Steve Hawks glanced impatiently at his watch. Time was getting on, Conard City was nowhere in view and he had an appointment to keep. He hated being late.
If it hadn’t been for the obstacle in the road that had been too small to see, he wouldn’t be this far behind. Damn tire change. At least the rental company had provided a full-size tire, not a doughnut, which would have slowed him even more.
Ah, well, he could try his cell again, if he could get a signal out here. Looking at the open expanse with mountains in the distance, he doubted he would.
Oh, hell. For once the world would have to wait for him.
He had a couple of weeks before his production crew arrived, but it was necessary to do groundwork for his TV show: Ghostly Ties. He had to know his clients, had to know the area and fill in some local history before filming.
Although he’d been at it for three years now, Steve sometimes found it difficult to say he hosted “one of those ghostie shows.” A far cry from his former life as a detective. However, he figured it was just a different type of investigation. He looked for rational explanations and he delighted in local history and lore. All of which required a lot of detective work.
Quit it, he told himself. He didn’t mind the work at all. In fact, he enjoyed it. Without it, he couldn’t have sent his parents to a happy retirement in Costa Rica. Great side benefit.
So he drove down this aging state highway, amid ranches—was that what they were called or were these something else?—looking at endless square miles of browning autumn grasses and trees. And occasionally a bunch of cows. Or steers.
He laughed at himself. He had a lot to learn out here.
Then he saw a large flock of sheep. Okay, was that a sheep ranch? He shook his head and hoped he didn’t make a total fool out of himself before he could ask the right questions. Not that it really mattered. He’d realized long ago that you made more friends if you could laugh at yourself.
At long last, he saw what appeared to be rectangular shapes rising in the distance. It sure wasn’t the slowly rolling hills he’d been seeing most of the way. At least the mountains appeared to be growing. For the longest time, the mountains hadn’t seemed to be coming closer. Now they did. Big and looming.
And that must be Conard City up ahead. A huge semi and trailer seemed to come out of nowhere over the lip of a rise and roared past him, buffeting his car a bit. So there was life out here.
He’d been to many places in his life, but he honestly couldn’t remember one with such huge empty expanses.
* * *
DEPUTY CANDELA SERRANO, Candy for short, waited in the sheriff’s office for the arrival of Steve Hawks. She’d drawn the “short straw” for who was going to babysit the guy, but it hadn’t really been a drawing. She’d been here only six months, replacing Cat Henderson, who had apparently been quite popular among the deputies. Plus, being so new, Candy couldn’t expect to do anything major until she’d been assessed.
Anyway, here she was, assigned to assist a ghost hunter, of all things. To be a liaison. To smooth his way and maybe keep him out of trouble.
Not that she really minded. Ghost hunting seemed like a scam to her, but there was no reason helping couldn’t be fun. As October settled in fully, with Halloween looming, the shorter days and the atmosphere might add to the spookiness. Or at least those were her arguments for making the assignment more palatable.
While she didn’t like ghost-hunting TV, she did like spookiness and hat strange upside-down magic that held dark promise like a good thriller.
The streets around town were already succumbing. Uncut pumpkins decorated front porches. She looked forward to seeing their carved faces. A few trees dangled sturdy skeletons, and she saw more than one bedsheet ghost. And she always grinned.
A much pleasanter environment than the places she’d visited in the Army. Too often she had to shake herself out of a horrifying memory. A good ghost story might be a relief because she knew all about real ghosts.
Velma, the ancient dispatcher, sat on the far side of the room, her headset firmly planted under and around her thinning gray hair. There was a rumor that dispatch was going to be moved to a room in the back, but in six months Candy had come to like Velma and her colleagues right where they were. They were company, and their chatter was just as illuminating as the police band radio. Maybe more so because the dispatchers talked to individual patrols, giving Candy better detail. Plus, they could talk to cops who had for some reason moved to cell phones from their radios.
She supposed that in time she’d understand that, too.
Velma suddenly spoke. Her smoke-roughened voice emerged from the ever-present cloud of the cigarettes she frequently smoked right beneath the no-smoking sign.
“This might be your guy, Candy.”
Candy turned her attention to the front door. Oh, yeah. The autumn clothes fit fairly well with the surrounding area, except they looked almost new. No years of wear.
Good-looking guy, too. A face for TV maybe, except not perfect. Those slight imperfections, a scar on his chin and a nose that wasn’t perfectly straight, suggested a past that might be almost normal.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m late. Had a little car trouble on the way. I’m looking for Deputy Serrano?”
