Big Ghosts Don’t Cry Read online

  “Why not tell us this yesterday?” Lucas asked.

  Russ eyed him. “Sabrina’s parents didn’t need to know about it, that’s why. That’s who hired you, isn’t it?”

  “No, actually.”

  “Then who did?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lucas replied, his tone leaving no room for argument. “What about the van outside Sabrina’s house?”

  “That was me,” Russ admitted, a little reluctantly. “I wasn’t stalking her or anything, but I pass her street on my way home from the office and sometimes … sometimes I’d stop by and think for a little while. Sabrina and I had our issues, but I loved her. Still do, I suppose. She’s always going to be Miranda’s mother, my first … well, everything. That’s not something you can just shake off because you aren’t together anymore.”

  Russ paused, his gaze drifting past us to the large window at our backs. He sighed and shook his head slowly. “I still can’t believe she’s gone. Now, all I’ve got is a truckload of regrets. All the nasty things I said. My affair. I—” his voice broke off and he drew in his lower lip. After a moment, he collected himself and nodded. “I screwed things up, and I can’t help but think, if I hadn’t, none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have been home alone that night. I would have been there. Where I was supposed to be.”

  My heart clenched tightly and I reached for Lucas’s hand.

  Russ dragged his eyes back to us and he crossed his arms. “Does that clear everything up? I have a lot of work I need to get back to.”

  “It does,” Lucas said with a small nod. “Thank you for your time.”

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” I added.

  Russ inclined his head and then led the way back to the front door.

  Lucas and I plodded back down the drive to his SUV in silence, each reeling from the candid conversation. We climbed back into the vehicle and buckled back into our seats, tension and disappointment clouding the air between us.

  Finally, Lucas exhaled slowly and glanced over at me. “Well, that was a bust.”

  I tried to shove aside my building panic, but it filled my chest anyway. “What do we do now? We’re back to the beginning, and we have less than twenty-four hours.”

  “Tomorrow night this Summoner can call Sabrina back, right?”

  I nodded. “Assuming she hasn’t been eaten by a demon.”

  Lucas swallowed hard. “Right. Well, maybe speaking with Sabrina will help us get a new lead. We don’t know that this portal thing is going to open quickly, right? We might still have plenty of time.”

  “I really don’t know. I didn’t know demons were a thing until a few days ago.”

  Lucas snorted. “Guess we’re both learning a lot this week.”

  Guilt nipped at me. “Right.”

  We hadn’t formally talked about the supernatural bomb I’d dropped on him prior to his visit.

  “I should have told you about Holly and all the rest of it a lot sooner,” I said. “If it makes you feel better, I only learned about witches and werewolves and all that since moving to Beechwood Harbor.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I knew there were forces and weird, unexplainable stuff. I mean, I see ghosts!”

  Lucas chuckled. “I guess that is one hell of a tip off.”

  “Kind of hard to ignore.” I smiled. “I mean, I’ve met all kinds of spiritual practitioners in my travels. I was searching for answers about my gift and I spoke with witch doctors and priestesses. All kinds of different religious gurus, but this … this is a new ballgame for me too.”

  “What do you say to a no more secrets policy?” Lucas asked.

  I smiled. “Fair enough.”

  Gwen, Hayward and Flapjack trooped out of the Hutchins’ home, scattered a few minutes apart. None of them found anything incriminating and I recapped the conversation we’d had with Russ.

  “So, he’s officially off the suspect list?” Gwen asked.

  I nodded. “Looks like it.”

  “So, that leaves us where?”

  “Screwed,” Flapjack answered.

  I frowned at him. “Thanks for that.”

  “Hey, just speaking the truth.”

  “Scott Putnam still looks good for it,” I said, thinking aloud. “He obviously has a history of violence, and there’s now a formal connection between him and Sabrina. The only issue is how he found out where she lived and why Sabrina would have let him into her house at night if he was someone she’d blocked from the app.”

