Deadly Fate (Krewe of Hunters #19)(27)

“And you find that you can embrace it—and do a lot of good with it,” Jackson said.

Thor was looking at her earnestly. She looked back at him and shook her head.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why would she come to me? Members of her film crew are here. You all are here...people she could just chat with at will, apparently!”

Thor glanced at Jackson before looking at her and answering. “She might not trust the members of her own crew.”

Clara sat in silence for a minute.

“We need you to be open to her,” Jackson said.

“What?” she asked.

“Amelia may well know her killer,” Thor said.

Clara looked at him. She was amazed that this strong and serious man could be speaking to her about ghosts.

Then again, she’d wanted to believe that he was a stripper/actor and that it was all make-believe.

“So,” she said, slowly and carefully, “you think that this ghost will just walk up to me and tell me who killed her? And then you’ll make an arrest and go to court and convince a jury to convict someone on a ghost’s testimony?”

“No, but if Amelia approached you, she did so for a reason,” Thor replied.

She let that settle in and then she said, “You want me to go back to bed by myself and just wait and see if the ghost shows up—in my dreams? Or, um, in person?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Thor said, the corners of his mouth turning up. He actually had a nice smile. To her surprise, he kept smiling gently as he smoothed a strand of hair back out of her eyes. “We don’t mean to terrify or make anyone miserable. Do you think you could get some rest on the couch here? Either Jackson, Mike or I will be in the office at all times.”

It beat the hell out of lying alone in a shadowy room by herself!

She nodded. “If, uh...if you think I can help,” she murmured.

She didn’t really want to help—no, that wasn’t true. She’d love to help. She just didn’t think that she could.

She didn’t want to see the dead—that was the issue.

But neither did she want to be alone, not now. Not in the Alaska Hut, where she was afraid of the dead—and made very uneasy by the living. As in Marc Kimball.

“I’ll get a pillow and blanket,” Mike said.

“And we need to move back into taking shifts in the spare room,” Jackson told him.

“You go on,” Thor told Jackson, rising to his feet. “Mike got about an hour or so of sleep already. I’ll sit with Miss Avery.” He smiled at Clara. “It will be getting light soon—morning twilight, that’s what we call it.”

“Shadow time,” Mike said. He shrugged. “You know it’s all because of the sun on the horizon. Twilight comes when the sun is rising, and when it sets. It’s right when the ball of the sun slips down past the horizon of wherever you may be in the world.”

She nodded, trying a smile herself. It was weak. “I was anxious to come to Alaska,” she told him. “The pictures I had seen were so beautiful, and friends who have sailed these cruises told me there was nothing like it. I came up here early to see the sights and I stayed awake the first night to marvel at the amount of light there could be in a day.”

“And darkness in winter,” Thor murmured. “But, lucky for us, it is still summer.”

Lucky. Easier to catch a killer in the light? Wasn’t everything easier when one could see clearly?

Just as she had clearly seen a ghost?

Mike stepped out and Jackson paused by her. “You’re going to be okay?”

She nodded.

Jackson left. Mike returned with a pillow and blanket. She thanked him and adjusted them on the sofa, then lay down.

“Try to rest,” Thor said.

He sat behind the desk. She realized that he was studying something on the computer—studying it so intently that he might have forgotten that she was there.

She readjusted; she didn’t want to interrupt him, but she was unnerved and didn’t feel much like sleeping.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry. Just restless.”

“You should try to get some sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.”

He looked up from the computer. “Yeah, I know the feeling,” he said.

“Have you always—seen the dead?” she asked him.

He hesitated, lowered his head and seemed to be smiling again. She noted that he really was exceptional.

Stripper. Great.

But she could imagine him with a Viking helmet and sword—and a bunch of furs!

“Always,” he murmured, and shrugged. “I don’t really know. I had one Norse grandmother I spent time with and she loved to believe that there were different places where the soul lingered once the body was gone or used up. She was Catholic—she didn’t believe in ancient Gods or myths. But, like most people, she had her own way of believing. Since I was a kid, I would have hunches or gut feelings, and I would see things in dreams—real ones and daydreams. Jackson and I worked well together because...because we didn’t ask each other a lot of questions. When one of us had a strong feeling, we went with it.”

“When one of you talked to the dead?” she whispered.

Once again, he was vague. “Speaking to the dead—seeing or feeling something that others didn’t. Whatever. It has worked for both of us. Jackson became part of the Krewe of Hunters... I’ve worked in my own way. Thing is, we’ve both always gone the way we felt we needed to go. Alaska was home. I believed I needed to be here. It’s kind of a like an often frozen Wild, Wild West. And Jackson felt strongly he needed to move in another direction. It’s good to see him again, good to be with him again. Especially now.”