SIXTEEN

They were about fifty miles south of Denver when Ava gave in to sleep. Sleep brought sorrow. Over the course of the last few days, she’d lost her childhood life, her father, and her little sister. With her head in his lap, she wept.

He drove, and she cried. From her perch in the extended cab, Clara rested her head next to Ava’s back. Seth stroked Ava’s short hair and drove down the front range of the Rocky Mountains on I-25. As he drove, his mind worked to translate the piano piece he heard into notes, stanzas, and tempo. Ava’s tears subsided near Walsenburg, and she fell into a deep sleep.

When he reached Trinidad, he pulled off at the motel near the highway and went inside to rent a room. When he returned, Ava and Clara were walking along the grass on the edge of the parking lot. Seth put his arm around her, and they walked in silence.

“I slept,” Ava said when they got back to the car. “You didn’t.”

“I worked on the music,” Seth said. “That’s better than sleep.”

“Is it safe to drive and work on music at the same time?” Ava asked.

“I’ve done almost everything in my life while working on one piece or another,” he said.

Ava raised her eyebrows suggestively. He gave her a knowing nod.

“I never really sleep when I’m working a case,” he said. “Would you like to go to the room?”

“Breakfast and killer,” she said. “If that’s okay?”

“Of course.”

“Did you call Delphie?” Ava asked.

“Didn’t want to wake you,” he said.

“Why don’t I shower? You can call,” she said.

He nodded and took Clara’s leash from the glove compartment of the truck. Connected to the dog, he took Ava’s hand, and they went into the motel.

“What is it about a motel room that makes me so horny?” Ava asked when they entered the room. She gave him an enticing smile and began unbuttoning his dress shirt. He pulled off her top and kissed her shoulders and neck. She brought her mouth onto his chest and gasped. In this unguarded moment, her grief caught up with her again.

He negotiated her to the bed, where he lay back and pulled her to him. She clung to him and cried. Ava had insisted for months that she hadn’t been affected by her father’s betrayal. She was angry for her mother and sisters, but otherwise, she was fine.

Or so she said.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said as she tried to catch her breath.

“Everything is fine,” he said.

“But . . . we have a motel room and . . .” She sat up to look at him. Her face was red and wet with tears.

“Plenty of years to make good use of motel rooms,” Seth said.

She nestled back against him. He held her tight.

“I’m not helping.” She sat up straight. “The killer is out there, and I’m blubbering.”

“You’ve been strong for so long,” Seth said. “It’s all right to feel.”

“But . . .” Her tear-strained voice tore at him. “I feel . . . everything. Mad: I’m so mad at my father. Who the hell is he to throw away our whole life? And Mom’s no better! Why didn’t she know? And then I wonder whether I would know? Would I know?”

Thinking she had asked a rhetorical question Seth didn’t respond.

“Would I know?” she asked again.

“Would you know if I was running a chain of prostitution houses?” Seth asked. “Would you know if I was manipulating everything so I could steal another man’s wife and keep her as my sex slave? Or . . .”

“Would I know if you were trading away my whole life to . . . I don’t know, the Chinese Music Mafia?”

“The Chinese Music Mafia?”

“You know what I mean,” Ava said.

“I understand what you mean on so many levels,” Seth said.

“And?”

“When you enter a relationship, any relationship, even this relationship, you have to trust yourself first, and then trust the other person about some things,” Seth said. “Where do they go when they leave the house? Who are they with? What are they doing?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ava said.

“You wouldn’t know,” Seth said.

Ava nodded. His honesty seemed to ground and reassure her.

“What do I do?” she whispered. “How do I live when I know . . . when I know . . . at any moment . . . this . . .?”

He rolled onto his side to look at her.

“You can look at someone’s history,” Seth said. “Have they done this type of thing in the past?”

“I don’t always know someone’s history,” Ava said. “I only know what they say.”

“Did your father ever hide his ‘win-at-any-cost’ nature?” Seth asked.

“No,” Ava shook her head. “He always had a story of this small person he crushed or that stupid person he tricked or . . . Life was a game which he won by destroying other people.”

“There you go,” Seth said. “People who value winning at any cost will eventually sell out everyone who loves them in order to come out on top.”

“And Bella?” Ava’s lip quivered. Knowing what was coming next, he waited to respond. “And Beth?”

At the mention of her murdered best friend, Ava broke down again. Seth pulled her onto his shoulder. They lay together while she cried and the early morning turned into day. They lay together until, without saying another word, Ava got up and went into the bathroom.

“Call Delphie,” she said before she closed the bathroom door.

Sitting up, he leaned his elbows on his knees and tried to clear his head. He placed a quick call to McGinty to update him on what had happened so far. He’d just hung up when he heard Ava turn on the water for the shower. He waited a few minutes to be sure she was under the stream of water and called the only true psychic he’d ever met.