  “Maybe he opened a new account and tried again, using a catfish approach?”

  Flapjack perked. “Catfish?”

  I sighed. “It means pretending to be someone else online.”

  Lucas’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and then sat up a little taller in his seat. “Oh, hold on. This is my buddy, Daly. He’s been digging into the info on the dating app. Maybe he’s got something on Putnam.”

  He lifted the phone to his ear. “Daly, one sec, I’m gonna put you on speaker so Scarlet can hear too.” He lowered the phone, tapped the screen. “Can you hear me?”

  “Copy that.”

  Lucas grinned. “Good. Please tell me you have something?”

  “I got an address for one of the accounts you flagged,” Daly said.

  “Which one?”

  “It’s RedTruck27. He was one of the guys sending her those terrible messages, calling her a slut and stuff. Really abusive crap. Sabrina blocked him from contacting her, but I was able to get his account information anyway.”

  “Is it Putnam?” Lucas asked.

  “I don’t think so. Unless he lives right next door to your victim.”

  “What do you mean?” Lucas asked.

  “If I have this right, the guy sending the worst of the messages lives next door to the address listed in Sabrina’s account settings.”

  “You got a name?” Lucas asked.

  “Barry Wentsworth,” I whispered.

  “That’s right,” Daly confirmed.

  Lucas turned over the SUV’s engine and peeled out.

  Chapter 17

  “This doesn’t make any sense!” I exclaimed as Lucas sped through the streets of Pine Shoals, following the GPS on his dash as it spouted directions back to Sabrina’s neighborhood. “Why would Barry kill Sabrina? They were friends. He was taking her soup that night because she was sick.”

  “That’s what he told you,” Lucas replied. “We don’t know if that’s true.”

  “I told you something was off with that guy,” Flapjack interjected from the back seat.

  “Like Daly said, he was sending Sabrina messages in the app. Obviously using a different alias.”

  “He’s the catfish!” Hayward declared proudly.

  “Stop talking about fish. You’re just making me hungry,” Flapjack grumbled.

  Lucas took the final turn, and we were on Sabrina’s old street. I pointed at Barry’s home. A For Sale sign was stuck in the grass outside Sabrina’s house. I flung my seatbelt off before Lucas even set the parking brake. “To think, I sat there in his living room and drank his coffee, all while he lied to my face about being Sabrina’s friend!”

  “To be fair, I don’t think you actually drank any of the coffee,” Flapjack said.

  “Let’s go see what he has to say for himself,” Lucas said.

  We went to Barry’s door, ghosts in tow, and I pounded on the door. Barry peeked out the narrow window beside the door. His brow creased but he opened the door. “What’s this all about?” he asked. “Are you writing another article?”

  “Article?” Gwen asked.

  “That was her cover,” Flapjack explained quickly.

  “Aha.”

  “I believe you’d make a fantastic journalist, Lady Scarlet,” Hayward chimed in.

  Ignoring the ghosts, I kept my eyes trained on Barry. “I just have one more question for you.”

  Barry faltered, glancing nervously at Lucas. “I see. Well now’s really not a good time. I was
in the middle of tidying up …”

  Flapjack laughed and proceeded to slip inside, sliding past Barry’s ankles. Gwen and Hayward followed, not taking as much care. Barry shivered as they passed through him. “I—I suppose I could put on some coffee.”

  Lucas glanced at me, and I offered a small nod. “All right.”

  We entered the cluttered home. Lucas’s eyebrows raised when Barry turned his back to go into the kitchen. “This is cleaned up?” he whispered.

  I glanced around and then shook my head. To me, it still looked like I’d walked onto the set of a Hoarders episode.

  A coffee maker kicked on and Barry reappeared in the living room. He didn’t look openly hostile, but his curiosity bordered on annoyed. “What is it you want to know?”

  “It’s very simple, Barry. I’d like to know why you lied to me about your relationship with Sabrina.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You were a member of the same dating app and you were using that as a shield, hiding behind a fake name and photo to harass her.”

