the military, but now, with their unusual skill, it seemed to be pushing them in a different direction.
Bryan was dead set on the FBI and the Krewe of Hunters. Bruce just wasn’t sure what he wanted himself. He knew he’d been drifting in the three years since he’d left the marines. Unable to really make a commitment, but restless unless he was working. Tommy Baker—a fellow vet from his corps—had returned to Texas to become a Texas Ranger. When Tommy had called a few months back because of a most peculiar case, Bruce had been glad to go. It had involved kidnapped young women kept in a basement as a harem. He’d been able to help.
The ghost of Gina Patterson—who’d died in the basement due to a miscarriage—had worked with him, helping him find the place where the women were being kept. He could still remember her sweet and beautiful face—her life had been lost, but she didn’t want that fate for others.
Then she—unlike his mom and dad—had decided to move on.
Neither he nor his brothers were fools; they didn’t explain to others that sometimes the dead came back to help them.
Because of his parents’ connection to Adam Harrison, he knew a great deal about the Krewe. The unit had been formed by Harrison, a unique older gentleman whose quiet role in life had seemed to be philanthropy, but also finding people with unique talents.
Bruce would be a liar to say that he hadn’t studied many of their cases. They did their work quietly—and kept their methods to themselves. And while others in the Bureau might curiously mock them or tease, the Krewe had the best solve rate of cases among all others. They had earned the respect they were given.
The members came from all walks of life before entering the academy at Quantico—which was required—and becoming Krewe. Some had been in law enforcement previously—cops, US Marshals, military of one type or another. Others came from totally unrelated fields. Will Chan—an agent with the original Krewe—had once been a magician.
While the brothers had all talked about joining the Krewe before—there had never been a determination of “Let’s do it!” Or even, from any one of them, “I’m going to do it!” Until Bryan had worked with Field Director Jackson Crow recently and made up his mind.
Bruce did sometimes feel there had to be a greater purpose for the fact that he could see the spirits of those departed.
Even landing at LAX, heading through the terminal, and then out to hop a van to the rental car station, Bruce saw a few of those who had—and still—called LA home even though they were no longer on the earthly plane. Tight curls on the heads of a few ladies who had passed in the forties, bell-bottoms and Nehru jackets on those from the sixties. Sometimes, since it was, after all, something of a permanent fantasyland, Bruce really wasn’t sure if he was seeing a ghost, or just someone who had chosen to dress in retro fashion, but since it was after two in the morning, he was pretty sure that most of the people he was seeing were among those who had departed their mortal shells.
From the car rental station, he picked up the 405—the only good thing about the hour was the lighter traffic—and headed downtown; it was kind of a pain to stay downtown, but he figured it would also be central to wherever he might need to be. Marnie was supposed to call Sophie Manning to let her know that he was on his way.
He hoped that the woman really did want some help. Otherwise...
Well, he couldn’t just go home.
He checked into his hotel room. It was almost 3:00 a.m. California time—and 6:00 a.m. back East. He was pretty sure that Sophie Manning wouldn’t be happy hearing from anyone at this hour, much less a spirit-seeing stranger.
Locking the door, he set his weapon on the bedside table. He was grateful that a contact of his at the DOJ had seen to it that he had a special California permit to carry his weapon as a “security contractor.” Set for the night, he stretched out on his bed.
His sleep wasn’t haunted; rather his dreams were plagued by the fear that the dead might not appear—and that the living might not have the answers they were so desperately going to need.
Tuesday morning, early
Sophie’s alarm rang; it seemed to be coming from far, far away. She woke with a start—and slid off the chair and onto what her parents had always referred to politely as her derriere.
For a moment, she felt as paranoid and vulnerable as a recruit. She had no idea of where she was, or why she was on the floor. Obviously, she’d fallen asleep on the chair.
To her horror, she realized that she’d passed out cold, right onto the big old armchair where she’d been sitting before she’d risen and a ghost had walked right through her.
No. That was far too humiliating. Detectives did not faint.
But there had been a man who claimed to have died in the 1940s, right on the rim of the Black Dahlia case, in her apartment.
Had it been her imagination? She’d seen him at the crime scene. And then he’d knocked at her door.