Just a couple years younger than Seth, Delphie was a middle-aged flower child who never quite understood how the world worked. She kept bees, wore gauzy floral dresses, and spent most of her summers in her large vegetable garden. For all her weirdness, she was well loved and cared for by her large family and her friends, including Maresol. She’d told him once that he had been her brother in a multitude of past lives. He smiled at the thought.

When the line began to ring, he held the phone away from his ear.

“Seth!” Delphie yelled.

“I can hear,” Seth said.

“Oh sorry,” Delphie’s voice lowered. “I don’t know what it is about these things. They seem like they need a good shout.”

“Yes,” Seth said.

“We’ve been crazy with worry,” Delphie said. “How is Ava?”

“Sad,” Seth said.

“I bet,” Delphie said. “Do you need some help with the case?”

“I do,” Seth said.

“Great!” Delphie yelled. “Oh sorry. I’m happy I finally get to help. You know I try not to interfere and . . .”

“It’s all right,” Seth said.

“Good,” Delphie said. “What do you need?”

“What can you tell me?” Seth asked.

“First, you’re on the right track,” Delphie said. “I don’t know why, but I keep seeing flowers.”

“Bloom?”

“Yep, that’s it,” Delphie said.

“Have you seen a U.S. marshal around?” Seth asked.

“I don’t know any U.S. marshals,” Delphie said.

“Ghosts.”

“Oh,” Delphie said. “No, what’s his name?”

“Jasper,” Seth said.

“Full name, Seth.”

“Uh,” Seth searched the recesses of his mind. “No idea. He was just killed. Is his murder in the paper?”

“Let me look,” Delphie said. He heard the door to her apartment open, and the soft thump of her bare feet as she walked down the hallway. Delphie lived in a private apartment with most of her extended family in an enormous old home in Uptown Denver that they called the Castle. He heard her flip through the Denver Post. “Here it is. Reginald Jasper, U.S. Marshal. Oh hello. He’s quite handsome.”

He waited while Delphie chatted with the spirit.

“What would you like to know?” Delphie asked.

“I think he left me a message,” Seth said. “It was garbled.”

“I don’t know, Seth,” Delphie whispered. “When people first die, they rarely remember . . . Oh yeah? Okay, I’ll tell him.”

“What did he say?”

“He said father; son; daughter,” Delphie said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

Seth reviewed the recording in his mind. He could see how “f-s-t” could easily be “f-s-d” or father, son, daughter. He nodded and then realized that she couldn’t see him.

“Yes,” Seth said.

“He’s getting quite agitated,” Delphie said. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell him. Yes, you can go.”

“What was that?”

“He says the police think he killed his partner, and that they killed their witness,” Delphie said. “Was that Ava’s father?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Delphie said. “I’m right in the middle of everything.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Delphie said. “That’s okay. I can help. I like to help. That’s really good.”

“Did he kill his partner?”

“Oh right,” Delphie chuckled. “No, he didn’t, and they weren’t involved in killing Ava’s father or her sister. You can’t talk to her sister, because she’s moved on.”

“That seems fast,” Seth said.

“She had a little help,” Delphie’s voice pinched.

“You sent her on?”

“I felt bad for her, and . . . well . . . she is Ava’s sister. I’d do it for you.”

“And her father?”

“I’ve never wanted anything to do with that man,” Delphie’s voice was hard. Delphie and Maresol were good friends with Yvonne Smith, the woman Aaron Alvin had held as a sex slave. “But Ava is lovely. Everyone’s been asking about her. She’s well loved. How is she doing?”

“She’s . . .”

“Seth!” Delphie squeaked. “Ava’s mother. Her mother and sister. Older sister. Seth! They are not safe!”

“I thought so,” Seth said.

“But . . . now . . .” Delphie stopped talking. Used to her fits and starts, Seth waited for her to circle back to him. “It’s a good thing you gave Vivian that gun.”

“And Éowyn?”

“She’ll meet her one and only love today,” Delphie said with certainty. “The next few hours are very dangerous for them, but there’s a good chance that they’ll be fine. You should call your criminal defense lawyer. They might need her. But . . . maybe not.”

“I will,” Seth said. “And the killers?”

“You’ll find them exactly where you expect to,” Delphie said. “But watch out, Seth. Ava is in real danger.”

“Why?”

“Because he’ll sneak up on you when you least expect it,” Delphie said. “Four times two. That’s the agreement. He’ll honor that agreement.”

“What?” Seth raised his voice in frustration.

“I don’t know what it means,” Delphie’s voice was defensive. “This is your life, Seth O’Malley. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then maybe you should do something about your life.”