  Barry flinched. “I did no such thing!”

  “Does anyone else live here?” Lucas asked, looking around. “Or use your internet?”

  “No.”

  Lucas continued, “The IP address being used to send the messages was coming from your house. How can you explain that if you weren’t the one sending them and no one else had access to your connection?”

  “Sabrina was dating again,” I said. “She was single. You’re single. Maybe you had a crush but didn’t know how to bring it up. So, when you found out she was on a dating app, you joined too. What happened, Barry? What made you turn on her? Did she reject you?”

  Something sparked in Barry’s eyes. “She never gave me a chance.”

  “How did you know about the app?” I asked.

  “She was bringing men home every time her daughter was gone. It was a different one every time. They’d stumble in drunk and laughing. I mentioned it once and she told me she’d signed up for this service and that I should try it.”

  “Why the fake account?” Lucas asked.

  Barry licked his lips. “I never planned on meeting anyone. It was stupid. I was curious. That’s all. I found a photo online and made up a name. I messaged with a few women and I … I don’t know, it spiraled out from there.”

  “Did Sabrina message you?”

  Barry hesitated, a debate warring in his eyes.

  “Did she flirt with you the way she flirted with those other men?” I pressed.

  “We messaged every night! We could talk for hours. I was thinking about telling her the truth, coming clean. I asked her how she felt about me and she told me she was devoted, that she wasn’t seeing anyone else since she met me.”

  Something shifted, the tension in the room ratcheting up another level.

  “What happened next, Barry? Did you tell Sabrina who you really were?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Why is this any of your business?” Barry demanded, taking a step backward. “Why do you know things about IP addresses and dating sites? Who are you?”

  “Hey, Scar, you might want to check this out!” Flapjack said, hurrying into the room from down the hall. “He’s got a whole shrine of photos, some of them … indecent. Hayward’s in there on the verge of a panic attack. I didn’t see it last time because he had the closet doors closed.”

  I glanced down the hall and took a step.

  “Where are you going?” Barry snapped.

  I took another step.

  “You can’t go down there!”

  I looked at Lucas and then bolted. I raced down the hall, following on Flapjack’s heels. Hayward and Gwen stood on either side of the closet—Hayward with his back turned. I gasped and Lucas’s heavy footsteps followed.

  “No!” Barry shrieked.

  There were personal, intimate photos of Sabrina. Ones she’d clearly taken herself. Then, there were others, photos taken of her sunbathing in her backyard, wearing a bikini. I’d never seen Sabrina’s yard, but I would have bet anything that the angle of the camera lined up precisely with Barry’s own yard, perhaps through a gap in the fence just large enough for a camera lens.

  “What did you do to her?” I asked, my voice shaking as I stormed back out to the living room. Lucas blocked the opening of the hallway and Barry looked ready to self-combust, his face bright red.

  “I’ll call the police!” he bellowed.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think you will. Then you’d have to explain those pictures in your room. I think they’d be especially interested in the ones you took from your side of the fence.”

  “You want to know what happened to Sabrina? She got what was coming to her, that’s what! She showed up with some guy just after telling me she was only chatting with me and that she thought I was something special. She was a liar and a slut!”

  “So you killed her?” I asked, my voice just above a whisper as the pieces clicked together in my head. “You decided that if you couldn’t have her, then no one else could either.”

  Barry scuttled across the room, shoved a pile of garbage off the dining table, and revealed a small handgun. He swung around, leveling it at me. “You need to shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about. And if you try and tell the police any of this nonsense, I’ll blow your head off!”

  My hands shot into the air. “Barry, please, don’t shoot!”

  “Drop it!” Lucas said.

  Flapjack launched himself into the air and things moved so fast it was like a blur. Flapjack let out a terrible yowl and a string of violent hisses. Barry screamed. The gun flew from his hands and hit the floor with a loud bang.