It seemed she was really good at making up imaginary people.
A psychiatrist had spent months assuring her that she might imagine people so that they could help her deal with whatever was going on in her life.
Yep, that was it: she invented dead people.
She even gave them names. At least, she had done so with this one. Michael Thoreau. She would look him up. Maybe she had read about him at some point—and that’s why he was popping up in her subconscious now.
Real—or a product of her imagination—she had to forget about it for the moment. She was due at autopsy. She stood, gave herself a shake. She saw with horror that her Glock 22—the weapon she had received when she had graduated from the police academy—lay on the floor.
With a shudder she picked it up, grateful that the weapon had an automatic safety—and that she hadn’t shot up her apartment. Wary—maybe of her own mind—she checked the door. It was locked; she was always careful to lock it. But then again, she had seen her ghost leave by walking through the door.
She went into the bedroom and put the gun away in her bedside table, where it always went once she was home.
She needed a shower. Big-time.
But first...coffee.
She headed to the kitchen to start the brewer. Her apartment was the ground floor of a house. When she’d taken it, she’d loved the fact that it had a front door and a back door—and grass and trees and a little patio out back. Sun was filtering in through the back windows.
She headed to the bathroom, between the two bedrooms—one of which she used for her office.
She had just stripped down, turned on a spray of delightfully hot water and stepped into it, when she heard something.
She froze. It had sounded like a click. Like a door opening. It had been faint, and hard to hear over the water, but there had definitely been a sound.
Her Glock was in the bedroom.
Sophie was careful; she’d been careful all her life.
Her dad being a cop, she’d simply been brought up to be observant—and cautious. The toughest guy out there, the best shot in the world, the toughest damned Ninja warrior, could go down if he—or she—was taken by surprise. Carelessly leaving doors unlocked was one way a lot of smart people wound up dead.
She knew that she had locked the front door; she’d just checked it. Every single day or night when she came in, she checked the locks on her doors.
But that sound.
It was as if someone had come in.
She remained very still and listened. She really couldn’t hear over the flow of the water. She moved; she was a cop, for God’s sake! She slid silently to the bathroom door and leaned her head against it.
Now she could swear that she heard movement in the office. Someone rustling through papers, moving around her desk.
She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her, trying all the harder to listen, to hear. She had nothing in the bathroom except for a spray bottle of cleaner. That was something, she told herself. Grabbing it up, she listened again.
Nothing.
Then she heard footsteps.
Were they coming toward the bathroom door?
She wasn’t going down without a fight. There was someone out there, and it wasn’t her ghost or her imaginary haunt—he had knocked. She had to get to her gun.
With one hand, she threw the door open, the other holding her household bleach cleaner in front of her.
At the same time, she heard, “Detective Manning?”
She raced forward to spray the man, nearly crashing straight into him before thinking I know this guy! She stopped dead, all but touching him. It’s Bryan McFadden, the PI who helped catch the killer in her last case, but how the hell was he here?
Except that it wasn’t Bryan. He was someone like Bryan...but not Bryan.
And she—an LAPD detective—was standing there, in front of him, in a towel with a bottle of spray cleaner.
Then again...
He was in her apartment.
She got control.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment?” she demanded. He wasn’t Bryan, but he had to be related to Bryan to look almost like his clone.
He stared back at her, nonplussed by her fury or the authority and confidence she was certain she had set into her voice.
Then again, he might have measured up her five-four against his six-three. And she was suddenly certain that there was a weapon in a holster somewhere beneath the black jacket he was wearing.
“Why did you break into my apartment? Who the hell are you? What do you want?”
“I didn’t break into your apartment, Miss Manning.”
“Detective Manning.”
“Detective Manning. Your front door was wide-open. I naturally came in as quickly as I saw it—assuming something might be wrong. My name is Bruce McFadden, and you should have known that I was on my way here to help you. Marnie left several messages.”
Nothing seemed to be computing. She shook her head.
“The door was locked.”
“Not when I got here.”
“You were in my office?”
“No. I walked in calling your name, and a second later you burst out with your...spray bottle of bleach.”
No way out of it; there was an alarming puzzle.