Candy rose immediately from her desk. “Steve Hawks?”
“So they tell me.” With an engaging smile, he offered his hand and shook hers. “I wouldn’t blame you if you’re irritated. I hate to be late, but damn, those mountains just wouldn’t move any closer.”
She chuckled, knowing exactly what he meant. “For the longest time they just seem to be pulling away. Have a seat, Mr. Hawks.”
He sat in the chair beside her desk. Then he came straight to the point. “I imagine you didn’t volunteer for this assignment.”
She didn’t know quite how to answer that. Nothing seemed politic.
“I like a link with the local police,” he went on. “I want facts, not fiction, and a lot of what people think is true just isn’t.”
She had no trouble understanding that. Already she began to like him. Facts, not fiction, seemed like a good motto. “I prefer facts myself.” She hoped that didn’t sound like a challenge, but it probably did. Too bad.
The door swung open, admitting a uniformed deputy named Connie Parish. She flashed a grin as she headed toward the break room. “Seems like you’re sitting right where Cat used to sit.” Without a pause, she kept striding toward the back.
What did that mean? Candy wondered as she returned her attention to the puzzle named Steve.
“Do you know the Castelle family?” he asked. “I’m here to interview them.”
“I know of them. I don’t think I’ve talked to them except in passing.” Were they subjects for his show? That was hard to believe considering she’d often seen the adults outside playing with a young daughter and a growing dog. A normal, happy family. Not one shadowed by uneasy things.
Now her interest was piqued. “Do they have a ghost problem?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. I’d love to debunk it for them.” He glanced at his watch, then rose. “I need to check in at the motel. How about we have dinner somewhere so you can grill me along with a steak?”
He probably had an expense account, she decided. So yeah, she’d hit him up for a dinner. “You have two good choices in this town. The truck stop grill or Maude’s place. Good food at both.”
He arched a brow. “That’s it?”
“The Mexican restaurant hasn’t opened yet, but we do have a burger place and a pizzeria on the edge of town. The burgers are okay, Maude’s are better. Pizza?” She shrugged, hardly a recommendation. “Both are popular hangouts for young people. Oh, yeah, how could I forget Mahoney’s Bar? Great sandwiches and fried chicken.”
Steve nodded, apparently accepting the limitations. “I’ll meet you at Maude’s at six, then. I can get directions at the motel.”
She pointed straight out the window. “The café is thataway, a half block. The City Diner, the sign says, but everyone calls it Maude’s.”
“Been here forever, huh?”
“Maybe two forevers.”
That elicited a bark of laughter from him as he headed toward the door.
“Seems like an okay guy,” Velma remarked, then went back to her duties, acknowledging an officer on the radio who was making a traffic stop outside town.
An okay guy? Maybe. Since he was a television star, Candy withheld judgment and just hoped she didn’t meet a soaring ego.
* * *
DESPITE HIS TARDINESS, Steve thought he had started on a decent path with Deputy Serrano. He’d sensed only a mild resistance, for which he couldn’t blame her. Babysitting a reality TV personality wasn’t on most people’s top-ten list.
On the other hand, he really liked to get the police involved as much as he could. Even one on-screen interview of a cop providing information could prove extremely revealing, and it certainly lent credence to his investigation. If Serrano didn’t want to do it, she might well know someone who would.
He’d like to get her, though. She was a pretty Latina he judged would photograph well.
What the hell did a guy wear to a dinner at a café in this town? Dress up seemed unlikely from his minor scoping as he drove in. He settled on jeans and a white dress shirt. Without a tie, and with sleeves rolled up, it became casual.
Dang, he could remember times when he never had to think of such things. As a plainclothes detective, he’d needed only a couple of suits and a whole bunch of clean shirts.
Big deal. The clock said he had a little time to unpack, not that there was much. During the next few weeks, he didn’t need anything that couldn’t be cleaned in a coin laundry. When his production team came, they’d bring more with them.
Then he sat in the chair beside the small table and looked around at the room. Someone had tried to modernize it, but large-purchase bedding and lamps from a supply house didn’t quite make it. Chosen to be inoffensive, they practically blended in with the motel-room background. The walls, however, were solid wood planks, not paneling.
Not that he minded. He’d slept in worse places because the show did have a budget. One hotel was expensive? Then find something cheaper at the next location. He didn’t think the La-Z-Rest motel was going to break any bank.