  Lucas sprang into action when the gun went flying, tackling Barry to the ground. Barry screamed. “You broke my arm!”

  “You just pointed a gun at my girlfriend’s head. You’re lucky you have any bones left intact,” Lucas growled.

  “Flapjack, are you okay!” I asked, going to the ghost’s side. He lay still, his eyes roving the ceiling. “How did you do that?”

  “I—I don’t know. I just knew I had to do something and I … I did.”

  “You were amazing! You just saved my life.”

  “Who is she talking to?” Barry asked as Lucas hauled him to his feet.

  “None of your business,” Lucas barked. He didn’t have cuffs, but he was a lot bigger and stronger than Barry and was easily keeping his arms pinned behind his back as he frog-marched him to the kitchen.

  I heard duct tape being ripped off a roll.

  “Surprised lover boy could find anything in this dump,” Flapjack said, sputtering slightly.

  “What happened?” Hayward

  “I just saved Scarlet’s life while you were in there crying over seeing a blurry nudie pic,” Flapjack grumbled.

  “I was not crying,” Hayward argued.

  Gwen dropped beside the cat and stroked his fur. “Are you okay, Flapjack?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He pushed to his feet and flicked his tail around a few times.

  “Cops are on their way,” Lucas called from the other room.

  I rose to my feet and went to the kitchen. Lucas had Barry fastened to a chair with the tape. I glowered at him. “Are you even sorry for what you did?”

  Barry glared at me, refusing to answer.

  Moments later, a harsh knock sounded on the front door. “Pine Shoals PD, open up!”

  I went to answer it, and two officers came inside, weapons drawn. I gestured at the kitchen and they went ahead.

  “We’ll be outside,” Gwen said.

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  Chief Lincoln arrived to the scene twenty minutes later. Barry was sitting in the back of a squad car, screaming even though no one sat in the front seat to hear his protests. Lucas and I stood on the sidewalk, having given our stories to the responding officers.

  “This place is going to be a nightmare to search,” Chief Lincoln sai
d, circling back out to us after he’d gone inside for a quick look. He exhaled and then started ordering the deputies into action before he took our official statements.

  As I wrapped up my own statement, a deputy approached Chief Lincoln and held up two plastic bags. “The hem of this t-shirt is ripped up. Thinking maybe she grabbed ahold during the fight. Might be able to pull her DNA from it.”

  I swallowed hard and Chief Lincoln waved the deputy off. “I don’t understand what makes people do terrible things like this.”

  “I don’t either,” he replied. “I doubt I ever will.”

  “How do you do it, Chief? How do you look this kind of evil in the face and keep fighting? Doesn’t it wear you down?”

  “Of course it does, from time to time, but it’s worth it. Overall.” He considered me. “You going to tell me what got you tangled up in this investigation in the first place?”

  I smiled. “Just doing my part, I guess.”

  He didn’t believe me, nor did I expect him to. “Well next time, how about giving me a call before you go charging into a suspect’s house, hmm?”

  I laughed. “Fair enough. It’s a deal.”

  Chapter 18

  Karla already had the summoning circle laid out when I arrived at the funeral home on Sunday evening. Gwen, Hayward, and Flapjack were all in tow and Karla eyed them when we trooped into the viewing room. Flapjack was still gloating over his heroic moment, replaying it like a sports highlight. Lucas had some questions about the whole thing, but I honestly didn’t know what to tell him. Flapjack had never had the ability to interact with the physical world, but in that moment, sheer desperation had channeled his energy into a force strong enough to knock the gun from Barry’s hands.

  “I saw the paper this morning,” Karla said quietly. “Looks like we have something to offer Sabrina.”

  I nodded. “Barry’s not getting out of jail anytime soon. He gave the police a full confession in hopes of getting a cushier prison assignment. I just hope news of his arrest is enough to help Sabrina let go of this plane.”

  Karla inclined her head. “Only one way to find out.”