He reached behind his back; yes, he was armed. He inclined his head, suggesting she get behind him. It made sense. He had a gun. She had cleaner.
“How large is the apartment?” he asked, his voice quieter.
“Two bedrooms, bath between. Living and dining room combo—as we are now. Kitchen—and exit through the back door.”
He nodded, backing his way to the front door, closing and locking it. He headed first to her room, cleared it ahead of her, and she slipped in and grabbed her own Glock.
She checked the closet.
They headed into the office.
There were papers on the floor.
“You didn’t do that?” he asked her.
“You didn’t do it?” she asked him.
He shook his head.
She knew damned well the bathroom was empty. They moved on through the hallway to the kitchen.
The back door wasn’t just unlocked. It was open.
“And you didn’t do that?” she asked him.
“Nope. Someone was in here, Detective Manning. Gone now, but they were in here. You really do need to learn to lock your doors.”
“I always lock my doors!”
“The locks weren’t forced.”
She stared at him, wondering how Bryan McFadden could have been so wonderful and this almost-clone could be so...judgmental! She studied him. He was different from Bryan. She thought there was more red in his hair and more of a wave to it; he wore it longer than Bryan did, allowing for one of those waves to sit almost arrogantly on his forehead. His eyes had more a myriad cast to them; they weren’t really blue, nor green, nor gray, but rather prisms of all three. He had his brother’s height, and the same breadth of shoulder. He might have been a little leaner.
And, of course, she was staring at him now, feeling as if a fuse was burning inside of her.
“I locked the doors. I guarantee you. I even checked them before I went to shower.”
“Sure. Why didn’t you know I was coming?”
“Why would I know you were coming?”
“I told you—Marnie left you several messages.”
Sophie hadn’t checked her phone. Frankly, she hadn’t paid any attention to it; there was a special ring if her partner, Grant Vining, was calling, and if it wasn’t him...
She did tend to let it go to messages when she was busy. As in, doing research on the internet.
Or talking to a ghost in her imagination.
Or passed out in an armchair.
“You are Bryan’s brother—obviously. I will try to respect that. But if you’re not the one who picked the locks, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m here to help.”
“I don’t need help!”
What was happening? This was the second time a person—one living, one dead—suggested that she needed their help.
“You have to get out of here. I have to call in and get a crime scene unit—if it wasn’t you, someone was in here. And I have a busy day. Regardless of whatever happened here, I have an autopsy to attend.”
“I know.”
“You know.”
“Yes, of course. I’ve spoken with Detective Vining. When I couldn’t reach you, I called him. He’s on his way here, I believe. Worried about you.” He stared at her pointedly. “He didn’t say as much, but I gathered that he thought you’d behaved a little strangely when you were speaking with the media yesterday. Also, I’m going to assume you need to get some paperwork done on this—someone did break into your home.”
She heard the sound of a car driving up and stopping out on the street.
And the water was still crashing down in the shower.
And she was wearing only a towel.
Sophie ignored him and swore, headed into the bathroom and turned off the shower, and then beat it into her room.
She slammed the door and sank onto the bed for a minute.
She could hear this McFadden—Bruce—opening the door. Then she could hear him speaking to Vining.
Her partner was out there. Her amazing partner—before whom she could not appear to be falling apart or frazzled.
She breathed deeply. She was a cop—a good one. A detective. The entire world seemed puzzling at the moment, but that’s what detectives did—they solved the puzzle of a crime.
She gathered herself together and got dressed.
Forget the ghosts.
Forget standing ridiculously in front of stranger in a towel with a spray container of household cleaner.
In five minutes, she was ready.
When she walked out, Vining and McFadden were deep in conversation. Vining stared at her with concern.
“Sophie, someone broke in? Someone who maybe had a key? I’ve got a unit coming over. They’ll dust for prints. You know our crime scene guys—if there’s something to find, they’ll find it.”
“Thanks, Grant.”
He was staring at her oddly.
“You’re certain you locked your doors.”
She prayed for patience.
“Absolutely certain,” she assured him.
Be professional, she warned herself. Be careful not to mention that this ass just walked in and then asked the same damned questions.
