Vickie saw the remote on the coffee table and picked it up to turn the volume down.
“Hey,” she said to the two.
“Hey, Vickie! We didn’t expect you back yet!” Dylan jumped up, looking as guilty as a teen caught petting in the back seat of an old Chevy. “We thought you’d be late, that you and Alex would go on forever and ever over all you’d dug up!” Dylan added. “We aren’t really TV hogs, you know.”
“It’s okay. You know you’re welcome to the television. I’m happy that you guys are enjoying your...”
She almost said “lives”!
“Enjoying each other, being together. Enjoying...”
“The Walking Dead?” Dylan asked, amused.
“You’re ghosts, not zombies,” she reminded him. Dylan did have a wicked sense of humor—he’d spent years totally enjoying tormenting her, trying to make her speak to him in public and, in short, look entirely crazy.
Years ago, Vickie had been babysitting when an escaped serial killer had targeted her. Her charge—Noah Ballantine—had been born after the death of his older brother, Dylan, who’d been struck by a drunk driver at seventeen. And when the psycho had been in the house, Dylan had materialized before Vickie, warning her to grab Noah and get the hell out.
Terrified, she had done so. At that time, Griffin Pryce had been a cop and was out on the street, and he’d been the one to bring down the man who had been about to kill her and Noah.
While she’d felt an instant connection to Griffin, she hadn’t seen him again until he had returned to Boston as an FBI agent, looking into the Undertaker kidnappings and killings.
But while the ghost of Dylan Ballantine spent much of his time in his parents’ home, which wasn’t far from Vickie’s, he’d apparently made it his vocation in death to haunt Vickie, down in New York City when she had been at the university, and again here, in Massachusetts, since she had moved back. He’d actually become an amazing friend—although one who still liked to taunt her in public and make her appear to be insane when she forgot herself and responded to him.
And now, Dylan had a friend of his own—a ghost friend.
Darlene Dutton was a couple years older than Dylan, but she was equally sweet and innocent. She had been the first victim of the Undertaker murders. And while she had seen justice done, it appeared that she liked learning about the spirit-world-on-earth—and being with Dylan. So it seemed she was sticking around.
Dylan was now an experienced ghost. He was quite capable of manipulating items, like moving a can of pop a few inches or using a remote control. And he had no problem making himself seen to those with the special gift of seeing the dead. Vickie had noticed that while most of the population didn’t see Dylan or Darlene, they did often stop and frown when the ghosts passed, or shiver, as if aware that they’d been brushed by someone or something that they hadn’t seen.
“Alex didn’t show,” Vickie told them.
Dylan immediately looked perplexed. Alex couldn’t see Dylan—he didn’t see ghosts. But Dylan had tagged along with Vickie to a couple meetings with Alex.
He liked the nerdy historian. And he admired him.
“Alex didn’t show? I think he lives for his time with you and other friends with whom he can actually talk a lot of history. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but... It’s weird he flaked.”
“I’ve told Griffin that Alex didn’t show up. We’ll figure out something when he gets here. By the way—since I doubt you guys watched the news at any point—Griffin stopped one of the attackers tonight. A head-smasher, just like Alex’s assault. And the guy killed himself rather than be taken.”
“Wow, heavy,” Dylan said, very serious despite his words.
“That’s extremely scary,” Darlene agreed. She hopped up off the sofa. “Vickie is worried, and Griffin is headed home. Let’s go, Dylan. We need to leave them with some privacy. We’ll go see how Noah and your folks are doing.”
“Sure, yeah, sure, we should get out of here,” Dylan said. He looked worried, though. “Darlene is right. Griffin is going to be wrecked after a night like that. He’ll want to talk.”
“He’ll want to be alone,” Darlene said softly.
“That’s fine,” Vickie said.
“No, you’re in a relationship now. Can’t let it grow ho-hum,” Dylan said, grinning at Vickie.
“Thank you. I’ll remember that!” Vickie said.
“Dylan, really,” Darlene murmured.
“It’s fine. Dylan has enjoyed tormenting me for years, Darlene. And I’m sure it will all be okay.”
“No, none of it sounds okay,” Dylan said. “Alex is a cool guy—it won’t be okay until you know that he’s all right. Don’t forget, we’re always here when you need us.”
“But you don’t need us tonight,” Darlene said firmly.
“Not to worry, Vick—we always come back to haunt you!” Dylan told her, trying for a light grin.
“Haunt me—and help out,” she reminded him. “Remember, I’m quite accustomed to you and that we both—Griffin and I—appreciate the two of you very much.”
“I just wish my parents watched The Walking Dead,” Dylan said, shaking his head in puzzlement that anyone wouldn’t want to watch the series from beginning to end. “And Noah, well, he’s great, he’ll put on anything we want, but...he’s only nine.”
“Maybe in a few years we can do a marathon viewing with Noah,” Darlene said.
“That will be fun!” Dylan agreed, grinning at Darlene. But then his grin faded and he turned back to Vickie. “I will see you tomorrow. We need to know everything that went on with Griffin—and, most importantly, with Alex.”
“Absolutely,” Vickie said.
She watched them go. They both simply disappeared through the wall. When Dylan came to visit when she was home, he made a point of knocking. Only emergencies caused him to do anything less thoughtful or proper.
When they were gone, Vickie tried Alex’s number again. No answer.
Maybe he’d lost his phone. No—he would have called her from another phone. Actually, he’d have been at a store in two seconds to get another—he had a Facebook group that talked about all kinds of history, travel, weird places and such similar things, and she was pretty sure that Alex went into withdrawal if he couldn’t catch up on the latest at every possible opportunity.
She opened the app and checked Alex’s Facebook page.
He hadn’t been on the site in over twenty-four hours.
She called Griffin quickly then. He didn’t answer at first. Frustrated, she plopped down on the sofa in her parlor.
Her phone rang right back.
Griffin.
“You all right?” he asked.
She smiled; she could tell he was trying to keep any touch of anxiety out of his voice. She knew that he’d always be concerned about her—it was part of what he did for a living, and by vocation. He saw too much that was bad.
“Fine. I’m home. In the apartment. I had an idea. Can you trace Alex’s phone?”
“Well, there are a lot of legal ramifications,” Griffin said.
“I’ll report him missing—how about that?” she asked.
“You know, unless we have good reason, twenty-four hours is—”
“We have good reason! He was clunked on the head. He had a police guard for a couple of weeks after. Go figure—he disappears after that guard is taken off.”
“The attacks appeared to be random,” Griffin reminded her. “No community has the manpower to watch victims endlessly, especially when it appears the danger has moved on.”
“I know that.”
“He could be fine.”
“No. I don’t believe that even as a ray of hope anymore,” she said.
“Okay, we’ll take the angle that something is wrong. We’ll get a missing-person report going, and...we’ll get into his phone records,” Griffin said. “I’m in a paper tangle right now as it is—I’ll get Barnes to have a man from the right department get everything started for Alex. Lord, if he’s just off doing...doing whatever scholars do...well, I guess that’s the best-case scenario. But we’ll treat him as a missing person and work on finding him with all possible resources, okay?”
“Much better. Are you coming home soon?” she asked.