Ghostly Justice (Seven Deadly Sins, #2.5)(33)

“Maybe.” Rafe sounded skeptical.

“Or it could be a manifestation from David’s mind. Maybe he’s imagining it.”

“It sounds like Skye saw the same thing.” He glanced at her. “You haven’t seen a ghost before?”

“No,” she admitted. “You?”

He didn’t answer, and Moira wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t want to or because Skye and David were arguing, their voices echoing in the partially empty warehouse.

“Don’t look!” Skye shouted. “David, close your eyes!”

Rafe and Moira ran toward the open bathroom. David had his flashlight aimed toward a stall with no door. Dried blood was spattered on the three walls, trails of blood winding down to the floor where it was pooled. A flicker of energy manifested itself into a ghost.

It was Grace Chin, the last victim of Ned Nichols, the Rittenhouse shooter. She was squatting on the toilet, talking on a cell phone though they couldn’t hear her voice, her face frozen in terror as her eyes kept darting to the doorway. She couldn’t see them. She was waiting for something else.

The ghost screamed and the sound of the bathroom stall door being kicked in echoed, then the bullets, three of them, hitting Grace in the chest, the head, and again in the chest, blood spraying everywhere in the small stall, the ghostly replay hitting the walls in the same places that the dried blood now remained.

“It’s my fault!” David screamed. Just as Moira realized David had a gun in his hand, Skye saw her and Rafe in the doorway. The sheriff managed to look both relieved and pissed off.

“David—”

“Why should I live? She didn’t deserve to die, I could have saved her! I should have saved her!”

“It was Nichols who shot her, David. Get your head on straight! It was all Nichols, not you.”

“You should have let me go in sooner! We waited too long and she died.”

The accusation stunned Skye into silence, and Moira took the opportunity to step into the room. Rafe’s hand was on her arm, whether to support her or hold her back, she wasn’t sure.

“David,” Moira said, “we have to get out of here right now. This isn’t real, it’s an imprint of Grace’s murder. Death can imprint itself anywhere, but sudden death is more likely to stick around for awhile. But if this is really Grace’s ghost, she might not know she’s dead, which makes her dangerous. You’ve got to let this go.”

“I can’t!”

Skye said quietly, “David, we’ve been friends my entire career. You don’t want to do anything you can’t take back, and dammit, I don’t want to knock on your parents’ door tomorrow morning and tell them that their only son killed himself.”

Skye’s comment seemed to shake David from his daze. He stared at his gun in horror. “I wouldn’t—“ he stopped, and said quietly. “I’ve been here every day. I walked away. But then I saw her, and I couldn’t leave. I feel helpless, Skye.”

“I know you do. We’ll get through this, I promise.” She held her hand out for his gun.

The apparition began again, a psychic rewind of Grace Chin’s last minute alive.

Rafe said, “Moira, get them out. I’ll take care of the ghost.”

“How—”

“Go!” he ordered. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

He had that look, like he was listening to someone else. Moira pushed aside her fear for Rafe and who he was listening to, and motioned Skye to grab David’s gun.

David holstered it instead. “I can’t—”

“Don’t look!” Moira told him, pushing Skye out the door when she hesitated. “Go, Skye—now!”

Skye went, glancing over her shoulder as Moira physically pulled a reluctant David from the room. He neither helped nor hindered her, his eyes on the ghost of Grace Chin huddled in the bathroom stall talking on the phone.

Rafe began speaking Aramaic, an ancient language. Moira needed to get David and Skye away. Break the fear and grief that was keeping the two cops rooted in that room reliving the death of the one victim they couldn’t save. It was enough to drive anyone insane; Moira had been there, done that. Not fun.

They ran into the break room, which was in complete disarray—the table overturned, papers everywhere, coffee mugs shattered on the floor. Moira figured the ghost had less to do with the mess than the demon Envy who’d been drawn into the warehouse by Fiona’s coven. But either way, Santa Louisa had one more weak spot where the line between Hell and Earth was thin. Moira could feel it.

Skye opened the back door. “David, we’ll go to my house and talk about this, as long as you want.”

“I’m sorry Skye. I don’t know what got into me, I didn’t mean—“ He jumped at the ghost’s scream and three gunshots.

The back door slammed shut, pulling right out of Skye’s hand.

Moira looked at Skye, who said, “I didn’t—the wind.” She reached over to open it again, but it didn’t budge.

Skye kept pulling on the door, but Moira knew they were trapped.

Rafe walked into the back room. “We have a problem.”

“I know, your exorcism didn’t work.”

He shook his head. “She wasn’t a ghost.”