And why didn’t this motel give itself a face-lift with a new name? It was so 1950s. All it lacked was a sputtering neon sign. No sputtering here.
Sighing, eager to be doing something besides sitting on his can, especially after a long day in the car, he pulled out his slim leather portfolio and looked at the numbers he needed to call. The Castelles first. They were the ones who were worried enough to call him.
His major goal in this was to ease a little girl’s mind. The seven-year-old had the problem and her parents didn’t know how to handle it. They’d tried everything, they’d explained the first time he talked to them.
His secondary goal was to ensure no one was after the family, and that neither parent was frightening the daughter for some end of his or her own. He’d been a cop too long to overlook such possibilities.
He hoped they didn’t necessarily want a paranormal explanation. He’d need actual proof before he could do that, and thus far he’d almost never needed those words: I don’t know what it is.
Paranormal. Damn, this country had begun to fall into a state of belief.
* * *
HALF AN HOUR later he decided to stretch his legs by walking to the diner. He’d left a voice mail with the Castelles and said he’d call in the morning. Now he wanted to make the deputy a little less dubious about him. He didn’t need her trust, but he did need her cooperation.
With night falling, the air had grown chillier. Fine by him. Except for catastrophic weather, the mostly steady climate of Southern California had become boring. Pleasant but boring. Every now and then he got a little jolt when he was reminded that other places rolled through seasons that were different.
Not that he wanted to be shoveling snow for months on end, but he enjoyed the changes when he ran into them.
When he reached the diner, he spied Deputy Serrano sitting at a table right in front of the window. She had twisted to look up at a man who stood beside her and spoke with expansive gestures. She was smiling.
All to the good, Steve thought as he moved between tables to reach her. The place was crowded, which spoke well of the food. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d skipped lunch because he was late.
Delicious aromas filled the room. The clatter of utensils and plates joined with various conversations. The diner felt friendly.
By the time he reached Serrano, the man had moved on. When she saw Steve, she gave him a polite smile. Just that, nothing more. At the same time, she pointed to the chair across from her.
He slid in and leaned back, hoping not to make her feel crowded at this small table. “Hi,” he said as she passed him a plastic-covered menu. Surprised fingers told him it was clean, not greasy or sticky as he would have expected.
The woman who brought him coffee, a rather large angry-looking person, slammed down cups and began filling them with coffee. “Back soon,” she grumped and stalked away.
Steve couldn’t help but raise a brow in Serrano’s direction.
Her faint smile widened a bit. “Maude, the owner. Consider her to be part of the local color.”
“Does she hate running this place that much?”
The deputy shook her head. “I don’t think so. She’s been here for nearly fifty years.”
Well, that was a puzzle, he thought as he scanned the menu. Not a bad selection for a place so small. Most of it could be cooked on a grill, another time-saver.
“Any recommendations?” he asked Serrano.
“Just about anything. In fact, everything.”
He looked at her and she shrugged.
“I’ve only been here six months,” she said. “Long enough to say I’ve never had a bad meal. Long enough to add that eating here, while delicious, makes your arteries cringe.”
That was okay by Steve. He usually ate healthy stuff, but he didn’t mind going off the wagon occasionally. Else how could a man get a large rare steak? Or a really good pork chop?
Or even some fries. He had a weakness for them.
After they ordered, he eyed the deputy across the table. She didn’t seem all that eager to indulge in casual conversation, which was fine. Her eyes, however, actively scanned the room. Alert.
When they were served, she with a burger, he with a steak sandwich, she sighed.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hawks. I’m not freezing you, but I just don’t know what to talk about. How about business?”
“Call me Steve.”
One corner of her mouth tipped up. “I’m Candy. What are we supposed to do here?”
“Well, I’m here for the next few weeks ahead of my production crew. I need to speak with the Castelle family, find out their whole story and gain some rapport with their daughter.”
“Meaning?” She held half the burger in her hand.
Steve took her cue and picked up part of his steak sandwich. “She’s only seven, Candy. Talking with a stranger won’t be easy for her. But I need her to tell me what’s troubling her, not what her parents think is bothering her.”
She nodded, taking a bite out of her burger and dabbing at some escaped juice.
“So that is one of my first goals. Second, I need to get in the weeds on any local lore that could possibly be related, and probably into some local history. I need to build a picture of what might be going on here.”