“As soon as they’re here, we’ll get going,” he said. “Mr. McFadden is going to be joining us.”
“What?” she demanded sharply. Too sharply. “But...sir! He isn’t LAPD. He isn’t—he isn’t law enforcement of any kind.”
“Licensed PI,” Vining said. “And you know me. Help is help—in any form. Hell, Sophie, I’m delighted to have him here. This man is Bryan McFadden’s brother. We both know that his folks knew the workings of Hollywood like few others.”
“Yes, his parents did,” she said.
“Bryan and Marnie sent him. Let’s welcome what help he can give, Sophie.”
She forced a smile. She was pretty sure that it had to look more like a snarl.
“Welcome, Mr. McFadden, for as long as you’ll be around,” she said quietly.
He didn’t even appear to hear her. He was already talking to Grant Vining again, and more cars were arriving.
The crime scene techs had come.
“You need to fill out a report, as well,” Vining said, watching her. “If you know that someone was in your apartment.”
“I locked my doors,” she said firmly, unflinching confidence and authority in her voice.
Grant Vining nodded. She knew that he did respect her—and her abilities.
She hoped she still felt the same way about herself.
“We’ll get the paperwork started,” he said.
“And quickly,” she added. “We need to be at that autopsy.”
“Yes, we need to be at the autopsy.”
She turned to greet the officers and crime scene techs who had come. She explained the situation—Bruce McFadden helped, and she should have been grateful. She just found it difficult.
She was glad to see that, among the other techs, Lee Underwood had come. His was a friendly face.
“We’ll find out what went on,” he assured her.
“Can’t believe you’re here,” she murmured.
“I heard it was you—I asked for the assignment. We all love you, you know, Sophie.”
She smiled. “Thank you!”
She admitted to herself she was a bit shaken. There had been a ghost in her house—or in her imagination. Then this morning there had been someone real. Ghosts didn’t pick locks and leave doors open. And then, there had been Bruce McFadden.
Way too busy for her little place—and her little, focused-on-work life.
Things moved along, and the head of the unit explained that it was going to be difficult to discover anything—especially if nothing was taken—because, of course, there would be dozens of fingerprints in her home.
She hadn’t made an assessment of her belongings; she did that quickly, touring her rooms with an eye for anything out of place.
She found that nothing had been touched in her bedroom. Her computer was fine; her laptop, still in its case, was fine, as well.
She collected the papers on the floor.
Only one thing was missing. It was one of the papers she had printed out on the Black Dahlia case.
“You’re sure—just one paper?” Vining asked.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said.
“And you definitely printed out?” he persisted.
“Grant! Yes, I printed it, and it’s gone.”
She glanced at her watch. The autopsy was due to begin.
“No one has your key?” the head tech asked.
“Yes, my cousin in San Francisco has one,” she said.
“Someone could have gotten it—copied it?”
“In San Francisco?” she asked.
“Maybe they copied your key,” Bruce McFadden suggested.
“I keep my things with me—or in my locker,” she said.
“When there’s an unsuspected criminal mind-set,” Grant said with a shrug, “anything is possible. I’m going to suggest that you get the locks changed this afternoon,” he added.
“I’ll call a locksmith while we’re on the way to the morgue,” she said.
“We’ve a hell of a day before us,” Grant murmured.
“Good thing it’s LA,” Bruce said. “People work all hours of the day and night.”
She looked at him.
Once again, she knew that she should be grateful. Instead, she was still swallowing down her hostility.
Most probably because she’d run almost naked at him and basically straight into his arms.
And because she’d been so...
So vulnerable.
She didn’t have a chip on her shoulder—she really didn’t.
She’d been raised by a great father who had been certain that a girl or a woman could do anything she chose. She’d hit the academy with a lot of determination to take on whatever challenges came her way, and the humility to accept help when necessary.
She just didn’t like the feeling of being so...
Haunted.
They had to work hard to solve a brutal murder. She had to be strong and competent.
And not pass out at the sight of a ghost or the pull of her imagination.
And not go running practically naked into a stranger’s arms.
She managed a grim smile for all of them.
“Autopsy,” she said flatly. “Let’s go.”