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“He’s an associate professor and a local historian. He also dabbles in some web sleuth stuff. There are all sorts of true crime aficionados out there that lend their support for cold cases and such. But I think his family has money from generations of being in the seafood industry.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” she said and unbuckled her belt. “It looks pretty quiet here. I don’t see many lights on in the house. There’s a dim glow in the corner window over there, but I don’t see anything else. And, strangely, my investigator instincts are buzzing. Maybe it’s just because nobody’s heard from him, but I’m glad we came.”
“Yeah, me, too,” I said and got out of the SUV. I checked my phone again, just to make sure that Burke hadn’t texted or called me back. When I saw no new notifications, I stuffed it away and waited for Hanlen to join me at the front of the SUV. “Ready?” I asked.
“Yep, let’s do this. I have a really bad feeling for some reason and want to make sure that he’s okay.”
I couldn’t agree more. The minute I stepped foot on Burke’s land, my instincts started screaming.
We walked up the porch steps and rang the bell. When I didn’t hear anything from inside, I knocked. Hanlen stood beside me, taking in her surroundings. I could almost see the gears in her mind working. We’d talked about her job, and I could see why she was so good at it. She had innate ability, both natural and supernatural.
I knocked one more time without an answer. Just as I was about to give up and tell Hanlen that we should go, I saw Burke walk around the side of the house from his backyard, his form backlit by the setting sun, creating a silhouette in the dusk.
“Hey, man,” I called. “Everything okay? Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick.”
Hanlen looked where my attention was focused and then turned to me. “Dev, who are you talking to?”
My heart sank, and my breath caught in my lungs.
Well, fuck.
Chapter 18
Hanlen
“Dev? What’s going on?” I asked, my instincts immediately picking up on the shift in Dev’s body language.
He looked at me and blew a breath out through his lips before biting his bottom one. “I just saw Burke.”
Confused, I looked around, not seeing anybody. “Where? Did he walk into the back?”
Dev shook his head and then looked to the sky as if searching for answers. Or strength. “He’s actually right there and coming closer.” He pointed.
I looked where he indicated but still saw nothing. “I don’t see him. Is he behind the gazebo?”
Dev scrubbed his hands over his face. “No, he’s right there. But you can’t see him. Fuck, Hanlen. That’s Burke’s spirit. Something happened to him. He’s not with us anymore. He’s on the other side of the veil.”
Burke’s . . . spirit. I was instantly nauseated. “Are you messing with me?”
Before I even finished my sentence, he turned me to face him and shook his head adamantly. “No. I would never do that. When you told me that you didn’t know who I was talking to, it all clicked. Remember, I told you, to me, if a ghost wants to be seen, they look and sound just like you and me. The only difference is, I can’t touch them. I really thought that was Burke—alive-and-well Burke—not his spirit. We need to go and see what happened. Sometimes, ghosts linger or return to the place they felt the safest, but I have a feeling that he’s here to talk to me. I don’t want him to stick around longer than he has to if that’s not what he wants. Are you going to be okay with this? It’ll probably be really weird for you to only hear one side of the conversation.”
“I’ll be fine as long as you relay what you learn. Right now, I’m in investigator mode. I need to know what happened more than I’m worried about how we’ll get that information.”
“Good answer,” he said and kissed my temple before walking in the direction of the side of the house. As we got nearer, I felt the hairs on my arms and neck stand at attention. It had to be my imagination. Still, I tried not to let it make me uneasy, especially since I had the advantage that most people didn’t have and knew why it was happening.
“Hey, man,” Dev said, and my stomach tumbled again. The vivacious, funny guy that I’d spent time with at Lafitte’s was no longer with us. Why was life so unfair, taking those who were so very alive well before their time? Those thoughts made me think of Reagan again, and I had to take some deep breaths and clear my head so I wouldn’t get mired in the sorrow and not pay attention to what Dev was saying.
“I’m going to paraphrase what you tell me so that I don’t leave Hanlen in the lurch, okay?” He actually smiled, and I wondered what Burke had said. “Yeah, we’re together,” he said, letting me guess what Burke had questioned. “Thanks, man.”
Dev led me up onto Burke’s porch again and indicated for me to take a seat on the swing. I did, and he sat next to me, still looking at the steps. “What happened?” he asked the air.
After a minute, he turned to me. “He said he doesn’t really know. Apparently, he came home from the historical society and was ambushed in the garage. He said he knows that something bad happened to him, gets flashes of some pretty horrific things, but he can’t actually remember it.” He took a breath. “That’s not uncommon for tragic deaths. Wren didn’t remember her murder either. Didn’t even know she was dead until Findley told her. It may come to Burke eventually, and it may not. Sometimes, it’s the universe’s way of wiping the slate clean so they can make a proper decision how to handle their afterlife.”
God, I felt so bad for Burke. He was probably about my age, like Dev was and Wren would have been. I couldn’t imagine having my life cut short like that. Or even younger, like Reagan’s had been. And he had been so excited to be working with Dev on the show. It really seemed like he’d found his niche. God, it was so horrible. So terribly unfair.
Dev had tuned back into something Burke was saying, and I waited patiently. “He said that he woke up down by the lake.” Which made me think of what Lark said to him before we’d left Arborwood.
“Look to the water,”I said, remembering. “Well, it seems we likely know what she was referring to, at least with that part. How do you want to handle this? You have a seasoned investigator with you, but we are also dealing with the third death surrounding us in a very short time. You and I both know that we had nothing to do with any of them, but Watkins and Miller may not feel the same. Do you think we should call this in now? Do they know what you can do?” God, I couldn’t believe I was even asking that. DidIknow what he could do? Did I believe now? I searched deep and realized that, yes, I thought I did. My, my, how the times had changed. The subtle changes in me over the course of this trip, mostly attributed to the man now at my side, had cultivated a profound shift within me. I’d have to examine that closer later, but for now, I would take comfort in the fact that I wasn’t freaking out about it. There was too much else going on.
