she called me back. To ask for forgiveness. What she really wanted was permission to move on—to him.” His expression turned bitter, his lips twisted. “I’m not sorry she did, though. You might still need me.”
“I’ll always need you.” They shared a long, poignant glance. “She didn’t try to send you back?”
Paddy snorted. “Said she didn’t know how. Hadn’t realized I couldn’t find my own way.”
“Have you looked?” Cait canted her head. “Sylvia here is in a similar predicament.”
Paddy turned to Sylvia for the first time. “She call you?”
Sylvia’s arms were folded. She gave an emphatic nod, her lip curling in a snarl. “She did. And for nothin’. Now I’m stuck. If my asshole husband could see me, I’d haunt his ass.”
Paddy grinned. “You don’t have to appear to him to cause him grief.”
Sylvia’s dark gaze glinted. “Really?”
“Stick with me a bit—until this one figures out how to send you back,” he said, pointing to Cait. “In the meantime, I’ll show you what a poltergeist can do.”
The two of them slid from the bench. Her dad gave her a final wink, and they headed out of the bar together, fading through the door.
“Great, I lost my boyfriend, but my dad has a date.” She sipped her Coke.
“Since it’s pure soda I served you, I’m gettin’ a little worried here, Cait.”
Cait glanced up to find Pauly standing right beside her, his glance going to the opposite empty seat. She wondered how long he’d watched her talking to the air. “I’m just practicing a few arguments for the next time I see Sam.”
Relief lit his eyes, and he grinned. “Can I bring you something else?”
Cait was tempted. Her gaze flicked to the various bottles at the back of the bar, scanning the shapes for her favorite.
Pauly’s silence said he knew it too.
But she shook her head. “Better not. I have a lot of thinking to do.”
“Anytime you want to talk to someone who might talk back, I’m all ears, hon.”
She gave him a sheepish smile. If he only knew.
As he ambled off, she reached for her phone. Several taps later, she listened to the dial tone.
“That you, Cait?” Jason asked. “Still have an ass?”
Shaking her head, Cait made a face at the phone. “We’re off the case.”
“Can’t say I’m not surprised. You scared years off Sam’s hide. Never saw a guy that size move so fast after I told him what you’d done.”
Cait sighed. “He doesn’t want us anywhere near the hotel. Said the officers guarding the door would turn me away.”
After a long pause, Jason asked, “So what do you want me to do?”
“That’s what I like about you.” Cait smiled. “No fussing or cursing. No lectures or fingers wagging in my face. Just a helpful segue.”
He groaned. “Cait, you can’t be thinking about going back there.”
“I have to get inside. And I have to do it tonight. The demon in the hotel knows about us. He consigned his lieutenant to the past. Right now he’s got to be nervous. He won’t dare strike with the place covered in cops.” Her grip on the phone tightened. “Not again. I want to see what the TV crew has. See if their film will reveal that point of conflux. I have to know if it’s more specific than just the hotel or just the third floor.”
“And when you find it, what then?”
Cait shrugged and raked a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. But knowing where it is would be helpful, even if only to make sure everyone stays clear. Maybe if I can do this without getting anyone killed, Sam’ll let me back on the case.”
“Must have been a hell of a fight.”
“Huh.” Jason grunted. “You at O’Malley’s?”
“Where else? The apartment was too quiet after he dropped me off.”
Another pause stretched, then he asked, “You drinkin’?”
“No. Not like I didn’t want to, but I have to keep my head screwed on. Too much at risk. Sam and everyone else who goes in and out of that place are all in danger.”
“Trying to save the world?”
“Not the world, Jason. Just my little piece.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
She ended the call and slid from her booth. Her heart still felt heavy. Remorse burned a hole in her belly. Sam had every right to his fury. She could see his point. The moment the elevator doors had opened to the paisley wallpaper, she really thought she’d been lost. That she’d never see Sam again, or that she’d have to wait decades to tell him she was sorry. The other possibility, of winding up inside a wall, her guts yanked out and her body looking like jerky, wasn’t one she could ponder without throwing up.
Yeah, she’d been that scared. She just hadn’t had time to process everything she’d seen. Now that she had, she realized she’d learned something useful too.
The demon was scared.
14
“Cait, the stairwell door is clear,” Jason whispered.
She lowered her phone and ran up the final set of stairs to slip through the door to the third floor. The cop who should have been watching the hall was nowhere in sight.
How Jason had managed that feat, she didn’t want to know. Plausible deniability and all.
At the room assigned to the Reel PIs, she knocked, hoping they didn’t have any other visitors inside or she was toast.
The door inched open. Clayton’s large bulbous eye appeared in the crack.
“Cait!” He opened the door and grabbed her arm, hauling her inside. “Sam said you weren’t coming, but we have so much to show you. Madame Xavier said you were a witch. That you were the most plugged in to all this. Truth is, we don’t know what we’re seeing.”
“Take a breath.” Cait turned the deadbolt on the door. “In case I need a second to hide,” she said, offering him a conspiratorial wink. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of stale pizza and beer. Their mussed hair and the equipment tossed willy-nilly on the beds and floor clued her in that they’d been hard at work for a while.
Clayton waved her to a chair. “Mina, play back the tape.”
Cait nodded to Booger, who sat on the edge of the bed.
Mina gave her a smug half-smile. “We’re gonna be famous.”
That thought had Cait hiding a grimace, but who was she to rain on their parade? No doubt Leland would make sure the recording never saw the light of day. She took her seat in the armchair beside Mina’s metal folding one and with Clayton hovering over her shoulder.
She watched as the camera panned wide to fit Madame Xavier into the frame.
The camera rushed forward, peering around the psychic’s shoulder.
The moment Cait watched herself aim the flashlight past the camera and squint her eyes, she gripped the chair’s arms.
Cait was gesturing to Sam, in the direction of the hallway where the bodies were found.