She nodded, then snagged a fresh napkin to wipe her mouth again. “And what will you do with this picture?”
“It’s my hope to find some banal answer to the problem. To be able to reassure that family and the little girl that nothing bad is happening and they can ignore all this.”
She blinked. “You don’t want a ghost?”
“I’d really rather not. I hate it when I can’t come up with a better explanation.”
“Wild.”
For the first time he saw her face relax, as if she were letting go of an internal tension. One hurdle cleared, he thought.
“But how can you make a ghost show without finding a ghost?” she asked, a perfectly reasonable question.
He replied firmly: “My goal has never been to find ghosts. What I want to do is reassure terrified families who think they’ve reached the limit of plausible explanations. And if I can’t debunk the ghost idea, then I want at the very least to be able to reassure them they have nothing to fear.”
“But couldn’t you just say that?”
He shook his head. “They’ve already been saying it to themselves. If nothing else, they can see me do a complete investigation to assure them there’s nothing there.”
“But how can you do a ghost show if that’s your purpose?” She repeated her question, and he sensed she needed more.
He wiped his own mouth and leaned forward a bit. “Because I’m doing a show about people who believe they have ghosts. I take them seriously.”
* * *
CANDY DECIDED HE might not be the con artist she expected. He had a different twist on the subject matter, or at least different from what she’d expected. Of course, if he was conning her, she probably wouldn’t know at first. Time to keep the radar up. Trust him? Trust didn’t come easily to her.
But if what he said was true, then he wasn’t simply out to create a spectacle with a family and their problems.
“Why does it have to be done on TV, though?” She hoped that didn’t offend him, because if it did the next few weeks were going to be tough.
“It’s simple,” he answered as he reached for a home fry. “When I was a cop, I noticed a continuing uptick in the number of calls that people blamed on the paranormal. I couldn’t do anything except tell them they didn’t have a prowler, nobody was in the house, maybe they needed a plumber, and then I’d have to move on. The people were still afraid, and sometimes they’d call several times with the same complaint.”
She shook her head a little bit. “That must have been frustrating.”
“To some. It troubled me. These people weren’t getting any help from us, and we’re supposed to be able to help.”
“Good point.” Partly, at least. There really wasn’t something a cop could do sometimes.
He finished the fry and reached for another. “Anyway, after a while, on my off-duty time, I went back to talk to these folks and tried to work with them. What with one thing and another, this production company approached and offered me a series. I didn’t want to do it at first, but they made it obvious that I could do a whole lot more helping if I had the money for it and didn’t have another full-time job. I told them I would, but only if they weren’t expecting paranormal answers.”
“And they agreed to that?” The notion surprised her. She wouldn’t have expected it.
He tipped his head to one side briefly, an almost shrug. “They thought it would be an original spin. Three seasons later, I have to think they were right.”
“It seems so.” Her appetite had returned in full force, and she looked down at the burger on her plate. It looked better now than when Maude had slammed it onto the table. Yup. She lifted it, ready to finish it.
Candy felt, too, a whole lot better about what was to come. They continued to eat for a while before she asked, “Have you ever found a ghost?”
“Not anything I’d take to the bank. I wouldn’t exactly mind if I found some good evidence, except that it would turn my worldview upside down and give it a good shaking.”
She laughed, liking that. “It would for me, too.”
Considering this assignment was going to be close to a month long, any positive she could find would help. It might be fun in more ways than just watching this all unfurl. Steve Hawks seemed to have a sense of humor, which made almost anything easier to deal with.
She also had an inkling that the success of his show wasn’t entirely dependent on what he found, or the stories he told. No, he had charisma, the kind that would draw viewers along the paths he wove with his storytelling.
A unique kind of storytelling, she suspected. Unlike some of the ghost shows she had watched briefly, where a dash of history and a lot of “Did you hear that?” failed to tell a tale of any kind. Lots of supposition, little substance.
“Are you a fan of paranormal shows?” he asked.
“I stuck my toes in for a while. Curiosity. But I haven’t tuned in recently.”
“You’re not missing much,” he admitted, then flashed the most charming grin.
Damn, she could understand why people kept watching. She suspected his fan mail was positively steamy. She certainly needed to avoid that reaction.
Pushing her plate to one side, Candy reached for her coffee. She was one of the lucky ones—or unlucky, depending—that caffeine didn’t keep awake. Sometimes at one in the morning she had wished it would.
* * *
“WHAT ABOUT YOU?” Steve asked. “You said you’ve been here only six months?”
She nodded. “Army. Discharged over a year ago.”
“Army, huh?” He felt surprised, though he couldn’t say why. Maybe because he’d thought she’d been a cop for a long time, like him. “What did you do?”
Then he saw her face harden, her eyes grown distant. For several beats she didn’t answer, and when she did her voice sounded tight.
“Too much.”
He let it drop, intuiting that there were memories she didn’t want to revive, and he didn’t want to push her there.
His view of her altered, however. She had a background that only someone who’d been there could ever fully understand. His work as a cop didn’t come close. How could it?
He wasn’t an insensitive man. His ability to empathize had often caused him difficulty in his own work. Cops didn’t like to talk about it, but most had strong feelings when it came to victims and their families. Some cases even became downright personal. First responders could rarely stay detached no matter how hard they tried.
To that extent, he understood how memories could ride your thoughts or become buried until they surfaced suddenly in a nightmare or were resurrected by another situation.
He sought safer ground. “How do you like working here?”
Her faint smile returned as if she had swept something aside. “So far, so good. People are great, the job is mostly routine. I’ve still got a lot to learn, obviously, but everyone in the office is being really nice about my inexperience.”
“Sounds like a good group of people.”
“The best. I’m filling some big shoes, though.”
He arched a brow and resisted the urge to eat another home fry. But why? he asked himself. Why not have one? He helped himself. “Whose shoes?”
“My predecessor. She was with the department for over two years, then left to follow her Army husband to his post.”
“Not a very liberated thing to do.”
Candy laughed. It had been the right note to hit.
Then she answered. “On the surface, maybe not. But she found another police job, and I can understand why she wants to be close. They hadn’t been married for long.”
“That does make a difference from what I’ve seen.”
Now it was her turn to look quizzically at him. “Never tried it?”
“Me? Not yet. I’m like a ton of bricks. Someone will need to knock me over.”
“Maybe with a feather?”
He liked that. “Absolutely with a feather. Make easy work of me.”
He drew a chuckle from her and decided they were moving to comfortable ground.
“What do you need me for?” she asked.
“Any difficulties that might come up when we start filming. Not from people so much as the authorities around here. I need to know if we’re getting out of line. Toes must not be stepped on.”
Candy nodded. “Anything else?”
“Smoothing introductions so people don’t see me as a suspicious stranger. Any advice you can give along the way about where I should look or who I should talk to.”
“Reasonable.”
Maude made another banging round and refreshed their coffee.
“Amazing,” Steve murmured, looking down.
“Good food,” Candy answered. “From what I understand she’s always been like this, and her daughter Mavis is doing a good job as copycat. Anyway, I think folks have been used to it for a long time.”
He could see that, but being an outsider he wondered if he’d ever get used to it. It was a slightly disturbing punctuation to a meal.
He’d been a people watcher for much of his adult life, though. A bit of a character collector. He added Maude to his mental file.
Candy cradled her coffee mug as if warming her hands. “What do you need a deputy for? Wouldn’t someone else be in a better position?”
“Evidently not. We contacted county and city officials and they referred us to you.”
Another smile flitted across her face. “Cowards.”
He grinned again. “Most politicians are.”
A while later, after Steve had overindulged with a piece of the best peach pie he’d ever tasted, they parted ways outside, agreeing to meet at the sheriff’s office at nine the next morning.
He started walking back to the motel, then decided a little more local atmosphere would be good. It was almost Halloween, and the pumpkins and pretend ghosts drew him. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, he began a lazy stroll more to see the way the town looked than to admire uncarved pumpkins.
There were old enough neighborhoods where he came from, but they weren’t entire towns like this one. He imagined roots around here, deep as the largest tree, tying everyone together.
Very cool. He liked it.
* * *
BEN WITTES SAW the stranger as he was walking past the Conard County Sheriff’s Office. His interest perked immediately.
He wondered if this guy was the ghost show host who was rumored to be coming to town. Maybe so.
As a psychic, Ben thought he might be able to help the guy out. After all, he was able to communicate with spirits. He did it all the time.
Go for it, whispered one of the spirits. Maybe his guide.
Yeah, he’d go for it. He could provide information that they’d never find for the show.
Now all he had to do was wait for the opportunity.
Smiling, Ben continued his stroll, feeling pretty good. This was his opportunity to make a splash with his skills.